Schindler's List - excellent

I finally read the book Schindler's List. What an excellent book. I think everyone should read it. If you somehow missed it or have seen the movie, I still recommend it because of the thoroughness of the detail. I never finished watching the movie because I was too upset by it. But the book allows you to understand the times and all the characters more gradually. When Schindler's arrested for the THIRD time by the SS, I was definitely ready for WWII to be over. We will be haunted by the Holocaust forever, and it's important to understand as much as we can about it, for its effects still ripple down through the generations.

Highly Recommended: The Dante Club

My friend Laura Weeks, Russian scholar and linguist as well as musician, recently gave me THE DANTE CLUB by Matthew Pearl to read, since I am reading huge numbers of murder mysteries. This one is extraordinary historical fiction. Taking place in Boston and Cambridge just after the Civil War, it follows Longfellow and his friends (including James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes) as they translate Dante's The Divine Comedy into English for the first time. This part is actually true. In the book, however, there's also a crazed killer on the loose who is reenacting Dante's vision of how different types of sinners are punished in hell. You will learn a lot about Dante, how controversial he was in America, and about Longfellow and friends by reading this book. The murders are gruesome but they certainly bring Dante's work to life. Dante understood the nature of treachery and the subtlety of sin. The author Matthew Pearl writes extremely well and is an expert on Dante and Edgar Allan Poe. Read it!

Murder Mysteries

I've been reading a lot of murder mysteries since I now intend to write one. My favorites are the funny ones. Right now I'm reading the only murder mystery written by poet Richard Hugo (with whom I studied) soon before his death. It's entitled DEATH AND THE GOOD LIFE and it's hilarious. A crazy amazon axe murderer is killing strangers in Montana, and a homicide detective who has relocated for some peace and quiet from Seattle to Plains, Montana, has to try to solve the case. There is some action in Portland, Oregon, too. I think it's quite well written and sounds a lot like Richard Hugo to me. There are wonderful scenes in bars and a lot of fishing too.

I came by the book via Arlo Voorhees, a poet here in Portland who is originally from central Massachusetts. He also studied at Montana though long after Richard Hugo was gone. He sent me the book when I told him I was planning on writing a murder mystery. It's good to tell people what you're doing sometimes...you never know what will come your way.

The Paradoxical Commandments

I strongly recommend the book "Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments" by Kent M. Keith to everybody. When I first ran into some of these commandments, the reprint of them said they were from the children's home founded by Mother Theresa. Apparently they made their way around the world, but were originally written by Keith when he was a young man. It is so easy to lose heart in the face of people who criticize or attack you when you are trying to do good. Instead, return to this book and know that:

"If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway."

If you have dreams, those around you may tell you they are impossible or even stupid. I know. I felt that way in my own birth family. I had to disregard people I thought were close to me in order to become a creative person. Remember this other paradoxical commandment from Kent Keith:

"The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway."

Life is crazy. Follow your dreams. My first dream was to become a teacher, and I became one. It was the only dream that was easy for me. My second dream was to help launch high tech products and make a bunch of money, and I did that. My third dream was to become a published poet, and after more than a decade I have two full-length poetry collections to my name.

I'm now contemplating writing a novel. I'm scared, and I don't know if I can do it. But I'm trying to dream big. I wish the same for you.

Best wishes,

Karen

Show me the way to the ocean! -- Rumi

As a publisher, I'm in the middle of a poetry competition reading umpteen manuscripts. Taxes are due. My back's a wreck. I need to work on my poetry, read about the most famous woman pirate of Ireland, work on the beginnings of a novel. The laundry, my office, the yard need attention. The car dashboard is suddenly flashing, "Check engine." There's only one thing to do. I'm heading for the coast for two days alone, to listen to the waves beat on the shore.

Poetry Blues: Back to Yeats

In the last few days, I've gone back to read The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats. I am blue about the state of contemporary poetry as well as contemporary life. Yeats wrote not only of his times but of myth and legend. For me, he understood not only the mechanics and techniques of poetry, but also that there was magic involved.

Alas, as a poet and publisher, what I see around me is a "Balkanization" of the poetry world (divided into hostile groups). Different groups can't stand each other, and sometimes it gets personal. I think it was T.S. Eliot who wrote that when poetry wanders too far from sound and music, it loses its power.

I am not a neo-Formalist, nor an experimentalist, nor of any school. I believe you have to respect and know something about poetic traditions, practice them, and then go beyond to discover your own distinctive voice. However, I experience some contemporary poets as having a "tin ear," no sense for the language, and sometimes no apparent interest in thought or language itself.

Older poets (older than I by twenty years or more) have occasionally mentioned the sad state of contemporary poetry, sometimes saying things bemoaning, without explanation, "what has happened to poetry." They may be referring to the lack of interest of mainstream society in poetry, but I think some of them are talking about issues within the poetic community as well.

It is easy to think that your own time is uniquely awful, but perhaps what I should dispassionately conclude is that it has always been thus. Meanwhile, while I wait for enlightenment, I've settled down with the collected works of Yeats, and am enjoying his depth, variety, craft, music, and -- yes -- magic.

Happy Valentine's Day

In honor of the day, I am posting my persona poem below.

This poem is meant to be humorous and I am not a dominatrix, so don't
contact me if you're looking for one! I get enough crazy emails.

Enjoy and try to laugh today, Karen


DOMINATRIX MONTH-BY-MONTH PLANNER

1. Moon for tying executives to their desks, cracking my whip.

2. Valentine with handcuffs, thick leather belt moon.

3. Moon of muddy Great Dane feet mounting you.

4. Pulleys and ladders moon, water buckets & D-rings.

5. Wrist and ankle restraints, worm your way to flower bud moon.

6. Moon of mandatory listening, blindfolded, to baby birds.

7. Silent moon with surprise fireworks behind your eyelids.

8. Run through garden sprinklers or else moon.

9. School bus fantasy moon or ruler to your knuckles.

10. Naughty Jack O’Lantern, crawl, my darling.

11. Moon of sitting on you, feeding you turkey & cranberry.

12. Garters and stockings under my fur coat, you’ll beg among the icicles.

Tell me now when to pencil you in.



--Karen Braucher, copyright 2006