Robert Peake

There is a Zen story about working very hard wherein a young student (in some versions, an American,) approaches the master and asks how long it will take him to become a master himself. The master replies, “ten years.” The student emphatically explains that he will work twice as hard as any of the other students, pushing himself to the limit to master his teachings more quickly. “In that case,” replies the master, “twenty years.”

For me, poetry is like this. Usually, when I find myself wanting to work very hard, it is because I have not been writing consistently. You see, I have waned in my discipline of getting up early before work to write. And, as a result, I notice myself daydreaming about dramatic change, such as a fellowship with a great expanse of uninterrupted writing time stretched out before me. Yet, invariably, I find that when I start writing consistently again, I become more satisfied and accepting of my present situation. My careerist thoughts subside. I enter back in to the vocation of poetry, the lifelong pursuit.

The art of not pushing, but rather focusing on consistency, is alien to our fast-food culture. And yet, writing something daily is actually a form of instant gratification as well — a true and lasting gratification of actually having written, good or bad. It is also, ironically, good for one’s career. That is because publication and awards are a numbers game. And writing consistently produces a greater volume of higher quality work than an approach of fits and starts. At least, that has been my experience so far.

So, it’s off to bed for me, and up early to bang something out — good or bad — for sake of staying in the flow.

Today, we tackled the shed, a routine suburban act of tidiness for most couples. But the reason we hadn’t used most of the stuff in our shed since we moved in over a year ago is piled up against the back wall: the stroller, the diaper genie, the car seat, and the chest of drawers we refinished by hand, every drawer filled with baby clothes. We have been unable to have another child in the two-and-a-half years since the birth and death of our son, and today, we decided, in order to stop avoiding more than momentary forays into the shed for a critical item, that it was time to move the baby stuff into storage.

The chest, with all that it symbolized as an act of preparing for parenthood, we decided to set aside until we could find it a new home. That meant going through each drawer, re-packing the small hats and shirts and vests and the impossibly small socks. What got me was the smell. I realize that brand new baby clothes don’t actually smell like babies — it is, in fact, the other way around — but the two have become closely associated for me, and somehow my nose has secret wiring straight to my heart. I again recalled Keith’s post last year about the cap his son wore to keep warm, and how he and his wife tried in vain to hang on to what he left behind in that cap — his smell.

Moving the baby stuff offsite was also a way of accepting that we may not be able to have another child. Facing this has meant riding out a second wave of grief, with many of the same effects as when we first lost our son. In the past two-and-a-half years, many new people have come in to our lives — new friends, neighbors, and colleagues at work — who know nothing about our James. And so, I find myself, at times, living in two worlds at once. Occasionally, the disparity between what others can see, and what I carry inside, is brought into startling contrast by, for example, a giddy new mother, unaware of our past, eagerly accosting us about our plans for “starting a family.” I respond with a sheepish grin, and change the subject. They probably think this means I don’t like kids.

Life was never what we thought it was supposed to be about. A shed piled up with junk is about more than clutter. The name “shed” somehow seems fitting — as though I have cast off a heavy coat or, like a snake, shed a skin. Or reached, perhaps, a watershed in recovering from grief, choosing once again to direct myself, despite so much uncertainty and disappointment, toward renewal — and with it, a strange kind of hope.

“The sea is dangerous, they say, but not if you’re the sea.”

Sarah Maclay drew me down to the seaside tonight, to hear her read poems from her first book, Whore, her second book, The White Bride, and selections from a new, unpublished manuscript. It was great to be back at the Artists’ Union Gallery, among friends. Sarah read poems back-to-back, like a line of train cars speeding down the coast through evening fog. And, as is the tradition at this venue, and precisely at the end of one of Sarah’s poems, the 7:50 freight blared through the dark.

Though many of the poems she read were prose poems, her compelling imagery and sonorous delivery made her work sound as though it might have been written with the blade-like precision of couplets. For all of her unexpected imagery and captivating associations, Sarah is not a surrealist — in much the same way that a poet like Sandra Alcosser is not a surrealist. In fact, Maclay brings to the urban landscape much of what Alcosser brings to the wild places — rough, self-startling observations, deep sensuality, and a ravenous fascination with human concerns — all balanced with a keen, keen ear. It was a pleasure to hear Sarah read tonight, and to step out into the salt air, changed.

The best man at my wedding was, and is, gay. We met several years before I met my wife. We were both fresh out of college, finding our way in relationships. We would take turns, over espresso drinks, listening to one another’s hopeless crushes, dating mishaps, and heartbreaks. With each new relationship we learned a little more about what we each wanted in a partner, and encouraged each other that we would, one day, find The One — his patient, kind, domestic-minded guy; my smart, quirky, artistic girl. For both of us, finding a partner who wanted kids was important.

As soon as Val and I got married, we started referring to ourselves as a family. After the death of our infant son, my understanding of what marriage and family means changed dramatically. The commitment we made in our wedding ceremony — to love one another unconditionally, as best we can — was held to the fire. Grieving our hopes and dreams as parents tested the definition of “family” as a unit of support. Certainly, we were stronger together than apart — but some days we found ourselves both simply unable to give any more. It was in these times that the greater family — including relatives and friends — buoyed us up. Our commitment to love each other, and to support each other in learning and growing in the midst of adversity, became a new, refined definition of what it means to be married, and to be a family.

Shortly after Val and I got married, my best man met his man. Even as our lives ran in parallel when we were single, I also see both he and his partner now demonstrating this new meaning of marriage and family — supporting one another in learning, and growing, and becoming better human beings in the midst of adversity and prejudice. They baby-proofed their home prior to the adoption agency’s inspection the way some budding lawyers study for the bar exam — extensively, meticulously, because so much is riding on the result. They have been waiting for their child for some time now. Lucky the child who gets these two great, eager dads.

I would love to see them legally married. Not because it would deepen their commitment, or somehow legitimize their relationship, but because it would support a definition of marriage and family that is predicated on striving toward unconditional love. Anywhere this is found, there is a true family. Anywhere this is practiced wholeheartedly, it forms a bond thicker than blood.
Because what makes life meaningful, what makes it all matter, is love. And love, like life itself, does not fit neat categories. It does not match our expectations and ideals. Because it is about so much more than gender, or genetics. It is about what makes us essentially human, and gives us the courage to endure.

Marriage is the sanctification of this commitment to love. A family is a unit of support that has made this same commitment to each member, whether two people or twelve. The success of these units in supporting each member to learn, and grow, and become better despite life’s challenges, is the measure by which the health of our society can be gauged. But first, this opportunity must be extended freely and without prejudice, in acknowledgment of its importance, and in acknowledgment of the potential of each one of us to better ourselves through loving one another past our differences and challenges — as family, in the truest sense of that word.

Living in two worlds can require a lot of explaining. When poets and poetry aficionados ask me what I do for a living, I usually just say, “technology.” Often, that one word is enough to make them change the subject. Most people don’t want to know the details once I utter the t-word. You’d think I worked in a slaughterhouse.

But even for the tech-savvy, an elevator pitch or traditional resume doesn’t really begin to tell the full story of what I do. That’s why, when I discovered VisualCV through Guy Kawasaki’s blog some months ago, it seemed like the perfect way to explain what I do, in a more rich and compelling way, to technologists and poets alike. I added screenshots of websites, narratives with hyperlinks, technical articles, and video to my VisualCV page using their super-easy, web-based interface. Then, I posted a link to my VisualCV page in the community forums, thus entering myself in to the VisualCV best resume contest.

A few weeks later, I got notice that I made the finals. My wife, Valerie, whose career story is equally complex and compelling, actually did as well. They generously issued Amazon gift certificates to both of us. I used mine to buy books for my final semester of the MFA. Then, a few weeks later, during my fourth MFA residency, I got notice that I won one of the grand prizes for best resume. How cool is that? My prize, an 8GB iPod Touch, arrived yesterday. It’s basically all the fun of an iPhone without those annoying cell phone features. I have nicknamed it the iFaux. Say it fast, while holding it up to your ear, and nobody will know the difference.

Big thanks to VisualCV for both a great application and a fun new toy.

Speaking of community, when I was living in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, I spent time at The Anansi Writers Workshop. The following interview, courtesy the Poetry.LA project, does an excellent job of summarizing the impact and importance of this generous tradition of poets supporting poets in L.A.

Chris Tonelli gave an excellent talk on limited-run small press publication. Rather than attempting to expiate small presses in light of an overwhelmed marketplace for poetry, Chris instead focused on the community-building aspects of small press and book-arts projects. For example, his So And So Reading Series in Boston works in collaboration with Rope-a-Dope Collaborative to produce letterpress broadsides of featured poets’ poems, which they sell on the night of their reading.

Drawing on Lewis Hyde’s idea that art exists in both a gift economy and market economy, he pointed out how limited-run collaborative publications foster community by delivering a select number of high-quality works to artist, collectors, and aficionados who truly appreciate the work. This has been my own experience firsthand in rather serendipitously entering in to my first book arts collaboration — that the collaboration itself was a gift between artists that then extended out to appreciative communities. Thanks to Chris for flying out to the Pacific University campus to deliver his unique perspective on community publishing.

“The more sacred the slain cow, the tastier the feast.”

Denise Duhamel gave a laugh-out-loud funny talk on an oft-undervalued aspect of poetry: humor. She showed how classic stand-up tricks, like following the main punch-line with “tags,” mangled cliches and malapropisms, and, above all, a tone in satire that admits complicity — a kind of poking fun at the speaking self alongside all humanity — can serve to open up a funny poem to more than just laughs. How fitting that she deliver this talk on the heels of the news of George Carlin’s death, in the ha-ha-ouch age of Stephen Colbert. She spoke to the subversive nature of humor as a means to talk back to power through the side of one’s mouth, to work on levels too fast and facile to register in the minds of self-righteous oppressors — a kind of political Capoeira, an expansive, complicated, lethal dance with the truth.

“To declare the meaningfulness is to curse the poem.”

Time for morning coffee at Maggie’s Buns, where resisting the iced cinnamon bun is equally as difficult as resisting tidy philosophical conclusions in the first-person confessional lyric.

After hearing Marvin Bell read last night, I realize my assertion that he could levitate a space ship with his mind was somewhat understated. In fact, some might be downright confused by me comparing him to Yoda: is he green? does he have pointy ears? Not to my knowledge. He does invert syntax to bring pressure and rhythm to language — but, unlike Yoda, in doing so, Marvin remains grammatically correct.

There really are two aspects of Yoda that remind me of Bell. First, Yoda is a master teacher of an unteachable magic called the force. Second, and most importantly, in Episode II (the fifth film ever made) George Lucas gave every Star Wars junkie what they had long craved: the opportunity to see Yoda wield a light saber himself. With blinding alacrity and consummate skill, Yoda shows himself not only as a master teacher, but master practitioner. After Marvin’s poetry reading last night, a fellow student leaned over to me in the darkened theater and whispered, “he’s a genius.” Having spent last semester studying with him, I wanted to whisper back, “well, duh.”