Poet as regular guy

Modest to a fault, short and wiry in a dark brown tweed jacket about a size too big, he looks more like a retired insurance executive from Nebraska than the poet laureate of the United States. Which, he is quick to point out, is not as big a deal as it might sound. The head of the Library of Congress makes the appointment after receiving suggestions from lots of people in the poetry world. The lucky writer gets a small stipend, not enough to live on, and gives a lot of readings to groups like the one last week at Venison University in central Swingstate.

His name is Ted Kooser, and chances are you haven't heard of him. Poets are not rock stars, and the anecdotal evidence flies out of him like quail flushed from a field. He's been sober for 20 years; he had a strict upbringing in small-town Nebraska; his people are from northeastern Iowa. He didn't fit the profile of academic literary circles in his younger days, and he still doesn't. He's more Sandburg than Eliot, more Frost than Pound, more Snyder than Ginsburg, and more Wallace Stevens or William Carlos Williams than any of them, because he made a living in the insurance business and wrote poems on the side. He's here in Ohio to celebrate the ordinary.

A Poetry Reading

Once you were young along a river, tree to tree,
with sleek black wings and red shoulders.
You sang for yourself but all of them listened to you.

Now you're an old blue heron with yellow eyes
and a gray neck tough as a snake.
You open your book on its spine, a split fish,
and pick over the difficult ribs,
turning your better eye down to the work
of eating your words as you go.

(from Weather Central, 1994)

Let me set the stage. A lecture hall in the student center with a decent turnout of faculty, students, and my Wednesday night men's group, eight gray heads in the second row who piled in a van to navigate the freezing fog to Granville. The set-up man's set-up man is beaming from the podium, also in a dark brown tweed and a fast receding crew cut. Chair of the English Department? I bet he played point guard in prep school. The set-up man himself, a year or two younger and leaner, also sports a crew cut, but I'm judging the book by its cover. He goes on a bit about the ostentacious young poet he once was before encountering Kooser in the stacks and changing his tune. Now he's a tenured critic with a Guggenheim grant and a big black pickup truck.

I got a chance to talk with Kooser briefly at the reception afterward. He writes everything longhand with a fountain pen on an unlined artist's sketchpad. He only goes through four a year because he writes small so a lot of words fit on a page. He edits himself severely, cutting and cutting and revising, then transcribing what's left on a word processor to see how the lines look in print. He gestures with both hands to indicate even margins, doesn't like any long lines hanging out.

Kooser writes to be read and understood by people who are not necessarily schooled in verse. His secretary had the privilege of reading much of his work before anyone else; if she didn't get it, he knew he was missing the mark. He writes every day. He said his uncle was a champion at horseshoes, so young Ted asked him how he got so good. "You got to pitch a hundred shoes a day," he said.

sourdough

Jo Jo sent me a sourdough starter crock for my birthday. Nothing fancy, just a ceramic canister with a loose-fitting lid, just right for containing a live culture of wild yeast. We had a short conversation about fermented foods at Thanksgiving, and true to her resourceful and benevolent nature, my sister followed through by taking action on a good idea.

Then she followed-up with an e-mail of step-by-step instructions on how to get started. Having talked up the whole notion of Wild Fermentation in the first place, I couldn't very well do nothing, so I gave it a try.

The instructions sounded a little too easy, but the results seemed to follow as expected. All I had to do was mix equal amounts of flour and warm water and leave it in the crock for a few days. As long as the temperature is moderate, that is, not cold enough to stop microorganisms and hot enough to kill them, they would find their way to the wheaty medium. Every day I added a little more flour and warm water to feed the little beasts, and every day the culture in a crock had a bit more bubble bubble with no toil and trouble.

After a week it appeared to be ready, so I treated it just like a yeasted dough and let it rise in a warm place before shaping loaves. Well, that didn't work too well. The weather was very cold, so the woodstove in the den was very hot, and it might have killed the friendly yeast colony. Or the timing could have been wrong (too much? too little?), and incidentally I forgot to add salt (duh!), so the bread was inedible. I'm sure it made superlative compost.

So I tried again, this time adding a tiny bit of honey from a rooftop garden in New York. Following the same procedure, adding a little flour and water each day, by the next weekend the starter looked bubbly and ready. This time I let it sit longer next to a warm but not hot stove, and I remembered to add salt. The loaves came out dense but tasty - if you like sour. It's definitely sourdough.

A little bit of the starter is saved from each batch, so this culture of wild central swingstate yeast and wheat is still growing. This time I'm using white flour to see what difference it makes. I'm hoping for a little lighter texture. So far so good, as the familiar bubbles are appearing on top when I check it at night.

At this moment, as I write I am chewing a mouthful of sourdough bread topped with pepperjack cheese. Yum.

'You and Me and Everyone We Know'

Should see this movie.

Miranda July wrote it, directed it, and plays a young woman who drives an ElderCab and is looking for something else. She finds a man with two young sons who recently separated from his wife. The man wears a quizzical expression most of the time and is perplexed by his situation and concerned with the safety of his beautiful boys. The boys, who are very fine actors in that way that children sometimes have of not appearing to be acting, interact mainly in chat rooms but generally curious about their new neighborhood and the world. They are alternately bedeviled and befriended by the precocious girl next door, who has a growing collection of small appliances in her hope chest, and a couple of teenage chicks who are also exploring new territory emboldened and supported by each other. Part of that territory is inhabited by a young shoe salesman who works with the boys' father, young men who also confide in each other.

See how everything connects with everything else? Loopy, you might say, with plot lines that circle back to other plot lines involving oddly infuriating and endearing characters in unexpected ways. They say things to each other that regular people (not movie characters) would never say - or maybe they would if they could.

July has a lot on her mind. She has crafted a modest film that many people will probably find precious or cute, but don't be numbed to what it offers. There are no big stars, no car crashes, no gun fights, no explosions, no apocalypse. Probably the best film I've seen this year.

Channeling Charlie

It snowed last night, so naturally the first thing a responsible midwesterner does, after a shower and a cup of coffee, is shovel the sidewalk, dontchaknow.

It will only get worse in the course of the day, so I might as well get it done while the gettin' is good. There are a few sets of footprints packed down, and the crust of freezing rain on top doesn't make it any easier, but it isn't too solid yet.

The details make a difference, and I learned it all from my dad. Take a wide stance and step into each stroke, almost like swinging a bat. That way you clear a wider swath of snow with each pass of the shovel, and you save energy as your weight shifts back and forth.

If it's deep at all, common sense says to angle the shovel so the overflow spills out on the unshoveled surface rather than where you've already cleared. How wide is each stroke? Depends on depth. The deeper the snow, the more overlap with each pass. The heavier the snow, the more you have to lift and toss each shovelful, rather than just push through it like a snowplow. It's the lifting, of course, that wears out your back.

I like to alternate right and left sides. Push from right to left a few strokes - like batting right-handed - then switch and push from left to right for a while. The sidewalk ends up looking more evenly cleared, and I end up equally tired in both shoulders. I'm convinced that switch-hitting prevents overuse injuries.

I also like to stop and bend backward every once in a while, whenever my lower back says so. When the time taking breaks exceeds the time shoveling, it's time to go inside. For that reason, it's important to prioritize. I usually start at the back gate and work my way in to the back door, clearing the highest traffic path. If possible, it's nice to have a path cleared back to the woodpile.

In courtesy to America's mail carriers, it's only fair to shovel the front walk, at least up the the mailbox. And where I come from, it's a test of character to shovel the entire front walk along the street, so the neighborhood kids don't have to walk through ankle-deep snow on the way to school. It also shows the neighbors what kind of people live here, because it's the right thing to do.

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern

I came across this book in the library while looking for something else; dontcha love it when that happens? I think it was the cover design that caught my eye: a nice cloth binding with a two-color landscape with horses by Leif Parsons. I'm looking at McSweeney's 15 (2004), published by McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, San Francisco, California, and it's unusual in every way. Check out the copyright page:

All rights are had by those who have them, and not us. We are writing this copyright page from Albuquuerque, New Mexico, on November 2, because we were hoping to contribute some manpower to this state, which was seen as winnable by the good guys in this terrifying and also extremely terrifying and did we mention completely fucking terrifying election.

It goes on like that for a full page, telling a story about real people - the staff of 8266 Valencia - who, among other things, put together a collection of short fiction every once in a while, teach writing classes, and, I'm guessing, do a little writing themselves.

And indeed now, at 3 a.m., in this Albuquerque as the networks continue to draw maps and await concessions, the night is black and the air ever-colder. The only upshot is that fairly soon, and at least for a whort while, things will be quiet. We will be able to take a breath, for a moment, and brace ourselves for the next beheading.

There are 20 stories in this book, half of them translated from Icelandic. Apparently just about everyone in Iceland is a writer, and they have this wonderful tradition of contemporary fiction as well as the old heroic sagas. Some of them, such as "Uninvited," are a little disturbing in a well-meaning way, and others, such as "Nerve City," are just plain hilarious.

This is a book to hold in your hands and take your time reading. The paper is a heavy, high-quality, creamy color and texture. A fine line boxes every page of text, and under the title of each new piece is a small illustration, either engravings carved on stones from the eighth to eleventh century, or runes carved on barrel lids, cheese blocks, and magician's handbooks.

Still Life with Pear

In the foreground a ripe purple plum, chunk of Swiss cheese, slices of somewhat stale bread, a pocket knife, a paper napkin. In the background a photograph of a pond with weeping willow tree, beside it three small flat gray stones. One corner of my cube contains these visual elements, their colors and textures being indescribable in the languages of your planet.

To the left is wooden inclined desktop work surface set at the lowest angle, a small stack of page proofs with multicolored tabs flagging corrections. To the right is a black stapler, black tape dispenser, gray phone, black cup filled with pens of various colors, another black cup filled with yellow pencils, a white cup for tea.

In the central desk area three small rough stones, a black and white photo of a cat on a chair, a Dell computer standing on end and a monitor on a semicircular base enclosing three flat stones, a mouse on a mouse pad, a stainless steel line gauge, a color photo of a young red-haired woman in glasses and a green tee-shirt reclining on the capitol mall smoking a cigarette, three loose pens (red, black, purple) and two pencils (black, green), and a hand-sized almost-square ceramic bowl containing pushpins and business cards.

On the far right end of the desk lie a stack of thin books and stapled bookmaps, two file folders, a spiral-bound steno pad, a plastic CD case, a stapled stack of production schedules, two black steel standing file holders filled with page proofs in binder clips. The everyday stuff inhabiting a horizontal plane inside a cube, one of many small spaces within a bigger space. Outside it's snowing.

Jessi and Zelda Golly, booksellers

So I says to the wife, "Yo, the son found a room in a house with some friends in Brooklyn, across the street from his sweetheart, a 20-minute subway ride from his job at a bookstore in New York freakin' City, the publishing capital of the world. Pinch me, I must be dreamin'."

So she did. Ouch, I ain't dreamin'.

So the wife she says, "Yo, the daughter ain't doin' so shabby neither. She works at a pretty good bookstore with a nice benefits package, she just graduated from college, and once in a while she comes home for dinner. Now if I could just get her to clean her room." Then she pinches me again, harder.

Ouch. "I didn't say pinch me."

"Just makin' sure," she says.

It seems like a small thing, both kids being gainfully employed. It's not like they were made partner in a major law firm, got tenure at a university, found a cure for cancer. These aren't those kinds of career moves. Neither one has published a book (yet). I realize these are small steps. But my heart bursts with joy that they are doing things they care about, which also happen to be the kind of things their mother and I care about.

Jessi started working at Forbidden Planet a couple of months ago and seems to be doing well making the transition to a full-time job. He had been doing a number of part-time gigs in New York, Tucson, and Portland for the last few years, so it's a bit of an adjustment going in to work all day every day. From all accounts, he is holding up just fine. I'm really anxious to see his new digs and to browse the shelves of the store. Sounds like a good excuse for a trip to the city, eh, wife?

Zelda has taken a different path into the bookstore business, somewhat more straight and narrow but not without its twists and turns. Staying with the academic program - and becoming much better at it than she was in high school - was reason enough for Ma and Pa Golly to be happy. Her student jobs at the local branch library, then at the University library, and finally at the stadium, were the kinds of things we could relate to, and her summer internship at Large Publishing Co. was a timely capstone to the whole curriculum.

This bildungsroman is far from over. It just happens to be at a very satisfying point in both their trajectories toward wherever they are going. In both cases, as most of my friends are tired of hearing me say, the best part is the conversations I am able to have with my grown-up, literate, critical, thoughtful, independent-minded, creative, bookish, authority-questioning children. And I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter.

Molly

“There are two kinds of humor,” she told People magazine. One was the kind “that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity,” she said. “The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule. That’s what I do.”

Did she ever. Molly Ivins died last Wednesday. If you've read her work, chances are you either love it or hate it. She was bursting with intelligence, outrage, and attitude. I happen to have agreed with 90 percent of her ideological views, so it was easy for me to appreciate the raw information that she so indelicately put across. Like any skilled journalist, she informed and entertained.

In my own moderate, middle-class, mostly polite, midwestern family, opinions run the gamut on such a big, loud woman with big, unashamed opinions and a writerly voice to match. Where I come from, ladies don't act like that. It's alright for big, fat men to blather lies about the kind of women they hate, in fact it's both socially acceptable and funny in a manly kind of way, don't you think? But, so goes this line of thinking, for a working woman to factually disrespect the Leaders of the Fatherland is just wrong.

If someone must question authority, well, let's leave that to the authorities. No, let's not. As one of the obits points out, her main contribution to public discourse was the gall to skewer the powerful, especially when it's popular and safe to skewer the powerless. Thank you, Molly, and rest in raising a ruckus.

Larry

A friend of mine died three weeks ago, not someone I was terribly close to, but someone who stepped into my family's sphere 20 years ago and made a difference. So I have to stop and recognize the passing of Larry Pickworth.

Larry was just starting out as a chiropractor in 1986, fresh out of school and opening an office on the West Side called Hilltop Chiropractic. His new bride Kathleen Jones, also a chiropractor, was his professional partner as well, and they had big plans. Gven Golly was their office manager, receptionist, problem solver, and was instrumental in the success of the business.

You could say they bonded. Larry and Kathleen had graduated from Life Chiropractic College in Atlanta; Gven grew up in Atlanta. They were coming home to Ohio to start their professional lives as we were moving to Ohio to go back to school. A few months into that first year, Gven made the decision to study massage therapy, seeing the need and the opportunity; Larry and Kathleen gave her a massage table for Christmas. We had two little kids, one of whom would later babysit for their two little kids.

There were differences, of course. Larry was 100 percent Buckeye, an ardent fan and booster of everything Ohio State. I was more blase about the football team and my student tickets, which were like gold to him. He was hard-working, ambitious, careful with money, and skilled in his profession, but without my intellectual pretensions or interests. They did very well. In a few years, they moved from the apartment over their office to a big house with a pool in Upper Arlington. They drove nice cars, went on exotic vacations, and their girls went to private schools.

Gven worked with Larry for a couple of years but got to know Kathleen pretty well. They started a book group that met once a month for several years, and they both developed a social/professional network of women in health-related work, so they have many mutual friends and colleagues around this big small town.

Larry had some health issues a few years ago involving an irregular aorta that forced him to slow down from his hard-driving pace. He seemed to have recovered and adapted well but recently had an episode that put him down for the count. His funeral was a packed house of somber folks - working-class, ruling-class, old, young, OSU athletes, independent women, a real central Ohio cross-section - laughing and crying over this guy dying way too young, leaving a wife and two little girls. It was one of those gray, rainy January days when everything seems overcome by gravity.