Wednesday Poet Series No 8 - C.E. Chaffin

Another Wednesday has come. They seem swoop in so fast since I've been doing this series. Almost too fast at times. The selection for today was made really upon reading one poem. There are some topics that even exceptional poets must have nightmares about writing. They are so often attempted and seldom is justice done to the topics. One of them is war.

The first poem of C. E. Chaffin's I read was At the Vietnam War Memorial . Perhaps it was the opening lines: Black granite stretches its harsh, tapering wings / up to pedestrian-level grass / but sucks me down, here, at the intersection of names. I've seen the memorial and those lines brought me back to my own experience. Coming from the "Vietnam" generation I can appreciate the upheaval, the unreconciled in this poem. Towards the end, Chaffin profoundly writes, It's said you cannot write a good poem / until recollected in tranquility. / Let this then be a bad poem, bad as the war, / dividing author from reader and reader from page. I appreciate the fact that he did not wait for tranquility, this poem may never have been written.

Chaffin was born in Ventura, California, in 1954. A graduate of UCLA in 1976, While he won honors in English, he also received awards in medical school, in psychiatric residency, and later as a medical director. He went on to teach Family Medicine at UCI but retired at age 40 as a result of chronic spinal pain and manic-depression. It was in the early retirement that the literary pursuit took off.

He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in by Rose and Thorn. His only book, Elementary (Poems) from 1979 is out of print, as is The Best of Melic, 2003, which he edited. I was amused by his bio at Melic Review....

He has never been published in Poetry, Ploughshares or The Paris Review, has no personal website, and lives mainly in his head but resides in Long Beach, CA, presently on disability for manic-depression and intractable spinal pain. In other words, if he were a horse, he'd be shot. But he is a happy horse, with three young fillies from previous stud duties and a beautiful new mare.

Besides poetry Chafffin has written fiction and reviews. Ah yes, poetry reviews. He fears he may be remembered more for the reviews than his poetry.

A few of Chaffin's poems:

A Time to Weep At the Vietnam War Memorial

The Obesion Last Poem of my 45th Year

Chaffin's blog

Tags: C.E. Chaffin Wednesday Poet Series Vietnam War Memorial

"Did I mention the free wine?"

Felix Dennis - his list of experiences might look something like this:

• former crack-cocaine
• prosecuted for obscenity
• sex
• facing a life-threatening illness

So Dennis, who now has amassed a significant wealth has turned to what else? Poetry!

Intriguing story about a man who has turned to poems and buying up land under pseudonyms, and planting forests on it.

Long Time Since....

It's been a long time since I resorted to Unconscious Mutterings or subliminal on here. But I will undertake Week 198 ~ with one hand tied behind my back. Here goes:

1. Teacher :: teacher, teacher I declare
2. Fifty :: fifty is nifty but forty is better
3. Crossword :: The New Your Times Crossword
4. Stuffed :: Cabbage not animal heads
5. Family :: Family Affair
6. Purr :: After the purr you are never in control
7. Toad :: The Toad in the road got mowed (down)
8. Cocktail :: Shrimp Cocktails are just little bitty ones, right?
9. Insecurity :: Insecurity gripped her
10. Magical :: The magical mystery tour

The words courtesy of Unconscious Mutterings.

And the Short Week Begins ~

Took number three daughter on a picture shoot this weekend. I shot some stuff myself with far less sophisticated equipment. Meghan really seems to enjoy not only shooting pictures but the process of manipulating images later.

We had a good time - went through some wooded area along a river, part of the Louis and Clark Trail. We had to do lots of climbing and balancing to get some of the shots, all in the name of art, we kept telling ourselves. Then we drove back a ways to another location and shot some railroad pictures. I'll have a few more pictures to grace the blog for a while.

Friday night, Cath (wife) and I went to the movies, browsed at Barnes & Noble then made a Cold Stone Creamery run. The movie was Stranger than Fiction... The Cold Stone flavor pumpkin pie.

I'm pulling together 10 pages of manuscript to submit to a Poets and Writers Exchange contest. Decisions, decisions. I need to be finished with this by the end of the week. Really like to be done with it by Thursday just to be safe. This would also be a good week to get more submissions off - hopefully on their way to new homes.

Now to Tackle the week....

Inventing One's Self

I was reading this quote by poet Philip Levine, "I have a sense that many Americans, especially those like me with European or foreign parents, feel they have to invent their families just as they have to invent themselves," when I realized how much I identify with this.

Growing up I had an overwhelming awareness, almost haunting, that there was a mammoth void in my life. That void was not only the absence of a father but perhaps more dramatically the absence of any knowledge of that whole paternal lineage. It is as though my father were a test tube as was his parents and theirs and so on. I think the fact that this whole genetic side was scrubbed from any existence was the most disturbing aspect. It in fact tended to support the feeling that I was significantly different from others. A difference that as a child was not framed in the context of something special, but rather something unusual, something defective, something amiss.

I have to admit as I grew older it was necessary to keep reinventing myself as I struggled to figure out who I was. To fill in the holes. This struggle to reinvent myself continues to a lesser degree today. I have to credit poetry to some degree for allowing me to explore attitudes, fears and expectations in ways I would not have before. It is through such creativity that the void is being filled. Mostly now, I am working on pot holes.

New Plath Poem

Saw the film trailer for Happy Feet this morning. What an enticing few moments of video to perk up my Friday morning.

• Teacher Observation (here) on Crag Hill's poetry scorecard - I say ditto!
• Thanks to Bloggingpoet.com for the plug!
• What a coup for Blackbird -an online Journal of Literature and the Arts! Anna Journey, Contributing Editor of Blackbird made a remarkable discovery concerning a poem Sylia Plath wrote as an undergraduate. The poem had never been published. Blackbird was granted the first serial publication rights to the poem "Enuui" by estate of Sylvia Plath, Frieda Hughes, and Ros Edwards of the Edwards Fuglewicz Literary Agency. The poem and Anna Journey's insightful findings are here.
• At 79, the poet W.S. Merwin shares his craft the elegance that has marked his poems for half a century.
• Denise Low, interim dean of the College of Humanities and Arts at Haskell Indian Nations University to become the next Kansas Poet Laureate.
• Thirteen are nominated for the State Poet Laureate position in Oklahoma.

tags: Sylvia Plath Anna Journey Enuui Blackbird Literary Journal W.S. Merwin Denise Low Poet Laureate Kansas Oklahoma Happy Feet

Wednesday Poet Series No. 7

To be able marvel as the world passes before us is a good thing. Of course some things rise to a higher level of marvel then others. This morning I marveled at the $51.1 million price tag the Boston Red Sox agreed to pay the Seibu Lions of Japan for the rights to "talk" to their pitching ace Daisuke Matsuzaka. I repeat talk to. Then it could easily take another $30 million plus to sign him. If the Sox cannot sign him, they will get their $51.1 million back. What has this to do with poetry you ask? I believe it is critical for poets to always be open to the possibility of astonishment in whatever form it comes along. It is a process of exercising our perceptive instincts.

A few poets I have read this week: Cecilia Woloch, Kelli Russell Agodon, Gloria Vando, Edward Hirsch, Catherine Daly, John Ashbery, Janusz Szuber, and Donald Hall.

My selection for this weeks Wednesday Poet Series is: Kelli Russell Agodon

Kelli Russell Agodon is 37 and she hails from the Pacific Northwest. She was born in Seattle, Washington and was educated in the Northwest as well earning her bachelor's degree from the University of Washington and an M.F.A. from the Rainier Writers Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.

As I read through a number of her poems I was struck by the versatility of her subject matter. Every once and awhile I struggle to broaden my own subject matter so I always respect those who have been able to successfully do so.

Obviously others have noticed her work favorably. She has received The James Hearst Poetry Prize, the Lohmann Prize, the William Stafford Award, the Carlin Aden Award for formal verse and grants from the Washington State Artist Trust as well as the Puffin Foundation. Her book Small Knots, was a finalist for the 2004 Cherry Grove Poetry Prize and Geography, winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award.

Her work has been featured on NPR's "The Writer's Almanac" with Garrison Keillor, The Raven Chronicles, Literary Salt, Branches Quarterly, The Poet's Canvas, the Alsop Review, and The Adirondack Review (which nominated her for the Pushcart Prize 2002).

Kelli was anthologized in the book, Poets Against the War edited by Sam Hamill. A lot of her writing energies seem focused on peace and utilization of poetry as an instrument of peace. For example, she edited the Poetry Broadside Series: The Making of Peace, which was displayed international throughout National Poetry Month this year and she has served as the Regional Coordinator for Poets for Peace.

According to her own web site, she is involved in writing workshops and provides one-on-one consultation.

Here are a selection of some of the poetry of Kelli Russell Agodon:

Neruda's Hat <- I particularly enjoyed this one. A Mermaid Questions God

Of a Forgetful Sea

Three Poems <- Reading Poetry to Cure Insomnia, It is Easy to Wake Up in Someone Else's Poem, and Limbo

Two Poems <- Reality Cooking Show ( a favorite of mine), and Picking Cherries ( enjoyed the Catholic touch here)


Tags: Kelli Russell Agodon Gloria Vando John Ashbery Catherine Daly Cecilia Woloch Wednesday Poet Series Janusz Szuber Donald Hall Edward Hirsch