Istanbul #2

March 10, 2013

Armand picked me up quite near the appointed hour, and drove me about, seeing some of the sights and most of the lay of the land. The Dolmabahce Palace is exactly what one thinks when somebody says “palace.” It is also dusty, down-in-the-mouth, and maybe just a little tawdry. Can I use that word when the tinsel is real gold? A Sultan of the Lingering Autumn built it in the middle of the 19th century to emulate the palaces of, I suppose, France and Germany. In some ways I’m sure it outdoes them, but the effect is a little overblown, like a puny man standing on lifts and thinking nobody notices. More crystal on the ceiling than one could imagine. Haven’t see Topkapi yet (Armand didn’t take me, because he said it is close and I can get here myself) but I’m certain to like it better. Three American girls were in my group, constantly correcting each other’s pronunciation and critiquing each other’s reason. I wondered why they were friends. Then on to the church called Chora (the Kariye Museum), a masterpiece, a gem. I had never seen mosaic in mass splendor, and it is breathtaking, even in its ruined state and its always small dimensions. I longed to be there by myself to wander and stare, and stare. We went to have tea at Armand’s friend’s rug shop. I did realize at that moment that part of the operation had been, since the random meeting at the airport that set it up, toward the end of getting me to buy a rug. I did, too, so it worked. I bought two beautiful rugs, and weighing my delight in them with the irritation of being played–even when I was fully aware–leaves me on the sunny side, if not by a wide margin. On then to a famous fish restaurant, which was wonderful. Gulls flew overhead and the feral cats of Istanbul prowled in the shadows. Armand is going to meet me tonight for drinks, and as I can’t imagine he’s really that interested in me, I’ll be alert for the next gentle scam. I did get them back by not paying them for the tour. Not doing so was entirely a matter of forgetfulness, but I smiled a little when I saw the preferred euros still in my wallet.

Istanbul #1

March 9, 2013


Fourth floor of the Best Western Hotel, Akbiyak Cad #46, Sultanahmet, Istanbul. It is a turbulent, lively street, exactly the kind upon which I want my windows to open. It reminds me of Trastevere in Rome, except that the commercial life here is a little more aggressive. The room is fairly luxurious, with plates of dried fruit and nuts waiting for me. The hotel personnel is helpful and friendly, or obsequious, depending on how you look at those things. Everybody is darkly good looking. It was interesting to give the bartender a tutorial in making a vodka tonic, him with no English. . . or German. . . or Italian. . . me with no Turkish. Except I can say “Stop!” from looking at all the traffic signs in the drive from the airport. The drive from the airport was a solid hour, all of it through the city, which turns out to be colossal. The screens on the airplane suggested 13 million inhabitants, but the desk clerk said it was 17 million normally, and 20 million when the seasonal workers come in from Anatolia when the tourist season abates. Istanbul is “Europe” and the rest of Turkey is “Anatolia,” says what’s-his-name, the uncle of the second man last night who tried to sell me a rug. Osman dragged me into his restaurant and set up an appointment to see his carpets. The sell here is hard, and repetitious, but also buffeted by courtesies and delicious Turkish tea. I didn’t come with any idea of buying a rug, but I may, since it appears to be the thing to do.

Strolled about after my Osman dinner, and blundered into the Blue Mosque, its minarets stabbing up into the night, lit and all thronged about with wheeling gulls.  The gulls and the jackdaws here remind me of Ireland, and settled what apprehensions I may have had. The was I gaping at the Blue Mosque when I happened to turn in the little parking lot where I stood and saw, in the distance, but not too far, Hagia Sophia. I burst into tears. Byzantium was one of those places I thought was too exotic for me ever to see in the flesh. What a sacred place the land between those holy places is, and there is my little hotel! In a café I saw a dervish begin to dance. You’d think that would be a kind of sacrilege, but it wasn’t. The dervish was so beautiful and so beautifully transported that he blessed the occasion, whatever the thousand occasions in the café were. It rained all evening. I didn’t notice until I looked up where the gulls were flying in the lights.

Swissair is always giving one chocolates.

March 7, 2013

Music from the Court of Emperor Charles V.

Spent snow day preparing manuscripts to send to contest and the like. The internet makes that –if nothing else– far less bulky an activity than it used to be.

Fixating on the things which can go wrong with my flight tomorrow. Unfortunately, the proximate international experience is the multiply disastrous pilgrimage to Ireland this summer. I’ve lost the notion that one can just go to an airport, get on a plane, and after a certain passage of time arrive at one’s destination. On one level I hope that the flights are either canceled or not when I get up tomorrow morning. United, however, is perfectly capable of getting me to Chicago, canceling or causing me to miss the Zurich leg, and then telling me it can’t get me on a flight to Asheville for two or three days. That is not only the worst case, but the likely one.

Received in the mail a magazine called Fence. It is beautiful to look at, beautifully produced, so with some anticipation I took it to the café to browse. The contents turned out to be dramatically bad, bad in a way recognizable from some of the work my students brought into class last semester. All observations are random and equally valid, or equally perverse. If a good or telling line breaks forth–well, that’s just what happened; one should not pick at it hoping that it be a thread either into or out of the labyrinth. The poems mean nothing, nor intend, I think, to mean anything. All that’s offered is a fragmentary moment, which one takes or leaves as one does a passing sight on the street. It is a kind of Imagism, I suppose, but with the anticipation of larger meaning knocked out. One admires the work image by image or not at all. I took a nap one day and woke up with this being the new poetry of the world. Unlike the other new poetrys of the world I’ve witnessed, this has nothing to recommend it except, perhaps, truth to the fragmented experience of the smart-phone, twitter, shattered and scattered world it represents. It is ensign poetry for the kids I see working their laptops, texting, reading a book, gossiping to their living friends all at the same time–thus doing nothing at all, taking in no unified impression or usable data. It is the poetry for a world in which nothing has meaning but the brute generation of text. Books and books of this detritus are on the shelf now. Was nobody watching?

March 6, 2013

At my prodding, Akron U Press seems willing to allow A Childhood in the Milky Way to be an e-book. Exceeding good news.

Enough snow to close school but not enough to impede activities very much. The porch was overrun with birds this morning, just about every local species seeking the one source of seed yet above the snow. I enjoyed going out in it for my morning coffee. I say “my morning coffee” as if it were a tradition. I actually sit and have a quiet hot drink maybe once every fortnight. The café was full of snowy people, men chatting together, fathers taking daughters out to breakfast on a day of closed schools. The owner was present, so the café muzak was light classical rather than gawdawful cheeseball jazz; one takes every occasion for gratitude.

Playcafe, a theater group in Massachusetts, will be taping “16th and Curtis” in May.

Remains of gigantic arctic camels found on Ellesmere Island. We are to imagine them wandering through the boreal forests in a lull between the ices. I do imagine exactly that.

March 5, 2013

News is that the Sequestration, so far, affects only TSA, which means that the wait at airports such as O’Hare can be twice as long as normal. Of course, this is the one place where it can affect me just now. Bye bye Byzantium. . . .

Excellent poetry workshop, three women with great talent and genuine application. One who is clueless, but charming.

March 4, 2013

I discover that my cable TV has channels which broadcast music, all kinds of music, even one called “Classical masterpieces.” Right now it’s “William Tell,” but before it was Lully and Rameau, and I was amazed and overjoyed.

Reading a book called Tolkien and the Great War. At one point a soldier’s letter is being censored, and suddenly, when my eyes were on that line,  my mother’s voice was in the room, clear and certain as life. She was recalling, as she did once to me long ago in the kitchen at Goodview, a letter she received from the censors in the other Great War. All the soldier’s handwriting was blacked out, and the censor had written, “Dear Marion, your boyfriend loves you, but he talks too much.” What boyfriend? Did she keep the letter– oh, the longing after lost music!

Mikado ended on a joyful note. No memories but good ones, though having evenings back for a while is a delight. Rushed to Cantaria rehearsal, to find it oddly depressed and ragged. I’m sure it was for lacking me. Convivial supper at Avenue M afterward.

Jamaica Kincaid on the radio spoke of a photo of her three year old self, and wondered, “Where is she?” I was driving to Biltmore from Arden when I heard this, and it was helpful, deeply helpful, throwing me back to the red headed kid in the dapple of the trees in a photo which is lost but which I remember. He knew who he was. He knew what he wanted. He saved me, as he must have in times past. I remember Jamaica Kincaid mostly for a rejection slip I got from The New Yorker for “Bonhanno’s Death,” which said, “We admired this very much, but we are afraid Jamaica Kincaid might want to submit something like this someday, and it is her territory.” Wish I’d kept and framed that. But, yesterday paid me back.

March 3, 2013

Gray Sunday dawn, me slamming down cranberry juice as though I had just crawled through a desert. Desultory snowflakes wait for a wind to guide them.

Grabbed time to go to the studio yesterday. It was in such disarray that I could not paint, could not so much as find anything until after a thorough rebuilding. I called Jolene to see who had been in my space, and it had been herself and Mitch, responding to yet another deluge and yet another flood from the roof by hauling my most imperiled stuff to places (I wonder how they decided?) where they would be more safe. I felt embarrassed because I snapped at them for the good deed of protecting my work. On the other hand, the floods come five times a year and five times I year I’m told it’s fixed and it never is. I ruined a pastel by spraying it with varnish, and had to repaint it. So, with getting the space back into working order and repainting a work I ruined, I left the studio at exactly the same place I left it the last time. Zero gain.

Fixated on the unfinished plumbing, I had to lie down, as I do under stress. When I woke, Steve had at least cut the access pipes down to the size of cakes, which had been towers before. The ruins are still ruins, but my repeated phone calls have kept me alive in his remembrance.

Feeling that The Mikado is a success. Opening night went quite well, and last night–so far as I’m concerned–was flawless. Came blasting in on the parts I was unsure of before. Laughter from the audience, lightheartedness from the cast. The men’s dressing room nothing but conviviality. J and L and DJ and G came last night, and though my time with them was brief, they seemed to have had a great time. You want to beg, “But how was I?” knowing that if they were paying attention to you, the leads were not doing their jobs.

Strangely divorced from the things I do– distanced in a way I can’t explain. I scurry away from the theater as if heading for some important activity. I rush from school after class as if now my real efforts can begin. I hoard and protect my time as though some great incipient deed needed acres of it. When I sit down to write, I think, “Let’s get this out of the way so I can get back to my real task.” But what? I’m like the snow outside, waiting for a wind to condense me, blow me some direction or the other. This began in Sligo, the darkness of which I have avoided setting down in words. Perhaps that’s what I must do. Lincoln in New York should be my lodestar, but it isn’t, not yet. I expect it to come to nothing, and one of the voices in the brain says I will make it come to nothing by expecting it, while the others try to shout the idiot down.

Snow thickens. It knows one direction, anyhow: down.