Sunday, July 26, 2020

Now that we are officially less than 100 days away from the national election on Tuesday, November 3, it’s time to look into the crystal ball of my computer screen, and view how it plays out the day afterwards.

Date: November 4, 2020
Time: 8 p.m. (West Coast Time)
“Place”: MSNBC TV studio
Rachel Maddow on the screen, speaking to the camera

“Good evening. The polls have been closed for 24 hours. It is Wednesday, November 4th, 8 p.m. East Coast Standard Time, and we have yet to hear from President Trump. His campaign has announced that Vice-President Pence will be speaking soon at Trump’s re-election headquarters.

“The current results show a national vote total of 67,396,072 votes for Joe Biden and 61,048,753 for Donald Trump. It should be noted that Biden’s vote total is more than one million votes greater than Barack Obama’s winning vote total in 2012 as well as more than one million votes greater than the total number of votes cast for Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College. Donald Trump has so far received one million less votes than he did in 2016. His campaign simultaneously claims that a huge number of mail-in ballots in his favor remain to be counted, while also asserting that the mail-in ballots constitute the most egregious instance of voter fraud in electoral history.”

(Rachel Maddow continues speaking as the cameras shift to a POV shot of the stage and central podium of the Donald Trump re-election headquarters. The tops of heads of some of the audience are visible in the foreground.)

“We go now to Trump’s re-election headquarters, where his son, Donald Trump, Jr., is about to introduce the Vice-President.”

(Crowd noise: “Forty More Years! Forty More Years!” Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down” plays in the background.)

Donald Trump, Jr. strides to the podium: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.” (He repeats these three sentences sixteen times.) Crowd continues to chant: “Forty more years! Forty more years!”

“I will begin…

(crowd continues chanting… “Forty more years! Forty more years!”)

“I will begin…. (Crowd begins to calm and the noise level slowly subsides.) I will begin this evening by asking all of you to join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance and I am sure there is no here tonight who will take a knee and act ashamed of being an American citizen. Let us all stand straight and tall.

“”I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

“We also pledge allegiance to elections free of fraud, deceit, and manipulation. My father and I have had a chance to review the ongoing results of the reelection of Donald Trump and found even more massive amounts of brazen irregularities than we anticipated, especially in the states that constitute the swing vote in the Electoral College. We have filed demands for recounts as well as legal reviews of all of these attempts to subvert the will of the people and will be monitoring the outcome until we satisfied with the final report.

“My father has given his all to the cause of American renewal and unprecdented prosperity. I can assure you that he is not going away. You remain utmost in his thoughts. I now call upon Vice-President Pence to address you about plans to hold rallies in the next two weeks. At these gatherings, which you will have to present proof of non-vaccination in order to be admitted, the President will speak about our efforts to insure that no future election will ever have to endure such perverse treason by those who claim to be citizens, but who hate our country. May God bless all of you who love this country, and may He keep this nation ever in His care. God doesn’t back down, and neither do we!”

Vice-President Pence takes the stage….
“Our President both needs and wants your prayers. In specifically asking for this tonight, he hopes that God will guide him in the coming weeks, as he undertakes to save this country from succumbing to the deceptive campaign and falsified voting totals being touted by a poltical party known for its self-serving, radical left-wing, socialist agenda.”

Etc. Etc.

(Stay tuned.)

July 20, 2020. — “Trust. but verify.”

Are you shelter-in-place positive? Maintaining vigilant social distance, and when you go outside, do you wear a mask? Or are you negative? If you’re shelter-in-place positive, you won’t be afraid to take the Carrot-19 test: what is the smell of a raw organic carrot? If you can’t smell it, you probably are one of the majority of people in Long Beach, CA who are NOT wearing masks.

I have bad news for those of you who think that Trump is going to be defeated this November. Just last night, in fact, watching a movie about Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Project, I realized what Trump is truly up to. As some footage of the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution skittered into the recollections of a musician in exile, I thought to myself, “Yeah. Trump wants to be the Ayatollah of America.” Well, in truth, it’s Pence that wants that job the most, but Trump is happy to accommodate him as long as he gets enough flattery and adulation in return.

The polls are wrong. Biden is not leading; or, let’s put it this way: if the same people are doing the political polls as canvassed the rate of mask wearing, then the polls are totally off. According to polls, 80 percent of people in L.A. County are wearing their masks when they go outside. Not in my neighborhood. I’d say it’s closer to half that number: maybe 40 percent.

Meanwhile, I hear the governor of Missouri wants the schools open because he believes that children get better from covid-19 fairly quickly, so what’s the problem?

Excuse me, Governor Mush-for-Brains: The disease can be spread by a child who has just gotten infected and is contagious, but not yet ill enough or showing enough symptoms to warrant sending the child home. In a classroom, the disease will then be spread to adults, such as teachers, who will then take it home and spread it to their parents. This is how a virus operates. I am not a M.D., but I don’t think one needs to have attended medical school to understand the basic velocity of a virus.

Of course, maybe this governor believes that a miraculous vaccine will appear in the next two weeks. Not only is a medical miracle not going to happen, I wish I could say that I had as much confidence in the vaccines that corporations are rushing to produce as I do in their primary motive: the profit-margin. I’m more confident in their motive than their product; if you think a pharmaceutical corporation sees any of us as other than a slab of meat to be processed in its accounts payable, you need to check the fine print of the social contract in the United States.

Does this mean that I don’t believe that a vaccine tested in the next two to three months will be efficacious? No. The vaccine might well work for a very high percentage of the population. It might very well be able to protect me from the pandemic.

I know, however, that the corporations are only willing to work on this project because they see a chance to make a great deal of money.

Trust, but verify.

Trust the vaccine, but verify (and tax) the profits.

The following information is being broadcast by the School of the Americas Watch, which I share with you out of a desire to reduce the carbon footprint of conflicts “resolved” by state-facilitated homicidal violence. However, this reduction will only become efficacious if ALL nations reduce their military budgets. Our demand should be that China and Russia engage in equal reductions. To ask less is to pretend that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are less mendacious than Trump in having encouraged the global economy of the war-machine. “Local” protest is of course of prime importance, but focusing our attention only on our government will not bring a reduction in the death wish of humanity, which has been extraordinarily strong the past 500 years.

*. *. *.

“Within the next week, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are expected to vote on amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act, which would cut the Pentagon budget by 10%. Representatives Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan in the House and Senator Bernie Sanders in the Senate have introduced these amendments to cut the 2021 fiscal year budget of the Department of Defense by 10% — which amounts to $74 billion of the record-breaking $740 billion Defense budget. The amendment would use this money to create a grant program to fund human needs, such as education, healthcare, and more for communities with a poverty rate above 25%.

“Take action: Call both your Senators and your Representative today and ask them to support the amendment to cut the Pentagon budget 10%. You can reach them all by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. You can also e-mail them by clicking here.

“SOAW joins numerous other organizations in supporting this important initiative. The enormous Pentagon budget funds U.S. military intervention around the world and must be cut. While $74 billion is far shy of the $350 billion in annual military spending cuts identified by the Poor People’s Campaign Moral Budget, it is a start. Furthermore, the need to redirect funds to human needs has never been more urgent given the COVID-19 crisis. A vote on the amendment in the Senate is expected the week of July 20 (next week!) and the House vote is also expected very soon.

“Take action today!

1. Call both your Senators (find them here or call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121) and ask them to support Senators Sanders’ amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to cut the fiscal year 2021 Department of Defense Budget by 10%.

2. Call your Representative (find your Rep. here and call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121) and ask them to support the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act introduced by Representatives Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan to cut the fiscal year 2021 Department of Defense Budget by 10%.

3. E-mail your Senators and Representative here.

“Thank you,”

— SOA Watch

The SOA refers to the School of the Americas, a U.S. government project that became so infamous that it was decided to change a name change was necessary in order to escape the aura of its main purpose: to train those who foment military coups and paramilitary torture prisons. It should go without saying that anyone endorsing such an equivalent watchdog organization in Russia or China would find themselves in great peril. If I speak about this, I do so with an infinitely greater chance of waking up tomorrow in my residence and not in a prison cell. On the other hand, reports are coming in that squads of unmarked cars in Portland are kidnapping protestors involved with the movement to hold police accountable for their actions. IF Trump is re-elected, it is likely that the use of such covert forces will exponentially increase.

I don’t expect things to get much better, regardless of the outcome of the election. Nevertheless,….

“Pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will.”

July 17, 2020

After the marriage to my first wife, Cathay Gleeson, ended, we still stayed in touch. Towards the end of the last century, I remember one afternoon that she called to ask me if I knew of the poet Galway Kinnell. “Since the spring of 1968,” I told her, “when I got his book, BDOY RAGS.”

“Do you know a poem of his with the title ‘When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone’?” she asked.

“No, I don’t. In truth, I haven’t looked at his work in a while.”

“You should look it up. I was watching the PBS evening news yesterday and they had him on as a featured poet, and that was the poem he read. It’s a great poem, Bill.”

Cathay was not one to seek out poetry; she preferred dance and visual art. Poetry was welcome, however, if it showed up at her door, as it frequently did when we lived together. Afterwards, too, she was a generous host to its presence. The first time that I read Kinnell’s poem, I instantly saw why it spoke to her so profoundly.

I often thought of that conversation the next 20 years, and now it seems more poignant then ever. In my sorrow for her passing, I like to think that its rhythms gave her comfort in the all the years after she first heard that poem, and recognized in it her self-determination to achieve some embodiment of its theme of arduous joy.

……………. one knows,
after a long time of solitude, after the many steps taken
away from one’s kind, toward the kingdom of strangers,
the hard prayer inside one’s own singing
is to come back, if one can, to one’s own,
a world almost lost, in the exile that deepens,
when one has lived a long time alone.

July 16, 2020

Lawrence R. Smith has just posted the 40th and final issue of the online version of CALIBAN magazine, which in turn was the successor of the 20th century print culture edition. I was saddened to learn in the issue of the death of the artist Ellen Wilt (1921-2020), who continued to work until the very end.

The final issue is the usual very fine blend of poems, prose poems, and visual art; in particular I want to mention the art work of Janet Kauffman (“The Book of Nials”) and the poems Karen Garthe and Tim Kahl. The issue opens with piece that is both critique and resilient incantation (“The Ethos of Capital: Reductive Possibility”) by the indefatigable Will Alexander. I will quote part of Jim Grabill’s statement at the end of the issue as a way of summing up the appreciation of all contributors and readers of CALIBAN over the years:

“Thank you, Lawrence Smith…. You’ve valued work that lives outside the frame, that corresponds with 20th century outbreaks of surrealism, liminal imagism, anfractuous thalassic personism, bio-associative cultural ethicism, and other unnamed thoracic and often spontaneous poetic forms ready to handle bonanzas of disparity and scrupulous estates on the field of integration.” — James Grabill

ALL 40 ISSUES WILL REMAIN ONLINE INTO THE INDEFINITE FUTURE. Now for the re-visions of reading to begin!

www.calibanonline.com

July 15, 2020

Those who are familiar with the poetry scenes in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s will not need to be reminded of the crucial role that Papa Bach Bookstore played in accelerating the maturation of those scenes. There are also people who fondly recollect the store as a cultural resource that allowed them to build up a personal library at a reasonable cost. One of the most nostalgic pieces of writing in the latter mode that I have encountered is at the following link:

GRUBERG: The Papa Bach Story 1

GRUBERG: The Papa Bach Story 1
Posted on February 15, 2019 by Tarnmoor
“In the early 1970s, Ted and Eva sold the bookstore and moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Ted told me that he planned to start a Papa Bach Bookstore there, but I have found no evidence that that ever happened. I even checked out the Jackson Hole phonebook when I was there in 2008, but found no listing for Papa Bach or the Riedels. I liked them, so I can only hope that things went all right for them.”

In this post, I would like to share with Tarnmoor physical evidence of the existence of the bookstore in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This is a book bag that I acquired when Sandra Tanhauser and I visited the store in the summer of 1976 on our way to Yellowstone National Park. Furthermore, I have been contacted by one of the offspring of the founders of that store, so I can in turn update Tantamoor a bit in regards to the history of the store. As is the case with anyone who wishes to comment on one of my posts, Tarnmoor can contact me at: William.Mohr@csulb.edu AND/OR William.BillMohr@gmail.com).

Papa Bach Bookstore published 18 hefty issues of BACHY magazine, as well as holding many readings on its premises. Because the store folded in the mid-1980s, its contributions to the poetry scenes in Los Angeles has receded, but Paul Vangelisti among others argues that Papa Bach and not Beyond Baroque was the real center of the scene. Its publications parties for issues of the magazine were well attended and drew poets from all parts of the city. The store played a crucial, indirect role in avant-garde poetry in the late 1980s, when the editor of BACHY magazine shifted his efforts towards his own projects. Lee Hickman would never — and I want to emphasize that never — have dreamed of starting BOXCAR and TEMBLOR magazines if he had not first gained his editorial confidence by working on BACHY. Every poet who takes pride in having been published in TEMBLOR (and it is one of the legendary magazines of the period) needs to acknowledge Papa Bach Bookstore as the progenitor of that felicitous outcome.

POST-SCRIPT: (the evening of July 15th)
A few weeks ago, I jotted down a comment I made about war, and noticing it this evening suddenly brought back the memory that Papa Bach Bookstore was known for providing draft counseling to young men back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The draft counselors used the upstairs loft to meet with these who needed guidance in how to resist or evade the draft.

So what was the comment, you ask?
“There are no atheists in foxholes,” is a cliche about soldiers trapped in the throes of combat; to which my response is — “But if only those who are atheists can serve in foxholes, there will be extraordinarily fewer wars caused by religious perfidy.”

(This blog entry, as is the case with the entire blog, is copyright Bill Mohr 2013-2020. All rights reserved. Permission to quote or to use an image in this blog must be obtained in writing from the author.)

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

W – E
The W(est)-E(ast) Poetry Reading Series is delighted to present
Its second bi-coastal collaboration:

Marsha de la O
Kai Coggin
liz gonzalez
Gerry LaFemina
Mike The Poet Sonksen
Barbara Unger

SUNDAY, JULY 19th
7 p.m. (NYC time)
4 p.m. (L.A./S.F. time)

Reach out to one of the three W-E co-hosts: Susana H. Case, Lynn McGee or William Mohr, for the Zoom link. Please share it with your friends, but not in a public forum.
ANYONE WISHING TO OBTAIN THE ZOOM LINK SHOULD WRITE ME AT:
William.BillMohr@gmail.com
Subject line: W-E Information Request

WHAT AND WHEN

On Sunday, July 19 — 7 p.m. NYC time; 4 p.m. L.A. time — W-E, Bicoastal Poets of the Pandemic and Beyond is excited to present east coast poets Kai Coggin, Gerry LaFemina and Barbara Unger, and west coast poets Marsha de la O, liz gonzalez andMike the Poet Sonksen.

Over a hundred people from around the country attended our inaugural reading last month, and W-E hosts Susana H. Case and Lynn McGee (east coast) and William Mohr (west coast) are looking forward to another event that cross-links west- and east-coast poetry communities.

We hope to see you on July 19. Stay safe and well. Keep writing or whatever keeps you strong.

MORE ON THE POETS

KAI COGGIN is author of the poetry collections Periscope Heart (Swimming with Elephants, 2014), Wingspan (Golden Dragonfly Press, 2016) and Incandescent (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019), as well as the spoken word album Silhouette (2017). Nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and twice for Best in the Net, Kai’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Entropy, Sinister Wisdom, Assaracus, Calamus Journal, Lavender Review, The Rise Up Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Luna Luna, Blue Heron Review and elsewhere. A teaching artist with the Arkansas Arts Council and Arkansas Learning Through the Arts, Kai also hosts the longest-running open mic series in the country, Wednesday Night Poetry. She lives in the valley of a small mountain in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.

To order signed copies of Kai Coggin’s books, click here:

www.kaicoggin.com

liz gonzález grew up in the San Bernardino Valley, California and is the author of Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds: Poems y Cuentos New and Selected (Los Nietos Press 2018). Her poetry, creative nonfiction and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Interlitq, Voices de la Luna, Askew Poetry Journal, The Anthology of Contemporary Chicanx Writers and Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, among others. She teaches creative writing at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and lives in Long Beach, California with an indifferent Chihuahua, a talkative tortie cat and Jorge Martin, a scientist and musician.

To learn more about liz gonzález, visit her website:

https://www.lizgonzalez.com

To order Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds: Poems y Cuentos New and Selectedby liz gonzález, click here:

http://www.losnietospress.com/?s=liz+gonzalez

GERRY LaFEMINA’slatest books are the poetry collection The Story of Ash(Anhinga, 2018) and a volume of prose poems, Baby Steps for Doomsday Prepping(Madville, 2020). His essays on poets and prosody, Palpable Magic, came out on Stephen F. Austin University Press and his textbook Composing Poetry: A Guide to Writing Poems and Thinking Lyrically was released by Kendall Hunt. A noted literary arts activist who has served on the AWP Board of Directors and edited numerous literary journals and anthologies, Gerry is the former director of the Center for Literary Arts at Frostburg State University, where he is a Professor of English. He also serves as a poetry mentor in the MFA Program at Carlow University and is a current Fulbright Specialist in Writing, Literature and American Culture.

To learn more about Gerry LaFemina, visit his website:

http://www.gerrylafemina.com

To order Gerry LaFemina’s books, click here:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gerry+lafemina&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

MARSHA de la O’s latest book, Every Ravening Thing (Pitt Poetry Series) came out in Spring 2019. Her previous book, Antidote for Night, won the 2015 Isabella Gardner Award (BOA Editions) and her first book, Black Hope, won the New Issues Press Poetry Prize. Marsha has published extensively in journals, including two recent poems in The New Yorker, as well as poems in the Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Barrow Street, Third Coast and the North American Review. Together with Phil Taggart, she produces poetry events and has edited the literary journals Spillway and Askew.

To order Marsha de la O’s latest book, click here:

Marsha de la O

BARBARA UNGAR’s fifth book of poetry, Save Our Ship, won the Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press and was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2019; it also won an IBPA Ben Franklin award and was a Distinguished Favorite of the IPA. Barbara’s chapbook EDGE — named for the EDGE lists of Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species — is just out from Ethel Press. Prior books include Immortal Medusa (Adirondack Center For Writing Poetry Award Co-Winner, 2015), Charlotte Brontë, You Ruined My Life (Finalist For The National Poetry Series & Sarabande’s Kathryn A. Morton Prize; The Word Works, 2010), The Origin of the Milky Way (Gival Poetry Prize, 2006), and Thrift (Finalist For The Tupelo, Verse, Starrett & New Issues Poetry Prizes & The May Swenson Poetry Award). A professor at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, she lives in Saratoga Springs, New York.
To learn more about Barbara Ungar, visit her website:
www.barbaraungar.net
To order Barbara Ungar’s latest award-winning full-length collection, Save Our Ship, click here:

https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9780912592749/save-our-ship.aspx

To order her 2020 chapbook, EDGE, click here:

https://www.ethelzine.com/chapbooks-minibooks

MIKE SONKSEN, aka Mike the Poet, is a third-generation Los Angeles native. Poet, professor, journalist, historian and tour-guide, his latest book Letters to My Citywas published by Writ Large Press. For the last decade he has published over 200 essays with KCET and his poetry has been featured on the Public Radio Stations KCRW, KPCC and KPFK, as well as TV programs including Spectrum News. Mike teaches at Woodbury University in Burbank, California.

To order Letters to My City by Mike Sonksen, click here:

http://theaccomplices.org/portfolio/letters-to-my-city-by-mike-sonksen/

July 10, 2020

In 1972, Paul Vangelisti and John McBride decided to publish a book of poems by John Thomas, who had initially surfaced as a poet in the Venice West scene shortly after the publication of the Lawrence Lipton’s The Holy Barbarians. Thomas had originally hitchhiked to the West Coast with the intention of living in San Francisco, but the ride he caught was headed to Los Angeles, and so he decided to visit Venice. Thomas did not have a very high opinion of Lipton’s book, but fortunately he found the poets who were used as Lipton’s models of contemporary bohemian life (circa 1957-1959) to be more than worth spending time with. Thomas was primarily responsible for starting a poetry workshop in Venice, which included another recent arrival in Venice, Eileen Aronson Ireland.

Ireland became friends with several of the poets who made up the Venice West community, and went on provide the epigraph for the first poem in John Thomas’s eponymous Red Hill collection. According to Eileen Ireland, the epigraph was taken from a passage in a letter she wrote him.

“it is snail today about
4 whorls in the ice on the
Arctic floe southerly”
— Eileen Ireland

Almost a half-century later, it is Eileen’s turn to have her first book of poems published. IF SF Publishing is proud to announce the publication of SPOKEN FLARES, SUNG BEACONS: Selected Poems and Lyrics. The cover photograph of the Venice boardwalk is by poet and photographer Rod Bradley. The publisher and the author thank him for its use.

The book will be available from SPD: spdbooks.org.

July 8, 2020

About a year ago, our neighbors acquired a very dilapidated Teardrop trailer and set about making it inhabitable again. This model of portable camping out stopped being made well over a half-century ago, and I can assure you that the interior of this particular Teardrop needed complete refurbishing. I confess that I yearned to know of its provenance. It seemed like a master painting that had been left in a damp attic to find for itself for many winters, but was now about to glow in all its humble splendor.

Midday yesterday, Linda and I headed out to take a brief walk and got rewarded with a chance to see it, fully restored and road worthy again, just before it started rolling on its first outing in many years! Bon voyage!