Lines for Leap Year

photo: lisa beth anderson

February 29: you are wind and hail, sandstorms downing dust. Your skies ochre-grey, the color of pea soup. The sun abandons you. The air over Amman now mud and ice. February 29: you are flash floods. Yours is a Western winter. You are out of sorts. You are anything and everything but the usual. You are rattling windows, steam on glass. You are snow stalled in the palm fronds.

*

I am anything but usual: the Western woman who turns up at an alley shop with her photographer friend in a part of Amman I couldn't quite describe. How to get there? How to arrive? A room leads to another room, leads to bowls and dishes, platters and trays -- these give way to women painting and sculpting, glazing and firing. Wedging clay. Spinning wheels. Molding and guiding. Their outcome determined overnight.

*

What outcome overnight? Friends arriving by car, by rail, by plane. Friends pouring into Chicago. (Conference forecast calls rain and thunder, flurries, snow.) Writers arriving with suitcases and books. Poets arriving with suitcases for books. All arriving with expectations, affectations. Wearing affiliations with their best winter boots.

*

I've lost my best winter boots. Like a misplaced receipt or to-do list, they've disappeared indoors. I've searched closets, looked under beds. I've interrogated the luggage, baskets of laundry, inspected nooks behind the door jambs. They're wedges -- these boots -- with Victorian-like buttons that arc from the littlest toe to mid-calf. Their heels and arches stamped with phrases in Japanese. Their characters fainter each year -- as when, in rain, mulberry paper turns some umber shade and then settles, finally, to rust.   

I Said to Myself...

...when a door opens, walk through --

photo: lisa beth anderson

Interview: Hayden's Ferry

Bird Feed: media sculpture
by Ashley Zelinskie

...in which I talk bird coffins, grocery shopping in Amman, and obsessing over misplaced syllables. Please click over to read the full conversation.

*

"When a friend texted 'this made me think of you,' along with a photo of an ant-eaten finch she’d found half-devoured beside her doorstep, I knew it was time to reconsider my relationship with winged things! I’m not a birder by any means. I’m lousy at species identification. The title of my book, however, is telling. Although Two-Headed Nightingale features poems on dismantled sparrows as well as taxidermied hummingbirds housed in the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the collection also includes other expressions of flight. The title phrase, for example, not only gestures toward Keats’s “immortal bird,” but is also the 19th C. stage name of conjoined songstresses Christine and Millie McCoy...."

Homeland Security

photo: Omar Sobhani

A friend once asked whether I ever feel any hostility as an American living in the Middle East. The short answer is no, although there have been days when I've felt slightly self-conscious about my status as a guest in this country. This has less to do with Jordanian attitudes toward the West, which are overwhelmingly positive, than what's happening back home or on the news. Case in point, the recent burning of the Koran in Afghanistan. Accidental or not, this act serves a rallying cry for protesters and angry mobs alike. Thanks to an oversight or poor decision-making, we're now bombarded by images of military employees and Westerners abusing Islam, as well as photos of hostile Arabs expressing anger and outrage.

Since Floridian "pastor" Terry Jones made worldwide headlines for "executing" the Koran (apparently, he considered shooting, shredding, igniting, or "drowning" Islam's holy book), I worry that people in this region mistake one man's extremism for American ideology. Since some U.S. citizens draw conclusions about the Middle East based isolated incidents of religious fanaticism, why wouldn't the local population make similar deductions based on our bad behavior? Either way, headlines can easily put ex-pats at risk, as can the manners of those living overseas. Since moving to Amman, here's what's made me most uncomfortable:
   
* Amman, Fall of 2011: Near the end of Ramadan, elected American officials wish a room of Muslim Jordanians "Happy Rosh Hashanah." (Um, seriously! I realize Israel and Jordan share a border, but there's hardly mistaking one country for the other...!!?)

*A Congressman asks King Abdullah how Arab Spring is affecting Jordan's general population, considering that most of its citizens are "illiterate." (Note: more than 90 percent of Jordanians can read.)

*U.S. Republican Presidential candidate hopeful claims Palestinians are an "invented" people and then goes on to characterize them as "terrorists." (Thanks a lot. Your attempt to placate potential voters in Iowa -- front page news in The Jordan Times -- made Americans look like a bunch of jackasses.)


Although the vast majority of ex-pats are very respectful of our host country, there are a few people here who make things difficult. To those I say:

*Please stop complaining that "no on here speaks English." Frankly, most people in Amman do speak English -- in addition to Arabic, and sometimes French, Spanish, German, or something else.

*Stop criticizing produce such as corn or potatoes. As in, "Thanksgiving is ruined because my mashed potatoes don't taste the way they do at home." "This corn chowder is nothing like what they serve at that little restaurant in Reston!"

*Don't mock Jordanians for picnicking by the highway. Sure, the spot isn't ideal. There are very few trees here (it's the desert, after all) and locals are making the best of limited resources.

*So what if Chili's doesn't serve margaritas and that their sandwiches feature beef bacon instead of pork. Plenty of restaurants serve liquor, and pig can be found at the co-op or that specialty butcher near the market that sells "American" products like BBQ Pringles and Chef Boyardee.

*Please refrain from acting superior when it comes to litter and trash.  Woodsy the Owl didn't urge Americans to "Give a Hoot -- Don't Pollute!" until the 1970s, which when you really think about it isn't all that long ago.


* Finally, it would be hypocritical not to check myself:

Dear S., kindly fight any impulse to bemoan the absence of libraries or grass. Don't judge patrons at the grocery store when they cut in line, or bump your cart and then act as though nothing happened. Forgive the airport its chaos. Let the cigar and cigarette smoke go. Fight every urge to complain about the heat.

A-2-the-Double-You-Pea

I won't be attending this year's conference in Chicago (a rather serious commute from our place in Amman), although I'm told my two-headed bird will be making her debut at the New Issues table. There are so many reasons I'd like to be there -- mainly, you and you and you. I won't, however, be too broken up about missing certain aspects of the circus. In a post at Gulf Coast's Blog ("Panic! At the AWP Disco"), Karyna McGlynn breaks down much of what happens under the big top, aptly describing some of the clown show's uglier aspects. Cue lights, music, tightrope walkers, and performing dogs. Here's:

Badge Gandering: Assuming you have a badge of your own, you've got a difficult decision to make: do you keep your badge in plain sight so all the badge-ganderers can see who you are (or aren't)? Or do casually flip your badge backwards, tuck it in your shirt, attach it to your bag, or toss the badge over your shoulder so it hangs down your back? These latter options are understandable, if it a bit douchey. It foils the initial “are-you-someone-worth-talking-to?” assessment of the badge-ganderers, but it can also make you look the writer equivalent of the celebrity who wears big sunglasses and a baseball cap out in public. Either way you flip it, you're going to feel bad about yourself and suspect all the reasons people do or don't want to talk to you. And if they do talk to you (and even if they leech onto you) you will always sense their wandering eye, scanning badges over your shoulder. The worst part is this: despite your best intentions, you too will become a god-awful badge-ganderer. You will nod your head at the would-be memoir writer standing in front of you and think “Is this the best I can do? Oh, look! Kevin Young!”


*

Whatever happens at the Book Fair or in the bar, I never (repeat NEVER) scan name tags over people's shoulders. As for the badge itself: do I toss it, flip it, tuck it, or attach it elsewhere? You'll have to wait until Boston to find out!

*
Currently reading:

The Blue Estuaries (Louise Bogan)
Black Blossoms (Rigoberto Gonzalez)

Thunder & Whatnot

downtown floods (photo: Nader Daoud)

Last week's mysterious / man-made "Boom Boom Boom" (rattling the windows and streets -- more later) eventually gave way to the natural noise of wind, rain, hail, and snow. The weather kept us indoors for days and did a number on our already pathetic Internet connection. Even as I type this, the signal is waning -- five bars, now three flickering, (pause) (pause), back to four, now two...

snow in Jordan (photo: Abdullah Ayoub)

I have emails to answer. There's work to be done. Deadlines. Friends' poems to critique. Book Club questions to prepare. Etc. Etc. Plus, I'd really like to share something about the aforementioned sound, that sequential "Boom Boom Boom" that Israel eventually identified as a two-day de-mining project along the border -- --

-- -- how it came and went and came again. How people thought earthquake, airstrike(!!), this / that / the other. How women I knew called their husbands, took their children into apartments' inner rooms. How I searched online in an attempt to make sense of what I was hearing, only to lose the connection. Without a thing left to do, how I wandered into the nursery and found myself hovering over C.'s crib reciting "Boom, Boom, Boom / Mr. Brown is a Wonder. / Boom, Boom, Boom / Mr. Brown makes Thunder!" -- thinking, just make a game of it, let whatever collision this is light the air...

Because We're X Hours Ahead...

... in Jordan, it's practically Valentine's Day.

 

Concentrate, Narrow Down, Exclude

On Bibliophilia

A mentor of mine once advised that writers with serious ambitions should read at least four books per week. I've recently upped the ante, raising the stakes to seven -- not per week, people -- per day. Granted, I've replaced the likes of Anna Karenina and Jane Eyre for classics by Dr. Seuss and Sandra Boynton. Tickle Time, anyone? Moo Baa La La La?

*
I like to think of books as friends. Four friends arrived this week: Black Blossoms (Rigoberto Gonzalez), Monstress (Lysley Tenorio), Beautiful in the Mouth (Keetje Kuipers), and Kingdom Animalia (Aracelis Girmay). It's true that the bookshelves are crowded. Where, my husband asks, will my new friends sleep?

*

People always want to know whether I was nervous about moving to the Middle East. Hell yes, I was nervous. I wanted to know what would become of my books! With a finite number of pounds allotted for international relocation, I had to cut my stockpile drastically. Out went fiction. Instead, I reduced my library to 98% poetry, 2% nonfiction. The rest -- I'd guesstimate 800 titles or so -- went into storage.



*

Including this week's new arrivals, I have 449 collections of poetry and 49 of nonfiction at my office in Amman. Sure, the aforementioned percentages are off. I never claimed to be a mathematician.

*

I hate shopping for clothes. I don't hoard shoes. I have little in the way of jewelry. When I gave birth, I didn't demand what some women call a "push-present." I don't have secret credit cards or eat at lavish restaurants. My car isn't fancy. I don't spend rent on handbags or covet designer furniture. Instead, all my extra cash goes towards books. Some used. Some bought overstock. Some so new their spines still crack. All of which are filled with pages and pages and pages waiting to be turned...

*

I read to the baby throughout the day: Barnyard Dance, for example, and The Foot Book, along with the likes of Put Me in the Zoo and  Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? He also responds well to Yeats and Keats and Plath. Ok, sometimes he falls asleep to Yeats. But it's a start...

*

A few authors I know are inching toward the Kindle, the iPad, Sony's latest Reader. It's inevitable, they claim, the world is going paperless...

But I write in my books. Take notes. Fill the margins. When I teach, I teach from ideas scribbled in the space between stanzas and pages. Entire lessons emerge from such fragments. Discoveries mapped in chicken-scratch. Can't house those in a Nook!

*

I've said it before and I'll say it again: my dad always taught me never to feel guilty about spending money on books. Needless to say, I don't. Not every word is read. Not every page is turned. But I maintain that book-binging is healthier than most habits.

*

At night before our son goes to bed, my husband and I recite for him some extended version of Peek-A Who?  ("peek-a" -- moo, boo, zoo, choo-choo, Auntie Sue, gooble-dee-goo, you're eyes are blue, and other such madness), as well as several other selections. We always end with I Love My Frog. And he does. That kid loves his frog! And, if all goes well, he'll learn to love books -- just like his mama.


*

Currently (re)reading: Crossing to Safety (Wallace Stegner)

Live from Jordan, Part II

mosque in Amman

Dear G.,

marhabah! keef halek? (Hello! How are you?)

I've had a wonderful adventure in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a small country in the Middle East. I stayed with S. and K. in the capital city of Amman. We floated in the Dead Sea (the lowest place on earth), visited the Roman city of Jerash, hiked the canyons of Wadi Rum, and toured the ancient structures of Petra where entire buildings are carved into rock.

tank time

I rode on a tank, met new Jordanian friends, and shopped for blankets and hand-carved olive wood souvenirs.

Did you know that you read right to left in Arabic? Islam is the main religion here, although people practice different faiths. I visited a mosque, Greek Orthodox Church, and Catholic Church, too.

hanging out with the royals

I saw lots of camels, donkeys, cats, and sheep. I ate the national dish called "mansef," a feast of lamb and rice served on the biggest platter I've ever seen.

Jordan's king is Abdullah II. His picture is everywhere around the country -- in shopping malls, restaurants, hospitals, parks, even the windows of cars!

Jordanians love the word "welcome." I felt very welcome here. I had Arabic tea with my new friends and played soccer with their children. This is a very exciting place to be and I learned a lot.

some new Jordanian friends

bashoofek bahdein! (See you later!),

Max (aka, "Flat Stanley")

PS: S. says "Happy Birthday Elizabeth Bishop!"

Live from Jordan

K. and I have had many visitors since we moved to Amman, but none quite like Flat Max. Football in one hand and catcher's mitt in the other, Max comes to us from Appleton, Wisconsin, after a short jaunt in Salt Lake City. Max (aka "Flat Stanley") is part of an international literary project geared to help young students widen their worldview, while enriching skills in reading and writing. Our job as hosts is to tour Max around Jordanian cities and sites, documenting his journey as we go. We're also recording Max's thoughts about local customs and culture. In a few days, we'll send his discoveries about the Middle East back to his classmates at Franklin Elementary School via postcard. Thus far, Max is having a blast. Here are some of his highlights: 

Max at the spice souk in Sweifieh

posing with camel friends

en route to the Dead Sea

soaking up the sun in Amman

"Flat Stanley" is a terrific project for kids, particularly for those who return from this region with fresh insights about the Middle East. If you know anyone who would like to send their "Flat Stanley" or other hand-drawn correspondents to Amman, please contact me. In the meantime, we're gearing up for another adventure with Max, who will soon meet some local security guards and policemen. Special thanks to G.M. for introducing us to his buddy!

Not a Single Cloud Above It

I'm particularly saddened today by the passing of Wislawa Szymborska. In the poet's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, Szymborska said she would like to tell Ecclesiastes that "'There's nothing new under the sun': that's what you wrote...But you yourself were born new under the sun." She also went on to explain that "in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world."

Although survived by neither children nor any immediate family, Ms. Szymborska will, no doubt, be missed.

*

As translated in View With a Grain of Sand by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1996), here's

COULD HAVE

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck—there was a forest.
You were in luck—there were no trees.
You were in luck—a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
a jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant.
You were in luck—just then a straw went floating by.

As a result, because, although, despite.
What would have happened if a hand, a foot,
within an inch, a hairsbreadth from
an unfortunate coincidence.

So you're here? Still dizzy from another dodge,
close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn't be more shocked or speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.