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drains to ocean
click here to view in a new window Good news came to me in the mail a few days ago. Michael Hathaway, editor of Chiron Review, accepted a poem of mine for inclusion in his next issue, along with a photo and short bio for a full-page spread. He needs that much room because the poem, "jaywalking," has six parts of nearly 200 lines. Any acceptance letter that shows up in the mail is a good thing, this one particularly sweet because this is the first time I've sent work out in at least three years. I published regularly for several years back in the early nineties, making somewhat of a name for myself in the small press literary scene. A painful breakup with my girlfriend-at-the-time served as a catalyst for one of my most potent periods of poetic creativity; but soon I was spent, and I drifted away from the literary world, stopped sending my work out, stopped writing poems, stopped giving readings. About the same time I experienced my NYC vision: walking along a Manhattan street in winter, trusty overcoat, boots, hands in pockets, buzzed head under watchcap. This image sparked what turned out to be a year-and-a-half residency in New York City. Temporarily shelving the journal-type novel I had been working on the year before, I spent my days in New York walking the streets, learning the city, and writing what would become a series of NYC poems and prose works. "Jaywalking" came out of this fertile period, and reflects new developments in my voice as a writer and embodies the newfound wisdom and humility gained from making it in New York. To have this poem accepted by a well respected literary magazine is a good thing. I feel it's a pretty good poem, one of my best, and I'm overjoyed that an editor made the connection, understands where I'm coming from in the work, and is generous enough to print a very long piece under restrictive space considerations. It seems to me a reaffirmation of my vision as a writer and artist, and a rare reward for all my hard work and struggles of faith. Recognition doesn't come around very often for those in my vocation, and when it does, even when the payment is as minor as a single contributor's copy, the buzz alone can be enough to recharge the spirit. So, yeah, I'm buzzed. But I had to send the editor a photo of myself. Never having spent any time on self-promotion, I have no official dust-sleeve photograph, no portrait of the artist. So I sent him a still from my NYC video, a shot of me standing in the middle of Bedford Avenue just outside S & B Restaurant, holding the video camera at arm's length, aimed at myself. It shows me in full winter regalia, hooded sweatshirt under St¸ssy jacket, the brownstones and denuded trees of Williamsburg. What a weird scene, looking at it now from 3,000 miles away. Hard to believe, sometimes, that I was there, that the Joe Schmoe looking at the camera is me. I remember talking about backdrops in a letter to my friend, Molly. We had been talking about the landscape in which we lived, the setting of our everyday lives, and how the Southern California urban landscape, save for some remarkable moments of clarity and beauty, often rings false and insubstantial. That we grew up in such an environment proves how well us Angelenos have managed to forge real connections with the landscape; the expanses of sand of the beaches and nooks & crannies of tidepools, the blissful minimalism of the high desert with its oceans of joshua trees, the brown and green velvet of the foothills, the hypnotic lure of the freeways late at night. Southern California is indeed very horizontal in orientation, with broad expanses of open sky punctuated at the horizon by the almost organic line of industrial spires and suburban psuedo-Mission mini-mall tiled roofs and boxes of corporate glass and steel. This visual mise en scËne informs our way of looking at the world, just as the weird marriage of antiquity and contemporary shapes those living in Rome or Athens. So when I saw New York City for the first time, I was hit with the intense verticality and density of the visual field, and imagined a completely different existence for myself, a new backdrop from which to hang the structure of my new life. Living there, of course, brought my romantic visions down a notch or two. The grass is no greener. The cascade of ancient buildings, of fire escapes and water towers, the yellow current of taxis, the density of people on the sidewalk; these optic stimuli somehow failed to filter properly through my West Coast-colored glasses. I could not change the selective focus of my eyes--every brick and every loop of graffiti on every building on every street entered my consciousness with equal detail and importance. There was never any visual rest, not even when I had walked upper Broadway for the hundredth time on my way to and from work. I grew weary of the activity, sought refuge where I could. I think that in time I might have internalized this new language, make it work for me. But I've returned to Long Beach, a reinterpretation of the familiar stage settings, an updated production by an exciting new director. NYC shifts into a new category for me now, a new definition in the dictionary. No longer a foreign place or romantic idyll, NYC is nothing less than my second home. The term "bicoastal" has taken on new meanings for me. I'll get back as often as I can: for Eric & Lisa's wedding this past July (which was the most beautiful I'd ever seen), for Christmas, perhaps for Fourth of July next year. Until then, I'll keep the subway token close by, a reminder of where I've been and where I've still to go. I just hope that by the time I get there
they haven't killed the token altogether. Those MTA bastards.
from "jaywalking"
1. The J train lights up the bridge like a
calliope,
and the river below murmurs
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