Author Archive
Jeffrey McDaniel
Good-bye Harriet
So I am leaving Harriet today. My fourth book of poems, The Endarkenment, was recently accepted for publication (by University of Pittsburgh Press), and I want to focus on revising the manuscript, and also developing some prose ideas.
Jeffrey McDaniel
returning to the national slam as an observer, 8 years later
In an earlier post, I spoke about participating in the National Poetry Slam in the early 90’s. Here I will talk about what I saw at the National Poetry Slam in August 2006 in Austin, Texas, when I returned as an observer. I was invited back to take part in a reading of old-timers and to be on a couple of panels. Because I hadn’t been in almost a decade and because I like Austin organizers (Mike Henry and company), I accepted the invite. On a personal level, it was good to return and see people I still had love for (such as the big and smiley Danny Solis, and the wild and wacky Matthew John Conley, and many others.) For people unfamiliar with slam, “the Nationals” is when teams from all over North America assemble in one place for a frenetic 4-day competition. There are “bouts” at venues throughout the town, and teams and poets get eliminated quickly, so there’s lots of excitement and tension. The poets are stuck in this catch-22—they are taking serious a competition that was designed (by Marc Smith) to make fun of serious poetry competitions.
Jeffrey McDaniel
berlin in the haus
On the train ride from Munich to Berlin, (6 hour ride). Matthea Harvey, Ron Winkler and I (along with some help from Kevin Young and Uljana Wolf intermittenly) discuss a rough draft translation of a poem of Ron`s into English. We go through it line by line, phrase by phrase, discussing many little details, like the different implications of “fact” and “data”, and trying to figure out of there is an expression in English for a boy whose ears stick, something more elegant than Dumbo. It is fascinating to look at all the choices that get made, and how you sometimes need to deviate from the literal to get to a poem´s essence.
The 4 poets we are touring with are all doing very well career-wise in Germany. Steffen Popp has a well recieved novel and a book of poems. Uljana Wolf just won a big award that resulted in her doing readings all over the country, and Ron Winkler has two books out and has won several prizes. Jan Wagner is doing good stuff too.
I am hoping that this tour is just the beginning of a longer relationship. Ron will be in the US in November; his poems are being used in a musical performance at Zankel Hall (Carnegie Hall). I am hoping that some of these poets will have work appear in US literary journals. We US poets need to hear and read the work of young poets from around the globe. We need to be exposed to different poetic traditions and different ways of approaching a poem.
This is totally a poetic wet dream, but imagine a young poets convention somewhere on Earth where 10 poets under 40 from every country assemble for a week to share work. I hope it happens quick: my days of being under 40 are severely numbered, I turn 40 in 10 days.
Tonight we will have our final reading in Berlin, at the Literaturhaus. The next night, Saturday, Derek Walcott is reading outdoors as part of some huge week-long, city-wide poetry festival.
Jeffrey McDaniel
München
On the third day of a short, week-long tour through Germany with poets Kevin Young, Christian Hawkey, and Matthea Harvey. Matthea’s husband (and editor of Jubilat) Rob Caspar is also with us, as well as 4 young German poets (between 27 and 36) who have translated our poems.
Our typical day has been: wake up and have a huge German breakfast (deli meats, rolls, many forms of jam, hard boiled eggs, fruit), then take a train (from Berlin to Leipzig, then Leipzig to Munich, tomorrow it is Munich back to Berlin), check into new hotel, have a nice lunch and explore the city a little, go to the reading around 7, then go out to a big dinner with the people who organized the event.
The Munich reading was in the Lyrik Kabinett. There were about 40 people in attendance. We read sitting down at a table on a stage, with microphones. 4 or 5 people would sit at the table at a time. 2 US poets and 2 or 3 German translators, with a break in the middle.
It’s been so energizing hanging out with this group of nine poets, in so many different contexts. We have talked a LOT of poetry, some politics, some music. We’ve also played chess and poker on the train, laughed a ton. It’s nice to hear people’s poems on consecutive nights. With each new listen, I hear more and more. I still have some jetlag and am sleeping in pieces. Our hosts have been so kind. I am blown away by the physical spaces that the writing organizations inhabit. The Berlin Literaturhaus is a huge mansion, with offices, a lovely garden, and an exquisite restaurant where regular stylish people (with $) go for a nice meal. It is on a whole other level than anything that I have experienced in the US. It’s like the Morgan Library in New York.
Jumping around, last night in Leipzig we met some students of one of the very few creative writing workshops in Germany. There is a lot of doubt about the worthiness of such an endeavor, but the students seem to be really happy there; they get to go for free, and it is an honor to be selected (20 people selected out of 600 applicants).
Tonight we ate at a place called Cohn’s, a Jewish deli in Munich. We have been earting lots of schnitzel and rump steak, but other things too, like giant stalks of white aspragus (which are in season), with thin slices of ham and a butter sauce. Delicious.
More soon from Berlin. xo
Jeffrey McDaniel
on the ground in berlin
I just arrived in Berlin. I will be blogging from Germany for the next week. I am embarking on a three city tour with three other American poets, Matthea Harvey, Kevin Young, and Christian Hawkey. We are doing readings to support an anthology that just came out in Germany and Austria, Schwerkraft, edited by Ron Winkler.
What has happened so far: got a late start leaving my house, massive traffic jam on the way to JFK, on one of those buses from Grand Central. Just made the plane, then we sat on the tarmac for three hours. Fun talking with Kevin and Matthea. The flight was 11 hours, with the three hours on the tarmac. No sleep for me. Lots of Earl Grey tea. Did edit my new poetry manuscript, The Endarkenment. I like editing on planes when everyone else is sleeping. No big problems with the person next to me over personal space or arm rest. Did drop a slice of pizza in JFK. Had eaten half while waiting to pay. It was soo good. Tried to play it off, but I was bummed. That is a hard thing to play off. We have a get together in a few hours with our hosts. Staying in the Hotel Bogota. My room is very dorm-like. Wondering if there is a Pablo Escobar suite. Having a hard time typing–keyboard is different–z and y are switched, plus I cut my fingernails too quickly and too short and have a very tender index finger on my right hand–that is a crucial finger for my primitive typing. Decided against taking a and am just trying to power through till tonight. In Prenzlauerberg now, one of the coolest neighborhoods anywhere. I love Berlin, was here last year with my wife, (she has a name: Christine Caballero). Tomorrow we go to Leipzig. Anyone want me to bring back some German pretzel bread?
Jeffrey McDaniel
>>>
This post is building off the discussion on Emily’s thread.
I lived in Los Angeles from 1996 to 2003, and there was a lot happening there with Latino writers too. (LA is kind of cut off from the rest of the nation in some ways in terms of literature.) I’m thinking of Luis Alfaro (who after poetry got into playwriting and won a MacArthur genius grant), and Michele Serros (who is now writing non-fiction, How To Be A Latina Role Model), and Dennis Cruz (a Bukowski-esque spirit with the power to both terrify and move), and Alicia Vogl Saenz (who has exquisite diction and elegant imagery), and the dark humor of Richard Garcia (The Flying Garcias on Pitt Press). There’s an arts organization in East LA called Self-Help Graphics.
Jeffrey McDaniel
post-confessional poetry?
I’m thinking about Rachel’s recent post and the intersection between experience and art. Some of the most powerful poems I know seem to be, if not drenched in, then at least tinged with experience and have that born-out-of-necessity feel. These poems, a number of which might be called “confessional”, seem to have something at stake emotionally, but for this sort of poem to work, there needs to be something happening on the artistic end as well, something sonically, or metaphorically, or syntactically, that pushes the poem beyond a mere transcription of experience. Even Carolyn Forche’s poem, “The Colonel”, which seems to embrace journalistic techniques (delivered in a block of prose, told in very straightforward, methodical language), has a metaphorical leap at the end as some of the severed ears “caught this scrap of his voice”.
Jeffrey McDaniel
Washington DC poetry slam, 1993-95
A few weeks ago Patricia talked about her coming up through the slam in Chicago, how that is where she emerged wholly as a writer and performer. That a writer of her caliber could emerge from the slam community is a testimony to the possibilities of that community. The slam was not my first artist home, but it was an important early one.
Jeffrey McDaniel
two good reasons for copyright protection
Here’s a new ad campaign by Home Depot. Scene opens on a suburban woman in khaki shorts and a summer hat, the sun hitting her muddy calves, making them sparkle as she walks through a manicured backyard: “I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it– A sort of walking miracle, my skin bright as a Home Depot lampshade.” Male Voice Over: “Come to Home Depot and get lampshades that will make you glow in the dark.”
Here’s a commercial idea for Victoria’s Secret. A woman walks down a crowded New York City street in her underwear, bare foot and black sunglasses, her footsteps literally smoldering in her wake, as all sorts of men watch her in awe, as a sexy female voiceover speaks: “Herr God, Herr Lucifer. Beware. Beware. Out of the ash. I rise with my red hair. And I eat men like air.” Then a handsome man in a business suit, with a freshly plucked rose, stands in her path, and she walks right through him, disintegrating him. Male voiceover comes in as the screen fills with smoke: “Victoria’s Secret—it will bring out the man eater in you.”
I know poets, such as Robert Desnos, have worked in advertising before, but that should be a choice that each poet makes.
*
Last year C.K. Williams was talking to a class of mine at Sarah Lawrence, and he lifted the galleys of his Collected Poems and said that he was “holding his life’s work”, as he gripped the five-hundred or so pages in his hands, almost like a baby. It was poignant—this smart, passionate, insightful human had focused his energy, had given the best parts of his life to a brick of paper. (I am reminded of Merwin’s line: “I who have always believed too much in words.”) Williams does not leave a skyscraper in his wake, rather 500-plus pages of poems, read by relatively few of his fellow citizens. Despite a small readership, he (and other poets) should be afforded the same copyright protections as musicians, film makers, fiction writers, painters, etc. We are not sub-artists.
Jeffrey McDaniel
babies, parents, and poetry
My wife and I had a baby girl six months ago, and, in terms of motherhood and parenting, all I can say is wow, and more wow. I never knew how hard child rearing is; can you say tired squared? I am so overwhelmed (and inspired!) with only one; I have no idea how people do it, (like Rachel with two and one more on the way). Even though we’re in an era where many fathers change diapers and do daddy day care, mothers still do the heavy lifting, carrying the species forward.
I have to think that we overlook mothers in this country; I was in Guatemala 15 years ago in a small town, and I stumbled upon a statue of a pregnant woman, and it was so appropriate (and sadly disorienting) to see the heroics of the every day celebrated. Are there any large, public statues celebrating motherhood in this country? There are, of course, many tall buildings and several monuments that seem to be indirect testimonies to the most rudimentary element of fatherhood.
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