[Writing for Tuscaloosa and Recovery]

Do what you can: that’s the motto.

What did Brian Oliu do when a tornado ripped through his town? Among many, many other things, he put out a call for writing. As a writer himself, he turned to the writers he has known that have lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and asked them to contribute to an eBook of writing about that place. He wanted to distribute the eBook in order to raise awareness and encourage people to donate to relief efforts.

Did he do it as a substitute for volunteering? No he did not. He did it as a supplement to all the hard work that so many people are contributing to the immediate and long-term recovery effort needed in Tuscaloosa. He did it to add to the overall push to rebuild.

And what he gathered is a gorgeous anthology in encomium to a place like no other. The heralds are prize-winning writers, editors of independent presses, widely published poets, and even a few newcomers. (Full disclaimer: I have a short nonfiction piece anthologized, though I would promote this project regardless.) As Brian himself says, “if you have picked up a literary magazine or read one online in the past couple of months you have undoubtedly come across one or more of the names in this anthology.” Furthermore, you can download or read this eBook online for free. But the hope is that you’ll donate something, any amount you can or are willing, in exchange for this testament that is being offered to the strange treasures that can be found in T-Town.

In recent years I have seen countless attacks on the arts, on the humanities, on universities—I have heard people ask, with sincerity, whether fields like creative writing serve any practical purpose. I think this is a resounding answer. People will write, with or without compensation, just as people will continue to read. But here we see that writers will also use their talents in unlikely ways—in service to social needs. They will give—in addition to their money, their time, their bodies, & their hearts—their art to help those in need. Like lawyers working pro bono, nurses volunteering their services, laborers doing construction & demolition, like everyone volunteering, we do what we can. Like this, we rebuild.

I’d like to thank Brian for his work, along with all the contributors. I am proud to be a part of this project.

Tuscaloosa Runs This — an eBook of Tuscaloosa Writers

[Letting the Kids Have Their Fun with a Dead Body]

People don’t like being told to stop enjoying themselves, and that has never been more apparent than in the backlash against the backlash against celebrations over the death of Osama Bin Laden. Yesterday, amidst a cacophony of articles, video clips, & infographics, each competing with each other to better illustrate “how we got him,” perhaps the most pervasive argument was over propriety: was it appropriate to celebrate the death of “Enemy No. 1″?

From that undulating discussion came a startlingly adolescent voice, one scolding the scolders for smugness, for superiority complexes, and for moralism. Take Amanda Marcotte, for example, who in her article, “Bin Laden’s Dead, Let’s Party,” likened yesterday’s naysayers to the Puritans of yesteryear. She, along with many others, saw critique of celebrations as damaging to the American national psyche, which was so desperately close to finding “closure” and, possibly, healing after the attacks of September 11^th. To Marcotte’s credit, she proposed that the same energy be directed into using the event of Osama Bin Laden’s death as a springboard into finally closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, escaping the sinkhole of the war in Iraq, and deescalating a general program of American violence in the name of counter-terrorism.

Though it is easy to admire these proposals, and even agree with some of their tenets, we must also acknowledge their naïveté. First of all, conservative organs everywhere are claiming that Guantanamo and other far more dubious sites are now “vindicated,” since intelligence garnered from their vile interrogations eventually led to Abbottabad. This should go a long way toward slowing the anti-Gitmo campaign. Secondly, any call for this to be a “victory,” as Marcotte dubs it, shows a deep misunderstanding of the broader conflict. Just last week, the bombing of a tourist café in Morocco, linked to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, killed 16 people, and showed, once again, that the tentacles of violence are not contained in even the comprehensible chaos of a battle front. Furthermore, even a cursory study of, for instance, the Algerian War of Independence, will demonstrate that the assassination of a leader will not stop an insurgency movement. Thirdly, regarding Iraq, those of us that have been protesting this war even before it began have always known it was never about Bin Laden, and now that is accepted as a truism, across party lines. This event will not solve a single problem in Baghdad, and may only lead to more.

Still, despite all these concerns, it’s important to remember the main thrust of the Pro-Party Party. There’s the adult version, which is trying to critique critique, without any sense of how it subverts itself. People making these arguments seem to want a democracy without political feedback, even as they deliver it themselves. They seem to think the American social contract doesn’t depend on self-analysis, though they too analyze. Then, of course, there’s the childish version of this complaint, crying out, “let us have our fun!” and which cannot help but betray a hint of anger at knowing it is being scolded fairly. The people making these kinds of arguments often rely on the legitimacy of emotion, as if an emotion were sanction enough for any course of action. It cannot help but smack of a teenager telling his or her parents, “You can’t understand how I feel!”

Of course, this is leaving out all the well-considered and balanced arguments for marking the event of Bin Laden’s death as one of happy relief, but these are few. And even the most carefully crafted defenses of American celebrants still fail to reckon with the simple fact that foolhardy behavior, with or without comment, brings consequences. As news outlets proliferate misrepresentative images of Americans painting the town red-white-n-blue in celebration of an assassination, the rest of the world watches, and the opinions of others do matter. If the obstinate Presidency of George W. Bush didn’t teach us that, the attacks of September 11^th surely must have. To blame it on a single madman is wrongheaded, and to see it as one manifestation of larger disapprovals is only to draw a step closer to the truth. Disregard for the mores of world communities, no matter how alien they may seem, will lead to more violence. Those of us seeking not only to critique the celebrations, but also to reflect to the world a more reserved response to the news—well, many of us are hoping to be one piece of the amelioration between Americans and those who would do us harm.

Still, we must be grateful for the apologists. They are a part of the democratic project, even if they seem to confuse criticism with actual intervention. By engaging in the argument, they enact and prove our right to critique the political behavior of our fellow Americans. They may want us to let them have their fun, but they legitimize our ability to speak by saying so. And even if they didn’t, we should still be ready to let people know when they are putting us all in further danger. Like the villagers in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” when we see kids playing games with a corpse, we should spread the alarm.

[Because Death is Not a Party]

From Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic: Click for the Original Article & Photos

Having had the good fortune to spend several years of my life living abroad, I have, on many occasions, faced a good deal of confusion from friends and acquaintances about American behavior. Stereotypes proliferate, sometimes with good reason, and then media outlets broadcast moments which seem to play most toward American extremism. It has often felt like an uphill struggle to do my part in showing that my country is not simply a nation of trigger-happy cowboys. Today is no different. Osama Bin Laden is dead, and what do people know in France? “The Americans are dancing in the streets!”

I feel it my duty to tell anyone who will listen: many Americans are NOT celebrating, and that the reality is that only SOME Americans are dancing in the streets.

As Alexis Madrigal said in his coverage of the impromptu pep rally that happened last night outside the white house, “I did not think the spontaneous party outside the White House was our finest hour.” I cannot agree with him more wholeheartedly. But it is crucial to say that these celebrants are not representative of the whole. Many of us, at home and abroad, recognize death as a somber event in any form, and do not see any cause for celebration. Many of us are immediately fearful of the reprisals that are sure to come from the death of Osama Bin Laden, and worry about whether he will be martyred, even as his burial at sea was clearly an attempt to avoid the creation of a pilgrimage site around his grave.

I also—personally, though I am not alone in this—question any American who cheers what they see as a victory for freedom. Would not the real triumph have been a fair trial for Osama Bin Laden in an international court of law? I can already hear the hard-liners citing the lack of trial received by the victims of the September 11^th attacks as an excuse. I will remind them that the very foundation of what Americans profess to believe when they pledge allegiance is that of justice, and we have long since dispensed with the Code of Hammurabi. We have traded the draconian justice systems of our forebears in the knowledge that evil does not counter evil, death does not cure death, and that violence only breeds more violence. And this is to say nothing of the fact that the intelligence for this operation originated in the dubious prison at Guantanamo Bay, the one which so many of us, Americans included, have critiqued and asked to be closed.

But let me clarify and return to the principal point. I am not taking this moment to criticize the operation that led to Bin Laden’s death. And, knowing how reactionaries choose to argue, I will go so far as to state what should be obvious: I neither support what Osama Bin Laden has done, nor do I wish he was still at large. What I am is an example of many Americans who see that his death is not an occasion for a party, and a representative of my people who continue to want peaceful solutions for the problems that face us. We are not all warmongers, cowboys, and stockholders in McDonalds. I am heartened to know and share with you that many Americans view today as yet another solemn moment in a long and sad narrative of violence that we would all like to see end in peace.

That’s right, many Americans would like to see the guns put away forever. Many of us prefer to celebrate not death but love.

[Frank Lloyd Wright REDUX]

I’d like to point you in the direction of Flying House—a new organization devoted to collaboration between writing and the visual arts. Check out their page to see details about the annual operations, but also look at the blog, where they will be providing new content throughout the year. I had the good fortune to be asked to contribute an essay to their new series, “House Talk,” which is focused on exploring the places where writing and art come together. My essay, “Frank Lloyd Wright, the Interstate, and the House: A Romance,” attempts to approach several ideas about collaboration and the divisions between the arts by looking to America’s greatest architect. There’s also a healthy dose of loosely related personal anecdote. I hope you enjoy it.

(I have a feeling this will not be my last meditation on Mr. Wright. Consider yourselves warned.)

[Tin House]

I am very excited to share the news that two of my poems appear in the December 2010 issue of Tin House magazine. Last March, on St. Patrick’s Day to be exact, I received a call from Tonaya Thompson, senior editor at TH, asking if “The Prelude After” & “The Crocus Thief” were still available. While I might want to pretend I was nonchalant about the whole thing, I must be honest that I remember jumping around my apartment for a full five minutes before I became aware of much else. TH is exactly the kind of journal that it’s cool to geek out over, & I did. I was so thrilled by the news that a half hour later I realized I could hardly remember any of the details of the conversation! And when, many months later, I received the issue to discover I have the honor of sharing a binding with ADRIENNE RICH (!!!), well I was somewhat beside myself once again.

So the point is that I have been & I am excited. But truth be told, I really want to take a moment to send some gratitude to the kind folks at Tin House. Tonaya, Cheston Knapp, Brenda Shaughnessy, & everyone else—they were all real pleasures to deal with. Yes, we’re only talking about two poems, but it’s always a joy when a great journal turns out to be the creation of lovely people. (As an aside, they also happen to run an excellent indie publishing press as well. I recommend checking it out.)

Of course, I hope you’ll go find my poems in the new issue of the magazine. You can get your hands on Tin House pretty easily in most Barnes & Noble stores, not to mention many cool independent book shops. Take a look. Support the journal by buying a copy if you like it. Besides my work, there’s 200+ pages of quality magazine there—of which I’m proud to be a part.

Click on the image & you’ll get whisked over to the “Current Issue” section of the Tin House website.

[Have Fun in Romania]

In March of 2009, my good friend and colleague, Brian Oliu, came to visit me in Brasov, Romania, where I was spending a year teaching via the US Fulbright Program. Early into Brian’s visit, we knew that this would be the kind of shared experience that we needed to do something with, something more than the snapping of some photos, the writing of some facebook status updates, and the reminiscences we were bound to share whenever we met again for the indefinite future.

After just a few days, we decided that we needed to turn the events transpiring into an occasion for collaborative writing. What better way to remember than to create something lasting of this trip? If I remember correctly, the first ideas were hatched on a shoddy train running through the north of the country. It took us months, long after Brian had returned to Alabama, and even after I had left Romania, to finish the project, but the process felt as much a journey as the train ride where I recall us laying down the groundwork for it. And the result found a way for us to work through our understandings of the mountains, beer, ubiquitous techno, bowling, karaoke, trains & more trains, superstition, ethnic television programing, expat French folk, pork, pollution, women, and, of course, vampires we met along the way.

We have named the collaboration, “Have Fun in Romania.” I’m happy to announce that a selection from these lyric essays have now been published and can be read online in Super Arrow #3. My thanks to the editor of Super Arrow, Amanda Goldblatt, for taking the pieces, and thanks to Brian for being a great friend and excellent collaborator.

I also recommend you take the time to check out the rest of Super Arrow #3, which features fresh & lively poetry, prose, & art, but also a sizable section devoted to collaborations! (Among the collaborators is another friend & favorite of mine, MC Hyland of Double Cross Press.  She wins on both talent and kindness.)  Super Arrow is an interesting new(ish) journal that we can expect to continue to do exciting things in the future.  I, for one, look forward to following it; I hope you will too.

[I took the image above in Brasov and it remains one of my favorite illustrations of the kinds of surprising juxtapositions I became accustomed to in Romania.]

[A Sunday in God-Years]

I’m happy to say that my review of A Sunday in God-Years, by Michelle Boisseau, is published in the latest issue of PLEIADES: A Journal of New Writing. Volume 30.2 has plenty of great work in it, as usual, and it’s certainly a pleasure to be printed in the same pages as many of these writers (Sherman Alexie!). It’s a particular pleasure to have my review appear just after one from my friend, the amazing B.J. Hollars. Incidentally, he also has a review of Bigfoot appearing today on 300 Reviews.

While I always enjoy the work in PLEIADES, I especially enjoyed this issue’s opening poem, “Sisyphus” by Jay Leeming.  Yes, it’s true, I take a bit of a shining toward anything sisyphean, but this poem delivers more than your standard mountain & boulder routine.  There is the rock, of course, and the incline, and Leeming primes us for an event by starting the poem at what we should expect to be the zenith!–at the moment when the speaker is about to collapse.  And what a wonderful moment it is: “…my whole body shakes / like a struck bell…”  (I won’t quote further, because it’s a short and excellent poem that deserves to be read on the page, but I had to share that resonant image as soon as I read it.)  Without spoiling the development of the poem, I’ll say something more: unlike the motion of many rewrites of the myth of Sisyphus, where the plummeting of the stone signals a descent back into hell, Leeming’s poem presents a descent back into life!  Joy, communion, celebration!  A deft reversal, and done in ways to which my description serves little justice.  The point is that I love the poem, and I am happy to see it lead off my contributor’s copy.

You can find PLEIADES available in cool bookstores, and even some not so cool ones.  Give it a gander, should you find the opportunity.

[Goodbye Tuscaloosa]

After five years – excepting a few interruptions – of living and writing in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I have recently made my farewells.  To say I learned more there than I ever could have expected would be like saying the place gets a bit warm in summertime.  I don’t mean just that it would be understatement, or obvious, but also that, like summer heat in Alabama, my body has never quite fully acclimated to the idea, the sensation.  On some (naïve) level, I really expected to learn to write in Alabama, but come and go from the place untouched otherwise.  Who knows if I’ve really learned to write any better than I could already manage back when I was trying to be hip in Brooklyn?  It is clear, though, that I’m not the same human who drove into Druid City, worried about my level of pork consumption and thinking of the people I loved only to leave behind.  In many cases that change is a good thing.  In some cases it is not.

But I owe Tuscaloosa.  It gave me music, friendship, and love, to say nothing of the constant challenges that made me stronger.  I also learned things I truly dislike about the American South, as well as how cheap, easy attacks from outsiders who never come to experience the region are many times uglier than most of what happens beneath the Mason-Dixon.  Tuscaloosa has become family: I know its faults but it’s difficult to tolerate critique from outside a certain nucleus.  

And let’s be honest, I have grown as a writer.  In fact, it’s hard to imagine many places better for writers to develop.  I was continually surrounded by inspiring peers; I had the benefit of mentors who could help me step beyond myself in my work; I had time!  Space!  We all talk about community when it comes to the arts, but how often do we find it?  Tuscaloosa has it for writers, if they are willing.  In my own way, I drank it up for five years, and some of the relationships I built as an artist will serve me so long as I continue writing.  As I shall.

But for now, it’s goodbye, Tuscaloosa.  I have no doubt that it will remain close in my thoughts for quite a long time, and I am sure that this short piece will come nowhere near to concluding what I have left to write about it.  But I’m moving on to the next test, the next crucible. 

“Be safe – Keep Your Mind on the Job”

[Civic Space? The Pedestrian Thoroughfare]

You don’t have to be as batty as Frank Lloyd Wright to give a damn about how we use public space or to care about how we design our communities.  And I’m certainly not about to start preaching the democracy of architecture, the politics of design (though maybe of aesthetics), or the hegemony of stucco.  Still, I do think it’s important to think critically about the spaces we inhabit, the ways we use them, and what they tell us about our society.  As such, I’ve written a review of “The Pedestrian Thoroughfare” that I hope you’ll find the time to read.

Of course, there are more and better critics of public space out there, so it’s worth some further reading if you’re interested in the subject.  As for myself, I really owe my thinking on the subject to brief introductions by my friend and former colleague Wendy (thanks, Wen!).

Now everyone get out there and WALK!

[Conan O'Brien Explodes Brains]

I’m not a big watcher of television these days, though I had my share of binging when I was a kid.  I still sometimes watch TV dramas in DVD form (or lately, via Netflix streaming), but I just can’t sit down and watch serials on a weekly or even nightly basis.  If anything, I’d rather watch film.  Or bread rise.  Or a picture of a mushroom cloud.  Or stuffed two-headed hen chicks under glass.

But this week I was pulled out of my regular preferences by the debacle in NBC late night programming.  I think most people have heard enough to know the basics of the story, but if you need to catch up, it’s described just fine in this article from Reuters.  What I’m more interested than the controversy (I’ve always loved Conan O’Brien, since I was a teenager, so there was never any question in my mind about who to “support”) is twofold: 1.) I can’t help but feel that comedy reaches its funniest moments right when it approaches a breaking point; and 2.) I’m impressed by Conan’s ability to fully exploit the power of tonal shifts from slapstick to serious in order to say something meaningful.

In terms of the latter point, it was refreshing, even in the midst of some of the funniest moments in Conan’s career, to hear the comedian take a break from gags to thank his supporters and offer a bit of advice to the young people among them.  Hearing Conan plead with people to avoid cynicism will probably be something I remember for the rest of my adult life.  Just because he is still walking away from NBC will many millions of dollars doesn’t mean that he should be content with the situation — he had every opportunity to be negative.  Instead, he chose to exploit the moment to say something positive, and something valuable for people to hear.  People under less pressure have behaved with less grace than Conan did in his final show.

To finish on my first point of interest, though, I would like to think a bit about the comedy specific to Conan’s last week with the Tonight Show.  Anyone familiar with the late work of comedian Bill Hicks will know that as a comic, something changed when he was diagnosed with cancer.  His final album, Arizona Bay, slices with a razor so sharp, even for a comedian known for being “edgy.”  It’s hard to explain, but when things got desperate, he became even funnier.  In similar fashion, the late stand-up routines of David Chappelle just before his breakdown also cross into new territory.  Now granted, Conan isn’t dying, and he doesn’t seem in any danger of a psychological crisis.  But again, I could not help but feel the same energy at work, where an emotional peak on the horizon pushes the jokes to work in a way they simply couldn’t without that looming desperation.  I would prefer that Conan would remain on as the host of the Tonight Show, but I have to guess that even with another decade as host, he never would have reached the heights of hilarity that he scaled in rapid succession this week.