Any Psalm You Want

A collection of poetry

By Khary Jackson

Great poetry should be read aloud. And that’s why it has taken me so long to write this review. From the moment I began Khary Jackson’s Any Psalm You Want, his intense, electrifying language said, “Speak me!” so I did. And then, of course, I had to do it again, still allowing his words to fly trippingly from my tongue, and focusing on meaning, the sum total of passionate imagery, metaphor, symbol, historical allusion—of communication vibrant and intense. This is a brilliant book.

In poem after poem, Jackson impresses with wonderful connections between the mundane and the symbolic. In “From Antonio(Stradivari)”(p. 82), he connects the shape of Stradivarius’ violins with the shape of his first wife, Francesca, so the tender care with which he shapes his instruments becomes a love poem to his wife.

In “Abandoned House – for Detroit,”(p. 22) the emptiness of walls and floors becomes painful embarrassment to the life that once lived there—the loves, the hates, the arguments, the happiness: “When you’ve become an abandoned house,/your job is to remain still, to apostle your pride, to deny the mother’s voice in your bedroom ceiling,/ deny the father’s peppered steak in the kitchen,/deny the son’s fantasies in your shower.”

In “Enactment,”(p. 13) he twists the concept of a Civil War Reenactment, so that’s it’s gang versus gang in a drive-by, leaving a young boy “to twist his torso, yank his limbs to the choreographed puncture of lungs, thump the grass without bracing his fall, . . . and from somewhere near, from everywhere, a forty-year old black woman will howl for her boy. Her hands will shred the air.”

The historical fact of George Washington getting false teeth from the mouths of slaves, in “The Borrowed Mouth,” (p. 63) becomes an ironic speculation on why those teeth did not assume control, why their voices did not take over and speak through him in his political addresses, bewildering his audience with visions of a slave’s life from the mouth of the president.

In “Apologies to a House Party,” (p. 49) Nina Simone’s voice is background music at a party, yet the chatter goes on, no one’s really listening, and he wants to rage at them for silence, for the bluesy passion of her voice symbolizes the gritty injustice of Black experience: “Nina Simone’s giving birth while we stare at the wall./She is hunched over the coffee table wailing Mississippi Goddam!”

Jackson also impresses with the range of his poetic material. His titles alone document that he is well-read, constantly listening to the pulse of the world, and finding ways to intertwine the historical and modern: Such titles as “From Leadbelly to Kurt Cobain,” “John the Baptist—2^nd Coming,” “Frida in Detroit,” “George Gershwin Writes Janis Joplin upon Hearing Her Version of Summertime,” “Esperanza Spalding Plays Her Bass At The White House show that he tunes his poetic ears and eyes to the world.

In “Rosa Parks (or Blue Grass, Part II,)” (P. 70) Rosa Parks, Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith and Scott Joplin, intermingle with 50 Cent, Lil Kim, Eminem, Dr. Dre, and John Legend in a musical, historical collage reminiscent of the old tv show “Meeting of Minds,” where say Thomas Jefferson would sit and talk with Genghis Khan, Plato, and Queen Victoria. A wonderful imagination is at work in these poems.

In short, this is one terrific book by one terrific author. For intense beauty of language, for impassioned feelings, no matter what the topic, for poetic significance found in simple, tangible objects, read Any Psalm You Want, by Khary Jackson—aloud!

Bruce Roberts, April, 2013   

On Third Street:

Jack Kerouac Re-visited 

By Mark Schwartz

In Atop an Underwood, Jack Kerouac wrote, “So long and take it easy because if you start taking things seriously, it is the end of you.”

This seems a legitimate way to describe the “poetry” of Mark Schwartz, in his small book, On Third Street: Jack Kerouac Re-Visited. Schwartz, through his poems, seems to float through life and San Francisco from one disconnected image to another, a perpetual dream state of sex, drugs, booze, with some social protest thrown in for good measure. The overall effect is that of a wandering party, one that defies attempts to be very serious.

In terms of style, Schwartz is unusual. There’s very little that might be considered poetic language here. No similes, metaphors, symbols, irony? He does not seem to have a passion for language and imagery. Rather the way he embraces “poetry” in his writing is through the disconnect between his thoughts. In simple language, he jumps from one idea to another, leaving the reader to ponder the connection—or if there is one. If poetry is to make readers think, this works.

For example, “Could you imagine rule

by a leader

with a serendipity community?

Everyone talks with one another.”

In the world of Mark Schwartz, this is a complete poem, yet it leaves one wondering how ruling, a leader, a serendipity community, and talking to one another fit together. There seems to be a disconnect there, but it’s as if that’s what he’s aiming for.

One more: “On Montgomery With Alice Gould”

“And so I said,

‘what the fuck,’ to this chick I

saw on Montgomery,

and she said, ‘why not mister,’

and I said,’why not, what?’ ”

Again, this brief conversation is a complete poem, yet puzzling. Is he not paying attention to his own conversation? He begins, “what the fuck” and she responds “why not mister,” I assume she’s asking “Why not whatever he meant with his initial question.” His brain, however, seems to have wandered off and he doesn’t understand the conversation he started. A disconnect has occurred between his question and his answer, and it leaves the reader wondering.

Mark Schwartz is not Shakespeare, but then few are. His work, however, does create a counter-culture collage of images and life experiences that use his disconnected thoughts to perhaps stress the disconnect between this counter-culture and those who live more regular lives. Is this great poetry? No! Interesting? Definitely! Worth reading? Certainly.

Bruce Roberts, April, 2013

Just like home, 100 million light years away: more earthsized extra-solar planets discovered than ever before

If life exists elsewhere in the universe, how come we haven’t seen other beings yet? UC Berkeley astronomer Dr. Geoff Marcy addressed this and other questions in our latest enrichment talk at the Chabot Space and Science Center.

First, Dr. Marcy discussed NASA’s Kepler observatory, which suggests many more earth-like planets exist than we’d previously thought. He treated us to a video of Kepler’s 2009 launch from the Kennedy rocket, complete with audience yelling and wonderment.

Astronomers often find exoplanets, planets outside our solar system, by watching them pass in front of the stars they orbit. Kepler captures a snapshot of space every minute, and thanks to its ultra-stability, can detect a star’s becoming one ten-thousandth less bright. Regular variability in stellar brightness suggests the presence of a planet, and Kepler’s powerful enough to detect something just forty percent larger than Earth.

And, according to equations discovered and developed by the astronomer Kepler, if we know how long it takes for a planet to rotate around its star, then we can figure out how far away it is from the star. This gives us some clue about how much light it receives and its temperature.

After astronomers locate an exoplanet, they can follow up using the Keck telescope array in Hawaii. The star’s stellar wobble, its reflex motion in response to being orbited, is called the Doppler shift. This arises from the Doppler effect, where the wavelengths of light and sound change slightly as an object moves, either toward or away from the observer. Scientists can calculate the mass and density of the planet from this Doppler shift.

Dr. Marcy showed a chart of all planets the Kepler craft has found, plotted by distance from their stars and size. A great number of them ranged from 1-4 times Earth’s size, with dozens roughly the size of Earth. After adding to the total to figure in planets which Kepler likely missed because their orbits were tilted relative to its area of view, astronomers estimate that 23% of all sunlike stars have planets 1-3 times as far away as Earth.

Researchers, such as Harvard’s Courtney Dressing, are trying to find out how many of these earthlike planets might receive the same amount of sunlight as we do. One recently located exoplanet seems to have a similar temperature and orbital period (days spent orbiting its star) as Earth. These conditions place it within the theoretically habitable zone for life as we understand it.

If we shrunk the Milky Way to the size of the United States, the nearest possibly habitable planet would be just across the Golden Gate Bridge! In actuality, it’s just ten light-years away, not that long on a galactic scale.

Most stars are red dwarves, the smallest type of star, and researchers estimate that 15% of red dwarves host Earthlike planets. Kepler alone has located over 400 multiplanet systems.

This, naturally, leads to speculation about whether all these potentially habitable planets could host intelligent life. After all, a galaxy containing 200 billion stars could have around 100 billion planetary systems, with 10 billion of those habitable.

‘So, where is everyone?’ Dr. Marcy asked. As a response, he speculated that nearby civilizations could have grown up and developed, then blown themselves up before Earth life arose, by perpetrating nuclear war or climate change. Or, the life forms never evolved intelligence or self-awareness, as it never conferred a significant survival advantage. Dr. Marcy looked at the dinosaurs as an example, as some had larger brains than others, but these seemed no more likely to survive and reproduce than the others.

It could simply be that life and civilizations are dispersed throughout the universe, and the nearest alien city is far away from us, given our space travel and observation capabilities.

Regardless of why we’re still waiting on an encounter with alien life forms, Dr. Geoff Marcy gave our imaginations and curiosity fertile ground to play with in this talk. Not only is there so much out there in space, as the lead character’s father says in the movie Contact, but there’s so much more out there than we thought that looks and works like our own corner of the universe.

Radio Flyer

I had my Radio Flyer

Filled with every need:

Television and speaker,

Access for the freed

I had my sandals

For the long flight,

And electric candles

To displace the night

I left behind the stagnant,

Imagination in my pack

Any direction but remnants

Of what lies at my back

But the whirlwind

Off in the distance

Stared and grinned

At my lack of guidance

Caught in a swirl of fear

My impetus was lost –

I wrestled with the jeers

And grappled with the cost

In a land without signposts

I forgot the map of the past,

… creating new ghosts –

A thought not in my  forecast

With a tear to the heavens

I empty the Radio Flyer

As it alters my direction

And pulls me from the briar

Now, I no longer pull

But am led by this wagon

As my Radio Flyer is full

And light is my burden

Poem by Dave Douglas, who can be reached at carpevelo@gmail.com and is an artist, cyclist and writer.