poem: “A Stone (ouch)”

The poem, “A Stone,” appears at Wise Owl, their Daily Verse feature, 28 April 2025.

I couldn’t figure out a way to link directly to “A Stone,” so I’ll just have to recommend following the link and scrolling down to 28 April. 

You might notice I put “ouch” in parentheses next to the title in the heading for this post. I decided to title a number of similar poems “A Stone,” so I will add a distinguishing word beside the title sometimes. Why don’t I just use a different title? I’ve seen other poets do something similar — Frank O’Hara titling many of his poems “Poem,” for instance. When “Poem” is referred to elsewhere it needs help with identification. “Poem (lousy).” “Poem (anthology piece).” 

working an idea

I have an idea. I am experiencing ideation. 

Am I ideating? Do people like to ideate?

Ideas. Where do they come from? One is probing my noodle right now.

I think it wants to use me for its own purposes. Or perhaps it wants to escape my head.

I don’t think the idea is mine. I think it is on its own, seeking someone to use.

But what is it, exactly? What am I experiencing? I close my eyes. But my eyes won’t stay closed. I could continue to write with my eyes closed. I try it briefly, and I don’t make it to the end of the sentence before the eyes pop open. They see what they already knew would be there. But what if what was there was the idea that is seeking a vehicle for expression?

I have had ideas that want to be used. Some of them want to be abused. Is that when I am ideating — when I am thwacking an idea with a switch?

I would ideatize. I shouldn’t be so abstract. I should idealate. I could stand on a chair and be a concrete detail, my feet in socks on the slippery vinyl seat. I could also call upon my ideativity, raise a horn to my lips and blow. The vibration of the sound makes my lips itch.

What’s the idea?  I suppose it is open, that I am scooping into its resistant flesh. If I look closely enough, perhaps with the right peering equipment, I will descry the operating mechanism or the operating principle. Perhaps I will see its song, the vibrato making it a blur.  

Zooming for Autobiography of a Book

Sunday 2/23, 1-2pm PST I will be taking part in a Zoom event to get some more notice for Autobiography of a Book. Jefferson Nawicky is the host. Steve Arntson, a friend and fellow poet in the SF Bay Area scene, will be interviewing. I will read from Autobiography of a Book and give long looping (and maybe sometimes loopy) answers to whatever questions Steve asks. I hope you can join us — you don’t even have to leave the house!

Follow THIS LINK to register. 

a review in Rain Taxi of Autobiography of a Book

A review of Autobiography of a Book appears in the new issue of Rain Taxi. 

Reviewer Mike Bove calls “Autobiography of a Book, an inventive, fun, and wildly philosophical reading experience.” 

Book asks a lot of questions “and gradually it becomes clear that Book itself, the protagonist and narrative voice, is asking because it really wants to know: What does it mean to exist, and how is life lived?”

Bove also takes note of the book’s design:

“Autobiography of a Book begins with bright white type on black pages that slowly lighten to gray, mirroring the darkness of non-existence from which Book gradually emerges. About halfway through, the pages are light enough to warrant a shift from white type to black. Appropriately enough, Book’s first works in black type are “I am alive.” From here the pages continue to lighten, and by the time the book concludes, they are fully white, signaling Book’s achievement of existence, total and complete.”

Read the rest at Rain Taxi.

Process Notes for Autobiography of a Book

Maw Shein Win edits a column called “Process Notes” for Periodicities, an online magazine about poetry. 

Each month Maw lines up a poet to talk about their new book, how they came to write it, the way they went about it, etc. When she asked me to contribute a note about writing Autobiography of a Book, Maw said the column focused on poetry, and Autobiography of a Book is prose, but she thought it was poem-like and was curious to read a discussion of my process. 

This is the first paragraph of my process note:

When Book came to me several years ago, it came to me the way my poems often do, with a little idea that, when I hit the keyboard, began to play, and the more it played itself through me, the more that little idea turned out to have different facets, different approaches, even different rules. That’s how poetry works for me, as play. Even when the poem addresses a serious topic, I engage playfully. Poets are supposed to learn all the rules before they break them, or so the advice goes, and in classes I did dutifully bang away at sonnets, iambic pentameter, all that. But counting stresses me out. Some claim that for them constraints are freedom. But shackling myself with preconceived notions does not liberate my mind. English by itself, I always say, is a constricting form. And so, poetry. I wouldn’t be writing poetry if poetry meant strict rhyme and meter. For me, poetry means experimentation, investigation, invention, play. That’s freedom.

You can read the rest at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics. 

pledge break

Richard Loranger, an Oakland poet and friend, sent out an ask for A New Pledge, something to update the hand-over-heart salute to the flag you remember from grade school. This is the one I offered:

I pledge allegiance to the love

that gets us through the night,

and to the compassion

that lends a hand,

even to the hate-filled and ignorant,

and to such friendship freely offered

as brings together

work of justice and play of freedom

forever, for all

*****

I still have the old pledge memorized, so the words and the rhythms of it were called up. The other night, lying in bed, a first line came, then a second, and so on. Rare that I write a poem in my head and then go to the page. 

Read the growing page of pledges at I Need a New Pledge. Richard says he will continue to add to it as pledges are sent to him.