WOMEN HEROES

In these last few minutes of women's history month (which is every month to me (in a post-gender kind of way)) I thought I'd make an off the top of my head alphabetical list of the women who have been my heroes from boyhood on:

JOSEPHINE BAKER

QUEEN MAEVE OF CONNACHT

DOROTHY DAY

EMELIA EARHART

RODA FELAT

JANE GOODALL

FANNIE LOU HAMER

HELEN KELLER

MYRNA LOY

JANET MOCK

SINEAD O'CONNOR

ROSA PARKS

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

SONIA SOTOMAYOR

HARRIET TUBMAAN

MILALA YOUSAFZAI

MINARI

 
MINARI is a personal, almost poetical, story of an immigrant Korean family in conflict, by screenwriter/director Lee Isaac Chung. The story is intimate, the acting brilliant, the impact, for me, mixed. Totally worth seeing, especially for the award-deserving performance by Yuh-Jung Youn as the grandmother.

OLD FAVORITE QUOTE

" It's hard to be easy."  —Ned Rorem (from An Absolute Gift)

NOMADLAND

 
Some terrific acting in this film, a lot of it by non-actors. Director and co-screenplay adapter, Chloe Zhao became a favorite of mine after seeing her 2017 film THE RIDER. That film also included a lot of non-actors more or less playing themselves, as does NOMADLAND. In the former I found it worked seamlessly. In the latter, at times I was a little distracted by guessing who were the real nomads portraying more or less themselves.

Otherwise it's a quietly stunning movie with another brave performance by Frances McDormand. I only wish I could have seen it on a big screen to fully appreciate some of the Western vistas displayed. And I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending. Not necessarily a bad thing.

NADIA OWUSU'S AFTERSHOCKS/GLENN MOTT'S ECLOGUES IN A MUSTARD SEED GARDEN/ANDREA LEE'S RED ISLAND HOUSE

Here's three recently published books by three of my favorite writers:

This memoir by Nadia Owusu is totally captivating, enlightening, moving and unique. Her story is so singular there is none like it I have ever heard or read, and her writing embodies that singularity. Her ability to infuse a tale of pain and loss and confusion and transcendence with thoughtful lyricism and compelling narrative is, for me, totally satisfying. A great book.

[full disclosure, I consider Nadia a friend since we read together at Pace a few years ago]

Glenn Mott's new book has no genre designation on the back cover as so many books do, for good reason. Based on a poetic form, this collection could be called poetry with prose interludes, or philosophic aphorisms or much more. But it is really just one of those rare quirky books that become personal treasures because they are so indefinable.

Here's the blurb I wrote for it that appears on the back cover: "Here is a unique compendium of wit and wisdom, contradiction and confirmation. It's like a mini-library in one volume, generating insight, argument, amusement, and entertainment."

[full disclosure: I consider Glenn a friend since we met at a reading at The Saint Mark's Poetry Project several years ago]

Since the first thing I read of hers, decades ago, Andrea Lee has been a favorite writer of mine whose books I've recommended and passed on to friends ever since. Every word she has published has engaged and satisfied me and my print junkie obsession.

Her latest, RED ISLAND HOUSE, you may have read excerpts from in The New Yorker, and if so you know she's a skilled storyteller. But her writing is also always unique in its perspective (much like Owusu's and Mott's). As someone who has been devouring books since childhood over seven decades ago, I am almost always thrilled at writing that reflects realities I've never experienced the way the writing displays. It was the reason I wrote and still do, to offer an individual take on the reality I experience which, if you are anything like me, is what I want from what I read.

THE LITTLE THINGS

THE LITTLE THINGS is another depressing and distressful police procedural that exploits violence against women by the plot's pretense of fighting it. The script is full of inconsistencies, Rami Malek seems miscast, and Jared Leto gives one of his creepiest performances with his usual unique physical transformations. But Denzel made it still worth watching, for me, as he gives one of his signature master classes in movie acting.  
 

ROBERT HERSHON R.I.P.

I first met Bob, as his family and friends called him, in the 1960s when he was one of the editors and publishers of a new little literary magazine that came as a packet of separate loose pages stuffed in an envelope, hence its name: HANGING LOOSE. He became an instant friend (and later book publisher when the press added books to its line up) and remained so over all the years since. 

Bob was six years older than me and felt like a big brother, a funny one (I had an ex-cop big brother named Robert who was twelve years older and a jokester as well). Hershon's quick wit, even when aimed at me, always made me laugh, which was an unexpected gift because my inability to be equally witty usually soured me on that kind of banter. But Bob Hershon's love for his fellow poets and friends, and most folks, radiated from his heart even when cracking wise.

In fact, his readings were known for the laugher his poems often generated, even sometimes when addressing serious subjects. Some thought of him as a stand-up comic as much as a poet. But he was one of our most wonderful poets and should have had the name recognition of our most famous ones. I think because his poetry was often humorous it sometimes wasn't taken as seriously as it should have been, and because he didn't fit into the categories that critics create for poetry movements and scenes.

In fact Robert Hershon was unique, as a poet, editor, publisher, co-founder and director of The Print Center (that made it possible for many small presses to publish), and husband, father, friend, and wit. His physical presence will be, and already is, deeply missed, but his printed and recorded presence will live on. Rest in poetry, Bob.

[PS: here's the full text of the title poem from his 2019 collection END OF THE BUSINESS DAY:

"I looked in every file and folder/under the fax and behind the/Xerox. I retraced my footsteps/and pawed through the waste/paper and finally/I found what I'd done with this poem//So I folded it in half and then in/quarters and then to the size of/a matchbook/and I put it in my breast/pocket and I gave it a pat/and I turned out the lights/and I locked the door/and I ran for my life"

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

 
PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, as you probably already know, is a uniquely clever revenge fantasy written and directed by Emerald Fennell, with a lot of terrific acting, but it's the brilliant Carey Mulligan's show all the way. Worth watching just for her (and delightful to see Laverne Cox in it too). 

MANK

MANK tells one version of how CITIZEN CANE was written. Films about writing are difficult to make engaging, or even entertaining. This one does a relatively good job, though it took a while for it to totally grab my attention. Mostly touted for the acting, the critical acclaim on that level (especially Gary Oldman as Mank and Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies) is pretty valid. 

Scripts based on historic events are often distorted for supposed dramatic purposes but they still often bug me if I have any real knowledge of the subject (see my post on THE CHICAGO 7). MANK is no exception, but it's still worth watching.

HAPPY SAINT PADDY'S

 
My cousin, the late Paddy Lally, in front of the home my Irish immigrant grandfather grew up in (whose name was Michael "Iron Mike" Lally) outside Athenry in County Galway.. I took this photo in the 1990s. Last time I visited and spent time with Paddy was in the first decade of this century. A humble but brilliant man.

As was his namesake, Saint Paddy, who if you remember any fact about, it should be that he, once enslaved for several years before escaping, has been cited as the first person in recorded history to speak out about and condemn slavery. 

BELATED HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK

 "If you don't say what you want, what's the sense of writing?"  —Jack Kerouac (from The Vanity Of  Duluoz)

LOOKIN' UP

Lotta stuff lookin' up recently...like Uncle Joe's Covid relief package getting some challenges met that Dems have been trying to accomplish for decades, and Spring in the air around here, and one of the least boring Grammy Awards ceremony (to me) in years with a lot of fine performances (the tribute to some who passed in 2020 was powerful) and the power in young activists influencing social and political changes...lots to be grateful for... 

TIM DLUGOS'S NEW YORK DIARY

 
So happy to see Tim Dlugos's NEW YORK DIARY in print (thanks to editor David Trinidad and publisher Sibling Rivalry Press). Captures the exuberance of Tim and pre-AIDS Manhattan perfectly. As I write in the blurb for it:

"Tim Dlugos was one of the smartest, wittiest, most socially dynamic presences on the New York poetry scene of the 1970s and beyond. And these diary entries capture his voice at its most intimate and perceptive. As well as displaying the deep delight he took in being a gay man and an out poet at a time and in a place where that was finally seen not as transgressive but as celebratory. Well, a little of both. As with New York poet and predecessor Frank O'Hara, many of Tim's friends thought they were his best friend, certainly I did. He had the ability to make you confess things to him and look for his approval. Which usually meant his matching your confession with his own. Everyone I know who knew him loved him, and many of us adored him. These glimpses into his life and mind show why."

DA 5 BLOODS

 
DA 5 BLOODS is a brilliantly flawed movie. A lot of Spike-Lee-isms, including: Brechtian devices reminding the viewers they're watching a movie; anachronisms that sometimes seem deliberate for obvious reasons sometimes not; passionately poignant scenes followed by history lessons; transcendent acting with a dab of bad acting; scenes with powerfully moving dialogue and monologues and scenes that too many writers had a say in; etc.  For me, any Spike Lee project is worth viewing if only for the risks he always takes, and DA 5 BLOODS is no exception.

STRONG WOMEN

 
I've posted this WWII photo before but thought it appropriate for International Women's Day because these are the strong women I grew up around and influenced my life. Starting with my mother who's holding me in her arms, a woman who faced every challenge with courage and love. Then from the viewer's left, my Irish immigrant Grandma Lally who lived down the street and always touched my heart with her kindness and humor. Next to her my great-aunt Allie who lived with us in her last years, an independent "career woman" who was the book buyer for a big department store and introduced me to my love of reading through the books she gave me and who, I found out after she was gone, had lived, unmarried, with a Jewish man in Manhattan in the 1920s. On my mother's right is her mother, my Grandma Dempsey who moved in with us not long after this photo was taken, a tough "crippled" woman who I never saw show fear, and on my left my Aunt Peggy who lived down the street and would sing or dance or play the piano whether she knew the tune or the notes or not, and my Aunt Mary, who lived next door and was the only Irish Protestant in the family and took no guff from anyone. I adored them all and feared a few and am eternally grateful for their lasting presence in my heart and life.

ANOTHER LIST

A lot of critics claim Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO as the best movie of all time. And many critics and friends consider PSYCHO or THE BIRDS their favorite Hitchcock film. Though I can watch any Hitchcock movie and enjoy something about it, those films are not in MY top ten Hitchcock movies that I most enjoy watching. But these are, in order of favorability:

1. REAR WINDOW

2. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

3. SHADOW OF A DOUBT

4. THE LADY VANISHES

5. THE 39 STEPS

6. NORTH BY NORTHWEST

7. FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

8. TO CATCH A THIEF

9. LIFEBOAT

10. ROPE

Here's a photo of me and my daughter Caitlin shortly after her birth, and a Lally sonnet I wrote about it, and a photo of her and me dancing a few years ago. 

FEBRUARY 28TH, 1968

I hold Lee’s hand for hours as she labors

quietly, only a string of curses under her

breath at the recurring pain. We can hear

a woman singing arias that get louder and

louder til her singing becomes screaming.

It scares Lee but also makes her laugh be-

tween contractions. Eventually they make

me wait in the room where fathers pace, as

in all the cartoons and movies, till Caitlin

is shown to me behind glass, in an incubator

cause she’s so small. I always found new-

borns with their pinched little faces alike and

wondered how people could line up and stare

at the little monkeys for hours. Now I know.

STILL RELEVANT QUOTE