Politics

Encounters at the End of the World

By Olena Kalytiak Davis

On Saturday, I took five children, ranging in ages from three (Campbel (Camper) Pillifant) to just turned nine (Amelia (Mia) Belle Pillafant) to see Werner Herzog’s “Encounters: At the End of the World”. We^[1] walked from my house (I use the term “my” loosely), just off the Taony Knowles Coastal Trail (I’m doing this Alaska thing, because—well, you may have heard—)(—and I often do see Knowles, a former (democratic) governor of Alaska who just ran again against Sarah Palin this last go-round, (ye-ah he lost) on the trail—usually skiing—as I run my weekly 20-30) (Palin, who my brother HAS actually had dinner with (he’s the D.A. of the region Palin’s hideous little “city”, Wasilla, is part of), I have never seen—much less seen SWEAT) (Insert lots of shit here.) (But nothing too politically poignant.) (Maybe later.) to the Bear Tooth Theater. It wasn’t snowing. Yet.

Herzog—as most of you—and um, who are you, again?—know—is often referred to as a “poet” and his films as “poems”. What does this mean? This means I haven’t written a poem for quite some time and am once again/always already thinking this whole poetry thing thru from scratch. I have always been equal parts believer and thomas. In the last two years—while I have not written a single line of the thing called poetry—I have ran about 3000 miles (I exaggerate by a thousand miles or so), taken (and passed) the alaska bar, begun practicing family law (divorced only one couple who are, turns out, still living together), and almost written (that’s a big almost) a novel tentatively entitled “Poems for Philip Roth”. (All while wearing Frye boots! and grappling with the/”our” genre^[2])
I have lost most contact with the world of poetry (but, as my friends (yeah, the poets) joke, I still give readings!) but not, Mr. Herzog, the poetry of the world. (Did I really write that? Yes, I did.) Thus, in that Shackeltonian spirit I am taking/using/wanting/trying to experience “this” as a moving toward, a forcing, a reckoning with. I will turn and pay attention in this direction—to, help me, reader, you.
It took awhile to get to the movie^[3]…
P.S. Also: I just came back from a short stay at Burning Man (doing literary research with an “american novelist” who made me write haiku while we were there). Not Antarctica by any means, but the desert and the dust and the gloaming and the bicycles and the bartering (that does look kinda like bartending) are kinda, I think, nice.
^[1] Also present and accounted for: Avgustyn (Augie/Gobi) Roman Kalytiak-Davis, age 8.9, Olyana (Lyana/Lana/Lyalya) Esme Kalytiak-Davis, age 7.6, and Jackson (Marlon Brando) Pillifant, 6.7.
^[2] From: Mary Jo
Date: May 5, 2008 2:36:47 PM AKDT
To: olena@xxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Ha! You didn’t sound like an idiot at all. If anything the conversation made me realize how shallow tv can be. I feel lucky to work at the NewsHour where at least we can work on projects at some length (and frankly to get to do poetry stories at all feels like such a luxury in today’s tv world). But still, I know that by looking for poets who are about to come out with a new book means that we are leaving out so many interesting and important voices.
Anyway, I think my whole search for a poet in Alaska is probably moot anyway. I’m really coming to shoot an environmental story and thought I could “squeeze” this in on the side, but now it looks like I’m not going to have any spare time at all to do poetry.
Thanks for talking with me this morning!
Mary Jo
olena@xxxxxx.xxx wrote:
sorry for that retarded conversation this morning. obviously you want to (and
probably should) stay at the level of poetry is necessary and good, here are the people writing it right now and here is where you can, um, buy it, etc… but that doesn’t mean it isn’t way more complicated than that or that any true artist
doesn’t grapple with that general assumption or the necessity and good of their
own work. not that i am a true artist or anything, but grapple i definitely do.
and/but, who knows, maybe the grappling is (bold if i had it) the only true
poetry. it also doesn’t mean that people who keep writing the same poem/s, book/s and keep wanting to read this “poetry” aloud and keep “hoping” to be or being published, don’t mostly suck. maybe the marginalization is deserved. and, believe it or not, i don’t mean that in any mean or dismissive way. to take anything that/this seriously and love it that/this much, you must seriously explore the possibility of its ultimate frivolity. ask auden. but, um, i am really sorry for being such an inarticulate idiot, and, thanks, olena
Hi there,
I’m a producer with The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. I’m researching
Alaskan poets and your name has been mentioned frequently. I was
wondering if you’re working on a new collection of poems. Would you be
free to talk to me for a few minutes on the phone on Monday or Tuesday?
If so, let me know what time and what number is best to cal.
Thanks much.
Mary Jo Brooks
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
^[3] Also recommended:
*SURFWISE!
*Watching all of to get to the last line of that insane movie with Gerard Depardieu’s genuinely limping son, I can’t remember the title of.
*OPENING NIGHT. (Gena Rowlans and John Cassavetes—anything—well, NOT THE TEMPEST—they do (together) as examples of “being alive”.)
*And, if you are so dumb to not have watched this yet: THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS. If, readers, as I suspect, you are also poets: assign each other terrible tasks!

2008-09-09

Posted in Group Blog, Politics on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 by Olena Kalytiak Davis.