Moonbeams of Rage

            On Thursday I got caught up on my journal and edited the poem that I wrote last Thursday by stream of consciousness. I gave it the title “Feather Tongued Dodos” and made six copies. I also made six copies of “Maroon River”, which is one of the poems from my book that I’m not quite satisfied with. I already had fifteen copies of “Failed launch for the Rocket of the Day” and so I took six of those.

            Before leaving I wanted to brighten up my front flasher by putting in a fresh battery            but I couldn’t find any double As. I’d thought that I’d had at least an extra two rechargeables in one of my utility drawers but there were none. I looked through my backpack pockets and other little spaces where batteries might be tossed but they were nowhere to be found. I would have to buy some more, perhaps on Wednesday after class.

            My dark ride downtown wasn’t as cold as last week, plus it wasn’t as slow a trip because I was no longer riding with a broken axel.

            At University and Queen, near the subway entrance a guy of Asian heritage was preaching by proxy with a very powerful audio player that was blasting from his shoulder bag. The deep male voice sounded very professional as it warned that sexuality destroys faith, religion, family and culture. This was the laziest street preacher I’d ever seen. He should have at least memorized and lip-synced the sermon. It might start a new trend for evangelical karaoke.

            Northrop Frye Hall is very modern in design. It has tall and narrow copper plated doors with long, vertical curvy copper handles.

            There was another group in our room right up until 18:00.

            Someone among my fellow students was wearing some very musky smelling perfume.

            I told Albert that I was able to download a copy of “A Book of Luminous Things”. He asked if I'd paid for it and I confessed that it was pirated. He seemed to understand that pirating is a benefit for the poor. I told him about best selling author who offers his own books for free downloads. I didn’t know his name at the time, but it’s Brazilian novelist Paul Coelho who calls on people to pirate everything he has ever written. In 1999, after his book The Alchemist was pirated in Russia, over a million copies of it were sold. He tells people to download digital copies of his novels for free and if they like them, go out and buy a hard copy. He says that the industry must learn that greed leads to nowhere. His lack of greed has made him a multi-millionaire. There will soon be a TV series based on the characters in his novels. I added that when people have money they like spending it, and books are no exception.

            We were short three students as the class started. Albert announced that Sanna had informed him that she would have to drop the course because of another commitment. Albert didn’t know why Andrew wasn’t there but he suggested that Alyson might be stuck in traffic.

            We started going through the poems that were presented last week and which we’d taken home to critique. Each poet re-read their poem and we all offered comments.

            We looked at Margaryta's "Glabocit”. I liked “ruler of all things / except mistakes. Here I am" because of the implication that if one is a mistake one cannot be controlled. I suggested the poem could end there. Albert said that the poem is an intensification of free verse and she needs a powerful image at the end. He added that most traditional verse is free verse, such as rhyming couplets. Walt Whitman intensified free verse and paired it down.

            I told Matthew that his “Inebriation Nation” needs a change of pace in the middle. Albert seemed to agree.

            The most successful poem we looked at was “Waiting” by Ashley. Some people suggested she take out the first person narration but I said that it needs the “me” in order to draw the reader into that sense of claustrophobia.

            I said that Vivian should chop off the first five lines of “A Collection of Loves” but most people didn’t agree.

            Albert said that writing a poem is like driving an icebreaker.

            I told Arin that in her poem “Creation”, rhymes like “spills hills” and “whole wholeness seem a little trite for the general mood of the poem. Albert seemed to agree. Arin seemed like she was on the verge of tears.

            I told Blythe that in her poem “Spatial Thinking” the line “Is there a black hole behind me I think I can feel it" sounds like the killer line one remembers from a movie.

            Albert said that we don’t want to eliminate interesting language just to make everything clear.

            For Nicole’s poem “Mother (or the Willow Tree)” Albert tried an experiment. He and Ashley read it for Nicole in two voices. Albert read the interpretive sounding lines and then suggested that Nicole remove them from the poem.

            Alyson came about halfway through and confirmed that she had been caught in traffic. Her’s was the last poem we looked at. She’d changed the name from “Issues” to “God Complex”. I told her that “Moonbeams of rage” is a great ironic phrase and it would be a great name for a band.

            There were a few poems, like mine that we didn’t have time to look at. Albert said we would dedicate the first half hour of every class to those poems until we’ve covered them. Meanwhile each member of a group handed out copies of their poems to the other members. My group has Vivian, Blythe, Margaryta and Matthew. Ours is the most gender-balanced group.

            As we were packing up I mentioned to everyone that Shab-e She’r would be happening this coming Tuesday. Albert wrote down the information. We discussed the old Art bar Reading Series when it was at the Imperial Pub back in the 90s. That was where I first met Albert before I even knew he was a professor. He said he might not have been a professor back then.

            This time I didn’t get disoriented crossing Queen’s Park and I managed to head home in the right direction. I stopped at Freshco to buy grapes and yogourt. Among the red seedless table grapes from Chile was one solitary bag of red seedless table grapes from South Africa. I'd never eaten African grapes so I bought them. It was interesting that they had the same product code as the grapes from Chile.

            I had late dinner of a piece of pork tenderloin with a potato and a carrot while watching two episodes of the Big Bang Theory.

            In the first story Sheldon decides to bond with Amy’s parents. Her father Larry, played by magician Teller from Penn and Teller ends up bonding with Howard because Howard shows him magic tricks. This is the first time I’ve ever heard Teller speak. I didn’t even know for sure that he could. Sheldon goes to bond with Mrs. Fowler and though at first looks hopeless they finally discover that they have a lot in common.

            Meanwhile Anu suggests to Raj that they should have sex. She books a nice hotel room but when she arrives he’s so nervous that he reverts to his old inability to talk to women unless he’s drinking. She thinks he’s acting weird and almost leaves but they talk it out. Anu confesses one of her own quirks, which is that she does not like any music at all and does not see the point of it.

            In the second story Leonard agrees to research the citations for Amy and Sheldon’s joint paper on asymmetry but while doing so discovers a Russian paper from fifty years ago that disproved their entire theory. They are devastated.