Let us consider, you and I, the idea of you writing yet another intro for this next book with the caveats that you
1. want to read what I have assembled for that next book
2. want to write another intro
3. Feel you have something else you want to say
We shall play it by ear, as all poets and artists must do in these things and let the idea float along as we did in the coves in Greece while we waited for the καρπούζι to get chilled.
Let’s think - you and I with no strings either way - you know I’d love to read what you’ve assembled - but no pressure dear Oresti.
As for that cove - I must find a photo my brother just sent me a couple of weeks ago (though most of the cove’s obscured by the hillside ) where I used to swim and hunt octopus with my dad once upon a time..
I will assemble them in Mexico because Margaritas are so essential to quality assemblage. Probably ready for reading by mid February. Of course you have read almost every single one by now in this past year but they always look a little different when piled together.
Thanks Patris and I hope, with your insight, you can supply at least a blurb for the next book and I'm going to use the reviews/blurbs as a means to drum up buyers for the paperback version of the ode to a carpenter. My goal is to get 200 copies out into world, hardcover or paperback, after that I don't care, I will have sown the amount of seed I wanted to.
That reminds, years ago, after raking the entire acre lawn of my first spec house in 1989, I walked it, up and down and back and forth, with a seed caster, slinging about 200 hundred pounds of seed. Doing that was kind of an out of body experience, like I had done it before in an earlier life. And now I am in the middle of slinging 200 copies of my book and hope they sprout out there.
It’s not only next to me on the coffee table - it’s already in the hands of my children.. so one day one of the young ones - or their own young ones, will hold it in their hands and read your poetry. Immortality it’s already happening as I write you here (as it always is)
Ive marked your newest pieces and looking back to Ode I see the same light and awakening but also an ease and fluidity in your writing, what I know to be maturity in your skill sharpening of your craft here. What distinguishes you from others (apart from my affectionately for you) is the distinctly American optimist in your voice - and even in dark moments, the hope.
Poets are magic and you are one.
As for the déjà-vu experience. I get it and I believe you know it was rooted in one of your many lives, Orestes- some of us have been touched with a gift that sees and walks through lives we’ve lived.
Don’t worry about my writing - stuck with the cat, coca cola and a stomach flu and can’t shut up. But know your work is beautiful- like your life is meant to be..
I read it. It didn’t help that you’d shared some of this with me already - it still has the effect on me of being shaken by the shoulders till my teeth rattled. Furious.
It’s beautiful written but the pain is intense. The despair you held in your hands like a weight you had to hold up, muscles trembling with effort, even as strong as you can be - so it wouldn’t fall on you, crushing the good in life out of you.. I can only say I wish I’d been there to hold it with you. You never deserved to be harmed, my child.
As a mother (or loving older sister) all my impulse goes to wrapping you in protective arms, shoving away your torturer so hard he falls away.
But I know like a fighter his shadow is still springing up - on the balls of his feet waiting for a chance to level you painfully back to that horrible place he somehow needed to keep you in.
I wish we could go back in time when much older I was in a place to put my hands on him and stop him every time he hurt you, Oresti. That I could -as my mother in her blessed Brooklyn heart and accent said - “teach him a lesson”. Or present your case to your parents - who no doubt would throw me out of the house.. though I’d stay close to keep you from harm.
As for sharing it, it’s a powerful gift to others who’ve been subjected so despicably to torment. It helps to know you’re not alone, not singled out among millions to deserve this treatment, this test, this emotion that lays on you like a cover, dulling everything.
As usual I say, "thanks for all that". I did not enjoy one minute of writing it but with Laurie out of the house it seemed the right time to allow the ugly digging and it was niggling at me anyway.
When I come out of these remembrances, I feel lighter/cleaner so I know that's a good sign.
From a more literary point of view, does it convey it's message fairly clearly without too much drama or unnecessary turmoil? When the content is this personal, it's nearly impossible for me to judge it at all and poor Laurie gets upset and angry again so she can't offer her usual sharp eyed editing. I honestly don't know if this is something to post or not. Again, thanks for slogging through it all.
It wasn’t a slog, it was painful - but I have found that the most powerful, impactful, writing is.
I understand that Laurie must hate to witness evidence of the pain, loving you as she does. Worrying as she must. I personally have felt what I think she must feel when I contemplate the brutality with which Tom’s father treated him when he was young. Because we can’t go back in time and stand by you or prevent it.
So, my thought? Only you can decide to publish it. It’s excellently done. No question. Do I think it could help others? Yes.
If it makes you feel less vulnerable to a recurrence of The darkness it brings, I’d publish it. But I take it Laurie doesn’t.
These abuses young people undergo make me think that my brother was and always has been, a tortured person, deeply unhappy at all times. But being abused by a father is another kettle of fish. One I am glad was not a part of my story and so my heart goes out to him as I consider my profound love for my Opah.
I watched other boys be recipients of a rage I can only attribute to their experiences in WW2. The fathers, at least, all had that in common. The purported need to ‘toughen them up’, as one told me.
I really do appreciate your general take on its basic value as a written thing and that it could help others and that's enough reason for me. She didn't say on the question of publishing but she just spent an exhausting 7 weeks with her 90 year old Dad and then came home to help a neighbor who just lost her husband suddenly and she's helping her pack up the house. She's pretty damn weary, poor thing.
My consolation goes out to Tom, we can always spot one another and we all agree to do what we can to help others even if it takes a temporary bite out of our ass. I'll publish it on Sunday. Thanks Patrismou
Your Laurie is a great woman, and has extraordinary good taste in men. I spent the last year, the last days of his life with my own father. I like to hope they had the kind of good days and conversations that I cherish when thinking of mine.
So I will await the publication of the poem.
I truly do think of you as a younger brother, how’s that for being presumptuous?
Thank you Margaret. I was sitting on our small side porch which faces east and it was very quiet with no wind and in swooped a "guild" of nuthatches, chattering on the wing. My mom used to pronounce their name "new thatch".
I was once visiting my aunt around 1983 and a close friend came by and she called out to "come on in" and that new arrival showed up into the kitchen chattering already and my aunt was also chattering at the same time. This was astounding to me, something I had never seen before as my mother was a quiet woman. Those two women, my aunt and her neighbor were best friends and then they became related as that new lady became my mother-in-law. I knew my future in laws at least two years before I met my wife. It was an arranged marriage.😉
I feel like my children would nod along with your story. When they were younger, I would stop by a friend’s house to drop something off or pick up a kid, and they would groan loudly from the (windows-down) car while we talked…and talked..and talked…all while signaling “Just a sec!” to them. It was never just a sec.
Sometimes it just has to come out as it is. A beautiful moment to embrace Wes. Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed by emotions that I cannot sit despite how much I feel like I want to write. I think that having such spontaneous feelings manifest themselves on paper is truly precious. Plus it’s a really nice poem, which goes to show that sometimes we tend to be over critical of ourselves. Well done
I love hearing that nasal yank-yank as they creep up and down tree trunks. Lifts my spirits every time. We have a pair of white-breasted nuthatches that visit us year round.
Purely you - welcoming the happiness they bring like chattering, beloved aunts who never missed a birthday. Beautiful and very essentially you.
Something I’ve been seeing as I’ve been re-reading Ode to a Carpenter again (to leave a comment- and then turn another page and have another thought…)
Let us consider, you and I, the idea of you writing yet another intro for this next book with the caveats that you
1. want to read what I have assembled for that next book
2. want to write another intro
3. Feel you have something else you want to say
We shall play it by ear, as all poets and artists must do in these things and let the idea float along as we did in the coves in Greece while we waited for the καρπούζι to get chilled.
Let’s think - you and I with no strings either way - you know I’d love to read what you’ve assembled - but no pressure dear Oresti.
As for that cove - I must find a photo my brother just sent me a couple of weeks ago (though most of the cove’s obscured by the hillside ) where I used to swim and hunt octopus with my dad once upon a time..
I will assemble them in Mexico because Margaritas are so essential to quality assemblage. Probably ready for reading by mid February. Of course you have read almost every single one by now in this past year but they always look a little different when piled together.
"Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table." T.S. Eliot
This is the first time poetry blew my doors off, btw.
Thanks Patris and I hope, with your insight, you can supply at least a blurb for the next book and I'm going to use the reviews/blurbs as a means to drum up buyers for the paperback version of the ode to a carpenter. My goal is to get 200 copies out into world, hardcover or paperback, after that I don't care, I will have sown the amount of seed I wanted to.
That reminds, years ago, after raking the entire acre lawn of my first spec house in 1989, I walked it, up and down and back and forth, with a seed caster, slinging about 200 hundred pounds of seed. Doing that was kind of an out of body experience, like I had done it before in an earlier life. And now I am in the middle of slinging 200 copies of my book and hope they sprout out there.
It’s not only next to me on the coffee table - it’s already in the hands of my children.. so one day one of the young ones - or their own young ones, will hold it in their hands and read your poetry. Immortality it’s already happening as I write you here (as it always is)
Ive marked your newest pieces and looking back to Ode I see the same light and awakening but also an ease and fluidity in your writing, what I know to be maturity in your skill sharpening of your craft here. What distinguishes you from others (apart from my affectionately for you) is the distinctly American optimist in your voice - and even in dark moments, the hope.
Poets are magic and you are one.
As for the déjà-vu experience. I get it and I believe you know it was rooted in one of your many lives, Orestes- some of us have been touched with a gift that sees and walks through lives we’ve lived.
So much to digest....
Could you look at this draft? I hesitate to post it because why, I don't know.
I wrote this over the 7 weeks Laurie was gone and I slipped under a bit.
https://westonpparker.substack.com/publish/post/146369802?back=%2Fpublish%2Fposts%2Fscheduled
I can’t open it until September 22? Do you have draft of it I can see?
I sent you some kind of fairly accurate version of the future Substack post via email.
Don’t worry about my writing - stuck with the cat, coca cola and a stomach flu and can’t shut up. But know your work is beautiful- like your life is meant to be..
I read it. It didn’t help that you’d shared some of this with me already - it still has the effect on me of being shaken by the shoulders till my teeth rattled. Furious.
It’s beautiful written but the pain is intense. The despair you held in your hands like a weight you had to hold up, muscles trembling with effort, even as strong as you can be - so it wouldn’t fall on you, crushing the good in life out of you.. I can only say I wish I’d been there to hold it with you. You never deserved to be harmed, my child.
As a mother (or loving older sister) all my impulse goes to wrapping you in protective arms, shoving away your torturer so hard he falls away.
But I know like a fighter his shadow is still springing up - on the balls of his feet waiting for a chance to level you painfully back to that horrible place he somehow needed to keep you in.
I wish we could go back in time when much older I was in a place to put my hands on him and stop him every time he hurt you, Oresti. That I could -as my mother in her blessed Brooklyn heart and accent said - “teach him a lesson”. Or present your case to your parents - who no doubt would throw me out of the house.. though I’d stay close to keep you from harm.
As for sharing it, it’s a powerful gift to others who’ve been subjected so despicably to torment. It helps to know you’re not alone, not singled out among millions to deserve this treatment, this test, this emotion that lays on you like a cover, dulling everything.
As usual I say, "thanks for all that". I did not enjoy one minute of writing it but with Laurie out of the house it seemed the right time to allow the ugly digging and it was niggling at me anyway.
When I come out of these remembrances, I feel lighter/cleaner so I know that's a good sign.
From a more literary point of view, does it convey it's message fairly clearly without too much drama or unnecessary turmoil? When the content is this personal, it's nearly impossible for me to judge it at all and poor Laurie gets upset and angry again so she can't offer her usual sharp eyed editing. I honestly don't know if this is something to post or not. Again, thanks for slogging through it all.
It wasn’t a slog, it was painful - but I have found that the most powerful, impactful, writing is.
I understand that Laurie must hate to witness evidence of the pain, loving you as she does. Worrying as she must. I personally have felt what I think she must feel when I contemplate the brutality with which Tom’s father treated him when he was young. Because we can’t go back in time and stand by you or prevent it.
So, my thought? Only you can decide to publish it. It’s excellently done. No question. Do I think it could help others? Yes.
If it makes you feel less vulnerable to a recurrence of The darkness it brings, I’d publish it. But I take it Laurie doesn’t.
These abuses young people undergo make me think that my brother was and always has been, a tortured person, deeply unhappy at all times. But being abused by a father is another kettle of fish. One I am glad was not a part of my story and so my heart goes out to him as I consider my profound love for my Opah.
I watched other boys be recipients of a rage I can only attribute to their experiences in WW2. The fathers, at least, all had that in common. The purported need to ‘toughen them up’, as one told me.
Yeah, that was a very common theme throughout our childhood.
I really do appreciate your general take on its basic value as a written thing and that it could help others and that's enough reason for me. She didn't say on the question of publishing but she just spent an exhausting 7 weeks with her 90 year old Dad and then came home to help a neighbor who just lost her husband suddenly and she's helping her pack up the house. She's pretty damn weary, poor thing.
My consolation goes out to Tom, we can always spot one another and we all agree to do what we can to help others even if it takes a temporary bite out of our ass. I'll publish it on Sunday. Thanks Patrismou
Your Laurie is a great woman, and has extraordinary good taste in men. I spent the last year, the last days of his life with my own father. I like to hope they had the kind of good days and conversations that I cherish when thinking of mine.
So I will await the publication of the poem.
I truly do think of you as a younger brother, how’s that for being presumptuous?
……να είσαι καλά παιδί μου.
It's really an honor on my part as we had no sisters, so thank you for presuming.
your honor us with your presence in this poem like you feel honored by the presence of the foxes and the birds
Thank you Elizabeth.
I love this one. I think it's your recognition of the intruder. One day, you will hear the unseen work of balance. Maybe you already have.
Thank you Bliss. Can you tell me more about hearing the unseen work of balance....
Forgot the link. old ad butchered. https://blissgrey.substack.com/p/the-wild This is not really what you are aking for.
I will try. It’s quiet here now.
This is from a long time ago, I’ve butchered d it so many times.
Your 42-minute-old poem is quite lovely. I was especially taking by
"They arrive as a gust of wind,
in mid chatter like guests
who arrive talking."
Thank you Margaret. I was sitting on our small side porch which faces east and it was very quiet with no wind and in swooped a "guild" of nuthatches, chattering on the wing. My mom used to pronounce their name "new thatch".
I was once visiting my aunt around 1983 and a close friend came by and she called out to "come on in" and that new arrival showed up into the kitchen chattering already and my aunt was also chattering at the same time. This was astounding to me, something I had never seen before as my mother was a quiet woman. Those two women, my aunt and her neighbor were best friends and then they became related as that new lady became my mother-in-law. I knew my future in laws at least two years before I met my wife. It was an arranged marriage.😉
Oh, I love that! :)
I feel like my children would nod along with your story. When they were younger, I would stop by a friend’s house to drop something off or pick up a kid, and they would groan loudly from the (windows-down) car while we talked…and talked..and talked…all while signaling “Just a sec!” to them. It was never just a sec.
Thus giving your children a tremendously distorted idea of just how long a second is.
❣️
How well does it translate or are you able to read it in English?
Yes!
I can read your English
Reading is easier than writing to me
Improving everyday a little bit
Very good.
Sometimes it just has to come out as it is. A beautiful moment to embrace Wes. Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed by emotions that I cannot sit despite how much I feel like I want to write. I think that having such spontaneous feelings manifest themselves on paper is truly precious. Plus it’s a really nice poem, which goes to show that sometimes we tend to be over critical of ourselves. Well done
Thank you for that nice comment, Pietro and thanks for reading.
Love this poem. And nuthatches.
Thanks MK, they are such a charming bird, so energetic, so convivial.
I love hearing that nasal yank-yank as they creep up and down tree trunks. Lifts my spirits every time. We have a pair of white-breasted nuthatches that visit us year round.
That nasal yank-yank, oh that kills me. and they are so social, yak, yak, yak.
Not much editing required, Wes, if any. Maybe a typo or two but just fine “as is!”
Second verse “in mid-chatter like a guests” seems should be “like guests”
Fixed it, thanks Paul.
Well, if you spot 'em, let me know where they are. Thanks Paul.
Lovely
Thank you CL
This work has layers I failed to anticipate. Nicely done!
Thanks Phyllis.
Thank you Allen.