So OK -- apologies for the inexcusable delay in updates. However, in the interim I have moved temporarily to Los Angeles, started work on a crazy new project (see www.DeclareYourself.com) that requires a different take on the whole writing process, re-organized my manuscript, gotten an acceptance from Prairie Schooner (insert incredible excitement here), and started developing the idea for the next book.

So -- there will be a slight shift in focus for the journal as I expand (sorry, sorry, all poetry die-hards I'd promised a poetry-only journal) to include some random observations on life in Los Angeles and then on the road. I will, of course, include as much poetry as possible.

I also made a little web site -- www.geocities.com/martyoutloud -- so I can post pictures and stuff (thanks to the early Christmas present of a digital camera from mom & dad) as well as post show dates etc.

I think this officially brings me into the end of the last century's technology, because all the cool tech kids have their journal, pictures, etc. ad nauseum on the same site. Well, whatever. I'm OK with that.

So in my hands I have "Landscape at the End of the Century" by Stephen Dunn. Oh Stephen, Stephen, you make me wish I were a real poet.

I've been working and thinking and twisting my brain around politics and poetry for years -- but this Declare Yourself project has required me to write more specifically about capital-P politics than ever -- and with an emphasis on the accessible end of the poetic spectrum.

So of course about half of what I've written is actually even within the realm of possibility for use in the show, and the rest has inspired me to think that perhaps the next book of poems will be political in nature, but as abstract and experimental and wierd as I want to be.

It just might work.

And all this supported by Stephen Dunn's fantastic work that manages at once to be overtly political and never didactic, always suprising -- much like Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser (though MR has her speechy moments), etc.

So here's one poem I think may set the tone for a section of the book -- I'm considering undertaking a series of "hero" poems, talking to or about or in some way addressing or dissecting various heroes, expected and unexpected.

*

day in the life

the hero folds. more
than half-mortal, just sinew and gut
like everyone / not fair
he says, the cult of expectation
raging the streets, torches
in hand / not fair. the rubble
of pedestal around his feet
surges, grabs hold, he quiets, waits.

*

the hero's mother is a virgin.
the hero's mother is royalty.
the hero's mother is not his mother.
the hero's mother is a servant.
the hero's father is the king.
the hero's father is a god.
the hero's father is God.
the hero's father is a mystery.

the hero is raised far from his country.
the hero survives an attempt on his life.
the hero is mocked by other children.
the hero is patient.
the hero is quiet.
the hero is confused with someone else.

the hero travels far.
the hero visits the underworld.
the hero visits strange and dangerous places.
temptation taunts the hero.
doubt plagues the hero.
the hero fails.
the hero is at best only partly successful.
the hero succeeds.

the hero returns home.
the hero is perfect.
the hero has a tragic flaw.
the hero dies.
the hero lives forever.

*

Santa Claus is neither hero nor saint. why
start our children out believing
such an obvious lie?
our first belief in the invisible
and beneficent, inevitably disproved --
doesn't bode well for gods
or politicians behind closed doors

*

the hero curses his gift.
the hero has a dark and hidden past.
the hero came from nowhere.
the hero came from a small town in the midwest.
the hero was born in a log cabin in Kentucky.
the hero can't remember.

*

hail hero, full of grace, hail
psychic, priest, fortunecookie, horoscope – absolve us
from responsibility, lift this burden of action

*

the hero takes a nap.
the hero has irregular bowel movements.
the hero cannot have children.
the hero makes an excellent lemon meringue pie.

*

the crowd is at the door, torches in hand. the hero
has been found out. the crowd believed in the hero.
the crowd listened when the hero spoke, ate
what the hero recommended, marched
when the hero said march and when
there was time and it wasn't raining. the crowd
expresses its disappointment in the hero.
the crowd knows it expects too much and doesn't care.
the crowd swears it will never go through this again.

*

the hero calls his mother.
the hero skims the Bible.
the hero checks his horoscope.
the hero checks the locks.

praise the hero and his broken tongue.
praise the soiled dishes in the hero's sink.
praise the sputtering torches and the calls that say come home.
praise the headline smoldering on the hero's porch.
praise the cockroach scuttering across the hero's floor
looking up at the body and moving on.

*

comments welcome! I don't think you can post them to me in any way here, but send them to Marty@louderARTS.com.

Or visit my dippy web site at www.geocities.com/martyoutloud and leave me a message on my guest book!

off to another LA reading -- wish me luck.