In this continuing serialization of Dragonfly, the next poem is an ekphrastic poem, of sorts. Instead of a work of art, the poem's subject is a robotic ornithopter . . . a work of art still, in a way. The speaker of the poem is the inventor of the pterosaur robot, aviation engineer Paul MacCready.
An Aviation Engineer’s Tribute to Leonardo
Paul MacCready's latest project in flying machines will set the clock back millions of years . . . [a flying replica] of a pterosaur . . . with a 36-foot wingspan, the largest animal ever to have taken to the air. —Science 86, April 1986.
When you painted The Annunciation, you perched
your unlikely angel, haloed by a disk of golden
needles, against a scrim of unlikely trees.
What pins your Gabriel to earth are his massy
wings, hardy engines of muscle and hollow bone
fletched with pinions and downy feathers, rooted
in feminine shoulders. The painting just another
excuse to fiddle with your obsessions: mechanics
of flight, impetus and percussion, friction
and load, your personal war with gravity.
You caged sparrows merely to let them fly,
freeze the moment in ink and pencil. Leonardo,
this spring I thawed wings from stone, resurrected
a dinosaur, my simulacrum flapping to life
like a rare bat reborn after millions of years.
Quetzalcoatlus northropi. Pterodactyl's city cousin
crafted from plastic and piano wire. Its dreams
a stream of electrons jumping silicon hoops.
And wings, Leonardo!
Not a propeller.
Not a parachute.
One morning at El Mirage, my Frankenstein took
her maiden flight. Largest ornithopter ever—
the cybernetic pterosaur glided and soared,
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flapping hard in desert thermals. She cocked
her head to and fro, the bony crest like an Indian
warfeather bucking the wind. I could see your
Gabriel suddenly flexing his wings. He shrugs, shakes off
random flakes of paint. Sliding into sky, a ragged void
left in the painting, he cruises centuries into this desert:
archangel and dinosaur wheeling in heavenly ballet.
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>
Leonardo da Vinci, The Annunciation (1472-1475) detail of Archangel Gabriel
Paul MacCready with his pterosaur ornithopter
at El Mirage Lake in 1984 (from "Living Pterosaurs")
You can see MacCready's pterosaur flying in this short video, unfortunately grainy. Another interesting footnote: I wrote a sequel poem, "Quetzalcoatlus roboti Heads Home" that you can read here; it was published in the anthology Multiverse.
As always, I'd love to get some feedback or discuss anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.
The next poem from Dragonfly is inspired by a girlfriend I had at the end of the '70s, early '80s, fictional but with biographical elements.
Morgan Kali Murray
Her mother had named her after the car,
the MG’s richer cousin, leather belt
strapping down the engine cowling. She added
the middle name while into Hindu mythology at Vassar.
She had always admired
Kali’s many arms, the necklace of skulls.
But I met her at the dentist’s. Auburn hair
like a candle flame above her dental
assistant’s whites.
Wild, wild nights
every Sunday at her basement apartment, she
still sweaty from a weekend of riding.
Jolene the Rodeo Queen,
Budweiser-loving barrel racer.
Then Monday mornings, I’d be in the chair,
the dentist and I breathing each other’s breath.
And Morgan sitting just to my left, a hand on my thigh,
smiling through
a mist of blood and water,
suspension of tiny shavings of teeth.
In the ongoing serialization of Dragonfly, the next poem is an ekphrastic poem. If you're not familiar with that term, an ekphrastic poem is written about a work of art. Ekphrasis may be focused on any kind of art — music, say — but lately, the term ekphrastic poetry has increasingly referred to work on visual art.
Hunter: A Sculpture in Glass
—William Morris, Artifact #3 (Hunter), 1988
Brendan Walter Gallery, Santa Monica
Pelvis, tibia, metatarsal, skull
are pieces of glass strewn on polished ebony
under the gallery's soft spotlights, cool
fluorescent splashes. Floating ribs glisten,
slender half-moons. A crude, chiseled crystal
knife leans up against luminous spine,
the hand nearby, fingerbones asparkle.
At the recycle center's bins of glass—
green, brown, and clear—I saw the identical
play of glinting light. Lofted bottles
gleam in bright air, end over end.
Then the shatter, the satisfying crash.
Graveyard of hopes and dreams: broken champagne
glasses, Gerber's baby-food jars, French
brandy snifters, a crystal vase, green
beer bottles, cracked glass from a picture frame.
These twinkling bits of lives will soon be fed
to fire, made new again, annealed in flame.
O you glassy skeleton on your bed
of dark, mute desire: under what
apocalyptic sun, on what dreaded
Judgment Day, will your translucent body
appear? The air winding around your bones
will stiffen into luminescent meat,
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transparent as the clear blade-like bone
of deep-sea squid? Stars shining through
your flesh and blood like semi-precious stones.
With hollow bones of hummingbirds, your two
slender arms flare into wings of crystal
vivid as church windows—lucid and frail.
A single wingbeat: you sail into brilliant blue.
Next from Dragonfly: a poem inspired by a poetry reading James Galvin gave at Humboldt State University some time in the early 1990s, when I was teaching there.
At the Poetry Reading in Science B 135, A Snowstorm
—for James Galvin
Upon his shoulder, three seats to my left, her hand
slinked like the pale tongue of an ebony snake.
Really all I could see was her black sleeve
and a sliver of skirt, saffron Indian print
against his faded, ripped Levi's. He was young,
maybe not yet a college junior, slight beard
the exact shade of pilsner, rimless glasses,
white shirt with thin red stripes. A book opened
in his lap, while she tossed her hair, flaring out
beyond his head—her bronze nimbus, the sun
eclipsed. The poet's words rushing over us, hot
as a Santa Ana. Sirocco. Some devil wind.
His finger traced lines in the open book.
Her palm brushed his right ear, the stone
on her ring glinting like a crimson eye.
Under the cool fluorescent lights of this classroom
I saw the boy's blue iris pierce like a nail
into the page. Her hand forgotten, flickering
in his sandy hair. For him, the world implosive
in silence,
solitude,
and space.
A white
storm in some Wyoming wilderness.
Someone shrugs on a sheepskin coat,
rawhide gloves, beat-up Stetson. A door
opens to crystal air. The snow gleaming with
Here's the next poem from Dragonfly, also a music poem: a rap delivered by Sir Gawain of King Arthur's court, from the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This rap is in ballad stanzas, with internal rhyme in lines 1 and 3. Fun stuff!
Gawain's Rap
Yo! My name is Sir G, and I got the energy
To kill you a giant green dragon,
Then rescue a girl down in the underworld
Before breakfast. I ain’t even bragging!
It was Saturday night, and we were partying right
(Yeah, Christmas at King Arthur’s crib),
When swoosh! through the door swept a great big horse.
And the rider . . . man, he was a trip!
He was green, he was green! Ain’t kidding you, green!
Greener than the back of a dollar.
Decked in emerald gauze like the Wizard of Oz,
On his emerald horse, he hollered,
Now, who’s tough enough to risk all his Puffed
Wheaties on a teenouncy wager?
Who’ll strike me first? Baby, do your worst!
Then let me hit you back a year later?
I thought, what the heck? So, I took his green axe,
and twish! I decapped his head.
But the jerk jumped right up and picked that thing up! I’ll see you next year, chump, he said.
Well, that’s the end of my song, but don’t get me wrong:
Next Yuletide, I hang at Hulk’s castle.
I play with his wife and give him his life,
Then slide back here, Jack! No hassle.
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"Gawain's Rap" was originally published in the Winter 1989 issue of The Wooster Review, published once upon a time by the College of Wooster in Ohio. It later appeared in my first poetry collection, Dragonfly (1994), as we can see here. In 2018, the poem was reprinted in Eye to the Telescope, the online journal of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. Here is my author's note from that reprint.
“Gawain’s Rap” by Vince Gotera: During the 1980s, in U.S. po-biz, we endured the Formalist Poetry Wars, as some of you may recall. Poets called New Formalists were reviving interest in writing poems in traditional forms, in rhyme and meter. These poets were attacked by members of the free verse establishment, who called them reactionary, ultra-conservative, Reaganites, and so on. Thank goodness those wars are now gone.
In the MFA program I was in during the late ’80s, however, the poetry wars were definitely not gone. We fought often about formalism vs. free verse, and I tried to stay in the middle, bridging both. The battles were tiring, though, and seemingly personal. So one day, angry about the drubbing one of my formalist classmates had received in workshop, I thought, why don’t I write the most formalist poem I could muster? I settled on writing a rap, employing hymnal stanzas, with internal rhyme in lines 1 and 3, the longer 4-beat lines, and frequent soundplay: the alliteration of Christmas/crib, swoosh/swept, jerk/jumped; the assonance of my, I, Yuletide, wife, life, and slide in the final stanza; the rich consonance of emerald and hollered or decapped and picked. I even used some sly, enjambed rhyming, like girl down / underworld, where the rld rhyme is created by the ending rl of “girl” and the beginning d of “down.” Ditto in lines 7 and 17: door swept / horse and heck so / axe.
In addition, to be even more subversive, I wanted to use a speaker who would be very distant from rap. Thus arose my DJ, Sir Gawain. I’d always loved Arthurian legend (as a kid, I had read and reread the Howard Pyle novel, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, with the glorious illustrations). I also snuck in some African American culture, for example, the word “teenouncy,” which is Southern slang for tiny, teeny. (Some of you may know that word from The Color Purple; I used Alice Walker’s spelling, though it is pronounced tee-NINE-see.) And of course, the opening “Yo!” and the hip-hop-style “Sir G” rapper name.
Well, to make a long story short, my little revenge didn’t quite pan out; I thought my free-verse classmates would trash the poem and I could sit back and gloat, but no, they loved it. Nevertheless one of the proudest moments of my MFA apprenticeship.
I’m happy “Gawain’s Rap” went on, after its 1989 appearance in The Wooster Review, to be noted in at least one Arthurian scholarly bibliography, and today the poem’s appearance here in ETTT enlarges and entrenches its Arthurian pedigree. By the way, if you’re wondering if the poem works as a rap, here’s a recording you might enjoy: https://youtu.be/qGxK24tC6Ig. Gotta love that Gawain, what a trickster. Paragon among medieval MCs, ne plus ultra. Word.
As I mention in the last paragraph there, I created a video in 2014 performing the poem as a rap, with music.
As always, I'd love to get some feedback or discuss anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.
Continuing the serialization of my first poetry book Dragonfly. The next poem is another music poem, but this time jazz, not rock, on renowned guitarist Django Reinhardt. I'm tempted not to say 'nuff said. . . but 'nuff said.
Hot Club de France Reprise on MTV
—Django Reinhardt, 1910-1953
A rock video, and there you were.
Only two good fingers on your left hand
hammering note after rapid note from an old guitar,
unheard beneath a rush of heavy metal.
Was it Whitesnake? Def Leppard?
The rock group's lead guitarist couldn't believe it.
He stepped from his Ferrari into a fast-food
sushi bar, opened chrome doors and found himself
50 years back in time: a Paris cafe, smoke,
and you jammed against the beat. Winking at him,
in your wide-brimmed, black floppy hat,
you slipped out the side door and he followed.
A will-of-the-wisp chase through
cobbled streets, the lure of a velvet cloak.
He finally caught up with you, passed out in some alley.
And I wanted to shout, "No, that's not how it was."
I wanted my son watching videos 2000 miles away
to know the real Django.
I wanted MTV to send a time machine
to Saturday, February 23, 1935,
the night Coleman Hawkins detonates Django
and the Hot Club Quintet upon Paris. The joint
jumping as the Hawk trades riffs on sax
with Stephane Grappelli on violin.
The videocam would focus on your hands,
welding a solo from jive licks and magic octaves,
swirling the air with chords in harmonic spirals.
Dancers jitterbug while hepsters pat their feet.
Page 26
I could call my son long-distance, tell him
to watch for you on the tube: your fingers lit up
by your crimson tie, like some artificial flower, like
a blossom of flame blooming from a gypsy caravan.
Page 27
The genesis of this poem has to do with my MFA mentor at Indiana University, Yusef Komunyakaa, who is renowned as a jazz poet, among other literary accomplishments. He was editing an anthology of jazz poems with my classmate Sascha Feinstein, and I wrote this poem in Yusef's poetry workshop class for possible inclusion in that book. The anthology eventually got published, with my poem included . . . here's a link to the book. Many thanks to Yusef and Sascha.
The subject of the poem, Django Reinhardt, is one of the most well-known and most accomplished jazz guitarists ever — actually, one of the best guitarists, period, who ever lived. When Django was 18, he burned his hand in a fire and badly burned the ring and little fingers on his fretting hand (along with other bodily injuries). When he recovered, he developed a guitar style using primarily his index and middle fingers for melody and solos, with the damaged fingers used only for chords. Django became world renowned for this remarkable finger style. Here's a video of Django performing with his band the Hot Club de France Quintet.
Regarding the narrative at the start of the poem, I had seen a video on MTV that featured a character clearly based on Django, very much as I described, though I fictionalized some of the details. I have looked for that video over and over but have never been able to find it again. If someone knows about that video, please leave me a comment below. The video was not of Whitesnake or Def Leppard, as the poem surmises. I wonder sometimes if I merely dreamed that video!
As always, I'd love to get some feedback or discuss anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.
Picking up again the serialization of my book Dragonfly from 1994. Been almost 12 years since I posted a poem here.
The next poem in the book is another rock poem, this time on the inimitable Janis Joplin. Like before, 'nuff said.
"Janis, 1987"
—twentieth anniversary of the Summer of Love
History slipped a sprocket or two last week.
Invited as separate guests, Sonny and Cher
sang "I Got You Babe" on the Letterman show.
David swore it was an impromptu reunion.
Like before, Sonny sang a bit flat
and Cher tortured her vowels, but I loved it.
I wanted them out of their 80s clothes,
back in the optimistic garb of innocence.
I wanted giant fake-fur vests, purple
and orange flowers on bellbottom hiphuggers.
And I remembered seeing Janis Joplin
on Haight Street after school. I'd be wearing
my St. Agnes uniform—brown pullover sweater,
salt-and-pepper cords—while she would be
glowing in sheer silks, beads, feathers.
The Summer of Love was my summer before high school,
and I spent weekends in Golden Gate Park
at free concerts: Quicksilver, the Charlatans,
and the Grateful Dead. The best moment was Janis
on a flatbed truck, the toe of her right shoe
nuzzling the arch of the left, fingers cradling
a battered mike. Surrounded by Big Brother's
electric haze, Janis was floating through
a dreamy rendition of "Summertime," her voice
not yet rough from pills and Southern Comfort.
She gazed out into space. If she had known
the bottle would bogart her life, would Janis have changed
a thing? She could have reunited with Country
Joe on the new Smothers Brothers hour,
glossy in Miami Vice threads and spandex.
And hawked Nike shoes and Nautilus health clubs.
If I remember correctly, I wrote this poem during MFA school at Indiana, and the Sonny and Cher reunion was then quite recent, so "last week" might have been actual at the time, not fictionalized. This is obviously a free verse poem and I was still developing my technique on lineation.
Speaking of anniversaries, Saturday Night Live had its 50th anniversary recently, and Cher, age 78, performed in a sheer black bodysuit and thigh-high boots, amazingly. She looked like a toned 30-something. Lots of hard work in the gym, as well as some medical miracles!
As always, I'm very interested in getting some feedback or discussing anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.
Today (1/10 through the challenge!), a narrative sestina. Tough ’cause the word-repeating can distort the story. This one worked out okay. The details are true, mostly. My mechanic could tell what the problem with a car was by smelling the exhaust.
VW Magician
When I lived in San Francisco
in the ’70s I had a mechanic
who worked only on Volkswagens.
Since I drove a Karmann Ghia,
he was my go-to, for sure,
and he was definitely the man.
I tell ya this man
(named Francisco)
was sure
amazing. To diagnose a mechanical
problem, he only had to smell the Ghia!
He could do that with all Volkswagens:
Beetles, Super Beetles, VW Vans,
Squarebacks, Things! And Karmann
Ghias,
fortunately. Francisco
was proud to outfix any mechanic
within city limits, I’m sure.
His garage shared
space with his home: family upstairs, VW
shop downstairs with two mechanics.
The garage was called Moon
Bugs VW Repair. Francisco’s
place was the only auto shop I ever took my Ghia.
One summer afternoon, the Ghia
was acting off, not her sure-
footed self, losing power on the San Francisco
hills. I was three blocks from my Volkswagen
guy, so I just dropped in. The man
did his famous smelling mechanic
thing but could find nothing mechanically
wrong with the Ghia
that way. That man
worked on my car out on the sidewalk surely
three hours. His Volkswagen
instincts were stumped, and Francisco
kept working even after his mechanics went home. “Francisco!”
his wife yelled from upstairs. “Give it a rest, man, dinner!” He said, “Sure,
coming!” but worked till the Ghia was fixed. Dark, but saved his rep on VWs.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Not my Karmann Ghia, but mine looked exactly like that, with those bumpers and hub caps.
In case anyone is not familiar with how a sestina works: there are six words at the ends of the lines in each sestet and those six words are recycled through the line endings until they have appeared in all possible slots in each sestet (which takes six stanzas); the seventh stanza, called an envoi, contains all six words (usually two per line), with three of the words appearing at line breaks.
The six repeated words today are Francisco, mechanic, Volkswagen, Ghia, sure, and man. I fiddle a bit with the words ... really happy with man becoming Karmann at one point; man also transforms into moon at another point; and sure becomes share. Fun!
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking.
Today, again an ekphrastic poem, based not on an art image but rather a song from 50+ years ago. A performance video of the song is below . . . maybe watch it before reading the poem?
An ovillejo again. A Spanish form: 3 couplets and a quatrain, aa bb cc cddc, with the short lines at the ends of the couplets concatenated in the last line, syllabic pattern of 8/3/8/3/8/3/8/8/8/X (where X is the total of the repeated lines ... typically 9 syllables but could be more because the 3-syllable lines are allowed to to be 4). More on the ovillejo form here.
Half Century of Fiery Funk:
Bumpty-Bumpty-Bump
An ovillejo inspired by "Down to the Nightclub" by Tower of Power (1972)
Tower of Power, some funk, please —
East Bay grease!
Women be righteously pretty,
Bump City!
You got to, whatever your size,
funkifize!
“You’re Still a Young Man” and “What Is
Hip” . . . the guys on the stage up there
living the dream, for 50 years:
East Bay grease, Bump City, funkifize!
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Today, another ekphrastic poem . . . not of Grant Wood this time but rather of one of my own digital art pieces, Mona Lisa SG.
This is a soundplay tanka (5/7/5/7/7), with a bit of rhyme in the last two lines, both internal and external.
Madrigal in M and G
After Mona Lisa SG by Vince Gotera (2017)
Mona Lisa’s new
Gibson guitar: gold SG,
glimmering sunset,
magic hour, enigmatic
smile, G minor glam music.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Today, I offer an elegy for my old friend, the poet Nick Carbó, who passed away in October 2024. Nick was a Filipino American poet who was proficient in English, Spanish, and Filipino. I included all three languages in my poem; I also chose the ovillejo form because it is Spanish. The poem pays tribute to Nick's quirky sense of humor.
Here's an explanation of the ovillejo form in the blog Write Better Poetry by Robert Lee Brewer. Basically, it's 3 couplets and a quatrain, rhymed aa bb cc dccd, with the last line combining lines 2, 4, and 6 (the short lines earlier). There's a challenging syllable count: 8/3/8/3/8/3/888X — X being the sum of the repeated 3 lines) — also, lines 2, 4, and 6 can have 4 syllables instead of 3. Whew!
Toast to Nick Carbó: An Ovillejo
Ang tunay na lalaki . . . yo,
Nick Carbó!
Nos haces felices. ¡Salud!
You rock, dude.
In our hearts, your best endeavors
live forever.
Your sharp poems and prose will never
die, Secret Asian Man. You’re home.
Excuse this loko-loko poem.
Nick Carbó, you rock! Dude, live forever!
• “Ang tunay na lalaki” . . . The real man (Filipino) . . . also the main
character of Nick Carbo's poetry book Secret Asian Man (2000).
• “Nos haces felices. ¡Salud!” . . . You make us happy. Cheers! (Spanish)
• ”loko-loko” . . . silly (Filipino), cf. “loco” . . . nutty, crazy (Spanish)
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
The photo above is from Nick Carbó's author page on facebook. I'm grateful to RJ Clarken for writing an ovillejo in The Stafford Challenge facebook group a few days ago, my introduction to this intricate poetic form.
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking.
Today, another ekphrastic poem on Grant Wood's painting Spring in the Country (1941, his final year), a companion piece to his Spring in Town that I wrote on about three weeks ago here. My usual curtal sonnet, in full rhyme this time except for the last word, with ten-syllable lines.
Childhood Memory
After Spring in the Country by Grant Wood (1941)
Fluffy white clouds are ranged in rank and file,
like the puffy plants the boy — Grant himself —
is sowing, life regimented by spring
arriving as the earth itself turns. While
the mother digs holes in the soil, herself
a sturdy twin to the white tree standing
behind, the father is steering a team
of horses, hard going to this high shelf.
Grant’s boyish world: stolid mom, commanding
dad, lush dark Iowa soil, headstrong dreams
of spring, always young.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Grant Wood, Spring in the Country (1941)
Click here to read my previous poem on Spring in Town, the companion piece to this painting. Might be fun to compare the two paintings and the two poems.
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking.
Today, a shadorma about one of life's frequent little frustrations. The shadorma is a Spanish form using six lines with the following syllable counts: 3/5/3/3/7/5.
Bleepin’ Smoke Detectors!
— a shadorma
Beep beep. . . argh!
Batteries needed.
Double A?
Triple A?
Nine-volt? Quick run to the store.
All fixed. Beep beep. . . argh!
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
I hope your day is going better than mine! A nice light poem does help to brighten the day.
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking.
Another ekphrastic poem today . . . again of a Grant Wood painting: Arnold Comes of Age, a 1930 portrait he did of Arnold Pyle, his student and later studio assistant.
Art historians surmise that Wood was gay and that this painting shows this. He was evidently romantically attracted to Arnold, who was straight and didn't return Wood's attentions. There are some clues in the painting (shown below). There are two young men skinnydipping in the lower right of the scene, and a butterfly is landing on Arnold's right sleeve (Wood studied painting in Paris and at the time he was there, "papillon," the French word for "butterfly," was the slang then for a gay man). Arnold's belt is emblazoned with the initials "AP" and Wood's artist signature is right next to it. There are other clues as well.
My poem is Arnold Pyle's response to all of this . . . it's a curtal sonnet with strict 10-syllable lines, and the language is more discursive and talky than imagistic.
Arnold Pyle Speaks
After Arnold Comes of Age by Grant Wood, 1930
I’m still grateful that my boss Grant Wood — yes,
he’s only my boss — gave me this birthday
present by painting a portrait of me.
Learned a lot from Grant: applying gesso,
say. Not as easy as you’d think . . . it may
need twelve very thin coats. Or painting wee
tidbits in a piece, like the butterfly
in my portrait. That’s French slang, people say,
for “queer.” But a Monarch did land on me.
Or those nude swimmers. Again, just some boys
we saw. Not guilty!
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
I'm grateful to Ignacio Ardaude, an art historian specializing in gayness in art, for this topic. As you may recall from earlier Grant Wood poems, I mentioned that I was giving a presentation at a Grant Wood Country Forum zoom a few days ago, and Mr. Audarde was also a presenter, focusing on gayness in Grant Wood's art and life. I did some research and found that other researchers have also analyzed this painting in this light.
I'm particularly happy with my A rhyme above, again an enjambed rhyme: yes/he's and gesso. And also the ending C rhyme of me and guilty, not for structural reasons but rather for a topical one . . . Arnold may have been worried about homosexuality being a crime during that time period.
Grant Wood, Arnold Comes of Age (1930)
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking.
Woke up to a winter wonderland yesterday morning. Good to be looking out over it at that moment, instead of IN it. Went with an easygoing tanka (yes, 5-7-etc.). Inspired by this photo I took from an upstairs window.
What Outside Looks Like
This Early Winter Morning
Overnight snowfall:
seven inches predicted
but looks more like three.
Later, shoveling party,
but for now, a soft blanket.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
The last line originally read, "warm blanket," but that seemed to militate against the double meaning I wanted — a blanket outside and/or a blanket inside. So I changed it to "white blanket," which then didn't connect for me with an inside blanket. The most recent edit is "soft blanket," which I hope gets that double meaning.
Thought I'd write again this morning on the photo I snapped yesterday (see above). Again a 5/7/5/7/7 tanka.
Cars in the Snow
Down in the corner
our two cars are snuggling hard,
swathed in a blanket
of soft, white, frigid water,
dreaming of summer’s warm rain.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking.
Six of my poems on artworks in the collection of the Iowa State University Museums have been published by ISU. Here are links to the publications. (You may have to scroll down to find my poem.) Enjoy!
Another ekphrastic poem on a Grant Wood artwork. I'm giving a Zoom presentation to the Grant Wood Country Forum tonight on my poems about Grant Wood paintings and prints (I now have 10). I'm also this year's judge for the Grant Wood section of the Iowa Poetry Association's annual contest.
This is a curtal sonnet, with decasyllabic lines (10 syllables). Interesting rhyming device in lines 1 and 4 . . . some enjambed rhyme: bachelor/M and porn.
Confirmed Bachelor
After Sultry Night by Grant Wood (1939)
Grant Wood was called a confirmed bachelor,
mistakenly married, mostly living
with sister Nan. His litho Sultry Night
banned by the US Post Office as porn:
a farm hand heaving a bucket, pouring
water on his nude torso, phallus right
there out front. Magnificent. Then, “confirmed
bachelor,” that’s polite code, not saying
“queer” or worse, though surely outsiders thought
worse. Wood outwardly seemed like just a farm
boy, but loved men inside.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Grant Wood, Sultry Night (1939)
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking.
Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964. That Beatle performance on TV was dynamic, influential, catalytic . . . it started the British Invasion, bands from the UK flooding American radio and changing the direction and development of popular music in the US. Because of the Beatles, kids in the US began playing guitar and drums. That’s how I got started as a musician!
I began a poem on this event yesterday using the monotetra form, which is quite difficult, so I wasn't able to pull off the poem until today. The monotetra is a quatrain (a four-line stanza) with 8-syllable lines all rhyming with each other (aaaa) . . . and the ending line has to be something said twice (4 syllables each). Here's a link to a description of the monotetra. In this poem, I have four monotetra stanzas; is that a tetra-monotetra?! Anyway, I used quite a lot of slant rhyme here. The doubled ending line I found quite tough to make sound natural. Here goes . . .
Beatlemania
—monotetra
The Beatles played Ed Sullivan
sixty years ago today, and
I watched. “I want to hold your hand,”
they sang. Girls screamed. They sang. Girls screamed.
They sang, “She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.”
Paul’s dad had told them, drop the yeahs —
too American. Well, now here:
Beatlemania, Beatlemania.
They spurred the British invasion:
The Animals, The Who, Herman’s
Hermits, The Kinks. Americans
never the same, never the same.
The Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark Five.
Music revolution, all live.
Rock and roll will never outlive
The Beatles’ jive, the Beatles’ jive.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
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My girlfriend Renee and I were at the Hearst Art Center's opening of a photography show today, and we came upon a magnetic poetry board, with movable words and parts of fantasy creatures: feathered torsos, shark heads, quetzalcoatl wings, and so on. Totally legit for an art center named for a poet, James Hearst!
Here's the little poem I "wrote" on that board. Took about a minute or minute-and-a half. It's not a haiku, technically, but it does feature 5/7/5 syllables, and a title, as well as monorhyme, so a micropoem, I guess. Enjoy!
A couple days ago, in The Stafford Challenge facebook group, Mike Luster's poem about a stranger helping change a flat, reminded me of a stranger helping me out of a bind years ago. No fancy poetic forms today . . . just some free verse.
Lifesaver
The brisk temps this morning, in the low 30s,
reminded me of the Utah desert 40+ years ago.
I was pulled over on I-80, long enough after sunset
that it was about full dark. Not much traffic at all.
Late spring, mid-May, heading home for summer
from college, and my Karmann Ghia was dead.
Dead in the water, as they say, except no water,
just snowflakes spitting across my windshield.
Every time a vehicle would come by, headlights
spiking through desert darkness, I would open
my driver’s side door and blink my little flashlight.
It was starting to fade. No luck stopping anyone.
That night was beautiful. Stars filling the sky,
the Milky Way a long splash of diagonal light.
But I couldn’t appreciate it. Cold. Getting late.
Then headlights. I flashed again. Last chance.
The semi slammed on its brakes, screeching
and almost fishtailing. The rig came to a stop
a hundred yards ahead and then backed up
to thirty feet in front of me. Crazy good driving!
The driver clambered out and we talked there
on the roadside. After hearing my story, the red
light on the dash signaling electrical trouble,
the long wait as car after car after car sped by,
the driver said, “Let’s bump-start her. I bet
she’ll fire up.” The two of us pushed the Ghia
to a roll and I jumped in and popped the clutch.
To my great surprise, it started, bucking a bit.
He said, “Get going in front of me, no lights,
and I’ll shine my high beams right over you.
We’ll make it to Wendover, fifteen miles up.”
And off we went, the semi just five feet behind.
I could see the road very well with his lights.
I was afraid to look in my rear-view, ’cause
his bumper and grille were right there,
about to drive up my ass if I faltered at all.
On the other side of the highway, passing
cars flashed their high beams: your lights
are off, dummy, and a semi is tailgating you!
I ignored them all and concentrated. Hard.
After maybe ten minutes, the Ghia started
to buck like a bronc, and I had to pull over.
Miraculously, the semi did not run me down.
We stood again next to the two vehicles.
He said, “Let me get a rope and we’ll tie
her behind the trailer. When we come up
to the Nevada state line, I’ll pull you
through the scales and let ’em know
I’m assisting a motorist.” He pulled the rig
ahead and backed up to within ten feet,
and we tied the Ghia to his back bumper
with a hefty rope. Then off we went again.
This time, I had to really watch out
that I didn’t run him down — yeah, right! —
if he had to slow down. We were going
freeway speed. Maybe more frightening!
In Wendover, Nevada, he pulled us
into a huge casino parking lot. Glitzy
lights on the tall building, very different
from the Utah desert’s dark landscape.
We rolled the car into a space alongside
a closed gas station, and I offered to buy
him dinner. “My name’s Merlin,” he said.
“I’m a Mormon.” Over a couple burgers —
no beers — he told me funny stories
of the many highway rescues he’d done
over the last twenty years on the road.
Damn, that Merlin was a wizard, for sure!
Later, out by the Ghia, he told me, “Don’t
fix it here. They’ll take an arm and a leg.
Just have ’em charge up your battery
and drive till you’re about to die, then
pull into a gas station and do it again.
You’ll get into Frisco before nightfall.
Good luck!” And up he went into his cab.
Next morning, at sunrise, I started his plan
and leapfrogged all the way to The City.
I pulled into my father’s driveway just
before dark. I often wonder about Merlin:
is he out there, 80 now, still saving lives?
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Today, I've got a parody of Leigh Hunt's great small poem, "Jenny Kiss'd Me," from the 1830s. Here is Hunt's original:
Jenny Kiss’d Me
—Leigh Hunt (1830s)
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
Here's a link to this poem online. It's one of my favorite poems ever. An underrated poem by a great Romantic poet. Here's my parody.
Dogsitting
parody of Leigh Hunt’s
poem “Jenny Kiss’d Me”
Penny pooped when we went out
To walk around the block today.
She peed three times to mark, no doubt,
For other dogs, she’d been this way
To say she's healthy, but she's sad
Her mom has gone away on a trip.
Dumb or not, we can always add:
Penny pooped.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Silly, but I hope you enjoyed that. There's a little rhyming trick above. I do some enjambed rhyme here (where the end rhyme is completed at the beginning of the next line). Look at lines 6 and 8: "trip/D..." and "pooped."
Penny, my daughter's beagle
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Yesterday, the poet Holly Jahangiri, in The Stafford Challenge facebook group, challenged me to write a double acrostic. Here's my response poem. In a double acrostic, the beginning letters of each line spell out something, and the ending letters of each line spell out something too, sometimes the same thing.
My poem is a tribute to the great Japanese band Tokyo Groove Gyoshi, specifically their song "What Is Hip?" which is a cover of Tower of Power's excellent funk hit by that title. The Tokyo Groove Jyoshi video is linked below the poem. I'll also add a link to the Tower of Power version below. You should watch both videos to fully appreciate the poem.
The acrostic aspect of the poem is spelling out the band name, Tokyo Groove Gyoshi, with the line-beginning letters and also the line-ending letters. So it's "Tokyo Groove Gyoshi" on both sides, going down. Hope that made sense. I'm bolding the letters just to help you read the phrase downward. If you're reading on a phone, you might turn it sideways so you can see each line on its own. Thanks for reading!
What Is Hip? in Tokyo
double acrostic on
Tokyo Groove Jyoshi’s
song “What Is Hip?”
Tower of Power’s mega-hit on steroids, “What Is Hip?”—so known and respected in funk— you will undoubtedly enjoy on fire with shamisen in this video,
grooving, rocking under, over, every which way, to offer a new feel of this song, so very Japanese yet full of jazzy improv, experimental but also traditional. The incomparable
Juna Serita on low end, rocking a Fender J you’ll never see in a music store, much less play, off-the-scale slap and pop — molto allegro, staccato, percussive — incredible chops! How freaking funky, yet ultimately smooth. I absolutely dig this track, inspiration with a capital I.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Here is a video of Tower of Power performing "What Is Hip?" (with Carlos Santana sitting in on guitar). Great video!
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking.
Today, yet one more curtal sonnet continuing our Princess Leia theme. I wanted to present a different view of Princess Leia from yesterday's light-hearted almost-teenage voice. So here is a more serious view of Princess Leia's life with regard to the losses she has experienced in her life.
Leia's Losses
— note: spoilers below
Leia Organa Skywalker Solo —
Princess of Alderaan, Imperial
Senator, and a rebel in hiding
until her planet was destroyed. A lone
survivor, she found out she was, as well,
a twin to Luke, a Jedi in training,
but worse, their true father was Darth Vader.
Leia and Han Solo’s son Ben — Kylo
Ren on the dark side — was an assassin
for evil Snoke and killed his own father.
Leia’s heart broken.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking.
Today, another curtal sonnet continuing our Princess Leia theme. Some readers may find her voice here a bit sacrilegious, but remember she was probably just 21 in Return of the Jedi. My inspiration is the photo below — maybe take a look at that first.
Princess Leia's Day at the Beach
— a curtal sonnet
Here we are on some sandy Tatooine
beach . . . did you even know there were oceans
on this desert planet? Me, Darth Vader
(yes, he’s my BFF behind the scenes!),
an Ewok whose name I forget (Cute Buns,
I called him), and one of Jabba’s raider
henchmen (no cutesy nickname for that guy).
We brought beach balls, two metal bikinis
(had a spare), orange and yellow lawn chairs
(all set to catch us some double-sun rays!)
plus Margs in a cooler!
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Okay, not in universe: the occasion here is a Rolling Stone photoshoot of Carrie Fisher and other Star Wars characters at Stinson Beach in 1983. The source is an SFGatearticle. Be sure to take a look at this article ... lots of great photos there!
Dragons & Rayguns (poems, 2024) • Order The Coolest Month (poems, 2019) • Order Fighting Kite (poems, 2007) • Out of Print Ghost Wars (poems, 2003) • Out of Print Dragonfly (poems, 1994) • Out of Print Radical Visions (literary criticism, 1994) • Order
Liner Notes
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I write poems and stories. Also the occasional creative nonfiction. And I edit the North American Review, the longest-lived literary magazine in the US. I am a Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, where I teach creative writing and literature.
I play bass guitar and lead guitar; I also love to bang on the drums! And if you couldn't already tell from the color scheme around here, my favorite color is blue, in all its dynamic shades and flavors: cobalt, electric, royal, robin's-egg, navy, cerulean, teal, indigo, sky.
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