April 27, 2019

Heroic writing, heroic writing. All the heroic things I do are done in utter secret.

April 25, 2019

KG red in the face with rage in class over what he calls an institution that wants his money and doesn’t care about anything else. I disagreed with him less than I would have at any other time in my life. Oddly, we were talking about Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. The question was, why do we encourage people who clearly have no talent? That was his answer. My answer is, because we can’t be sure. I don’t know what the university thinks.

Three cartons full of The Falls of the Wyona appeared on my porch. I was happy. The cats were ecstatic over the boxes. Boom they go jumping into them downstairs even now. Also appearing, about a ton of heliotrope seed. The world would be heliotropes if I got them all into the ground.

April 24, 2019

The power company blasted through, “trimming” the trees that seemed to threaten power lines. My neighbor’s hemlocks are now even uglier than they were before. But, also, my front yard and the line of hollies get sunlight at an angle they couldn’t have seen in years. Gorgeous days follows gorgeous day. Charlie and Zach both in my office with their senior papers, both having outbettered expectation.  Charlie appeared at my door, having left his computer stick in my machine at school. He looked amazingly tall.

April 23, 2019

Shakespeare.

Truly heroic gardening. Digging, planting.

Truly heroic writing, mere pages from finishing the Hiram book, the title of which is still up in the air. Today’s task was the one of starting at the beginning, plowing through knowing what I know now,  building the bridges, filling in the potholes, straightening the way. Something bothered me before which doesn’t bother me now, so I suppose the effort was a success.

Usually only the janitor and I are there when I arrive for my morning class. Yesterday she was singing a Ukranian song as she worked.  Evan says he hears me singing in my office, but I never remember doing it.

April 22, 2019

Earth Day. Lectured on the great environmental writers. I’m certain they were all thinking “is this going to be on the test?” The thought that tomorrow is Undergraduate Research Day and I don’t have to face a class is Christmas and birthday at once. I waited one year too long to retire. Two years by the time it actually happens. Let’s see what I can endure. To commemorate such freedom, I sold all positions in my Roth IRA. There will be the usual ordeal in actually getting the money, but one step at a time.

April 21, 2019

Joyful Easter Sunday. I was moved by the Great Vigil last night, and by the two services this morning, though it was just about as much singin as I need for a while. The contra B in the Chesnekov is solider than it’s ever been, and I’m the only one who has it. Practically the only one who had the Fs.  The Dean baptized his granddaughter, which was sweet. Ate brunch in the Ambrosia the day before it closes. The service was excellent, the food, not. Maybe that’s why.

April 20, 2019

Steve Benjamin, a fixture in my life since the 3rd grade, is dead. It is the most amazing thing.  I had a crush on him during my latency, when I had no idea what a crush was. I took it for opposition, supposing him a scofflaw of some sort, which everyone was in comparison to me at that point. I miss that we never had time to engage as adults. He was handsome even in the 3rd grade.

Spaded out fourteen new bamboo shoots yesterday, thirty today.

Rain. The Wayside is under water. Who will make my cocktails?

Holy Saturday

April 19, 2019

 Good Friday. The normally solemn service was a little irritating today. Maybe too many new people asking too many questions. I’m going to be a terrible crabby old man. Nevertheless, Palestrina and Tallis. . . .  Phone laden with warning messages about local streets not being safe to travel. The downpour is sensational. You can’t drive without sending up a plume of greenish water from your tires. Pedestrians cringe and run as far from the street as they can get.

April 17, 2019

Driving to church, I saw a happy little dog pad out into Merrimon Avenue, confident that the traffic would stop for him. It did in three lanes. In the other, the left lane heading south, the car hesitated, then sped up and hit the dog. I was angry, but so was the driver in the car in front of me, who screamed at the driver out the window. The dog, meanwhile, lay in the street for a moment, then got up and loped back to the sidewalk. Two girls were standing there, and the dog looked up at them with an expressions that said, “what did I do wrong?”

April 16, 2019

Most beautiful spring day. Jose cut the grass a week ago and it is already a jungle.

Presentation on Thomas Wolfe received with surprising enthusiasm by my students. 

The damage to Notre Dame seems to be less than the leaping roof of flame would have indicated. Praise be.

Almost unbelievably dull Endowment Committee meeting, though at the end of it Jack gave an elegant explanation of almost everything.

Sent copies of the book to Suzanne and Grey.

April 15, 2019

Notre Dame de Paris is destroyed by fire. Worse cannot be imagined. To think that after 800 years we would be the ones to witness this. I reflect selfishly that I never got to see it.

Notice came that three copies of FW were on their way. Like a child at Christmas I peered out the window waiting for the mailman.

April 13, 2019

Planted cosmos and a fringe tree. Listened to the spells of ferocious rain, followed by spells of birdcalls. Wrote all through the afternoon until it was evening and the lawn had a fragrance I don’t remember from before.

Looking back, the Biddyocracy, as I foretold, wasn’t the least bit interested in the truth of things, but only in the feel of things. And they were very selective as to whose feelings mattered. It is eternally bad, eternally wrong, and can’t, now, be helped.

April 12, 2019

WR begged to meet me yesterday so he could borrow money to enlarge 62 Lakeshore. I arranged time to meet him and– he was a no show, without notice, without excuse. Missing a meeting he arranged to ask a favor of me. One shrugs and moves on.

Dark of the morning coffee at the Ingall’s Starbucks, where a very old man named Abe asked for a ride to his home. Half way there he said “Oh! I forgot my cane! We have to go back.” I found a place to turn around and was back at the store when he said, “Oh, no, here it is!” we got him home as the sun rose.

Pound and Eliot at 8 AM. Two girls in back giggled and pawed each other. My student E who is the one this year who adopted me, misses every third class, comes in late when he comes, and leaves ten minutes into class to do– something, sometimes returning half an hour later, rattling and banging in the effort to arrange himself comfortably. Then he asks questions that were asked in his absence. However many complaints a teacher may have lodged against him, the wonders of our patience exceed our trespasses by many levels. Napped monstrously, but found the time to plant nasturtiums. The Book of the Roses moves along. I think I have it outlined in my head until the end.

April 11, 2019

After class I bought a golden koi at the pet store. As I lowered it into the pond I and saw a creature I couldn’t identify jump in. Vowed to sit on the bench still and quiet until whatever it was emerged again. It worked, for before to long a big fat bullfrog bobbed to the surface, allowing himself to turn with the wind as though he were just a floating leaf. He kept his eyes on me as he turned. Realized it was the longest I’d ever just sat and gazed into the pond since I had it dug. Named the new fish Xerxes, and watched as he patrolled the perimeter, getting the measure of his new world.

Quite excellent rehearsal. I was in remarkable voice, and Barry wasn’t there to cast darkness over the basses.

April 10, 2019

First reading last night of FW in the Laurel Forum. It was a success. Everyone says they hear the poetry in the book, a remark which I interpret as “pure poetry is too rich for us; spread out like this, we can endure it. We can love it.”

Had my meeting with the Dean and the Provost. It was. . . unexpected. I had come prepared to fight the good fight for truth, honesty, and academic freedom, but their actual problem with me so was petty. . .  so unexpectedly petty. . . even to fight such a thing with the armaments I’d massed was. . . petty. So I ended up saying “Oh, yes ma’am I will be more careful in the future,” walking out at once relieved and minimally disgusted. The fight was over that? The Provost said, “You’ve had a sensational career; It would be a shame to have something like this linger at this point.” I wanted to say “the shame would be on you,” but, as I’ve observed, there was really no point.  Even the Provost is afraid of Miss Jill. There is no redress. I turn my back on Phillipps Hall and say “Good riddance.” It’s not even sad.

Excellent afternoon in the garden, planting zinnias and half-priced refugees from Reems Creek.

April 6, 2019

Full spring. Rose early and went to work out, but it was too early, and the Y stood dark. Wrote industriously last night and this morning on the Hiram novel, which I had not expected to do. I found where I’d left off before, and why I had to stop, and discovered how I could move on. Taking a rest from writing, I went to the garden, where the day was a full triumph. The lawn is just now perfect with violets and forget-me-nots. Planted canna and rhubarb and a tremendous quantity of gladiolus I must have gotten for a special price. Jose is mowing. Glad I saw the violets before he started. 

Have an appointment on Tuesday to see the Dean and the Provost about my transgressions as a serial harrasser. By any objective measure I am blameless and most cruelly put-upon, but I have learned not to expect the matriarchy to take the straight way. I fear in the end it won’t matter what actually happened. Even to assert the facts will be looked upon as not quite getting the point. But also, I don’t care very much. Mostly, I resent having to think about it.

On the same day (unless I’ve been fired) , Evan and I do our reading in the Laurel Forum.  It is the first the world will hear from The Falls of the Wyona.

April 5, 2019

Tennyson, then the making of a monumental stew. Went to the Magnetic, lured by an invitation and a free ticket. The play was surprisingly good, professionally composed and well acted. The topic–an old murder and trial–was not gripping enough for a full evening, or advanced technique, but it almost was. I was content with that.

April 4, 2019

Hoarse to speechlessness. My digestive system has been so odd lately–since long before I went to Israel–that I bought probiotics. The first pill–one pill–took away the odd feeling down there, but it will take a while to build back my biota after rounds of antibiotics. Did not sing at Blue Spiral as I was meant to do, but crouched at home with a cat on my lap.

April 3, 2019

My habit of not reading emails all the way through backfired when I realized I’d been sent the proofs of Night, Sleep, and the Dreams of Lovers for correction. There were not many errors, but some were big, such as the omission of halves of sentences and margin changes in the middle of the page. I wish Night Sleep were coming out first, for my progression as a writer from it to Wyona is clear. Night Sleep is a solid, muscular book; Wyona is magic. Will it deaden or increase the impact of each to come out nearly at the same time?

April 2, 2019

Vivaldi Concerto for viola ‘d’amore

On Facebook:
 
Ethan Fugate
April 1 at 8:17 PM

Hey - it is the first day of National Poetry Month, so of course I read a novel on my flight from PDX to Charleston. Granted, it is a novel that flashes its poetic bones on almost every page. & I kinda think The Falls of Wyona is a real triumph, David Hopes. Sorry I missed you in Portland. #redhenpress

Queer night. I dreamed I was in the Army, in Iraq, and was being taken to see an unspeakable atrocity, the mutilation in some way of a human body so it was monstrous and unrecognizable. When I was shown it I didn’t understand it, and didn’t completely understand the explanation provided by my superior officer. Odd, I think, not to understand one’s own dream even within the dream. The next dream took place in a series of vast warehouses (containing cafes and residences, etc) spread over a series of beautiful hills. I plotted a murder, and got someone to do the murder for me. I figured the space was so vast no one would suspect me, but toward the end of the dream I began to fear discovery. Even when I woke it took a moment to understand the jeopardy was gone. Even in the dream I didn’t know why I wanted this person dead.

April 1, 2019

Examined my students on the Romantics. We spent an entire period on “Mont Blanc,” and of the papers I glanced at, not one of them identified the excerpt correctly. Planted a second red buckeye and a second persimmon.  Received my tax return. Refunds will just about cover the cost of doing the forms.

Gave Elliott a copy of Peniel. He brings it in with the first few poems underlined, notated, analyzed like a manuscript in the Trinity library. I smile even now.