Why Did I wait for Summer?

Having known the sheer joy of winning a World Series makes the situation with my beloved White Sox even worse. If I were a fan of the woebegotten Cubs and I could understand this blundering mess but these are the White Sox. Most of the players were on our Championship team and we got swept- in the Cell- by the Cubs.

Most people outside Chicago do not understand the difference between Cubs Fans and Sox Fans. If you are an optimist you are a Cubs fan- wait till next year fun in the Sun- clean sidewalks. If you are a Sox fan you are pessimist, after my leg is chopped off in the smelter I will have a beer and get liver cancer and then go home to my little house. Sox fans however have something that Cubs fans do not they are really thick skinned and thick bodied. I wish in my heart I could be one of the pretty people at the shrine in Lakeview but I am too dark and too thick for that.

I have to say that I looked forward to this season- a year away from our championship- we won 90 games last year and looked good in spring training. But why do I waste my time watching this team? Why do I listen on the radio and why do I continue? Because of Luke Appling. Luke Appling, the greatest White Sox shortstop ever- from a franchise that produced Chico Charesequel, Luis Aparicio and Ozzie Guillen was the only reason Sox fans went to Comiskey Park in the 1930's and 40's. He played his hardest everyday for a terrible team. In the end it is because Sox fans are stoic and we like our pain quiet that I remain loyal and I think of Luke Appling hitting 388 for a team in 4th place. I think of my first game- meeting Bill Veeck and
I abide in my fandom.

Misogyny and Manliness

Being masculine is not something that is held up as a virtue today.

The reality is that being masculine has become a parody of itself. A parody of Iron John or ESPN or male bonding and as far away from the kind of thing that truly is masculine.

In feminist circles there has been a rediscovery of the Goddess. The Goddess is an essential human thing that has been ignored or crushed by our society in the west for a long time. It comes out of course in the person of say Mary the Virgin or Shakespeare but in the end it is the Feminist scholars who have resurrected this reality for us.

But among men and in discussing the spirituality of Masculinity we get mostly garbage. A few attempts have been made. Robert Bly and his Iron John tried but became parody. On the right there is allot of talk about Masculinity but it usually ends up in Misogyny or ourright woman hatred. So where we we go to reclaim our Mithras as the Women are reclaiming their Cybele or Isis?

In my life I have had great Male role models who were masculine but never misogynists and who have been guides for me. I think that we as men need to look to models like the ones I have seen.

I am working on a new book of poems that are about and around Leni Reifenstahl and her work. Nazism is the best manifestation of Misogyny and Homo Erotic Manlove that has ever existed. Reifenstahl is the best example of this aesthetic. What becomes evident in her work is that the men are masculine but never caring, they are models but never warm. Reifenstahl's men are to real males as drag queens are to real women, they are in fact false parodies.

This is kind of like the masculinists I see today in our world. Some Harvard professor wrote a book Manliness- it made me sick. When I think I masculiness I think about the soldiers of World War I and in particular my Great Grandfather Emanuele Guerra. He was an Alpino and Italian mountain soldier and after he was captured by the Austrians he was put in a cement cell where one of his hands froze off. I also think about someone like Vladimir Horowitz a craftsman who was fine in all he did. Husbandry, Craft, Stoicism, Solidity these are male virtues that are in fact the opposite of the parody. In the end the parody is oppression. The doltish stupid beer swilling woman hater at hooters is wrong and we Males have allowed it to florish because we are weak and because we refuse to be uncomfortable.

Evil

After a reading last night by Mark Tardi and Stefania Heim a bunch of us went out and one of the myriad of discussions was about evil- and can it exist? Simone Muench asserted that to have evil you need a God creation and you need to have the kind of world-view that allows for mysticism and the spiritual as active forces.

I may be very Medieval but I think that evil and good are tied together in the same way that flesh is filled with cells. It may sound very Gnostic but
without the Ascetic imperative all of life becomes weakness. While I myself am a very bad ascetic- in fact I can be a glutton-it is the imperative of the ascetic that stands in the face of evil and makes things clean.

I have always been moved by the Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 2nd and 3rd Centuries in Egypt. Antony of the Desert who was one of the first Monks talks about going to one's Cell an wrestling with evil and that in that silence we face God and are purified. The kind of asceticism that Antony felt was important is not valued in American culture. We are good at 'playing' buddhist or listening to the lauds in our homes but we are not very good and denying the flesh
to purge ourselves and see what could be gained from a lack of softness. We are in fact a soft people. Our religion, the Evangelical variety or banal Catholic is a religion of the soft and the accomodated.

It is out of the Ascetic Imperative before evil that greatness arises. In the 2-3rd Centuries the Monks of the Desert stood silently against Rome and persecution with this asceticism. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Kabbalists, the Sufis and the Franciscans all with the same motives but different expressions stood against evil and created out of a hard time glories. These ascetic
responses are remembered but who today remembers the exploits of Crusaders or Saracens? But everyone knows who Isaac Luria, St Francis or Rumi are. In the 19th century in America the Shakers, the Abolitionists, the Knights of Labor and more stood in ascetic witness against evil and made a change. And in our times Martin King, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Charles De Foucould, Mother Teresa, did the same. Asceticism before evil.

It was argued that Evil may be the result of brain dysfunction.

I am not so sure that we can let those who allow systemic evil and who take advantage of their lack of empathy off that easily. Can we dismiss the Genocide in Darfur as the result of brain problems or trauma done to the perpetrators? I think in the end without Evil there is no place for Metanoia.

That is the key is it not?

Metanoia, a profound change of heart, is essential for any prophetic voice before evil. All too often banality and vapidity are accepted. We do not challenge people to have a Metanoia. Gandhi was the biggest proponent of this he said that if one faces evil and creates a tension with evil and forces evil to look at itself good has won. What Gandhi wanted was to create in his oppressors a change of heart without evil Gandhi's project was a fools errand but it worked how do we explain that?

The End of the Sopranos

David Chase the creator of the Soprano's was born David De Cesare-he felt it was neccessary to succeed in Hollywood not to have an Italian name.

I mention this because this Sunday is the last new episode of the Sopranos. It immediately becomes a hacknied thing when Italian Americans complain about our portrayal in American culture. The fact that two supreme court justices, CEOs, Poets, Artists, Singers and Authors are all Italian Americans is lost to most Americans.

Most Americans want to think of us as Don Corleones. The reality is that there are people you can be bigoted against in American society without any consequences. If you created a TV series about New York Jews who were money grubbing Shylocks the outrage would be loud and the series would be off the air.

If you created a series about African Americans that played on those stereotypes again there would be outrage.

But do a series on Italian American mobsters in New Jersey- no problem. Stereotype Catholics, Mormons, Arabs, Evangelical Christians, Rural People, Working Class People not a problem. If you did the same things to other groups you are a Bigot- but you stereotype these people and make millions.

HBO seems to have a penchant for this. After the Soprano's they are debuting the new season of Big Love- which promotes the stereotype of the another group, Mormons as polygamists. The fact that the Mormon church has not had polygamy since 1890 should not get in the way of a good story.

I have to say that I have enjoyed and been engrossed by the various Mafia movies. The issue is not freedom of expression or the need to tell that story which is part of our history. The issue is the cost of stereotypes for groups that are not protected by our new political correctness.

America has become a victim society. We have affirmative action for all kinds of groups and reasons. We treat the descendants of Slaves- who deserve reparations for true oppression-with rich white women as oppressed groups. While other groups who have also been oppressed are taken advantage of over and over again is this justice?

Should not we be honest with ourselves? If we like stereotypes- and want to use them for profit should we not be free to use them all? Why all the political correctness?

Follow the money.

Sexy Poets

At a recent gathering at my house Chicago Poet Daniel Borzutky mentioned that Andersonville- a Chicago neighborhood is full- of Sexy poets. I began to think about this stable of sexy bards......

Robyn Schiff, Nick Twemblow, Jen Scappettone, Chicu Reddy, Suzanne Buffam are all part of this sexy scene

Finding sexy poets is difficult in America- many american poets are socially awkward or are simply losers who use poetry as a social shield against the reality that no one really cares what they think or do. No body gets all hot and bothered about Ron Silliman or Gertrude Stein- they just do not elicit the hormonal response.

The conventional sexy poet can become boring quickly and most of them have names like Cate, Rodrigo or Joshua. I prefer poets who have a little damage to them and a bit more flesh. There are whole anthologies of Sexy Poets- like Legitimate Dangers, no ugly fat poets in that book. As a fat ugly poet I felt descriminated against but I ate Veal and liked it.......

In the end the sexy poet's are the belle's of the ball- especially in poet-land where so many poets are awkward and odd. Chicago is blessed however to add to the sexy list above

many other sexy poets, Simone Muench, southern fried sexy, Chris Glomski, sexissimo, Bill Allegrezza sheer Italian passionman.

So come to Chicago and see the Sexy poets....

The Challenge of Freedom and the Ignorance of Reality

I have never supported the Iraq war or our current president's policies but I also have never supported those who assert that the problem in the world is the United States or its view of freedom. So I get to be hated by both sides which is a nice place to be in life.

The reality is that many on the Left are naive and stupid believing that there is a moral equality between Islam, even moderate Islam and the West.

I know that it is not politically correct to say these things but there is so much revisionism going on and self flagillation that it is important to state simple facts.

I recently watched a show on PBS about the Inquisition where the screenwriters tried to assert that the rule of the Moors in Spain was benign and delightful. Sure their rule was more benign then the rule of the Nazis but it was not in anyway akin to liberal democracy or a free society.

Jews and Christians still had to pay the head tax, Churches and Synagogues were still siezed in many cities and converted to Mosques. Facts are facts.

In the West we decided a long time ago after much struggle that Religion is a private matter. That the Church should not have governmental authority, and that one's relationship with God is a personal matter that should help a culture but not decide what culture is to be.

So when I read a book like Marina Nemat's Prisoner of Tehran- and listen to the many criticisms of her especially on Islamic sites and magazines my blood boils. Ms Nemat is an Iranian Catholic who complained as a 16 year old student that her math and science classes were replaced by Koranic studies and propaganda.

She was thrown in prison, raped, forced to marry a man who 'saved' her from death forced to convert to Islam and then after two years of horror let go. She eventually immigrated to Canada and wrote a moving story that everyone should read. When one talks of Women's rights here is what we really should be talking about. Her story would be sad if it were simply an isolated case but this is not so.

In Iran, Saudi Arabia and many other Islamic nations her story of torture for speaking out on simple things is normal. There is a distain among Muslims in many nations for the idea that Religion and Ideas are personal and are not the business of the state. In Saudi Arabia a Philipina woman was raped, and thrown in prison for three years for simply making the sign of the cross in her room alone while praying the Rosary- she was turned in by her employer.

I am not arguing here that Islam is evil, it is not, but what I am arguing for is Thomas Jefferson's idea that religion should not have the right to compel people. Just like the Catholic Church (My Church) had no right to torture and kill in Spain in the 15th century- no state should have the right to compel people with torture, rape and death. Freedom, even if your nations has allot of oil should be universal. What George Bush's foreign policy has done is to destroy this simple argument. We as as nation are no longer able to make this argument because we tortured people. We should stand forcefully for what we are- Free People.

The City Visible-Chicago Poetry for the New Century

Chicago, my hometown, is known for allot of things.

It is perhaps the most Roman Catholic city in America. At one time everyone in the Chicago area identified themselves by their parish, even if they were not Catholic. This sense remains the case but less so but of course when Pope John Paul II died it was normal to see every Polish, Irish, Italian and Mexican tavern in the city with the Pope's picture, often over the bar, and the funeral Mass on the TV.

Chicago is also known for its tribalism, its racism and is roughness but it is also known for having the greatest symphony in the world, seven great universities, the best Hot Dogs anywhere, two great Baseball teams (One I love and one I hate) and the best architecture outside of Italy or France. Chicago is a great place and when I returned home four years ago I was instantly satiated.

Poetry has also been a great gift from Chicago. Some bad poetry has come out of Chicago for example the uninspired slam scene which is vapid and uninteresting but some really great poets as well have been formed here- Sandberg, Anania, Hoover, Monroe, Mac Low, Carroll and Chernoff are all Chicagoans and poets who have made the world better and have busted through.

Cracked Slab Books (www.crackedslab.com) is the press that I own with my friend and partner in crime William Allegrezza (it is appropriate that two Italian Americans run a Poetry Press in Chicago LOL) and we have just come out with our Anthology, The City Visible, Chicago Poetry for the New Century. This anthology is the record of a poetic conversation in Chicago from 2000-2006 between many groups in this city who are writing with experimental modes. We wanted to create an anthology that focused on experimental poets and poets who use international influences in their writing but who live or work in this- the most American city.

I am very proud of this book. It brings together very diverse voices, groups, religions, races and styles and makes poetry new again- which unfortunately our friends at the Poetry Foundation have forgotten about as they promote Kay Ryan and Philip Larkin-- in our anthology however is poetry, cut from the bone like meat in our long closed stockyards. Tonight is our second reading- at Powells north on Lincoln at 7 PM- if you come and read this on the Irascible Poet I owe you a beer--- Chicago Style

An Elemental Thing

Los Angeles, May 3, 2007

I am in LA for work and I picked up Eliot Weinberger's new book An Elemental Thing for the trip. As I write this I am a fan of Weinberger but this book is really something. What he has done is to take a whole slew of very interesting subjects and to do essays on them that are readable, intellectual and fascinating.

All to often essays and essayists are boring self absorbed

morons who would rather talk about something arcane like what kind of makeup Truman Capote wore or the quality of Fenway Park Green. Weinberger is a serious essayist and I would argue that he is a true heir of essayists like Viktor Shklovsky who fuse the avant garde with everyday to make something truly amazing.

There are many essays in the work that are gripping one is about the Nazca lines of Peru. As many know I lived in the Andes and that idea of spiritual geography is so interesting. The idea that the lines, coupled with Huacas (Sacred stones and piles) are so interesting. He also talks about the Andean writing system Quippus which were bundles of knotted cords used to record history and money. This essay alone makes the book worth reading but there is much more.

His essay on the Mandaeans is so interesting. He deconstructs this Middle Eastern sect and shows the world that irony and scholarship are possible. He also wrote a bio essay of Muhammed which is in many ways better written than most translations of the Quran.

The last words of this book are "wonder alone in the vastness of the world" that is what Weinberger has done and his work will remain seminal and we can only hope for more books and more writing to satiate our dry literary world.

A Continuing Echo

Two Weeks after returning from Istanbul I cannot get the echo of the Call to Prayer out of my head. I cannot get the image of the bearded men in the pantaloons in Fatih and their veiled wives out of my mind.

I want to be a liberal- I want to be open minded but for a Christian, even a Liberal One Istanbul is a place that makes one wonder and think about his/her place in the world.

I keep thinking about the panels in Hagia Sophia, where each the panel crosses were removed

with at chisel systematically, I keep thinking about the icons and mosaics of St Savior in Chora with their smashed faces and desecrated bodies and I ask myself what is it that makes us one?

The thing that haunts me is that my people have done the same things. In Spain and Sicily we did the same things to Mosques and Synagogues but one some level most Christians don't care

because it is evil being done to another. In Mexico and Peru the same things.

This sense is the reason that most people in Europe in the 1930s and 40s said nothing about the holocaust- it did not effect them why should they risk? Why should they try to change and he hurt by courage?

I cannot believe that when Abraham was called by God (YHWH, ADONAI, ALLAH) 6000 years ago he meant for his children- as numerous as sands on a seashore- to be like this with one another. I have heard all the stories- Islam is a religion of war- Christians are Crusaders on balance we are equally flawed and sinful. But why is it that as we pray to same God we continue to commit atrocities?

Less than 10 years ago Orthodox Christians in Bosnia- murdered unobservant Muslims for revenge for a battle in 1389. In the Middle East in Lebanon and Cyprus Muslims and Christians continue to kill each other. In Iraq Shia and Sunni kill each other over a family dispute 1400 years ago. Why is it that Islam could produce a Sinan or a Rumi and Christianity a Dante or a St Francis and Judaism a Buber or a Heine but we continue to kill each other?

I go back to the smashed icons of Istanbul- and the desecrated mosques of Palermo and wonder?

That Intellectual Look

That Intellectual Look......

The other night at our local poetry group we were waiting for one of our members- Jen Scappettone to arrive and the group of us were watching Garin Cycholl's orgasmic MLB package.

When Jen entered the room she gave us "that intellectual look" you know the look? Like what the hell is this? This is a waste of time this is silly or worse unimportant. I really like Jen she is a great poet and great intellectual but she is the master of the intellectual look.... maybe we need to spend a few nights at the Cell..... or at Schallers???

But in the room were great poets and great Baseball fans.

I love poet ball fans,

Mark Tardi- the closest poetic equivilent of a wirey shortstop-

Mike Antonucci, a grizzled hard first baseman,

Garin Cycholl the poetic equivilent of Stan Musial,

Bill Allegrezza a graceful centerfielder,

Brian Clements a sure handed second baseman,

Joe Ahearn a powerful DH- poets all.

Oh and me, a broken toothed catcher......

I have never understood people who view Baseball as just a sport? What other sport has such characters? or Babe Ruth, what other sport has changed America- Jackie Robinson, what other sport gives you daily diversion and deep thinking? I get more often from a great ball game then from a group of poetic intellectuals reading their musings... baseball- a cool clean change. Poetry readings are less so... but I love them too.

I have to say that apart from getting married, and publishing my first book my greatest joy was watching my White Sox win the World Series. It is April, it is snowing in Chicago and yet there is a ball game on tonight the Sox are playing the Indians (I hate the Tribe)......... such joy.

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday has always been an important holiday for me.

As a child we would spend it with the Vincentian Fathers in Lemont, Illinois. These wonderful wacky radical priests were my first introduction to feet washing and processions.

Later when I was in Bolivia I had the most moving Holy Thursday of my life when Father Benoit a Capuchin with whom I worked did the Mass for that day and asked each inmate in the jail where I worked to wash the feet of those around him. I always go to Mass on Holy Thursday and today was no exception- Traudi and I are in Istanbul on our 10^th anniversary trip. We ventured to the Beyoglu neighborhood here in the city to attend Mass in Turkish, Italian, English and Tagalog. Beyoglu is the only place in this city where one feels the fresh air of post modernity- in some areas like Fatih it is closer to the air of the Prophet than to the post modern world.

Being in Istanbul for the past week and being a Christian a sense of loss is everywhere. We have visited over 10 former Byzantine Churches including the Church of Churches, Hagia Sophia. The desecration of these great churches is jarring for any Christian and while I know that these things happened 500 years ago the melancholy of the desecration still sits on you darkly. I am sure the way Muslims feel when they enter the Alhambra which we desecrated 500 years ago. To stand in Hagia Sophia and know that the Eucharist will never be celebrated in that most Christian of spaces is a sadness that will stay with me.

Once on a business trip to Cordoba, Spain I escaped a day of trade shows and associations to visit the former great mosque of the city. I remember thinking what must it be like to enter the mosque- as a Muslim-and see it now changed into a Cathedral.

What it must be like to be cut off from the place for prayer and know that you are separated from the place by the violent act of force.

Istanbul, the former Constantinople will cause a feeling in your soul. Istanbul is a fabulous place- a place of legend and a place of ghosts. To be in Istanbul during Holy Week also makes one think about the future.

Touring former Churches with hoards of Spanish and Italian tourists who probably never enter Churches in their home nations and wondering how many of their fabulous edifices will be desecrated in the same ways in few years time when no one will attend Mass anymore in those nations?

In the end Istanbul is a city if ghosts and of memory and the fact that it is Holy Week and so few people here even think about remembering that fact in this the city consecrated to the Virgin Hodegetria is a thought for all of us in the West to ponder- Deo Gratia

The City of the World's Desire

Tomorrow Traudi and I will go to Istanbul (constantinople). It is a fullfillment of a long dream for me. The characters emitted by that city have made the world that today exists. Constantine the founder of the city changed the world by making Christianity a state religion. During a time when Western Europe was filled with barbarism and death it was in Constantinople, Cordova and Baghdad that learning continued.

I have always had a romantic tie to Byzantinism. My family is from Northern Italy and all you have to do is go to Venice, Ravenna or Aquilaea to see their glory. Today the city is Turkish and all that makes that culture great is there. I will be blogging from Istanbul and will let you know what it is like to stand before Hagia Sofia and proclaim Solomon I have Surpassed you.

EL-DE Haus-Kathe Kollwitz

http://www.museenkoeln.de/ns-dok_neu/

I was in Cologne last week for work. Amidst a week of very hard work there were a few respites. On Saturday I spent the day with Jesse Seldess-Chicago poet and new resident of Karlsruhe, Germany.

It turned out to be a moving afternoon.

Jesse and I are very different poets and people- he is thin and I am fat we do not share ethnicities or religions but we what we do share is recent memories of being American. Jesse's family were refugees from Germany in the 1930's my family from Italy in the 1950's so unlike many poets being American is important for us and also a point of pain and memories.

Most German cities look like 1950's suburbs. Most of the cities in Germany were destroyed by Allied bombs and this in obvious in Cologne. Jesse and I first visited the Kathe Kollwitz museum in Cologne. Kollwitz is one of my wife Waltraud's favorite artists and her images of family and anguish of the First World War are profound. She was declared Degenerate by Hitler and died, heartbroken in Germany in 1945. Her museum was profoundly personal with dark prints and drawings a welcome respite from the hyper materialism of modern Germany.

Jesse and I then decided to visit the EL-DE Haus Cologne's Nazi museum. I have visited concentration camps but I was very much moved by the EL DE haus because of its banality.

Unlike a camp out in the woods this house is right on a main street a building that could have been a post office or a bank. But when you enter you are transformed.

In the basement are the torture chambers and cell. There is a smell of death and pain and on the walls are written the sames and graffiti of prisoners on their way to death. I spied one

Guiseppe Longarotti- 16-5-1944- what did he do to get put in that cell?

The museum tracks Nazism in Cologne a nice rich city that over a 10 year period destroyed four synagogues- and expelled 17,000 of their neighbors for being Jews. In fact the very fairgrounds that I spent my week at were used as a staging area for the Ravensbruck camp. I kept thinking about all the faces and people who were killed by their neighbors and I cannot get their images out of my mind. But I have no right to be selfrightious. America has never dealt with our evils the way the Germans have. No American child learns that we killed millions of natives and enslaved millions of others.

But one thing that Jesse and I agree on is that what makes America unique has been broken by George Bush and his henchmen. America is unique because only here could we create such people as Mark Twain, William Faulkner and Walt Whitman. We have no right to judge the Germans because while they burned books and people in the 1930's we careen down a similar road having learned nothing from the EL-DE Haus

EL-DE Haus-Kathe Kollwitz

http://www.museenkoeln.de/ns-dok_neu/

I was in Cologne last week for work. Amidst a week of very hard work there were a few respites. On Saturday I spent the day with Jesse Seldess-Chicago poet and new resident of Karlsruhe, Germany.

It turned out to be a moving afternoon.

Jesse and I are very different poets and people- he is thin and I am fat we do not share ethnicities or religions but we what we do share is recent memories of being American. Jesse's family were refugees from Germany in the 1930's my family from Italy in the 1950's so unlike many poets being American is important for us and also a point of pain and memories.

Most German cities look like 1950's suburbs. Most of the cities in Germany were destroyed by Allied bombs and this in obvious in Cologne. Jesse and I first visited the Kathe Kollwitz museum in Cologne. Kollwitz is one of my wife Waltraud's favorite artists and her images of family and anguish of the First World War are profound. She was declared Degenerate by Hitler and died, heartbroken in Germany in 1945. Her museum was profoundly personal with dark prints and drawings a welcome respite from the hyper materialism of modern Germany.

Jesse and I then decided to visit the EL-DE Haus Cologne's Nazi museum. I have visited concentration camps but I was very much moved by the EL DE haus because of its banality.

Unlike a camp out in the woods this house is right on a main street a building that could have been a post office or a bank. But when you enter you are transformed.

In the basement are the torture chambers and cell. There is a smell of death and pain and on the walls are written the sames and graffiti of prisoners on their way to death. I spied one

Guiseppe Longarotti- 16-5-1944- what did he do to get put in that cell?

The museum tracks Nazism in Cologne a nice rich city that over a 10 year period destroyed four synagogues- and expelled 17,000 of their neighbors for being Jews. In fact the very fairgrounds that I spent my week at were used as a staging area for the Ravensbruck camp. I kept thinking about all the faces and people who were killed by their neighbors and I cannot get their images out of my mind. But I have no right to be selfrightious. America has never dealt with our evils the way the Germans have. No American child learns that we killed millions of natives and enslaved millions of others.

But one thing that Jesse and I agree on is that what makes America unique has been broken by George Bush and his henchmen. America is unique because only here could we create such people as Mark Twain, William Faulkner and Walt Whitman. We have no right to judge the Germans because while they burned books and people in the 1930's we careen down a similar road having learned nothing from the EL-DE Haus

The Fires of May 10th 1934

I picked up this book at Seminary Co-op. To say that it is fascinating and horrifying is to make a banal statement. In this work which has recently been translated into English Jean-Michel Palmier tells the world about the oppression of poets, writers and artists whose work truly mattered.

I often find the lack of political engagement among American poets disturbing. I want to scream

NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL BULL SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!! NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR VIEWS ON SOME OBSCURE SINGER OR ART PIECE!!!!!!!!!THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS.

In reading this book you see what an engaged intellectual class means to a totalitarian. Alfred Rosenburg, one of Hitler's henchmen once said "Whenever I hear the world Culture I reach for my Revolver" would anyone want to shoot you for the poetry you write?

In Weimar in Exile there is a section I have just reached about the book burnings of May 10th 1934. The books that were burned were the finest works that Europe ever produced and the intellectual life that was crushed by Hitler has never returned to Germany. Weimar gave so much to the world. All I have to do is look out my window in Chicago at the buildings that Mies built here instead of Berlin to see what Germany lost.

America has never been an intellectual country. But it has been our intellectuals who have determined our fate. Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, Henry David Thoreau and the rest defined us as a nation and all their books have been banned and burned. Who are the intellectuals who oppose our current Fascism?

I look at the thinkers of Weimar and I wonder.

Red Light Banana Split

Red Light Banana Split

I don't ask complete strangers to pose for me
Husky is a term of endearment- what they really mean is fat.
A hologram of open oysters crushed on the rocks fed our need for speed.

Strippers do not Lap Dance for Homeless Guys. The money is not there
It is in Las Vegas and Halliburton.

George Oppen and Louis Zukofsky
Slapping Jack Kerouac until
He dies of bruises and hemotomas.

Katzen

a Franz Marc painting.
He died you know? In a trench wasted like
Surge troops - Walter Reed- with paintings
Still in his fingertips.

The easiest way to make money is to prostitute
But your flesh becomes raw- like chop meat
And when you do this to yourself
And no one wants to be with you
Again.

When the IED enters into the body it tears the flesh
And the helmet cannot be removed
It is fused to the bone
As we listen

Surge into life
Wonder what happened?
Kristalnacht
Yourself

The scab is ripped off
The irony of lists and filofax
Printemps
Primavera
Crucify your listenings

Caesar

The View from Our Window

I received an email from William Allegrezza that his Nonna, Mary, passed away at 96 this week.

Bill is a great friend, I always refer to him as my Uomo Di Fiducia or my man of trust.

One of the bonds I have with Bill is that we both have Nonna's and we are rooted in someway in Italianita' .

It is often a hackneyed thing to write about family. Very few writers or poets can do this well. But among Italians- be they Italians in Italia or Italians in the diaspora family and especially our matriarch's are central to our lives. I am convinced that this emphasis on Mama is very ancient.

Why is it that Latin nations have such a fixation on women- and yet they are macho cultures?

Why is it that Mary has chosen to appear in France, Italy, Spain and Mexico and her shrines are huge there but in northern Europe they prefer strong male images? I think it has something to do with the fact that we are all descendant's of female deities. It is not the warrior that feeds the Mediterranean sea with myths- it is the Goddesses Athena, Cybele, Artemis, Diana and Mary.

It is having the Goddess in our midst that creates the myth of the mother in the Italian and other Mediterranean mindset. So I grieve with Bill for his Nonna because I know that a woman of strength is unique and powerful and that a woman of strength who is the center of a family is something that our culture gave to the world from its inception.

The Image on this post is a photo I found on the internet of the view from the window of my family's hotel in Italy. It is the last image my Great Grandmother Lucia ever saw, it was the spot where my Nonna, Matilde who is 93, watched the men of Vestone being marched off to their deaths in Russia to fight for the Germans, it is the place where they also watched the arrival of the Americans and the murder of the collaborators in their midst and today it is a great place to have coffee or a glass of wine. When I think of Le Nonne I think about this spot- and I think about Bill's family and the pain of the loss of the central character in life's opera.

AWP and the Problem with Poetry

AWP happened this weekend. I chose not to attend and I read instead in Iowa City, at Prairie Lights with fellow Iowa Hawkeye and Chicago poet extraordinare Chris Glomski.

I have attended AWP twice once in Chicago and once in Austin Texas and each time I have come away with allot of cheap and great books and a sense that what is wrong with poetry is encapsulated by what is wrong with AWP.

Poetry is a lifestyle hoice.

To be a poet is the be inducted into a community that has at its center a love of language and a revulsion of ease and simple answers. Poets are those people who encapsulate what is to be critiqued and to be discussed and in Ezra's words make things new always.

AWP is the conference of writing programs. While I think that writing programs are important and needed I feel that one of the problems with poetry today is the standardization of poet's lives. Many poet's feel that the way to build a life as a poet is to get an MFA and then get a teaching job so that you have time to write. Arielle Greenberg in her seminal essay on this subject put it well - the MFA is where you obtain connections to get a good job and build a poetic network. How many poet's in writing programs are older? How many are working class? How many are non traditional? How many have actually lived as adults?

The trajectory of networking has nothing to do with poetry and has everything to do with money and power. Poetry requires risk and requires living in the world as it exists. Jen Scappettone told me once that you need to live your life and see where the poetry takes you- to live on the edge.

Nothing of the sort is happening at AWP. AWP is a place to make connections and to professionalize yourself. But being a 'professional' poet is ludacris unless you are Pablo Neruda. As poets retreat into academia and are published by ever smaller presses and websites they abrogate their prophetic role and retreat into hipsterdom.

In the end getting together with other poets for mutual strokes is ok- but it is not poetry. Poetry requires active engagement with language and with life. When I was in Iowa City this weekend after our reading I realized that in the end does poetry matter? Of course it does-- but another question is worth asking- if you were to be executed for being a poet would your work cause you to be killed? If it would not maybe you should rethink being a poet?

Fundamentalism and the Circle of Death

Infidel

Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In her book Infidel deconstructs fundamentalist Islam but you could in many ways Replace Islam with any number of Christianist fundamentalists and achieve the same result.

Quotes from Amazon.com

"when you meet the unbelievers, strike them in the neck" -- were direct quotations. "I hated to do it," she wrote, "because I knew that I would find bin Laden's quotations in there." And there were consequences: "The little shutter at the back of my mind, where I pushed all my dissonant thoughts, snapped open after the 9/11 attacks, and it refused to close again.
I found myself thinking that the Quran is not a holy document. It is a historical record, written by humans. . . . And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war."
That moment led Hirsi Ali to her most profound conclusion: that the mistreatment of women is not an incidental problem in the Muslim world, a side issue that can be dealt with once the more important political problems are out of the way. Rather, she believes that the enslavement of women lies at the heart of all of the most fanatical interpretations of Islam, creating "a culture that generates more backwardness with every generation."

We in the West should be clear about what we believe.

Infidel a word that has been used by Muslim and Christian to denote someone who is outside the community- in Christian the Koinonia, in Islam the Umma. Since the Hejira and the birth of Islam the Greco-Christian and Semito-Islamic worlds have been at odds.

It is intellectually dishonest to call one community better or smarter or more advanced than the other. While my ancestors were tattooing their skins blue and living in Feudalism the Islamic cities of Cordoba, Baghdad and Cairo were the centers of world culture. But later when Europe was developing the Enlightenment Islam went into decline. The debate between the Islamic and Christian worlds is long and bitter. Despite the best efforts of well meaning liberals Muslims and Christians have never lived together in peace and mutual respect. Not in Spain, not in Sicily and not in Anatolia in all of these places one ruled over the other with bare toleration never equality.

In Islamic nations Christians and Jews are treated as Djimmi’s and Christian nations like Armenia were eradicated in Christian ones like Spain Islamic culture was destroyed and the Muslims forced to immigrate or convert our history is long and acrimonious. It is not helpful to pretend that either group is better or worse both are equally guilty.

The fact is however that in one part of the world-until recently- Muslims, Christians and Jews and other groups did live in harmony; Europe and North America. The fact is that Liberal Democracies with a strong separation between Religion and State have proven good ways to keep Islamists and Christianist extremists at bay and allow for dialogue.

This sense of separation has been challenged of late by religionists on the Left and the Right. Be it Liberation Theology, Islamic Fundamentalism, Christian Fundamentalism or Hindu Fundamentalism the great Liberal secular consensus that was established in the American and French Revolutions and confirmed by men like Gandhi and many others has become a challenged doctrine.

There have been many reactions to reform movements that Ali wants so much for Islam.
In fact today’s fundamentalisms are responses to reform. Wahabi Islam began its life as a reaction to Sufism with its emphasis on tolerance. In fact before Wahabism was born the Sufis were quite powerful in Mecca and around the Islamic world. Wahabism made sure that this tolerance ended.

The same is true in Christianity. The Pentacostals and Fundamentalists that arose out of Reverend Darby and his group were created in reaction to the Social Gospel. Fundamentalism is born of intolerance.

In the middle of this century a Christian consensus developed with Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox working towards shared goals. This was best embodied by the Second Vatican Council and after words. The fact is however that quaint notions of peace and justice embodied by thinkers like Martin Buber, Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Oscar Romero, and Dorothy Day are repugnant to the strain of religious believers embodied today by Islamic Fundamentalists and Christianist Fundamentalists who are in fact two sides of the same coin.

Questioning fundamentalism is not bigotry.

This is what all Fundamentalists do they demonize others saying if you disagree with them you are a bigot. If you want a dose of this turn on Fox News. The red herring that bigotry against ‘christians’ or ‘muslims’ comes from questioning particular beliefs or societal rules disarms those of us who believe in tolerance.

I think that it is important to say that I am a religious person but if I try to impose my particular religious beliefs as a national practice, if I demand that my particular views are embraces by society then I should be discriminated against because I am asking for something unreasonable.

This is the issue is it not? Tolerance is a fine value but Freedom is a better value. People should not have the right to oppress others even if the majority feel that their views are Godly whether they are Osama Bin Laden or Focus on the Family.

Cenizas-San Juan De La Cruz-Penitencia

Stanzas Of The Soul
1. One dark night,fired with love's urgent longings-
ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.


I love Lent.

Usually among experimental poets I am the only person who is Catholic. Usually I have to curb my enthusiasm for poets who dwell in spiritual anguish- John of the Cross, St Francis, Thomas Merton, Sor Juana all these poets are anguished spiritual seekers in whom darkness and anguish animate a poetic project that fills me often with wonder.

It is fitting on Ash Wednesday to talk about these type of people who poetically lived not in an ironic-hipster world we dwell in but in a world of seriousness and anguish . Often I get tired of all the irony and "I know better because I am a poetness" and I go to these men and look for darkness and depth I find this in some poets; Mark Tardi is good at anguish, so is Peter Gizzi and Jennifer Moxley too is good anguish... but there are so few.

CÁNTICO

¿Adónde te escondiste,
Amado, y me dexaste con gemido?
Como el ciervo huyste haviéndome herido; salí tras ti clamando, y eras ydo.
Pastores, los que fuerdes allá por las majadas al otero,
si por ventura vierdes aquél que yo más quiero,
decilde que adolezco,
peno y muero.

As the Lenten Fast Begins- I look for the Dark Night and listen for the stag in the woods.