Bethany ___ Politics with a ___, and then ___, Quickly

Normally, I don't like to touch politics—the same way I don't like to touch rotting zombie flesh. But last night I watched the State of the Union address like the good civic-minded person I pretend to be. (This does eventually have a connection to language; I promise.)

I've watched a fair number of State of the Union addresses, over several administrations. And I find myself wondering, Can we all just agree—not as Republicans or Democrats or too-cool-for-your-party Independents—but as Americans, that State of the Union addresses are boring?

They're basically recap. We're really just watching to see if the President is going to sneak in something awesome (i.e. Our New Inalienable Right to Chocolate) or horrifying (i.e. Selling Idaho to China Will Help Us Balance the Budget). And because all the good TV shows have been postponed.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, do you remember Mad Libs? I sure do. As a kid, I learned the difference between adverbs and adjectives from those crazy fill-in-the-blank stories.

Well, Cracked.com kindly gives us State of the Union Mad Libs. There's more to the article, but the Mad Libs made my night.

(Heads up: The rest of the article contains some swearing—as is typical of Cracked.com articles.)

P.S. Thanks, Caitie, for pointing this out.

R.I.P.: James Baker Hall (also Some Bad Excuses and a Plotness Story)

So I thought I was going to write another blog post last week, but both my internet and my brain went down (electrical problems and a bad flu/cold). If I wanted to sound really pathetic, I would add that the dishwasher also went out, but it's not as a good an excuse.

Over the weekend, I found out that former Kentucky Poet Laureate James Baker Hall passed away.

Besides being Poet Laureate of his home state, he won numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and an O. Henry Prize. Hall wrote fiction, poetry, and was a professional photographer. He was married to novelist Mary Ann Taylor-Hall.

I know that among the many people who will feel Hall's loss are his students. I never studied under him, but I was fortunate enough to hear Hall read at my local library when he was making his Poet Laureate circuit. And that, by itself, was an education.

On the way to the reading, I ran into an older woman from my poetry group. She asked me what I thought about James Baker Hall. I made some innocuous remark about liking his work (I didn't mention the poems I couldn't understand), and she replied, "Well, I think he's a fox. A silver fox." I swear, if she knew how to growl, she would have.

I must have stepped back because she added, "That's something you'll understand when you reach my age."

It was a good reading. I wish my memory of it was clearer. I'm horrible at describing voices, but I know Hall's was distinctive, sort of deep and wry and gravelly. His head was round and balding, but his eyebrows were bushy and expressive and accented the sharp brightness of his eyes.

Most of the audience was silver-headed. Afterwards, when I asked Hall to sign my copy of Mother on the Other Side of the World, he squinted at me and said, "Do you write poetry?" At the time, I thought this was some kind of shaman-like poet's intuition. (Now I realize that I had been so young and eager that this was the obvious question to ask.)

"Yes," I confessed.

"Is it any good?" He raised one of those expressive eyebrows.

"I don't know. Maybe." (How do you answer a question like that?)

Then he smiled and signed my book and that was the end of that. I had thought I would be able attend another reading by Hall some time in the future, buy another book, get it signed as well, and maybe by that point I would have published enough poetry to have answered his question.

Obviously, that's not going to happen now.

Even by relative strangers in the dusty corners of poetry-writing, you are missed, Mr. Hall. You Silver Fox.

(Image from the University of Kentucky.)

Gurney Norman: New Kentucky Poet Laureate

National Poetry Month seems like the perfect time to formerly induct a new state Poet Laureate, and on Friday (April 24th) Gurney Norman will officially take over from Jane Gentry Vance. After receiving the news, my first thought was Oh! I didn't know Gurney Norman wrote poetry. How wonderful!

Well, he hasn't published any poetry. The official Kentucky website says, "The word 'poet' in the position's title is interpreted in its broadest sense to include persons whose accomplishments are in any literary form." The dictionary allows for this broad use of the word poet. But the U.S. Poet Laureate always falls under the narrower definition and writes poetry, and as far as I can tell, all of Kentucky's past Poet Laureates wrote poetry. This seems a little funny to me.

Part of me is peeved because it's not as if Kentucky's run out of great (poetry-writing) poets on whom the Kentucky Arts Council/governor could bestow this honor. And part me is tickled by imagining the Kentucky Arts Council watching Gurney Norman's long and acclaimed career and waiting and waiting for him to write a volume of poetry until, finally, someone exclaims, "Darn it all! We have to get Gurney Norman for Poet Laureate before the man dies on us."

I've only read Norman's Kinfolks (so far), but his history of prose achievement and promoting literature in Kentucky (and Kentucky in literature) is certainly worth honoring. A major part of the job of Kentucky Poet Laureate is to advance reading and writing in the Commonwealth, and in that sense, Gurney Norman is a perfect fit. I won't be able to attend the ceremony in Frankfort, but I hope our new Poet Laureate makes it down to my end of the state. I also hope that he pays special attention to the important, but much neglected, role of Kentucky poetry.

Rest In Peace, John Updike

While I was out of contact with the world, John Updike died.

A Terrible Beauty: Winter Storm 2009, Western Kentucky

In case anyone was wondering, I haven't been asleep at my post. Western Kentucky was right in the middle of a catastrophic ice storm, and I've been without power for 8 days. (700,000 homes/sites lost power, and some may not have it for weeks yet.) The kinfolk and I are fine (Praise God!), but being in the center of federal disaster area does not lend itself to frequent blogging. Please keep the area in your prayers--especially people without any heat or water.



Like elaborate blown-glass... Aprox. one inch of ice, which the local media said made the trees weigh 30 times more.

Most of our trees couldn't hold that kind of burden.



The treeline around the house (or anywhere I've been, really) looks like a drunk barber came through with a giant pair of clippers. For at least 24 hours after the storm hit you could hear large branches cracking and falling at the rate of about three a minute. First, there would be a sudden popping noise, like gunfire in the distance; then a loud crack! as the branch broke completely free; and finally a tinkling sound, like glass wind-chimes, as everything fell.




After the ice melted, the top finally snapped off this juniper tree (greenish thing to the left). Stepping outside, the first thing that hit me was the "green" and slightly spicy smell of all the broken pine and oak trees.


Close-up of a hole through the roof of my parents' house. (Caitlin, if you're reading this, take a close look--it'll be gone before you get back. Terribly undramatic for a hole-through-the-roof, I thought. Not that I'm complaining.)



Dad taking care of some of the mess with his chainsaw. Still photos don't begin to capture the otherworldly nature of the aftermath. Sometimes life is more dramatic than literature.

(Note: Many of these photos were stolen from my parents. Thanks, Mom and Dad!)

My Kind of Lunatics

Moby Dick is now the official "epic novel" of Massachusetts. What I love, however, is Rep. Cory Atkins' reaction to making Moby Dick the state book. Atkins sounds as if she was being asked to pass legislation to allow an open hunting season for kittens. I doubt my state legislature would get that excited over picking a state book.

But I suppose it's no surprise that Boston, MA is the U.S.A.'s 7th most literate city?