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Final Day Of National Poetry Month – What Now?


It’s also the last day of Jazz Month, but as much as I love jazz, I love poetry more. Though it’s sad that it was set up to create a sort of competition.

But hopefully, some of those handful of people who read my blog (so much time spent writing for so few readers… rather like being a poet, n’est pas?) will actually read some poetry in May, as well.

And go ahead and buy that snotty, over intellectualized and under employed recent college grad in your life a copy of e e cummings (for some reason, that always seems like the traditional poetry present for that character), the moody teenage girl some Plath or Sexton (when they get to college, you can give them a copy of something by Sharon Olds, but not until you’ve accepted the likelihood of that person being sexually active). And for the more old fashioned reader who claims to only like poetry that rhymes, go beyond Frost and give them some W.D. Snodgrass or, if you’re feeling particularly subversive, some Frederick Seidel.

And check with your local indie bookstores and college type coffeehouses and find out when the next poetry reading or poet friendly open mic is taking place. And when you go to that poetry reading, but one of the poet’s books. The poet will feel good, you will feel good, and poetry as a contemporary and living art will have been supported. Seriously, it will cost around $15 and you’ll a freaking book. It won’t spoil and lasts longer in the system than $15 worth of beer. And, you know, it’s just good form. Don’t be one of those people. And for God’s sake, don’t leave the poet hanging, wondering if anyone will ever buy and read his or her poetry.

When you bring a book to read, bring a book of poetry sometimes, instead of that thumping big novel.

Memorize some pithy lines and drop into conversation, casually mentioning who wrote it. You will appear smarter (if you do it right) and maybe the people you are conversing with, in the hopes of appearing smarter themselves, will go home and commit to memory some poetry themselves in order to drop it into conversation.

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Monday Morning Staff Meeting – It’s Amazon’s Fault


E-book price fixing? How ’bout Amazon’s price fixing?

Yup. The GOP has made the recession worse.

When physics was called ‘natural philosophy.’

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Sunday Book Review: Vatta’s War


So. I bought this book called Victory Conditions during my last stop the Borders Books & Music near the Jo-Ann’s Fabrics in Columbia, Maryland. I would browse the books while my better half browsed fabrics for her business. Of course, during this visit, the shelves had become nearly barren (and everything hopelessly out of order, but you can hardly expect the inmates on death row to take a huge interest in keeping their cell neat with their execution day coming hard upon).

I had thought Elizabeth Moon’s Victory Conditions to be a likely space opera type of book. A quick glance did not necessarily prove it to be later book in a series – it could have been a stand alone novel beginning en media res.

Alas, it was not. In fact, Victory Conditions is the fifth (and final) book in Moon’s Vatta’s War series.

But should I really say ‘alas?’ After all, anything the encourages anyone in America (or the world) to read some more is surely a good thing? Even me, who believes himself to be a pretty prolific reader.

So not ‘alas.’ Merely ‘is the fifth (and final) book in Moon’s Vatta’s War series.’ As comics who make fun of Martha Stewart say, ‘it’s a good thing.’

Being obstinate and a sucker for diving into sci fi and fantasy series that will take me too long to finish by half, I did not resist to urge to finish this thing that, in all honesty, I hadn’t really started. It was more like an urge to turn a $3.00 investment into something closer to $35.00 (once I’d bought the first four books).

It’s finally over. I finished.

Was it worth it? Well, I won’t be reading them again, who reads a series of more than two or three books again? Except for Lewis’ beloved (by me, at least) The Chronicles of Narnia and the first four books of Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice (I was preparing for the long awaited fifth book, not realizing that it’s actually release would still be some two years then), not many (I would, of course, include the much read by me Lord of the Rings, if you add The Hobbit to make it a quartet – though I’ve only read The Silmarillion once). I’ll be taking them down to my neighborhood used bookstore (Capitol Hill Books) and exchanging them for store credit that I will use to buy more sci fi and fantasy.

But this was a solid series. Solid writing. The arc was unimaginative, in terms of the narrative structure within each book (the location of various set pieces within each book was pretty standard), though the twists and challenges Moon placed in front of her heroine and her assembled heroes was often surprising. The world building is well done and thorough, though also more workmanlike to truly original or inventive. The final book was disappointing in that the big finale – the epic last space battle against the pirates – was neither very tense nor vividly depicted. The earlier space battles in previous books were typically both, so this was a bit of an unfortunate aberration, especially unfortunate because it was the author’s last chance to reward her dedicated readers of this series.

I would recommend it to someone who enjoy old school science fiction with cool space battles, though I would not suggest it as an entry point into the genre (that would have to be either a short story by Asimov or Bradbury or a novel by LeGuin).

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Which Poet Would You Recommend?


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Mallarme & Cabernet Franc


My father and I took a trip out to the Shenandoah Mountains to (somewhat belatedly) celebrate his birthday.

Besides the mountain vistas, the main attractions were a fantastic (mostly) used bookstore called Royal Oak Bookshop and the Fox Meadow Winery, or rather the fantastic views of the mountains from its patio.

While sitting on that patio deck with my father, I sipped a solid (if unspectaculer) Cabernet Franc (though, in fairness, while the Cabernet Franc varietal seems particularly well suited to the terroir of the Shenandoah Valley, I can’t think of anyone who say it rises to spectacular heights with any frequency) and read Stephane Mallarme.

It seemed a perfect moment. A full, relaxing, and uncomplicated wine to go hand in hand with a full, relaxing, and very complicated poet.

Mallarme was one of those poets I had read a little of, but not deeply, but very much wished to.

In this particular collection (Selected Poems, purchased, naturally, at the above mentioned Royal Oak Bookshop) was a poem entitled L’après-midi d’un faune.

A month or two earlier, I attended a small concert where they played a Debussy piece entitled Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. The musicians described it as having been written for a dramatic presentation of a poem by a then famous poet. The poem and poet, I was assured, were little read and with good reason. It was typically bad and boring nineteenth century poem and we, the audience, need not worry ourselves, for the only thing left of value from that artistic moment was the music.

What absolute poppycock!

Now that I know it is by Mallarme, I rightly incensed. Mallarme and his poems are still rightly read and rightly respected and that poem is quite good.

In continued rambling, the Royal Oak is a fantastic bookstore. The owner takes care to keep a broad and good selection of books. Yes, he stocks some trash – including many of those old sci fi pulps I love so much – but also clearly works to keep good and interesting books in stock. You will find some treasures, if you care to look (and you won’t have to look that hard to find them, either).

Fox Meadow Winery is a typical Virginia winery. The vines are pretty young and the wines not very complex.

The tasting covered the following:

2010 FMV Le Renard Gris – This is the bottle I bought to bring back. Not my favorite, but my partner prefers sweeter wines and I really can’t stand them. This one seemed like a good value and sweet enough for her palate and still dry enough for mine – as you might expect from a blend of (among others) pinot grigio and chardonnay.

2010 FMW Barrel Fermented Chardonnay – I’ve got to say, this was not a very chardonnay-ish chardonnay. In fact, I couldn’t get any of the classic chardonnay mineral-ish flavor until the finish. Nothing in the middle at all. Interesting for all the wrong reasons.

2011 Riesling – If you love sweet rieslings, you’ll love this. I don’t love sweet rieslings, but my partner would have loved it. However, as noted, I opted for something she and I could (I hope) enjoy together.

2009 FMW Syrah – They offered a lot of descriptives for this one, but I swear, most of the time, I could barely taste a thing. There was no “there” there.

2009 FMW Cabernet Franc – This is what I enjoyed on the patio. A relaxing and enjoyable wine. I would have gotten it except it simply wasn’t worth $27 a bottle. But, I was very much tempted. It is a great full bodied, dry red that also manages works well in summer.

2009 Le Renard Rouge – My absolute favorite, but I just wasn’t prepared to spend $32 on it, especially since my better half would not have appreciated it. But it really was the best wine they had and I can recommend it.

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E-Book Typography


James Felici’s piece, The State of E-Book Typography, brings into sharp relief some of the obstacles standing between e-books fully participating in literature at its highest and best level.

Essentially, reading on a screen – especially a computer (include tablet) screen, but also an e-reader – is always (using current technology) going to be less readable than even the cheapest printed dime store pulp.

Felici makes the distinction between readability and legibility. Legibility being the reason that most folks (including myself when I’m reading my Nook at Eastern Market or on the subway or on the National Mall) use the sort of font size on their e-readers that, in a traditionally printed book, would be associated with large print editions for the vision impaired. Just the other day, I had to increasee the font size I was using to read Melmoth the Wanderer, an earlier nineteenth gothic novel, on my Nook while riding the Metro here in DC.

But that doesn’t help, he says, the readability, which is limited by the pixelated technology used to create the words on the screen.

And though there some fonts that are better than others (Verdana, Tahoma, Georgia, Cambria) for use when reading on computers or screens, the limitations remain.

As a result we still read 25% more slowly on e-readers than on traditional books.

I also think of the writers, designers, and typographers who choose the font used in their books so carefully.

Especially poets, who are already crippled in their ability to transmit the true quality of their work in an e-reader because of how the devices lay out the lines. In a literary art form that is so much connected to its appearance on the page, the inability to even truly control the font size seems like salt in the wound, insult to injury, or whatever metaphor you prefer.

I’ll let Felici finish up this thought:

The problem today is that after 500 years of evolution, the “printed” word has taken a step backward in quality. According to “The New York Times,” electronic publishers are commissioning shorter books because their readers find it too tiring to take on longer works. Ever since I started writing for online magazines I’ve been obliged to write shorter pieces than in the past because editors tell me that online readers simply won’t finish longer articles. With today’s technologies, reading is simply more of a chore than it’s been in the past. Access to reading material is amazingly easy — a revolution, in fact — but reading is more than just taking in information, and the aesthetics of text presentation involves more than just making type pretty. It means making type functional as well.

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Poetry In Your Pocket Day


I missed ‘Poetry in your Pocket’ Day – when you’re supposed to keep some poetry with you, to read or share with others as the situation warrants. And for most of that day, I didn’t actually have any poetry in my pocket (unless you count the poem I was working on in the little notebook in my jacket poet, which I don’t, because I was hardly ready to share it at that point), though the day before, I had been carrying some Mallarme around with me.

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Weekend Reading – Imagist Journals


Damien Hirst represents something that will stop e-books from destroying the world, or something like that.

The Modernist Journals Project tackles the Imagists.

These are some awesome fountain pens.

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How Can We Not Want To Do This Anymore?


Look at this video of a book being created! Naturally, it’s from England, not America.

Just a reminder of the tactile and generally fully sensual beauty of a book…

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The Coffee Philosopher Reaches A Minor & Unimpressive Milestone


As of sometime this afternoon, yours truly (or rather his blog) got his fiftieth ‘follower’ (which is less cultish and apocalyptic than it sounds) and has been visited more than 10,000 times. Took me long enough. I’m really not very much read considering the amount of time that goes into this. Maybe I should get a real job.