Gratitude

This time of the year always seems ripe for gratitude. Maybe it's the coming of Thanksgiving, but I suspect it is a deeper rooted internal thing that perhaps comes with the end of summer and seeing changes occur. A passage from the green of summer to the multiplicity of fall colors remind us that things can and do change. Could it be that the abundance of change around us reminds us that those things which we appreciate can be delicate in their very existence?

At any event, I felt an overwhelming desire to make note of a few things that I feel a true gratitude for. Some are small things, some are much more significant and as such the order of their mention here has nothing to do with the level of significance from one to another.

• an occasional glass of Chardonnay
• a good nights rest
• the clasp of my wife's hand when walking together
• the Fire Red Oaks in our back yard in fall
• a bite of dark chocolate
• a call or text message from the kids during the day
• my wife's voice on the phone in the middle of a busy day
• white - sweet bread
• a book of poetry within reach
• Clairton - D when needed
• a taste of honey
• the smell of Brazilian Nut Butter
• NPR radio
• every single day of the baseball season
• a/c in the car
• a fountain pen
• paper to write on
• a furry four legged friend
• hair on my head

Giving Up - a memoir

I've finished reading Giving Up - The Last Days of Sylvia Plath by Jillian Becker. This small memoir now joins the dozens of biographical books and essays I have read about Sylvia and Ted.

This book is quite small. It need not be extensive because Jillian's contact with Sylvia was indeed short and the book only relates to that short period of days prior to Sylvia's death, when she sought refuge for her children from her distressed state with Jillian and Gerry Becker.

Much of what I read is merely another historical account of those days. As far as new perspective, it provides little, but perhaps a tad closer look Sylvia from a first hand perspective.

The most interesting things are:

• Jillian's assessment that Dido Merwin truly could not stand Sylvia but was quite fond of Ted and saw him as an equal in stature to his husband Bill. This is not surprising, as the tone of this is set in the Anne Stevenson book "Better Fame." I suppose it was nice hearing someone else say what I believed I has surly not mistaken in reading Stevenson's biographical account.
• Jillian's view that Sylvia had perhaps lost her passion for poetry at the end. This based on the fact that she was critical of Sylvia's last poems and thought them to be doggerel rhythms that seemed to stamp on the grave of poetry. She may not have liked Sylvia's poems, but the ones on question are among Sylvia's most powerful and passionate works. Once she was finished with them, perhaps she might have been drained emotionally, but It is hard for me to consider them a sign of a loss of passion. They are full of it!
• Jillian Becker expressions about her own emotional response to Sylvia's life and death are expressed in heartfelt terms. She truly was in a unique position those final days, and some have perhaps suggested that she and Gerry (as well as others) could have and should have done more to save her. Her response to these suggestions is very reasonable. They may have kept Sylvia alive a few extra days, but they did not have the power to change the many external issues that added to Sylvia's issues. Jillian herself describes herself as a poet (though a humble one by the company she kept) and one addicted to poetry. She says she grew out of that addiction due at least in part to the painful involvement in the lives of poets. (Ted, Sylvia, Assia & her husband - perhaps others with which she was acquainted with)
• It was noted that Sylvia left no suicide note. Not new information, but she reminded readers that the final poems she left would have been painfully clear to Ted if no one else.
• The issue Jillian took with Ted's poem Dreamers, which she calls sickeningly anti-Semitic and the explanation she offered.
• The fact that while Jillian and Gerry were present at Sylvia's funeral, there is no mention of the mystery man (mentioned in other accounts) in her account of those in attendance.
• Taking issue with Sylvia's iconic stature by the feminist movement.

These are what I found most notable among pages (roughly 75) of the short memoir which is now a part of extensive Plath biographical reads.

Dark Rich Friday Nite

Got a jump on the extended holiday weekend when I we shut down about three. I finished the project I was into and was gone by 3:20 and surprised my wife at her office - we got an early start to the evening. A dinner date at the Bronx and followed with a visit to Christopher Elbow - artisanal Chocolate. [Click Here]

Cathy and I both enjoyed dark chocolate drinks - Mine was Dark Chocolate Citrus and and Cath had Dark Chocolate Hazelnut. Yum!!! It's such an awesome place! They have some of the coolest chocolate art designs . You West coast peeps.... they have one opening in San Francisco next month.

That's it for tonight.... except a word from T.S. Eliot - "The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible."

E-Commerce News: Privacy: AT&T Tech Paints Stark Picture of NSA Telecom Spying

Ask your Senator and Congressman Why AT&T and others should be granted Amnesty or Immunity from prosecution for violating your right to privacy without due process?

E-Commerce News: Privacy: AT&T Tech Paints Stark Picture of NSA Telecom Spying: "By Chris Maxcer E-Commerce Times 11/07/07 1:33 PM PT Mark Klein, a former employee of AT&T who has rallied against the telecom giant for its part in assisting the NSA in spying on Americans' communications, is visiting Washington to convince lawmakers not to let telecoms off the hook when it comes to lawsuits. Klein said he was privy to a secret NSA room in an AT&T facility which acted as a repository of secret data."

The short list

"Society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers." -Mignon McLaughlin

Oh my God! How true is that?!!

Anyway, I've thought about the poet I'd pick to spend the day tagging along with (see my earlier post) and it's a tough call. I am narrowing it down... Ok, honestly I kept adding to the list as often as I whittled it. It was like two steps forward and one back. But this is where I am at now...

• W.S. Merwin
• Sharon Olds
• Donald Hall
• Cecilia Woloch
• John Ashbery
• Kim Addonizio
• Denise Dehamel

There is a lot of variety between these poets, and there is something about each that makes them and or there work fascinating enough to believe that one could learn a lot from them if you had the opportunity to follow, observe, and ask questions of them through a day of watching them work. Now, the trick would be to decide upon just one of them. Oh, and not add any more to the list in the meantime.

A Day With A Poet

So today I was thinking about this unrealistic possibility that if we could pick a poet, any living poet and spend a day with them, tagging along, picking there brain, watching them at work... who would I pick? Of course there is like no chance of this happening, but it raises the question of who I might like to experience such an encounter with, someone who I'd like to believe such an experience might influence in some small way my approach to poetry, poetic theory, maybe learn something more about their work habits, the way they rework their drafts, etc.

I suppose this is the point where I reveal who this poet might be. Still, after much thought I have a list of candidates in mind, but have not been able to decide one one single victim.

What is interesting however, is the fact that my list includes some rather famous poets, but it also includes some lesser knowns. It is not simply the celebrity aspect that is important here, but individuals whose work I greatly admire and respect. I think back at history and the associations that developed between some prominent poets that you know had to have some impact on one another. Robert Lowell to both Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery. Robert Bly and James Wright, just to name a few. These connections fascinate me. I've found reading the published selected letters of many writers to be both enjoyable and in some instances educational. But I digress.

So I have this list which I will not expose just yet. I want to whittle it down a bit. Maybe I'll share it when I shorten the list a bit, and let you get the feel of me agonizing over the final selection (albeit an exercise in pure fantasy).

Drivetime Thought

Before the day grows crusty, I must get something done.