I was a part of the in crowd today. Monday's jazz was performed by Ramsey Lewis. I enjoyed his tasty improvisations on songs recorded by the Beatles.
1. For the next several days, Kellogg will a blast furnace. So far this summer we've been fortunate with moderate heat, but, this week, we enter the hellmouth.
So, when the going gets hot, I spend a lot of time in the Vizio room with its sun blocking curtains and cool air being fanned in from the basement.
I started my retreat from the heat by going into the archives of this year's Sonoma Valley Authors Festival and clicking on last Friday's poetry reading by Naomi Shihab Nye, followed by her conversation with Emilie Lygren, a Bay Area nature writer, well-known for her workshops on writing about nature.
It was about twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago when I first heard Naomi Shahib Nye read as a part of Bill Moyers' Language of Life series. Over the years, I haven't read a lot of her poetry, but I came across her poem, "Kindness" and will always think it's one of the finest poems ever written by any poet at any time.
Today Naomi Shahib Nye, as she did in her conversation with Billy Collins, deeply impressed me with her depth of spirit, enthusiasm for poems, gratitude for her mentors, in short, her goodness. Again and again her poems led me to contemplate upon our better selves, upon how we all have it within us to respond to what's occurring in our lives with compassion, with words and actions that unite rather than divide us, to seek and live on the side of goodness.
I hope the archives of the Sonoma Valley Authors Festival will remain available for an extended amount of time. I want to return to Naomi Shahib Nye's reading and her conversation with Emilie Lygren and give myself over to her graciousness, enthusiasm, and love of others, of life itself.
2. My experience with poetry is decidedly limited and I'm thrilled that thanks to Bill Davie taking breaks from singing his songs and reading poetry during his concerts and thanks to Billy Collins' broadcasts on M-F on his Facebook page, my world of poets and poems grows larger by the day.
Today, Billy Collins explained on his broadcast that The New Yorker broadcasts a regular poetry podcast hosted by its poetry editor, Kevin Young. I'm not sure if every episode follows this format, but often the podcast features a poet who has been published in the magazine and that poet presents a poem published in The New Yorker by another poet and one of his or her own poems published in the magazine.
A recent podcast featured Clarence Major, a poet (and visual artist) who has been publishing poems, book of poetry, anthologies of African-American writers, fiction, African-American slang dictionaries, essays, and other writing for over fifty years.
Clarence Major read Billy Collins' superb poem, "Downpour" (published in the Nov. 18, 2019 issue of The New Yorker). He and Kevin Young discussed the poem with illuminating insight, some of which Billy Collins shared on his broadcast. Clarence Major then read his poem, "Hair" (published May 7, 2018 in The New Yorker). His poem touches on deep Black cultural history and superstition around hair and its many powers. Eugene Young is thirty-five years younger than Clarence Major and they discussed, in an almost father/son sort of way, the common ground they share as African-American men, even though they grew up in different times and in different places.
Yes, listening to Billy Collins, Naomi Shahib Nye, Clarence Major, and Kevin Young introduced me to more poetry I hadn't known of, let alone heard or read before. Moreover, listening to them further expanded my understanding of the USA, its multi-dimensional history, its multi-dimensional cultural life, and the great variety of writers whose work can help us dive into the vibrant variegation alive in the USA. With each poem, each reading, each discussion or conversation, my world becomes larger and my love for the great variety of American voices and experiences deepens my affection for what I enjoy most about the USA.
3. Now that Major League Baseball is underway, I begin my days at the ESPN Fantasy Baseball site and set my lineups for my teams in both leagues I participate in. Today looked dreadful for me in the head to head league. Several of my players are on teams who had the day off and my opponent has some firepower talent on his team -- Mike Trout, Aaron Judge, and Bryce Harper, especially.
Soon, however, the news emerged that the Miami Marlins have had a Covid-19 outbreak on their team. Their game was cancelled. This had little impact on our head to head match. Then, however, because the Marlins had just played Philadelphia, the Phillies' game with the New York Yankees was also postponed, meaning that Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper and Gary Sanchez would not be playing for my head to head opponent.
Losing those players and the fact that Mike Trout had a lousy day at the plate contributed quite a bit to my team's success in widening its lead over my opponent -- our head to head matchup continues until Sunday.
I hated gaining on him in this way, though. It dismays me that the Marlins have had so many players and staff contract Covid-19. I'm not sure what to think about Major League Baseball's decision to play games all over the USA, have teams travel, and not do what the NBA, WNBA, and NHL are doing -- severely limiting the venues where their games are being played.
I'm less interested in any discussion about this than I am interested to see how it pans out.
For any number of reasons, I hope the Major League Baseball protocols turn out to be effective in protecting players and staff from exposure to this virus.
I will admit it -- my hope for MLB's success has an awful lot to do with how much I enjoy getting up in the morning, fixing a cup of coffee, and starting off my day deciding who plays, who rides the bench, seeing if I have active players for each of my team's positions, deciding if I'll let the pitchers who are scheduled to start go ahead and pitch (I can bench 'em), and contemplating dropping players and going to the player pool to see what players are available if I do let any players go.
It's a blast. I hope the season continues. We'll see.
Here's a limerick by Stu:
There’s times you don’t know what to say.
You’re told to keep quiet that day.
You just wait and be ready,
And hope emotions are steady.
For the good news you hope’s coming your way.
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