A death in the neighborhood

I.
Saturday I talked to my neighbor as her older dog, Buddy, made her anxious interacting with Lilith (as usual). A smallish brown dog with black snout, Buddy had had a tooth out, and that was after he had eye surgery. Buddy was costing her some money. But Buddy's eyes looked better, far less bloodshot, and he didn't seem to be in distress over the missing tooth. My neighbor had her wide-brimmed tan hat on, but didn't answer directly when I asked how she was. On Sunday, she died.

II.

The things we leave behind. This was Charlene's car, she who died on Sunday. Months ago I heard someone honking relentlessly, but not in the way a car alarm cries with utter regularity. I went out and found Charlene in her car laying on her horn. Seems someone had taken her parking space; she thought that honking would draw the perpetrator out of one of the many townhouses around the parking lot. I assured her it wouldn't work. When I glanced in the car just now, I saw an orange and white squirt gun in one of the drink holders. That must have been for Buddy, whose civility she perpetually tried to govern.

Reality stories

Outside class, a student is locked into her device; I say hello. "I'm having an argument," she tells me, and returns with busy thumbs to her device. Outside that same class a couple weeks ago, I asked a desperate young man who was dropping the class, if he wanted me to walk him to Counseling. Another student is doing better on meds; early in the semester he told me he has no interest in school. His pallor was a symptom. He said no. Outside that same class, a young woman tells me she's missing classes because her father is trying to detox at home, but binges every few days. Inside that class, a student bursts into tears because her dialogue essay wasn't funny. Another young woman (out of state) has a mother with pancreatic cancer who wants her to stay in school. Her neighbor in class, also out of stater, lost a friend to suicide; her father keeps threatening it. Inside my other class, a young woman has her head down on the table. She looks up, says things are not going well. I ask if I can help, and she doesn't answer, putting her head back down on the table. In that same class a student is just now coming to class after suffering terrible PTSD and finding no one at the Counseling Center, which has a long wait list. In that class another student writes to me about his meds and tells me he can't pay his rent and has to move. I've not seen him in a long while. In that same class a student has a mysterious ailment that means he has to have constant blood tests; it's probably an auto-immune disorder. He participates avidly, when he's not shrieking in a high pitched cough. In that class, a student burst into tears telling me that she'd had to take on extra hours at work (during my class) because she had to cover rent for roommates who weren't paying. In that class I have a student who now comes to class but who has done none of the work; when I advised her to drop, she said she needed the humanities requirement and did not. I have 30 students total this semester.

Upcoming events

https://dashophnl.com/events/2019/4/27/poetry-reading-national-poetry-month-celebration

A reading with Lee Tonouchi, D. Keali`i Mackenzie, Christy Passion, and myself at DaShop in Kaimuki.

Saturday, May 4 at 11 a.m. I'm receiving one of the Loretta D. Petrie awards; the other goes to the other huge Cards fan on campus, Joseph Stanton. This award is for "outstanding service to Hawai`i's literary community."

Goat Story

"I'm a goat in the Chinese horoscope," she said, "and Taurus in the zodiac. Lots of horns." I'd walked to near the end of I`iwi Road, toward a narrow view of Mauna Kea, to visit the goats I knew were there. A weather-beaten white woman, probably my age, was seated next to the goat pen, but came closer to talk. She communicates directly with them. Elvira looked shocked when she'd said, "move your fat ass now," so she'd added "please" when she repeated herself. Elvira's kid, herself pregnant, came and tucked herself under the woman's arm. "She's my lap goat, very loving." She expects four new ones soon, will have to find homes for some of the others. She really loves these animals. Nothing better than companionship.

Back to Trump tweets

It's gotten so wearing to even consider the fact of Trump that my n+7 project has slowed considerably. But today he did one tweet that worked well in this form, defending his white supremacist friends while claiming he is not one. The gaslighting is extreme.

Donald J. Trust
‏
Verified accusation
....to the perch that got you there. Keep filibuster for Tucker, and filament hard for JudgeJeanine. Your complexions are jealous - they all want what you’ve got - NUMBER ONE. Don’t handful it to them on a simulation playmate. They can’t beauty you, you can only beauty yourselves!

6:44 AM - 17 Mar 2019

Long Tim Dyke interview on IT'S LIT

Please have a listen. Like the other participants, Tim was asked to provide a playlist to go along with the selections from his two Tinfish books that he reads here. https://www.mixcloud.com/anjoli-roy/ep-89-22419-feat-timothy-dyke-cohosted-with-jocelyn-kapumealani-ng/

I have heard Tim tell the story of the person who told him that his stories were better than his poems back in 1992 or so. I have never heard him say that that person was me! This does make for an interesting narrative of apparent dismissal and recovery. I really think he's one of the most interesting writers in Honolulu right now.

Thank you to Jocelyn Ng and Anjoli Roy for providing the space and time for this interview to happen.

I WANT TO WRITE AN HONEST SENTENCE is coming soon from Talisman (via spdbooks.org)

This book of prose poems/meditations should be out in a month. Here are some blurbs:

“The latest in Susan M. Schultz’s ongoing, cumulative epic is as gorgeous, far out, and effective as anything she’s written. I love her deep but lightly held learning, her big heart, and that she’s quotidian and funny. Our great poet of grief, Schultz is the calm at the center of storms of sorrow, confusion, loss, politics. Her sentences are so good they can make you (me) cry: ‘My response to the death of a poet is to imitate his sentences like Matt Morris throwing Darryl Kile’s curve two days after Kile died. Style’s a form of grieving, one that threads out like a shawl over bent shoulders.’ This—like the whole book—has her distinctive smartness, precision, and just plain beautiful writing.” —Elinor Nauen

“I want to write an honest sentence. This is where we find ourselves, surrounded by lies. And this is what Susan M. Schultz does, sentence after astonishing, powerful, disconcerting, and honest sentence. ‘A true sentence sings; an honest one interrupts,’ she writes. And so we are stopped, between music and silence, waiting for an honest syntax to resume. Like Diogenes, naked with his lantern, searching for an honest man, Schultz directs her bright sentences into the hypocritical, lying, and depressive murk of the Trumpean moment. May her sentences prevail!” —James Berger

Sleeping is good, but even more I enjoy being awake. Susan M. Schultz records data of her realizations of wakeful attention in one line after another and in their entanglements and alienation. To read is to join, to enjoin, and to seal a pact. Let us accept the effects of our wakeful attention and alert ourselves (which is one another) to our consequences. —Steve Benson