Milwaukee

November 15: Teaching a workshop and reading with Noah Eli Gordon at Woodland Pattern Book Center, 720 East Locust Street, Milwaukee, WI.

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How can I possibly describe to you how wonderful Woodland Pattern is? I had heard from many quarters it was like no other poetry organization, and two of the readings (in Lawrence, KS and Appleton, WI) were organized by people with long associations with Woodland Pattern who rely on the place to bring a certain sort of interesting poet to the Midwest, but it wasn’t quite possible for me to imagine the place until I got there (at which point it’s no longer imagining, of course). The outside has a lovely post-Didion 70s vibe:



Look at this great political mural on the building’s façade. Reminded me of the Y back in Concord, NH where I grew up—or the great place my mom used to take me to do pottery and drawing:



I guess the whole place brought me back—not only to my own semi-hippie childhood, but also to the semi-hippie experimental poetics of the 70s. Whereas a lot of the poetry I deal in (in Brooklyn, at Fence, in my own life) and write might be called “indie”—be aligned with bands like Radiohead or Deathcab and some of the newer experimentally figurative artists like Paul Paddock, much of the poetry and “vibe” at Woodland Pattern would be aligned with Dylan and the Abstract Expressionists… On the shelves, you could see LANGUAGE and New York School and Beat poetries perfectly happily giving way to New Lyric, New Narrative (I’m going to start a school called “Old Lyric and Narrative Fuck You”), Elliptical, fourth and fifth generation New York School, and other newer work by emerging writers. In other words, the place, while certainly a sort of bastion of experimental and avant-guardist writings, was also wonderfully open-seeming—open-minded, open-vibed. I could have hung out there all day… browsing, hanging out with the immensely enthusiastic and kind staff… Chuck Stebelton, who had invited me, was one of the best hosts on the trip so far, taking me and my co-reader, Noah Eli Gordon, out to a great place called the Comet Café for dinner, drinking with us late into the night at a fantastic Milwaukee bar, then reconvening with us in the morning for a tremendous brunch, where we talked for hours about pretty much every poet (experimental or no) under the sun. It didn’t hurt that Noah, like Chuck, has read every book by every poet, like, ever written.

Here we are (including Faith—from the Appleton episode of this blog) at the Comet before the reading:



Chuck introducing (the art in the background is by Jane Dalrymple Hollo, who had recently been there with Anselm):



John Koethe, who introduced Noah:



Noah:



More art:



Faith, who introduced me:



Anne, who is one of the owners of Woodland Pattern. A very special person, so sweet and so community-minded. Lovely:



Two women who were in the lyric memoir workshop I had run earlier in the day—the one on the right also works in the store. She was so helpful—really positive and great to be around:



Comet in the morning, too; great brunch there, if you’re ever in Milwaukee (Williamsburg: eat your heart out):



I wish there were more places like Woodland Pattern on this earth. I mean, it would be great if there were a place like that in New York somewhere (there used to be a place sort of like Woodland in the Bay Area back in the 90s—the SPD storefront—but that closed). There is nothing like browsing through books for hours in a real store with real people who care and can tell you what’s happening.

Appleton

November 10: reading at Lawrence University in Science Hall 102, Appleton, Wisconsin.

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Driving up to Appleton (which is between Green Bay and Oshkosh), I was feeling pretty somber. I first met the woman who had invited me—Faith Barrett—at Berkeley when I was an undergraduate and she was a graduate student. The two of us had shared a campus prize for the creative arts with a third woman who died suddenly a few years back from a brain tumor.

Generally, of course, I’ve been thinking the entire trip about time passing and how people come and go from one’s life. So many old friends I have seen have been jarringly the same but different… things have happened in their lives, they have married and divorced, had children (or not), moved for reasons having to do with both love and hate, money or family, aged (inevitably), & etc.

When I met Faith in the foyer of the main building on campus where her office is, I reminded her of this—the prize, Ann having passed away. Faith hadn’t been aware Ann had passed, and didn’t remember the details of how she and I had met… But before she and I had a chance to process any of this, I had to go to a Q&A with some of the students and faculty of Lawrence University. This was a lively group. We discussed memoir, poetry, editing a magazine. I told them a lot of stories, felt acutely so much time had passed.

Faith and I then went out to dinner with a student and another faculty member. This was lovely—somber light to match the somber feeling. Following this, I gave my reading—both poems and an excerpt from the memoir. I hadn’t read from (or read at all) the memoir for at least three years, so it was interesting to reconnect… it’s a girl’s book… the work of someone in her twenties… It is hard for me to believe I even it wrote it... It was interesting as well to see how sweet and sanguine the prose was. When the memoir first came out, I was completely mortified, feeling it was over the top, too emotional, a mess. I guess, in the end, it was interesting to read it as the work of someone else—to not identify with it so completely anymore. That time had passed.

One interesting feature of the writer's life is overtaking in age writers that one has admired in one's life. Most female poets I know, for instance, really register it when they pass the age Sylvia Plath was when she commited suicide. I suppose this is a feature of everybody's life: taking account of the people that pass, wondering why you lived longer than they did, thinking about what you did with the time, & etc.

The next day, I spoke to Faith’s writing workshop and then went over some student poems. A nice group. After that, I hit the road for a six-hour drive in the rain down to Chicago. Exhausting. I’ll likely write more about Faith later, as she will be introducing me at Woodland Pattern (which is how she found out I was going to be in the area in the first place). Here is Faith:



Some students grabbing coffee and cake after the reading:



Faith again:



I was glad Faith seemed so well.