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Paul Couture: This is Central Coast Public Radio KUSP Santa Cruz, KBDH San Ardo, we're streaming and podcasting at KUSP.org. My name is Paul Couture, the program you've been listening to is Another View, independent news and opinion,

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Sundays seven till eight. Tonight we heard from Middle East, specialist Stephen Zunes, author of, "Tinderbox," U.S. Middle East Policy in the roots of terrorism. I follow that up with 10 minutes of Noam Chomsky from a recent speech. If you

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have questions or comments about anything you hear on the show, you can go to my webpage and contact me through the page that addresses KUSP.org slash view, KUSP.org slash view. Stay tuned now for the Poetry Show. Good night.

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Morton Marcus: Hello everybody, this is Mort Marcus and this is the Poetry Show. And before we get started, I have an important announcement. This program is supported by Aloha Airlines, offering daily nonstop service to Honolulu, Maui and Kona from

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Oakland International Airport, also flexible inter-island connections throughout the islands. Reservations and information are at AlohaAirlines.com. That was a message from paradise of course and, of course, you

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are in paradise with the Poetry Show, but you are deep in paradise because tonight's guest is Patrice Vecchione, a former co-host of this show with me, a wonderful poet herself, a teacher of children and poetry, who has now come out with a new

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anthology. I think this must be your fourth anthology? Patrice Vecchione: It's the fourth with Henry Holt in the City. Morton Marcus: And it is called, "Faith and Doubt" and we're

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going to be talking to Patrice about this book tonight. And we're also going to be telling you about a reading, a local reading, that will be taking place here on April 12th at 7:30pm at the Bookshop Santa Cruz, it is also a book signing.

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And Patrice, welcome to the sho`w and tell us some of the local readers who will be there who are also in the anthology. Patrice Vecchione: I will be joined by Joe Stroud, and Robert Sward, Gary Young, Anne Paganelli, and a translator, the

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woman who- we did a new translation of a poem for this book, so Alice Tao will be joining me as well. Morton Marcus: You did the [unintelligible] Patrice Vecchione: We did, yeah.

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Morton Marcus: And Steve Meadows, is he gonna be there? Patrice Vecchione: No, Steve will not be there. Morton Marcus: Oh, okay. Patrice Vecchione: I wish he was but he's way up in-

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Morton Marcus: He's not here anymore, he's not living here anymore? Patrice Vecchione: No, he's up in Placerville. Morton Marcus: Well, I'll be darned, I'll be darned. Well, it

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shows you how people come and people go. Well, I will read Steve Meadows' poem. Patrice Vecchione: Oh, good, oh, good, very good. Morton Marcus: That's great. Um, tell us a little bit about

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"Faith and Doubt." Now, you know, tell us about these anthologies, they're themed anthologies, and just give us the names of some of the others and what they covered. Patrice Vecchione: The first one was, "Truth and Lies." The

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second is the only one that's not a paired anthology, it's a book called, "The Body Eclectic," poems about the human body. And then, "Revenge and Forgiveness," came out shortly after 9/11. And then here we are with "Faith and Doubt."

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Morton Marcus: Great, and in very, very big sellers for Henry Holt? Patrice Vecchione: Yes, actually, this book, I believe is already in its second printing and it hasn't come out

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yet. Morton Marcus: That's great, that's terrific. Well, let's talk about "Faith and Doubt." What actually is this theme, this tug of war of between these two contrary ideas?

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Patrice Vecchione: Well, it takes a lot of forms in this book as faith and doubt takes a lot of forms inside of human beings. The initial impetus for this book really was the Bush government, I guess I should give them some credit.

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Morton Marcus: Of course, it inspired poetry. I wondered what they think about it. Patrice Vecchione: If they knew, I don't think they'd be pleased. I didn't appreciate the ramming down our throats, I can't think

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of a politer way to say that, of the definition of faith. And so, I thought, no, there's a lot of different faiths and there's a lot of ways to perceive and approach and experience faith. That was the initial, the initial impetus for the book, so

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that was religious faith that I was responding to there. And there are a number of poems in this book about religious faith and doubt. And then there's the political faith and doubt and there are a lot of poems also on on those topics. And then

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there's the personal, how it affects us just inside of ourselves, and then there's the writer side. All of these books that I do I always get the writer, what's the poet? How's the poet interacting with these themes? So, with this book,

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faith and doubt are so major for most writer and for every writer, usually more doubt than faith. Morton Marcus: Mhmm, but you say in the introduction that doubt has a way of circling around and giving you faith.

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Patrice Vecchione: Yes, it does. It's yeah, it's a good thing. And as much as I hate it, it's a good thing. Morton Marcus: Well, it's like, Descartes. I'm talking about the fact that you must deny everything you know in order to

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work out for yourself what to him, of course, would be a coming back to God because he was a very religious Catholic. And so, we've got all of these and, all of these wonderful anthologies, I should tell the people out there, they're all

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different approaches, they're all different people, they're all different voices and we're going to hear some of that tonight. But say more about the anthology. Patrice Vecchione: Well, as I wanted to juxtapose how to faith

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and doubt sit beside one another and all those different experiences, and how do they fit, like your, you know, throughout history. So, the earliest poem in this book is by Sappho, in 600 BC. She had faith as she writes in this poem, you

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know, you may not believe it but let me tell you in some future time people will think of us. And I thought, I've known that poem for many years and I thought, I certainly don't have that faith that people will think of us in a future time. I

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wish that I did. And she's so confident. So, back to 600 BC, we're thinking about faith and doubt, and then the Li Po poem. You know, in China, there's a poem of love thinking about faith and doubt. So, there's like this- all of these themes

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of these books, they're very universal, and they're timeless. And so, the book moves from 600 BC to the present and it also moves around the world, Brazil, China, United States, Turkey, Jerusalem, all over.

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Morton Marcus: It's interesting, you know, when I first came across the first love poem in the anthology, I said, what's a love poem doing in here? And then I said, oh, yeah, do you have faith in the loved one and in love itself or do you doubt

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him or her? You know, and even that love exists. So I said, oh, well she's smarter than I am now. Patrice Vecchione: That'll be the day, Mort. Morton Marcus: That's great.

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Patrice Vecchione: Well, it's also in friendship. There's a poem, one of the early poems in the book, is a poem about friendship and about how faith- Morton Marcus: The girl likes this guy?

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Patrice Vecchione: The girl who loved this guy, Anita Endrezze. And the second poem in the book is about- is written by a young man, it's the youngest author in the book, he was 15 when he wrote the poem, and he's thinking about his grandfather,

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who's very ill with cancer, and does he have faith in his grandfather's living or not? You know, and so, where does faith and doubt not enter our lives? The only thing I'm completely confident in is, put me in a kitchen and I can make a good

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meal, but other than that, you know- Morton Marcus: You have faith in yourself, then? Patrice Vecchione: I have faith in myself in the kitchen, completely.

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Morton Marcus: That's not a bad idea for a poem. I have faith in myself in the kitchen. Shall we read some of these poems? Patrice Vecchione: Sure. Let's, let's! Morton Marcus: And then we can talk some more in it. You know,

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the trick is how do you start off. The way this anthology is set up, you have the introduction, and then you just go right through the books. There are no separations. Patrice Vecchione: No sections, no.

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Morton Marcus: And so it seems to me that what you really did- had to do was hit a home run with the first poem because everyone's gonna come into the store, and just look at that first poem. And if they don't like it, that's it. And you got

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a beauty here, so would you like to read it? Patrice Vecchione: Sure and if you don't like this first poem, don't buy the book, really, because this first poem definitely sets the tone. And I've been reading this poem in

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schools lately, even as young as third graders, and then I asked them well, what do you think? What's unusual about God in this poem? And they pick it up pretty quick. Morton Marcus: It's such a great voice in the poem. It really

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just springs off the page. Patrice Vecchione: By Kaylin Haught, GOD SAYS YES TO ME I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic, and she said, yes. I asked her if it was okay to be short, and she said sure it is.

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I asked her if I could wear nail polish or not wear nail polish. And she said, honey, she calls me that sometimes, she said, you can do just exactly what you want to. Thanks, God, I said. And is it even okay if I don't paragraph my letters?

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Sweetcakes, God said, who knows where she picked that up, what I'm telling you is, yes, yes, yes. Morton Marcus: It's great, it's great. It's just I love the intimacy with which she talks to God.

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Patrice Vecchione: Right and that's really unusual. You know, we don't think about having that kind of familiarity and that God would refer to you as sweetcakes. And that, of course, God is a woman. And then the idea-

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Morton Marcus: We won't discuss that. Patrice Vecchione: We won't, but we'll just say one other thing about this poem, which is that, and this is something young people have commented on in the last few weeks, God is saying

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yes, Morton Marcus: Right. Patrice Vecchione: and often we think of God as saying no. Morton Marcus: Which is the subject of another poem,

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actually. Now, I gotta find out which one it is but it's all of those, the naysaying, which one is that? Patrice Vecchione: You can attest my memory on the book. The Joy Castro poem, the poem called NOT?

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, with everyone she's told not to do things Patrice Vecchione: The church, at home. Morton Marcus: Right, yeah, that's it.

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Patrice Vecchione: It's on page 16. Morton Marcus: Okay, yeah. Well, so I just- Patrice Vecchione: You read, yeah. Morton Marcus: And you know, it's really true you don't think

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about this. You think about, you know, going into a house of prayer, whether you're Jewish, whether you're Muslim, whether you're a Christian of any a sect, and even Buddhist, and what you're told is what not to do all the time, you know,

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Patrice Vecchione: Exactly. Morton Marcus: And it was a great place to take off. In church, at home, they fall about my head and shoulders, pelting like hail, like spitballs, like stinging B-Bs:

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the various endless, thou-shalt-nots, a welter of prohibitions of things unclean or merely worldly, things forbidden to us. In my mother's voice, the preacher's voice, the voice of Paul or Moses: No. So all right. I obey. My lips stuck

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shut with seen-and-not-heard, glued tight by fear of the rod not spared. I shoulder the empty weight of all God wants me not to do. My sacred secrets: the arms' tender melt when I carry my little brother, the chest's softening that comes with rain

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at dusk. The eyes' following wonder at the beginning, at the shining, twirling unnamed flecks of dust in a beam of light, dancing, falling gold. From dust I came, to dust will I return, that endless feeling. Holy of holies. The grown-ups mention

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none of those. I keep them to myself, not quite, not quite comprehending the genuine meaning of grace. Patrice Vecchione: And this poet I came upon because she wrote an essay in the New York Times magazine about her religious

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experience growing up, she was raised Jehovah's Witness. And so, I was able to track her down and she submitted several poems, and I chose this one. Morton Marcus: And her name is?

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Patrice Vecchione: Her name is Joy Castro. Morton Marcus: Who I just read. Patrice Vecchione: Yes, this was Joy. Morton Marcus: And the poem, by the way is NOT for those people

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out there who I sure am already putting down that "Faith and Doubt" will be on sale on April, the 12th, at a book signing at the Bookshop Santa Cruz at 7:30pm and that is a Thursday, April the 12th.

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Patrice Vecchione: Yes, indeed. Morton Marcus: And what should we do now? Patrice Vecchione: Well, you know, I'd love to read the poem that I first chose for this book, if I might, and it's

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actually when I got the idea for doing this, it was, I knew I wanted this poem in the book. It's a poem I've loved for many years and I'm an Italian but I always am never sure how to pronounce his last name John Ciardi. Gosh, I hope my father's

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not listening. He'll be awfully embarrassed. Morton Marcus: John Ciardi was very proud of being Italian. I'll tell everyone out there as you may know, certainly, I think the most readable and best translation of Dante is John

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Ciardi's. It's just been re-released, all three books of the Divine Comedy around a year or so ago, his translation. Patrice Vecchione: The poem is called ECHOES. Mother and father knew God and were glad to explain. I was

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happy to listen. Love is a conversation. When I said yes, they agreed, and I agreed. They touched me when they said, I understood the touch before the words. There is nothing to argue in being held closest. Had God been a lion, I would have done

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my best to grow a mane and to catch lambs to leave dead on his doorstep. I could catch nothing. I was left to believe love echoes love. I said what I was told for my pleasure and who told it for my need to be held in the telling, apart from true

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and false. The conversation is over. Given a choice between Dante and a stone over two graves, what shall I read? I have no mother and father. They have no God unless I remember one as part of a conversation I forgot, except that it pleased

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me to be touched in the telling. Morton Marcus: Do you mind if I take this aside with everything and talk a little bit about John Ciardi? Patrice Vecchione: Please.

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Morton Marcus: John Ciardi has been mainly forgotten. And at one point in the 60s, he was to poetry and television what Leonard Bernstein was to music. Patrice Vecchione: Is that right? I didn't know.

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Morton Marcus: He had a coast to coast television show in which he would talk about poetry. He was extraordinarily witty, he had a terrific presence. A lot of his poems, unfortunately, are witty, but others are really, really terrific. He's been a

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great inspiration to me, because when I was in the Air Force I know that book. during the Korean War, he became the poetry editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, which is no longer around, and

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was the big popular middle class literature review magazine that went on throughout the country. And the first book that came in was Anne Morrow Lindbergh's- O , I even forgot the name now. W It was a book of poems. She was a wonderful lady, but she wrote

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greeting card poems. And John Ciardi reviewed her book and just ripped it to pieces, not nastily, just ripped it to pieces. And I think they had 10,000 letters come in demanding he be fired.

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Patrice Vecchione: Oh my. Morton Marcus: And because you know, here was this woman who had suffered so much, Right.

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lost a child, you know in the Lindbergh kidnapping and here was writing these sweet poems with such nice sentiments in them. And Ciardi wrote back and he said, I may be fired from this job, he said, but what you got to understand was my review

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was not cruel. What a critic has to do and a poet has to do is keep the highest standards in sight. If you praise things that are second and third rate, then the young people who are coming into that art will look at things as their goals being

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second and third rate. Patrice Vecchione: Well, he was a bit prescient, wasn't he? I mean, if you look at how things are now- Morton Marcus: Oh, yeah.

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Patrice Vecchione: The level to which mediocrity rises. Morton Marcus: And you know, that was he was talking against mediocrity, and how necessary it was to keep the things. Well, he limped along in his job for a few more months, and then he was

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fired. But I never forgot that because I thought that his review was cruel. I was, you know, this young kid, and, and then I read his response, you know, several issues afterwards. And I just said, My Lord, that is something I must never

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forget. And everything I have done since in my classes, in the workshops that I teach, in my film reviews, always have that in mind. Patrice Vecchione: Well, you know, it pertains to the

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subjects of of this book as well. So should our faith be based in, as writers, on mediocrity? Should it be emptiness? Or is that what doubt is for as writers, that doubt is that you know, kicking at you, just slightly, you know,

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something sharp that says, harder, try harder. You're not there yet. Morton Marcus: No that, you know, that was another thing that well I learned that in my years of sports, you can always

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go farther than you think you can, you know? Patrice Vecchione: Yes, I've learned that on my bicycle. Morton Marcus: There you go! Anyway, that was a beautiful segue to take us back to the book that you just did. Everyone

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can tell that you were once on radio. Sorry, I just wanted to get that in. Maybe we'll rediscover John Ciardi. Okay, these again, we are talking, I should say, to Patrice Vecchione, who has edited now her fourth book with Henry Holt

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and Company. This anthology is called "Faith and Doubt." And we are reading poems from it and it is about those very subjects, faith and doubt. So, let us get back and read them some more. Patrice Vecchione: How about the Yehuda Amichai poem, okay, and

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I'm on page 71. I found this book, this poem, one of the last poems I found before I completed the manuscript, and it fit. I needed this poem. It's called the places, THE PLACE WHERE WE ARE RIGHT.

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From the place where we are right, flowers will never grow in the spring. The place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard. But doubts and loves dig up the world like a mole, a plow, and a whisper will be heard in the place where

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the ruined house once stood. And that really, that poem really connects to my initial impetus for this book, which is that- that you we need to be fluid and open and receptive, and not stuck in- in cement.

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Morton Marcus: And there are one or two peoms also that say something else that this poem says, which is, when you are really sure of something you're not open anymore, right, you know. And so, what's good about doubt is it makes you, it

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continually makes you redefine, you know, and really test what you really do believe. Yeah, it's a lovely poem. I have found with a lot of Amichai, I've looked, I've got in three different translations of his work, that he really is very

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subtle. And you really, really got to pay attention. A very simple language, but you really got to pay attention to him, you know. Patrice Vecchione: It was lovely when I when I negotiated this

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contract. I did it with his widow, Hana Amichai. Morton Marcus: She's still living in Israel or she-? Patrice Vecchione: She's still living in Israel, and she was so happy that I was including this poem in my collection, which of

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course, then made me quite happy. Morton Marcus: Great. Well, why don't I read the poem on the opposite side of the page which is by the great Rainer Maria Rilke. And it's called "Dear Neighbor God," it is not a poem

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that one usually associates with Rilke. Patrice Vecchione: It's not one of his famous poems. Morton Marcus: There are notebooks that have been brought out years ago, about what Rilke wrote that were collected after

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1926. There are around 300 poems that no one even knows about and they're amazing there. I've got them in translations by the guy who did all of his work Stephen Mitchell [unintelligible]

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Way back then, yeah, and he just brought out all of Rilke's work and this was the final one from the notebooks. And no one knows about [unintelligible], Joe Stroud knows about it. And they're just marvelous and Joe and I would talk about it. They

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just- some of them are just- how did that escape notice, you know? But anyway, this is one that you don't associate with Rilke. So, I think we read around literally 40 poems of his, that's what we usually put because so many, yeah, and

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there's just so many that he's done. So, here's the great Rainer Maria Rilke. It's called DEAR NEIGHBOR GOD. And of course, this is in translation because he wrote in German.

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Dear neighbor God, if sometimes I disturb you in the middle of the night with my knocking, it's because so often I can't hear you breathing, and know you're alone over there. And if you need something and no one's there to fill the cup and put it

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in your fingers, I'm always listening. Only say the word, I'm right here. Only a little wall stands between us, built by chance. For this is all it might take, one cry from your mouth or mine, and it would break down and not make a scene or sound.

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It is made up of all your images and your images stand around you like names. And if just once the light in me burns high, that shows the way to you from deep inside, it goes to waste as glare spilling on their frames. And my mind, so soon to stumble

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and go lame, wanders away from you, homeless, exiled. Patrice Vecchione: And you know, this poem mirrors in a sense, the first poem of the book, because God is so human in this poem. I mean, dear neighbor God, how much more human could God be

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than the person next door, and you feel that they're so close and you also feel on this poem the vulnerability of God, like if you need me, God, I'm here, and I love that, it's very daring.

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Yeah, yup, an interesting fellow. Well, we are just paging through this, you know, you said that one of these poems, the poem by Nicholas Gardner was written when he was 15 years old. And it's rather amazing. It's rather amazing the way he

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has because so much poetry is indirect and this is such an indirect way of looking at the possibility of his grandfather's death. And it's amazingly well written that, you know, he's 15 is rather astonishing, so.

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Well he turns 18 in June. MY GRANDFATHER'S HAT In my family, we have similar hair. My father's hair is a lot like mine, dark blonde with some curl. My mother's hair is like

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my brother's, straight, blonde, and lightened by the sun. The only one with hair that is different is my grandfather. His hair is short and sticks out like his mustache, but is as soft as the down on a baby bird. You can tell his hair was once

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black, but it now surrounds his head like a thin cloud of white. Although I know his hair well, I'm better acquainted with his hat. Deep blue with a small bronze whale pinned on the front and a smell of its own, not a bad smell, deep and rich. Even

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at the hospital, when my grandfather's hair grew weak and thin, there was this hat. Sometimes my brother would take his hat and wear it while we sat next to his bed. And while my father and mother talked endlessly with the doctors and

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nurses, we talked with my grandfather and his hat. When he got better, we would take walks in the morning, and his hat was there, protecting him from the cold and bringing back his hair. Sometimes this hat was replaced by another, like the bright

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yellow rubber hat he were only in the rain to wave us off to school. Morton Marcus: It really is, I mean, the indirection of that, you know, it's like, I can't really face, you know, the pain

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of what's really gonna happen here. And so, he uses as metaphor, you know, for that just coming at it from the side of the different hats and then wonderfully changing it to the yellow rain hat.

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Patrice Vecchione: The humor at the end is so subtle and so perceptive. And his grandfather did not die, his grandfather recovered. Morton Marcus: Yes, that's very good. We are talking with

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Patrice Vecchione and we are talking and reading from her new anthology "Faith and Doubt." And we will continue to talk with her for the next half hour of the show. But now we are going to take a short musical break after which we will tell you why

00:29:16.610 - 00:33:00.840

we are reading from this anthology tonight. And we are back on the Poetry Show. I'm Mort Marcus and this has been a half hour now going on to an hour with the former co-host of the poetry show, Patrice Vecchione. A wonderful

00:33:00.840 - 00:33:17.220

poet herself, teacher of poets and young people, and also now the editor of this new anthology, her fourth with Henry Holt, called "Faith and Doubt," and we've been talking about it and reading from it. But this is also the time when we have

00:33:17.910 - 00:33:34.620

public announcements and we do have several tonight. First of all, the reason that we are reading from "Faith and Doubt" is that on Thursday, April 12th, there will be a book signing and reading of "Faith and Doubt," or from "Faith and Doubt," at the

00:33:34.620 - 00:33:49.310

Bookshop Santa Cruz in downtown Santa Cruz at 7:30pm. And Patrice will be joined by Joe Stroud, Gary young, Robert Sward- Patrice Vecchione: And Anna Paganelli and Alice Tao.

00:33:49.870 - 00:34:08.530

Morton Marcus: And so, certainly try to make that. They're always wonderful readings and these of course, are wonderful poets who are in the anthology from around here. Then, on April 21st, at 7:30pm there will be a book signing and readings by other

00:34:08.530 - 00:34:21.610

poets. I'm sure Elliot [unidentified] will be- Patrice Vecchione: I hope that he'll be able to come. Morton Marcus: On the 21st, 7:30pm at The Works in Pacific Grove.

00:34:21.610 - 00:34:27.040

Patrice Vecchione: Which is the former, used to be Book Works- Oh, okay. Now called The Works, on Lighthouse. Morton Marcus: Great, good.

00:34:27.070 - 00:34:36.850

Patrice Vecchione: And on the 14th of April I'll be doing a workshop for the Tor House based on the book, "Faith and Doubt." Morton Marcus: Great and will that be at Tor House itself? Patrice Vecchione: It will be.

00:34:36.850 - 00:34:46.450

Morton Marcus: Which is a wonderful place, wonderful place. Patrice Vecchione: Yeah, a former home of Robinson Jeffers and I taught a class there last year and it's- you feel Jeffers'

00:34:46.450 - 00:35:00.730

spirit when you're in that house. Morton Marcus: Well, speaking about workshops on August 17th and 19th, you will then be doing a writing workshop at Esalen. Patrice Vecchione: Yeah, based on the book again, yeah, three

00:35:00.730 - 00:35:11.440

day. Morton Marcus: Good. I wouldn't miss this out there, she's a wonderful, wonderful teacher. And I also want to say that in April for the month of April, there will be an art show at The

00:35:11.440 - 00:35:29.470

Works. Again 667, Lighthouse in Pacific Grove of your collage and I guess this will be with the Esalen Institute on the beginning of July. I'll do a collage and poetry workshop as part of the Esalen

00:35:29.470 - 00:35:44.580

Art Festival, July 1st, for five days. Wonderful, okay. And I want to announce that right now thousands of local consumers are listening to this message. They could be listening to the name and description of your

00:35:44.580 - 00:36:09.900

business. Instead, we can make this happen when you become an underwriter of KUSP's programming, call us now at 476-2800 or 800-655-KUSP to find out how easy it is. Let me repeat those numbers that's 476-2800 or 800-655-KUSP and

00:36:09.900 - 00:36:25.650

become an underwriter for one of the shows here. I also want to announce, unfortunately, I will not be able to be at your reading, Patrice, because that night I will be up in Berkeley with the first of the Northern California readings for a book

00:36:25.650 - 00:36:37.110

that I have edited. And it ha finally come out called "In Dybbuk's Raincoat: the Collecte Poems" of Bert Meyer Patrice Vecchione: No kidding, oh wow. Morton Marcus: And it has taken 28 years to get that book

00:36:37.110 - 00:36:49.970

published. Patrice Vecchione: Didn't Kayak do a book of his many, many- Morton Marcus: Swallow did a book of his, Doubleday did a book of his. Bert died at the age of 51 and his wife carried

00:36:49.970 - 00:37:09.710

his work forward like a sacred text, and actually gave it to a very famous American poet whose name will not be mentioned here, who held it for 17 years, publishing, promising her that he would get the book published. And finally, she took it back

00:37:09.710 - 00:37:29.720

and for the last 11 years, I have been attempting to get this book published and with her, she came to me and I almost had it published four years ago. And that fell through when my publisher fell through. But now I've done this with his son,

00:37:29.720 - 00:37:48.890

with Bert's son, and the book is coming out on the 28th. And we will be up, I'm sorry, it will be out on the 12th. It will be up in Berkeley with Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Susan Griffin, all-star cast of putting it out so I won't be here. But people

00:37:48.890 - 00:38:10.040

down here, we will be at the Capitola Bookcafe on Monday, pril 16th with the book, Daniel eyers', a wonderful wonderful, I want to say boy because he's birth son, but he's over 40 years old. A wonderful guy and actually a BBC TV cameraman,

00:38:10.040 - 00:38:26.180

goes all over the world, Afghanistan, Egypt, everywhere and lives in Paris. Wonderful working with him on this and we will have as readers down here, Ellen Bass, Joseph Stroud, Gary Young and yours truly. So, I plan on making it out and buying

00:38:24.200 - 00:38:38.360

So, we are just reading from this book and once more for this amazing book, because it has got things that no one has seen. Robert Bly has just gone, shall we say, ape over this book? Because though he knew the poems, he never knew, the diary

00:38:38.360 - 00:38:54.980

entries we got in, the notebook and letters that are in thi book. It's all 300 pages. It' beautiful. I mean, University o New Mexico Press did beautiful, beautiful job on it This is really an extraordinar book out there, folks and so i

00:38:55.220 - 00:39:10.670

the book we're talking abou tonight, which is "Faith an Doubt." You see, I'm not bad a segues either. And we will go n talking about that right now. people who just tuned in and maybe driving home from Burger

00:39:10.670 - 00:39:27.050

King, tell us again, very briefly about "Faith and Doubt" and what the idea behind it is. Patrice Vecchione: The idea was to bring the subjects of faith and doubt in a collection of poems in as many venues as

00:39:27.050 - 00:39:38.630

possible. So where do faith and doubt present themselves? Love, which surprised you. Morton Marcus: I don't know what that says about me. Patrice Vecchione: Well, it says, all this confidence when

00:39:38.630 - 00:39:52.220

it comes to love. Morton Marcus: Oh, that's me or what? Patrice Vecchione: Well, she's giving you a reason to be confident. She's a lovely person. So, faith and doubt in

00:39:52.220 - 00:40:06.170

love and religion, political realm, and how does faith and doubt affect us as writers. Morton Marcus: You know, that is really a big one. You mentioned that before, but it really is a big one. I mean, I think that

00:40:06.170 - 00:40:16.910

every time we put pen to paper, we are reaffirming or trying to reaffirm a belief- Patrice Vecchione: Absolutely. Morton Marcus: In the world and-

00:40:17.150 - 00:40:23.700

Patrice Vecchione: And a belief in ourselves. Morton Marcus: A belief in ourselves and it's getting harder and harder. Patrice Vecchione: Well, you know, you're faced with either a

00:40:23.700 - 00:40:31.920

blank computer screen or a blank piece of paper and, you know- Morton Marcus: Or a blank government. Patrice Vecchione: Or a blank government, yes, any number of blanks.

00:40:33.850 - 00:40:52.180

Morton Marcus: Yeah, as you get to read this, I don't mean to drop names, but Czeslaw Milosz, the great Nobel Prize poet, told me it is at moments like this that poets are most important. And what they must do is reaffirm the importance and

00:40:52.180 - 00:41:07.090

positive qualities of life. He would never use the word positive qualities. He says you can't be ironic. You can't be negative, there comes a time when no matter how you feel, you must be uplifting, you know.

00:41:07.600 - 00:41:19.570

Patrice Vecchione: And I think you also have to hold the world up into a close light. And say, here's one way of looking at it but look over here, here's another way and let's not forget that.

00:41:19.990 - 00:41:32.650

Morton Marcus: Right. Let's read some more of these poems. Patrice Vecchione: How about Martial's poem called "No Doubt?" And that's on 59. NO DOUBT

00:41:32.650 - 00:41:52.000

He's your friend, he says. Of that, there's no doubt. He adores your roast boar, mullet, trout, hare, chicken, sow's breast, oysters, salmon, and your famous wine. If my dinners were as good as yours, he'd be a friend of mine.

00:41:54.670 - 00:42:06.460

Morton Marcus: That was the great Martial, who was a Roman poet who was ironic and sarcastic and really did not like very much of anything. Patrice Vecchione: Yeah and he's ironic and sarcastic in this

00:42:06.460 - 00:42:23.470

very poem, translated by the Irish poet Brendan Kennelly. Morton Marcus: And very important that he gets that rhyme in here, which he has throughout these aphoristic poems. Martial really relied on the rhymes in Latin, you know,

00:42:23.470 - 00:42:33.370

to really sink in like harpoons. Patrice Vecchione: Well, I love thinking of doubt and trout together. Morton Marcus: It's good.

00:42:33.460 - 00:42:42.730

Patrice Vecchione: Yeah, it works. Morton Marcus: Okay. Patrice Vecchione: You'll read one more. Morton Marcus: Okay. Well, we were talking about Pablo Neruda

00:42:43.420 - 00:43:08.900

and about writers. And here's Neruda thinking about how poetry sort of came to him and was a calling for him. And it's just a poem called POETRY. And it was at that age, poetry arrived in search of me. I don't

00:43:08.900 - 00:43:27.110

know. I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don't know how or when. No, they were not voices, they were not words to a silence but from a street I was summoned. From the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires,

00:43:27.230 - 00:43:49.640

or returning alone. There I was without a face and it touched me. I did not know what to say, my mouth had no way with names. My eyes were blind and something started in my soul. Fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way deciphering that fire

00:43:49.730 - 00:44:13.610

and I wrote the first faint line, faint without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing. And suddenly they saw that heaven's unfastened and open, planets palpitating plantations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows,

00:44:13.700 - 00:44:42.320

fire and flowers, the winding night, a universe. And I, infinitesimal being, drunk with a great starry void likeness image of mystery felt myself a pure part of the abyss. I wield with the stars, my heart broke loose on the empty sky.

00:44:44.390 - 00:44:55.810

Patrice Vecchione: And there, don't you want to get a pen and a piece of paper and write? The exuberance in this poem is intoxicating. Morton Marcus: He could really do it. He really just had- He

00:44:55.810 - 00:45:16.810

was, along with Whitman who he admired greatly, he's one of the world's great celebrators. Patrice Vecchione: Well, what if we pair that with this poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade on page 54, the Brazilian poet,

00:45:17.320 - 00:45:33.240

most known for his poems to the working man, translated often by Elizabeth Bishop, though in this case if my memory serves me right, yes Mark Strand. THE DIRTY HAND

00:45:33.990 - 00:45:54.360

My hand is dirty, I must cut it off. To wash it is pointless, the water is putrid, the soap is bad, it won't lather. The hand is dirty, it's been dirty for years. I used to keep it out of sight in my pants pocket. No one suspected a thing. People came

00:45:54.360 - 00:46:10.500

up to me wanting to shake hands, I would refuse and the hidden hand would leave its imprint on my thigh. And I saw it was the same if I used it or not, disgust was the same. How many nights in the depths of the house I washed that hand,

00:46:10.500 - 00:46:25.200

scrubbed it, polished it, dreamed it would turn to diamond or crystal or even at last into a plain white hand, the clean hand of a man that you could shake or kiss or hold in one of those moments when two people confess without saying a word,

00:46:26.310 - 00:46:48.090

only to have the incurable hand open it's dirty fingers, and the dirt was vile. It was not mud or soot or the cake-filth of an old scab or the sweat of a laborer's shirt. It was a sad dirt made of sickness and human anguish. It was not black, black is pure. It

00:46:48.090 - 00:47:06.480

was dull, a dull grayish dirt. It is impossible to live with this gross hand that lies on the table. Quick, cut it off, chop it to pieces and throw it into the ocean. With time, with hope and its intricate workings, another hand will come, pure,

00:47:06.660 - 00:47:23.580

transparent as glass and fasten itself to my arm. Morton Marcus: Very, very interesting poem because it goes in several different directions as you know good poems do. A poem about belief, using that metaphor, but also much more, it

00:47:23.580 - 00:47:39.870

seems to me. It's a poem that just reaches beyond for a purity, you know, in an existence that he does not actually find here on Earth. The dirt is the material world in many ways.

00:47:40.290 - 00:47:54.750

Patrice Vecchione: And the self-hatred in this poem is just- it doesn't appear next to the Neruda in the book, it wouldn't be right but reading them out loud together is just such an abrupt contrast between the two points of view.

00:47:55.980 - 00:48:05.280

Morton Marcus: But belief in the end, I mean, believe in that hand that's going to come. Though it's a strange hand. Patrice Vecchione: No, it's a very strange hand, transparent as glass.

00:48:05.640 - 00:48:14.780

Morton Marcus: Well, to become uplifting again- Patrice Vecchione: Yes. Morton Marcus: I will read "The Direction of Light," by Linda Hogan. Oh, it's so nice here, as you're reading men's poems, I'm

00:48:15.080 - 00:48:32.770

reading women, which just shows you how these voices just are so vital and no matter what the gender. THE DIRECTION OF LIGHT by Linda Hogan. New stones have risen up Earth's labor toward air. Everything

00:48:32.770 - 00:48:52.720

rises, the ocean in a cloud, the rain forest passing above our heads. Children grow inch by inch, like trees in a graveyard, victors over the same gravity that pulls us down. Even our light continues on through the universe. And do we stop to

00:48:52.720 - 00:49:13.540

wonder who will see it and where when the light of this earth is gone? May there long be our light? And then it folds, shades are pulled down between two worlds, clouds fall as rain, light returns the way rain from Brazil falls in New York and the

00:49:13.540 - 00:49:34.660

green parrots in their cages feel it, shake their feathers and remember home and are alive. And should they be thankful for that gift or should they curse like sailors and grieve? I tell the parrots, I too, had wanted to give up on everything. When

00:49:34.660 - 00:49:54.730

what was right turned wrong and the revolutionaries who rose up like yeast in light's bread turned against those who now rise up. That's why I take the side of life, don't you? With the weight of living tugging us down and earth wanting us back,

00:49:55.060 - 00:50:17.260

despite great thoughts and smiling faces that are prisons in between in the worlds of buying and selling, even the parrots we teach to say, hello. Hello, did I call this poem the direction of light? I meant life. So, let this word

00:50:17.290 - 00:50:30.490

overthrow the first and rise up to the start. Patrice Vecchione: Amen. Morton Marcus: Very clever poem, beautifully written. But it's an argument, it's almost a John Donne argument. And it's

00:50:30.490 - 00:50:40.630

brilliantly done, absolutely brilliantly done, wonderful poem. Patrice Vecchione: We feel her having the conversation inside her own head. And I love where she says, I too, have wanted to

00:50:40.630 - 00:50:51.910

give up on everything when what was right turned wrong. And that's when I read that line, that's when I knew I had to have the poem in the book. And I thought, yeah, who doesn't know that experience?

00:50:51.930 - 00:51:05.310

Morton Marcus: But I like the fact that you know, the rain forest given this idea of the rains that have come up from Brazil, and here are the parrots right, and the cage, and what do they feel? I mean, okay, it's great to, you know, to get the

00:51:05.310 - 00:51:21.090

sense of what was home, but you're locked in this cage. And the image she gives for it is the curses of sailors grieving for home. You know, and I mean, I've even put that image in a poem once, that the sailors who just walk around foreign

00:51:21.090 - 00:51:38.790

countries, you know, like total aliens, and not really in any way being able to fit into this world. They're just visiting. And here the parrots, I mean, what do you do? You celebrate or you curse. I love that. It's really wonderful, wonderful

00:51:38.790 - 00:51:57.870

ideas, wonderful pictures. Well, I'm talking to Patrice Vecchione tonight, as most of you know, unless you've just tuned in and we are reading from "Faith and Doubt," her new anthology, which will be presented for a book signing on April 12th at the

00:51:57.870 - 00:52:15.690

Bookshop Santa Cruz 7:30pm, downtown Santa Cruz, when a whole lot of local poets who are in the anthology will be reading. I will mention two or three right off the bat. Gary Young, Robert Sward, Joe Stroud, and there will also be Anna

00:52:16.140 - 00:52:33.690

Paganelli and Alice Tao, and these are poems from all over the world, all from all different time periods, which are questioning faith and doubt or doubting that they should doubt in faith.

00:52:34.380 - 00:52:45.870

Patrice Vecchione: Doubting that they should doubt in faith. Yes, that's- there you have it. Well, you know, I really began to think formally about doubt when I was working on my book, "Writing and the Spiritual Life."

00:52:46.260 - 00:52:55.230

Morton Marcus: Which is one of my- still one of my favorite books. You know, that's why you said it, right? Patrice Vecchione: Just to hear you say that. Maybe what we should do- we could do it again and I could hear you say it one

00:52:55.230 - 00:53:02.880

more time. Morton Marcus: And that book is still available, isn't it? Patrice Vecchione: Oh, absolutely, yes. Morton Marcus: Give everyone the name of it.

00:53:04.110 - 00:53:16.560

Patrice Vecchione: "Writing and the Spiritual Life." Morton Marcus: It's a book of prose in which Patrice talks about teaching. But it is also such a wonderful exploration of what makes a poet a poet and what makes poetry poetry,

00:53:16.800 - 00:53:22.110

eloquent book. Patrice Vecchione: Thank you. Morton Marcus: And I know that you really doubted yourself in w iting it since you haven't d ne a book of prose.

00:53:22.140 - 00:53:36.750

Patrice Vecchione: I hadn't. I thought, oh, a paragraph, let's see, how do you do those? But that's where I have a chapter in that book about doubt. And I was able to use my very experiences at the moment of writing that chapter when I was plagued with

00:53:36.750 - 00:53:51.240

doubt about what I was doing. And I think that kind of, you know, settled in my brain somewhere and then this book came also out of that, of wanting to look at doubt. I think if I were writing that book now, I would be kinder

00:53:51.240 - 00:54:06.420

toward doubt than I was when I wrote that book. I wasn't kind toward that, I was angry at doubt and maybe I'll write the book again about the connection between writing and spirituality, who knows, but I would be kinder toward doubt

00:54:06.420 - 00:54:17.880

now. Morton Marcus: You hear that, doubt? Patrice Vecchione: I hope it doesn't listen too carefully. Um, here's a poem by Sarah Holbrook that's simply called

00:54:17.910 - 00:54:35.970

DOUBT. Insecure is the lace untied that in a race trips me inside and hints that I don't have the stuff, why try when I'm not good enough? And once I stumble in my mind it's harder not to fall

00:54:35.970 - 00:54:49.590

behind. It sure would be a faster route if I could live without doubt. Morton Marcus: It's great. You know, it has almost the same rhyme, almost the same voice as Robert Frost's, "some say the

00:54:49.590 - 00:55:04.140

world will end in fire". But really again, because what it is, it really is a very brilliant extend a metaphor on the broken legs. Everything has to do with walking and stumbling, you know.

00:55:06.950 - 00:55:25.850

Patrice Vecchione: Doubt, insecure is a lace untied that in a race trips me inside, it hints that I don't have the stuff, why try when I'm not good enough? And once I stumbled in my mind, it's harder not to fall behind. Sure would be a faster

00:55:25.850 - 00:55:40.910

route if I could live without a doubt. And I love how the rhyme belies the meaning of the poem. It's so lovely. You think you're just a little skipping songs, just based on the sound, but she's really saying something

00:55:40.910 - 00:55:54.140

important. Absolutely. I'm gonna read a poem by an old friend of ours, an old Santa Cruzian, who is no longer here, but has been for a long time, I think still is the poet laureate of Maryland. And

00:55:54.140 - 00:56:07.660

that is the wonderful Lucille Clifton and just an irrepressible spirit. Here is her poem PRAISE SONG. To my Aunt Blanche who rolled from grass to driveway into the

00:56:07.660 - 00:56:25.900

street one Sunday morning. I was ten. I had never seen a human woman hurl her basketball of a body into the traffic of the world. Praise to the drivers who stopped in time. Praise to the faith with which she rose after some moments, then slowly walke

00:56:25.900 - 00:56:40.060

sighing back to her family Praise to the arms whic understood little or nothing o what it meant but welcomed he in without judgment, acceptin it all like children might, lik God

00:56:43.600 - 00:56:58.540

It's such an incongruous poem, isn't it. When you read it, I hear Lucille's voice. Morton Marcus: I hope I gave a little bit of the load. Patrice Vecchione: You did, you certainly did.

00:57:01.060 - 00:57:19.060

I know I want to conclude when we get there with Jane Kenyon poem but let's leave time for that one. Morton Marcus: We can definitely do that. Patrice Vecchione: Did you want to read Roethke?

00:57:19.000 - 00:57:32.680

Morton Marcus: Yeah, let's read Roethke. Theodore Roethke, one of our really great poets. You know, you really find less and less people read poetry, that they forget the great poets of America. And this is Theodore Roethke and this is a poem

00:57:32.680 - 00:57:49.210

called a villanelle. He's only going to use two rhymes in this poem. He's going to repeat the first line in the second, fourth, and sixth and he's going to repeat the third line of the first three line stanza in the third, fifth, and then again,

00:57:49.270 - 00:58:05.650

sixth line. When everything comes together in the first and third lines, it actually makes sense in a new way. It's an old form that's been used very unsuccessfully in English, by only a few people with names like Dylan Thomas, and who's the

00:58:05.650 - 00:58:18.490

other great one who wrote it? I remember one or two other people have written great villanelles. Patrice Vecchione: Elizabeth Bishop or was it? Morton Marcus: She wrote a lot of sestinas, which are great.

00:58:19.330 - 00:58:38.370

Okay, here is some Theodore Roethke, it's: THE WAKING I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We

00:58:38.370 - 00:59:02.670

think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, and learn by going where

00:59:02.670 - 00:59:25.230

I have to go. Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep and take my waking slow. Great Nature has another thing to do to you and me; so take the lively air and, lovely, learn by

00:59:25.230 - 00:59:52.960

going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learned by going where I have to go. Patrice.

00:59:53.470 - 01:00:09.190

Patrice Vecchione: Jane Kenyon's poem, the last poem in the book. LET EVENING COME Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as the sun moves down. Let the crickets

01:00:09.220 - 01:00:32.200

take up chafing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn. Let evening come. Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned in long grass. Let the stars appear and the moon disclose her silver horn. Let the fox go back to its sandy den. Let the wind die down. Let

01:00:32.200 - 01:00:49.660

the shed go black inside. Let evening come. To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop in the oats, to the air in the lung let evening come. Let it come, as it will, and don't be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.

01:00:50.710 - 01:01:06.790

Morton Marcus: And that was Patrice Vecchione, our guest tonight and we have been discussing her new anthology, "Faith and Doubt." On April 12th, a Thursday, at 7:30pm Patrice will be giving away something from the book, six

01:01:06.790 - 01:01:28.810

poets somewhere in the book from Santa Cruz. I won't repeat the names but they are some of our best and really try to be there. Then, on April 15th, she will be doing poetry workshops down to perhaps in Carmel at 4pm and then on August 17th, April 21st

01:01:28.900 - 01:01:41.680

you will be at another book signing at The Works on Pacific Grove. The art show for April will be spreading, which- will your stuff be out there? Patrice Vecchione: Yes.

01:01:42.280 - 01:01:56.590

Morton Marcus: And then she will do a collage of poetry workshop at Esalen Institute, July 1st through 6th. I think we'll be announcing that again, you send us an announcement. And I will say this is Mort Marcus on Monday, April 16th at the

01:01:57.100 - 01:02:18.100

Bookshop at Capitola Bookcafe at 7:30pm, I will be giving a reading of Gary Young, Joe Stroud and Robert Hass in the Collected Poems of Bert Myers, called, "In a Dybbuk's Raincoat," and event not to be missed. And you shouldn't miss

01:02:18.280 - 01:03:05.490

anything down either. This is Mort Marcus. I'll see you in a couple of weeks. Gary Shapiro: Public Radio KUSP Santa Cruz, KBDH San Ardo, streaming live and podcasting at KUSP.org. Hey everybody, I'm

01:03:05.490 - 01:03:28.680

Gary Shapiro and it's time for From the Bookshelf. J. Randy Taraborrelli is my guest this week. His previous books include biographies of Diana Ross, Grace Kelly, Madonna, Cher, and the Kennedy women. His latest book is Elizabeth, The New York Times

01:03:28.710 - 01:03:41.730

best selling biography of Elizabeth Taylor. J. Randy Taraborrelli, welcome to From the Bookshelf. You seem to be drawn to women as subjects for your book. I mean, I know you've written-