Stan Lombardo Mesmerizes Raven Bookstore Patrons

Stanley Lombardo continues to publish readable translations of classical literature. His Iliad and Odyssey are vivid translations that emphasize dramatic storytelling. Ronald Myers descrbes his translation style as “minimalist and colloquial.” As a translator, Lombardo becomes the element of Mercury—a perfect catalyst who transforms one language to another, without drawing attention to himself. He returns these works to performance origins.

Lombardo performed selections from Dante’s Inferno at the Raven Bookstore (www.ravenbookstore.com ) Feb. 12 to a packed house. No one made a sound for the hour-long presentation, and the corner street musician’s saxophone was distant accompaniment. Lombardo punctuated the reading with a hand drum for ending points—unobtrusive emphasis. Also, he kept an almost subliminal beat as he voiced the lines. He spoke the beginnings in Italian, and then switched to English.

Here, from the net, is his opening:

Midway through the journey of our life
I found myself within a dark wood,
for the straight way had now been lost.
Ah, how hard it is to describe that wood,
a wilderness so gnarled and rough
the very thought of it brings back my fear.
Death itself is hardly more bitter;
but to tell of the good that I found there
I will speak of the other things I saw.

I cannot say just how I entered that wood,
so full of sleep was I at the point
when I abandoned the road that runs true.
But when I reached the foot of a hill
That rose up at the end of the valley
Where fear had pierced me through to the heart,
I lifted my eyes and saw its shoulders
already bathed in the light of that planet
that leads us straight along every path.
This calmed a little the lake of my heart
that had surged with terror all through the night
that I had just spent so piteously.

Ordering information: Dante. Inferno. Translated by Stanley Lombardo. Introduction by Steven Botterill. Notes by Anthony Oldcorn. 512 pp. Hackett Publishing Co. P.O. Box 44937, Indianapolis, IN 46244-0937. Audio versions are also available.
http://www.hackettpublishing.com/detail.php?_d=eMXuRY7o2I1J2VbXRha507TNjvh9K5FtWBa5d8Stwqc%3D

Lombardo has lived in Lawrence since 1976. He joined the University of Kansas Classics Department after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Texas-Austin. He has been an administrator—chair of the Classics Department and Director of the University of Kansas Honors Program. He is a serious practitioner of billiards and Kuan Um School of Zen Buddhism.

Iowa Poet Robert Dana Dies Feb. 6, 2010

I first met RP when he was a visiting writer at Wichita State University, early 1980s, through G. Barnes,a great promoter of the arts. He said I had to meet this guy, and we found him at an after-class party at a student's apartment. He was fun, witty, smart, and happy. I wanted to be like him, so I continued to read poetry.

He also read at the University of Kansas at the same time, and it was memorable. He discussed the works of Richard Hugo and his recent death. He read a delightful found poem from a camping catalogue about the pleasures of zipping together sleeping bags. Not long after, I attended my first Associated Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference, and over the years of those reading-eating-chatting-dancing fests, I joined Dinners with Dana. Usually I would fast and save my per diem for the one ultimate meal at a restaurant he pre-selected. He was a personage, and I have warm memories of him from our meetings. He was generous and threw great parties for his AWP friends. Wife Peg's parents live in Lawrence, so I had the chance to meet them occasionally at the Eldridge for drinks. These are cherished memories.

Most of all, though, when I heard he had died, I regretted he will write no more poetry. My first thought was this loss.

I'll reprint part of a review I wrote about his 2004 book The Morning of the Red Admirals (Anahinga Press), to illustrate my appreciation for his work (the full review is at http://www.kcstar.com/ ):


"Robert Dana’s fifteenth book of poems is iconoclastic. “Part of the poet’s task was to break the rules of language, to free it from the burdens of its history, thus acknowledging that history and revivifying it,” he writes in Ploughshares (1991). That paradox lies at the heart of his own poetics. He chooses words with full awareness of their etymology and then realigns them into present-time currency. He procreates poems with fossilized words, as in “Garden Fable”:
Aristoxenus, the Hedonist,
watered his lettuce with wine
and honey, knowing the difference
between nothing and something
is not just something, but some-
thing special . . . . (19)
The transformation of the commonplace into ecstatic, koan moments of understanding— “something special”—through word spells is the gift of this poet. How wonderful to revive the name of this nearly forgotten Greek author who wrote about excesses of Persian kings (in Bíos Archyta). Dana goes on to include related classical words such as “conundrum” and “sluicing,” alongside Anglo-Saxon, fist-like words like “sodden,” “gutters,” “scrape,” “pelts” and “drays.” And perhaps this mixture of measured Latinate terms amongst the workaday old English is what makes another level of paradox in American English poetics, the tension between the civilized and the blunt. Finally, after the word duels, at the end of the poem we are in Iowa, the storm vanished, the sun forming a “sheen.” All poems resolve in transformed solids of this world."

ROBERT DANA LINKS TO INTERVIEWS, READINGS, VIDEOS

Cornell college page with video
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://news.cornellcollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dana-300x240.jpg&imgrefurl=http://news.cornellcollege.edu/2009/04/20/an-evening-with-robert-dana/&usg=__SIDYpVptM4EST2XcXOv4k9x5izA=&h=240&w=300&sz=22&hl=en&start=7&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=e7SKOJDAOcFZjM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522Robert%2BDana%2522%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1

Prairie Lights Bookstore readings
http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/vwu&CISOPTR=806&CISOBOX=1&REC=2

http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/vwu&CISOPTR=1271&CISOBOX=1&REC=20

Weber Studies interview with Guy Wade Lebeda
http://weberstudies.weber.edu/archive/archive%20D%20Vol.%2021.2-25.2/Vol.%2022.3/Lebeda%20Dana%20Con.htm

Boundoff MP3 file of reading
http://boundoff.com/?page_id=12

Anhinga Press website and book ordering information
http://www.anhinga.org/books/poet_info.cfm?poet_name=Robert%20Dana


Order 30 min. reading/interview with New Letters on the Air, July 2008 or 1980
http://www.newletters.org/ontheair_orders.asp

Joseph P. Wood and Clancy Martin read in Lawrence Jan. 23

Clancy Martin is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His first novel, How to Sell, was released in May from Firar, Straus, & Giroux, and will be translated into five languages. His fiction also has appeared in journals such as NOON, 5_Trope, and Parakeet. He has authored, translated, edited several books on 'existential' philosophy. He lives somewhere near Kansas City with his wife, three daughters, and 4 toy poodles.

He read 3 narratives, both fictive and memoir, although the verisimilitude was such that all sounded equally plausible. He writes about family life with precision--not always pretty, but always compelling. He took me back to the intensity of parenting, the primal, critical times when someone's life was in my hands.

Joseph P. Wood is the author of the forthcoming collection of poems, I & We (CW Books), and of five chapbooks, including the forthcoming Gutter Catholic Love Song (Mitzvah Chaps), Urgency (Cannibal Books) and A Severing (Cinematheque Press). New poems can be found in BOMB, Boston Review, Cannibal, Hotel Amerika, Poetry London, Sycamore Review, Verse, among others. He teaches at the University of Alabama, co-edits Slash Pine Press, and coordinates the Slash Pine Poetry Festival.

Wood started out as a normal guy but shifted into overdrive for a performance stabilized by rocking and regular intakes of breath. He started with a story about his Italian grandfather, a roofer, who fell into a vat of hot tar & died at age 35. This and references to culture were embedded within sheets of images and syntax. It created its own web, and it is hard to pull out single pieces to describe.

Pamela Alexander's SLOW FIRE is a poetry find.

At my local used bookstore last week, Dusty Bookstore, I found a 2007 copy of Pamela Alexander's latest book of poetry, her fourth (Ausable Press). Her name seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place her. The biography on the back cover says she won the Yale Younger Poets prize and was nominated for a Pulitzer. She now teaches at Oberlin. The "glamour shot" author's photo was not glamorous: It shows her in a parka and headband on a mountain--pretty disguised. But the poetry was not camouflaged. It was stunning, like the first stanza of "What the Trail Says":

First, prepositions. Up, alongside,
under. Then noun: rock,
tree. Lizard.

Sentences take time. (p. 30)

I also like her ability to take my mind on a carnival ride with just a few phrases, like the first line of "Sonoran": "Sky tilts, the south enlarges." She also has one of the best jazz poems I've ever seen, "Couple at the Club," which begins:

The bass goes it alone. The bass goes
by subway. The trumpet shines and swerves,
yellow taxi breaking from the light.

There is more. This poet has been biding her time, spending time in Ontario as well as Ohio, and developing her own voice at her own pace--four books in 25 years. This is a poet.

AD ASTRA POETRY PROJECT #43: ROBERT DAY (1941 - )

Robert Day is best known as a masterful prose writer. His novel Last Cattle Drive is a classic of contemporary American frontier literature. Less well known is the fact that Day received his M.F.A. from the University of Arkansas in poetry writing. The grace of his style indicates serious study of language. Whether he writes essays, articles, novellas, or poetry, he understands aesthetics of style—balance, invention, and timing.

In “Teal Hunting with Two Old Uncles,” season and place are clear. The poem’s speaker has an easy assurance, inviting readers into his low-key drama. The young narrator contrasts with older uncles, as he performs the heavy work of sodding the duck blind. The early autumn day reflects the uncles’ mellow old age concerns of storytelling and casual drinking. For them, their weapon of choice is a “rolled up” magazine. They create their own oral history compendium, a parallel to the magazine, as the young hunter goes about business. Years later, like the uncles, the narrator remembers exactly what he shot on that trip, the “Blue wings” and “Cinnamon.” With his uncles, he becomes like “old hunting dogs loaded with dreams,” not so concerned with the hunt for meat as for the distillation of memories into fine narratives.

TEAL HUNTING WITH TWO OLD UNCLES
September’s never cold enough for ducks and whiskey.

I shoot in Tee-shirt and moccasins

as green wings hustle from pond to pond

in the yellow morning.

My uncles miss chances, drinking
on the bench deep in the blind

swapping stories about Cheyenne Bottoms

and Snow Geese bigger than the moon.

In the afternoon I work shirtless, laying

strips of sod on the blind’s roof,

careful as my mother tiling her kitchen counter.

My uncles sit on campstools whacking at wasps

with rolled up Ducks Unlimited.

That evening I shot two limits: Blue wings

came in low over the decoys. I dropped

a lone Cinnamon at sundown. My uncles

napped on their bench, twitching.

Like old hunting dogs loaded with dreams.

______________________________________

Education: Robert Day received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in English (University of Kansas 1964, 1966) and M.F.A (University of Arkansas-Fayetteville 1970). Career: Day has published We Should Have Come by Water (Mammoth 2009), The Committee to Save the World (Western Books 2009), Speaking French in Kansas (Cottonwood Press 1989), and The Last Cattle Drive (Putnam 1977). He taught at Fort Hays State University, Washington College in Chestertown, Iowa Writers Workshop, University of Kansas, and Montaigne College, The University of Bordeaux.
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©2010 Denise Low AAPP 43 ©2010 Robert Day “Teal Hunting with Two Old Uncles”

John Hoppenthaler Curates Women's Poetry for Connotation Press

In 2009, Publisher’s Weekly excluded women from its list of Top Ten Books. This inspired John Hoppenthaler to edit a special collection of women’s poetry for online journal Connotation Press http://http//www.connotationpress.com/index.php/a-poetry-congeries-with-john-hoppenthaler/january-2010/252-a-poetry-congeries-with-john-hoppenthaler-january-2010

This issue features Maxine Kumin and Alicia Ostriker; I am honored to have poems in this e-zine (http://connotationpress.com/index.php/a-poetry-congeries-with-john-hoppenthaler/january-2010/257-denise-low-poetry), along with Claudia Emerson (Pulitzer Prize), Fleda Brown (former Del. Poet Laureate), Annie Finch (founder of WOM-PO, the Discussion of Women’s Poetics listserve), Allison Joseph, Janice Harrington, Lola Haskins, Amy Newman, Martha Rhodes, Maureen Seaton, Erinn Batykefer, Joni Wallace, and Anna Akhmatova. Please visit this website, and many thanks to John for his “Poetry Congeries-January 2010.”

See Legendary Harley Elliott in a Rare KC Area Performance

Harley Elliott is one of the most influential Kansas-Great Plains area poets and writers. He has published 20 books, including publications with Hanging Loose Press, Crossing Press, Juniper, and Woodley. He seldom reads or performs outside of Salina, his hometown. Jan. 22 & 23 Bride of Actors' Ensemble presents: "Easy Writers Harleys Elliott & Marshall in Born To Be Mild" 8 pm at the YWCA of Greater Kansas City, Ks at 6th & State. The Ensemble writes: "Experience the heart-wrenching story of identical twins named Harley--born four moths apart, kidnapped by gypsies and forced to write poetry and stuff--who have been reunited at last. What are the odds? This is heavy. And funny too." For reservations, call 913-371-1105.

Poetry Animations Are Worth a Look!

Hi, the latest techno-gizmo for poetry is animation of poet photographs to make it appear that they are talking, so we can have Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and others appear to speak their poems. Here's the You-Tube link:

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1MWYAJbWs

AD ASTRA POETRY PROJECT # 42: STEPHEN MEATS (1944 - )

Stephen Meats was born in LeRoy, Kansas, and raised in Concordia. Foremost of his contributions to Kansas literary culture is his service as poetry editor of Midwest Quarterly. In that role he has curated special issues of regional poetry, including one devoted to the first Kansas poet laureate Jonathan Holden. He is able to fulfill this poet’s poet role because of his own fine verse. His book Looking for the Pale Eagle is a rare poetry best seller—the first printing sold out quickly.

This poem “My Advice” gives directions for enjoying the countryside of Kansas. Meats describes a typical prairie road—not spectacular, but small joys unfold He suggests that his readers stop and collect “chat,” or roadbed gravel, to reposition at home. The reflective moment of collection is when sky, birds, and landscape are noticed. The rock is for remembering that moment. Like stone soup, after the recipe is complete, the stone can be discarded. As a catalyst, its purpose is fulfilled. Poems are like such stones.

My Advice

You say you want to find yourself. You’ll need
a piece of gravel. Drive any rocked road
in Kansas and you’ll hear pieces by the dozen

knocking in your wheel wells. For once, stop
and get out of the car. Take a minute to look
at the sky—flat bottomed clouds shadowing

the pastures. You’ll hear the meadowlark
on the fence post before you see him fly.
Pick up your piece of gravel. If you’re far

off the main route, a handful of chat, or even
road sand will do. Cup it in your palm while your
tires hum away the miles on the asphalt highway.

Warm it in your pocket as you drink your coffee
at the café counter in the next town, and stay
a while to look at the faces and listen to the talk.

Then take it home with you and right away
put it in your garden or your flower box or drop
it in the driveway. It doesn’t really matter
You’ve already got your answer.

Education: Stephen Meats attended Kansas State University for three years before transferring to the University of South Carolina, where he earned his bachelor’s (1966), master’s (1968), and doctoral degrees in English (1972).
Career: Meats is University Professor and English Department Chair Pittsburg State University. Since 1985, he has been poetry editor of The Midwest Quarterly. Meats has published Looking for the Pale Eagle (Woodley Press, 1993). His poetry, articles, and fiction appear in Kansas Quarterly, The Little Balkans Review, Albatross, The Quarterly, The Laurel Review, Blue Unicorn, Tampa Review, Arete, Hurakan, Flint Hills Review, Prairie Poetry, Dos Passos Review, and others.
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©2009 Denise Low AAPP 42 ©2008 “My Advice,” Stephen Meats, in Dos Passos Review