Millard Sheets: Sixty Years of Painting, 9/3/93

—a retrospective, Sept. 10 through Oct. 24

A sixty-year retrospective of Millard’s Sheets paintings from the private collection of Ralph and Lois Stone is currently on display at the California Museum of Art at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts.

Los Angeles born artist Millard Sheets, called the father of the California school of watercolor, lived a charmed life, winning numerous awards while still in school. Hatfield Galleries gave him the first one-man show while he was still at Chouinard School of Art in 1929; he also received a prize from the Edgar B. Davis competition in Texas. The $1750 prize allowed him to travel to New York and Paris via a banana boat through the Panama Canal; he was able to paint Central American scenes.

One painting in particular, “The Women of Cartegena,” was accepted at the prestigious International Exhibition of Paintings at the Carnegie institute in Pittsburg, and was pivotal in shaping his career; this acceptance opened east coast watercolor establishment doors to him and to other California artists.

In the ’30s, the representational style of watercolor painting was at its apex, but WWII ended that movement as American artists became influenced by the new style of abstract art in Europe. At the turn of the century, artists studied in Europe, where elaborate, carefully rendered pencil sketches were highlighted with watercolor, but California artists took an entirely different approach. They worked boldly and directly on the paper, often with little, or no preliminary sketches.

During the 1930s, their paintings became much larger. The California watercolorists’ fresh, bold regional views knocked the east coast establishment on its ear. Sheets, chief exponent of the California School of Watercolor, epitomized this bold new style.

This new California style, Synchronism, founded by Stanton McDonald Wright, utilized a highly stylized subject matter with abstract composition, and influenced Sheets and other artists. Their works were often featured on magazine covers, which made the style familiar to the general public.

Often hailed as a one-man renaissance, the internationally acclaimed artist Millard Sheets, worked in various styles. Some of his earliest works, from 1926 to 1936, including “Farm Near Lompoc,” “South Pomona Granary,” and “San Francisco Bay, Ship at Dock,” evoked the era of Social Realism, where 20th century industrial triumphs were viewed as works of art.

As I viewed the art exhibit, the experimental film “Metropolis” came to mind. When Sheets gave Eleanor Roosevelt a painting of tenements, which promptly was hung in the White House, (and is now at the Smithsonian), he was appointed as one the four directors to the Public Works of Arts which is best remembered for the huge WPA (Works Progress Administration) murals depicting regional America. This bold representational style helped to shape the imaginative eye of the public.

During the 1930s and ’40s, Sheets was one of the most recognized and influential artists who portrayed the California Scene. Though rooted in the rich color and emotional light of impressionism, Sheets often worked with a limited color palette; the more tonal modulations defined the forms in abstract shapes.

In the past few years there has been a renewed interest in the American representational art movement—especially the American regional scenes made popular during the WPA mural projects.

When he was painting “Farm Near Lompoc,” Sheets commented, “I was only just beginning to understand the subtle nuances of composition and design. The black cow was placed in a pretty important spot. I think it is a good example of the struggles that people who had not been accustomed to painting in watercolor, as we all were at the time, could try and find a composition and design in complicated rounded forms.”

Of the painting, “South Pomona Granary,” Sheets said, “I would go out to these little farms to try to learn the meaning of value—color as a related problem—to try and understand the way each color created other colors in the thing next to it.”

The painterly oil canvas, “West Los Angeles Wheatfields,” (1928), depicts a strong impressionistic influence with bold brush strokes but with a more subdued palette than, say, a Monet. Sheets' “Chino Dairy” (1935), is alive with brush strokes, the brilliant use of orange shadow befitting a hot southern light, and the ground itself writhes with heat.

In “West Los Angeles Wheatfields,” Sheets recorded a bygone era when Los Angeles was still a place of angels, “The grain fields started at Western Boulevard in Los Angeles and went right to the sea.…”

The large portrait of “Annabella,” a studio work, depicts many of Sheets’ favorite motifs and reflects back on his days in Tahiti. One can also see the influences of Gauguin in his other South Pacific landscapes.

Among my favorite pieces are his Mendocino coastlines, many done from his Barking Rocks studio in Gualala. "Fond Memories of Mendocino" with its olive green and vermilion/magenta sea and Chinese Ming style horses galloping on the bluffs avoids being a cliched riot of color notes.

Compositionally, his work is strong, with an underlying structure based upon sculptural and a liberal use of diagonal shapes that lead us to the heart of the painting. Sheets wrote of “‘Mendocino with Affection," "This painting expresses the mood of color that we get here on strange days when the sun is coming up or going down. It is everything that I like about the coast.”

Many of the pieces in the show are from another style, another era—a more careful study of light with liberal use of hard-edged shadow. When one begins to take apart elements of the pieces, one comes to the sudden realization is that they are very abstract—which comes as a surprise.

“French Alps, 1971,” along with “Evening Luau, Tahiti,” (1973), “Mendocino with Affection” (1987), and “Fish Rock Annual Fishing Contest” (1968) with their curvilinear lines and rounded abstract sculptural forms are both visually pleasing, yet challenging. These works best exemplify Sheets’ distinctive later style, reminiscent of Post-Impressionism—especially Gauguin’s South Sea scenes, and van Gogh’s South of France landscapes.

Of the simply painted “Church of Arles, France” (1970), with its muscular trees, Sheets commented, “This scene is one van Gogh knew…the trees are bare in winter and the atmosphere is very evocative. I thought about van Gogh, the man, while I was here.” A much earlier piece, “Ancient Church, Armenia” (1951), evokes a kindred connection to van Gogh’s work.

Sheets wrote of the small watercolor, “Kahili Valley” painted in 1934, “I made it during a period in my life when I was trying to figure out how to improve design elements of my work. This small painting is a bit static but I like its innocent charm…” Sheets had just returned from a visit to Central and South America; the painting strongly reflects the influence of that experience.

The collective body of Millard Sheets' paintings hang on the walls of some 45 museums in the US including the Smithsonian Gallery, Chicago Art Institute, the New York Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum. The California Museum of Art show from the private collection of Ralph and Lois Stone, brings together the varied themes of many of his works under one roof. Not to be missed.

SIDEBAR (some text is missing)

Born in 1907, Sheets died at the age of 82. His life included many events which influenced his work. Sheets was a war artist for the government and for Life magazine. He lived in Hawaii, Tahiti, and took artist all over the world to hone their craft. He received numerous honorary doctorates. He was Director of Art Scripps College, he was an instructor at Otis Art Institute, and Chouinard Art Institute where he influenced innumerable artists during his 40 years of teaching.

Sheets was also a renowned sculptor, and architectural designer, with over 100 buildings, murals and mosaics to his credit including public buildings, civic centers, universities, airports, hotels, malls, and hospitals. He designed over 40 Home Savings and Loan banks, and the Scottish Rite Temples in Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

Many of us may recall the bold tile mural at Waikiki’s Honolulu Hilton, and the murals at the Great Western Savings Bank, but few may know that the late Millard Sheets was the artist who designed them. In 1988, a year before his death, he received the coveted Dolphin Award from the American Watercolor Society.

© Maureen Hurley photos


California Museum of Art at the Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, 527-0297. There will be a gallery talk with David Stary-Sheets, son of Millard Sheets on Thurs. Sept 16 at 7 p.m.

The Western Sonoma County Paper, 9/3/93

(Alas, this is a facsimile of the original article as I don't have printed copy or tear sheet. This was from a damaged file and some text was lost. I am hoping a hard copy will resurface someday. Most of my clippings were lost during the Russian River floods of 1996.)

LA MALINCHE

LA MALINCHE

If poetry is the flowered word

and Mexico City is the moon’s navel,

and Huitzilipochtli, the God of War,

killed his 400 brothers and sisters, the stars,

and Quetzalcoatl—after having seen

his face in the smoking mirror—

made love to his sister, then walked off,

only to return under the Fifth Sun,

in the Year of the Reed—

did he return as Cortés

to make love to la Malinche?

(Marina of the sea was baptized like me.

Mi lingua, la Llorona, my sister, my voice;

who spoke in tongues, was betrayed by her body,

blue-eyed mestizos fell from her like stars

to populate the cities of the sky.)

La Malinche, the traitor, she was called,

(as Spain deliberated—did the Indios have souls?)

Our feet climb temple steps

to the sacked pyramids crowned

with a thin veneer of churches—

coffins for the war of the souls that followed.

(The Indios came bearing gifts of jade and gold

to the returnéd god, Quetzalcoatl.)

Lost in the streets of Mérida,

I gave away the clothing of your promises.

In the smoking mirror made from a fallen star,

I saw the clouded reflection—two sets of eyes—

not knowing I too, was La Malinche.

The unborn eyes of a child

in the mirror you held to my face.

Hummingbird hearts beating

at the War of the Flowers.

Quetzalcoatl, the god of Time,

lost the stamens and pistols of words

when he bared his heart to obsidioan knives

at the altars of Xochimílco.

In the Year of the Reed, an eclipsed sun

hid in the cities of the moon.

Only the roots of the ceiba tree

hold up the walls of Cortés’ house.

No monument in stone,

no flowered words buried

in the underbelly of the continent

awaiting a rediscovery.

Only the pale afterbirth of the moon

to survive us.

9/6/93

BLUE MOON

BLUE MOON

She said all the knowledge

we need is in our bodies.

The planets are lining up inside of us.

The earth is a medicine bundle.

There are more natural laws

that need rediscovering:

the laws of horizon, of vortices,

of our need to breathe.

The deer beneath the buckeye

don’t see the carcass

of their eventual death

sleeping under the tree.

The limestone rocks hunger

for the touch of the sea.

The planets are lining up inside of us.

8/31/93  Walker Creek Ranch
or 9/12

Amsterdam Nirvana (notes from the red light district)

AMSTERDAM NIRVANA  (long version—see also AMSTERDAM, OH AMSTERDAM)

I see the needle and the damage done,
a little part of it in everyone,
every junkie's like the setting sun.
—from “The Needle and the Damage,”
by Neil Young, Harvest 1972

Ignoring the small red verboten circles with a camera icon nesting inside, a young blonde leans out the sunroof of a red car, flashes her camera at a storefront widow, the driver speeds off with squealing tires. The scantily dressed black prostitute explodes out of the door, cursing in both Dutch and Spanish. Sociology studies aside, photos are forbidden in Amsterdam's Rosse Buurt, the red light district where whores display their goods behind velvet and glass. No money in stolen photos. It made me think of the photographer Edward Curtis. Modern day primitives selling small bits of their souls to the gringos. Only the soulless reside here. It could have been me, a thief of images, come to steal this scene, but I was on foot, with no fast getaway car—a dangerous proposition. Appropriately, this street was once called Vleesstraat, the street of the butchers.  The street of flesh, a slow river of thighs and flagging desire commingling in the debris of morality and commerce. Harder still to believe the alleys named Blood, Cow, and Curtain in the Red Light District.

At the confluence of Oude Zijds Achterberg canal and the quay at Barndesteeg (Cow Alley), we sit at the English pub window watching the men watch the hookers. I take notes. A tourist at the bar can't stand the suspense; asks in couched terms if I'm a tourist, or a student studying sociology while on holiday. I throw him a curve, saying, “I'm a writer.” Not the right answer: wrong sex. “Gathering inspiration?” he asks. “No. Observing human nature.” He leaves mumbling something about how tourists should get to know each other, before I can tell him I'm annoyed by terms such as tourist and holiday, wondering how Hemingway would've responded. “Fucking six-toed cats! Gimme another refill.”

A tourist is someone who travels along the well-worn paths for the sake of pleasure. In my paperback American Heritage dictionary, travail comes before travel. Toil, tribulation, agony. A traveler journeys from one place to another. Journal comes before journey; the journey becomes the traveler. I feel like I'm reciting singsong rules of grammar. As for holiday, there is a holiness in the daily act of writing. Appropriate that Holland follows holiness. So many churches here to worship in. My eavesdropper tosses some German pfennigs on the counter and leaves, much to my relief.

Amsterdam, Oh Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM, OH AMSTERDAM 

I see the needle and the damage done,

a little part of it in everyone, 
every junkie's like the setting sun.
—from “The Needle and the Damage,” 
by Neil Young, Harvest 1972

Ignoring the small red verboten circles with a camera icon nesting inside, a young blonde leans out the sunroof of a red car, flashes her camera at a storefront widow, the driver speeds off with squealing tires. The scantily dressed black prostitute explodes out of the door, cursing in both Dutch and Spanish. 

Sociology studies aside, photos are forbidden in Amsterdam's Rosse Buurt, the red light district where whores display their goods behind velvet and glass. No money in stolen photos. It made me think of the photographer Edward Curtis. Modern day primitives selling small bits of their souls to the gringos. 

Only the soulless reside here. It could have been me, a thief of images, come to steal this scene, but I was on foot, with no fast getaway car—a dangerous proposition. Appropriately, this street was once called Vleesstraat, the street of the butchers.  The street of flesh, a slow river of thighs and flagging desire commingling in the debris.

At the end of Gelderskade canal, is the Schreirestoren, the Tower of Weepers, where women watched the ships sail out to the Zuiderzee and beyond—perhaps never to return. This is the city of human cargo, fed by black ivory and spice—the East and West India companies had their headquarters here. This is where the concept apartheid was exported.  Scurvy of the tongue. The Cape Colony, a garden on the sea road to the Dutch East Indies.

We'd just come across a footbridge into Oude Zijeds Kolk, one of Amsterdam's oldest canals (or grachten—moats). This is one of the oldest sections of city raised from the fens of the Waal, on one of the many tributaries of the Rhine river delta. 

Who were these bog people who first settled here in 50 B.C., preferring to wrestle with the sea and reside in isolated fishing camps, rather than to suffer at the hands of their enemies? On the southern side of the Rhine, Caesar first chronicled warring with the fierce Celts, and on the north side of the river, with the Teutons. Amstelle damme. About 500 A.D. the dam across the Amstelle river made it a permanent settlement. The medieval walls of the village kept expanding outward in oblong concentric rings like the cross-section of a felled tree. 

My Dutch friend Vins, whom I knew from our college days in Sonoma County, said, “These are new land wrested from the bottom of the sea.” The Zuiderzee, a mere remnant of itself, is now the freshwater IJ, surrounded by the dyked and drained polders, fields below sea level.  Hy Brazil, Atlantis, or the city of Is rising up from the sea, lights shining from the watery depths. This magic city of the late ’60s, an important stop on the gringo trail—like London, Munich and Istanbul.

On  Kreupelsteeg, Cripple's alley, I break my sandal. Pointing to a needle cap, Vins warns me to watch my feet. Wearing sandals can be a hazard in a city where hard drugs are tolerated. 

One introduction to Amsterdam's wilderness is to learn to read the signs like a good tracker. I take a photo of a pair of suede boots in good condition, and a needle with the orange cap, neatly placed under a canal bench. Some childhood habit persisted long after the junkie had left this realm. Perhaps the teutonic mode for organization led this person toward the nirvanic solitude, a junkie's journey into hell. 

This compulsion for tidiness and propriety juxtaposed against self-destruction is a paradox typical of the Dutch. A white whore, and several men descend upon us at the street corner. I'm holding my arms around my pouch, camera and notebook. Something's coming down—and quickly. A deal. A small white car came wheeling up Geldersekade street—the police are quickly upon the scene. Vins points out the runner. No one's caught holding.  This area is heavily patrolled by cops, users, customers and tourists.

Contrary to popular belief, hard and soft drugs are not legal in Amsterdam. Brothels and coffee houses were legalized mid-1990. I find my broad-minded notions are quickly challenged in less than a block. 

The dark energy of the skinny whores, the users and dealers—tangible as a knife severing the umbilicus from the mother of chaos. I'm in the duck-and-cover mode, protecting my psychic, and physical space from these stealers of souls. I haven't had to use those street skills in more than twenty years, skills learned in the ’60s and ’70s. No more flower children, just the walking dead, the zombies seeking other planes of sensation. 

Two men prepare their fix a la Chinees style. Foil, a match, a spoon if one is lucky. The tentacled stench of urine curls up from the cobbles, seeking a brain-hold via the nostrils. On this street, it's too much of an effort for the junkies to use the commas, the curvilinear green wrought iron urinals punctuating each canal mid-sentence to the bridges where one can cross over to other islands of thought. The East India Company building, for example. Once this was the center of the universe. A fabulous empire that changed the map of history, now reduced to a sandstone building housing a maritime collection for the tourists to contemplate.

Four burly teenagers sit in front of an empty building and roll a joint in public. Vins snarls at their stupidity, “A fast way to get deported.” Weed is only allowed in the coffee houses. Grass is not legal either, but a loophole in the law allows people to indulge in a little smoke. 

One coffee house, the Cafe Paradiso, formerly a church, still caters to higher thoughts as well as rock and roll. The Dead Kennedys & Red Hot Chili Peppers are playing. At another coffee house we scan the menu du jour. Afghani, Maui, Thai, and several local brands of Dutch whiet (weed) in varying weights are available for 12 guilders (about nine dollars). I feel like I'm perusing  a wine list. Sonoma Grown is not offered on the menu.

We cross over to St. Olaf's street and alley, the oldest streets in Amsterdam.. This original wharfside with its confluence of cutthroats, junkies and whores could use a saint, it needs all the blessing it can get. The newest addition of tourists creates a strange tide marching through this section of alleys constructed before the Renaissance. Yuppification in the thieve's den.

Here, the buildings lean toward each other as if to kiss the neighboring buildings across the canal. At first glance, Amsterdam resembles a forest of leaning towers of Pisa, some of the older towers really do list a bit. The proliferation of acute angles is not the result of too much good Dutch beer or grass. Many building were used for storage, goods had to be lifted from the street through street-front windows. They were designed to lean out to make it easier to hoist things up. 

People still use the hook and pulley system to move into apartments. I watched Vins's new neighbors move a bureau up to a fourth floor flat, the woman using a guy rope to keep the bureau from smashing out a window. Many of the newer buildings don't lean out so much, but centuries later, the system's still the same. The bureau careens, as if attempting first flight—the man yelling. Vins comments, “This part always tests the relationship.”

On the street of curtains, an interesting thought comes to mind as I watch the hookers gyrate under blacklights. One needs to observe both the whores and the customers—those who are window shopping, those who are buying, and those who are disturbed at the sight of the oldest profession on the world.

 An ironic twist—the abbreviation of Amsterdam is A'dam. Calvinists and Catholics divvied up the churches, spires and clocks dominate the sky. Calvinist guilt and commerce make strange bedfellows. Time is money. The ladies of the evening are efficient, a john clocks out anywhere from six to ten minutes.

My third sortie into the red light district has the same unsettling effect upon me, I come away with disturbed energy. Tired, I can't sleep. Seeing the junkies at sunset with their fixes, I'm buzzing, a contact high. I can philosophically deal with the skinny derelicts—they exist in every city. One develops a discerning eye, learns to see through them. I'm not sure I want to get used to seeing the junkies preparing their fixes with such tender devotion. 

One image I can't shake is of the well-dressed young German in a teal jogging suit and Gucci bag, fumbling to make her fix in a shop doorway on St. Antoniebreestraat between Nieuwe Markt and the Rembrandt house in the old Jewish quarters.

When the city fathers decided to clean up the slums of the Oude Zijde to put in a new metro line, they destroyed what was left of Mokum (an old nickname for Amsterdam), the old Jewish quarters. Some perennial sadness as long as the lines in front of Anne Frank's house, clings to the gray skies and adheres itself to the cobblestones—lest we forget. 

Once called the Jerusalem of the west, Amsterdam relies on commemorative plaques and sculpture in place of memory. The WW II pink granite triangle takes in new significance as AIDS take its toll here too. A bouquet of yellow roses—Tiger, I miss you. —Love, Bear. The triangle, half the equation of another symbol of persecution. The yellow star of David. And another monument proclaiming Amsterdam, oh Amsterdam! I toss rose petals into the canal, drops of blood emerge from the other side of the bridge. Those who have their fix for the night are gezellig, euphoric.

Everyone openly prepares for the coming night, the stars barely visible specks of light. Where I am I living at this moment? I don't exactly know. . .

? 1993

CICADA STORM

CICADA STORM

Snake-blind I come from serpentine.

Under the monolithic science of stone,

the silence leaves me defenseless.

I am not yet cleansed of this place

of buckeye summer clouds.

The reminder of thistles,

and the marbled lichen plane,

a tomb for thought.

The heart learns to stretch

unlike unflexible scar tissue

diminished by old patterns.

In the tomb of my healing

the cicada storm reminds me

how taut the bow is strung.

The music of the shower,

the murmuring of my hips,

the thicket of my birth.

8/31/93?  Walker Creek Ranch
I also have 9/12, a Sunday

Poetry International journal, photo notes, translations & postcards from Vins

I finally developed the Tri-X photos and pushed the developing time to 1600 ASA, I had 12 rolls from P1 to 11 and one from Nord Brabant and Belgium. I push the film to 1600 and everything looks pretty good. Not too grainy. Not having a real telephoto lens was a liability so there’s a flat sameness to the podium shots and I don’t have all that many close-up candid shots. 

I’ve got two more rolls of Ilford KP2 still to develop, and I still haven’t made proof sheets. I only got a chance to peek at the negatives, and most of them look clear. 

My instant camera is lousy at group shots. The electronic eye keeps focusing on the far wall, no matter how I try to trick it. So I have too many shots of Bei Dao, Duo Duo and Paul Vangelisti, but the flash is so handy. I need a compact flash system, and a better camera. My flash cable broke on my Pentax. The Minolta is fine for scenery where the focus isn’t critical. But other than that, it’s not worth carrying around.

In the mail arrives two more postcards from Vins, one of a pun on Magritte’s painting, This is not a Pipe. Mam-am fume une pipe: women bring home the bread. He wrote, “So good, your call, deep joy jumps up in me on hearing your voice. And I love you as deep, or deeper, yet than ever before.” 

The other card, with two translations of poems from a Dutch woman poet, about the writing process, called Children. 

I needed some photo IDs of our Belgium trip. We visited an outrageous oval castle outside of Belgium, a steel van Beersel in Beginhof, in the town of Diest. There was also a round church in the town of miracles is Scherpenheuvel, or Sharp hill. During the Middle-Ages pilgrimages were made by pagans to a holy cross-shaped oak. The tree was "Christianized" with a statue of the virgin Mary. Clearly a Celtic hangover.

The river in Louvain or Leuven is called the Dijle, where the medieval drown girl, Magrietken, or Mariika, met her end in the moat and became a saint.

No date given

Uniting the World through Poetry journal, writing to all the poets

25 July, 1993: another Uniting the World through Poetry editing, and paste-up marathon in Bolinas, preparing letters to the poets for the two upcoming UWP issues, Middle East and Eastern Europe.

I’m sending out a raft of letters to world-famous poets, we are now on first name terms with most of them.

And on the homefront, I can’t seem to get any recognition for my own work. This is why I am putting my life’s blood into this poetry venture. Nature abhors a vacuum. This discouragement I have faced is becoming chronic. I know my work strong, but it seems no one else thinks so.

Another rejection letter from the California Arts Council. I did not get the writers fellowship for a mere $2000. Only 20 out of 182 entries were funded and I’ve got to wait another four years for the next round? This is the shits.

The Korean War poems anthology will be delayed again as there is not enough work. Green Fuse is holding hostage three of my poems hostage for final round. Someone gave them poems to give to me from Yugoslavia. Word is out, and poems arrive from all over the world. 

I was just writing to Tomaž Šalamun, whom I had met at Poetry International, lamenting that I wasn’t even sure if my letter would reach him, wondering if there was even mail delivery as he’s living in war-torn Serbia. What of the other poets—are they even still alive? So many poets living in exile these days.

I read some poems from David Charlton, wondering where he was living when he was there, in Dubrovnik? I remember the first time I was in Belgrade, it was a sultry August night, and we ate ice cream with dark cherries in syrup. The best I have ever tasted. On my return trip, my luggage liked Belgrade so much it stayed a couple of months before returning home to me.

The last time I was in Belgrade I bought an upcycled dress made from linen hand towels and the cuffs of fancy embroidered bedsheets (or what I planned to use as a wedding dress). Once I was hopeful about Oleg… Where did the love disappear to? Now burial shrouds are considered a luxury item in a war-ravaged country. My Croatian dictionary is buried under a pile of now obsolete books on Russia. Sigh.

I should keep track of my myriad correspondences with these world-famous poets: Tomaž Šalamun, Dr. Miroslav Holub, Breyten Breytenbach, Ana Blandiana, Boris Xristov, Bella Akhmadulina—How old is she now? Blaga Dimitrova, Sylvia Fischerová, Gulya Kodalini (sp?), Chenjerai Hove, Niyi Osundare, Hawad, and the contributing American poets: Maya Angelou, Gary Snyder, Robert Bly, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane Wakowski, Diane diPrima, Maxine Kumin—to just name a few. 

I am keeping the dour, stone-faced postmaster at the Bolinas post office busy, if not entertained. Such exotic addresses. You’d think he’d at least crack a smile once and a while. I walk back the long way to Herman’s place on the Mesa just to clear my aching head.

So far, we have 218 poems in both issues. Plus we also sent letters to every PEN organization in Africa and letters to all our Rotterdam contacts. There are so many unfinished bits and pieces to do before I do a mass mailing.

I’ve got working addresses for a third of the poets, and we still have to send copies out to the translators (many of the poems need additional polishing from English to English). If I can get their addresses that is, and then, send out thank you letters by the bushel. Sometimes I dream I am writing letters in my sleep.

• Letter to Niyi Osundare
• Letters to/from Charles Simic 

Dream journal: Stephanie Stone

17 July dream journal (see also Aug. 8 dream about Steph too.)

I dreamed my childhood friend Stephanie was still alive, but close to death. She and her father were spending a week up at Tahoe, or somewhere—maybe even up at Clearlake. At her nana and grandpa‘s house. Les’s parents.

I said that I had to work during the week; how about if I came up on Friday evening for a visit? Was I also housesitting for them? Stephanie loved the idea. But Les was distant and cold, and also weird. I was upset, I said, look it was only a suggestion. You can say yes or no, but don’t make me feel like shit. And then I ran away, crying.

Steph and Les fought like crazy, she was exhausted. The bone cancer was relentless. He carried her towards the house. We were at her other grandmother Mimi‘s place at the bottom of the hill, standing in the driveway. She was saying goodbye to all her relations.

I had run to the top of the field, to the far left corner and hid myself in the shrubs and sedge clumps. He carried her near to where I was hiding and put her down. They were both crying. She heard me sob, and they gathered me up too.

All three of us crying over the inevitable. There was blood all over the place. Why was my hair done up in multiple braids? Long ropes of dark hair like an octopus on the ground. 

Curiously, I was lying downhill trying to hide in what little cover there was in the upper pasture. My head and a purse or a bag—black objects. I was afraid they were too noticeable in the blonde grass.There was such sorrow among all of us. I still grieve for Stephanie, my childhood friend.

Dream Journal, David Om

16 July: I dreamed I was in a large gym. Many of us were there for the duration. For what, I do not know. I looked in one of the mirrors and most of my pubic hair was gone, worn off. I went, oh? The lice medicine must’ve done it. No, it was from my jeans that pinch me. I was horrified, one thick, brittle black hair came off in my hand. Would it grow back? Was this my biggest fear? Yuck.

Day One of my period gives me such weird dreams. Nightmare journal.

Last night I went over to David Om‘s house. My fax is indeed dead, but the modem still works. We went hot tubbing but it was greasy. He gave me a massage that involved my stomach and gut. That always makes me uneasy. I don’t like anyone touching my stomach. 

Then he eventually squeezed my breast, which made me angry. Yes it’s a massage and nothing ever happens, but I still get angry when he trespasses, even in the name of massage because I have zero sexual attraction for him. In fact, I am sexually repulsed by him. I like him for his brilliant mind. Much more sexy.

Also, it didn’t help that he had some lice shampoo on his toilet tank top. Gross. And sexual items by the bed. I have no interest, therein lies the rub, because he does have an interest in me.

I thoroughly scrubbed and showered when I got home. There was oil residue on my hair, making it appear gray and was laden with massage oil. Disgusting.

Also, his kitchen is a mess. We had a meal. Rice and veggies—but everything was so dirty. I felt uncomfortable, I feared for the health of my stomach, so I tried not to see anything. The image left a bad taste in my mouth. Hence the weird dreams. And my period. I had such bad cramps during the night which didn’t help matters any. 

Dream journal: Marilyn Stocks, teaching, & a dark-haired dream lover

15 July, Thursday. After cramming for my Elderhostel workshop, I had garbled dreams. One involved Marilyn Stocks, who was passing out my gift T-shirts to the class. I said wait, those are my gifts for family, and those T-shirts are for my brother. She held up a black one with tropical fish and hung it on the back wall paired with an outfit, a lime, green long undershirt beneath the transparent skirt. She laughs and make a makes a comment about enticing rapists.

She leaves, and one man stays. He is my lover. I don’t know who he is. I am also in the seat behind him watching myself. Domestic situation, hot plate. Like at Herman’s place, a kitchen terrycloth towel falls on it.

I’m also in the back of the classroom. I snatch up the towel, but it gets burned on the electric coil hot plate. There is a pile of sliced vegetables on the next burner. Red peppers, green beans, zucchini. I sweep them off and into a pan because I know they’ll cook better and then I jokingly say maybe we should just get married. Utter silence. 

There are domestic problems with this relationship. Clutter, something and domestic ugliness having to do with relationships in general, nothing specific.

I don’t know who this man is. Then I was awakened by the doorbell but I don’t have a doorbell. I tried to recapture the dream fragments, but no luck. Jim Bird, Jan, Bogaerts, and Vins van Neerven all crossed my mind as possible candidates. He was a dark-haired man, and I couldn’t see enough of his body to guess who it was.

UWP journal: poetry files from Vins arrive

13 July. Today I slept late. I’ve been depressed lately, especially yesterday as I dreamed I was still in Amsterdam, and Vins was sitting on the floor, I could see there was a disaster about to happen.

And he said, go home. Sort of like how you tell a dog to go home, the emphasis was on the word go. Cold and deep was his voice, but it wasn’t directed at me. Sure, there was trouble, yes. He was part of it. But he was also shielding me from it. I had no business becoming involved with him. He was telling me to go home out of love, not out of anger or hatred. To protect me from something, I know not what. His own darkness.

Yesterday I finished reading Dracula, it has a quality similar to that, protecting the women folk, especially Mina Leven, though she had a wondrous brain, “like a man’s,” someone said. What catastrophe was about to rain down on Vins’ head here?

I finished my letter to Jan Bogaerts, I’m sure it too is related to my depression. My immobility, my inability to work through the dilemma of both Jan and Vins, childhood friends not speaking to each other—and I was the fulcrum.

Vins says that he loves me, but he is not in love with me, and I know he can’t seem to live with someone. It’s too upsetting for him. Like me, he needs solitude. I leave, give him his space.

Saturday, a letter came with a copy of the poetry files that he had kept. We fought over the phone when I discovered that he went into the private files on my desk. He claimed it was an accident. But I am glad to get the Dutch to English translations. Some poems have gone through the sieve of three languages. Like Marta Manarini: Spanish to Dutch to English.

But it was a wonderful letter particularly adept in avoiding issues of the heart, shedding light on nothing other than I arrived at an unfortunate time. He took his crabbiness out on me.

With Vins, there is no equilibrium between work and people. He feels secure being with a community of teachers, scholars, and writers. I wonder if moving away from friends and lovers, to that of a colleague is the right direction? Then the yes. Our affair had run its course, but we were having trouble letting it go.

There was a very funny story about Vincent van Gogh, buying copiachu, a paint softener, and VO medicine. When Vincent asked if it could be mixed with turpentine, the shopkeeper replied, do you have to destroy your sorry ass even more?

Vincent wanted to give his colors more light and depth, and he used the thinner liberally. Even now his paints aren’t dry And probably never will be. The Potato Eaters and his windmill and trestle paintings are still wet. But the varnish over the top shrank, causing the paint to craze. In 1928 The Potato Eaters was given a new, backing and restorers hot-glued it onto a new canvas. The paint and varnish will remain forever wet.

At Schiphal, all the guards sport machine guns, in preparation for the Israeli Prime Minister’s arrival. Prime Minister Rabin, Dutch Prime Minister Lubin, and the Israeli Embassy are all out to greet the Prime Minister Rabin. Utter chaos.

Jan diagnosed Vins’ hennaed hair as a harbinger of midlife crisis. Maybe so, but it sure was fun slopping what looked like cow shit on each other’s heads, and then washing it out. All green and red.

Unfortunately the henna nested in my hair like a Rastafarian nightmare, and I had to resort to a comb and gobs of cream rinse to coax the last of the henna out. I like my hair hennaed as it’s much thicker and has a red sheen to it. It isn’t all that different from my natural color, but it covers the gray nicely.

Today’s mail brought a parcel from Vinz, half of his birthday roses, because he never bought me flowers, some chocolates, two love, notes, my modem cord, sweatpants, and a wooden Hans Brinker skate. Thawing treasures from the flea market.

UWP journal: Bolinas, Ana Baranova, Blaga Dimitrová

10 July: I awoke repeating the image: lakes and pools are the tongues of the river. I am dreaming of rivers, seeing my homeland from the air. I never finished writing about my flight home, flying over Shasta‘s cone, along the Trinity Alps and Longridge, over Snow Mountain and the Mendocino range, flying along the length of the Russian river, I could see places where I’ve swum in the river—the pool below, Healdsburg and Fitch Mountain. 

Then I actually recognizing the bend of river where home was located, then the mouth of the river. Jenner. Bodega. The Bodega Head hole where a nuclear plant was planned. Dear Rose Gaffney stopped PG&E. Now that’s power. We flew parallel to the San Andreas Fault, and it was a glorious site to see the land of home unfold. I recited the litany of the names of home: Olema, Bolinas, Point Reyes.

I spent July 5-9 at Bolinas, going through Herman’s chaos in order to make electronic the poetry files. It took me a full day of cleaning his house and another day of sorting through drawers to find all the UWP files and put them back in order. He misplaces everything. For how long this order will last, is anyone’s guess.

I answered poet letters, etc. I am a poetry secretary. If I am to do this job right, I’ve got to brace myself for Herman’s perpetual chaos. It may be more than I can take. We’ll see how long this arrangement lasts. As long as I’m paid as well. No way can I get paid for all my work. It’s the principle of the matter.

Making these regional poetry anthologies in tabloid format is utterly grueling work, but I am bitten by the power of editorship, an extraordinary way to make powerful contacts the world over. I’m hooked also, because I like the work, hearing all the voices. Ana Baranova, a poet I met at Poetry International in Rotterdam sent me some superb work. It left me breathless.

We’re constantly upgrading our files and contacts. So far, the anthologies we’ve published were all very well received; people seem to love what we are doing, saying, most of this is really good poetry. How did you get the work of so many famous writers? Luck of the draw, being at the right place at the right time. 

I showed our UWP newspapers to the refugee poets from Serbo-Croatia, and then found out that Blaga Dimitrová is the vice president of Bulgaria! Holy shit! I was in shock. Because as poets we were all equal in vision and passion.

Rotterdam journal, flying home

3 July. Last night, one of those final nights where hell is naturally defined as part of the process of saying goodbye. Poliny, a vice of icebergs as if spring, urged them south, ride the Gulfstream towards North America. Ice shelves at the north pole. I never knew that the polini were so tortures. It’s as if the eye of the sky had opened.

4 July. Flying over Baffin Bay and then, seeing the long striations on the rock, the finger lakes continue to amaze me. The relentless scouring of the glaciers from eons ago and still the land hasn’t recovered.

Am I looking at the Yukon territories? We’re pretty far north, you can see forest fires in the north, somewhere above Saskatchewan. The Columbia River below us, shining in the afternoon sun, a bend in the river. A lot of water even from this height. It’s big, not as big as the Mississippi, but bigger than the European rivers, even the Rhine. The mouth of the Rhine, Rotterdam, the world is poured in, and the mad rivers small by comparison. 

Herman, Ton and I took a boat trip up the harbor, visiting lock after lock, the cranes like strange beast at play, at rest. Ton, a drummer friend of Mark Peters, has become seduced by poetry, though. The festival is a bit sketchy. Herman brings him to several events as he is a houseguest. I had arranged the connection via Mark while I was in Lissel with Jan, but I digress… 

Back to the landscape, the only thing I can believe in.

Snowy summit, one of the cascade peaks, ravaged Mt. Saint Helens, and Hood at the end. We’re flying at a slight angle. Hard to get my bearings as there’s too much cloud cover all the way down. There is eternal sunlight this far north so close to the solstice. 

We experience mid-day all the way home, having left at 3:30 PM and arrive in San Francisco a scant two hours later with nine hours in the air. Stoppage in time. Suspended animation  Time is passing for us. Nine hours, we are experiencing some kind of adverse time travel where we age five times faster than the clock by flying with the sun. West to the edge of the continent. 

Of course the reverse is true when flying east, but it’s not so obvious that we arrive in a different timeframe. It was it is not so spectacular to fly back Mid day when there’s a cloud cover most of the way, or in the evening when it’s dark. I prefer to fly on the cusp of dawn and evening because the transition from light to dark is spectacular. 

Nothing has replaced that first vision of the earth’s curvature. When I was 19 on my way to London, over the Polar route, the plane turned, and I was looking straight up into the night, sky, stars, and all, and the curve of the earth casting a shadow upon the sunset, below me, in pale green and vermilions, and above me the stars. I have flown to Europe many times since then, and have yet to see such a sight. 

I’ve spent over four months in Amsterdam since last July and I’m coming back to teach a two-day class, a $200 commitment that wasn’t worth it, but I had promised. I could’ve stayed another three weeks. I love the process of living elsewhere, a part of the year but when I return, I don’t want to be here. This place doesn’t seem so much like home, but like stepping back into a mold, where I no longer fit.

My second night home, I dreamt I was still in Europe, and everything was cluttered and dark. I slept, walked to the front door and stood naked in the waxing moonlight, looking out over the shadows, thinking I was still in Europe, only to discover this cluttered dark past was my home, it was America and I didn’t feel like I belonged to her any longer. 

Living so long with Russians and Europeans since 1989 and half-and-half since 1998. I’ve lived nearly a year abroad since August 1989. It is my intention to try to get away from the states at least one time yearly in three month intervals.

Well, I’ve managed to fritter away several hours, watering, picking boysenberries, making pie and doing laundry. I’m housesitting at Marsha Connell’s in Santa Rosa.

I am in need of mindlessness and tranquility alone in America on the Fourth of July, the sizzle of sprinklers, the sighs of pines, the fireworks and sirens. The heat has bleached the color from the horizon as if in the pastel landscape not favored by Mary Silverwood, or Marsha Connell for that matter. 

This is the kind of day to sit on a chaise lounge and let the water ply over my feet. Anything to keep from writing about what matters—why do I keep avoiding it? I barely wrote while I was in Amsterdam, I’ve barely written anything since February. I’ve barely dreamed and suddenly I’m remembering my dreams for the first time in ages. 

Also, today was the first time I actually slept in until 9 AM, too keyed up at my place, too many things to do, too many pressures upon me. To sleep, per chance to dream.

And all those feelings towards the futility of life, call it depression, or am I deeply discouraged. Hard to say. Only that I want another life and I seem to be locked into this one, which allows me to travel, but something is missing and I know the lack of family in relationship is part of it. 

I’m finally tired of being alone. Funny most of the time. I love it. Maybe it’s because this is the first time I’ve been alone in months. First living part-time here at Marsha’s while doing the book, then with Vins for six weeks. I can barely stand to be still, some inner force is driving me onward every 10 to 15 minutes. This is how I’m writing this journal today, in spurts, afraid to be all in. What is lying in back of my subconsciousness? I never finished the journal.

We fly over Crater Lake, and see the bathtub ring of the central valley as we near Shasta. Shasta! An extraordinary snow, God, rising from all that lava. The return to America punctuated with the pristine beauty of the land compared to Europe’s cities and ruins and civilization. This is why I need both places. 

A part of me can never be free, or relax without the wilderness, another part needs the antiquities. Somewhere in all of this, I need both alone and a home and a relationship. Lee is right. Where I live is depressing. 

I still don’t know if I have my CAC grant, I am at a 3+, number 50 and the budget hasn’t been cut, I suspect I’m right on the borderline for funding, all residencies have first priority. We shall see. Reentry is rough.

FLYING OVER NORTH HOLLAND

Flying over Holland, I see how the land 

Tilts and drains in a vee towards the great river.

The Amsterdam bridge over the Zuiderzee 

is like a green eel seeking a distant shore, 

connecting the north with the south.

The original shores of the land, 

curved and rounded by tides 

speak of an older drowned story.

The old and the new topography 

spar with roads laid out across polders

following the cartographer’s dream. 

The concept of north and south wins

over stream and bend. 

When the plane wing 

dips towards the edge of night, 

the horizon tilts and forgets 

to hold onto the curtain of day, 

& stars nervously edge into articulation. 

The islands of North Holland, 

like the first statues of women, 

talismans of Venus. Fertility goddesses.

We are flying home soon after the solstice 

with the sun, with the sun. 

Theoretically, by the clock, 

our flight only takes hours. 

I marvel at the patterns by the shore, 

the circling of ships about their business. 

The day turns in towards itself, 

aspiring to the light of the sun, 

the light, the light, the light of the sun.

28 June, over Holland

Amsterdam journal, returning from Belgium

26 Saturday. We returned from Brussels late, and went to a meeting for Wereld Scriveners in Amsterdam, a group of foreign writers who want to create an avenue for publication, and recognition. I found the problems, typical and depressing translator Kavlijn Stoeffer put it this event together. Vins sits and listens to me give voice to my misery. I’m too tired to write, as usual. I’m hoping for some quiet time to recollect my thoughts, etc., in the near future.

Later Jan calls Vins, and they talk for quite some time. I rouse myself from sleep. Jan says, you are waking from a dream. And though I’m depressed, I wake up a bit from the depression. He says, this is the state I was in when I came back from San Francisco and only now am I coming out of it. He said, now I am more focused, literally, and have gained clarity with the Hasselblad camera. The slowness of the cameras system gives him reflective time.

I have not written about Jan or Vins because it has been too painful. Vins is snorting in the kitchen because I am talking to Jan, I am unused to this jealousy which is not entirely unfounded, I might add, but what am I to do when Vins says Jan called in order to talk to you. What am I to say to him when nothing ever happened between us? 

Jan wants me to come to dinner tomorrow in Lissel but Eric Vleugels is coming over. I am looking forward to seeing him again. As much as I hate to say no to Jan I can’t see any way out of this pickle. It is so banal, so tragically human as to be nearly comical. Maybe I will laugh later.

Den Bosch (photos)

I found some B&W pix of the cathedral that certainly informed Hieronymus Bosch's world view. I hope the ID is right, the Leuven sign on the cathedral has me stumped. Photo says: blood drive Friday, June 25, Town hall, Leuven. So it may be misidentified, I’m not done scanning. It is 1993, however, so that guess is right. Anyway, it was a big anniversary year for Bosch, my friend Jan Bogaerts had a big show, so we went to DenBosch to see his photos. 

In June, 1993, Vinz van Neerven and I visited the Gothic cathedral where Jheronimus van Aken‘s paintings graced the altar. It was way too dark to even think of taking photographs. I can’t remember, but I think he was buried in the church. The organ was stupendous. There was a bookbinding and printing exhibit inside as well.

“Little is known of Bosch's life, though there are some records. He spent most of it in the town of 's-Hertogenbosch, where he was born in his grandfather's house. Buried on 9 August 1516 (aged 65–66) 's-Hertogenbosch, Duchy of Brabant, Habsburg Netherlands.”

written 9/12/21 but it’s all about the photos. Or I could double post it…. Either way, it’s a work in progress as I am waiting on ID for the first photo. An expanded version here. 

• Den Bosch and the world of Hieronymus 

Poetry International 1993/1994, v1

POETRY INTERNATIONAL 1993/1994 (1st draft)    Maureen Hurley

Holland's enormously successful Poetry International festival is the cultural highlight of Rotterdam—a futuristic concrete city known for its shipyards and little else. Razed to the ground by the Nazis in 1940, the city completely rebuilt itself from the rubble; some say it's culturally brain-dead. It's the largest industrial port in the world. In 1968, there wasn't much happening: no TV or radio stations, no publishing houses—in short, no culture. There still isn't much to see in Rotterdam today, and little to distinguish it from any other modern city if it hadn't been for a ship of fools who decided to declare verbal warfare on Rotterdam's lack of culture by hurling poems at it.

“WWII was long over, it was obvious something had to be done,” says Martin Mooij, the director of Poetry International. According to Mooij, the budding Rotterdam Arts Council invited him to become their director of literature. His job, to develop a literary community, was a bit like sending Don Quixote out with oars to joust with windmills. The 25-year-old organization has spawned other innovative projects and events besides the readings: a Dutch and Italian poetry exchange, translation workshops, a poetry archives and documentation center, putting pressure on repressive governments to release incarcerated poets, painting lines of poetry on garbage trucks. . .

Yes, painting lines of poetry on garbage trucks. . . It's an odd ark indeed when all 400 of Rotterdam's municipal garbage trucks flaunt lines of poetry: “Good morning beauty,” and “Always be clean so that the air will be clean.” Mooij explains, “One was the title of a book, and the other, a line from Rafael Oberti. Sometimes I just get crazy ideas for publicity. Rotterdam gets 30 to 40 new trucks a year. That's 30 to 40 more poets whose work gets read. At this point, I know everything about the cleaning service.”

Holland's second most important city, Rotterdam, has put the Netherlands on both the shipping and the poetry map. Amsterdam is the capitol of the Netherlands; both cities support one million inhabitants. (For those of you a bit shaky on geography, think Dutch: wooden shoes, Edam and Gouda cheese, tulips, windmills and canals: sorry, the story of the little boy Hans Brinker with his finger in the dyke is an American invention. I'll skip the historical legacies we owe to the Dutch: the pilgrim fathers, and New York nee  Nieuwe Amsterdam, Waal Straat, Haarlem. . .)

Since 1970, over 1000 poets from all over the world have boarded Rotterdam's gangplanks to participate in the annual ten-day festival held during the third and fourth weeks of June. For many poets from Holland and Flanders, the festival offers a unique opportunity to read with poets of international repute. Past luminaries include the European poets: Herbert Zbigniew of Poland, Vasko Popa of Yugoslavia, Miroslav Holub of Czechoslovakia, Lar Gustafsson of Sweden, Gunther Grass of Germany, Seamus Heaney of Ireland; The Russians: Bella Akhmadulina, Andrei Voznesenski, Yosef Trotsky; poets from the Americas: Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Octavio Paz of Mexico, Pablo Neruda of Chile; from the Middle East: Yehuda Amichi of Israel; and Randra from Indonesia. (PI archives.)

Poetry International journal, Solstice

19 June: I took photos of Joseph Brodsky, Hugo Klaus, and Japanese poet Makoto Ooka, along with Lars Gustafsen, Seamus Heaney, Miroslav Holub, Bert Schierbeek, Yehuda Amichai, Rempo Campert, and the Buddingh prize winner from Belgium, Herman Leenders.

20 June: I never got a chance to finish writing in my journal, I’m sitting by a canal in Delft again. Alone. I found the fortress at the edge of the city after going 180°, the wrong direction. Apropos. 

Vins is agitated, he forgot that Herman is supposed to come over and stay tonight, so he takes it out on me. I don’t like it one bit, I choose my battles, so I am determined not to let it bother me. I don’t want the double bind. I step outside the circle. So now Herman is going to hang out somewhere until 11 PM to assuage the situation.

It seems I have been interrupted for the nth time. I cannot go back to this journal and pick up the lost threads—even to record notes. Oh well, sometimes you just have to let it go. Happy solstice.

Poetry International journal, more networking

17 Thursday. I took photos of Lars Gustafson, Charles Simiç, and Rutger Kopeland, and some of my drawings are coming out OK. I draw in between headshots. A woman came up to me afterwards and said, you were transfixed by Rutger Kopeland weren’t you? I asked, was it that obvious? She said yes. The photographer took a photo of you too. It was so funny when Lars read a poem about a photo, he said click! just as I clicked; he looked at me sideways, and the audience laughed.

I missed the Chilean poet, oh well. I have two more nights. I was supposed to stay in Rotterdam because the metro is locked at midnight, before the readings are over. My friend Vins was a bit pissy, cranky and blue, because it’s his birthday and he was upset the whole night long. 

The big antique mirror we scored one night on the street, fell off the wall and shattered. Ominous. Glass like escaped ghosts, everywhere. So I made him a cupcake, and brought him roses and chocolate; it helped to ease the pain a bit. Anyway, I arrived late for the evening reading, but I was in time for the second set so it was OK.

Lars has performed with Poetry International four times. He was part of the first event in 1971. We went to the hospitality room afterwards and definitely that’s where the action is and where the networking happens. Leo Vroman showed me a copy of a most unusual book he made with overlays, etc. He also does some visual poetry. 

Karoly Bari and I had a strange double-translated conversation from English to Russian with Dmitri Prigov until he got the bright idea to speak to him directly in Russian; he gave me several poems already translated into English for our magazine. I also gave Dmitri Prigov copy of Glasnost. He knew many of the poets we had published and promised to get them copies. We actually did translate and print two of his poems and he admitted they were from the late 70s. I was surprised as they are totally different than, his sound poetry which borders on gibberish.

Ilya Kutek also gave me some poems as did Marjan Meijer. I gave Marjan a copy of my poems, but I don’t know if it’s particularly useful. I didn’t have flyers so I don’t know how to spell their last names. I told Rutger Kopeland that I liked his poetry, but his books were so expensive. He said to tell the bookseller to give me a copy for 20 gilders. I’m thrilled by his generosity.

One bookseller was enchanted with my student anthologies, she wants to take 10 copies to see how it will sell, with a 25 percent commission and she will pay postage. Wow. I also got a tentative job offer to work in South Africa at Durban University if they can get funding for a poetry festival. I take it all in stride, lucrative, or not. 

Someone told me that the California CPITS program makes them envious. I said that I’m here to teach poets how to do it; I just can’t seem to make contact. Naochem Winberg and Charles Simiç overheard me as they went to get wine and he handed me two glasses. His work is very mythic, but it’s more like a mini play with objects. Very surreal.

I asked Leo Vroman for a copy of his visual poem that was in the newspaper. I made a tentative date with Victor Manuel to go to the museum tomorrow, but he wasn’t sure. He had to work on translations, he reads tomorrow night.

After midnight we all went over to the all night staging of Derek Walcott’s play, Omeros, but it was in Dutch. Some of the poets read on the radio. The theater is also a live radio show. Wild. The play is in seven parts, and last until 7 AM, so there are videos and banquets going on simultaneously as the play and radio program air. Also, there are installation pieces shrines of sorts to Derek. 

I stayed till 1:30 AM and got bored and then went to the metro but everything was locked up tight so I couldn’t get to Ton’s place, and since I had a train ticket back to Amsterdam, home it was.

I made tentative plans to meet with Victor tomorrow and/or go touring with Herman and Ton and now it looks like I won’t be able to do either. Victor Manuel Mendiola said he wasn’t going to the Omeros play, and as I walked out of the theater into the lobby, a small hole in the crowd opened and we spotted each other, and there we were, dodging around bodies to verify each other with our eyes. It was pretty comical, but he was busy with the translator, so I didn’t join him.

Leo Vroman introduced me to Dutch-Israeli poet Judith Herzberg, we were a little stiff, since I had tried to make contact with her in October and she blew me off. Maybe I was stiffer than I needed to be, but I felt put off by her, and really had nothing to say to her. I surely didn’t feel like gushing. We shook hands formally, and that was it. I think I do better with the Dutch poets as they like to hang out. They are more gezellig. Not Judith.

Poetry International journal, CPITS networking

15 Tuesday. I am making more CPITS contacts (Poetry International Director Maartin Mooij invited me because I work with children.) Bert and Thea Schierbeek, Horacio Ferrar, Marjan Meijer (who is working on a kite project), and also Dimitri Prigov (I showed him a poem of his we published in Soviet Poetry Since Glasnost—he was so full of himself, I didn’t want to give him a copy). 

Roberto Juarroz and Bert took the CPITS flyers as did Marjan, so the news is getting out that way. Apparently those of us who teach children how to write poems are a rare breed. I gave Bert one of my Dutch chapbooks, he said he would introduce me to someone who also works in the schools tomorrow. I talked with my photographer friend Jan Bogaerts tonight and he said the Mongol poem was beautiful. I asked him how did he get a copy of that? And he said, a spy.

(PI archives.)

STOPTREIN THROUGH HAARLEM

STOPTREIN THROUGH HAARLEM

It’s June 14, 1993, I’m sitting by the window of the two-storey stoptrein

            with neon lime plastic seats. It’s raining again, diamonds come to mind.

                        I don’t like comparing rain on glass to diamonds;

                                    the word apartheid was invented here.

Returning from the Rotterdam poetry reading,

            I know the express train always arrives first,

            though it leaves much later,

                         but I’m too impatient to wait for it. 

On the platform, a poster announces the arrival of the Harlem Globe Trotters.

            The train sign, Haarlem with its two aa’s reminds me of where I am.

I’m borderless, night has fallen, the  water fragments into shards of darkness and light.

I didn’t know I liked the easiness of comparing water to broken glass.

I didn’t know that in this country of canals, the ghettos of the past would follow me

(like the tail of this train);

            or that the common thread between my disparate journeys and lovers

                        would be both the noose and the lifeline.

                                    That I’d become mute from witnessing too much.

At the reading, a Mexican poet recognizes me

            from the photo on an old chapbook, Falling to Sea Level,

            given to him years ago,

                        and asks if I am la mujer de John.

                                                — I say ¡No, es finito! es kaput!

I don’t like mixing languages or speaking ill of those I once wished to be dead

            in metaphors of dear John letters,

                        or being identified by their bedsheets.

There is reason enough to be concerned, I am living below sea level

            with another man I will leave behind on the train,

                                                and there are others.

Near midsummer, the northern light extends its boundaries toward midnight.

I am still in the dark. I don’t like being jealous of poets whose work does not move me.

Someone asks, What makes it a poem? I am at a loss for words and I don’t like it.