As I typed the title of title of this post, I kept getting prompted to allow for Spring Break 1, 2, 3 etc. Suddenly I remembered that those were the titles from last year. And here I was using them again because here it is spring break again. Only this time I am not at the VCCA. I am home. And not going away. But will stay home and try to do in Brooklyn what I have done in the past in Virginia. Read, write, translate, think. I'll pay attention to the NCAA basketball, which will be more distracting here because the tv will be readily available but it is also downstairs and my study is upstairs. Maybe I can treat waking in the morning and walking the dog as I would waking and taking the long walk to the studio. Or I can do my summer thing and simply stumble out of bed, make some tea, and get to the study and get to work.
Which a little bit I have done tonight. I admit to some facebook viewing but mostly I spent the night talking with Pablo, a good long one with the major focus, I think, on an appreciation for Borges as a poet, in particular the sonnets. Stephen Kessler had just sent me a copy of the edition he edited for Penguin and it is quite beautiful. Not all the translations work but I don't need those and the nice thing is to have all of the sonnets in the same place. Pablo and I also talked about John Berryman's Dream Songs which I have been reading and really believe to be something special. I had this realization that it is not a poem in three voices but one in four, with the poet there as a kind of spectator of whom you are very subtly conscious--he is almost not there at all but then comes the realization that yes, oh yes, there is someone else.
Pablo was talking about the question of a crisis of representation in his own work. My realization is that he could think about this not as a crisis of but a journey of and from and toward.
Other things came up, one of those great long conversations, mainly about poetry but with enough basketball thrown in to make it worthwhile.
One of those nice things: Tourist at a Miracle was listed as one of Small Press Distributors Recommended Books for March 1-15 (go to www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?categoryId=53). Happy.
Spent some listening to Jesse play his new song tonight. It's very good. Worked on a new poem. So sort of like VCCA. Completely like home.
Showing posts with label VCCA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VCCA. Show all posts
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
music
Wednesday night at the Tobenski-Algera series opener. Quite good. Dennis sang beautifully, a full program, quite something. Of course I was pleased to hear the NY premiere of echoes, six of my poems which Dennis was originally commissioned to set for the Staunton Music Festival in 2008 and which were performed that August there. Originally they were set for soprano--hearing Dennis' tenor and his real sense for singing poetry was a pleasure. As was seeing some VCCA friends, painters Julie Gold and Ann Polashenski. Jane LeCroy was also there, a poet who spends a lot of time thinking about music and words.
Thursday we went to a benefit for Haiti at the Stephen Wise Synagogue in Manhattan. This was a stirring concert (we stayed for more than two hours, then had to leave, hunger and exhaustion winning out over a desire for more music). I couldn't say who all the performers were but the variety was extreme, a focus on linking Jewish community and culture with Haitian. Formidable and beautiful. Jesse took a lot of video of this. If he posts it, I will update with a link.
abrazos,
Mark
Thursday we went to a benefit for Haiti at the Stephen Wise Synagogue in Manhattan. This was a stirring concert (we stayed for more than two hours, then had to leave, hunger and exhaustion winning out over a desire for more music). I couldn't say who all the performers were but the variety was extreme, a focus on linking Jewish community and culture with Haitian. Formidable and beautiful. Jesse took a lot of video of this. If he posts it, I will update with a link.
abrazos,
Mark
Friday, January 1, 2010
1/1/10
Interesting to write those numbers...
Tourist arrived in Brooklyn on Tuesday and Katherine sent it to me overnight here at the VCCA so it arrived yesterday. It looks beautiful, her beautiful painting on the cover. The poems feel right to me. I don't usually have that feeling when I see my writing in print, have more the desire to start revising, to not allow myself the sense of accomplishment that all that hard work could bring.
But I don't feel that way right now. Feel more like the book is what I want. Thank you, Donna Brook. What a marvelous editor you are. Thank you, Hanging Loose, for Tourist at a Miracle.
Happy New Year to all.
Abrazos.
Mark
Tourist arrived in Brooklyn on Tuesday and Katherine sent it to me overnight here at the VCCA so it arrived yesterday. It looks beautiful, her beautiful painting on the cover. The poems feel right to me. I don't usually have that feeling when I see my writing in print, have more the desire to start revising, to not allow myself the sense of accomplishment that all that hard work could bring.
But I don't feel that way right now. Feel more like the book is what I want. Thank you, Donna Brook. What a marvelous editor you are. Thank you, Hanging Loose, for Tourist at a Miracle.
Happy New Year to all.
Abrazos.
Mark
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Post-Christmas meander
It was a good and sweet, simple Christmas. We woke up, and had the usual Christmas morning snacks--smoked salmon, oysters, a duck pate, cheeses of sorts, bread, crackers, a nice Italian blood orange sparkling something or other. Stocking presents, gifts. Jesse was quite happy with his chosen harmonica and new ukulele, surprised by Slipknot and Coheed and Cambria tablature books (interesting to think of those two bands on a ukulele, but he mainly was playing his own songs). With the uke, Jesse is becoming a young man of many stringed instruments, from the above, to guitars to mandolin. He gave Katherine and me each a personalized cd (this the answer to why he'd spent the day before Christmas quizzing us about our favorites of the songs he has written).
Afterwards, Jesse decided to stay at home and Katherine and I went to the movies, Sherlock Holmes, Not a great movie, but a whole lot of fun. Then we took a long walk in Prospect Park. The snow disappeared yesterday in the rain but Christmas day it was all still there, shimmering under the lights.
Yesterday as the snow disappeared in the rain, we walked around a little and then I went over to the bookstore and did some post-Christmas shopping (my gift was to be able to do this). Bought some Chekhov short stories, the correspondence of Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome, Andamios, a novel and El amor, las mujeres y la vida, a poetry collection by Mario Benedetti, Lituma en los Andes, a novel by Vargas Llosa, short stories by John Fante, Of This World, a poetry collection by John Stroud whose work I don't know very well, and Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky, which Katherine is reading in the original French these days. Very happy to have these books. Along with Conrad's Nostromo, and a few other things here and there, these are the books I expect to be reading for the rest of the winter break (school starts again on January 25th).
Most of these are coming with me to the VCCA which I leave for tomorrow morning. Very excited by this. Should arrive in the evening, with luck in time for dinner. If I do make dinner, the plan will be to set up my studio afterwards and be ready to think and work as soon as I can Tuesday morning. My hope is to work on poems I started last summer, return to Hinojosa (a big push on Flor de California). Without setting it all in stone, I'm hoping to get started on work that will continue after I come back on the 4th, take me through the rest of the break and give me some clear vision for the writing I can do this semester. It's always hard to do that, write during the semester, but I want to make that push this spring, a nice lead in to the summer (can I really be thinking that far ahead?). In the middle of all this will be readings from Tourist at a Miracle (keep eyes peeled for those on this blog and elsewhere).
Of note: received word from Dennis Tobenski that there will be a performance of Echoes on Wednesday, January 27 at 9:30 pm in the West Village. He says that he'll be singing the poems himself, which makes it a real treat indeed.
More later.
Abrazos,
Mark
Afterwards, Jesse decided to stay at home and Katherine and I went to the movies, Sherlock Holmes, Not a great movie, but a whole lot of fun. Then we took a long walk in Prospect Park. The snow disappeared yesterday in the rain but Christmas day it was all still there, shimmering under the lights.
Yesterday as the snow disappeared in the rain, we walked around a little and then I went over to the bookstore and did some post-Christmas shopping (my gift was to be able to do this). Bought some Chekhov short stories, the correspondence of Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome, Andamios, a novel and El amor, las mujeres y la vida, a poetry collection by Mario Benedetti, Lituma en los Andes, a novel by Vargas Llosa, short stories by John Fante, Of This World, a poetry collection by John Stroud whose work I don't know very well, and Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky, which Katherine is reading in the original French these days. Very happy to have these books. Along with Conrad's Nostromo, and a few other things here and there, these are the books I expect to be reading for the rest of the winter break (school starts again on January 25th).
Most of these are coming with me to the VCCA which I leave for tomorrow morning. Very excited by this. Should arrive in the evening, with luck in time for dinner. If I do make dinner, the plan will be to set up my studio afterwards and be ready to think and work as soon as I can Tuesday morning. My hope is to work on poems I started last summer, return to Hinojosa (a big push on Flor de California). Without setting it all in stone, I'm hoping to get started on work that will continue after I come back on the 4th, take me through the rest of the break and give me some clear vision for the writing I can do this semester. It's always hard to do that, write during the semester, but I want to make that push this spring, a nice lead in to the summer (can I really be thinking that far ahead?). In the middle of all this will be readings from Tourist at a Miracle (keep eyes peeled for those on this blog and elsewhere).
Of note: received word from Dennis Tobenski that there will be a performance of Echoes on Wednesday, January 27 at 9:30 pm in the West Village. He says that he'll be singing the poems himself, which makes it a real treat indeed.
More later.
Abrazos,
Mark
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas Eve 2009
The tree is trimmed, the stockings not yet stuffed (soon, soon) and presents no doubt will appear. In recycling happiness, we'll wrap all gifts in rolls of paper brought out of storage from many years' past.
The house is filled with smells of pine and freesia (a winter bouquet from a local market) and we look forward to the Harry and David pears that Anne Porter sent (they're beginning to smell and feel just right).
Word from Hanging Loose is that Tourist at a Miracle shipped yesterday and should be in New York early next week. With Katherine's blessing and a nod from Jesse, on Monday I'll head down to the VCCA for a week of country air, for poetry and rest, a chance to reflect a little bit on the past year, to recharge the batteries that seem a little run down.
peace and joy to all, saludos, abrazos, amor,
Mark
The house is filled with smells of pine and freesia (a winter bouquet from a local market) and we look forward to the Harry and David pears that Anne Porter sent (they're beginning to smell and feel just right).
Word from Hanging Loose is that Tourist at a Miracle shipped yesterday and should be in New York early next week. With Katherine's blessing and a nod from Jesse, on Monday I'll head down to the VCCA for a week of country air, for poetry and rest, a chance to reflect a little bit on the past year, to recharge the batteries that seem a little run down.
peace and joy to all, saludos, abrazos, amor,
Mark
Friday, July 25, 2008
Final Words from Maine
Tonight was the lobster/steak dinner and show at the Maine Media Workshop and it did not disappoint. We saw work from a number of the artists, from the older (mid-career folks) and their documentary and multi-media work, to the younger artists, black and white photographers, screen writers, etc. The food was good fun (how can you ignore a freshly steamed Maine lobster? Fresh corn? Baked potatoes? A good white wine?). The media work we saw was, for the most part, very impressive. It was clear that these folks had worked hard over the last two weeks and I felt kind of privileged to see so much good work (okay, there was some stuff that wasn't much, but not from the youth program folks, who were quite talented). Jesse had five prints in the slide show from his group (I recognized three, thought maybe a fourth) and look forward to seeing his portfolio tomorrow. We learned tonight that his teacher, a very good photographer, Isabel Foley, lives only about ten blocks from us in Brooklyn, and I hope that means that he'll be able to get some good feedback from time to time on what he is doing.
On the whole, I think a really successful trip. Jesse did some great work, met some good people, and I think learned a lot. One of the things that Katherine and I both noticed from the dinner time and the presentation of work was that it reminded us of places like the VCCA and Byrdcliffe; in other words, it was a real artist colony even as it had this strong teaching element to it. But there was kind of mutual respect in conversation about work (even between the older artists and the younger) that impressed me. If Jesse decides he wants to return next year, I say yes! Compared to SOCAPA, well, there is no comparison so I won't bother.
For the cottage couple, I finished a new poetry manuscript Invisible Man (at least a good draft that is now an intense working period away from being done), got some good work done on Hinojosa, and also thought a lot about my teaching for the fall. Katherine did some beautiful work in water color and oil pastel and pencil, and gave her a sense of some good new ways of working. So art prospered at the sea side cottage, as did the Cannonball, who got to roam the grounds, go to the beach, play endless games of stick.
We leave tomorrow for a meandering trip down to Framingham, MA where we stay for the night before getting back to Brooklyn. Then we have some days for Katherine to be in the studio, for me to do some revision on Celia Cruz (more later), and work with Jesse on footage for his documentary of the Poet in New York tour. A lot to do and a lot more to come. But two weeks that were really quite special. And have us all moving forward.
Saludos,
Mark
On the whole, I think a really successful trip. Jesse did some great work, met some good people, and I think learned a lot. One of the things that Katherine and I both noticed from the dinner time and the presentation of work was that it reminded us of places like the VCCA and Byrdcliffe; in other words, it was a real artist colony even as it had this strong teaching element to it. But there was kind of mutual respect in conversation about work (even between the older artists and the younger) that impressed me. If Jesse decides he wants to return next year, I say yes! Compared to SOCAPA, well, there is no comparison so I won't bother.
For the cottage couple, I finished a new poetry manuscript Invisible Man (at least a good draft that is now an intense working period away from being done), got some good work done on Hinojosa, and also thought a lot about my teaching for the fall. Katherine did some beautiful work in water color and oil pastel and pencil, and gave her a sense of some good new ways of working. So art prospered at the sea side cottage, as did the Cannonball, who got to roam the grounds, go to the beach, play endless games of stick.
We leave tomorrow for a meandering trip down to Framingham, MA where we stay for the night before getting back to Brooklyn. Then we have some days for Katherine to be in the studio, for me to do some revision on Celia Cruz (more later), and work with Jesse on footage for his documentary of the Poet in New York tour. A lot to do and a lot more to come. But two weeks that were really quite special. And have us all moving forward.
Saludos,
Mark
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Reporting from Maine (5) Another of those days desired
Jesse decided to spend the weekend at the workshop--the photographers went to Belfast and then they were supposed to come back to the dorm and then go out to a movie. We dropped by while he was away, picked up his laundry (the work of parents, we'll return the clean clothes tomorrow) then went into Camden where we had a wonderful meal at a lobster restaurant right on the water. Back at the cottage, read the Times, played stick with Cannonball, worked on Hinojosa for about three hours and then another two or so on revisions of poems for Invisible Man (I do think that's the title that's going to stick). Thunder storms moved into the area, which was fine--Katherine (who did some wonderful painting today) and I had gin and tonics on the covered part of the deck until the rain even came at us. Then inside for some reading, a dinner mainly of leftovers (burgers, dogs, a kielbas and yellow rice and peppers dish I made last night, salad) and a good conversation dealing with the rise of Europe (why Germany, why France, why Spain, why Italy, etc) until too weary and Katherine went to bed. Some play with Cannonball outside in the dark.
Being here reminds me of being at the VCCA--time spent working really feels important. I feel like I'm accomplishing things I won't be able to do during the school year, this sustained time for writing, translating and reading, away from the rest of the world, and then time to stop, disengage, knowing that tomorrow the space is set for me to work again, that's what I got from VCCA. Katherine and I get to spend some nice time together, and yes, I miss seeing Jesse (though we talk on the phone, just as at VCCA) but the amount of work I can do makes me wonder, as I did when I came back from VCCA last year and even this past March, how to replicate that in my daily life. Is it even possible? Have to figure out how to do that.
The revisions today on Invisible Man make me feel it is closer to completion than I thought even yesterday. Which probably means it needs tons of work but it wouldn't have happened without this time here.
Saludos!
Mark
Being here reminds me of being at the VCCA--time spent working really feels important. I feel like I'm accomplishing things I won't be able to do during the school year, this sustained time for writing, translating and reading, away from the rest of the world, and then time to stop, disengage, knowing that tomorrow the space is set for me to work again, that's what I got from VCCA. Katherine and I get to spend some nice time together, and yes, I miss seeing Jesse (though we talk on the phone, just as at VCCA) but the amount of work I can do makes me wonder, as I did when I came back from VCCA last year and even this past March, how to replicate that in my daily life. Is it even possible? Have to figure out how to do that.
The revisions today on Invisible Man make me feel it is closer to completion than I thought even yesterday. Which probably means it needs tons of work but it wouldn't have happened without this time here.
Saludos!
Mark
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
back in the saddle
Okay, I know it's been a long time since I blogged but things have been pretty crazy and good and I'll have a lot to write in the next couple of days and weeks and I'm looking forward to summer as a time to put some poems and ideas out into the world. It's late at night right now so I'm going to just start by saying thank you to all the wonderful friends and family who sent me postcards for my 50th birthday. There were so many of them and so many moving notes that I can't imagine having the time to respond to all of them but thank you thank you thank you.
In the days ahead I'm going to be writing about the past few months (some mighty exciting things, wonderful readings and events), about the current months (mainly summer fun and then the fall when Poet in New York goes on the road again, NYC, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, to name a few), about some new projects fueled by some wonderful time in March at VCCA over spring break--which include two new poetry manuscripts, a non-fiction study of the poets of the Generation of 27 and a new translation project that I'm sworn to secrecy on I'll have to kill myself. There will be a constant and big boo section for all things having to do with ALL and the NYU Child Study Center (spread the word--these guys are phony and are ripping off innocent families and kids and I mean this--they use tax dollars to do some pretty awful things to some very good people and while there are good people involved there, they are not the decision makers and if you hear the names Harold Koplewicz or Glenn Hirsch, flee as fast as you can and make sure your wallet is still in your pocket as you do--they've done a great job of ripping folks off to the tune of 30,000 per family and pretending to be a school which the state doesn't even recognize).
A date to circle on the calendar is that Pablo and I will appear on the Leonard Lopate Show on June 23 at 1PM--don't miss it--should be great fun.
So I re-enter the blog world, surprised at how much I've missed it.
Looking forward to hearing from all.
Mark
In the days ahead I'm going to be writing about the past few months (some mighty exciting things, wonderful readings and events), about the current months (mainly summer fun and then the fall when Poet in New York goes on the road again, NYC, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, to name a few), about some new projects fueled by some wonderful time in March at VCCA over spring break--which include two new poetry manuscripts, a non-fiction study of the poets of the Generation of 27 and a new translation project that I'm sworn to secrecy on I'll have to kill myself. There will be a constant and big boo section for all things having to do with ALL and the NYU Child Study Center (spread the word--these guys are phony and are ripping off innocent families and kids and I mean this--they use tax dollars to do some pretty awful things to some very good people and while there are good people involved there, they are not the decision makers and if you hear the names Harold Koplewicz or Glenn Hirsch, flee as fast as you can and make sure your wallet is still in your pocket as you do--they've done a great job of ripping folks off to the tune of 30,000 per family and pretending to be a school which the state doesn't even recognize).
A date to circle on the calendar is that Pablo and I will appear on the Leonard Lopate Show on June 23 at 1PM--don't miss it--should be great fun.
So I re-enter the blog world, surprised at how much I've missed it.
Looking forward to hearing from all.
Mark
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