Inns Are Not Residences

Because We're X Hours Ahead...

2012-02-13T14:36:00.000-05:00

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

Concentrate, Narrow Down, Exclude

2012-02-11T14:15:00.000-05:00

On Bibliophilia

2012-02-10T16:02:00.001-05:00

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?

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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!

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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

2012-02-08T16:17:00.000-05:00

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

2012-02-05T15:08:00.001-05:00

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!

The Force that through the Fuse...

2012-02-03T16:24:00.003-05:00

July before last when we first landed in Amman, I took midnight's skylight to be a sign. Of what, I wasn't sure, but something good. As the plane came down and down I saw the usual spray of buildings, streetlamps buzzing. I also saw pinpricks of green. Tucked into peaks and hills, into flatter stretches I guessed was desert. Lodged in the capital city itself: green and green and green. Like fish scales. Or small sequins. Green that somehow seemed to say, welcome. Green scattered across a place I assumed to be entirely sand and brown and taupe.

*
This year's rainfall, I suspect, is one for the records. For almost thirteen days, it's rained. Little drops and sudden storms. Water flooding over curbs and into basements. Spillage causing power outages for blocks. Water falling and falling in a water-starved country. Thunder even. Rolling clouds and fog.

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Afternoons, I hold my almost-five-month-old up to the balcony window. (Each day we count and name the trees.) Look, I say, it's raining. See the rain dripping from the palm fronds? Hear that sound, baby? -- it's rain...

*

Then, four days ago, looking out: something new, something strange. I strained to see what it was I thought I saw and it was true -- there, in the park across the street (the place we call "the dirt park" not as a means of derision, but accurate description) little shoots shooting up around the outskirts. Little shoots of green becoming (almost overnight it seems) strands and then entire tufts. Patches, at first, and now almost an entire plot enclosing the children's playground.

*

Today, a break in the weather. Three Egyptian boys playing something like soccer between the public teeter-totters and swings. One took off his shoes and waded into a calf-high puddle to retrieve a ball while the others stamped barefoot through the nearby grasses.

"A child said, 'what is the grass?'," Whitman famously wrote. Holding my son, I watched the boys laugh and play a few moments more, thinking the "flag of my disposition, out of hopeful / green stuff woven," feeling very lucky indeed.

Not a Single Cloud Above It

2012-02-02T09:41:00.001-05:00

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.

That Little Planet on the Table

2012-01-31T13:45:00.001-05:00


Dorothea Tanning, 1950: costume design for The Witch (monstre)

Mark Doty in an interview with the readers of Smartish Pace:

"When I was a 17-year-old poet, and a dedicated young surrealist, I had a conference with William Stafford, a genuinely insightful and generous man. He read the three or four poems I presented to him while I sat quietly and watched. Then he said, 'Well, I have a feeling that these are poems in heaven, but they’re not poems on earth yet.'

I loved this. He conveyed to me that he could see the shining impulse, the interior world that the poem pointed to, but that I hadn’t yet figured out how to make this interiority available to a reader. But what he said, and the way he said it, made me feel I was capable of doing that work. It wasn’t impossible, and if I applied myself, I’d be rewarded. We went on and talked for a while about the poems or whatever, but he didn’t really need to say another thing."

B&B

2012-01-30T15:30:00.001-05:00

Nichols' farewell performance (photo: Paul Kolnik)

(Elizabeth) Bishop and (George) Balanchine. Ballet and the reading life. My essay, "One Cluster, Dark, Astringent," forthcoming in the summer issue of The Southern Review, counts these (among others) as its subjects. In one section, I write about taking class with now-retired New York City Ballet principal Kyra Nichols at Berkeley Ballet Theater -- a totally unexpected event that changed the way I think about movement and phrasing. Although Nichols, who was one of the last ballerinas to receive direct tutelage under Balanchine, remains one of my favorite NYCB dancers, I'm also a great admirer of Wendy Whelan. (If there's ever an opportunity to see her perform "Agon," do so!) In Claudia La Rocco's "A Dancer Who Can Remember the Giants," choreographers and co-workers praise not only Whelan's obvious physical gifts, but also her intelligence:

“Whenever somebody says the word ‘muse,’ you do conjure up images of white marble statues of subservient women kneeling at the feet of a god holding a musical instrument,” Mr. Wheeldon said after a rehearsal. “Collaborator is a much better word. Ballet isn’t like contemporary dance, where the dancers are constantly using the time with the choreographer to improvise and develop material that way. In a ballet company it’s much more expected that you as the choreographer come up with the dance, and they do it. But Wendy’s not that way. She has ideas...”

“I always have to look twice — Is that Wendy Whelan? — because she’s got this amazing ability to reinvent herself,” [choreographer] Wayne McGregor said in an interview in 2010 while creating his first work for City Ballet. “She’s just an extraordinary artist. And also I love that she’s like a racehorse; she’s got this Thoroughbred kind of body, where you actually see the musculature. You’ve got the tension, the viscerality of the body even when she just stands there. And then you’ve got the experience, which makes a difference...”

“I hear all the time she’s the quintessential Balanchine ballerina that has never worked with him,” said Craig Hall, a soloist who joined the company in 2000 and who has become one of Ms. Whelan’s regular partners. “All of the things we think about with Balanchine, she makes those things so crystal clear. Watching her dance in his ballets, I think, This is what he wants....

*

Agon. (Photo: Paul Kolnik)

Whelan's talents are striking, as is her tenacity: as a dancer, she works doubly not only to master technique, but also to train her body to perform despite having severe scoliosis. Years ago, I remember reading a cover feature in Dance Magazine in which Whelan explained that when she was a child, doctors predicted that she'd have trouble overcoming her back's weaknesses. Their diagnosis left little optimism for a career in ballet. Whelan, however, was determined. At 12, she began wearing a brace, taking it off only to bathe and to dance. She wore it for five years. At 17, she joined NYCB's corps de ballet.

O Christmas Tree...

2012-01-28T16:01:00.001-05:00

handmade sleigh courtesy of jordanian friends

...you're still all bobbles and light, all ribbon and cones, all glitter and skirt and metal stand standing tall in the north corner of our formal living room well into the recesses of January. Christmas tree we sought in vain for weeks, returning three Saturdays straight to Mecca Mall's third level only to find all the seasonal items sold, but for a few stray boxes of hooks and Styrofoam snowmen. How we roamed the Home Goods section of Safeway (having heard you were there) only to find all four and a half feet of you, little wiry tree, in a specialty shop on the outskirts of Sweifieh -- imitation needles and trunk housed in cardboard and waiting to be assembled. You were our son's first woodland pine, a boy's sleigh stalled beneath your branches. How we stood beside the artificial evergreen of you and, smiling, posed. O Christmas tree. O Tannenbaum.

People often ask what December 25 is like in the Hashemite Kingdom, where Islam is the predominant religion. Christmas in Amman is this: storefront displays featuring miniatures of the North Pole; lights strung up in shops; holiday cards and seasonal candy for sale; gingerbread houses, hand-carved olive wood ornaments; photo packages at the Embassy; "The First Noel" and "Silver Bells" blaring on loop in supermarkets; children's paper snowflakes taped to windows; church services and midnight mass; parties and caroling; two Arab Santas in full costume (fuzzy red suits, black boots, white beards) handing out presents in Abdoun on Christmas Eve. What's different or strange? Here, we receive more well wishes and holiday text messages from Muslim friends than we ever did stateside (minus cards, of course). In Jordan, winter doesn't really exist in the traditional sense. Jolly Old St. Nick arrives by camel.

*

jabberwocky chewbacca

Last January, K. predicted that 2011 would be "a big year." Sure, I thought, and toasted. I didn't know then I was already pregnant. Turns out, K. was right: 2011 was huge! Arab Spring, bin Laden, the Royal Wedding (kidding). On a personal note, K. and I traveled to Italy, Austria, and the Czech Republic. My book was accepted for publication. We had our first son.

K. and I recently returned from a three-week trip to California where we introduced our baby to family and friends. We had a grand time reuniting with loved ones, some of whom we haven't seen in a year and a half or longer. Although goodbyes are always difficult, we were happy to return to Jordan. It's now 2012. Our still-decorated Christmas tree and seven-pound Brussels Griffon held down the fort while we were gone. We've lived here 18 months. Amman is home.

11:11

2011-11-11T14:31:00.001-05:00

What Lasts

2011-11-08T15:18:00.001-05:00

I'm starting to see Jordan in my rear view mirror: meaning, we've lived here long enough that I find myself saying "last summer, last September, last Halloween, last Eid..."

*

We've lived here long enough for poems from my second manuscript to find their way in print. The current issue of Missouri Review features several (three of which are set in Amman). What's more, the magazine recently posted "Test" as its poem-of-the-week.

*

Currently reading:

Stone Cottage: Pound, Yeats, and Modernism (James Logenbach)
Our Secret Discipline: Yeats & Lyric Form (Helen Vendler)

The Numbers Game

2011-11-07T14:17:00.000-05:00

Of the time-depleting habits I've decided to do away with (see yesterday's entry), surrendering television and social media hasn't been the hardest. Neither flat screen nor computer monitor has tempted me back. If anything caused me to buckle, I suspected it would be online Scrabble. Oddly enough, I let the letters go. The numbers, however, were harder. Digital, flashing, battery-powered. Throughout the day I've had to fight myself from stepping on the scale...

I gained 50 pounds while pregnant. Fifty pounds to deliver a six-pound kid! Half of it's gone. The other half is clinging. Boy oh boy is it clinging!

As a dancer, I spent years around people with eating disorders, people for whom mild or more severe forms of dysmorphic disorder were a daily struggle. I knew professionals who took pills or smoked to stay thin, cast mates who starved or puked. I had friends with serious laxative habits, women who invented allergies as an excuse not to eat. I felt fortunate not to fall into this category. I never got held after rehearsal or called into the director's office to discuss matters of weight. I took care of myself, but occasionally ate french fries. At the same time, I relished when seamstresses confessed they needed to take in my costumes.

When I graduated from high school, I weighed 98 pounds. My waist was 19 inches. Why do I remember this so clearly?

A friend advises me not to think about working out until the baby is at least six months. Another emails a link to a company that sells postpartum shape-wear: This month only save 25% on slimming intimates and footless pantyhose! Truth told, I never thought of myself as someone who had difficulties with her body image. And yet, the fact of those figures -- 19, 50, 98, 25, 6 -- remains, their startling persistence.

Goodbye to All That

2011-11-06T14:05:00.002-05:00

I'm fasting this week.

I'm not giving up sugar or salt, or reserving fish for Fridays. My plan doesn't include vitamin supplements, liquid meals, power bars or powders. I am, however, cutting back, making substitutions.

*
I've been out of the hospital forty-eight days. That's 1152 hours, give or take. One thousand one hundred fifty-two hours divided by what feels like two thousand diaper changes, endless feedings, a half dozen doctors' appointments, sixty minutes of sleep, ongoing sleeplessness, not to mention the time it's taken to dress and undress, cook, bathe, brush my teeth, say hello to my husband, feed the dog.

*

One thousand one hundred fifty-two hours. But where, really, has the time gone? I couldn't tell you.

*

Thus, the experiment. Until next Sunday, I plan to refrain from the following:

1. Watching television during daylight. (Goodbye Jeopardy. Adios Access Hollywood.)

2. Rolling the dice. (Au revoir bathroom scale. Come sunrise, you'll no longer determine my mood.)

3. Trolling for info. (Arrivederci online magazines and blogs all-but-this-one. Ciao for now Poetry Foundation and poems.com.)

4. Swapping letters and birthday wishes. (maʕ as-saláma Facebook. Words with Friends and Scrabble -- needless to say, I'll miss you the most.)

*

It's becoming clear that as a mother what time I have I'll have to make for myself. So sayounara to the above forms of mindless procrastination. During downtime, I hope to read, take notes for new work, take a nap. I plan to write a few good lines, or perhaps think about writing a few good lines. I plan not to procrastinate. I plan to go for a walk. Above all else, I promise to be as present as possible -- at least for the next 10, 080 or so minutes...

A Stab of Gold

2011-10-26T07:52:00.001-04:00

*HENS
by Henri Cole

It’s good for the ego, when I call and they come
running, squawking, and clucking, because it’s feed time,
and once again I can’t resist picking up little Lazarus,
an orange-and-white pullet I adore. “Yes, yes, everything will be
okay,” I say to her glaring mongrel face. Come September,
she’ll begin to lay the blue-green eggs I love poached.
God dooms the snake to taste nothing but the dust
and the hen to 4,000 or so ovulations. Poor Lazarus,
last spring an intruder murdered her sisters and left her
garroted in the coop. There’s a way the wounded
light up a dark rectangular space. Suffering becomes
the universal theme. Too soft, and you’ll be squeezed;
too hard, and you’ll be broken. Even a hen knows this,
posing on a manure pile, her body a stab of gold.

*originally published in The Atlantic, "Hens" appears in Cole's most recent collection Touch.

Fall in Amman

2011-10-24T14:58:00.000-04:00

La Chascona, La Sebastiana, Isla Negra

2011-10-15T10:10:00.000-04:00

Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts

self-portrait in Neruda's "La Chascona"
("wild hair")

lost in translation

poet's desk at La Sebastiana in Valparaiso

Against Gravity

2011-10-10T02:51:00.003-04:00

Patricia Cohen covers Baryshnikov for The New York Times:

"These videotapes are part of a cache of personal recordings, photographs, documents, letters and scrapbooks that Mr. Baryshnikov, 63, has donated to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. “It’s my whole life,” he said of the 35 boxes of materials that he and his wife, Lisa Rinehart, packed up.

There is his small red Vaganova yearbook from 1967, candid snapshots and stacks of fan letters from celebrities like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Frank Sinatra and Kirk Douglas, Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and a long list of choreographers like Trisha Brown, who wrote, 'Gravity leaves no fingerprints on you.'

A legal memo from 1974 advised Mr. Baryshnikov that there was 'no way of guaranteeing your safety or freedom' during a visit home, while other papers shed light on both the power and vulnerability of a new émigré artist with his circle of admiring benefactors and his initial dependence on a few handlers...

Boy Oh Boy!

2011-09-30T12:28:00.000-04:00

welcome to the world, little buddy!

Pointe & Counterpoint

2011-09-07T15:02:00.000-04:00

Dancers in the Rehearsal Room with a Double Bass,
ca. 1882–85
Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
Oil on canvas

Dance critic Alastair Macaulay on the new Degas exhibitions this fall at The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. and London's Royal Academy of Arts:

“Life isn’t a rehearsal,” we often hear. Degas, by contrast, found profound meaning in a life that is almost all rehearsal. In several pictures — among those titled “The Dance Class,” The Dance Lesson” or “Dancers,” for instance — nobody is dancing at all. Instead, he often chose to lay ballet bare as an art form largely defined by preparation, waiting, recovery, fatigue and distraction. In “The Dance Lesson” (circa 1879), to be shown in the London exhibition, nobody is teaching, and it’s not clear if anyone is learning, though two or more dancers in the mid-distance are working on classical positions by themselves. Few of his backstage dancers suggest that practice makes perfect; many of them are imperfect and not practicing.

Ballet is an art of the ideal, and yet Degas continually shows the human effort involved in achieving that ideal. He shows his dancing women not as princesses but as workers, and many of them are either contorted or weary. It is also an art of illusion, but he loved to offset its feminine dream world with the reality of the men playing in the orchestra pit, with skewed angles that expose how two-dimensional the painted scenery is, and with demonstrations that some of these delectable female visions were thoroughly disenchanted...

Dear 2012

2011-09-05T14:12:00.000-04:00

Perhaps people will start writing letters again...

Bel Canto to Bulgaria

2011-09-03T13:51:00.002-04:00

My interview with Garth Greenwell is up at The Rumpus. In it, Garth discusses, among other things, homophobia in Bulgaria, working in multiple genres, his debut novella Mitko, and professional training as an opera singer. Following is an excerpt. Hope you'll click over to read our conversation in its entirety:

"Classical singing gave me a sense of the physicality of language I’m not sure I could have acquired elsewhere, and the tradition of the art song was my first experience of literature. The settings of Schubert, Schumann, Duparc, Hugo Wolf were my education in poetry, and Benjamin Britten’s settings of English poetry seem to me the best interpretive readings those texts are likely to receive. In both prose and poetry, as reader and writer I do feel as though I experience the shapes of sentences and lines physically, in something like the same way I experience musical lines; certainly I owe whatever sense I have of the music of language to my life as a singer. And it occurs to me now that perhaps the long, bel canto lines of much of the repertoire I sang are also the source of the excitement I feel at language stretched over great distances, an experience I try to recreate through various strategies for extending syntax..."

*

Thanks to everyone who helped me select an author photo! I appreciate your opinions -- the choice seems pretty clear!

Survey Says

2011-08-29T08:29:00.000-04:00


A.

What's that about hindsight? Looking back, waiting until my ninth month of pregnancy to take an author photo probably wasn't the wisest decision. Had I been stateside, I would have hired the oh-so-talented Chicago-based photographer Lisa Beth Anderson for the task. Instead, K. sat me down in our living room last weekend and started snapping away. We've narrowed it down to two images. If you have a second, please vote for your favorite (see poll at right).

Bay Area poets and writers take note: Lisa will be in San Francisco this week and is available for bookings. A recent rejection slip will earn you $50 off a session. Click here to see sample images from Lisa's recent work with fiction writer Eugene Cross.

Scenes: Ramadan in Amman

2011-08-08T16:00:00.005-04:00

From TIME (photo credit: Muhammad Hamed / Reuters)

"The fast is traditionally broken by first consuming a date.
Above, a woman displays dates during the fifth Jordanian Dates Exhibition
at the Professional Associations Complex held right before
the beginning of the observance in Amman."

Lined across a table: four cups of juice, water,tea. Dressed salads and soups. Pastas, bread. Steaks and chicken cut intopieces.

A twenty-something hovers above his plate, first bitespeared on the fork he doesn't touch...

*

Siyam: fasting(without food or drink) twelve to seventeen hours between sunupand sundown. The fourth pillar of Islam, siyam is obligatory for adult Muslims. Exempted are the sick and elderly, thosepregnant or breastfeeding, people traveling extended distances.

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A restaurant in old town Amman has already been shut down after openlyviolating Ramadan restrictions by serving hummus and falafel to cabbies beforesunset. Only those businesses designated by the Municipality can serve foodduring daylight hours -- mostly hotels, tourist destinations, and fast-foodjoints with their shades securely drawn.

*

What's amazing about Jordan this time of year (andthere are many things) is that people are, for the most part, joyful. Exhausted,yes -- evening gatherings run well into night -- but joyful nonetheless.

*

As dusk turns to darkness,volunteers at streetlights offer taxi and bus drivers water and a serving ofdates to take the edge off. The roads are practically clear. Most people arealready home, preparing to celebrate with their families.

*
Saturday: 7:14 p.m.

Like the other patrons, we order and are servedbefore the call to prayer. The place is packed, not an open table to spare. Ahalf hour feels like forever. People laugh and chat, celebrate. No one touchestheir food.

Phone timers going off. Two minutes down. Some turn toward the flat-screen t.v.tuned to a live broadcast from King Hussein's mosque.

It's a now matter of seconds. The call begins. Eveningprayer. All conversation ends...

*

Iftar: meal served at the end of theday during Ramadan in order to break the fast.

Tonight near an intersection, a boy taps on the window of our car and presents a date.

Ramadan mubarak, he smiles: ablessing.

Shukran, I say.

The light turns green. We drive away.

"The Bell Jar at 40"

2011-08-05T13:50:00.002-04:00

From Emily Gould's article featured at The Poetry Foundation:

"Of course not everyone was as sensitive as Plath was, and not everyone was such a compulsive overachiever. Trying to be all things to all people, especially if two of those things are “creative genius” and “mother,” still seems like a recipe for unhappiness, if not certain death. While I do think of Plath as a feminist icon, I don’t think it’s necessary to essentialize her in the way the feminists who chipped “Hughes” off her gravestone did. Those feminists want Plath to be a victim—specifically, a victim of Hughes and America’s repressive 1950s perfect-housewife culture. And Plath was a victim: a victim of not being able to see any situation she was in clearly. She wanted very badly to live in a reality where she was a good, kind person who was also a good mother, but that part of her was always fighting with being a very selfish person who wanted to devote time and resources to her work. Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to want—it’s just not compatible with being a pretty, popular girl who is nice to everyone all the time. Instead of acknowledging this impossibility, Plath tried to keep both sides of herself going until the whole precarious enterprise broke down. It broke down in New York, and then it broke down again, forever, ten years later in London..."

Ramadan Kareem!

2011-08-02T14:08:00.001-04:00

Sunday's sunset marked the onset of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting and inner reflection. This is our second year of experiencing the season in Amman. I plan to write more extensively about the city's atmosphere during Ramadan, as well as our Jordanian friends' sacrifices and celebrations. Until then, here's an excerpt from Ellen Kobe's article out of The Oregonian:

"For a month last year, Jordan Pahl, 16 at the time, awoke each day before sunrise. She dragged herself out of bed at 4 a.m., trudged down the stairs and grabbed an apple or yogurt out of the refrigerator. It was to be her last bit of sustenance before nightfall. Jordan was fasting for Ramadan, the ninth month in the Islamic calendar, during which Muslims abstain from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset. But Jordan isn't Muslim; she's Catholic. She chose to fast with her Muslim friend, Dahlia Bazzaz. This monthlong sacrifice wasn't just a heavy mental and physical challenge -- it was also a time in which Jordan's global perspective expanded..."

*

K. and I planned to fast this year in support of our Muslim friends, but my pregnancy is running interference. Next August or September! Hope you'll click over and read the rest of the above article, which ends with the celebration of more than one kind of fellowship.

Episode V: (Embassy) Clown Strikes Back

2011-08-01T08:21:00.002-04:00

Blame the forty extra pounds or sudden spike in heat. Blame lack of sleep. Blame swollen joints, or third trimester sickness not limited to morning. This week, blame Dr. O., who, finding my blood sugar (a wee) two points above average, banned my eating lasagna for breakfast and most forms of macaroni. Impossible.

Friends, X-number of days stands between me and the birthing table -- and I'm grouchy!

Sadly, K. (codename "Embassy Clown") bears the weight of my mood swings.Thankfully, he keeps me laughing off crying jags and bouts of anxiety. Case in point: some months back, we set up a registry not to solicit gifts, but track supplies purchased in anticipation of our baby's arrival. Since March, I've ordered items piecemeal and watched the boxes stack up. Last week (without my knowledge), K. apparently got in on the action and ordered a shipment. His contribution included several packs of diapers that arrived with a gift receipt and note reading "poop here." Today, four more packages turned up at the post office -- along with the K.-the-Clown's own little full-rhyme quatrain. The boxes' contents:

1. breast milk bags: "for the sips"
2. tender care lanolin: "for the nips"
3. nursing pads: "for the drips"
4. newborn bottles: "for the lips"

Did I laugh out loud? Yes, I laughed out loud. I love my (Embassy) Clown, a scientist by trade who teases me by inquiring about the health of good folks like "Bobby Pinsky" and "Louis Gluck," and often congratulates himself when in everyday speech he "makes" what he calls a "good slant rhyme."

Although doctor's orders declare this a noodle-free zone, things are still pretty great around this place -- thanks, of course, to the Clown. All things considered, I'm lucky to have a partner who salivates while discussing organic chemistry, yet also recognizes the book jacket of Meditations in an Emergency when it pops up in a scene of Mad Men. Can't imagine doing this whole push-out-a-kid-thing with anyone else.

Gold Stars & Rotten Tomatoes

2011-07-31T14:35:00.000-04:00

Among mycurrent tasks is providing the press with potential review contacts fornewspapers and literary magazines -- a happy pursuit, given that a mere weekand a half ago The Los Angeles Times,for example, laid off all its freelance book reviewers and columnists. Thatsame day, Slate published former PoetLaureate Robert Pinsky's "How Not to Write a Book Review." Using JohnWilson Croker's 1818 scathing attack of Endymion(the review famously said to have killed John Keats) as a model of what toavoid, Pinsky breaks the art of reviewing down to three rules:

1. The review must tell what the book isabout.
2. The review must tell what the book's author says about that thing the bookis about.
3. The review must tell what the reviewer thinks about what the book's authorsays about that thing the book is about.

The above prescription has me (re)thinking my own forays in reviewing,something I do on a regular basis both gratis and for monetary compensation. Dollarsaside, my motivation is twofold:

1. Support thecommunity of writers of which I am a part

2. Takeadvantage of the opportunity to closely study disparate examples of prosody andpoetics

In recent years, I've reviewed collections by Tracy K. Smith, Cecily Parks,Jennifer Chang, Kara Candito, Elizabeth Bradfield, Jennifer Atkinson, PaulaBohince, Patrick Phillips, Beth Bachmann, Susan Somers-Willett, KathleenSheeder Bonanno and Kevin McFadden, among others. Yes, the majority of theabove poets are women, along with writers the establishment would call "emerging"-- a fact (and deliberate choice) to which I answer, Have you seen VIDA's numbers?

As a reader, I loathe the "drive-by" review, the hit-and-run 500-words-or-less rant that isolates a poet's weakest moments and provides littlecontext or insight as to his or her project as a whole. Such reviews are notonly irresponsible, but also obvious as most writers recognize their shortcomings.I, for one, can already tell you which poems in my forthcoming collection arefrail. I know too well the lines I've labored over for years and for which Ican still find only passing satisfaction.

Equally abysmal is a sin Pinsky describes: not closely -- or completely -- readingthe book under consideration. Sadly, this recently happened to a friend of mine(I'll call her A.), whose debut was written up at a popular online site. Thereviewer's analysis of A.'s work was scattered, ill-considered. In fact, one ofthe reviewer's claims seemed to contradict the very excerpt of the poem hequoted. A. was rightfully upset. The reviewer clearly hadn't read the book, yetproceeded to make egregious implications about the poet's views and politics.Ironically, the reviewer's main complaint was A.'s "irresponsible"handling of the subject at hand.

In the past, I've turned down solicitations to write reviews because I couldn'tfind anything positive to say about the book under consideration. My feeling --particularly about first or second collections -- is that I'd rather highlightthose works about which I can write something enthusiastic or constructive. Reviewing,after all, shouldn't be an exercise in self-elevationor amusement.

I'm on deadline now for a review-essay due at month's end. It's a different andmuch deeper sort of project, one in which I consider a poet's selected work andletters from the vantage point of spending a month in her house. I've read andre-read -- poems, epistles, critical essays, interviews -- taken notes. Doingso has already proved fruitful. While prepping the essay, I've drafted poems Idoubt I would've otherwise written. What I've learned from reviewing is this: best case scenario, living in closeproximity to others' work can leave you standing in fascinating shadows.

Razzle Dazzled

2011-07-30T15:16:00.000-04:00

I read this poem a day (or so) ago at the Academy of American Poets, and can't stop thinking about it:

AGAIN A SOLSTICE
by Jennifer Chang

It is not good to think of everything as a mistake. I asked for bacon in my sandwich, and then I asked for more. Mistake. I told you the truth about my scar: I did not use a knife. I lied about what he did to my faith in loneliness. Both mistakes. That there is always a you. Mistake. Faith in loneliness, my mother proclaimed, is faith in self. My instinct, a poor polaris. Not a mistake is the blue boredom of a summer lake. O mud, sun, and algae! We swim in glittering murk. I tread, you tread. There are children testing the deep end, shriek and stroke, the lifeguard perilously close to diving. I tried diving once. I dove like a brick. It was a mistake to ask the $30 prophet for a $20 prophecy. A mistake to believe. I was young and broke. I swam in a stolen reservoir then, not even a lake. Her prophesy: from my vagrant exertion I'll die at 42. Our dog totters across the lake, kicks the ripple. I tread, you tread. What does it even mean to write a poem? It means today I'm correcting my mistakes. It means I don't want to be lonely.

"The Arrant Self-Promoter"

2011-07-29T06:07:00.005-04:00

Much as I disliked Black Swan,
Barbara Hershey nailed it.

I've spent this week gathering contacts, filling out forms, and answering questions from the press. It's slow-going and painful: Explain your title, an editor asks. Which poems best represent the collection as a whole? The art designer wants to know, what's your tone? (to which a poet friend, thankfully, offers a response: "definitely G minor")

Happy as I am to support others' work, it's difficult to push mine out into the world. In the old life, perhaps I witnessed too many episodes of bad behavior from overbearing stage mothers. When I was living at the (ballet) academy, for example, a twelve-year-old drank bleach in an effort to get sent home. Instead of buying a plane ticket, her parents (who lived three thousand miles away) instead lobbied that she receive a better role in the upcoming winter performance -- a wish the administration granted...but I digress.

A friend of mine had two books come out last year from different publishers. The first book received a dozen reviews and multiple prizes, while the other went quietly into bookstores and the hands of (fewer?) readers. Safe to assume the writer furnished each press with the same marketing information (places to send review copies and personal contacts for promotional mailings).

Which begs the question: does any of this matter?

You write the book. Send it out. Rejection. More doubts. Publish poems. Revise. Revise some more.

Upon acceptance, I, for one, hadn't expected to be asked to list those "in the profession who are in a position to influence the success of the collection." This isn't a complaint. I'm grateful the book is finished and will soon be released. What complicates the matter is that I live overseas; thus, no stateside readings or signings to spread the word. What's to be done? Consider a blog tour, a friend suggests, work the web. But shouldn't I spend my time drafting new work instead?

Of his decision to launch a web site, writes Peter Kline at Ploughshares:

"Many poets I know have a complicated relationship with social media and self-promotion, a relationship that must be constantly renegotiated to allow them to best achieve results for their careers while avoiding crippling public scorn and private feelings of worthlessness. They Twitter, but refuse to Facebook. Or they Facebook, but carefully ration their posts. They launch a website dedicated to their work, but don’t include an author’s photo. They minutely tailor their biographies. They advertise, quietly. All of them dread being stuck permanently in their current state of near-universal disregard. Yet even more than this they worry about the whiff of cut-throat desperation that clings to the arrant self-promoter. All of us want to live forever, but first we have to live in this world..."

How to live in this world: my husband will borrow a camera to shoot my author photo. Between rounds of making Scrabble moves on Facebook, I will attempt to summarize the collection's recurring themes in 250 words or less. I will make humble requests for blurbs. Above all else, I will avoid bad behavior with bleach.

SASE

2011-07-21T12:53:00.001-04:00

submission season is around the corner!

Bozo, Bubbles, Homey & Krusty

2011-07-20T07:57:00.000-04:00

My Arabic teacher's youngest daughter wants to know whether K. makes his living as the Embassy's official American clown. No joke. Does he dress up as Santa, the Easter Bunny, Christopher Columbus? Does he get paid to wear funny shoes and fashion animals from balloons? The Embassy Clown. Yep, that'll do it.

*

U.S. Marines in Amman

July 4, 2011: K. and I celebrated America's birthday overseas. So what does Independence Day look like in the Middle East? Are there hot dogs, block parties, fireworks and flags, copious renditions of "Stars and Stripes Forever"?

Keeping up with tradition, the U.S. Embassy provided potato and macaroni salad aplenty, not to mention a pair of bounce houses and a bean-bag toss for the kids. What really surprised me, however, was that K. and I received more "Happy 4th" wishes from Jordanians than we ever have in the states. My favorite message came late in the day from Hisham and referenced both the British rule of American colonists, as well as the former "Emirate of Transjordan" : "Screw the Brits!," he cheered, "Happy Independence to us all!"

*

I convinced K. the committee solicited him for the role because of his dashing good looks and obvious patriotism. Truth told, they needed a tall guy. And so with neither his consultation nor approval, I brought the costume home: top hat, bow tie, red striped pants and navy jacket -- everything required to transform my own Yankee Doodle sweetheart into this year's Uncle Sam.

*

K. and his followers

Uncle-Sammy-the-Embassy-Clown, as I now like to call my husband, spent the morning of the July 4th festivities hiking Wadi Mujib. K. later confessed he hoped a fall might produce the broken arm or leg needed to excuse himself from celebration duties.

Nonetheless, the hour arrived. That afternoon surrounded by dozens of helium-filled balloons, I helped him dress in the Embassy's Community Liaison Office. We took stupid photos. I tried not to snicker. K. insisted on wearing flip-flops with his ensemble. You can take the kid out of California...

Then, nerves set in. He anticipated the reactions (i.e. mockery) of his co-workers and friends. My laughter didn't help. "Do it for the kids," I said. "Do it for your country."

*

K. let the parade like a trooper. He waved and posed for pictures. He braved jeering adults and managed to make the role his own. Better still, I watched the man who loves to tease everyone and anyone (especially me) squirm a bit, and loved every moment...

Everybody loves a clown!

Which makes what happened two days ago even more of a hoot. A box arrived from my in-laws: in it, K.'s baby clothes, blankets and shoes. Relics from the 70s -- an infant's powder blue track suit, crushed velvet pants with suspenders and tuxedo shirt, button-ups accented with butterfly collars.

When I first pulled out the onesie -- fuzzy, neon red with white fur cuffs and trim -- I didn't think much of it. After all, K. was a December baby. I assumed the outfit was something along the lines of "Santa's Little Helper." Closer inspection revealed the true history of K.'s calling: there, stamped above his heart -- baby's first clown badge.

*
Uncle-Sammy-the-Embassy-Clown swears he's retired. "Once was enough," K. says, but I know better. I've already ordered him a make-up kit, foam nose, and rubber chicken. For Americans, National Dog and Women's Equality Days are just around the corner. Who knows how far he can take this role. To combat his fears of suffering further humiliation, I remind K. things could be worse: he could've easily been assigned the task of working in the Ambassador's dunk tank. That, plus the fact, that he once went public wearing that fuzzy red clown suit (see above).

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps...

2011-07-15T10:44:00.000-04:00

I stopped at the flower shop to buy a bouquet for R.: a simple request for khamestaash dinar worth of lilies (orange, yellow, white). All was well -- or so I thought -- until I declared the arrangement "Hiloueen."

"Halloween?" the salesman asked. "It's summer. Halloween is in October."

"La," (no) I answered, repeating "Hiloueen" -- meaning, beautiful.

He dressed the bouquet with purple paper and a foil ribbon. I forked over the money.

"Listen," the shopkeeper advised as he handed me my change, "don't speak Arabic."

*

These days, I make so many mistakes in Arabic I relish the occasions (rare round these parts) when a local errs in English. I remember feeling a similar satisfaction more than a decade ago when the Parisian twenty-something who interned at the magazine where I worked erroneously conjugated a verb, an offense I'd committed often in an attempt to master French. Call me patronizing or just plain petty: for the fleeting moment Claude misspoke, five years of my own linguistic missteps seemed to matter less...

*
A Jordanian colleague submitted to K. a list of demands instead of requests. Although my husband took the time to correct him, I probably wouldn't have bothered. All things considered, most days what's the difference?

*

Recently, I had my best exchange in Arabic to date. The speed of the dialogue, its level of diction -- everything seemed to click into place. Perhaps classes and homework are paying off, I thought.

My buddy and I chatted about the menu of the dinner party we were attending, our favorite dishes, summer plans, the things we do for fun. We shared some laughs. Finally, I felt, I'm making some progress!

Friends, it's taken almost a year but I've found someone with whom I can speak comfortably in Arabic: his name is Mohammed, "Mon Mon" for short.

He's three.

*
M. came, stayed for a month, just left. His visit went something like this: San Francisco to Paris, Paris to Amman; "Fight Night" at Le Royal; Jerash; tour of King Hussein Bin Talal Mosque; Dead Sea; Souk Jarra; Mount Nebo and Madaba; downtown Citadel; birthday dinner; Irbed and Umm Qais; Sea of Galilee; Wadi Mujib; Petra; Wadi Rum.

At the Bedouin camp, Mahmoud told M. the group would be riding "whore-ses" into the desert's deeper recesses. "Whore-ses" instead of camels, Mahmoud insisted. They're a much more comfortable ride.

*

"Thanks," I replied to the man in Madaba who stopped to offer mabrook (congrats) on the coming arrival of K.'s and my first child.

"Is it a boy or girl?" he asked. And when I answered: "You're pregnant seven years?"

I paused and smiled, my vanity crushed.

I'm big these days -- kabeera kiteer -- and getting bigger by the minute. But then I stopped, and thought: sir, how right you are! Because at a certain point seven months feels like seven years, whatever the words' truest meaning.

Daddy-O

2011-06-19T15:16:00.000-04:00

In honor of Father's Day: audio links to Li-Young Lee's "My Father, in Heaven, is Reading Out Loud" and Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays."

Green Things

2011-06-18T01:26:00.000-04:00

Loving this article by my dear friend K., who's not only raising two kids with her husband, M., but also a throng of plants and vegetables. I've watched her garden (more like small farm!) evolve from its first seed forward and the results are thrilling! Editor / writer / wife & mother / garden ninja / cook extraordinaire -- K.'s my own personal superhero! Following is a bit of her testimony at Offbeat Mama:

When I was 15 years old I landed my first job working in a greenhouse. At the time I wanted to become an ethnobotanist and I just knew this was the perfect first step in my brilliant career. Instead, all I did was get dirty. In March, when it was barely spring, there were hyacinths to coax in their cold, dark cave. June found me misting hundreds of tomato plants, their stems and leaves staining my hands and leaving them pleasantly scented for days. In the heat of August I irrigated a sea of fall chrysanthemums on a blazing black tarp. I loved every minute of it....

(Un)Sportsmanlike Conduct?

2011-06-14T00:35:00.000-04:00

Women's National Football Team in training
(photo: Jordan Football Association)

Because CNN was the only non-German language broadcast I could find while on a recent vacation and the network repeatedly loops the same content for its early and late shows, I learned more about FIFA -- and its scandals -- than I'd ever hoped to know. Thanks to an article in The Jordan Times, however, I now see things even more clearly: corruption? bribery? what issues are these for an international sport's organization when compared with female athletes' head gear? Here's an excerpt from Muath Freij's report:

"Jordanians have voiced concern over the International Federation of Association Football’s (FIFA) decision which requires female players to replace their traditional headcover (hijab) with caps. The recent step taken by the FIFA raised an uproar among the local female players, especially after three players were barred from joining the women’s team in the Round 2 qualifiers for the 2012 Olympics, which was hosted by Jordan.

FIFA has justified its decision by arguing that hijab threatens to cause a choking injury and allowed players to cover their hair with specially designed caps which covers their head to the hairline, but which does not extend below the ears to cover the neck, an outfit that is not accepted in Islam, players and clerics say.

In addition, according to FIFA’s Article 4, players are not allowed to wear clothes representative of religious and political symbols, and can penalize players for doing so..."

"Choking injury?" Really? However you feel about the hijab (in Jordan, it's a woman's right to choose whether to cover), it seems hypocritical to forbid players from hiding their hairlines. As for "religious symbols" on the field, I seriously doubt refs are scouring players' necks for chained crucifixes and the like. I also doubt they're entering locker rooms to deter pre-match prayer, etc. And barring women from potentially participating on an Olympic team because they choose to wear the hijab? I suppose in light of the "caps vs. headscarves" issue, investigating whether Qatar really did buy the World Cup isn't quite a priority.

(Un) Happy Meal

2011-06-10T15:05:00.000-04:00

Weirdest things witnessed at fast food joints:

A. Throughout childhood (en route to Sequoia National Park): Roadside stand fashioned as giant red steer whose side opens to customers ordering hamburgers and loose meat sandwiches

B. Circa 2000: sometime after 3:00 a.m., customer on horseback rides through Taco Bell drive-through, trots off struggling to balance three bags of food and an extra large soda

C. Summer, 2010: "McLobster" menu option advertised throughout Nova Scotia. Lobster. At McDonald's. Really?

D. This afternoon. Sweileh, Amman: man leaves family in running vehicle to attack drive-through attendant from outside building, wedging his body through the window to pummel the worker for what, exactly?? A half dozen employees then rush to stop him while said-attacker's wife and child munch french fries in the car...

Q & A

2011-06-08T10:29:00.000-04:00

Oodles of thanks to the crew at r.k.vr.y for reprinting "Two-Headed Nightingale" (first published by Gulf Coast) and featuring me as part of their interview series. Here's an excerpt from my conversation with the poet Bruce Snider:

BS: Would you call your drafting process for ["Two-Headed Nightingale"] typical for your work?

SL: The poems of my own I'm most married to have come rather urgently from start to finish in some approximation of what will be their final form. In other words, it's extremely difficult for me to piece together fragments, lines, and phrases culled from different periods of time. If I can't find my way out of a draft during the first sitting -- even if the ending is temporary and reworked a hundred times over -- it's unlikely that piece of writing will survive. I envy poets with a gift for hoarding, those whose talents include rescuing and recycling a sentence here, a stanza there. I, on the other hand, remain chained to my desk hour after hour in an attempt to chisel the air.

As with all things, I suppose, there are exceptions. "Wintering," for example, was written over some odd months during long walks across Stanford's campus. "Already winter makes a corpse of things," rang in my ear for days until it was joined by the phrase "Snow reshapes what ice has taken." When an emotional declaration later emerged to counter the initial sentences' descriptive impulse, a breakthrough occurred: "You've lost interest in letters. So let sunrise come." Frankly, this psychological turn left me perplexed. Letters from whom, I wondered? And why had their author "lost interest"? After a few more weeks of running the lines in my head, the speaker's identity revealed itself: a woman abandoned and left to fend for herself somewhere in the unforgiving northern plains of the late 1800s. Particular and peculiar as it seemed, I didn't question it. The rest of the draft followed shortly.

*
Hope you'll click over to read the rest of our exchange!

Note to Self

2011-06-07T12:37:00.000-04:00

"In the Spring of the Year, In the Spring of the Year"

2011-06-06T15:31:00.000-04:00

bye-bye rose bush

Just when I got used to pollen and bloom, another season sneaked up upon me. First, D.'s weeks-long visit. Then, an across-town move followed by twelve days in Vienna and Prague, respectively. Is it really June? Am I unpacking suitcases and boxes once more? Yes. And, yes.

We traded our ground-level "apartment-with-a-garden" for bigger digs, a.k.a. a homestead more appropriate for those in the family way. Jabberwocky Chewbacca, our seven pound Brussels Griffon, continues to mourn the privacy of the grass patch she left behind in the old yard. She now pees curbside, either on concrete or dirt.

With new paint and some repairs, the new-to-us-place is coming along. My office is still a disaster, although deadlines call. I've moved so many times that I can usually set up shop with the speed and stealth of a ninja. Punch, kick -- that's it, everything's in its place. These days are different. Pregnancy has its own plan.

*
The title of today's brief entry is taken from Edna St. Vincent Millay's "The Spring and the Fall." Although I'm reluctant to copy poems from online sources, my copy of Millay is currently boxed and well out of reach. Here's to risk-taking! Hopefully, there aren't any errors (to be corrected later):

THE SPRING AND THE FALL

In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.

In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise.
And broke my heart, in little ways.

Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There’s much that’s fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
‘Tis not love’s going hurts my days,
But that it went in little ways.

Funny, but Not "Funny-Ha-Ha"...

2011-05-10T07:02:00.001-04:00

...ok, maybe "funny-ha-ha..."

*

Fixed to our refrigerator by a pair of insect-faced magnets is a worn comic strip. In it, a man sits at a bar nursing a beer. Frame one: the bartender asks, "what do you do?" Frame two: man replies, "I'm a poet." Frame three: bartender responds, "No, what do you do for a living?"

Um, been there. More than once -- and, sadly, most often without the beer.

*

Here's ever-clever poet David Kirby on the subject of fielding questions about his j-o-b:

"...A lot of people are really happy to find themselves sitting next to a poet. Many business people have liberal arts backgrounds, and once I tell them I’m a poet I’m sure they think: 'O.K., Dante, Milton, Homer and now this guy. Who is this guy?'

I usually travel in jeans and a cotton shirt, but people probably expect to see a toga and some laurel leaves draped around my head. Last year, a woman sitting next to me asked what I did for a living, and when I told her I was a poet, she actually cackled with laughter and said a poet is like Byron or someone. I told her I have a cape in my carry-on bag, but I don’t like to wear it.

Other people will politely tell me there’s probably not much money in the poetry business. I sometimes will tell them I just wrote a sonnet the other day and wound up selling it for $175,000. Some people may actually believe me..."

*

I'm not going to reveal the most money I've ever made for a single poem, but will say that Kirby's reflections on the reactions of fellow travelers (plane / train / bus / boat, or otherwise) upon learning they're sitting next to a poet are worth whatever The New York Times paid him.

But don't take my word for it. Read Kirby's piece in its entirety.

Lucky Duck

2011-05-09T07:53:00.000-04:00

It'll be months before I'm officially a mama, but yesterday K. ignored this technicality by surprising me with dinner reservations and flowers. In Jordan, scale is off the charts: everything seems bigger (portions and platters), brighter (jewelry and home decor), and louder (celebrations and street fairs). Floral arrangements are no exception -- K's bouquet filled four (count 'em, one-two-three-four!) vases of varying shapes and sizes. There's currently an arrangement in our living room, one in the guest bedroom, another in my office and still one more in the entry. The whole place is abloom!

Thanks, dear husband, for making my first Mother's Day memorable. And much love to the women in my life -- my mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, and many friends -- whose varied examples of nurturing, patience, selflessness, and overall kick-ass attitudes I hope to model once the baby arrives.

*
Currently reading:

Clampitt, Clampitt, evermore Clampitt
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (Mary Shelley)

Yo Mama!

2011-05-07T14:36:00.000-04:00

A certain holiday is just around the corner. Here's a link to one of my favorite mommy-n-me poems. I would reprint it, but don't want the ghost of Hughes (or HarperCollins) hunting me down for copyright infringement.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

2011-05-05T08:23:00.000-04:00

Sharing her Jordanian photo-tour prompted M.'s co-workers and family members to ask a few questions**. Following are my responses to their inquiries:

1. Do camels smell bad? While riding one, can you hear / see / smell it fart or poo?

Seriously? Most people ride their jamal facing forward, in order to avoid the butt.

2. How old are the ruins?

As a man from Wadi Musa once put it, "They're as old as the love and the light."

3. What's Jordan's weather like?

A. The country's average temperature ranges from to pleasant to hot(-t-t) to "I'm mellltting, melltting..."

4. Does it ever rain?

It rains. It pours. It quickly dries up. It storms. Sometimes the sky showers dust. Last week at Petra, it hailed. And, as Frank O'Hara has well established, "hailing hits you on the head hard" -- whatever your location.

5. Are there other Americans in Jordan?

Sure! There are ex-pat professionals, students, and volunteers living throughout the country. I wish more American tourists visited.

6. Does Shara know any details about Osama Bin Laden's death, and if so, is she allowed to make those facts public?

I live in an apartment in Amman, not a compound in Abbottabad. Tomorrow, however, I will disclose the secret location of Obama's birth certificate***, as well as the real dish behind the cancellation of Freaks & Geeks. (Clues: excessive hair product & Franco)

7. Do foreigners get diarrhea from Middle Eastern food?

Only those who engage in risky behavior with street meat...

8. Are Bedouins trustworthy people?

Why wouldn't they be?

9. Where does Shara get her pre-natal care? Is it an American institution?

I receive my prenatal care from an untrustworthy Bedouin who conducts his practice in a five-century-old cave that reeks of camel dung.

---------------------------------------------------------

Want to know what it's like in Jordan? Please don't hesitate to write. There are no stupid questions, only (occasionally) stupid answers.

-----------------------------------------------

**The above questions are real.

***K. and I are currently in the process of forging an American birth certificate for our unborn child, lest s/he decide to one day run for President.

What Happens in Jordan

2011-05-04T08:39:00.000-04:00

There's a running joke around these parts that goes like this: get lost in even the worst part of Amman and inevitably

1. a stranger will approach
2. extend an invitation to take tea at his home
3. counter any/every opposition to this invitation
4. following tea, insist he accompany you across town by taxi in order to guarantee that you reach your destination safely

Seems far-fetched, I know, but the joke tickles because of its truth: generosity is at the very heart of Jordanian culture. Don't believe me? Here are a few of the things that happened during T. and M.'s week-long adventure:

*A friend heard we were having visitors and made a phone call that provided us with a personal escort at the airport. After whisking T. and M. through the customs process VIP-style, the security man insisted we all take Arabic coffee and tea in a nearby office.

*Upon stopping at one of the city's historical sites well after dark, a guard led us on an improvised "tour." Although slipping past the gate after hours was thrilling enough, we were allowed to explore the grounds and even given private access inside one of the buildings.

*One of K.'s work colleagues insisted on hosting a traditional Arabic brunch to celebrate our friends' first trip to the Middle East. As if breakfast wasn't enough, the host and hostess gifted T. and M. -- whom they'd never met -- with an over-sized tray of local candy.

Odd at is sounds, things like this just seem to "happen" in Jordan. "Welcome" is a common expression here, one whose meanings are multiple. Whereas in the states I suspect the word is most frequently used as an adjective or interjection, "welcome" in Jordan is a verb -- an action performed daily among loved ones and strangers alike.

Three New Dishes

2011-05-03T10:43:00.000-04:00

eggplant roasted
directly on the stove


bottom layer: ground lamb and beef blended with parsley and onion

For the final day of T. and M.'s visit, I scheduled a cooking class. Our theme: beitinjan wa kharoof (eggplant and lamb). The menu: Lebanese moutabal (appetizer) and kofta (layered potato and tomato bake), along with the Syrian / Jordanian dish fatteh maqdous (casserole).

I've had several versions of the above selections during our time in the Middle East. Each are delicious, whatever the variations. I was, however, most excited to unlock the secrets of preparing fatteh, which is my favorite thing to eat at the ever-fabulous Al-Fuheis restaurant, Zuwwadeh.

Although their flavors are disparate, most of the recipes share similar ingredients. This makes for easy preparation. Compared with making mansef, the process is efficient and quite simple. Sahtein!


yogurt, meat, nuts, parsley covering eggplant and fried pita chips in a rich garlic-tomato sauce

*
In other news, we received many concerned messages yesterday following the announcement of Bin Laden's death. All things considered, today's streets are relatively quiet. Many of the people we've spoken with expressed their satisfaction with the U.S. operation. After all, Jordanians certainly haven't forgotten the 2005 bombings at the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt, and Days Inn hotels. At any rate, K. and I are both very well, and continue to be grateful for our time in this region. Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts.

On the Subject of Rock(s)

2011-05-01T14:57:00.001-04:00

T. and M. flew back to California this morning. Translation: I returned to Arabic and other endeavors, and K. to his professional obligations. We shared a terrific week -- one packed to capacity -- with explorations throughout Amman, and excursions to Aqaba, Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea, and the rose-colored city of Petra.

Although I've explored the Nabataean city before, this trip I confronted more than the valley's royal tombs and sites of worship. Perched near what's left of the colonnaded street above Qasr-el Bint (a temple of pink sandstone), I completely lost my temper when a group of boys starting pelting a donkey with rocks...

A bit of context: Petra is rife with child laborers. Hike far enough into the ancient city and you'll be presented with trinkets, postcards and refreshments by girls most often ten or so years and younger. Past the Treasury, boys offer to lead you by donkey along precarious trails destined for The Monastery or High Place of Sacrifice. "Happy Hour Every Hour" is a common theme. So is boredom.

Because Jordanian tourism has taken a hit in recent months, Petra's child workers have fewer foreigners to court. They pass time by racing, singing, or simply wandering the hills looking for prospective clients. Last Wednesday, I saw a group of what appeared to be ten- to twelve-year-olds amuse themselves by watching their jacks take turns mounting a female donkey.

Unlike the boy's animals, the jenny was unmarked and seemingly wild. At first, the boys laughed. Soon, a man (of some relation?) leading camels yelled at them to separate the pairing. The kids snapped to order and struggled to to reign in the jack. Once free, the female received her punishment: the boys heckled and whipped her. Then, the stoning began. Soon, they abandoned their own donkeys and chased the jenny into a neighboring cave where the rock-slinging continued. She yelped and brayed. Laughter, more heckling. Finally, the animal escaped to a carved-out nook in the canyon to an awaiting foal. Once the boys were gone, she began to nurse.

The Kingdom's Labor Laws prohibit employers from hiring children under the age of 16. Those between the ages of 16 and 18 are forbidden from working in hazardous conditions. Yet, Petra is filled with working kids. While international organizations rally to reduce the rate of children dropping out of school to work as vendors and animal leaders, the problem remains complicated. Some students tend to their educations half-time, and patrol the valley only in the afternoons. However, according to an article in The Jordan Times, "60 percent of children working in Petra are unable to read and write." While the consequences and conditions are grave, prospective income is tempting for many Um Sayhoun and Wadi Musa families. Even those children who graduate often come back as adults. One local, for example, told me he returned to Petra after earning two degrees from the University of Jordan because guiding tourists is more lucrative than pursuing a career in Amman.

As an adult with four day's distance, I can process what happened with more compassion for the kids. But in that moment, I didn't quite recognize myself or my instincts...

Poesie, Etc.

2011-04-30T09:46:00.001-04:00

Special thanks to Editor Brian Spears for including "The Accused Terrorist's Wife" as part of April's National Poetry Month feature at The Rumpus. As for other poetry-related matters, I'm looking forward to reading this.

*

After a week of touring our friends throughout the country, I'm smoked. More tomorrow.

Making Mansaf

2011-04-24T04:20:00.003-04:00

boiling goodness

almond slivers sauteed in lamb fat

stew over rice and flat bread


awaiting final shower of jameed

My Arabic instructor generously offered a few of her students the opportunity to learn the fine art of Jordanian and Middle Eastern cuisine. Although many of the dishes here are an amalgamation of various Mediterranean specialties (you'll find Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian offerings throughout the country), mansaf is, without question, Jordan's national dish. During our nine months in Amman, K. and I have sampled the lamb (sometimes made with goat) and rice feast in many homes. To help us celebrate Thanksgiving and bridge cultures, one host even concocted turkey mansaf! While the prospect of using turkey raised doubts ("too dry," some argued!), the cynics eventually caved and each agreed, "zaki kiteer" -- very delicious!

From start to finish, making mansaf was an adventure. Shopping for ingredients quickly proved to be a test in Arabic. Three of us wandered the mazes of Sweifieh, checking off lists -- shrak (Bedouin flat bread), kharoof (lamb), baSal (onion), loz (almonds) and so on. The prized possession, however, was jameed, a fermented and dried yogurt essential to the broth.

Wandering the spice souk K. and I first visited during our early weeks in Amman, I realized how far my Arabic has come: once overwhelmed by the foreign script identifying dried chili, cinnamon, and lentils, I now can sound out -- however slowly -- the labels stamped on barrels and baskets of goods. Granted, I don't always know the meaning of what I read. Still, those moments of recognition are joyous: filfil aswad (black pepper), za'tar (thyme), kamoon (cumin), mileh (salt)...

Cooking mansaf isn't all that complicated, but time-consuming. It literally takes hours to prepare. We arrived at five and sat to eat at 8:30. The dish -- for which we needed to purchase a special over-sized platter -- served not only the seven gathered at the table, but the guards and boabs stationed at our homes. We meet at the end of this month for the next lesson. On the menu: an eggplant and minced meat dish topped with sauce and pine nuts, and various meeze (buffet of light sides).

*
Many thanks to The Southern Review for nominating "Lines Following a Husband's Departure" for Best New Poets. Like many, I was saddened to hear of editor Jeanne Leiby's sudden passing. I'm so grateful she published my work during her tenure at the magazine. "Why I Call" speaks volumes about Leiby's commitment not only to literature as a whole, but those writers behind the writing:

"I spend a lot of my life rejecting things—that’s the reality of my job. When I find something that excites me so much I want to put it in print, I’m happy, I’m thrilled. In the moment of the call, the writer likes me and I like her and we celebrate the work. I call because we—all of us at TSR—strive to build long-term relationships with our writers. We want to engage as much as possible in their writing lives because it’s our job. Sometimes, I call because I’m accepting work from a writer whose work I have adored for so long, I’m star-stuck and I want to talk to him or her because I am a fan. Sometimes, I call writers when I’m rejecting a piece—but a piece that came so close I want them to know our enthusiasm and the details of our discussion. What’s the point of five smart people sitting around the table, talking out a piece in a very serious and focused way and then NOT letting the author know the details of the discussion?"

(Dis)Appearing Act

2011-04-23T15:17:00.001-04:00

drummers, swordsman, bagpipe player, and guests
line the stairs for entrance of bride and groom

K.'s been hounding me for weeks about updating this record. Funny, since we live together -- I figure he knows what's happening around this place! Here's a month and a half, simply stated:

sick, missed a month's worth of Arabic classes, learned to cook mansaf (Jordan's hearty dish of stewed lamb in jameed sauce over rice and thin bread), poems accepted, poems rejected, sick again, saw peaceful demonstrations by Amman youth near/at Al Hussein Park (not covered in media), discovered green does come with Middle Eastern spring, was pelted by hail in sudden storm, read books of poetry, watched news coverage of regional uprisings, sick, attended Jordanian wedding during which I managed to slip into conversation "hailing hits you on the head hard", returned to Arabic, procrastinated on essay-writing, went to book club, attended lecture by author of Married to a Bedouin, walked the dog. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Rinse, repeat... terribly exciting, isn't it?

Here's what is: T. and M. arrive in less than 24 hours! For a week, we'll tour them around the country's major attractions. It's a long trip from San Francisco, so I expect major jet lag and exhaustion. Still, it will be wonderful to be at home with friends from home. Hurry, and godspeed!

*

Currently reading:

The Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt
Illustrating the Machine that Makes the World... (Joshua Poteat)

"Those Memories of You": Jacqui Sutton

2011-03-01T09:32:00.001-05:00

The Road Jack

2011-02-26T08:07:00.001-05:00

So many thanks to B., L., and the-spirit-of-A.C. for hosting me for the last three weeks in Lenox! In two hours, it'll be time to catch a train -- and, four days later, a plane back to the Middle East. I'm returning with six finished drafts, three revisions, the foundation for the next essay (due late spring), and some groundwork for the anthology project. All in all, not bad given that I've been ill most of the trip. Although I told myself I'd study Arabic daily, I didn't live up to that promise. No doubt, I'll regret that once I return to Amman!

*

Danielle Cadena Deulen's "Lemon" is up at Poetry Daily. Go on, take a bite!

February Work Space

2011-02-24T16:09:00.000-05:00

lenox, mass: afternoon light

There & Here

2011-02-11T20:27:00.000-05:00

I've traded sand for snow -- and lots of it. Dusk and dawn: in changing light, the white drifts go gray.

*

Yesterday: early to rise, new draft, essay notes, p.m. yoga, homemade soup, Ethan Frome, early to bed.

Today: early to rise, restlessness, drafting to nowhere, afternoon queasiness, two rejection slips. In other words, bad news Berkshires.

*

Cairo, Cairo, Cairo. All the news is Cairo. In Jordan today: two demonstrations (I doubt will receive any coverage in light of Mubarak's resignation); the first, to express solidarity with the Egyptians; the second, in support of the kingdom's Hashemite rule.

*

The cancellation of Nile cruises is hurting more than Egyptian tourism. The local economy is suffering in Petra, Aqaba, Wadi Rum. I wish more Americans would visit the country.

*

Currently reading:

Selected Poems (Amy Clampitt, ed. Mary Jo Salter)
Love Amy, The Selected Letters of Amy Clampitt (ed. Willard Spiegelman)

You Must Read This

2011-02-10T09:00:00.001-05:00

"I don't like using the word racist...," she begins. For thoughtful consideration of Tony Hoagland's "The Change," please visit Claudia Rankine's web site.

What I Missed by Missing the Conference

2011-02-10T08:44:00.000-05:00

As recollected by Sara Jaffe at "All Hook, No Chorus" (click to read the entry in its entirety):

Hoagland wrote, “Dear Claudia.” He wrote that he felt Rankine was “naïve about American racism.” He said, essentially, that everyone in America is racist, that it’s something we learn and are taught everyday. He said that too many white poets are afraid to deal with this reality in their poems, that almost all poems about race come from a person of color’s point-of-view. He also suggested that it was facile for Rankine to assume that the speaker in the poem is the same as the poet. He called her remarks “underconsidered.” He made a list of declarative statements, which I wish I’d written down: “I am a racist. I am a misogynist. I am a man. I am a lover of women. I am a single mother.”

*

Tony Hoagland's "The Change"

*
And here's an excerpt from Peter Campion's "Rhetoric, Music, America," a critical essay I mentioned at Inns last spring:

"Hoagland’s ability to match formal challenges with serious social concerns should make for strength and subtlety in the poetry. So why do whole swathes of this new book fall flat? Sometimes the biggest flops occur when Hoagland addresses those social themes most explicitly. Consider the opening of “Hinge”:

Last night on the tv the light-brown African-American professor
looked at the printout analysis of his own dna
and learned that he was mostly Irish.

I can’t go back to Africa now, he thought,
controlling the expression on his face,
his big moment onscreen already turning out
different than he had imagined.

Nor would he ever be able to say the sentence,
“I be at the crib”
with the same brotherly ease as before.

The first three lines work as a fine lead-in. But then the poem takes such a wrong turn, that it would be offensive if it weren’t simply absurd. The idea that a light-brown African-American, and a professor to boot (readers will recognize Henry Louis Gates, Jr.), might be surprised by having European ancestry, and might consider a dna readout as the ultimate verdict on racial and cultural heritage, is dubious enough for starters. But the sudden move into the omniscient third-person, conveying the presumption that the poet knows exactly what the man was thinking, is the real trouble here. The professor’s thoughts turn out to be cartoonish at best—has anyone, other than a white teenager, ever uttered the sentence, “I be at the crib”? These thoughts read less like interior monologue and more like gags, at the expense of the professor, whom Hoagland makes not only gullible but affected: “his big moment onscreen already turning out / different than he had imagined.” The problem is not simply that Hoagland has made some political blunder. The riskiness of addressing race in America, and of inhabiting seemingly “incorrect” tones or attitudes, might actually have been refreshing. The real snag has to do with rhetoric. The narration operates at a supreme distance from the material, so that the true subject turns out to be Tony Hoagland’s performance of a joke at the expense of a famous intellectual, who becomes little more than a “personification of an abstract idea.” Such reduction occurs throughout the book. When Hoagland writes in another poem that Britney Spears “looks a little chubby in a spangled bikini” as she dances before “fanged, spiteful fans and enemies,” he turns people into types, images that may have particularity so far as the poet’s phrase-making is inventive and amusing, but that exert no pull of their own against the rhetorical plotting of the poem..."

One Hundred Trembling Candles

2011-02-08T17:40:00.000-05:00

Poet in 1916 (by J.E. Sponagle)

Those born this day are lucky to keep such company:

"We called her Miss Bishop. She was the only teacher I had in four years of college who invited a class to her house—a sunny, rather bare apartment on Brattle Street, I think it was, where she showed us a Joseph Cornell-ish art box she had made that she said drew on the folk art Brazilians made to memorialize dead children..."

*

THE BIGHT
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

[On my birthday]

At low tide like this how sheer the water is.
White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare
and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches.
Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,
the water in the bight doesn't wet anything,
the color of the gas flame turned as low as possible.
One can smell it turning to gas; if one were Baudelaire
one could probably hear it turning to marimba music.
The little ocher dredge at work off the end of the dock
already plays the dry perfectly off-beat claves.
The birds are outsize. Pelicans crash
into this peculiar gas unnecessarily hard,
it seems to me, like pickaxes,
rarely coming up with anything to show for it,
and going off with humorous elbowings.
Black-and-white man-of-war birds soar
on impalpable drafts
and open their tails like scissors on the curves
or tense them like wishbones, till they tremble.
The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in
with the obliging air of retrievers,
bristling with jackstraw gaffs and hooks
and decorated with bobbles of sponges.
There is a fence of chicken wire along the dock
where, glinting like little plowshares,
the blue-gray shark tails are hung up to dry
for the Chinese-restaurant trade.
Some of the little white boats are still piled up
against each other, or lie on their sides, stove in,
and not yet salvaged, if they ever will be, from the last bad storm,
like torn-open, unanswered letters.
The bight is littered with old correspondences.
Click. Click. Goes the dredge,
and brings up a dripping jawful of marl.
All the untidy activity continues,
awful but cheerful.

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep...

2011-02-07T11:24:00.001-05:00

After more than 24 hours of travel (flight overnight, taxi, train, and car) I've arrived. New England feels very much like New England.

*

New York is quiet at six in the morning. I sometimes forget that. Sunday morning, I had Penn Station almost all to myself.

*

Amtrak rushed upstate. The Hudson was moving; then, it wasn't. Water turned to ice floes with the tide. Near Poughkeepsie, the river seemed to flow both ways...

*

As B. navigated the Berkshires' ice-slick roads, I couldn't help but think about the year I lived in Hamilton:
how peculiarly / particularly time passes in a wintry village.

*

By seven, I needed a nap.

*

L. made the loveliest pasta topped with spinach, proscuitto, asparagus, grape tomatoes, red onion, and shaved cheese. We laughed and talked past midnight.

*

Spotted this morning from the kitchen window: a half dozen wild pheasants pecking at the snow.

*

Work. More work. Fewer than three weeks to go...

Right About...Now

2011-02-03T11:22:00.002-05:00

I should be in Washington D.C. at the AWP Conference delivering a talk for this morning's "Strategic Thievery" panel. Thanks to the massive snow- and ice-storm that swept the states, I'm sitting in my office in Amman. My paper on the anxiety of lyric assertion as demonstrated by Brigit Pegeen Kelly's "Dead Doe" is locked in its file for safekeeping. May it see the light of day...someday.

*

Friends and family continue to contact me about reports they've heard linking the Egyptian uprising with Jordan, Yemen, Tunisia, etc. Even as I try to assuage their fears and make clear the social, political, and historical differences between Jordan and its neighbors, the media draws additional connections. One of today's headlines, for example, connects Jordan-Yemen-Egypt as if it's some sort of three-headed dog; the contents of the article that follows, however, only cover events in Cairo. I've also noticed that many of the journalists discussing Jordan aren't here on the ground, but writing their reports from other Middle Eastern countries or even the U.S.

Here's what Jordanian blogger Naseem Tarawnah of The Black Iris has to say about what distinguishes the motivation behind Jordan's political rallies and demonstrations from those in surrounding areas:

"What Jordanians are looking for is not a revolution but an evolution of the state. People are looking for reform that is not macro and philosophical, but is tangible - as in, food-on-the-table tangible. Better jobs, higher wages, better education for the kids, good schools, safer neighborhoods, lower prices, lower taxes, better modes of affordable public transportation, etc. These are the things that matter to the average Jordanian and to the ordinary protester. This is what we see written on signs and chanted by the crowds."

In another post on King Abdullah's recent appointment of a new prime minister Tarawnah goes on to say:

"There needs to be recognition that this isn’t about Tunisia and this isn’t about Egypt. It’s about what comes next. Not for them, but for us. The state needs to realize that no one protesting on the streets of Jordan have been calling for regime change but rather a change in government and real reforms. And that is an opportunity..."

*

But King Abdullah just sacked his cabinet, say some of my American friends (quoting the latest radio report). Such dismissals seem obvious evidence of unrest. That swift political change is a common practice in Jordan (the King has fired many government officials on charges of corruption during his tenure) doesn't seem to matter. They see King Abdullah's appointment of a new prime minister as evidence that the entire political system is buckling to the demands of Democracy-demanding protesters. Not true. Not even close.

On the other hand, I've had several discussions with Jordanians who feel that American leadership (examples have been both Republican and Democrat) is weak and ineffective. Why doesn't the President just do something? they ask, citing examples of action taken by the late King Hussein and his son current King Abdullah II. How to explain -- because it's not that simple?! Our President doesn't have that kind of power...

My point is that it's very easy to reach reductive conclusions about particular places from a distance. If I still lived in the states, current news coverage would lead me to believe that half the Middle East is experiencing revolution. Perhaps that's a narrative the West wants to believe. I don't pretend to know what's going to happen in Amman tomorrow (Friday, Feb. 3, the holy day, and in recent weeks, a day peaceful demonstration). However, I can say that as of Thursday at 6:13 p.m., the city is rolling into the weekend without incident.

Happy Anniversary!

2011-02-02T15:06:00.000-05:00

It's been more than six months since we moved to Amman. Six months! In December, K. and I traveled to Italy for Christmas. In January, I met a friend for an almost two-week adventure to France. Both trips were memorable, magical. At the end of each, I was ready to come home.

*

Home is now Jordan. I've lived in so many places, moved too many times. A house isn't necessarily a home. I had a dream house -- a historical beauty -- with a wrap-around porch, matching swing and shutters. For two years, I watched the townspeople pass by on bikes, in cars, by foot, riding skateboards and paper-decorated floats. I saw neighbors watering their laws, and kids from the local high school laughing and spitting and wasting their days. People must have seen me sweeping that porch and thought I was home.

*

Moving here, we lost square feet. And a garage. Regular contact with stateside loved ones. Our dog lost her park and a big yard in which to chase the birds. I can't make my favorite chile verde -- the tomatillos have all gone missing. Two thirds of my poetry collection is in storage. I'm managing.

*

Not many of our friends and family know much about Jordan. I'd bet the average American doesn't know much about Jordan. Most of the tourists I meet here are French. Or Japanese. Or Australian. Or British. Some have dreamed about seeing Petra. Others arrive at Aqaba on cruise ships whose featured destination is Egypt: cruise the Nile, see the pyramids, stop off in Jordan to catch sunset at Wadi Rum, then fly home from Amman.

*

Egypt. Although it's true that while standing on a hotel balcony on Jordan's southern shore I once saw -- there, hazy in the distance -- Egypt, the fact remains: Egypt is not Jordan.

*

I lived in San Francisco, a city that is good and bad, beautiful and sometimes ugly. It's there I still feel most at home. In the grand scheme of things, Las Vegas is near San Francisco. Still, California is not Nevada.

*

Amman, you are difficult and exciting, and sometimes hot and foggy. I love your hills. At night, your flat-faced buildings remind me of those in a certain city in northern California. Your people are generous and intelligent. I love the rhythms of your language and am learning to love your noises -- the water and gas trucks that circle my neighborhood blaring advertisements in Arabic, the traffic circles' blaring horns, riotous outbursts to celebrate victories in soccer.

*

Six months. How is this possible?

*

Nevada is not California.

Oh Happy Day!

2010-12-15T10:44:00.000-05:00

A very happy birthday to my dearest husband! A pumpkin pie is in the kitchen awaiting your return!

Weather

2010-12-12T14:02:00.000-05:00

Last week collective prayer across the Middle East called for an end to the drought.

A sudden storm:

Winds carry the screen from someone's sliding glass door into our back yard.

The sky's the color of taupe, filled with dust and sand.

The birds have all gone now.

The rain rains down as mud.

Officials shut down the Dead Sea's Highway. Temperatures continue to drop.

The dog won't go out.

Power goes off and on, on and off. The internet comes and goes. What are satellites are saying?

I keep thinking of sod dugouts in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas. Of quick static and the dust flu.

They say snow is coming; that frost is forming as we speak.

Last week, it was 80 degrees.

All people should avoid the valleys. There's a danger of flash floods.

Still, southwesterly winds from the Sinai keep blowing.

What are the satellites saying?

Even the seaports are closed.

Miss Arab World 2010

2010-12-10T05:31:00.000-05:00

Mawadda Nour from Saudi Arabia: Miss Arab World 2009

Excerpt from Mona El-Naggar's coverage of the recent competition in Cairo:

Nesreen Mohamed, 24, a young Palestinian woman studying in Egypt, said the fact that the competition accepted veiled women helped motivate her to enter and made her parents feel safe. But when her mother phoned in to reprimand her for letting a man apply her makeup, she cried for an entire day and said she felt that she had compromised her values. She considered withdrawing until she was promised a female makeup artist.

“We are trying to live the Western experience and at the same time modify it to suit our Middle Eastern values,” said Sara El Selousy, 24, who participated as Miss Egypt. “We are dressed in loose clothes, we move around in T-shirts, we’re not wearing anything revealing, and we are still good looking.”

But what some of the girls, including Ms. Selousy, did was find other ways to compensate for the loose tops. They wore their long-sleeve T-shirts on skin-tight pants and seemed to relish being followed by the cameras. The confusion and challenges to Arab female identity thrown up by the pageant eventually pushed two of the original 20 participants to withdraw.

Al Zahraa Al Maleki, 21, had been representing Oman before pulling out. “For me, this was wrong, especially as a woman from an Arab Gulf society,” she said. “I joined with the understanding that this was a cultural event, but after three days of wearing full makeup, standing for photo shoots and learning to walk on stage, I chose to go back to my classes.”

(Lost) In Translation II

2010-12-09T15:56:00.000-05:00

...What interests me is not only the genius of the poet translated but also the genius of what is possible in English as it bends to accommodate or digest various new forms. By translating, we learn how the limits of our minds can be stretched to absorb the foreign, and how thereby we are able to make our language beautiful in a new way.

(from "Various Tongues," an exchange by Ilya Kaminsky and Adam Kirsch via The Poetry Foundation)

(Lost) In Translation

2010-12-08T16:46:00.002-05:00

"The weather is a giant apricot," I told my tennis instructor (in Arabic of course). Oh the difference a vowel can make. One vowel. "i" or "oo"

*

Among foreign cultural institutes and publishers, the traditional American aversion to literature in translation is known as “the 3 percent problem.”

*

I recently met a woman who speaks five languages. She told me this:

While grocery shopping in Amman I was chatting on the phone with my mother who lives in Munich. Somewhere near the potatoes, I noticed people had started to stare. Apparently, a woman and her husband heard my German and thought I was speaking Arabic. "Shame," the man said. "Shame." It was then I realized there's a word in German that sounds like "vagina" in Arabic. And so there I was pushing my cart, saying "vagina, vagina, vagina" all down the produce stand.

*

But how important is this book to Adonis; is he much concerned that he is read in English?

"I'm interested in all readers," he says. "The reader is such that what he does is a part of me, and English readers are no different from Arab readers in that regard.

"The reader is the 'other', the person I am trying to reach. And that 'otherness' is also a part of me. I'm interested in the perception of non-Arab readers because they may allow me a clearer perception of myself...."Unfortunately, western readers continue to see Arab culture as marginal. Arab politics has little weight; this is accepted; but we musn't conflate politics and culture, which unfortunately is what western readers tend to do."

*

While in Chile, my husband attempted to express his embarrassment. Estoy embarazada, he told a room filled with his hosts, meaning I am pregnant. In some ways, he was successful. For the rest of his stay, a five-year-old referred to him as payaso -- or clown.

*

I hope to translate Arabic poetry before I leave the Middle East. A lofty ambition, for sure. Still, I'm beginning to read the language, although my vocabulary is so limited that I'll often sound out a word whose meaning leaves me at a loss. For example, I don't know the Arabic word for "vagina."

*

Open Letter Books is a small press that publishes nothing but literature in translation.

“There’s a set of readers out there that’s very interested in translations and international literature and is not getting what it wants,” said Chad W. Post, Open Letter’s director. “American literature has a lot of great works. But English-speaking readers don’t have full access to voices and viewpoints from around the world, and we’re trying to rectify that.”

*

Thanks to K-the-G, I'm reading this.

Publishing Woes

2010-12-05T03:12:00.000-05:00

I was more upset with myself than anyone else, and not at all surprised, when the rejection letters started trickling in. What did catch me off guard was their content. My writing was called “riveting,” my story heartfelt and best wishes were offered for the placement of “this talented writer.” This was disorienting and I began to wonder if publishers had lower standards for the quality of writing when the topic itself, in this case “Iran”, was supposed to be enough to sell a book. The reasons these editors gave for passing on my book seemed to have nothing to do with me, my story or my writing. One of the editors cited the “Middle East fatigue” reported by her sales force, another expressed the “worry that too many related books have been published in recent years” and still another was doubtful that the book would “break through to commercial success in this market. I wish I felt otherwise,” she added, “and I wish more than that that it didn’t matter.”

"Way Cooler Than Walmart"

2010-12-04T15:00:00.001-05:00

SF's Dog Eared Books (photo by Thor Swift)

Of the few frustrations I have about Amman, this is perhaps the greatest: it's very difficult to find decent bookstores and reading materials in the city, particularly if English is your first language. Rumor has it the British Institute has a library, although I've yet to investigate its collections. In the meantime, there's plenty of Chick Lit (no thanks), genre fiction (no thanks) cookbooks (have plenty), and travel guides in English to be found, as well as a few classics here and there. As for poetry? In Jordan you'll find writing by Shakespeare, Mahmoud Darwish, and (for reasons unclear to me) lots and lots of Borges.

Of all the places I've lived, San Francisco's is the richest literary culture. The city has an abundance of readings, organizations, bookstores new and used, festivals, celebrations, libraries, blah-dee-blah-blah-blah. As Gregory Dicum describes in The New York Times:

"The Mission may be San Francisco’s current book hub, but it isn’t the only neighborhood where you’ll find one-of-a-kind bookstores. If, for instance, you’re exploring Noe Valley, seek out Omnivore, a tiny, carefully curated shop that fulfills the food-mad city’s appetite for gastronomic literature. On Haight Street, Bound Together is a roughly 30-year-old anarchist collective, a closet of a shop crammed floor to ceiling with the heavy, serious literature of a parallel universe.... The Green Arcade, on Market Street at the edge of Hayes Valley, focuses on the more capitalism-friendly progressive genre of sustainability and eco-living. Even the biggest used bookstore in the city, Green Apple, on Clement Street in the Richmond, maintains a distinctive feel thanks to staff members who know their way around the sprawling shop and around the world of books itself. 'It’s not the kind of thing people could create from scratch these days,' said Pete Mulvilhill, one of the owners."

In a shopping district that borders our neighborhood in Amman, there are several "bookstores" and "libraries." The catch is that such places sell stationary, office supplies, ink cartridges, small toys, and the occasional magazine in Arabic. Today, for example, I took ten-year-old M. to the "library" to purchase a watercolor set, paint brushes, black and red ribbon, double-sided tape, and a foam globe for her upcoming project on Francis Drake. We also found Christmas ornaments, glitter tubes, picture frames, candy, and small lamps among the library's shelves and displays. "I want my mom to take me shopping here next year for school supplies," said M, who's returning to Virginia in the fall. "This place is way cooler than Walmart."

*

IN JERUSALEM
by Mahmoud Darwish translated by Fady Joudah

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls, I walk from one epoch to another without a memory to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing the history of the holy . . . ascending to heaven and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love and peace are holy and are coming to town. I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone? Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up? I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me. All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly then I become another. Transfigured. Words sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t believe.” I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white biblical rose. And my hands like two doves on the cross hovering and carrying the earth. I don’t walk, I fly, I become another, transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I? I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I think to myself: Alone, the prophet Mohammad spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?” Then what? A woman soldier shouted: Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you? I said: You killed me . . . and I forgot, like you, to die.

Tis the Season

2010-12-03T05:12:00.000-05:00

Ashley Bouder: NYCB

New York City Ballet Principal Ashley Bouder on flying and falling through the chaos / tradition that is Nutcracker season:

"One feeling I do remember is that nervousness of those first Nutcracker performances with the company. And I say nervousness for a couple reasons. One is that it is most likely the first time you are performing multiple roles in one evening. And two, there are 40-something performances you have to perform in under six weeks. At the start it is daunting, to say the least. I also have a very vivid memory of my first big role in The Nutcracker. I was 17 years old and given the opportunity to dance the Dew Drop Fairy. How exciting! It is turning and jumping and bending. All things that I love to do. I had performed this role as a teenager at my home school of CPYB and had watched it for two years in New York. This was my second Nutcracker and I had spent my first performing every show of Chinese and watching every waltz of the flowers wishing I could be dancing Dew Drop. So, of course, my chance comes, as it happened two days before my 18th birthday, and I was a bundle of nerves and excitement. I run out for my first entrance to that beautiful harp, sucking up every moment, and what do I do at the end of the second eight counts of dancing? Fall! I fall on my face on center when no one else is moving on the stage. Embarrassing? Yes! I'm on the ground staring at the gray marley floor, looking up at the conductor, Maurice Kaplow, and he has stopped waving his baton to gape. But embarrassing as this seemed, I got up and laughed. My first feeling was disbelief, then the need to get up, then "screw it." I thought, "well, even if I miss my turns, it can't get much worse." I think this moment became a model for my attitude towards disasters on stage for my career. Slip, fall, forget choreography, it's all part of live ballet. You move on, forget, and trust it will be better. Then later, you have a good laugh. I even have a picture of my now infamous Dew Drop fall. I am dancing Dew Drop on opening night this year. But not a performance of The Nutcracker goes by that I don't think about that moment."

*
I can think of at least three good falls I had on stage during Nutcracker season: Arabian 2xs and once as a soloist in Waltz of the Flowers when I over-crossed my mark. Hearing an audience's communal gasp is the absolute worst. I can't say I ever had "a good laugh" about my missteps. Photos anyone?

*

Currently reading:

Here (Wislawa Szymborska)
Composing a Life (Mary Catherine Bateson)

Ditto

2010-11-28T04:14:00.000-05:00

homans in the late 70s (photo: carolyn george)

Jennifer Homans, critic and author of the recently published Apollo's Angels (A History of Ballet), explains her decision to leave PNB in order to pursue education:

Ms. Homans left Chicago to pursue more serious training, first at the North Carolina School of the Arts, then at the School of American Ballet, at a time when Balanchine still reigned. She had hoped to ascend to City Ballet, but when Balanchine made his annual visit to select dancers for his company, she was out with an injury.

Picking herself up, she traveled west, to San Francisco Ballet and finally to Pacific Northwest Ballet, where she danced for four years. But at 26 she chose to stop.

“I was bored,” Ms. Homans said. “It’s strange to say, because I still loved to dance. But you’re in a studio many hours a day, and often you’re waiting for someone else to come up with ideas. At a certain point I wanted to be the one with the ideas.”

*

Currently reading:

The Singing (CK Williams)
Behind My Eyes (Li-Young Lee)

These Are the Days

2010-11-27T04:50:00.000-05:00

monastery: five miles and 800 cliff-side steps

petra: hint of what's to come

wadi rum

walking in astonishment

Storming the Castle: Ajloun

2010-11-19T04:45:00.000-05:00

Approximately 50 cents per person grants access to the incredible structure that is Qal'at Ar-Rabad. The castle, which helped Arabs defeat the Crusaders eight centuries ago, is in terrific condition. Yesterday, we spent two or so hours wandering its courtyard and various indoor levels. There's a small museum on the premises where K. and I were delighted to find a display of ancient pipes and oil-fueled bombs made of stone. Bonus points: the rare scent of pine trees in air.

valley view

east wing in progress

tunnels and archways

indoor mazes

Found...

2010-10-26T08:33:00.000-04:00

...in our backyard

all by his lonesome

identification: levantine tortoise

aka: "levi" / sir hiss

Past / Present

2010-10-21T05:09:00.000-04:00

I'm in the thick of mastering conjugation, and find myself tongue-tied when it comes to adding the appropriate suffixes to switch tenses. Sometimes my Arabic sounds more like Japanese. Verbs. Who needs 'em?

*

New news: Congrats to Fuente!!, who filed her Master's thesis a few days ago! I'm so proud of you!

*

Old news: It took us three hours (one, two, three) to cross the border dividing Jordan and Israel. Approximate distance = a quarter mile. K. and I could probably crawl a quarter mile in less than three hours. Perhaps if we'd crawled, the Israeli officials would've taken pity on us and moved the process along.

*

West Branch bumped up my review essay on elegy and murder to the current issue (Fall/Winter 2010). Books covered: Beth Bachmann's Temper, Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno's Slamming Open the Door, and Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods by Paula Bohince. Special appearances by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, D.A. Powell, and Abe Lincoln's corpse.

Also in the issue is Garth Greenwell's always deft column, "To a Green Thought." Fall's installment finds Greenwell engaging with the likes of Donne, high school students, classical music, Helen Vendler and Dionysus, among others.

*

Old news: "Poetry for him is not merely a genre or an art form but a way of thinking, something almost like mystical revelation. “Poetry cannot be made to fit either religion or ideology,” he said in the talk. “It offers that knowledge which is explosive and surprising.”

He went on to complain about what he called the “retardation” of contemporary Arabic poetry, which in his view has become a rhetorical tool for celebrating and explaining the political and religious status quo. In the Islamist scheme, he said, there is not much place for poetry, because Islam assumes that with the Koran knowledge is complete and there is nothing left to add."

*

(Great) news for me: it's possible to get fantastic sushi in Amman at Yoshi (near 3rd circle).

For The Tine

2010-10-16T11:11:00.000-04:00

Still hoping to find an hour or so to post about our trip to Jerusalem. In the meantime, here's a photo from the international diplomatic bazaar we attended this afternoon. The annual event benefits Marbaratt Um Al-Hussein Orphanage, and is a fantastic way to engage with the international community in Jordan.

Upon arrival, we headed immediately to the world dining hall. After feasting on noodle dishes and spring rolls from Thailand and Brunei, K. topped off lunch with "halo-halo," a Filipino dessert that combines shaved ice and milk with boiled sweet beans and fruit. This is what the icy goodness looks like before it's mixed.

Jerusalem & Back

2010-10-10T15:28:00.000-04:00


Crossroads of faith.

Four days in Jerusalem. Stated simply: Walk. Walk. Walk. Eat. Walk. Walk. Explore above ground. Explore below ground. Walk. Sleep. Wake. Repeat.

*

10:30 or so in Amman. The sounds of street noise and fireworks. So tired, I'm thinking (mostly) in fragments. K.'s unwinding between football and XBox. Jabber's curled in a ball. Hope to recount our trip via installments over the next several days.

On Blast Zones, UFOs, & Naughty Pirates

2010-10-06T09:32:00.000-04:00

An excerpt from the recent Boxcar Poetry interview with the always lovely Robin Ekiss:

In high school, we moved to Croton, down the road a few miles, and I went to school in Montrose. These towns were all what passed for the "underbellies" of affluent Westchester County. We lived a few miles from the infamous Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. Every year, we'd get a letter informing us that we were located in the blast zone, and that if there was a meltdown, it probably wasn't worth evacuating. There was also a famous mud bog held every year, with monster trucks driving through mud. And it was the locale of one of the largest reported UFO sightings in the U.S., which, I'm proud to admit, I took part in. Years after I left, I learned that Edna St. Vincent Millay had lived in Croton, and Isadora Duncan's sister had a dance school half-a-mile from my house. Trotsky supposedly visited there. And Gloria Swanson owned a house. Charlie Chaplin stopped by for walks. I'm obsessed with silent film right now, so this fascinates me to no end.

*

Who am I?

Why are costumes for women so slutty? I'm no shrinking violent, but come on!

*

In eighth grade, I attended my first boy-girl party. My mother worked for weeks to make me the perfect Halloween frock: a bluebird, complete with orange tights and over-sized felt feet. Its sac-like body reached half way down the leg where it cinched bloomer-like just above the knee. Both beak and eyes attached to baseball hat pulled tightly over my face.

When I arrived at the shindig, Little Red Riding Hood and Ginger (from Gilligan's Island) greeted me at the door. I looked around. The boys stared. One even laughed. While the rest of the girls in my class were clad in leopard print catsuits and decorated unitards that showed off their training bras and legs, I flopped around the room overstuffed and shapeless. For most of the night, I watched my crush chase after Alice in Wonderland. When a group of us finally locked ourselves in a back room to play spin-the-bottle, B.C. mocked me for not knowing the right way to hold hands with a boy. Jerk.

*

I have an idea for October 31 (we'll be hitting a party here in Amman), but worry everyone and their mother-in-law will go for a similar look this year. What I wouldn't give for that bluebird now and its feet of orange felt!

*

Currently reading:

Key Grip (Dustin Beall Smith)

Gerard Manley Hopkins (Paul Mariani)

*
I'd bet money, by the way, mom used the above McCall's pattern to construct the damned bird! All in all, the thing is pretty genius.

This Little Piggy

2010-10-05T16:11:00.000-04:00

I moved from a southern town that hosts an annual Hog Fest to a city where it's almost impossible to find pork. More than two months in, here's what's happened / happening:

I joined a women-only gym where windows in front of the treadmills reveal the crowded jabals of Amman; where, for some, post-workout "transformation" means not just slimming or strengthening the body but also covering it before returning outdoors.

Today, per my instructor's request, I switched Arabic classes. I've traded 8:00 am sessions for longer afternoon meetings. While the level upgrade is a blessing (better to be at the bottom and challenged to work harder), the time poses a problem. I'll need discipline to get up, get going, stay productive.

Meanwhile, K. is as productive as it gets. The man works, works, works, takes a breather, and then works. Part of my job is to help him set limits. As a reward for all his weekend hours and evening meetings, we're taking a few days to travel. Jabber will stay at home with a sitter. The poor puppy hasn't been away from both of us for more than a day. I predict a hunger strike, and lots of sighing and moaning.

Last weekend, we hit the dance floor at a huge fall party. Three of my toes are still numb. I kid you not. I shook it, and shook it, and then boogied down some more. Thanks to K.D. who provided the perfect little black dress. Tough to believe I've been raiding that girl's closet for 20 years!

If this post seems less energized or distracted, here's why: my maternal grandmother -- who's 92 and lives alone out in the country -- recently suffered a small stroke. Thankfully, she's out of the hospital. I'm worried, sad, etc., but mostly I wish I could be with her. I also want to be with my mom, who's spending a lot of time doing her best to manage the situation. Times like these, it's tough to be away.

Sending love, people, sending love. As always, s.

Love from California

2010-09-15T11:07:00.000-04:00

Received our first taste of home today. For handing over a little yellow slip, I picked up a huge packed-to-the-hilt box of goodness from the mail office. Black beans, tortillas, an antique tablecloth, photos in magnetized frames for the fridge -- my mom always knows exactly what to send. Chips, white-cheddar popcorn (both bags split open -- oops!), dog treats and a little plush monkey for Jabberwocky Chewbacca. And on and on. We're talking $55 postage worth of goodness! My favorite part? Seeing mom's handwriting. I've always loved her cursive, its loops and effortless connections.

*

Anger. Sadness. Shame. It's been difficult for me to post while so much recent media attention has been dedicated to the hoopla surrounding the Jones-led fringe group in Gainesville.

Fact: I'm an American living in a largely Muslim country.

Fact: Amman is a city of mosques, a city of disciplined prayer and worship.

Fact: I am not Muslim.

Fact: I've called populous areas like San Francisco, Washington D.C., Baltimore, SoCal, and Madison home.

Fact: I've never felt safer living in a cosmopolitan setting than I have the past two months in Jordan.

Fact: My greatest concern about residing in Amman is whether Jordanians mistake isolated instances of ignorance (threats to burn the Koran, Fox News commentary, for example) with general American ideology.

Fact: I'm relieved to find that while mystified by the Florida controversy, many Jordanians aren't that short-sighted. In other words, they recognize that people like the Mustache "pastor" are the exception, not the norm.

*

Currently reading:

Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life (Ian Gibson)
Collected Poems: Federico Garcia Lorca (ed. Christopher Mauerer)

End of Ramadan

2010-09-14T13:35:00.000-04:00

Gift basket from neighbors to celebrate Eid.

"World's Perfect Sandwich"

2010-09-14T13:29:00.000-04:00

Approximately $1 (for three)

Sunday Drive

2010-09-05T12:41:00.000-04:00

Nymphaeum at Jerash

Dear Record,

2010-09-03T09:51:00.000-04:00

True, I've neglected you --

because I've been thinking.

because the sea freight came.

because I can't write when there are unpacked boxes; because during the move my wedding dress was smashed all to hell.

because I've been reading Lorca and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things.

because heat waves cause power outages and I hate losing my train of thought....

because I want chocolate.

because there's only a week of Ramadan left, and it's cooler to venture out at night.

because I accidentally took a bite of the cookie during daylight in public and felt ashamed.

because the dog won't stop barking.

because repairmen won't stop knocking.

because our doorbell's loop features "Jingle Bells" and Pachelbel's Canon etc., etc., which frankly drives me nuts.

because I can't find a library and "bookstore" in Amman is code for "we-sell-paper-clips-rubber bands-dried dates-and-Backstreet-Boys-binders."

because I'm looking for the library anyway, which gives me extra time to make sense of what happened last weekend at the Turkish bath??!!

because I've been studying Arabic.

because I'm too busy writing friends and spend much of my free time calculating international postage rates.

because when someone passes me a set of DVDs with the current season of MAD MEN, I don't ask questions.

because I'm starting to realize chances for rain are unlikely.

Hard Hard Worker

2010-08-23T14:08:00.002-04:00

Where has the day gone? It's 8:30 p.m. in Jordan, while America's west coast is still waking up. I've been drafting an essay since mid-morning. The deadline is looming. As always, time escapes me...

Speaking of essays, I'm helping a friend edit a few installments for her upcoming collection. I've only known her as a poet and am completely humbled by her command of prose. That she can orchestrate lyric intensity within each paragraph while maintaining narrative cohesion continues to impress me. I'm so excited for the book to come out this spring.

*

Yesterday's Arabic class was terrible. Actually, the class wasn't so terrible as I was terrible in it. K. and I went out for game night on Saturday, and Sunday came too soon. Although I'd studied, I couldn't seem to remember even the most basic Arabic phrases. When asked where I grew up, I stalled -- as if the question concerned calculus rather than California. As it turned out, the lesson was a good one as it reminded me that even committed students have off-days. Belated hall-passes for everyone!

*

Best discovery this week: fresh figs dipped in thyme.

*

Bread Loaf is over. I grow more and more nostalgic flipping through friends' photos online. Still, it makes me happy to see the widening of circles, people from various points in my life connecting for the first time... That's the sweet side talking. My other half wants all the dish!

*

Currently reading:

Pima Road Notebook (Keith Ekiss). And in another thirty seconds, this...

Still Life with Roman Columns & Porta Potty

2010-08-20T11:21:00.000-04:00

I Heart This (so very much)

2010-08-19T09:05:00.000-04:00


Nijinsky as love-sick Petrouchka

James Merrill is such a smarty-pants. Check out these slant rhymes, and oh-so-genius use of Fokine's tragic clown-puppet to characterize a doomed relationship in "Days of 1971":

"...Tempers shortened. One self-righteous truck
knocked the shit out of a eucalyptus
whose whitewashed trunk lay twitching brokenly --
Nijinsky in Petrouchka -- on the quai."

----------------------

The "whitewashed trunk" so perfectly anticipates the dancer's whitewashed (made-up) face, while the phrase "lay twitching brokenly" describes Fokine's choreography in the scene in which Petrouchka is slayed. Love and love!

Color Wheel

2010-08-18T10:16:00.000-04:00

The den. These curtains stay.

Our new home has been transformed from a drab (off)white to pistachio, taupe, mustard, sand, and gray. I'm much happier now that we have some color on the walls. Much of the apartment is marble (kitchen, bathrooms, etc.). Thus, it didn't take much paint to bring the remaining rooms to life. A four-person crew completed the job in two days. As the task was completed I stayed home, listening to the sound of brushes, rollers, and the men singing songs in Arabic.

Tomorrow, new curtains arrive for the formal living room, three bedrooms, kitchen, and office. The man who measured the windows estimates that the current drapes are at least twelve years old. In fact, the company that manufactured them is no longer in business. No wonder they look so terrible! Fortunately, the owner of our building is footing the bill for the replacements.

*

I finished my first week of Arabic this morning. The course is one of immersion -- a sort of beginner's survival guide to Jordan's colloquial diction. For the time being, I'm learning to give directions and ask / answer basic questions. I also know how to say the equivalent of casual phrases like "What's up" and "How's it going."

The workweek runs Sunday to Thursday, leaving Friday for community worship. Mid-day, you'll find prayer mats spilled out onto the sidewalk and streets from mosques crowded with believers. It's a beautiful sight -- this devotion. The word "Aljom'a" (Friday), in fact, is related to the verb "to gather," further binding the day to noon's holy prayer. Such connections -- and there are many, I'm discovering -- continue to capture my attention and imagination.

*

Currently reading:

The Marsh Arabs, Wilfred Thesiger's account of living among the tribes of southern Iraq between 1951 and 1958.

Work(s) In Progress

2010-08-15T07:44:00.001-04:00

On Saturday K. and I were fortunate to tour The Jordan Museum, a 10,000-square meter building dedicated to artifacts relating the archaeology, history, traditional and modern life of Jordan. The permanent exhibit covers 1.5 million years of Jordanian civilization from the Old Stone Age to present time.

The museum is like one I've never seen; that is, it isn't finished. Although originally slated to open in 2007, the building's interior is still a work in progress: think finished marble walls housing scaffolding, empty display cases, half-constructed villages and Roman pillars, handwritten notes tacked to the walls directing "Ammonite Royal Statue here." On the floors, you'll find beautiful reconstructions of Wadi Musa mosaics, as well as workers' cigarettes, boots, tools, and gloves. I've never seen anything quite like it.

Plans for "The Olive Tree"

Our guide was the museum's chief engineer (if I remember correctly). He explained -- with great enthusiasm -- the evolution of various galleries and displays. An artist, for example, designs an olive tree to hide a less than aesthetically pleasing column. Construction begins. Management arrives for inspection. Consider kids swinging from the lowest branches, someone suggests, whether the trunk can be scrambled up. Consider accidents and lawsuits, broken elbows, stitches. And so it goes on and so it goes. The artist returns once more to her sketches...

It wasn't long before the unfinished museum became (to my mind) a poem in progress. Both the building and half-written page act as partially functioning drafts. Walking through the rooms dedicated to Writing, Lighting, Nomadism, Humanity -- noting their outlined murals and missing objects -- I couldn't help but think of caesurae and stanza (the breath's pause, its white space, and the poem's primary building block, that word meaning "room" in Italian). Each absent brushstroke seemed a syllable still waiting to be found...

Of course, The Jordan Museum is a collaborative project. There are checks and balances, men and women who approve or disapprove of its design, rhetoric, rhythm. How unlike the solitary author trying to find an authentic voice, this collective and ever-evolving dialogue.

We're told (in sh'allah) The Jordan Museum will open in 2011. Enter Dead Sea Scrolls. Enter bronze bottles and Al-Mushatta rosettes. Enter children and their families, citizens and tourists. What a different world it will be...

*

Started my Arabic class today: alHamdollilla!

*

Currently reading:

Black Dog of Fate (Peter Balakian) -- highly recommended
The Simple Truth (Philip Levine)

"Dead, Stinking Dead": BAD WRITING

2010-08-11T01:44:00.001-04:00

On Infinity Pools & Things Forgotten

2010-08-09T11:42:00.000-04:00

We took a less efficient route through Madaba and west to Mount Nebo where Moses surveyed the promised land. At the peak: tourists and construction. We didn't stop, but rounded over the mountains populated by Bedouins, camels, goats, and sheep.

I remembered sunscreen, but forgot my passport.

*

I remembered sunscreen, but forgot my passport -- a major difficulty, I was told -- when attempting to pass through security stops. Blondes, they said, were assumed to be Russian hookers. A friend in the car confirmed it was no joke; two weeks ago, a man approached her and asked, "I buy you?"

*

The Jordanian police didn't ask for my passport, but the guard at the Movenpick did. 10:30 a.m.: it was already more than 110 degrees. K.'s face showed it. He wasn't pleased I'd forgotten my passport. I received a reprieve; the hotel doors opened. We trekked out to lounge beside the Dead Sea.

*

It must have been more than 110 degrees. Our faces showed it. From the balcony lounge, I watched a half dozen people bob like corks below. Two took photos reading a paper while floating on their backs. Another played like an otter. At the shoreline, some muddied themselves head to toe.

*

Too hot to read, I ordered lunch -- gazpacho, a mojito. The mint was sweet; the soup, cold. It must've been 115 degrees, and getting hotter. I could see the West Bank from the pool. The sea looked like a lake. It loses six inches each year, someone told me. It's disappearing.

*

My sun glasses fogged.

K. called it the lowest place on earth.

I picked up my book again, snapped some pistachios, forgot to put on sunscreen.

Jordan After Dark

2010-08-08T04:53:00.000-04:00


Andrew Henderson for The New York Times

"Spectators partying at Distant Heat, an electronic dance music show in Jordan that featured European D.J.’s. Its audience members included Jordanians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Saudis and Palestinians."

Click here for Stephen Farrell's "Arabian Night," which provides full coverage of the event.

Stunning

2010-08-05T07:18:00.000-04:00

BEDOUIN
Edip Cansever

In the desolate shriveled brown town of my eyes
White-necked camels trudge along behind the weary herdsmen
Who still grope for a meaning day after day
Staring into a place far away
Ask them if they saw at least as much as they see a tale
In the desolate shriveled brown town of my eyes

Toward an unknown plate neither day nor death
They just stare
A Bedouin stands among the white thorns
Among gods and suns and fires
Not even a flame nor a plant nor a prayer
In the desolate shriveled brown town of my eyes

Who knows what he seeks perhaps a sating sip of water
Not a stop nor a rest
The white-necked camels could sense nothing even if they came
Even if the weary herdsmen knelt down and crouched before them
As the chilliest desert bird dies once again
In the uniform color of the world

*

(Translated from Turkish by Talat Sait Halman; reprinted from Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from The Middle East, Asia, and Beyond)

Sounding Off

2010-08-04T08:27:00.000-04:00

What does Amman sound like?

*

Call to prayer, construction (drills, cranes, cement trucks turning cement, crew bosses screaming commands, sawing, hammering, scraping this that or the other), air conditioners, children laughing in the stairwells and streets.

*

Radio: French rap and techno, MTV Pop, Arabic talk, Arabic classics, 70s & 80s easy listening (Lionel Ritchie, Huey Lewis & the News), always that damned Katy Perry "California Gurls" and some other nonsense that goes "I want to be a billionaire ... blah, blah blah"

*

My seven-pound dog barking.

At what?

The boab, guard, a motorcycle rumbling by, gardeners, people passing on the street, construction vehicles and workers (see above), church bells, the call to prayer, birds, insects, the washing machine, me, the air.

*

Traffic. Brakes. Horns. Arabic.

*

Fireworks in celebration of graduations and weddings.

*

Gunfire in celebration of graduations and weddings.

*

And laughter and conversation and heated discussions about Egyptian immigrants (which remind me of the stupidity in Arizona) and voices lowered almost to a whisper -- like the woman I saw on her prayer mat on the floor of the ladies gym bathroom, and the men I saw on the sidewalk and those spilling into the street when the mosque was too full...

*

And the sound of my own voice, shaking, trying to pronounce foreign words, trying to say the right thing at the right time, which is more complicated than it seems when phrases like "thank you" and "may I please have...?" are suddenly new again.

*

And my own voice saying goodnight to K., and "call you soon" to you and you who are so far away but sound so sadly clear.

Update

2010-08-03T03:28:00.000-04:00

Damage in Aqaba (Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Sadly, the 50-something taxi driver identified as Subhi Yousef al-Alawneh didn't survive yesterday's rocket launch into the streets of Aqaba. When I woke to the news, the man was wounded but alive. As Abdullah Yashin Rawashdehd, an Aqaba resident, told the Reuters news agency, "We saw the wreckage of a taxi which was burnt and fragmented metal scattered around the area that was cordoned off by police."

What's New(s)?

2010-08-02T07:06:00.002-04:00

What disturbs (but doesn't surprise) me about this morning's MSN is that the link "Lindsay Lohan is released from jail" trumps "Rockets hit Jordan hotel area, Israeli resort." I suppose Ms. Lohan's fourteen day imprisonment is more important to some readers than the Aqaba-area taxi driver who's badly wounded.

*

A heatwave hit Jordan a few days ago. We've had power outages, and the traffic is worse than ever -- total gridlock in the circles and surrounding areas. It's impossible to get a taxi. As the kingdom continues to swelter, I wonder about what it's like for the women practicing hijab, particularly those layered in black. I wore a breathable three-quarters sleeve shirt with cargo pants yesterday, and found myself both dehydrated and overwhelmed by an intense heat-related headache.

*

Folks back home have been inquiring about Arabic cuisine. In short, we've been eating well and often. During our outing in Sweifieh, K. and I feasted on the most amazing falafel sandwich. It included hummus, cabbage, potato, roasted cauliflower, spicy sauce, and cheese -- and cost about 50 cents American. Unlike a lot of the lower end stuff you find in the states, the falafel was completely moist. I couldn't believe our luck. I'd eat this sandwich everyday if I could...

Last night we had spicy tomato stew with lamb cubes, more hummus, fried cheese (for K.), and chicken tekka at Faroujna. During our short time here, we've already been to this restaurant twice and discovered they also deliver. Dangerous.

*

I'm very pleased to have a poem in the new issue of The Southern Review.

Currently reading:

Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from The Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal, and Ravi Shankar)

Shopping in Sweifieh

2010-07-31T08:19:00.000-04:00

rare traffic signs

reminds me of 4th grade mission diorama

stuff and more stuff

On the Road

2010-07-30T15:53:00.000-04:00

K. and I aren't required to pass a test to obtain Jordanian driver's licenses and I now understand why -- there's no evidence of official traffic laws. Even posted guidelines such as stop signs are "suggestions..."

Attempt an incorrect turn down a one-way street in San Francisco and the consequences are immediate. Here, there's no such thing as the "wrong" way. Forget painted lanes (for the most part) and stoplights, which are the exception and reserved for major roads and highways. Want to make a left turn across three improvised rows of cars? Go for it!

Drivers in Amman navigate the city via a series of circles intended to increase safety and minimize congestion. Scattered over several miles these rings vary in size. I've started to identify their numbers with various hotels, statues, trees, etc. Sixth Circle, for example, is known as "Greasy Circle" -- here you'll find America's ugly thumbprint in the form of Popeye's, Hardee's, Burger King, and McDonald's, the last of which actually delivers.

This morning we brunched at Books @ Cafe, a fantastic restaurant / bookstore off of Rainbow street. It was a ridiculous amount of food -- four or so rounds, including omelets and french toast, as well as local fare. I'm already addicted to mint with lemon, a freshly squeezed drink resembling a caipirinha or mojito (without the booze). The Books @ Cafe crowd varies wildly -- work friends, singles typing on computers, couples straight and gay, families, graduate students and academic types. The small balcony overlooking mountainous Amman is a wonderful place to hear the rhythms of several languages simultaneously. We'll definitely be back.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday

2010-07-29T06:26:00.001-04:00

Inside Le Royal

I stand corrected. We departed on Tuesday, arrived Wednesday close to midnight, making last Thursday our first full day in Amman. (K. pays attention to details.) Forgive me. I blame jet-lag.

*

First impressions: the airport is about 35 minutes from the city. At that time of night, I couldn't see much of anything, except an oddly placed three-story McDonald's and three camels being led alongside the highway.

At four a.m., Jabber needed to go out. When K. opened the patio door we heard the call to prayer for the first time. Both of us stood at the screen transfixed.

On weekends the Greek Orthodox Church bells ring and ring and ring. It's a wonderful sound -- this conversation between the muezzin and tolling bells.

*

The American Embassy is an impressive complex. It's architecturally similar to some of the newer buildings at U.C. Irvine. We've already met some very kind folks, and there's no shortage of activities and social gatherings. Less than 24 hours in Amman we attended "Steak Night" and somehow managed to put in an hour and a half at a party hosted by the Marine Corps. Given the pool table, downstairs bar, upstairs living quarters, wall-mounted photos of those in service (so so young! -- I'm old), and courtyard d.j. booth, I felt like I was at a frat party. Still, I doubt many American frat boys are smoking a nargileh!

*

Although he hasn't had much of a choice, K.'s ability to hit the ground running continues to impress me. He's up and out hours before I wake. We've had a great time exploring restaurants (without our air freight cooking is almost impossible) and have reserved Mondays for hotel patios and balconies.

Our first stop was Le Royal. From the 10th floor restaurant, we had incredible views of Amman at sunset. The flat-faced cream and white buildings almost act as screens for the changing light. Depending on the time of day, the city appears to be a million-piece puzzle of apricot taupe, sand and tangerine buildings.

*

Hope to start a language course soon. I'm beginning with colloquial Arabic and plan to move into Classical sometime in the spring.

Currently reading:

Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

Goodbye to All That

2010-07-28T11:01:00.001-04:00

The house on Broad.

After several delays in Paris, we arrived at our new home in Amman just after 11:00 p.m. last Tuesday. As luck would have it, our Internet request has been filled efficiently (others who ordered theirs almost a month ago still haven't received service). Life here has already proved quite the adventure. Hope to write about it soon. In the meantime, goodbye North Carolina. Porch swing, how I miss thee!

Wild & Wonderful

2010-07-12T15:25:00.000-04:00

...I'm interrupting my vacation in wild wonderful West Virginia to broadcast the following announcement from a library computer in Capon Bridge:

The AWP Award Series in Creative Nonfiction goes to the ever-stunning Danielle Cadena Deulen!

Of her collection, The Riots, Luis Albert Urrea writes, "There are moments of transcendent prose in this manuscript that elevates it far beyond what we might expect of it at first blush. It manages to become more profound, and more beautiful, the more desperate and tragic its trajectory. Finally, it is a triumph of wisdom and great art."

*

Congrats D.! So happy for you...

Gone

2010-07-10T11:50:00.000-04:00

K. is upstairs packing the last of our things -- my work computer, which will be shipped to Amman very soon. The house is empty. Two hours ago a young couple came to pick up the mattress and few stray items (toaster, table, garden hoses, etc.) K. advertised as "freebies" on Craigslist.

Jabber is confused. Her bed and toys are missing. Everything is gone (Tony, her adversarial stuffed fox), her water dish, her food bowl...

Last night we walked Jabber down to the Sound, around the old court house, past the waterside cannons, historical homes, and park. Our usual route. K. kept asking -- "are you going to miss this?" "are you going to miss that?" He's feeling very nostalgic.

I'm ready to go. Took a couple of last photos (roses I planted, the birdhouses we painted and mounted up in the oak).

As of last evening the house no longer belongs to us. We've come full circle -- ate our last meal in the Mexican restaurant where we waited more than three years ago to hear if our offer was accepted. Over chips and salsa we made plans: paint, built-in closets, carpet removal, decor. Down with the floral wallpaper! Down with the lighthouse borders!

I commuted from Wisconsin that first year. I value it even more from this distance. North Carolina was exciting and new and difficult. It was lonely. K. and I did our best here. We celebrated holidays and birthdays with visiting friends. We brought Jabber into the mix. We got married.

There's an image of our house on Google Earth. In the driveway: my little white Jetta; K.'s truck. Last summer the deer-struck Jetta was put out to pasture. A few weeks ago, K. sold the GMC. Gone and gone. Done and done. On to the next adventure.