An Evening with Billy Collins

Wearing a black suit and an orange shirt (Halloween was the night before), he looks around the room. “A poetry traffic jam is something I haven’t seen too often,” he sa7s. “This is wonderful.”

“He” is Billy Collins, two-time poet laureate of the United States. I tell my wife he’s one of the three poets in the United States who makes a living from poetry.

“Who are the other two?” she asks.

“I can’t remember their names offhand,” I reply.

We are sitting in the main room of the St. Louis Country Library in Frontenac, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Billy Collins is giving a poetry reading from his new work, Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems.

More than 800 people are in the room. My wife and I have what is a “package ticket” – two admission tickets and a copy of the book for $20. The volume retails for $16 for the paperback (just over $12 on Amazon), so the package ticket is a good deal.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Tyler Dilts’ “A Cold and Broken Hallelujah”

It was author Ed McBain who introduced to the mystery sub-genre of police procedurals, and if I didn’t read all of his more than 50 novels about the 87^th Precinct cops, I came pretty close. He created an entire fictional world in these novels, based approximately on metropolitan New York City. McBain died at 78 in 2005, with a writing legacy stretching back to 1956. 

Since McBain’s death, I’ve read a few police procedurals, but little really grabbed my interest like McBain’s stories. That is, until I read Tyler Dilts’ A Cold and Broken Halellujah. 

The novel is the third of the Long Beach Homicide stories written by Dilts, who teaches creative writing at California State University in Long Beach. The first two in the series were The King of Infinite Space (2010) and The Pain Scale (2012).  

I’m hooked. And it wasn’t because the title comes from the Leonard Cohen song, or the completely unexpected mention of poet Luci Shaw by the main character.  

No, it was because it’s a terrific story. 

Long Beach police detective Danny Beckett and his partner Jennifer Tanaka are called to investigate what at first looks like a nauseatingly familiar street crime – a homeless man burned to death by three young thugs, one of those senseless acts that we seem to read more and more about in the newspaper. 

As Beckett and Tanaka investigate what appears to be a slam-dunk case, they gradually discover that the crime isn’t what it appeared to be, and instead becomes something uglier and more sinister.  

Tyler Dilts

The story focuses on Beckett, whose usual companions of vodka and vicodin help dull the pain in his hand and arm (from the second novel in the series) as much as they dull the ache of the loss of his wife in an automobile accident years before. The fact that she burned to death makes this case of a burned homeless man more real, and more personal. 

What highlights the story is how Dilts turns the city of Long Beach into almost a character in and of itself. The reader walks and drives the streets and neighborhoods with Beckett and Tanaka. And it’s done just right, so that the setting doesn’t overpower the story but instead is woven tightly into the story.

So, yes, I’m hooked. Now I have to read the first two. And I hope more to come. 

Photograph: City of Long Beach at night.

The vine

Father: vine dresser

pruning the true vine

dressing the vines

paring back

cutting back

Child: vine

from the vine I tumbled

stumbled away

I turned back

to burn back

the vine

unlike the burning  bush

unconsumed

the vine is burned, trimmed,

pruned, dressed

to produce more

to produce better

to grow

Photograph by Alex Grichenko via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Good Poems Can Come in Small Packages

This year is the centennial (or centenary, as the British say) of the beginning of World War I, the group collectively known as the World War I poets has been receiving some well-deserved attention. In fact, the war itself has been receiving enormous attention, from the art installation of almost 900,000 ceramic red poppies at the Tower of London to an outstanding exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. 

The poets wrote about the war in a way no one else really could. Some of them died on the battlefield, others died from illnesses like pneumonia, and still others survived to go on with literary and publishing careers. They capture our collective imagination for their youth, their hopes, and their experiences, as much as for the words they wrote.  

Sixteen of the poets were memorialized with a stone in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey in 1985; I saw it when we visited the Abbey in 2012. The 16 are Richard Adlington, Lawrence Binyon, Edmund Blunden, Rupert Brooke, Wilfrid Gibson, Robert Graves, Julian Grenfell, Ivor Gurney, David Jones, Robert Nichols, Wilfred Owen, Herbert Read, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Charles Sorley, and Edward Thomas.  

Many if not all of them are represented into two small collections of World War I poetry. One is so small it fits in the palm of my hand; the other is a beautiful little edition from The Collector’s Library. 

The small volume (the one pictured in my hand in the photograph above) is Poems of the Great War by Christopher Navratil, published by Running Press Miniature Editions. Navratil includes a number of the most famous poems, noting that of the hundreds of thousands of poem published with the war, only a few hundred have endured. 

One of those that have endured (and is included in the volume) is “When I’m Killed” by Robert Graves: 

When I'm killed, don't think of me 
Buried there in Cambrin Wood, 
Nor as in Zion think of me 
With the Intolerable Good. 
And there's one thing that I know well, 
I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell! 

So when I'm killed, don't wait for me, 
Walking the dim corridor; 
In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me, 
Or you must wait for evermore. 
You'll find me buried, living-dead 
In these verses that you've read. 

So when I'm killed, don't mourn for me, 
Shot, poor lad, so bold and young, 
Killed and gone--don't mourn for me. 
On your lips my life is hung: 
O friends and lovers, you can save 
Your playfellow from the grave. 

(Graves survived the war, going on to write novels, essays, criticism, and much more.) 

It is a small volume, but a somber one, providing a window into the tragedy that the allies called a victory.  

Collector’s Library has published Poetry of the First World War, edited by Marcus Clapham, an editor, publisher and anthologist of more than a dozen volumes. I have a weakness for fine volumes with gilt edging. This edition has artist Paul Nash’s painting “The View of Passchendaele” for its cover illustration; the original is in the Imperial War Museum. 

Beyond it’s physical beauty, the volume includes both well-known and lesser-known poems, and poems by a number of non-combatants like John Masefield, A.E. Housman and Thomas Hardy. I especially liked this one, “The Owl,” by Edward Thomas (who died in 1917): 

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;

Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof

Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest

Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof. 

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,

Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.

All of the night was quite barred out except

An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry 

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,

No merry note, nor cause of merriment,

But one telling me plain what I escaped

And others could not, that night, as in I went. 

And salted was my food, and my repose,

Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voice

Speaking for all who lay under the stars,

Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice. 

I enjoyed reading both collections. Expect a quiet, reflective result.

Creating Good, Only to See It Vanish?

So we’re in one of those endless series of reorganizations at work. My department has more than doubled in size; my team initially shrank, then plateaued, then grew some. It will likely grow more in the coming weeks and months.

I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen a reorganization that was led well, or at least managed well. I can’t think of one. I do recall an expansion a few years ago that went extraordinarily well, primarily because the people who actually did the work and knew where both the problems and opportunities were designed it.

In other words, upper leadership stayed out of it. My purpose isn’t to indict upper leadership, but in many organizations, upper leadership rarely knows the details of what’s happening.

All of the teams in the department were to grow. Our team grew from 11 to 25 people in a matter of about three months. We had the most new positions to fill, double that of any other team, and we filled them faster than all of the others. We knew what needed to be done, and we knew what skills and experience we needed. And we were fast.

My team was managing new functions, new media, and new ways to communicate. We faced new challenges that were beginning to look insurmountable – including well organized and funded campaigns against the organization. The landscape where we had to operate was entirely new.

Remember that word “new.” “New,” when it works, is disruptive. It challenges conventional thinking. It has little patience with “that’s the way we’ve always done things here.”

It simply arrives and starts making things happen. In our case, it was good things.

It also makes people outside the organization uncomfortable. Change always brings discomfort. Someone is always going to dislike it. Someone will feel threatened by it.

We became known as the part of the organization where “work gets done.” Within the team, everything was shared – information, opportunities, support, backup. And the amazing thing was that it all worked. It was as if we could survey what was happening, look at the work that was being accomplished, the achievements that were being made, and say “it is good.”

And that became the problem. It’s always worse when the change is good, and when it works even better than promised. What we were accomplishing had implications for our entire organization. Uncomfortable implications. Some people felt threatened.

One statement I made often to our team was that we were to enjoy every minute and every day, because we didn’t know when it would end.

It took just under a year.

The blow didn’t fall all at once. It happened in three phases. First, one team was moved outright to another organization, and then a second team was moved. The teams were so integrated that it tore the larger team apart. Finally, a new supervisor was brought in.

The cost was huge. The results led to disaster. It is no comfort to me to know that the current reorganization I’m living through is exactly what we did six years ago – same idea, same strategy, same understanding. The difference is that it’s six years later, and everything has changed.

What we had created lingered for a while, but eventually it disappeared. Or so it seemed.

Not long ago, someone who had been part of what we did six years ago said this:

“For a year, we worked like work is supposed to be. It was challenging and hard and difficult. But how we worked together is how it’s supposed to be. It was the best job I ever had. None of us will ever forget that. And I think all of us will try at some point to recreate it.”

Perhaps that was the point. Creating good, and doing it, can become more than a dream. Doing it turns a dream into a hope.

The High Calling has a community linkup this week on “Creating Good.” If you have a story that you’d like to share, visit The High Calling.

Photograph by Rudiger Schafer via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

The Mischief Cafe

There is mischief afoot.

No, Watson, the game’s afoot.

The Mischief Café has opened its doors,

poetry at home with toast,

buttered (not artisan), & tea, although

some insist upon coffee, grounds

for litigation by the tea crowd. Just so.

It is a book, you see, a book

of poems, and dreams,

of poems, and screams

of delights, oohs and ahs,

and prompts and pages

blank with expectancy

waiting to be filled and poured.

The Mischief Café’s a traveling café,

a minstrel show, a lyceum,

bawdy vaudeville, a hermit’s retreat,

a Facebook post, an introvert’s tweet,

filled with blank pages, a journal,

because all poetry begins, or hesitates,

upon blank pages, and dreams.

There is mischief afoot.

No, Watson, the game’s afoot.

No, Holmes, my ruler’s a foot.

So, if you wondering what this is all about, L.L. Barkat has published The Mischief Café, which is a book of poems and prompts with blank pages, inviting you to write your poems, and create some mischief. Three of my own poems are included, among many others.

It is a strange thing to see one’s own poems published in a collection. I first had to ask myself if I really wrote them, and the answer is yes, I did; I even remember when I did. And the second thing I asked myself is why am I feeling so mischievous? The poem above is the result. 

If you’re feeling mischievous, The Mischief Café is a good way to start.

A Tale of Two Committees

I have just completed a one-year term as a member of our church’s officer nominating committee. I was one of two deacons appointed to it; I served alongside four elders and eight members elected from the congregation.  

If you’ve served on such a committee, you know the real possibilities for conflicts, misunderstandings, politics, undue influence by the staff and pastors, and all the other things that can go along with the assignment. That didn’t happen this year. It could have, and easily; our church has been going through a rocky patch for the past two to three years. 

It could have happened, but it didn’t. It was one of the most positive church experiences I’ve had. People were respectful, willing to listen and heed, asked good questions, and searched out candidates’ hearts (and often our own). We had one visit by a pastor, who led us in a study of a Bible passage. Every meeting opened and closed in prayer.  

We had differences, to be sure, but the difference never overwhelmed the work we were doing. And we had experienced people leading us through the work. 

I had had some misgivings about serving. I had had one experience years go as one of the members of a nominating committee at another church, and it was not a good experience. I had been elected by the congregation, an “at-large member,” one of several so elected working with others appointed by the elder board. Our church was growing, hiring staff, expanding into new programs – doing all the things one expects from a healthy church. 

I did not expect what happened on the nominating committee. Conflict. Anger. At one point a pastor joined the meetings, concerned about some of the people who had been suggested. One elder on the committee said he would resign and leave the church if we nominated one individual and he was elected.  

Our discussions more resembled corporate people reviews than they did meetings of a church nominating committee. The one question remember being asked over and over again was “Is he a team player?” Meetings were tense.  

Somehow, we got through the work, but it was not a good experience. It certainly wasn’t one expected from people who were supposed to be known by their love. 

In The Cure: What if God Isn’t Who You Think He Is and Neither Are You, by John Lynch, Bruce McNichol and Bill Thrall, the authors talk about relationships in a way that seems taken directly from these two experiences I have had with church nominating committees. “Somewhere along the line,” they write, “we needed to trade relationships of love for strategic management of others. That shift frightened us away from each other. That shift forfeited the only distinction Jesus asks us to be known for: Loving and allowing ourselves to be loved." 

They’re writing about individual lives; they could just as easily be writing about church committees, and church nominating committees. The bad experience I had is the kind of thing that turns people away from churches, because no one expects them to behave like a secular organization. But they can, and often do.  

Churches can behave like the world, and when they do, it doesn’t end well, either for the church or the world. 

Or churches can behave like churches, and change the world.

 

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Cure. This week we finish the chapter entitled “Two Friends.” To see more posts on this chapter, please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact. 

Illustration by Piotr Siedlecki via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.