Portsmouth is a Poetry Town
I just wish it weren’t such a drive from the hinterlands. Anyhow, I’ll be doing two readings in Portsmouth this month.
The first reading is a feature with Paul Rogalus at Breaking New Grounds coffee shop (14 Market Square) this coming Monday, January 11, at 7:00. The other isn’t a conventional reading, but is a collaboration between poets (me and some others) and jazz musicians. That would be “Beat Night” at the Press Room (77 Daniel St.), Thursday, January 21st, also at 7:00. I’m really excited to be working with musicians again — I miss late nights with Ray and Brad making poetry/music in Ray’s basement in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hope there’s no blizzarding, and hope you can come check out one of these readings!
Security Theater & Compliance
Over the last 24 hours, I’ve read two excellent pieces on the supreme ineffectiveness of TSA airport security. Here’s one: http://www.hlswatch.com/2009/10/15/%E2%80%9Cdo-i-have-the-right-to-refuse-this-search%E2%80%9D/ and here’s the other: http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2009/12/17/askthepilot345/index.html. I really recommend both of these articles, and want to thank Cathie, especially, for pointing out the first one.
The first one, especially, really resonated with me because the author noticed some of the same things and used some of the same language of a poem I’m working on, and so I’m taking this as a sign from the blogosphere to post my poem draft, which I’ve been tinkering with for months. Here ’tis.
Compliance
Standing inside the clear plexiglass cube, I lift my arms, am wanded and groped, taking my turn for America. Snug inside a pair of plastic gloves, a stranger’s hands interrogate my thighs, belly, armpits. Outside the cube, the unshod un-suspicious un-chosen regard me only briefly, pretending not to look, before chasing their dismembered and dangerously unattended luggage down conveyer belts. In a clear plastic sandwich bag, my toiletries work hard at not looking like explosives: the toothpaste keeps its stingy, crumpled knuckle to itself; the modest dollop of shampoo is mute; the thimble-and-a-half of mouthwash keeps its counsel. Chapstick or plastique? Gel shoe insert or chemical bomb? I imagine all the ways in which I might be guilty, which makes me guilty of imagining, which I wonder if their new scanning machines can detect. What stray thought not safely sealed in a Ziploc might set off the warning bells? When they release me from the cube, I’ll try to follow all the signs as they help me love America: Move along be still pay close attention what are you staring at? eyes down be alert empty your pockets mind your baggage X-rays burn through us all, groping, clad in gloves of radiation and paranoia, throwing shadows up onto a screen we can watch like TV as we stand in lines together, show our tickets and I.D.’s, splay our belongings like sad, half-assed porn, numbed, compliant, shuffling our shoeless feet, perpetually waiting for the other shoe bomb to drop nerves blocked to outrage by this special brand of exhaustion, this purgatory, this homeland.Wolf in a Field
Poet Joshua Bolton, my years-ago-student at the University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop, has a fun poetry/food/art/story/religion/culture blog, and I’m honored to be included as an interviewee in “Poetry Lives.”
The blog is called Wolf in a Field.
Review of “A Thirst That’s Partly Mine”
I’m honored to be included in this review & discussion of chapbooks!
http://nancywhitepoetry.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/chapbooks-a-world-in-your-pocket/
New Publication
A poem of mine appears in the latest “Big City Lit.”
http://www.bigcitylit.com/bigcitylit.php?inc=fall09/poetry/ahl
Three of my poems set for chorale
Check it out!
http://www.nhmasterchorale.org/concerts.htm
Sunday, November 22, 2009 4:00pm
Plymouth Congregational Church, Plymouth, NH
directions (at very bottom of web page)
Pre-concert talk with Jonathan Santore, 3:30pm
Donation at the door
Upcoming Readings and a New Chapbook Forthcoming
In November, I will be featured reader at “Poetry Night” at the Moultonborough Public Library (Nov. 3, 7:30, Library Meeting Room). I’ll read work from my chapbook, “A Thirst That’s Partly Mine.” Copies will be available for sale/signing at the reading. Looking ahead a bit, I’m very excited to be doing two (two!) readings in Portsmouth, a town with the most vibrant literary scene you could ask for. I’ll be reading with Paul Rogalus as a part of the Stone Pigeon series at Breaking New Grounds on January 11, and will also be reading as a part of Beat Night at The Press Room on January 21. By January I will probably have a new chapbook available as well — it’s called “Luck,” and it’s forthcoming from Pecan Grove Press. Stay tuned.
My poem "Hunger" with Elizabeth D'Amico's artwork
"Siren"
"(Re)Creation Myth"
"Failed Meditation"
The AVA show was lovely. Here are some photos of my poems mounted next to Elizabeth D’Amico’s pieces.
AVA Gallery Poetry Reading and Gallery Talk
Visual Artist Liz D’Amico and Poet Liz Ahl discuss their collaborative work, which is part of the larger group show, “Fairy Tales, Myths, and Legends,” at the AVA Gallery and Art Center, running through September 12th. Our reading/talk will take place on Wednesday, September 2 from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.
Here’s a link to driving directions:
And here’s the gallery/show:
A great villanelle
Many of my dear readers will immediately recognize the poem which this poem refers to — a famous (THE famous??) villanelle. If you are not in The Poetry Club, here’s a link to the excellent villanelle Whitmarsh is referencing:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212
I’d love to hear from other folks about contemporary villanelles they think are super. (I have SO enjoyed Julie Kane’s work, for instance..)
ONE ART
At ten, I wanted to be a kung fu master
like Bruce Lee, bare-chested, sideways, intent
on hitting my way out of disaster.
In the unmade and unimagined fluster
of being young, I hadn’t yet spent
much time on how to be a kung fu master,
except to watch Lee get meaner, get faster.
He seemed genuinely pissed off, like he meant
to kill every actor, cause real disaster.
They attacked one by one (why?) and the last, or
next-to-last had knives and guns that went
nowhere. “You want some?” (Me, as kung fu master.)
That childhood is now both remote and vaster,
and Lee is a death and a continent
away. He’d already had his disaster
by the time I was watching every gesture –
he kicks, a flip, a scream. It’s evident
why I wanted to be a kung fu master,
as though desire alone could prevent disaster.
