Open Mikes: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

About once a month, I put on my ears and go to a poetry open mike. I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve sipped coffee in countless cafés, fidgeted on innumerable uncomfortable chairs, and pondered art—the visual and the spoken kind—while poets belted out their work at galleries. I even co-hosted an open mike for three years, which was like planning a birthday party every month: I worried whether people would come, and then they did, and we usually had a blast. 

And after all that, I have a confession to make: I hate open mikes.

All right, sometimes I love them. But I hate them, too. I hate open mikes for the same reason most people won’t go to them at all: I don’t want to hear poetry that I don’t like. And what’s more, I don’t want to be bombarded with it while poets blithely motor past the time limit, shout about hand grenades, or torture the audience by demanding that we chant their lines back to them, or ask us to vote on which poem we “want” them to read. As I sit there with a bland smile on my face, pondering whether it’s medically possible to slit my own throat with my car keys, I think, “Why do I keep coming to these things?”

It’s no idle question. It’s something I think about a lot, because, God help me, a month later I’m sitting there, doing it again. Part of the answer is that open mikes have another side: a kind of beauty that comes from randomness. I might, for instance, see an unexpected genius come wandering in off the street, with dog-eared pages clutched in one hand. Or someone might take a form—a sonnet or villanelle—and turn it inside out, exposing a whole new world of possibilities. Or there might be a shy kid who gets up and reads for the first time in her life, and ain’t half bad. Some nights, there are a lot of these moments. Some nights, there are none. But, like flashes of gold that a prospector sees in a muddy creek, they're enough to keep me coming back.

Mostly, though, I go to open mikes because my friends go to them. And the more I go, the more friends I make, and then the whole thing begins to emit a gravitational force of friendship. I also go because I like to see what’s going on with poetry—what’s new and surprising. Poetry is one of those fields where the breakthroughs can happen at any level, to anyone. Some of them flare and die out, but some of them take hold—because someone else was listening, and liked it. Thus the giant life form of poetry grows, cell by cell.

So back I go, full of caffeine so I don’t nod off during the long bits, and armed with a couple of poems in my pocket. God knows who’s nodding off during my five minutes, but they’re kind enough to let me read, and I return the favor. And there we are, once again, throwing our poems in the creek. And hoping a few of them shine.

Poem: When the Aliens Ask of Art

Odd you should ask me,

inclined as I am to offer

a thousand sorrows humans

visit upon each other, but I see

you’ve grown tired of random,

dime-a-dozen litanies,

when you’ve caught the scent

of art. Very well.

Of art:

Here are figure skaters.

A line is left describing

where they’ve been, a cold

cartography. The patterns?

They mean nothing.

They do not commend

one route over any other.

That would not be art.

I see you understand this.

You see how arms can grace

a circle or make you think

of wind on grass. Note

how the female seems

to push her heart out

through the palms of her hands, 

then brings them back empty.

Art is a ladle you offer

to passersby, never asking names.

(appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction)

List: Things that Ayla, Heroine of the Clan of the Cave Bear Series, Did Not Invent

 the Clapper

Count Chocula

letterpress printing

online voter registration

Wii

  

mayonnaise

madrigals

B-2 stealth bomber

the novel

rack-and-pinion steering

Hot Pockets

  

(thanks to Melinda Allman for the idea)

Hay and Bliss

Walking outside at dawn always makes me think of horses.

When I was a kid, I competed in a few horse shows. And part of the horse-show ritual was to wake up in the pre-dawn dark. Then there was a fast breakfast, a car, and a day of horses—their manes braided, their coats shimmering with citronella Shoo-fly.

Later, when I was in my 20s and had rent to pay, I got a dream job as the weekend manager and riding instructor at a small rental stable. And what time did I have to get to work? 6:30 a.m.: dawn.

So there I was again, waking up in the dark, this time with my clock radio set to a hard-rock station. I’d pull on my boots, choke down a fast breakfast, and drive off to the hills as the light was just starting to paint the eastern sky. When I got to the ranch, the only human there, I’d make a quick pit stop at the restroom—a turquoise Porta Potti on the dusty path to the corral. Believe me, there’s nothing quieter, or more lonely, than a cold Porta Potti at dawn.

After that, I’d head for the feed room. Flashlight in one hand, grapple hook in the other, I’d pop the wire on a bale of hay and check it for mold. Then I’d go out to the corral, scatter eight hay flakes on the ground, prop the gate open, and head across the wooden bridge over the creek to the pasture where the horses spent the night.

Horses at dawn are entirely unlike humans at dawn. They’re not curled up, stiff, or cranky; they don’t look the least bit sleepy. They look, in fact, like they’ve been up for hours, browsing the scrub oak and shaking off flies and stamping their feet. Climbing through the gate into the pasture, I felt as if I were walking into an alien world, as if the horses experienced a never-ending day, enjoying the damp air and gaining in wisdom while I wasted a third of my life, shut down in the land of nod.

I’d check the horses, count that there were eight of them, and then I’d open the pasture gate. Slowly, one by one, they’d plod out, wind their way through the neck of the little canyon, splash into the creek, and wander up to the corral. They’d done this a thousand times before. They knew where the hay was.

I’d walk back to the corral, close the gate behind them, and climb over the fence with a curry comb and a brush, a hoof pick in my back pocket. I’d groom each horse in turn, warming my hands on their smooth coats, watching the steam vent out their nostrils, listening to the hollow sound of their great teeth grinding all that hay. I’d check their feet for stones, work the burrs out of their tails, brush out the night’s layer of dust. They were used to this kind of care, this sure-handed straightening. And for an hour or so, before anyone arrived at our little ranch, it was just me and eight horses and a band of sunlight moving down the walls of the canyon, the cool air pungent with bay laurel and eucalyptus, as the hay dwindled to a few scraps in the dirt.

I only worked there for a few months, but at dawn, even now, I can hear the squeak of the gates and the clump of my boots on the wooden bridge. Somewhere out there, horses want to be fed. And somewhere there’s a woman pulling apart a bale of sweet, green hay and not thinking a thing about it, lost in the simple tasks she gets to do in paradise.

Book review: John Porcellino & King-Cat Comics

I’m not much of a graphic-book person. Girls weren’t encouraged to read comics when I was a kid, and the entire genre passed me by. But a few years ago, a comic book called King-Cat caught my eye at SF Zine Fest, a vibrant book-arts show where I was exhibiting my chapbooks. The smiling, crowned cat on the cover of King-Cat invited me in, and soon I was standing there, paging through a curious hand-drawn collection of author John Porcellino’s stories and mini-essays. They were mostly his unique take on relationships, family, memories, moving, pets, jobs—all ordinary, workaday stuff, somehow rendered poignant by John’s deft drawings and disarming, poetic writing. After I’d spent a few minutes lost in this comic book, I looked up, and there was John Porcellino himself—a tall, shy, youngish guy who looked like the bass player in some indie band. We talked for a few minutes, and I bought several copies of King-Cat, along with a logo button whose cat, all these years later, still smiles down from my bulletin board.

Since then, via the internet, I’ve checked in on John Porcellino and King-Cat often. His website, Facebook updates, and blog all have the same autobiographical touch as his comics—we find he’s moved, then moved again; his beloved cat, who featured in many King-Cat stories, has died. There are hints of a breakup or divorce. And all of it is sketched out in John’s spare drawings, unflaggingly charming prose, and thoughtful photography (look here for his photo series on a neighborhood cat).

For me, keeping track of the life of someone I met at a little trade show years ago, whose talents caught my eye even among a roomful of talented people, has been one of those miracles of the internet. And judging by how many Facebook friends he has, I’m not alone in feeling that way. John’s comics are a reminder that everyone’s life is interesting; the only question is how you tell it. Or, as he says in King-Cat Number 63, “Time, like a footprint / someone was here once— / something happened.”

Little short poems that live in my notebooks

The literary world, so full of epics and 40-line free verse and fat sestinas, doesn’t seem to have much room for little short poems. So these babies don’t get out much. It’s okay, little poems–don’t be scared.

* * *

Call

The dog’s note, a word.

We know his bark at night

like your daughter’s voice on the phone

saying she’s fine, but can she come over,

a stranger laughing behind her,

can she have dinner,

can she please come home.

* * *

Change

Her laugh

like a coin

in the laundry dryer

of your heart—

seven more minutes

warm,

maybe eight.

* * *

Evening, July

The cat slides two paws

under the screen door. Outside,

wind scratches the grass.

* * *

Tag

She writes goodbye on her nametag,

avoiding that middle step

of breakfasts at the window

and nights on the steel chairs

of the hospital. She says

it was nice to know you,

fixes her lipstick

in the smooth face

of a steak knife.

* * *

Horse Dreams

ten years old

Pinto, paint,

apple-drop gray,

red roan, tunnel black,

stone-eyed

Assyrian chargers,

then a neck,

a river-run shoulder, gone

back to the night

where all the horses sleep,

where I keep

a small saddle.

Book review: A Day, a Dog

A Day, a Dog

By Gabrielle Vincent

Front Street Inc., 1999

$16.95 hardcover

This book was such a discovery that I remember exactly where I was when I first saw it several years ago. The dog on the cover caught my eye at M Is for Mystery, San Mateo’s great bookshop. I opened it to the first page, and within a minute I had tears in my eyes. By the time I’d finished it (it’s a picture book; it doesn’t take long), I knew that in the name of kindness and of all good things in the universe, I had to buy it. This book is that profound.

In spare, exquisite charcoal drawings, Belgian author/illustrator Gabrielle Vincent begins with a heartbreaking image: a dog being thrown from a car. The dog chases it, but the car speeds away until he’s exhausted, confused, despondent. How do we know a dog is despondent? That is the secret of this book: Vincent’s remarkable ability to depict body language with a few simple lines. We follow the dog through the first day of his sudden, unwanted freedom, wandering roadways, causing a traffic accident, roaming a desolate beach, and finally skulking through back alleys. In the end, Vincent leaves us on a hopeful note (which I won’t give away), and we’re left to draw our own conclusions. Does the dog find happiness? I have to believe he does. It still chokes me up to think about it.

Though Vincent is known for her children’s stories, this book would have disturbed me as a kid. But perhaps with gentle parental guidance, it can be a catalyst to helping children understand their responsibility toward other living creatures. For the rest of us, it’s both a harsh reminder of how cruel people can be and an affirmation that compassion for animals is a gift we can—and should—offer every day of our own lives.