Robert Bly (1926-2021)

News of Robert Bly's death, even as I write this. hasn't reached everyone yet. As far as I can see, no official stories of his passing have yet been published online. Meanwhile, people are lining up behind Kyle Rittenhouse to collect and store his farts, eventually turning them into NFTs. It's pathetically appropriate that the poet who wrote about men left this world after we received a glimpse of the world's future, a place inherited by violent, coddled man babies.

If there's one good thing I can say about Scott Adams and Dilbert is that this strip made me, a fledgling poet, first aware of Robert Bly. I purchased and read his book Iron John before any of his poetry. 

Much has been said of Robert Bly and his approach to manhood, but I look at boys walking with guns the way I used to walk around as a child with plastic swords and wonder if his philosophy should be re-examined. 

My favorite quote in Iron John had to do with his belief that it would be good if more politicians and poets spent time in jail. 

During my short time as a poet, years before I ever hosted an open mic, Robert Bly made me want to be a poet bounty hunter.

His book The Light Around the Body held one of my favorite poems, "Counting Small-boned Bodies," a piece I tried and failed to imitate numerous times. 

One of my favorite  moments at Framingham State College (now University) was in Alan Feldman's creative writing class when he asked us to bring in a fruit or vegetable for an in-class writing assignment (I brought a golden apple). 

With our food-topped desks, Feldman told us the inspiration for this exercise, recounting a time when Bly spoke in his class, which he retells here:

I asked him if we could all write something together, and if he would give us an in-class writing assignment. He got up abruptly, left the room, and came back carrying a bread board he’d taken from the food science lab down the hall. He stood it up on our table like a tombstone. “Here,” he said. “I want you to spend twenty minutes writing about what it looks like. Then I want you to spend twenty minutes writing about how it makes you feel. Then I want you to spend twenty minutes writing about how it’s your mother or your father.

I haven't really written about my father or mother in a long time. I haven't read Bly for almost as long. I think I need to do both again very soon.

RIP Tony Hoagland

If it could ever be said that I had a bucket list, one of the items would have been to send him a copy of one of my chapbooks, just to get his feedback. That I never did is a going to go down as a big personal regret.

I was blessed enough to have Alan Feldman share Hoagland's work in his class. I tracked down his book Sweet Ruin and saw the best work in his Donkey Gospel collection appear first in Ploughshares. 

I know he had views that were controversial. The controversy almost seems quaint compared to the discourse of today.

Tell you what, hipster activist: You don't bring this up now, and I won't bring up how you once read "When Dean Young Talks About Wine" on an open mic to intentionally piss off another older person.

Thank you for everything, Mr. Hoagland.

Bonus Stone Soup Workshop Poem, 9-28-15

Yesterday was a last minute Stone Soup workshop. I'm going to talk with Tom Tipton at Out of The Blue about doing something regular, perhaps during every other weekend. Going forward with this idea will depend on finding someone wiling to workshop on weeks I can't do it. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Since no one had time to print out copies of a poem to work on, I had us write a new poem based on a mix of two exercises I remembered from my old professor, Alan Feldman. I won't reveal all of the details of the exercise, but it did involve writing about a painting they could choose on a part of the gallery's wall. The painting above is the one I chose for the poem below. I took the last stanza I read to the group yesterday but otherwise kept the poem close to what it was yesterday, editing primarily for clarity.


Pink Elephant Wants A Word With My Old Roommate

Dude, this has got to stop.
We've had a good run, but I can't
do what y ou want, no matter
how expensive or cheap and plentiful
the liquor is going to be.

I look in your eyes now and I hallucinate,
see myself looking at you
looking back at me until my eyes
are traffic signals screaming stop and slow down
in front of a train wreck.

All the while, my imaginary body
somehow catches up with  you,
xylophone with shaken off keys
fallng through city grates,
my once pink skin turning
to the peeled merlot grape
you used to buy in bulk.

I get it. I saw Dumbo too,
but now I dance with feet and toes
a brittle rake on ice.
my march is not your march.

I paint myself in black
so you will laughless,
and white face myself so you notice
my ivory dropped off
with your teeth years ago.



Special thanks to workshop participants Lee Varon, Joyce Jellison, Chris Fitzgerald, Jonathan J. Joseph, Martha Boss and James Van Looy.

Poem by Alan Feldman

Alan Feldman's "Love Poem" is up as a "Poem of the Moment" on the Mass Poetry web site.

New From Alan Feldman

Just purchased this new collection from my old poetry professor over at Amazon. 

I would never advise an author photo as the cover for any poetry collection unless you're a multiple Pulitzer winner or deceased.  However, if there's anyone I know who could pull it off on the strength of the book's content, it's Alan Feldman.

Some Good News

I ran into someone who I haven't seen in twenty years.  Someone who was part of my first ever creative writing class with Alan Feldman.  He didn't remember me, but I remember him, and we both remember Alan Feldman's class fondly.  Hopefully, we will stay in touch and you will hear more about him in the future.