Well, I was Surprised

Kay Ryan would not have been on my short list. Hell, she would not have even made my long list. I'm not referring to prospective Veeps, I'm talking about the next U.S. Poet Laureate. This is not to be critical of Kay Ryan, it has to do with the fact that she is a poet who has been completely off my radar. As such, I am quite frankly at a loss to assess my view of the news of her selection other than to express some feeling of relief that a woman was selected as it has been quite a drought for their gender.





What I do know about Kay is the following:

• She was born in California
• Educated at UCLA - both bachelor's and master's degree
• She's received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Guggenheim fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Award, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Union League Poetry Prize, the Maurice English Poetry Award, and three Pushcart Prizes.
• She has published six collections of poetry.

Others on Kay Ryan:

Dana Gioia: "Ryan’s poems characteristically take the shape of an observation or idea in the process of clarifying itself. Although the poems are brightly sensual and imagistic, there is often a strongly didactic sense at work."

J.D. McClatchy: "She is an anomaly in today's literary culture: as intense and elliptical as Dickinson, as buoyant and rueful as Frost.”

In the days ahead I'll be checking out her work and will likely be able to formulate a better view of this latest selection by the Library of Congress.

Poetry in the News

• As much as his left-brain produces equations, formulas and theories, his right-brain gushes sentiment, passion and feelings. Retired scientist Leonard "Barry" Barrington has written a poem a day for thirty years.
• Readers solve 'lost' poet mystery.
• Napa Valley Writers' Conference presents public lecture series July 28-31 / On Thursday, July 31, at 9 a.m., Brenda Hillman will speak on “Reportorial Poetry: Bringing Poetic, Spiritual, and Political Activism Together.” More on the conference.

Sonata

The third movement was less
obvious—

its sound rooted in the quietude
that often passes as peace, but is really
just a pause in fighting.

"Mamma Mia, here I go again/ My, my, how can I resist you?"

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm one of those

people addicted to the music of the pop group ABBA. So, when I saw the link on Jilly's blog today... well, I was very interested it what it had to say.

Can science explain why ABBA is so catchy? [ABBA story on Boston.com]

Sarah Rodman writes, "ABBA's songs continue to endure as what scientists have dubbed "earworms" 35 years after the band's first album was released. Like those little bugs, the tunes burrow into our brains and keep hitting the repeat button." I've always maintained that ABBA's female vocalists have one of the sweetest harmonies around. They are just about as perfect as humanly possible. And their harmony may in fact have something to do with this.

According to Daniel Levitin, author of "This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession," The ABBA model of the multiple voices is closer to "the chemical reactions we have to events in the world, for tens of thousands of years when we as a species heard music we heard groups singing it, not an individual and not an individual standing on a stage." Sorry Frank Sinatra and Miley Cyrus.

Levitin says their upbeat songs like "Money, Money, Money" have simple lyrics that makes them easy to sing along to. That he adds, gives listeners "an even more powerful hit of happy juice in the brain from dopamine."

But what about the sad and more contemplative songs? "The Winner Takes It All," for example.Here, brains produce an opposite but equally enjoyable reaction. "You get the comfort hormone of prolactin when you hear sad music," Levitin explains. That's the same hormone that's released when mothers nurse their babies. It's soothing.

The article points to a number of others individuals with the credential to speak on the subject of musicality and the brain... they all find reason to count the music of ABBA as infectious. A fascinating article and somewhat reassuring that I am not alone.

Now, I can't wait for the premiere of Mamma Mia. ...here I go again... My my, how can I resist you...

Unconscious Mutterings Week 245

Unconscious Mutterings ~ link

Word & Thought Associations

here's mine:

1. Intimidated :: Bully
2. Brush :: Fuller
3. Masquerade :: Party
4. Procedure :: Surgical
5. Tattoos :: Heart
6. Square :: Root
7. Tuck :: Away
8. Boyfriend :: Lover
9. Badass:: Dog
10. Thousand :: Island

Timing is Everything

Timing can be so important. It mystifies me how a particular moment is simply the right moment for specific poem to come together. I've had a few encounters with this sort of thing. And as thought I almost lack gratitude from the ones that have occurred this way, I'd add too damn few.

Some of the best poems can be viewed in the same way as a snapshot. They capture a moment in time and frame it in words. A yardstick to measure the success of such work could well be if the reader can put him/herself into that frame and automatically be in the moment. I think William Carlos Williams' poem that begins... so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain is a classic example of what I mean. This poem came to him on the spot and indeed captures a moment in time like that of a photographer. Wickpedia notes "The pictorial style in which the poem is written owes much to the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz and the precisionist style of Charles Sheeler."

I'm trying to think about the few times I have had such an experience with writing a poem and it seems clear to me that there was little if anything I did consciously to assure the success of the poem written. I cannot think of any. In fact, these instances were more like becoming aware that there was nothing to do but sit down and write the poems. The conditions and the creation of the poem in these instances had more control over me than I over them. Because of this it is not something I can say, "ah, do this, and a great poem is bound to happen." Randall Jarrell ruefully defined a poet as someone who, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, manages to get hit by lightning seven or eight times.[The Atlantic.com] Perhaps these are lightening experiences.

Obligatory Communication

"One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language." ~ Denise Levertov

So, you thought you'd just write the great American novel or win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Then, maybe travel a bit. Speak hear and there about what it's like now that you are a successful writer. Poet Denise Levertov seems to see it differently. She wants us to dig deep down in our own humanity and and communicate who and what we are within the language of our work. I don't know about you but that seems a pretty heavy responsibility.

Maybe what Levertov is saying is that whatever you write, don't do it half assed. If you are going to write, you owe it to your reader to put your total self into it. Make the language you speak be totally from yourself and make it the best representation of who you are that you can. I suppose anything short of that cheats both the reader and our self. I hate to say it, but it kind of reminds me of the Army advertisement... "Be all that you can be."