Alien Inspection, Take Two

Or: The Return To The Tower



















Some days I love my job. Once again, I got to go adventuring around a distant county, on the backside of Devils Tower and the Missouri Buttes. In a reverse of my last expedition, the day started out gray and ominous, and turned to bright blue skies by lunch. The highlight was the plethora of wildlife we observed, including 21 bald eagles. (Yes, we kept count.)



















The first pair flew across the road on a wooded curve, startled up from eating roadkill by our passage. I think both my coworker and I flinched at the sheer size passing by the windshield. We saw several more on that stretch of road leading to Hulett. Luckily, traffic was sparse, so I had my camera ready and my colleague was prepared to pull over at a moment's notice. Of course the drawback to a semi-cheap digital camera is inability to get closeups, or real action shots.



















But as honkin' big as bald eagles are, they were easy to spot in the sky. We scared several more on a back road, feeding off a dead deer on the side of the road.

WARNING: Do NOT click on the pic to enlarge it if you do not want to see an eagle gnawed dead deer.








Strangely enough, there was also a dead cow not 2 miles down the road, untouched by anything. It must have died in the night, and the eagles hadn't discovered it yet. Or beef wasn't what was on their menu.



















We saw enough live animals to make up for the dead ones.




















Turkey, whitetail deer, horses, live cows, hawks, more eagles, more turkey, ranch dogs, and did I mention the overly friendly ranch horses? They swarmed the truck the instant we came over the cattleguard, and seemed quite miffed we didn't offer them a treat, or at least some of our coffee.




















The whitetails were everywhere, watching us. Like the turkeys of the last expedition, every time we stopped to take a picture, they got shy, or bounced off, flag tails in the air.



















The strangest thing we saw in our travels had wildlife (deer) around it, but wasn't alive itself - as far as we could tell. Mixed in with normal stacks of hay, was a strange, caterpillar shaped object. Since the deer were quite intent on gnawing at the seams of the plastic, we reluctantly concluded the white tubular objects were... hay condoms. There was no other explanation. After documenting the alien objects for posterity, we moved on.



















We got to see some pretty sights, also. The backside of the Missouri Buttes in a bright afternoon sky.



















By the end of the day, we'd circled almost all the way around the Missouri Buttes, and as we headed for home, they sank on the horizon.



















We made our way out of alien environs, pausing to be glad our school was in a bit better shape than the one we found out in the wilds.

























After a fun filled day of eagle watching and sliding around on muddy back roads, we were glad to see the office. I left it up to my colleague to explain to her husband why his nice, shiny white truck now matched the red-gray scoria of county back roads, and why there was horse slobber all down the driver's side door...



















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Year of the Ox Print

Quasi-moku hanga print done for the Baren Forum Year of the Ox Print Exchange.
4 x 6 inches,
Four colors, shina plywood, masa paper, Daniel Smith block inks
edition: 75


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Poetry Book Round-Up

Since I live in the wild west, a round up of sorts seemed in order. So here are some mini reviews about a few of the books I've been reading lately on poetic craft. Yes, I have more books than this in my line up, but reading four at once is about my limit. I think.

First up -

The Art of the Poetic Line

by James Longenbach

Logenbach delves into the function of the poetic line in poetry from metered to free-verse. In its most basic form, poetry consists of the arrangement of lines, and how the arrangement and rearrangement of the line changes and expands the meaning of the poem. Through examples, Logenbach shows how choosing an end stopped line over enjambment can heighten emotion, and how judicious use of enjambment can ratchet up the tension in a poem. Much of the book is a primer on how to expand and relax the tension in lines for optimum effect. The lesson from Logenbach is how every word, syllable, meter, rhyme and punctuation in a line of a poem can be fine tuned to improve your work.

Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems

by Susan Grimm

A collection of essays by different poets on how to put together a book of poetry. Some of the authors have obviously given deep thought about the order of their poems in a book, others have taken a more whimsical approach. Several discussed 'backfilling' with new poems to make the collection reach the theme or goal they set for themselves. A few essays touched on naming the collections – not as many addressed this as I would like, sort of a 'chicken or the egg' question I'm curious about. There was also discussion on how to arrange the poems for maximum impact, including the radical suggestion of letting a third party do the arranging. The unifying thought through all the essays, was 'there is no one right way to arrange a collection of poems.' I'm not sure if I find that thought comforting... or maddening.

Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft

by Tony Hoagland

Real Sofistikashun is another collection of essays on poetic craft, very accessible and interesting. Hoagland doesn't pull any punches in his analysis of several contemporary poets and their methods, indeed one essay drove me to seek out the poets mentioned and analyze their work more deeply. After I did that, I was ready to cast a more critical eye on my own work. The book is full of examples from a wide range of poetry, mostly contemporary. One of my favorite essays concentrated on Fragment, Juxtaposition, and Completeness.

Hoagland keeps the tone light while imparting his information, one of the last essays is titled Fashion Victims: The Misfortunes of Aesthetic Fate, about the fickleness of styles in modern times. This is an entertaining and interesting collection, well worth reading more than once.

After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography

Kate Sontag, David Graham, editors

A fascinatingcollection of essays on the "autobiographical impulse" in poetry. What makes poetry more prone to confessional missives than most other forms of writing? Essays range from the history and background of the autobiographical poem, to contemporary usage. One theme becomes clear; doing an autobiographical poem well can be tough. Connecting private suffering with public audience is something none of the poets take lightly. The concern is making the poem universal enough to connect with a collective, and finding a truth that can't be ignored because the 'right' truth in poetry touches everyone. It's a fine line between self-indulgence and relevance. The confessional nature of autobiographical poetry has the potential to scare readers away, but done well, the "I" in the poem speaks volumes for us all.

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