Category: Arts & Letters

FOR THE STORYTELLER, A SCANDALOUS ZIPPER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Obviously, not me …

“I’ll have to explain,” the woman said as she insisted on placing a garland around my neck. It wasn’t a garland, exactly, but a lanyard-like ring of cream-colored lace. “You see, this was a zipper from a favorite aunt’s sewing box. She was very fond of her fabrics.”

I was baffled, but she obviously appreciated my performance that night and the relationship between an artist – and someone who has been touched by the work cannot be slighted. So a mixture of gratitude, humility, and pride flowed through me as I bent slightly to accept her admittedly eccentric token.

On awakening the next morning after an uncommonly deep sleep, nothing in my room was in its place. To my horror, my closet was empty, as were the dresser drawers. At least I still had a selection of shoes. Mystified as to what might have transpired, I noticed an envelope addressed to me on my dressing table. I lifted it, inhaled gardenia, and carefully slit the fold. No one could have been here while I slept, could they? My husband was away on a business trip. The kids were off at camp. This was supposed to be time for myself, and appearing on stage was my one indulgence in celebrating myself.

The note reminded me of the garland and instructed me to once again place it around my neck. The front came down to my navel. The guidelines informed me I could zip it as low as I wanted, should I desire to be open to inspiration, or close it as tight if I desired more privacy. How strange, I thought, the flowery handwriting was telling me I did not need to wear anything else, the zipper would be more than sufficient. Actually, the words were more specific. They said I dare not wear anything else when I set out.

Well, I thought, I’m really in a pickle. I can’t go out like this, I’ll just have to stay put. On the other hand, I was also out of milk and coffee. I was thinking about calling my best friend, but she was on the phone first, saying she was going to be in the neighborhood and hoped to stop by. None of my excuses were working. At least she agreed to pick up a few necessaries.

When she arrived, I was wearing only the garland and a pair of flip-flops. “My, aren’t you being risque today,” she said as gave me a brief hug. “I never wear that so unzipped.”

“You really think so?”

“Oh, yes, you could be a bit more modest, a bit more of a tease.”

“There, that’s better. Why don’t you grab your purse and we’ll head to the mall?”

“But I’d need to get dressed,” I protested.

“Oh, no, you’re fine,” she assured me.

Reluctantly, I headed off with her.

Amazingly, nobody noticed I was totally naked apart from the yoke and my shoes. “My, what a lovely collar,” some murmured with approval.

“You shouldn’t bend over so far when it’s unzipped that far,” another counseled. “People can see a bit too much of your taa-taas.”

I couldn’t believe it, especially how free I felt, even on stage. Did nobody see anything but the collar? Well, they saw the skin within it and above it, but no more.

That, in turn, created its own forms of impropriety …

BEFORE THE INTERNET, THERE WAS THE TELETYPE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Well, we also had the telephone – and memos, sometimes delivered by a mailman and sometimes by an office courier and sometimes, gasp, in person by the boss himself. Or maybe just his secretary.

But when I began drafting Big Inca Versus a New Pony Express Rider, the Internet was somewhere over the horizon. Yes, online communications did exist in what we now consider some crude form. That’s progress for you, I suppose.

Still, in developing the story, I wanted some kind of encrypted exchange between the distant handler and young Bill in the field, and that led to the technical arrangement described in the novel.

Thus the events could be disclosed in a series of memos covering a three-year period. It’s almost like playing cards, one at a time.

To tap into their exchange, just click here.

Inca 1

WALKING THE DOG THROUGH THE ZOO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Humankind’s attraction to other animals – the baby ones, especially – is universal. What is it in our love of pets, for instance, that so opens us to our own existence?

What I see is a recognition of our animal nature and a desire to snuggle in amid our fellow critters rather than hover above them. Well, most of them – there are those we fear or detest. Even so …

As the German grandmother loves to quote, God has a big zoo.

And that includes us.

In a Heartbeat~*~

For a look at my animal kingdom poems, click here.

WITH FLAMES AND A DEMON OR TWO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Anais Nin once contended that each of us has a demon. My response was – and remains – Just one?

Each demon, we should note, is different.

Our struggle is what thickens the plot – or dulls it. It can draw us together in intimacy – or drive us apart.

The eleven prose-poems of Harbor of Grace reflect that energy.

They tell of intense friendship propelled by a shared faith that flames and then explodes. Of the Old Ways bordering Amish and other Plain peoples in addition to urban conflict over the horizon. Of commitment and human shortfalls, too.

Harbor of Grace is the translated name of the town at the mouth of the Susquehanna River where the dedicatee of this collection was born.

harbor cover.jpg.opt370x493o0,0s370x493~*~

For the chapbook, click here.

TAKING A FALL IN AUTUMN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 8 Comments

Autumn typically stresses my allergies to a point that many years I’ve been knocked down for a week or two with “flu-like symptoms,” as one physician diagnosed it. (Not that he had any magic shots or pills to speed my recovery.) Some rounds have meant being unable to stay awake long or finding myself chilled to the bone, unable to warm up. Shortness of breath, dizziness, and loss of appetite are also common. Responsible work, please remember, is out of the question.

A routine of preventative medications in the past decade or so has allowed me to largely elude the malady, but this year I’ve been hit.

As illnesses go, this is quite tolerable, as long as I’m not trying to do much of anything. It simply means lying low and drinking liquids.

An upside does appear, though: for me, it’s the reading orgy that can accompany the recovery.

Do other writers (or readers, for that matter) feel obligated to tackle certain periodicals or books before getting to our guilty pleasures? Or is it just me?

Don’t get me wrong. For instance, nobody forced me to subscribe at a bargain-basement rate to the New York Review of Books, but after several appeals, I caved in – and then the issues began to pile up.

I hadn’t really followed this periodical since the early ’70s and was curious to see how much it was sticking to its earlier biases. (Yes, I’m using that term.) Happily, I’m finding a broader range of thought than I’d remembered. What has taken some readjustment involves the depth of the articles. Each one carries an assumption that we are somehow conversant in an esoteric topic that is apparently an earmark of intelligence or a solid education or … well, I dive in anyway, realizing I seldom know enough to challenge the author’s line of argument. It feels like being swept along in a tide.

This is also reminding me of a hierarchy of intellectual discourse in writing.

If the New York Review of Books is at one level, the New Yorker seems to sit a step lower, and the New York Times on a step below that. New York and Vanity Fair magazines, along with the Boston Globe, Washington Post, and a handful of other newspapers sit a step lower – and they’re all well above the median level today. As for the rest of us out in the sticks?

Admittedly, I felt a little pressure here. My wife repeated her request I pass the issues on “when you’re finished,” and that meant intact editions rather than my usual filet strategy that cuts a magazine apart, clips out articles of interest, and pitches the rest. (Saves space, for one thing, and puts pieces I want to address in appropriate files, for another. Plus, in the old days, we used to mail clippings of interest to each other – remember that, back before email?)

Well, back to that matter of keeping up, especially when we have our own local and regional issues to address, in addition to our individual specialized interests.

I got caught up with the backlog of New York Reviews and a few other magazines. And then it was on to a stack of books. Huzzah! Huzzah! Without getting into the list, let me just say what a pleasure it is to read a volume straight through, within a day or two, as God or at least the author intended – rather than having to do it by bits and pieces over long stretches of time. (Do I need to mention there are many books around our house still waiting for the final, uh, consummation? Not all mine, by a long shot.)

Well, I am feeling better now, thank you, and there’s a long list of home repair and garden projects to do before cold weather kicks in. Life really depends on maintaining a balance, doesn’t it? Or is there a better way?

ON ART ABOUT ART

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

As I said at the time …

I largely distrust art about art. It’s not that I haven’t written poems about poetry, much less music or paintings. I think we all do, sometimes as a matter of reflecting on the practice we pursue as artists. Why do I write what I do, in this voice or style? Where do I fall in the stream’s current?

The danger is that such work can become incestuous. Artists of all stripes can easily perceive themselves as high priests of the mysterious or marvelous. We are inspired, or so we think. Or at least super-sexy. We have special visions and heightened awareness. We speak our own jargon. So what if the masses cannot understand if it heightens our niche? What sells is commercial, and we point to its cheap tricks, unless it’s feeding our wallets.

What happens, of course, is we speak more and more to each other, rather than the world we inhabit. We celebrate ourselves, rather than searching outward. We become artistes, caricatures who flock to cafés and late-night bars, rather than hard-working creators. Paris wasn’t Paris when it was the expats’ hot stomping ground. Their old photos look more than funky.

Consider, for a second, the opera. Let me argue that Butterfly, free of the artist halo, is a more fascinating and touching character than Tosca, the opera singer. Parsifal or Lohengrin, than Meistersinger. Orpheus moves me as a widower, rather than for the power of his music. The magic flute, fortunately, becomes a mere footnote in Mozart’s cosmic comedy.

That’s before we even get to the application of “poetry” to describe another art. A pianist whose playing is “poetic,” for example, or the “poetry” of a piece of architecture. Again, it becomes incestuous or self-celebratory and essentially meaningless. Do we mean pianism that’s introspective and not flashy? Then what about humorous poetry? Do we mean architecture that instills a sense of awe or one that’s lean and understated? And so on. Should we even ask which poet the critic had in mind?

This might also have something to do with the fact that I’ve spent most of my adult life as a journalist, rather than in a full-time literary profession. I don’t teach writing or literature. Even in religion, where I am actively engaged, it’s not in paid ministry – which can seem somehow tainted by the fact it’s a job or employment. They overlap, of course.

Despite that, I have written collections that remain homage. My unfinished Corridors arises in the experiences of visiting art museums over a lifetime, as well as making art: while individual pieces are named after various artists, I should point out there is rarely a direct connection between the two, other than the spirit of life. Likewise, the Partitas and Fugues cannot employ a direct correspondence between musical form and language – if anything, in acknowledging the wonder and joy such works stir within a listener, my poems only admit the chasm between pure music and an aspiration for a pure language, apart from literal meaning.

Now, out into the field beyond the field across the stream below the house, as it were.

TALK ABOUT HARSH CRITICS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Perhaps nothing separates us from earlier generations of Quakers more than our love of arts and entertainment. It’s not just that our frequent references to music, fictional stories, and visual arts would have perplexed or even annoyed them. Especially as part of our vocal ministry during worship.

Rather, these were simply forbidden as vain or even useless. The focus was on piety and humble service.

Pleasure for its own sake? We wouldn’t have been members back then, period.

~*~

And now I find myself envisioning some of Peter Milton’s wonderful lithographs in which earlier generations of artists watch from the balconies or wings of the scene unfolding. I often have that sense of the past watching us — and that includes in our Quaker circles.

DEALING WITH A NEW ECONOMICS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The once bustling town of yrubBury is Bill’s first assignment out of college. Is there room for an international conglomerate to quietly slip in and take over? It’s all up to Bill.

In secret dispatches to his distant boss, Bill is led step by step deeper into global intrigue. Is this really the New Economics?

And what of the underground, the kind that moves through the night, out of range of detection? The kind that profits Big Inca, big time?

They collide, as it turns out, in seeming backwaters like yrubBury – with poor Bill caught in the crosshairs.

The Third World must be reckoned with, along with many of the ancient currents of old Europe transplanted to North America.

Not exactly what Bill anticipated when he accepted the job and its demands.

Dear Boss, he might type: Save me!

As if his boss might really have an answer. Other than, “You’re out on your own, Bub. Keep me posted.”

Inca 1~*~

The novel is available here.