Next door, construction workers are adding an addition to our neighbor’s house. It’s been a summer of concrete, two-by-fours, and nail guns. Most recently, the roofing crew arrived. In the heat of July, they appeared last night at 5 p.m. and worked until 9. This morning, they were already on the roof at 7 a.m. My husband and I are fortunate to have a tiny, mother-in-law cottage behind our house, which serves as my husband’s office and man-cave. We make frequent trips across the small backyard during the day, visiting each other with questions or observations or to take care of the mundane minutia of bills to be paid and household chores. Just now, as I crossed back, the 3 men on the roof next door were in a huddle discussing some aspect of the job apparently. They are all Latino and converse entirely in Spanish. As I looked up at them (for how could I not?), their conversation ceased and they simply stared at me as I made my way back into the house.

This little interaction made me wonder: what must they think of us? After all, we are too young to be retired, yet we don’t go to work like most of our neighbors. Do they think me spoiled to be able to leisurely wander about the backyard? Both my husband and I are teachers, and both of us use our summer days to first recuperate from the school year and then to pursue our intellectual interests. When, I watch these men, who are clearly experts at what they do, sweating in the heat radiating up off the tar paper and shingles, a momentary guilt wafts through me.

My brother-in-law is a master automotive electrician. He also rebuilds cars that have been totaled and resells them. His work is dirty and physically taxing, involving long hours crawling underneath and around and inside cars. He give me no end of grief for my teaching schedule. Likewise, when people find out both my husband and I teach, their first comment invariably falls in the realm of “oh wow, you get summers off!” Forgive us if we get a bit defensive, but we aren’t sitting around eating bon-bons and watching soap operas. Yet, how to convince especially those people working blue collar jobs that there is worth in philosophy and poetry?

A poem seems a bit paltry in the face of working 12 hour days trying to feed and house a family. As I contemplate the lives of the men next door, I feel a certain pressure to make these long days of summer count, to not waste my time, and to be grateful for those leisure moments.

Two poems for Independence Day:

Walt Whitman – I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe
 and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
   singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as
 he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or
   at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
   the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows,
   robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Langston Hughes – Let America Be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

A Murmuration of Starlings is Jake Adam York’s second book of poems and winner of the 2007 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry–Open Competition. While I’ve admired York’s poems in journals over the past couple of years, I missed his first book Murder Ballads and plan to go back to that as soon as possible.

The opening poem of A Murmuration of Starlings, “Shall Be Taught to Speak,” begins with the familiar territory of how European Starlings were introduced to America in 1890 in an attempt to populate North America with all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare. However, the poem then makes a dramatic shift to a photograph of a lynching in Arkansas from the same time period. This twining of the images of starlings and racial discord sets the theme for the rest of the book, which is mostly concerned with the Civil Rights era. At first, I thought the poem a bit heavy-handed in the connection; however, on reading the complete book, I have come to appreciate its place.

The rest of the book is wave on wave of poems that circle one of the most painful episodes in our history, poems of Emmet Till, riots, and the Birmingham church bombings. While the poems serve as historical markers, they are transformed by the careful weaving of one extended metaphor that is ever-changing: the starlings as darkness, threat, voice in the face of silence, all the buried secrets that refuse to remain unheard.

With subject matter so laced through with emotion, it is sometimes easy for a poet to let the themes carry the poem, to let technique slip; not York. He is a master of sound and line. He does not rely on hard end-rhymes but nests sounds within lines and then lets them echo throughout the poems, something subtle and haunting.

This is a book heavy with history. Living now in the south, I’m left with the question: How do we rise, phoenix-like, from so much hate?

York’s website offers this about the book:
A Murmuration of Starlings is the second in a projected series of volumes that elegize the martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement.

I inadvertently began this series in the course of composing Murder Ballads when poems about industrial accidents in Alabama’s steel industry lead me into the veins of the state’s racial history, through which I found my way to (or, more properly, back to) the stories of the Civil Rights Movement, particularly the gruesome murders of those whose names are inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. After Murder Ballads was complete, I dedicated myself to extending into a series the poems for the Civil Rights Martyrs, and within about 18 months, I had a series of poems revolving around an exploration of the Emmitt Till murder trial and an exploration of the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson.

Drafts for two new poems. One I feel pretty confident about; the other could go either way. It feels a bit forced. Time always tells.

Also, in the mail, contributor copies from Zone 3, a journal out of Austin Peay State University in Tennessee. Issue 47 contains two of my poems: “Choosing Not to Bear” and “Two Points in Need of an Argument.” I read through the poetry yesterday, and it’s a solid issue with quite a range of talent.

Today, a beautiful rain, light but consistent. No deck-sitting, but a general bluish tint to the world that suggests reading under a good lamp.

This morning I am going to refrain from naming the poet I’ve been reading because I’ve been disappointed in what I’ve read. Several weeks ago, I came across a poem on Poetry Daily or Verse Daily (not sure which) and fell in love with it. I was surprised to find that the author had published 4 books, but I’d never heard of her. I immediately requested all 4 books from my school’s interlibrary loan program. (Thank the stars for libraries and librarians! I could have made the mistake of buying these books on the basis of that one poem.)

Now that I’ve sifted through the 4 volumes, I’m left feeling empty and disappointed. That one poem, which I found in the latest volume, really is a stand-out. The rest seem too easy, too much on the surface of things. I found myself identifying many of the techniques I caution my students against…abstractions, being glib for no reason, being clever with nothing substantial beneath the cleverness. Every once in a while a line or an image would leap from the page, but these occurrences were too few and far between to keep me hooked.

Still, the morning is beautiful and the joy of the laptop is to be writing this post from my deck, watching the sun make its steady progress across the fresh-mown lawn. There is wind in the trees and the wash of snippets of songs from car stereos passing out front. All the windows must be down.

The weather here in Arkansas has been surprisingly beautiful for the middle of June. A run of days with low humidity means mornings spent on the deck listening to the cardinals establish their territories and reading. Today, I read through all the poems in Crab Orchard 13.1. My very favorite poet-friend Tara Bray has 2 outstanding poems there. Along the way, I discovered some names well-known to me with poems that lived up to the reputation (Michelle Boisseau, Andrea England, Paul Gibbons, & Susan Ludvigson), as well as finding some names unfamiliar to me with poems that drowned out the sounds around me (Amorak Huey, Lynne Potts, Lauren Rooker, Angela Rydell, & Maya Jewell Zeller).

I have been absent from the blogging world for the past week while completing a home improvement project. This project left my body tired and aching, but more importantly, it left my mind rinsed clean. At this point, I need about 10 new poems to complete my manuscript, and I feel poised to launch myself into the particular writing mood of generating new work. This is sometimes a scary place to be…facing the white page. It’s not always easy to remember to take up my journal (with slightly beige pages rather than scary, pristine white) and just scribble lines and words and doodles until something coalesces. For me, there is a thin line between letting topics, ideas, images develop on their own and plotting a purposeful theme. The first option is often seen as waiting for the muse/inspiration, while the second can seem forced. If I wait for the muse to inspire a poem, I could be waiting a LONG time; however, if I set out to write a specific poem about X, Y, or Z event, the poem often feels stiff and unnatural. There’s something in between that involves a regular writing schedule and a willingness to be open to whatever’s coming next. And that can be a very exciting place to be.

The number of submissions to lit mags that I’ve sent out in the last 2 days.

The process is quite involved for me. I get out the stack of poems that I consider ready for submission and my stack of lit mags that are currently accepting work. Then, I go through each poem to make sure I’m happy with it and can’t see any more revisions (usually, I find a line or two to tweak along the way). Once the poems are ready, the process of matching the right batch of poems to the right lit mag begins. As I go, I pull up the website of each lit mag and check out previous contributors and double check submission guidelines. Yesterday, I found four that had stopped accepting submissions during the summer. It’s always good to check and re-check, in my opinion. I was pleased to find a growing number of mags accepting electronic submissions. It is such a savings on postage! Having completed all the preparation, I set up a mini-assembly line of folders, envelopes, computer, and printer and then set to work.

I fell behind in making submissions during the spring, so for now, I’m just happy to have gotten the work out there…even though the reality of rejection lurks on the horizon. Until then, I’ll hope for the good news.

Yesterday, a good day for mail.

1. A copy of the new Indiana Review with my poem “Having Been Begotten.” This is one of my favorite newish poems, and I’ve been submitting to IR for over 5 years, so it really is amazing to see my poem in there with Arielle Greenberg, Denise Duhamel, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Gary Soto, and others. The issue also contains a special feature of poems, fiction, and art with a funk aesthetic. I’d recommend it just for that, let alone my work…which, sadly, lacks the funk, being doused in a rural Midwestern sensibility. As always, the production of the journal is top notch.

2. A used copy of Larry Levis’ Elegy. I have often remarked that there are some books/authors that come to us before we are ready for them. This happened to me first with Tolstoy and Anna Karenina. I tried to read this novel in high school and failed to get past page 50. In undergrad, I made it to page 100, but it wasn’t until grad school that I actually finished the book and could see the mastery and mystery of it. Then, there was Charles Wright’s Black Zodiac. My cousin gave it to me when I started grad school, and I couldn’t get into it at all. Luckily, I kept it on my shelf, because two years later I plucked it up and fell head-long into Wright’s meditative lines, which were a window to my own voice. All of that is a long way of saying, I’ve had the same experience with Levis. Only recently did I decide to try again with his work b/c I was looking at titles of poetry books with “elegy” in them. This time, the library copy wasn’t enough. When I read the first few poems, I felt whatever barrier had existed before loosening and suddenly the poems blossomed on the page. Now I have a copy I can write in.

Happy Days!

Rodney Jones’ Salvation Blues collects 100 of his poems from 1985 – 2005. I’ve spent the last couple of days reading the collection straight through, and I’m awash in the arc and scope of two decades of poems. The book leaves me with a clear sense of the progression of the poet, a progression that establishes a clarity of voice and a wisdom gained over years of being fully engaged in the world.

Here is a list of favorites:
A History of Speech
Two Girls at the Hartselle, Alabama, Municipal Swimming Pool
Pastoral for Derrida
The Work of Poets
The Bridge
The End of Communism
A Ride with the Commander
A Whisper Fight at the Peck Funeral Home
A Defense of Poetry
The Attitude
The Language of Love
Rain on Tin