After working on Appearances for such a long time I'm unsure what's on deck next.  It's important, I think, not to force anything--to try and let ideas emerge in an organic way.

This is an interesting post from Ron Silliman. 

I stuck a fork in Appearances earlier today and declared it done! What a journey it has been. Three and a half years in the making.   Have started putting out feelers.  I hope I can find a good home for this book.

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Been working crazy hard on Appearances.  Feel like it's starting to approach where it needs to be.

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Listening to Junior Kimbrough's great "Most Things Haven't Worked Out."  I'm obsessed with it right now.

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The poetics of a few things versus the poetics of a lot of things.  There's no right or wrong here.  There's preference, personal aesthetics. For me, even in a long poem, it's an aesthetic of less not more. And that's what I love about the blues.  Kimbrough's really eloquent that way.  The intervals, the space between and around the notes are what makes things happen.  It's as true in poetry as it is in music.

As Cid Corman once insisted to me: leave space on the page for the words to breathe.

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Words aren't just content.  They can be plenty discontent.

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My  "Twenty Scenarios: A Poem for Mark Young" is up now at the List Poem Issue of Truck which Eileen Tabios curated. Thanks Eileen!

floppertunity

Today I completed a second pass through Appearances.  I'm getting a clearer idea of what remains to be done--without, that is, being entirely sure.  This is the only single text I've written that's over a hundred pages long.

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Dinner tonight is going to be a simple affair, cheap but good--chicken livers roasted with potatoes, carrots and onions, olive oil and tarragon.

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One byproduct of working so long on Appearances is that I'm really getting anxious to think poetry again.

I was wrong in thinking that I could produce a first draft of Appearances in a year. It took over three. And my poetry took a backseat during that time.  Which made for some anxiety (which I'm anxious to resolve).

I don't regret the Appearances project.  It's a struggle I chose.  And I chose it because I wanted to see if I could make a big piece out of my limited means.  And that, in the course of editing, is exactly what I continue to try to see.

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Damn, that roasting tarragon smells good.

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awkweird

Today is the warmest day we've had in a couple of months-- it's  42 degrees Farenheit!  This a couple of days after I hacked a couple hundred pounds of ice out of the driveway.  My back still hurts and I ruined one of our shovels.  But it's very nice to have a break from subzero temps.

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The thing I'm thinking as I'm reworking Appearances (my novel) is that everything is more or less fictional." I mean that to apply to EVERYTHING, indeed, not just what's going on in the novel.  But the most important part is the "more or less."

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At one point in Appearances I wrote something like:  "So much ontological melodrama, so little time."  Maybe that's the book in a nut shell.  I don't know.  I have read and reread the manuscript so many times I'm having difficulty seeing it.  My eyes hurt all of the time.

A friend has said he'll read the manuscript and give me his input.  I really need that outside perspective.

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My guitar hero Robert Cray will be playing in town later this week at the Kent Stage.  I've got tickets, and barring catastrophe, will get to see him play live for the third time.  He's the total package: a great guitar player with a clear, beautiful voice.  "Touch, tone and phrasing," he's got it all.

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Working on Appearances for so long  has kept me from exploring poetry writing to the degree that  I want to.  I'm anxious to resolve this crazy project and to get back to what I can do with the time that is left to me.

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Later, amigos y amigas.

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Listening to Townes Van Zandt Live at the Old Quarter.  He just finished singing "Loretta", a ridiculously beautiful song.  Love his plaintive voice and minimalist guitar.

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Speaking of guitar, lately I'm working with playing the minor blues scale through the Circle of 4ths.

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On another front, I'm in the midst of a first editorial pass through Appearances--cutting, tweaking, making lineation and format changes.

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Now Townes is singing Bo Diddly's great "Who Do You Love?"  A great song and a really important question.

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