Scene4 Magazine | letters to the editor

I couldn't help but notice that the August issue of Scene4 contains three eloquent eulogies to artists from varying discliplines who could have not been more different, except for the consistent excellence of their work. I refer to Arthur Meiselman's article on Ingmar Bergman, Karren Alenier's on Beverly Sills, and Kathi Wolfe's on Doug Marlette. I was glad for those articles, because they paid just tribute to three great artists, and because they reminded us just how much great art improves and enriches our lives.

Miles Moore

I went on over to Cafe Press and looked Ray Charles Istre up and followed the trail. Skipping around in his list of news articles opened my eyes some more. Being one that avoids news like an ostrich with my head in the sand trying to stay in a false sense of peace, that was a trip. I feel this book of his is timely. The facade of beautiful people, perfect lives, etc., etc., needs to be peeled away and the reality revealed. So what if Jesus was not beautiful on the outside, he was where it counted. Just as so many of the cast-aside people of this world are. Bravo to you Ray Charles Istre! I wish you well with your book! Bravo to you Les for once again bringing two very interesting people to us to keep us thinking and learning.
Michele
read Les Marcott's article

You can add Kid Rock's Rock and Roll Jesus, the website Hollywood Jesus, and the film Wrong Eyed Jesus. All the same a very interesting article. If life were fair, Ugly Jesus would be a best seller and Scene4 would be on news stands and magazine racks everywhere.
T.J. McIntosh
read Les Marcott's article

Actually, Ray Istre comes late to the notion of a less-than-photogenic Jesus. The BBC did a piece five years or so ago wherein they reconstructed a possible Jesus from many different visual sources and came up with a short, solid, swarthy man. It raised much uproar about the "proper" way to depict Jesus -- offenses and umbrage were taken. Take a look yourself: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1243339.stm
Michael Bettencourt
read Les Marcott's article

Delightful writing makes for delightful reading and that is what Kathi Wolfe does. It is too bad and too sad that reading, and writing for that matter, is disappearing in the blizzard of email and text messaging. Is anyone even talking to anyone anymore?
Michelle
read Kathi Wolfe's article

I'm not a lawyer, not even an expert in the area of mystery and detective novel literature, though I am fond of A. Christie's remarkable writing and her unique characters such as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. I too wonder what she might make out of this case of the missing copyright enforcement and wonder what Thai readers themselves, not to mention a few concerned authors from their motherland, might think of this "mystery". It seems more unravelled though, from Ms. Yasovant's account, than concealed. At least it would appear, beyond the confines of the judicial system, to be so. Or is this yet another case to be solved?

Shane McElroy

read Janine Yasovant's article

Love has no tangible definition, elucidated meaning or solid recognition. It is an inescapable feeling that can cause a series of emotions, be it unsought, in one's life. Modern day love cannot compare to Love in the past. Today, unfortunately, people have grown to be selfish, inconsiderate, and at many times oblivious to reality. "True Love" stays candid and ingenuous through hardships, misunderstandings, distance and time. Characteristics that we lack and all of which are rare in today's society. Society in whole has decreased their expectations in order to be able to adapt to what they think love is. We find ourselves settling for someone second best and having to compromise and disregard things that should not have to be dealt with in that manner. Additionally, many are just in love with being in love and have no true emotional connection to their "significant other." So how do we distinguish love from lust and infatuation?

Mariya

read Eric Eberwein's play

It was an inspiring observation. The electronic screen is intruding in all human activities; that of performing arts, friendships, relationships especially family relations. The more we are conscious of this intrusion of technology, the better this globe for inhabitancy. Thanks for the article. I could read at this corner of the world, thanks to the devil of technology!!
Harikumar Padmanabhakurup

read Arthur Meiselman's article

A "Lofty" article, Ned.
Chuck Cobb
read Ned Bobkoff's article

I wonder if also that there were some who didn't want to have this indictment of the prison system at that time. I know that there have been a number of movies that were hard-hitting on the subject but I wonder if yours was just too hard. It sounds like the play-story is just too overwhelming and as you say too unrelieved. I hope we get to see it some day.
rjs
read Arthur Meiselman's article

Arthur Meiselman carefully elicits the dilemnas a playwright goes through when he or she tries to get beyond the tried and true, or the acceptable "experimental play". How the playwright "sees" the world of his or her creation is essential to the truth and power of a work on stage. I also agree that dramaturgs, literary managers and the rest of the mess are calibrating, to some extent, what goes on in the regional theatre. Operation MFA is in full swing. As to whether these arbiters of what works have enough life experience under their belt is another story altogether. Being inside a theatre in an office all day long is frequently gratuitous to head on, knuckle down and do it experience. A pox on these mouse traps!
Ned Bobkoff
read Arthur Meiselman's article

It's a pleasure to read this engrossing work. Mr. Challis' style is subtle and charming. I like serialized books very much. I wonder if, perhaps, it wouldn't be possible to post a chapter every week instead of taunting us with a month between "what will happen next"?

Anee S. Waterson

read Martin Challis' book

I always wondered what happened to him. You're baaad Les.

Sleepy John

read Les Marcott's article

Thanks for an entertaining twist on this old story. It's funny, sad and true.

TL

read Les Marcott's article

Elliot you're driving me crazy! You're using my life story and I'm loving it. How could I be that hilarious. I must be crazy!

Old Hippy (Sam)

see Elliot Feldman's comic

Dear Mr. Challis,
Do you think you might publish two or even three chapters at a time of your book so it can finally go to print and I can settle down in my comfy chair with a glass of wine and read the whole thing from cover to cover? I'm really enjoying it except for the torment of waiting a month between readings. I know your main character is a model of perseverence-I'm just an antzy reader.

Sidney B. (admiring but anzty reader)

read Martin Challis' book

Dear Sidney B.,
Gracious thanks for your interest in the story Sidney. I guess the short answer is you will know when I do. My intent here is to appease, not tease. Would that it were some other way.

MC

ps. If my editor allows it and I get a burst of inspiration, I'll take your request on notice. Again thanks; your message heartens the closeted writer.

read Martin Challis' book

I'll take Mr. Bettencourt's anger over Mr. Meiselman's doom. At worst, anger can remain positive and can be worked with, doom is just unforgiving gloom. It is an apparent difference in persepective. Both excellent writers, Bettencourt stands apace and surveys the scene, whilst Meiselman steps into the scene and calls forth. Though he writes prose as if it were poetry, he literally scares the "hell" out of me.

Anee S. Waterson

read Michael Bettencourt's article
read Arthur Meiselman's article

As you know, the 20th anniversary edition of Andrea's Intercourse was recently published. It's still a vital and devastating work. So thank you for "revisiting" Andrea's legacy and reminding us of the poetical-political side of her writing in First Love. The memory of her and the on-going impact of her life's work is triumphant.

Letty Becker Adler

read Arthur Meiselman's article

For awhile there I was feeling really good that there was a champion of the "fading, dog-eared, much-read book" you could carry around, but the imaginary ending is really scary - all those giant pages flying around!

Ellen Miles

read Arthur Meiselman's article

Reading Arthur Meiselman's column on the Terror of the Fading Book, with its tactile apprehensions fixed the issues squarely home. Having recently finished a book "1491" that brilliantly and thoroughly laid out the contributions of the indigenous people's of the Americas, particularly South America, in agriculture, landscaping and the infinite wisdom of protect the land, Meiselman's comments rang true. The experience of reading over time, flipping the pages back and forth, is not only tactile comprehension, but a private lasting pleasure. Highly personal and absorbing. Arthur put his finger on the page.

Ned Bobkoff

read Arthur Meiselman's column

Bright Star is one of the best dramas I've seen all year! The cast was amazing, and the music haunting. Here's a great interview I found with Abbie Cornish talking about her character in the film, and how she turned to Keats' original poetry to answer questions during filming. You can find it here: clipser.com/watch_video/1375835. Jane Campion is truly one of the most influential female voices in film today, and I don't think anyone else could have captured the essence of Keats' story like her!

Lana Larekin

read Miles David Moore's review

They used to call it alienation, now they call it "social networking." And they used to call it journalism, now they call it "blogging." Today it's called conversation, and tomorrow it'll be called ?

Perry Silverstein

read Nathan Thomas' article

Tomorrow it will be called "Cacophony".

Diederich

read Nathan Thomas' article

As someone, as a child, who loved reading Pearl Buck, the resonance of history shining in this article makes me glad to live long enough to see the distance covered.

Grace Cavalieri

read Karren Alenier's article

I have not seen the exhibition but Renate Stendhal's story about it is very revealing and the pictures are mind-boggling and at the same time exasperating. I am not sure that this an answer to the problem of the legacy of the Nazis and that horrendous book. I don't know what the answer is. The book exists and in the spirit of "never again" it is very important that it is never forgotten, yet it is more than a ghost as we see today in the world around us. How do you smell and taste poison without drinking it? Maybe with comedy. But even Mel Brooks and others couldn't hide the awful taste. How to forget without remembering! Praise to Linda Ellia and Renate Stendhal and Scene4.

Aaron Wildau

read Renate Stendhal's article

Thank you for your comment! It's much appreciated. I fully agree with you that there is no answer but I would add that this is because there are a zillion answers to a question as large and complex as this one!

Renate Stendhal

read Renate Stendhal's article

Les Marcott's article on the manipulation of phrases in everyday vernacular hit a nerve. I cringe when I hear or see the words "pre-owned," knowing it is simply a high-falutin way of saying "used" for those refurbished vehicles grinning brightly from car lots. At the cosmetics counter in the larger department stores, there are often white-coated sales associates ("epidermal consultants?") who will wield pamphlets and products with the assurance of a lab assistant. The professional position of "Life Coach" is cropping up (do they use whistles while training clients for more productive lives?) and it is another neat way of encapsulating complex concepts in a compact, promising moniker. We are not too far off from Roseanne Barr's exotic notion of "Domestic Goddess" for "Housewife," but don't tell that to the television executives at ABC.

Mindy Kronenberg

read Les Marcott's column

I felt enlightened, progressive, and modern. Thank you for a very good interview.

Janine Yasovant

read Griselda Steiner's article

You are a bit of an Eeyore with a touch of Heffalump thrown in. Very enjoyable essay. Looking forward to part 2.

Martin

read Michael Bettencourt's column

Now that we possess the complete essay, and now that your revelations illuminate it, I too must conclude that you are indeed an Eeyore and rightfully so. From one "thistle" to another: wonderful essay, wonderfully written.

Anee S. Waterson

read Michael Bettencourt's essay

What a beautiful piece of prose this is. Or is it poetry? Or a song? How mysterious. One doesn't know whether it is a clip from a longer work or a lead-in to another one. Whatever it is, it evokes music in its words, emotional music. It's simply beautiful.

Louis Laird

read Arthur Meiselman's article

Dear Mr. Harrison,
Thanks so much for your extremely kind words about my review of "I Am Love." In reply to your query about a possible book of my reviews, all I can say is, "From your lips to God's ear!" (Or, more to the point, a publisher's ear.)
Best always,

Miles David Moore

Thanks for the excellent research. Bowles was a beautiful writer but I do love his music. Your article is very well researched.

Shela Xoregos

read Karren Alenier's article

As an admirer of Gertrude Stein I feel I have to come to her aid by pointing out a few misunderstandings in my estimated colleague's interesting article. There is no indication anywhere that Stein didn't finish her murder mystery. The story ends very nicely, in fact, with a little "Thank you"-bow, an ironic finishing arabesque, and the word "Finis.", True, in his afterword to the 1982 reedition of the book, John Herbert Gill states, "'Blood on the Dining-Room Floor' comes to an end, but, as Gertrude Stein herself said of it, is has no ending." What that means, however, is, no ending in the traditional sense of what is expected in a murder mystery: the mystery solved, the murderer found. None of this, of course, in Stein's detective novel. The mystery of "Blood on the Dining-Room Floor" is that of Stein's identity. Who was she, now that she was suddenly famous? "I am I because my little dog knows me."  And here we come to  another   misunderstanding. I believe nobody and nothing ever "forced" Gertrude Stein into writing anything. She was not the kind. What she wanted at all cost was being famous, a "lion." If there were suggestions, from a publisher, for example, they were only stating the obvious: a compulsive author nearing age 60 would necessarily think of autobiographical writing. Doing it in the voice of her lover, as the pretend "Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," is such a sly, playful move - even Stein couldn't have been that brilliant under any kind of pressure!

Renate Stendhal

read Karren Alenier's article  

Gertrude Stein would love that 65 years after her death, she can still stir people about her accomplishments. I respect what Renate Stendhal has to say about Stein's Blood on the Dining Room Floor and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Lots of scholars argue over what Stein meant and did. Diana Souhami in Gertrude and Alice, her biography of the famous pair wrote this: "Gertrude tried, but failed, to write about the strange events of the summer in a book called Blood on the Dining Room Floor. 'It was very bothersome. I thought I would try but to try is to die and so I did not really try. I was not doing any writing.'" Stein based Blood on the Dining Room Floor on some events local to her summer home in Bilignin. There was a dead woman but what happened was unclear as is whether Stein left Blood on the Dining Room Floor a cliffhanger or a neatly tied up literary package.
As for The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, there is no doubt that the writing of this work caused Stein incredible stress. Some people argue (not convincingly to my way of thinking however) that Alice Toklas wrote the work.

Karren Alenier

This is a wierd and wonderful play. Has it been produced somewhere? If not, I hope it will be. David Alpaugh is "not" a wierd but "is" a wonderful poet.

Marjorie Thome-Luntz

read David Alpaugh's play

First, I feel incredibly pleased and gratified by Renate Stendhal's kind and generous letter about my reviews. To receive such praise from a writer of her stature is an honor indeed. Second, I loved Nathan Thomas' appreciation of the great Sir Derek Jacobi. I hope Mr. Thomas enjoyed Sir Derek's performance as Lear (I can't imagine otherwise). I myself have been fortunate enough to see Sir Derek four times in the flesh: on stage in "Cyrano de Bergerac," "Breaking the Code," and "A Voyage Round My Father," and as himself at a speaking engagement at The National Press Club. Sir Derek was as charming, witty and self-deprecating as one could wish. He spoke of just barely losing the role of Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs" to Anthony Hopkins: "Tony was brilliant, damn him, but I should have liked to have a go at it!" He also told the tale of being approached meanicngly by an extremely intimidating U.S. Customs official. The official's demand? "Show us your limp!"

Miles David Moore

read Nathan Thomas' article

Okay... let me ask you this. Can I rewrite some of your dialogue, here and there? Can I delete some of your dialogue and add mine instead? Can I rewrite most of the play and put my name on it, maybe with a tinge-of-guilt disclaimer that this is " based in part on a play by M. Bettencourt"? Can I copy your website and substitute my name for yours?

Arthur Meiselman

read Michael Bettencourt's article

You still have controls over your work and permissions to others to use it.  As it says on CC website about this license:
 
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to "copyleft" free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
 
A Creative Commons license is based on copyright. CC licenses apply to works that are protected by copyright law. The kinds of works that are protected by copyright law are books, websites, blogs, photographs, films, videos, songs and other audio & visual recordings, for example. Software programs are also protected by copyright but, as explained below, we do not recommend that you apply a Creative Commons license to software code.
 
Creative Commons licenses give you the ability to dictate how others may exercise your copyright rights--such as the right of others to copy your work, make derivative works or adaptations of your work, to distribute your work and/or make money from your work. They do not give you the ability to restrict anything that is otherwise permitted by exceptions or limitations to copyright--including, importantly, fair use or fair dealing--nor do they give you the ability to control anything that is not protected by copyright law, such as facts and ideas.
 
We'll see how it works.

Michael Bettencourt

read Michael Bettencourt's article

The commanding operative is: "We'll see how it works."

As I'm sure you're well aware... put it on the internet, make it downloadable, and there is no license!

The mechanics of all of this doesn't trouble me. Disrespect, misuse, and outright stealing has been a fact of publishing since before Gutenberg. It's the principle... it's the implication of "work by committee". And in the theatre, it's the 'facebook' of workshopping and the rise of the chief 'tweeter", the Dramaturg.

My pre-luddite stride is--I write for readers and the actors and their audience. Change not a word without me. I'd rather burn it.

Arthur Meiselman

read Michael Bettencourt's article

You had me at the "chief tweeter, the dramaturg" -- I was at a reading the other night at the Public Theatre, and the literary manager came out to introduce the piece -- she had to be older than 18, but not by much, and all I could think was, "I'm screwed."  She and I live in different universes, she of the Facebook workshop, which is not for me.  I understand the Luddite feeling completely.

Michael Bettencourt

read Michael Bettencourt's article

Michael,
I understand the necessity and depth of your feeling regarding copyrights of your work, yet your offer to let people use your work whenever they want to without financial remittance, is a giveaway that works against your own best interests. Passing around your work to theater people you know, or even those you don't know out of trust or admiration is one thing. Yet an open door policy for all comers sets you up as either a flunky or a desperate writer without credibility. I wish you the best in your efforts for recognition.

Ned Bobkoff

read Michael Bettencourt's article

The problem is that Edith Stein died and Gertrude Stein hasn't. Edith Stein was a "saint" before the Poppa in Rome made her one. She was a special woman who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Her "specialness" is what makes her amazing and perplexing life and what she did with it so important, so meaningful. She has been an influence to women everywhere even though so many of them are unaware of it.
Gertrude Stein was in the right place at the right time. She was a mean, self-indulgent keeper and user of other artists work, an accomplished self-promoter who sold her clumsy, deconstructed writing as if she were the scribe of the gods. Today generations of buyers revel in her self-made image and keep her alive. It's a paradox.

Stephanie Anschel

read Renate Stendhal's article and Celine Nally's play

Luddites unite! All you have to lose is your place in a digitized world!

Laird

read Michael Bettencourt's article

Renate, I love to read your analysis of the whole period. You are such a wonderful and exciting writer. Your articles give me thought and more perspective.Thank you.

Jeanne Stark

read Renate Stendhal's article 

There's nothing wrong with English, except that it is really not designed for an international role. I'd like to see wider use of Esperanto for unambiguous communication between people of different mother tongues. Am I asking too much?

Bill Chapman

read Arthur Meiselman's column

Wonderful article, both erudite and personal, and how beautiful these luminous paintings look (at long-distance) on Scene4's excellent screen. Pictures and text brought back a whole European era for me, with the memory of exhibitions in Hamburg, Munich, Paris, and early Kandinsky paintings that inspired my first serious poems as a schoolgirl. A marvelous surprise to find Lissa Tyler Renaud here.

Renate Stendhal

read Lissa Tyler Renaud's article

As usual, David Alpaugh articulates with absolutely unfailing accuracy the problems facing poetry in America. Someday, everyone writing PhDs about the history of American poetry will be referencing his beautifully-written essays.

Judith Offer

read David Alpaugh's article

Thanks, David, for your thoughtful article.

Allegra Silberstein

read David Alpaugh's article

Loved this article. Thought provoking and vigorous in its bite! I love the idea of a poetry revolution. Perhaps it will be the poets who help us navigate the complicated world in which we find ourselves. This isn't the first time that the end of poetry has been announced. I'm writing a biography about Ina Coolbrith, California's first poet laureate (and America's first state laureate). In the book is a scene (built on a newspaper article) where a group of California poets are discussing the state of poetry at the end of the 19th century. Writer Adeline Knapp says that all the great poems have already been written. "Our poets strive after the weird, the grotesque, the uncouth in their agonies at what they are wont to call their self-revelations, but which are rarely more than painful exposures of their cranial caverns." The rest of the group branded her a heretic, but she continued anyway. Referring to the revolution of free verse, she said, "Look over the field of modern poetry and say what sane man can tell what our poets are driving at. They talk about 'lewd stars' and 'mounting waves.' They tear the language from limb to limb in their efforts to express what is inexpressible, unexistent. They give us words, words, words, wrenched from their natural meanings, and arranged in all sorts of unnatural forms." She believed that prose would better serve the new century. Poet Edwin Markham countered, ""Poetry will exist so long as the world exists. Prose cannot express all that there is to be expressed. We need poetry to express that fleeting, elusive song of life that is as real as anything in life." He also said something else that I love: "Like some airy and invisible architect, [poetry] shapes character. The poet in his highest aspect may be considered a seer." Could that be the face of a new revolution? According to Alpaugh, we may soon find out.

Aleta George

read David Alpaugh's article

I love the trouble David Alpaugh is stirring up for the future of American poetry and how he frames this discussion with opera. I was pretty disturbed this past week when I started reading my copy of Poet & Writers magazine which is focused on MFA programs. And, yes, this is not a new subject about how too many people are being churned through these programs with degrees that for the most part are meaningless. Just for the record, the Steiny Road Poet does not have an MFA and has never seriously considered getting one. Supposedly these degrees are for people who want to teach or scale that rickety ladder of publishing success. This poet has done and led her share of poetry workshops on the inside and outside of universities to know they can be done anywhere and some have good value but at the end of a university program, what does the degree get -- a certified poet? What does this mean? However, what bothers me about Mr. Alpaugh's fine essay is what is missing. He has the older end of the poets' world covered but not the younger side which includes the controversial language poets led by such older poets as John Ashberry. Like the work of Gertrude Stein, too many people discount the work of language poets. Sure, there is a lot of so-called language poetry that is uninteresting, and this poet thinks that the MFA programs contribute to that, but just like any art form, the more you immerse yourself, the better you can judge the new stuff. So bring on the poetry theater -- there is no end of the world coming for poetry as long as we keep those sharp pencils moving.

Karren Alenier

read David Alpaugh's article

This is a wonderful look BACK at poetry lane. And the points made on mass production of poets is a common one these days. What is not accounted for is the POETRY REVOLUTION from the CULTURAL REVOLUTION (STILL GOING ON) that not only gave us the BEATS but women, blacks, gays, minorities -- those whose voices had been oppressed for so long they were like diamonds coming from the earth. These voices still vitalize the American scene. We should check out the work of MFA poets and separate the good ones from the mediocre, for having gone to writing college does not necessarily make one an awful poet. Rita Dove came out of Iowa. Not mentioned also is the way publishers curried poets in the mid century. Not so much today. This is a very interesting article and read with respect. Grace Cavalieri: Producer "The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress." (check out the stunning poets on our website.) Thanks!

Grace Cavalieri

read David Alpaugh's article
-----------------------------------------
A clarification: As I said above - "Going to a writing college does not
necessarily make one an awful poet."
QUITE THE OPPOSITE: "Rita Dove came out of Iowa." Some of our most important contributors to poetry have education from writing programs. In fairness, this should be said.

David Alpaugh's article sniffs at the heels of the Poetry Dilemma. Because the Poetry Machine in the United States has become so huge, it has become outrageously controlling. Only poets approved by the Poetry Machine receive any national coverage. The issue of actual quality in poetry is ignored or unknown.

Marvin R. Hiemstra

read David Alpaugh's article

Kudos to you for publishing another commentary by David Alpaugh. I admire his insightful assessment of the situation of contemporary poetry, and his examples. His essay addresses young, current writers (even writing program survivors) as well as those unschooled who ply their art from a long love of the pleasure of sound put to meaning. His comments are not meant just for "old" writers. The point he makes is all inclusive: age-free, gender-free, race-free, class-free. Timeless. This morning I heard a bright & funny young woman on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" (NPR) explain what it means to speak in "abreves", ie: abbreviations. Her phrase sounded close to code - a code dictated by the character LIMITATIONS of Twitter messaging and texting. (Ah corporate domination...!) I'm sure it gets the job done, like being able to decipher the dits and dahs of Morse code. It's functional, in a weirdly atavistic way. But does it sing? Inspire? Soothe. Teach? No. It abbreviates...sucks blood out of language, music out of winds, birds out of trees. How's that for corny... will there be a place for "corny" in "abreves"?

Kathleen Lynch

read David Alpaugh's article

I'm not so sure of even this: And music is something poets do not have in their arsenal. Or do they? To be sure, poets cannot rely on actual musical tones. It may seem like musical tones are out of bounds, but this, I think, often has to do with the fact that many poets reading voices modulate between about four tones. Developing a wider away of notes, inflections, intonations can make a reading sound every bit as musical as the musical phrase in a song.

Tim Kahl

read David Alpaugh's article

Wonderful article! I like how Mr. Alpaugh directs us to learn from lyrics as well. Although melodies can add to the meaning of songs, I love song-writers' lyrics that beg to be repeated in my memory. Likewise, poetry that calls for the same.

Jan Olszewski

read David Alpaugh's article

Right on, David! Well put. I heartily agree. However, Frost in introducing a book of New England ballads noted this difference between poems and songs: "The voice and ear are left at a loss what to do with the ballad till supplied with the tune it was written to go with. That might be the definition of a true ballad [or song?] to distinguish it from a true poem. A ballad does not or should not supply its own way of being uttered. For tune it depends on the music of music--a good set score. Unsung it stays half lacking..."

John Ridland

read David Alpaugh's article

This is something I can chime in on wholeheartedly. I've written on the topic and try, as a teacher, to bring the tools of metrics, parallelism, repetition, enjambment, musicality in language itself to poetry learners. Most people are never taught these skills. To write music, one must learn the symbolic system of notes, rests, rhythm. Many poets neglect the analogous training for writing verse that "sings" and bears reading time and again. Free verse includes many musical attributes but so much of what I hear is musically numb. Thank you to Mr. Alpaugh for raising this topic. I like a lot of the points made.

Jannie Dresser

read David Alpaugh's article

Please lock every practicing poet in Solitary Confinement with a copy of What Poets Can Learn from Songwriters and a bottle of champagne. Alpaugh's resplendent perception shines again!

Marvin R. Hiemstra

read David Alpaugh's article

As usual, Kathi draws from her own experiences to illuminate the world we live in. It is not always ideal, but, through Kathi's eyes, it is clear, warm, filled with good humor and seen for what it is. A great gift given us.

Grace Cavalieri

read Kathi Wolfe's column

Many thanks to Scene4 for bringing us the eminently sensible, wise and salutary poetry columns of David Alpaugh. I find myself in almost total agreement with everything he says about poetry and the current poetry scene. Above all I agree with what he says in his current column: that poetry is an art, not identical but closely allied to song, that is meant to enchant and enlighten us. It is not supposed to be a credit on a resume, or a sacred mystery to be guarded zealously by the few hundred keepers of the flame.

Alpaugh's latest column reminded me of an argument I had a few years ago with two poet friends. I argued that a poem should reveal something of itself, but not all, on first reading; they insisted that a poem must be absolutely opaque the first five or six times you read it, and that anything less was a sacrilege.

Needless to say, these same friends regard the name "Billy Collins" as being in the same class as "Paris Hilton." The real tragedy is that my friends--whatever our differences in esthetics--are no more of the academy than I am. How deeply the poets have drunk of the Kool-Aid!

Miles David Moore

read David Alpaugh's column

No matter what convoluted political and cultural leanings and swayings, this is important information which is crucial to know. All sides. All angles.

Grace Cavalieri

read Karren Alenier's article

Thank you for giving a whole new meaning to this poem and to writing the story behind the
story. Fascinating!

Liz Koehler-Pentacoff

read David Alpaugh's article

Once again, Alpaugh fires his comedic genius across our bow to awaken creative insight into the cannon balls of his poetry and essays.  A brave new look a poor Richard's legacy.  (Although, it always seemed to me that Cory was a "wannabe" defensive coordinator for the Penn State football team.)

C. O. Mccauley

read David Alpaugh's article

Karren Alenier's article on the Washington Post's obscene review of Gertrude Stein and the exhibition Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories at the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. brilliantly analyzes one particular case of openly declared "hatred" for Stein. This sort of hatred has followed Stein from the moment she began to publish, in the early twentieth century, but it is worth noting the context that gave rise to this "indecent exposure" in a serious newspaper like the Washington Post. Stein's present renaissance with two epochal traveling exhibitions has brought out people like critic Phil Kennicott who, as Alenier reminds us, assigns himself, a "seat in the corner with the Stein haters that include 'the worst sort of critics--anti-Semites, misogynists, homophobes and philistines.'" It is worth noticing that Stein's old enemies found new fodder and an academic seal of approval for their attacks in Barbara Will's book, Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ and the Vichy Dilemma (2011). The inflammatory book fed into the Stein controversy that was triggered by the exhibition Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, linked to the question how Stein and Toklas had managed to survive in Nazi-occupied France. Will's speculations about the "true Stein" and her alleged "collaboration" with a fascist friend and fascist regime unleashed a cultural hysteria, a sort of license to kill that took over the media and blogosphere. I have no doubt that this cultural atmosphere provided the justification for the Washington Post to publish the infamous article. Will camouflages the fact that her book is in fact about Bernard Faÿ, an intellectual friend of Steins's from the twenties, a once respected historian and author who during the war became a Gestapo informer and persecutor of the Freemasons in France. Hardly anybody today would care about Bernard Faÿ and his twisted fate as a condemned collaborator who was ultimately pardoned by French President Mitterand. Gertrude Stein is being used to create a story that pretends to be sensationalist news when the facts and allegations have already been published and rehashed numerous times, most recently by Janet Malcolm in Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice (2007).

With all due respect to Renate Stendhal, who I cherish as a person Steinian, I find the work that Barbara Will published in Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma refreshing for its non sensationalization of a tough Stein scenario. 

I am on the record and urge you to read what I said in my recent Scene4 article An Invitation to Gertrude Stein's Tea Party.

As noted Stein scholar Catharine Stimpson said recently at a conference held partially at the National Portrait Gallery where the exhibition "Seeing Gertrude Stein" just closed, "Gertrude Stein was stupid about politics."

I consider Gertrude Stein, Renate Stendhal, and Barbara Will part of my Steinian family. I won't stop loving any of them.

Karren Alenier

Karren Alenier is a much cherished part of the Steinista tribe, indeed, and we agree quite happily to disagree. We all have a blind eye somewhere and Stein herself was the first to admit her political stupidity and inexperience: "Writers are not really interested in politics..." etc. To be on the record, this was the point of my detailed article in the Los Angles Review of Books, Was Gertrude Stein A Collaborator? (In a shorter version - Exclusive: Was Gertrude Stein A Hitler Fan?

An academic like Catharine R. Stimpson has begun to see Will's book with different eyes, as I was privileged to hear from herself. Others, like the great Stein expert Marjorie Perloff, have never been taken in. If you want a non-sensationalist account of Stein's war years, I refer you to the book by Dominique Saint Pierre, "Gertrude Stein, le Bugey, la guerre" -- an impeccable study by an historian, devoid of the inflated speculations in Barbara Will's book.

Renate Stendhal

What a good expansion of the magazine. Jon Rendell's photography is beautiful both technically and in its composition. He captures the spirit of my favorite city. And Arthur's little trio is a teasing provocation to say the least. And the "writings" are worth the price. Thanks for all of that.

Laird

see the Perspectives

Oklop was a beautiful writer and a tenacious one.

Malick

read Lissa Renaud's article

It's amazing how "gone" that American experience is and how forgotten Kerouac is. It's as if the Beats never existed. I miss 'em.

Bruce Turin

read Griselda Steiner's article

Hilarious ain't the word, Les. I couldn't stop laughing, man. It's like right out of a Reality Show. And can I relate to it. Hey, I wish I had this speech a couple of years ago in Spokane. Same deal, same situation, same crazy. You nailed it, brother!

T.J. Michael

read Les Marcott's monologue

What I miss most about Jack Kerouac and the Beats is that he and they wrote at a time before the Kindle and the Internet and Amazon Books and 'Facegook'. You had to be a writer to write, not just a word processor.

Laird

read Griselda Steiner's article

I don't know if this is drama or poetry or as Kopal calls it: a self-dispossessed illusion (great phrase!). What I do know is it kept me up last night!

Laird

read Iri Kopal's writing

That's why there isn't anybody like him writing today, on a roll of paper wasn't it? And there probably won't ever be another Beat-like writer again.

Turin

read Griselda Steiner's article

The last thing I ever thought was that Kerouac was a writer. A scribbler, yes, but hardly a writer. And goodbye to all the Beat so-called writers and the whole time. It's long gone and should stay that way-one of the greyest, dullest periods in recent history.

RJ

read Griselda Steiner's article

It's almost as if O'Neill wrote this play last year. His indictment of the military-industrial complex and corporate politics is scathing and so very timely. It would make a blockbuster movie today. I also agree with the writer's opening indictments of our "dumb" presidents but I love Bob Dylan. He is the great poet of the 20th century.

Maria Einhorn (truthsayer)

read Arthur Meiselman's column

Who was Jack Kerouac then and who is Jack Kerouac now? That's the question. And does it matter?

MM

read Gloria Steiner's article

Many thanks to Kathi Wolfe for her remembrance of Adrienne Rich and for her own sensory-provoking poetry. She's a wonderful writer.

Naomi Rubenstein

read Kathi Wolfe's column and
read her poetry in this issue