Gusty Winds and A Tennessee Saturday Night

It's chilly and rainy and oh-so-windy today in East Tennessee. So, I'm mopey, because I've been watching Sex and the City and Pretty In Pink allday, wondering where is my Big, where is my Andrew McCarthy (though, truth be told, I'd rather have a Duckie, cuz I love few things more than a man who ain't afraid to dance). Therefore, in lieu of embarrassing myself by posting the self-pitying poem I'm brooding over, I'll share some highlights from the White Trash Bash last night.

The riffraff I hang around with
(notice the underwear on the clothesline strung across the porch)


Rocky Top will always be home sweet home to me
("and I leave my Christmas lights on on my front porch all year long")


What's better: the doo rag, the boat paddle, or the trash 'stache?


Our only casualty of the night, but what a great photo op!

Look, if you're thinking I should not relish in such an inappropriately themed party, I say to you stop taking yourself so seriously. It's summer. We're young. And it's a hell of a lot easier being trashy.

Trash Rises

Okay, I admit it. The summer so far is wonderful. Lazy days spent with my pen to the page, nose in a book, or butt in the kitchen (my three favorite alone activities) sprawl into late nights dancing ecstatically at holes-in-the wall or on front porches in Fort Sanders. It's all I dreamed it would be back in late March, when I. Just. Couldn't. Take. It. Anymore. Tonight I'm attending a "White Trash Bash," where I will wear a sleeveless, stained Boomsday t-shirt from 2000, denim cut-offs, and a "Preferred Insulation and Fireplaces" ball cap while swilling cheap beer and grooving to some R.E.O. Speedwagon. And Confederate Railroad, since I like my women just a little on the trashy side.

In honor of the trash-tacular events planned, I share with you a (shitty) first draft of a poem that might be a little creepy, but shouldn't raise any concerns. Unless of course those concerns are about the quality of writing, in which case, please share your constructive criticism.

“Lovely Boy with Sleeve of Tattoos”

You are not the rebel

You want to be.

You are rebel enough for me.

Oh, trick-jumper,

Bicycler,

Why do you buy your mushrooms and weed?

Things don’t make you eccentric but

Ideas, boy,

Notions of love,

Untenable actions of your taught, lean frame.

You are more vulnerable than

You think you are

You are vulnerable enough for me.

Sparrow tattooed,

Pocked pore face,

Come.

We can explore eccentricity.

P.S.-- Don't you think "On Front Porches in Fort Sanders" would be a great title for a poem?

Finding my subject matter.

My nice friend Josh praised some poems I read at the grad student poetry reading the other night, and while I appreciate his praise and vastly respect his advice, I am frustrated with my work nonetheless. I feel like I'm stuck in a rut where all I can do is the white trash poem. Okay, so white trash is my thing, and I love a good jarring line about a son smoking pot with his mom as much as the next person, but I keep wondering if I can successfully execute any other type of poem. Because I've been trying, and I don't think I've been successful.

Here's the poem I turned in for my poetry workshop this week:

The Problem of Evil

Unlike other avian,

The male emu neither eats nor drinks

Nor defecates. For eight weeks

He incubates greenblack eggs,

His fertile spouse breeds others

Lays everywhere.

The Father

Is easy to overlook in

Child-rearing is

Easy to blame when a bad egg hatched

Scrapes deep marks in forearm skin

With the force of filed nails.

I do not believe in God every day,

And I won’t blame him

Desire, deep water,

Evil inside my piece of the universe.

The male,

In order to feel adequately masculine

Must distinguish and differentiate

Himself from others.

Now, it seems to be working at getting around to something, some idea about how evil happens in the world but it's not fair to blame it on God. Perhaps maybe it even wants to suggest that evil is not the problem the poet should address; perhaps there's an issue darker than evil. Monda read the poem and told me it wasn't finished yet, and she's right--like usual. I knew that it needed more when I turned it in tonight, and that's bothered me all night. So I revised, and what do you know? The poem seems to get at the heart of a deeper issue much better, but guess what theme pops up in it--the trashy family.

Maybe that's what I'm supposed to write about at this point in my life. It's much easier to process the situations I've found myself in with relationship to my family when I'm so far away from them. I just don't want to become a trope; I don't want to become a poet who can only write one poem.

Anyway, here's the revision. Which do you like better?

The Problem of Evil

Unlike other avian,

The male emu neither eats nor drinks

Nor defecates. For eight weeks

He incubates greenblack eggs,

His fertile spouse breeds others

Lays everywhere.

The Father

Is easy to overlook in

Child-rearing is

Easy to blame when a bad egg hatched

Scrapes deep marks in forearm skin

With the force of filed nails.

I do not believe in God every day,

And I won’t blame him nor

My father for

Desire, deep water,

Evil inside my piece of the universe.

My mother

Is a woman who cannot make

Herself happy. She works

Scantily and lives on charm.

Two men love her and

She is a she-bird on the move.

The problem of evil is

Not my father’s.

He takes her back each time

Her other lover squanders his

Affection on some addiction.

She is not wrong

For wanting love.

They are not wrong

For loving.

The male,

In order to feel adequately masculine,

Must distinguish and differentiate

Himself from others.

My mother’s lovers

Are different men,

Not bad men but

Opposite in respect to

All things but

The problem of love.