Did I mention the rolls were awesome?

Four day holiday over. {sigh}

Wednesday night I took the family out to Longview Lake for the annual Christmas in the Park - sponsored by Jackson County. Great night.... Tremendous fireworks display that the lit up the sky and rained comets upon the lake. We all enjoyed it except for the long lines to leave.

Thursday - we had our traditional thanksgiving meal - only lighter this year. We cut backs on extras like stuffing and sweet potatoes, etc. Just Turkey, Mashed potatoes with gravy and home made rolls which were to die for. It was nice Not pigging out. Of course we were all waiting for Friday and what has become a Wells family tradition... turkey flautas. Later Thursday Meghan and I went to the movie to see Bobby. Friday we went to my son's house and my wife worked her flauta magic to everyone's satisfaction. Two wonderful relaxing days.

Saturday and Sunday however we turned the house upside down cleaning, rearranging, making messes and cleaning some of them up. I think we were all pretty whipped last night. I have mussels this morning hurting in places I didn't know existed. Above is a picture taken in my office. Should have done a before and after shot. On second thought... nah.

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Any writers looking for a pad? The family of Stanley Kunitz, who received every possible prize and praise before his death in May at 100, is selling his co-of for $2.25 million. It’s located in Butterfield House, a graceful 1962 building by architects William Conklin and James Rossant. (Paul Goldberger has called it one of the best postwar buildings in the city.)

Here is a list of poetry for just about everyone on your gift list.Complementsss of Kelli Russell Agodon.

Rogue Poetry Announcement

Wishing all of you a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving with friends and family.

~

Please take a moment over the holiday to stop by and see the exciting announcement at

Rogue Poetry Review.

Happy Holidays

from

Stickpoet

&

Rogue

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.