A Timid Entry into the Red Room
I have not been using Red Room in any capacity. I realized that at the Commonwealth Club event yesterday listening to fellow authors, who talked about self-publishing articles and poems that had never found a home. These poems are a case in point. I came to San Francisco in 1964 to study with Robert Duncan at the Creative Writing Master's Program at SF State. After a year, melting under the heat of his impossibly high (literally unchartable) IQ, I left, resolved that I was not bright enough to be a poet. Students on either side of me in class were nodding sagely during his lectures, while I was always, completely lost. (Years later I told the story to my friend Michael McClure, who laughed and said (referring to the other students), "They lied!"
Anyway, the practice of poetry never left me. I've carried my notebooks for years and jotted things down in cafes, on planes and in waiting rooms. I've shared them with some friends, but except for a one-time embarassment where a friend was hired as an editor to upgrade a girly magazine and published several in a wretched T & A glossy,not one has ever been published. I religiously go through lists of little mags and send them in. I've even created a data base so that I can keep track of when they were submitted...and when they were rejected.
So today I entered four or five poems on my Red Room site. A tiny act of courage. Perhaps the consensus of my peers will be that the assessment of the world has been correct and I stick to acting or writing prose. If even one person evinces any interest, I'll submit more. And when my time opens up a bit, I'll submit some essays that have never found a home either. God, who knows, perhaps Red Room has created a monster.
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Belle Yang says:
Forgot
to tell you last night, Peter. I saw a very pensive-looking coyote trotting along on Hiway 1 as I was driving up for our panel. He was past Davenport and I said, to him, "Wrong way, Mister Coyote, north is the way you're supposed to be going."
And I respectfully disagree with you what you said last night about the Internet community not capable of being a real community. I have had to think about it all day today and, after I finish my bowl of rice, I'll tell you why.
7:30 PM--
I wanted to buy glasses for a boy in a poor school district of Stockton; Alex Becher, a Redroom.com member said he’d pony up with the money.
You said a real community brings you soup when you are sick. I don’t need soup as much as people who feed my mind and respond to my thoughts. Soup I can get, and I cannot abide the neighbor who usually brings it. I can’t talk to her about things important to me. Jessica Barksdale Inclan (below) is a member of my community. I can talk to her, and I feel a sense of responsibility for how her life goes even though I’ve never met her.
I do take soup to a member of another Internet community. He is seventy-eight and lives half an hour away. We listen to operacast.net with another man in San Francisco at the same time, and when a beautiful aria is about to begin, he emails me. When I don’t hear from him, I worry. When the power went out this past winter, I took him Chinese meat-filled dumplings in chicken broth and good coffee. When I had not heard his daily dialogue on the Palestinian issue, I drive out to see if he’s okay. Had it not been for the Internet, I would not have had the chance to keep him from loneliness or learn to love him and opera. I will be there to bury him.
In Shanghai, China, where the Internet is highly censored, people email (and text message) one another with the cryptic message “Let’s go for a walk tonight at 7 P.M. They gather physically to plan how they will protest the razing of neighborhoods for the construction of a new railway. I think when the current China regime does fall, the Internet community will have been largely responsible for it.
The Internet is just a tool and community is what we put into it.
Sorry, I am off topic, but the panel ended in the middle of this particularly juicy subject. I have found your poems and will keep to that from now on.
Peter Coyote says:
Point taken---
Point taken, Belle. The point (however muddy) was not to condemn the internet, but perhaps to look at a shadow side which has fragmented collective public action. Perhaps I'm wrong in assessing blame to this technology, but it's the best I could come up with so far.
Jessica Barksdale Inclan says:
Peter, for god's sake!
You put your visage on the screen. You have an impact. I am still scared of you from ET. Let the words flow! I am sure it will be wonderful, and I'm going in now to see what's up.
Belle's right. This Internet thing works for us wolves (coyotes) who hang alone and need a little pack action periodically.
Best,
Jessica
Jessica Barksdale Inclan www.jessicabarksdaleinclan.com
Jessica Barksdale Inclan says:
Dogs and Children
How wonderful that after the talk of wolves and coyotes, the first poem I read of yours used dogs as a topic, dogs as a metaphor. I loved the imagery, dusted by mansions.
How scary that line of chalk in the next poem.
Thank you for posting. I will read on.
J
Jessica Barksdale Inclan www.jessicabarksdaleinclan.com
Alexander Besher says:
Pardon the opining, but I
Pardon the opining, but I don't think Duncan should be your primary Muse. You have the poetic insights, and you describe what's in front of the camera as well as what's behind it as well as the world beyond that which includes it all. Yours is a unique POV and seemingly a natural medium for you and your art in life (cinema). Have you ever read the poems of another "film poet"--i.e. Pasolini? He ought to be more of an inspiration for you than Duncan because he, too, navigated around and through the same lens of detached yet fully involved vision. Have a look at his "Roman Poems" (City Lights). My favorite book of his is a poetic memoir (a slim chapbook, also by City Lights) of his travels in India. He fused personal narrative, used his cinematic eye, and wove it all together in more or less a long prose poem. I think that's where your strength lies. You venture into that territory with "Dogs of Bucharest" but dismiss the filming aspect of your poem with the throwaway "entertainment for the masses" line without developing the notion of your personal divide more thoroughly. Add more narrative not for the sake of narrative but for the sake of the poem! One of my favorite films--coincidentally with you starring in it--is Polanski's "Bitter Moon." Just imagine, for the exercise of it, what you could do with that experience of making that film with Polanski, the story, the themes of the story (which are darkly universal) in whatever you want to call it--"prose poem film." I'd love to see and read that! You have the freedom to step in and out of the camera which is very much like a poet stepping in and out of a poem WITHIN a poem. However, feel free to ignore everything I've said. You've got something happening there. I bet your best lines are on the cutting-room floor.
Peter Coyote says:
Thank you so much.
What a wonderfully useful suggestion. Thank you very much.
peter
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Ohhhhh, I think I know how
Ohhhhh, I think I know how you feel. I would rather stand buck naked on the 50-yard line at the Super Bowl than share some of my more personal writing. Naked body=a bit exposed and vulnerable. Naked soul=completely stripped and at the full mercy of others.
But bravo! You've taken the first step. You're far ahead of me.
John Duir says:
Encouragement through fishing, metaphorically speaking
Fishing with the mere intent of catching fish only serves to empower the fish.
You won't catch anything if you don't go fishing.
When you go fishing, fish your ass off.
Peter Coyote says:
empowering fish
I don't mind empowering the fish at all...
Darlene Arden says:
Thank You for Sharing Your Poetry
I've been reading your poems in random order.
A Birthday Poem resonated with me.
Sharing part of your soul is a brave thing to do. I'm glad you've chosen to do it here.
I'm sorry I missed the panel discussion but 3000 miles is a bit of a long commute. ;-)