Looking to get yourself in a literary mood for next week’s Boston Book Fest? Spend Columbus Day weekend in Gloucester, celebrating the birth of Charles Olson, one of Massachusetts’s great modernist poets.

At the time of his death in 1970, Olson was still penning “The Maximus Poems.” The work—inspired by Ezra Pound’s “Cantos”—is told in the voice of Maximus (a combination between the Greek philosopher and Olson himself) and is both an exploration of American history and focused on Massachusetts and Gloucester specifically. The Los Angeles Times said it was “probably the most ambitious poem ever written by an American.”

The Charles Olson Society and other groups, including the Cape Ann Museum, have put together a series of events to commemorate the centennial of Olson’s birth.

Head to downtown Gloucester between Friday, October 8 and Sunday, October 10 to join in on the celebration. Some of the major events include a showing of “Polis Is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place” (10/9, 3 PM), narrated by John Malkovich and called “the best film about an American poet ever made” by the Boston Phoenix; a reading by San Francisco’s Poet Laureate, Diane di Prima (10/9, 7 PM); and a Maximus Walk with readings by Kevin Gallagher, David Rich, Henry Ferrini, and Peter Anastas (10/10, 11 AM). There will also be other readings and town meeting-type discussions. Events are free and open to the public, but donations of $5 are encouraged for certain events.

For a complete list of events and locations, check out http://olson100.blogspot.com/.

Boston book lovers, rejoice!

You can finally back off the edge of your seats: The Boston Book Fest recently announced the lineup for its second annual bibliophile’s paradise, taking place in and around Copley Square on October 16.

The Festival has incorporated a wide range of authors and other media experts as panelists and moderators into its 2010 program. Alongside journalists, comedians, architects, designers, actors, and television and radio hosts are over 130 world-renowned writers of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Here are some highlights of celebrated writers in each main book category:

Fiction

Dennis Lehane

If you haven’t yet read Dennis Lehane’s books, you’ve probably at least seen one of the movies based on them: “Mystic River”; “Gone, Baby, Gone”; or more recently, “Shutter Island.” The Dorchester native also penned “Prayers for Rain,” “Sacred,” “The Given Day,” and “A Drink Before the War” (winner of the Shamus Award for Best First Novel), among others. To top it all off, Lehane recently edited and contributed to the hub-centric short story collection “Boston Noir.”

Kelly Link

Not only does Kelly Link write short fiction about, as The New Stateman put it, “pirates and wizards, undead babysitters and dueling librarians,” she also runs Small Beer Press and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. She lives in Northampton and has one short story collection, “Magic for Beginners,” available for free downloading in case you want to read it now to prepare for meeting her in October. Her other collections are “Stranger Things Happen” and “Pretty Monsters.”

Brunonia Barry

Brunonia Barry worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood for nearly a decade, but returned  to Massachusetts (who wouldn’t?) and opened Smart Games, a puzzle company, with her husband. Her self-published novel, “The Lace Reader,” created a media sensation that sparked a bidding war, landing her a $2 million book deal. Her second novel, “The Map of True Places,” was published in May.

Non-Fiction and Memoir

Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande, author of New York Times bestseller,”The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right,” is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He’s also a staff writer for the New Yorker, which recently published, “Letting Go,” his look at the current state of end-of-life care inAmerica. In 2006, he received the MacArthur Fellowship (you know, the “genius prize”) for his practical improvements to surgical practices.

Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn is an accomplished poet, but he is probably best known for “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City,” a Boston-based memoir about homelessness which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award. His new memoir, “The Ticking is the Bomb,” was released in early 2010. Flynn has also been a ship’s captain, an electrician, and a caseworker with homeless adults.

Da Zheng

Da Zheng received his Ph.D. in English from Boston University after immigrating from Shanghai 1986. He currently serves as an Associate English Professor at Suffolk University. Zheng’s cultural biography, “Chiang Yee: The Silent Traveler from the East,” explores the life and work of the Chinese immigrant who wrote and illustrated travel books about the West from an outsider’s perspective.

Bill Bryson

Bryson’s Web site brags that he is “is the UK’s biggest selling non-fiction author since official records began.” Born in Iowa, Bryson spent the majority of his life living and writing in the United Kingdom (apart from a brief stint in New Hampshire in the 90s). He has written 17 books on travel, the English language, and science, including “The Lost Continent” and “A Short History of Nearly Everything,” which won the Aventis Prize for Science Books as well as the Descartes Science Communication Prize. They’re awards justly won: Who besides Bryson (and Mel Brooks) can tackle the history of the world with such awesome wit?

Poetry

Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch credits Emily Bronte for his love of poetry. He holds a Ph.D. in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. His books and essays have received a slew of awards, including the Lavan Younger Poets Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the William Riley Parker Prize from the Modern Language Association, among others. Hirsch is a poetry columnist for the Washington Post Book World and president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Jill McDonough

A poet with work in The Threepenny Review, The New Republic, and Slate, among others, Jill McDonough is an adjunct English professor who teaches creative writing to incarcerated college students through Boston University’s Prison Education Program. Her first full-length book of poetry, “Habeas Corpus,” was published in 2008.

Kevin Young

Publisher’s Weekly has stated that, “In just ten years since his debut, Young has become a leading poet of his generation.” Kevin Young has published six books of poetry, including March 2010′s “The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing.” He is a professor of creative writing and English and curator of Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.

All of the Above

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most celebrated fiction writers of our time. She’s written novels for adults, young adults, and children; short stories; poetry; drama; essays and non-fiction; and has edited nearly 20 anthologies on various subjects, including H.P. Lovecraft, mother-daughter fiction, and cats. Her latest award is the Fernanda Pivano Award for American Literature, but that doesn’t even scratch the surface of her achievements. She’s lived in New York, Wisconsin, Michigan (she calls Detroit her “great subject”), and New Jersey, and it’s up to us to give her a warm welcome in Boston.

In addition, the panelists and moderators for the day’s events include some familiar names in the publishing and media worlds, including Helene Atwan, the director of Beacon Press; Peter Kadzis, Executive Editor at the “Boston Phoenix”; Tom Ashbrook, journalist and host of National Public Radio and WBUR’s “On Point”; Alan Dershowitz, Harvard University law professor, writer, and winner of the William O. Douglas First Amendment Award for his human rights advocacy; and Faith Salie, radio host (or, you might remember her as Sarina Douglas on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). The events schedule and specific locations will be announced after Labor Day.

A full list of attending authors and media experts, with bios, is available here.

A work of original fiction.

A couple of long weeks ago I was fired. I worked as a secretary for a lawyer at one of the law offices in Kenning, OH. The office was small and had a brown sign that stuck out over the entrance to the parking lot. It was stupid, really, the way I was fired. I’d been working at the office for eight months and two weeks and the only complaint I ever heard about my work was that I didn’t greet everything with the same amount of enthusiasm. They called it “enthusiasm.” Never anything serious until a woman named Heather with velvet lips and a tape recorder hidden under her coat came in to document her complaint. I found out later that she was like one of those secret shoppers but for law office secretaries. You know, to make sure we do our jobs right. Well she found my smile to be less than amicable and I was let go shortly after for a daughter of someone in the building. I took the opportunity to find a new job as a way to change scenery. Nothing was working out. I only told my girlfriend I was leaving. Her name was Joy. “What a shame,” she said. “You’ve got nice teeth.”

#

Within all of the hours of the day I am in front of my grandfather Ed’s condo in Naples, Florida. I am down here because he told me once I graduated from college that if I ever needed someplace besides my hometown to start my life in I could stay with him and right now seems like as good a time as any for something like that. The front door is open and the light is off.

It’s quiet. I can hear my own breathing and I have the time to check my pulse, but everything else has me prepare for the worst in my head. I imagine Ed toppled over upstairs, a gunshot wound to his head; pealed open like a zombie took a bite out of it. I imagine he struggled, but I also imagine it a completely different way; with Ed quietly asleep in his bed although his chest is still. None of my dreams come true, if you want to call them that.

At the glass patio door next to the kitchen I see Zoey, the dog, who is at least ten years old and the short hair running over her body is checkered with white and gray wavy plots of hair outside under the only tree in the twelve by twenty five foot backyard. Not like her hair’s falling out, but like certain spots don’t get washed anymore. It makes sense to turn around and check upstairs, but when I’m in there looking at my grandfather’s Tempur-pedic bed with nothing on it I step outside to ponder why it’s so quiet and why Ed isn’t here. Before I do this I grab some whiskey out of the fridge in the kitchen and pour two shots worth into a glass.

The sun is angled like a spotlight on the patio, or a little square of cement with a plastic chair and table, as I sit in front of the whole place and there is a woman, a busty woman with bouncy blonde hair, walking her child around the neighborhood. I look towards her as I am finishing my drink and she smiles at me and pulls on the leash attached to her son, a chubby little boy who is kicking around in the shade of a palm tree, and begins walking again.

“Hello?” I say into the telephone hanging on the wall in the kitchen a moment later.

“Ed? . . . is Ed there?” a scratchy voice on the other end of the line says.

“No, this is his grandson. He’s. . .”

“Oh. I thought he was going to be in town for a little while. Who’s this?”

“My name is Richard”

“Ah, he’s never mentioned any grand kids before. Could you leave him a message for me?” The man on the other end talks in a hurry. I hear a car honk in the background.

“I need a name.”

“Oh that’s right, Jackson Bennoy. I’m an old friend of his, you know? My friends call me Benny,”

“Could you tell him to give me a call; I’m in town and need a place to stay.”

“He’s not here.”

“Shit,” I hear him shuffle the phone around.

“Well . . .” I say, “If you need a place to stay, you can come by. But not tonight.”

“Really? That’s what I’m talking about!”

“Come by around noon tomorrow.”

“Alright. . . what’s your name again?”

“Richard”

“Thanks again, Dick.”

#

In the morning there is a knock at the front door. I hear it from upstairs and slide down and to the door and peak through the peephole. It is the woman from yesterday. She doesn’t have a kid with her and says, “Hello there!” as I press against the door to get a better look. A quick peek over my shoulder and I open the door.

“Can I help you?”

“I bet you’re wondering why I’m bothering you at eight in the morning, aren’t you.” The blonde woman says as she shuffles her weight from foot to foot.

“Well I live down the street. My name is Sunni. I’ve been keeping Edward company for the past few weeks and I saw you outside yesterday so I thought I’d just introduce myself. You are?”

“I’m Richard, Edward’s grandson. I didn’t know people in Naples were so polite. Last time I was here I don’t think I talked to anyone new.” I say as I realize it’s still eight in the morning and she is holding today’s paper in her armpit, against her breast.

“Yeah, huh. My husband and I moved in a couple months ago and I ran into your grandpa at the beach shortly after that. He’s great.” She was smiling like I do when I am all alone and I couldn’t help but want to invite her in and spend the afternoon having sex. Her eyes look like something out of an Egyptian painting, where the black around the white is so shocking it takes the attention off of her gaze even when you tell yourself you’re looking directly in them. I get lost in this. She makes me forget how human I really am for a minute.

“Well, I don’t want to bother you too long,” she says with her eyebrows up. I look down and notice that I have let the front door open all of the way and my happy trail causes her eyes to follow a line to my boxers.

“Oh sorry about that. I guess I forgot.”

“No problem. Everybody here goes down to the beach around two o’clock. Don’t be a stranger if we see each other down there.”

#

One of an occasional series of fiction stories in Blast.

You were never too needy, and I was never too safe.

We were in Cannes, for the festival.  And we were interns!  We ruled the world from scrounging it.  We were coffee-gophers; we were street-teamers, the hit-men of advertising.  We were young and drank French merlot, maybe cultivated in Burgundy, maybe expensive and cultivated somewhere else, like, another country, but we drank it for the same price.  And you had that freckle on your nose, the right nostril, which sometimes you mistook for a speck of something — perhaps a renegade flake of ash from your cigarette, perhaps a daub from a frugal piece of p¢t©, the one which you would try to rub off, but to no avail.

But that summer!  Those two weeks, at the cuff of the season, we were young and you were beautiful.  And me?  Not quite so much.  Though I pretended to be one of those people, those people like you.  We were in Cannes, after all.  We were housed in this picturesque apartment.  I would say that the walls were stucco, except I don’t know exactly what stucco looks like.  I like to think of the interiors of unopened tropical caves, with stalactites and stalagmites like stunted canine teeth.  And the best part was that the apartment was in the old part of Cannes, the part that still felt like it had been untouched by the greasy finger of the film industry, or as most said, show biznesss, and it made me feel untainted, in a way.

My best friend from home had said that she only wanted French cigarettes, the particular brand that started with a "G", a brand that I could never pronounce, because I had learned Spanish in school instead of French.  So I bought her those cigarettes, or what I thought were the kind she wanted, a silver souvenir film canister with the palm d’or slapped across the front, an ashtray with an etching of the Parisian skyline, a cheap butane lighter (though she would never know that it was cheap), and a cigarette case with a lacquered picture of Marilyn Monroe splayed on the front, that infamous scene from that infamous movie wherein she pushes her skirt down over a steaming sidewalk grill, a subway throttling underneath her feet.  So maybe I’m too generous.

But I purchased all of these things, and you said I was just so nice.  And I didn’t want you to think that I was too nice.

And oh, wow!  How can you explain away that town?  Cannes?  I think I saw a lot of celebrities, but I didn’t know what color their eyes were.  I had never seen an endless body of water like that before — lapping against the shore like a relentless tongue — that certain ratio of blue-grey to fish-tank green.  It was an ocean, I reminded myself, it ended, as do all things.  The sand, in a perverse moment, reminded me of harvested Astro-Turf.  But that little alcove of history we nested in — with the sloping staircases that you said reminded you of steep escalators — it was a piece of authenticity, like a Boy Scout badge.  I had told you, after all, that once in my life I had won the Pinewood Derby.

So that’s how we met, during that internship, assigned respective, adjacent rooms in that apartment complex.  And maybe it was a quietness about me that you mistook for confidence, or French aloofness — or maybe because of my shy nature, you thought I was French to begin with?   We began talking, and talking, and talking, but not necessarily listening.  We spoke to each other like we were waiting at crossroads, waiting for a traffic light to fade from red to green.  But you knew too little about me, and I knew too little about you, and we pranced around with these artifices in our pockets, gallivanting about as if they were truths.  And we liked it this way, we really did.  You wanted to be a filmmaker, but not really, and so did I, but really.  And so maybe I had a crush, and maybe you didn’t, because my luck falls like that a lot.  Because I nod and smile in odd patterns.  Because you don’t scrutinize anyone but the shadow of yourself.

*

You wore new dresses every day, in colors I can’t quite name, but can only think of equitable estimations to them.  A dolphin’s skin.  The canvass sail of a dinghy at a clear sunset.  The bright beige of champagne nestling in a flute.  And, hey, they made me think of cringe-worthy scenarios, of bad poetic verse.  I wore the same tuxedo every time, as we went off to the premieres (for most of them, we left after ten minutes), only hoping to be photographed on the unfurled red carpet in front of the respective theatre, with captions like So-And-So was seen with So-And-So, and you should really, really care!  You snatched tickets for the both of us because you could finagle them better than I could.

And there was that one time, the middle of the second week, in which we went to that after-party for that film that never ended up getting a distributor, which never was spoken of again.  You met this film guy.  Not in the sense that I was a film guy, not in the way that it could be written off as a preoccupation, but in a serious way.  He was a lot older, in his late forties, at least.  Though his hair was thick, and though mine is already thinning.  This film guy was charismatic if not attractive; rosy, bellowing.  He gave you compliments and chivalric bows, even though they were executed at unnecessary moments.  And he told you that you had a face for acting, though you had never acted before.  The thought had never glimmered across your pupils, nor had it shown in your high school activity track record.  But that face! he said, as if you could launch a thousand — no, a million — ships.  And I think those were his words, not mine.

I was watching this, an American with a green bottle of German beer in France.  His wife was there, too.  A blonde, pretty thing, but in the way that you aren’t, a kind of gaudy, brittle beauty.  She was wearing a lot of aquamarine.  That was the color of her dress, stitched with sequins.  She was laughing and agreeing with him, and no one was talking to me.  They bought you drink after drink, the harder and more potent facsimiles.  You were laughing, too.  The three of you, in a circle, co-conspirators, cackling away at something I couldn’t imagine.

What were you talking about?  What were you conjuring?  Will you ever tell me?

Here is where the plot splinters like the shrapnel of so many landmines; or old, unpreserved, peeling film strips, the images blotted out by mildew.  Where I myself wonder whether the recounted events were marketed for my own vicious entertainment value, or whether I just wanted to doubt you in the first place.  Because if I did, I could pretend that you wanted to glamorize your relatively uninteresting background and bereft bilgundsroman, because we would eventually leave Cannes and leave the company of each other, and I didn’t want to think that you were too perfect.  So, what do I know?  I only know what you do.

*

You left with them, the film guy and his wife.  He wore a three-piece pinstriped seersucker suit; did I mention that I remember that?   You and the two of them walked past the marina on a listless night.  The sails were all tied down and the breeze was the slight caress of a new, tentative lover.  You were speaking in enthusiasms and small words like yeah! and crazy! and sure!  And you noticed that they gesticulated with their hands a lot; you maybe thought it was a sign of importance, those hand gestures, the passing-down of an ancient tautology.  A secret codex imparted without language.  The air smelled like a foreign tongue and salt and a bit of brut.  The hotel wasn’t far, they said, but the film guy used his hand to signal a taxi.  His minor potbelly, garnered with age and success, did not aid in keeping his white button-down shirt tucked in.

All three of you got in the cab, and you thought it was odd that you found yourself sandwiched in between the film guy and his wife, as if you had displaced a hierarchy, instituted a coup d’©tat.  A little more than a minute later, the cab driver let you out at a grand hotel.  You already knew that their room had a nice view.

All of your party of three slid out of the cab, because the cabs in Cannes seemed so much cleaner than ordinary cabs, the leather upholstery well-maintained and perfect for sliding.  You entered the hotel through the revolving doors, the clear glass panes of each large window quadrant encased in gold-colored metal that certainly wasn’t gold.  But you liked to be optimistic, you liked to believe they were even if you knew it wasn’t so.  The lobby was grand and gilded and empty, and the film guy and his wife took advantage of this and laughed loudly and boisterously for no reason, and you went along with it, laughing at empty patches in conversation, because it seemed like the right thing to do.  The concierge on duty, because it was that kind of hotel, probably disapproved, but no one cared for his Frenchly-furrowed brow.  You and the film guy and his wife broke for the elevator, and the film guy kept pressing the button for up, up, up, up.

You were in their room, nothing entirely too special.  The bed had that paisley-patterned coverlet with the same strange, synthetic, almost plasticine texture that you found on beds at less-reputable institutions like the Motel 6.  There was a mini-fridge and a big, boxy black television.  The film guy made a call downstairs, in affluent French, with the kind of air someone uses when he knows that there is a fluidity in his speech, who knows very well of his benefice.  The only thing you understood in that tangle of words was champagne.

The wife motioned for you to sit on the bed, rubbing the vacant spot beside her.  The aquamarine dress she wore slithered down on one shoulder.  Even if she was so skinny, maybe even skinnier than you, she had that maternal quality that we presuppose all older women have.  She touched the small of your back.  You thought it was comforting.  You thought of your mother, who wasn’t.

*

I was at the bar at the same after-party for the same film I could have made much, much better, knowing that you weren’t going to come back.  And waiting for you.

*
You, he said, are going to be the next big thing.

You liked his words, because you liked the way they inflected believability.

You’re in L.A., right?

You were.

Great!  That takes care of some of the logistical stuff.  Kid, you’re gonna be it, know what I’m saying?  You think actresses get famous for crying in a movie while wearing a corset or something?  For acting?  Not how it works.  It’s all about P.R., Kid, and a pretty face.  And…charisma.

He thought he was so sly, looking briefly at the things he had mentioned, but still looking.

And Kid, for you?  We’re gonna do it up to the nines.

You didn’t think that the axiom was the one he meant it to be.

And so what, if you’re worried about actually acting?  It’s easy.  We all do it.  Don’t you smile at the cashier at the convenience store when you buy a pack of gum or whatever?  Don’t you act like you give a shit, but really…?  See?  It’s like that.  You’re probably a really great actress, and you have no idea.  Shit, I’ve never acted in front of a freaking camera, but I already know that I’m great at it.

You realized that you couldn’t recall the wife’s voice, the precise cadence, even though you could remember it sounded like tinking crystal wine glasses.  The champagne arrived.  The film guy went to the door and completed his transaction in a secretive way that reminded you of a speakeasy in a gangster movie.  He closed the door behind him, bottle in hand, the liquid hallowed in the yellowish light of the hotel room.  The film guy popped the cork without ceremony and took a big swig of it, like a deep kiss.

And then the wife got up, walked over to the bottle more so than her husband, and took it from him.  You could hear the stuff gurgling down her throat.  And then again.  She went to the television and turned it on.  The screen popped to life, set on a channel for music videos.  French electro-techno-whatever-pop.  She began to dance.  You were surprised to remember that before, at the after-party for that film, she had drunk a lot.  You forgot that you had, as well, and felt a painful hot pulsating in your veins, an alcoholic burn.

She danced, she danced, she danced, in a way that a dandelion catching the wind in its petals persuades poetry.  Or like a woman with a lot of practice.  She made the synthesizer pummeling away at the ambient electronica look natural, despite its lack of humanity.  You didn’t notice, at first, as one sleeve of her aquamarine dress shimmered down her shoulder, down her arm, like shower water.  And then the other side.  She wasn’t wearing a brassiere, or underwear.  You didn’t notice that she was naked until you realized you were critiquing the off-white stretch-marks that accentuated the twin axes of her hips.

*

I was still waiting, always waiting.

*

You felt his thick hands kneading the spot between your shoulder blades, as sharp as wings.

Your first audition, he said.

*

The first and last call I received on my disposable European cell phone.  You were crying, wracked with all those hysteric overtures.  You were unintelligible and I felt wanted.  You told me an address, nowhere near Old Cannes.  I was trying to be quiet, regaling you with hushed tones, because the other two interns were sleeping and hadn’t been drunk.  It was four in the morning.  It took me forever to track down a cab, and I walked halfway there before I did.  The streets were bare.  Your un-glossed mouth.

You were sitting, crumpled, on the steps of the hotel.  I can’t recall what you were wearing, though I had thought it pretty when the evening had started, when you had stood on the red carpet, in the dappled sunlight, wrapped in my arms, but not really.  That happened only in my head.  You were still crying, but your make-up wasn’t streaking, wasn’t running in minor tributaries down your face like Audrey Hepburn or Deborah Kerr.

I didn’t hold you on those steps, though your fragility tempted me.

I never knew the ending to the story.

*

And we were right, we were very, very right.  Because after we kissed – later, when you visited me in Valencia after I moved there, to California, to that stark suburban dreamscape – you were never too needy, and I was never too safe.  We had short-circuited our prophecies; it was the other way around.  I was the lovelorn, love-struck, love-hungry hero, and you could never be happy with surety, with my ecclesiastic declarations.

You were always a really great actress.

Da Zheng, a participant in the upcoming Boston Book Festival, is the author of "Chiang Yee: The Silent Traveller from the East." The book, published by Rutgers University Press in April 2010, is a cultural study of the Chinese writer whose 26 published works cover art, writing, travel, poetry, memoir, and children’s stories. Zheng is also an English professor and director of the Asian Studies program at Suffolk University. He is planning a similar project on Shih Hsiung, a writer who adapted the popular Chinese story, "Lady Precious Stream," into a play that ran for 1,000 nights in London and was later invited to Broadway.

Zheng sat down with Blast ro chat about his book, e-books, and the future of publishing, as well as offer some advice to aspiring nonfiction writers.

BLAST: How would you classify your book?

ZHENG: t could be a textbook. It would be very useful for Asian-American studies, and also for Chinese culture studies, even for American studies. People could learn so much through this book, in terms of the 20th century east-west cultural history. But I don’t think that most books from university publishers sell very well, because they are academic. But I tried to make it both. In between. Interesting and academic.

BLAST: Tell me about the book. How did you find your subject, and what about his life interested you?

ZHENG: I started to know Chiang Yee when I was in China. He had a book called "Chinese Calligraphy." I was interested in calligraphy, so I read through it and found it fascinating. So, with other people, I translated that book into Chinese and it was published in the 1980s. Then, I came to the States and I saw a copy of "The Silent Traveler in Boston" on the coffee table of my host family. It has Park Street Station; it is a familiar scene. But what caught my attention is the name Chiang Yee in Chinese. I realized that he is the same author of "Chinese Calligraphy," which I had just translated. I thought he was just an artist, without knowing that he was also a famous travel writer. My landlady told me that this was a very beautiful book, so I began to show interest in him. I read more and more, and I became fascinated with him.

BLAST: Do you have plans for any future books or writing projects?

ZHENG: Most of [Chiang Yee's] works were in English, so people in China do not know much about him. A publisher in China wants to translate his books on New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Paris into Chinese, so I am working on his biography. It will help.

BLAST: I noticed that it is not available as an e-book. Is that something you would ever consider?

ZHENG: Maybe I can make a suggestion to my publisher!

BLAST: How do you feel about e-books? Are they a good progression for publishing?

ZHENG: You want my honest opinion? Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I haven’t read a single volume of an e-book. But I know it is an inevitable trend. In fact, when I was in China, I walked into one shopping mall, which had a small section of computer technology. A lot of computer producers had rooms there, and one of them was selling e-books, like a Kindle here. It’s fascinating! It has over 400 books, and you can download as many as you want. I thought it was beautiful.

I understand it is inevitable, and the younger generation, like my son, is always asking me to consider it—an e-book of my book would help spread the word, and get more people to read it. I would definitely ask my publisher.

BLAST: I assume you don’t have an e-reader, then?

ZHENG: No, not at this point.

BLAST: Tablet computers like the iPad are making even large format and photo-heavy books possible in e-book format, and some people are predicting that the traditional print book will be dead within five years—which is really scary. Do you think that print publishing will continue on, or is it in serious danger?

ZHENG: My son is always trying to push me toward e-books, e-technology. I subscribe to the newspaper, and he always says to visit Boston.com. But I still love the papers! When I go over the old newspapers, I find a lot of articles that I can revisit, that I missed. I understand that more and more companies do e-form with or without the paper editions, but still I feel that paper books should still exist even after five years. For example, just the other day, I spent a lot of time trying to find some information, and I couldn’t get enough. So I went to the Suffolk Library, and I found a complete collection. Everything was there!

Even though, I have to admit, more and more now, I get my information through online sources. It is much easier; just a click away. But I don’t think it can replace the paper format.

BLAST: Do you have any advice for young people who want to get nonfiction books published?

ZHENG: I would say find a subject which interests you. Write with a passion, and be patient. Now, rejections come less and less. Just be persistent. Someday, you’ll find a niche.

Da Zheng will be on the "Mystery, History, and Art Across Three Continents and Two Centuries" panel, scheduled for 1:30-2:30 PM on October 16th in the Trinity Church Forum. His co-panelists are Elyssa East, author of "Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town," and Erica E. Hirshler, who penned "Sargent’s Daughters: The Biography of a Painting." The panel will be moderated by Megan Marshall, author of "The Peabody Sisters."

The Lizard Lounge hometown team

ST. PAUL, Minn. — When you hear the phrase "poetry reading," does your mind’s eye envision a dusty room in a library; three rows of folding chairs, less than half of which are occupied; and a gray-bearded man reading Whitman knockoffs in a monotone voice? Stop nodding off, buy yourself a drink, and welcome to Saint Paul, Minnesota, host city of the 2010 National Poetry Slam.

Each year, over four hundred of the world’s best performance poets converge on a city to compete in the National Poetry Slam. Eighty teams of four to five poets each bring their best pieces and dramatically deliver them in bars, theaters, and auditoriums filled with cheering—and sometimes buzzed—crowds.

This year, Saint Paul won the honor of hosting the National Poetry Slam through an Olympics-style bidding process. Matthew Rucker, host city coordinator and slam master of the reigning national champion Saint Paul Soap Boxing team, explains that his vision for the event was to have "a huge and happy audience. The poets come to share. Without an audience, poets might as well have stayed home and read poetry to an empty room." Rucker raised enough money to have a public relations budget larger than the entire cost of last year’s event. He also explains that he chose the venues based on proximity; all of them are conveniently within six blocks of each other.

In the final night of preliminaries, 14 bouts are taking place at these venues. At the History Theatre, the Lizard Lounge slam team from Cambridge, anxiously waits for their bout to begin. Having garnered a first-place ranking in their initial preliminary bout against three other teams, another win tonight will guarantee them a spot in the semifinals, as well as the prestigious distinction of being ranked one of the top twenty slam teams in the nation. However, as one of the first-place teams with the lowest total number of points, anything less than first place tonight will likely cause them to be eliminated.

Thick black curtains are draped behind History Theatre’s stage, which is empty except for five microphones, standing in military formation like a challenge to the poets. Who will make us sing, make us scream, use us to enrapture and enmesh the audience? They seem to be asking. Though the onlookers seated in the stadium seats chatter amongst themselves as they wait, all is quiet on the stage.

The emcee breaks the silence by announcing that the bout will soon begin. She reads the standard emcee spiel. "The slam was started in the 1980s by a construction worker named Marc Smith—" "So what!" interject the audience members who know that one of the grand traditions of slam poetry is dismissing the importance of its founder, illustrating that there are no celebrities or superstars here. As Rucker says, "slam is grassroots" and the poets are "just regular folks, not movers and shakers." Poems are judged by randomly selected audience members who are not necessarily by poetry experts. When asked to describe what qualifies them to judge, the answers range from "having two dogs with two nostrils" to "being an elitist snob and an English major" to "living in Michigan."

In order to help these amateur judges get used to the judging process, a calibrating or "sacrificial" poet delivers a poem which is judged as though it were actually in the slam. Tonight’s sacrificial poet is Jeff, who performs a standard-length piece of three minutes or less. The five judges flip through the large, laminated numbers on their score paddles until they select the score between 0 and 10 they feel is appropriate. The high and low scores are dropped, giving the poet a total score out of 30. Jeff receives a respectable 23.9 for his poem. Excitement and anticipation fill the theater; it is time for the slam to begin.

Round One: Cole Rodriguez

After the teams from Del Ray Beach and Oklahoma City have each delivered a poem, the emcee calls out, "Lizard Lounge, who are you sending up?" The four poets on the team yell back in unison, "Cole!" Nicole "Cole" Rodriguez is a legend at the Lizard Lounge as the only woman ever to win the lounge’s individual all-star King/Queen tournament. The microphone her scepter and the stage her throne, the Lizard Queen speaks but two words before the audience becomes her subjects.

"So I find myself / Per usual / Admonishing my daughter / Bellowing from the hot kitchen / That she needs to stop / Wasting water," she begins with a deceptively simple story that most audience members can relate to. The poem escalates, telling stories the audience knows but would like to ignore. "Czechoslovakia, Egypt and Ethiopia are all / Engaged in warfare / They are feeling the scarcity of water / And are trying to hoard their own share / And here in the States, / Those of us with ghetto passes / Won’t be considered / Part of the privileged masses / They’ll be drinking lovely / While we are denied access." As her words and performance intensify like the heat waves of recent decades, she asks, "How thirsty do you have to get / Before you show a little passion?" The audience certainly responds with passionate applause and gives the poem the highest score of the round: 25.6.

Cole says that she originally planned to perform one of her signature pieces—"old faithfuls," as her teammate Arthur Collins calls them—and save the water poem for semifinals. However, a quick glance around the History Theatre, one of the few National Poetry Slam venues that is not 18+, reveals quite a few children under the age of ten in the audience. The poem she’d intended to do is a somewhat graphic extended metaphor about a woman asking a man if he can make love to her mind. She asks him "To penetrate my thought patterns / Invoke sly suggestions / Permeate my lower intestines / With your mental erections." Deciding that the water poem was more appropriate for this particular audience, Cole changed poems last-minute.

Slam is a dynamic art form, so it’s not unusual for a poet to alter the plan as the event progresses. Like all good writers and stage performers, slam poets must be continually attuned to the audience; the scores reveal whether or not their intuitive assessment of the room was accurate. Cole explains, "A key to my strategy is my flexibility. I’ve watched people bomb on the basis that they’ve gone in with a plan and they stick only to their plan and they’re not flexible enough to notice stuff like the makeup of the judges…or the audience’s receiving of a different piece of a similar nature." Similarly, her teammate Marlon Carey says that poets shouldn’t be constrained to doing a specific poem in a particular round. "I’m an artist; I want to feel the room!" he says. "If the room doesn’t feel this way to me, but I was told to do this poem, I’m going to deliver it poorly."

Round Two: Marlon Carey

After the Los Angeles team presents its piece, it’s time for Round Two. "Lizard Lounge, who are you sending up?" the emcee asks again. "Inphynit!" the four poets respond, yelling Marlon’s stage name. He says he began calling himself Inphynit after a particular open mic night at the Lizard Lounge when he was 22. The Lizard’s open mic sessions used to last for hours and sometimes included freestyling, a type of performance where poets and rappers improvise verses on stage. Marlon explains, "I couldn’t stop freestyling one night; I was just loving the mic and loving the freestyle vibe, probably drunk. And when I stepped outside, this girl was like, ‘Yo! You never quit; you’re infinite!’"

This conversation inspired Marlon to change his name from Kid M.C. to Inphynit, but the name grew to have a deeper meaning. He’s not just a poet and rapper; he’s an actor, a singer, a published author, a radio show host. "Inphynit becomes this character that can’t be categorized," he says. "That’s what I try to live up to, a mission."

Not only can Inphynit’s artistry not be categorized, his poetry is not restricted to stereotypical styles and topics. Marlon explains that a lot of other African American male poets do poems about "the revolution and the ghetto," so he stands out by having a broad range of poems, including an extensive repertoire of love poems.

The poem he breaks out for Round Two is a beautiful blend of the sensual and tender sides of lovemaking that maintains a lighthearted tone throughout. "When I love you next," he begins, "it won’t be just sex."

Another way Marlon stands out from other slammers is that he enjoys impressing the audience with his poetic acumen, incorporating a lot of internal rhyme, alliteration and double entendre. He focuses on helping people "to enjoy the auditory experience" of listening to a poem. In contrast, he says that a lot of slam poetry is "very narrative, a three-minute comedy sketch, or everyday stuff that you write in your journal." Writing a poem in everyday language causes it to lose "the essence of what makes a poem a poem; the magic."

In fact, Marlon sees slam as a new art form altogether. He explains, "I have long since stopped thinking about it as being a poetry slam; it’s slam." Slam diverges from traditional poetry, coming alive for people who might not resonate with poems that are printed on a page. In a world where fewer and fewer people read for pleasure, Marlon believes that poetry is changing fundamentally. Through sharing poetry out loud, "we’re going back to the griots and the bards," he explains, conjuring up the ancient days when entire communities gathered around a bonfire to hear poets tell their history, invoke scenarios of their future, and inspire a deeper understanding of their present.

However, some poets and poetry aficionados are not enthusiastic about slam poetry. "There’s great question about if the integrity of the art form and the use of language and verse is upheld in competition," Cole explains. "Competition puts a whole new spin on things, and the fact that it’s a competition that’s specifically intended to be judged by people who are not experienced poetry listeners puts another spin on things."

"I think there are many poets who are turned off by slam poetry because they think it’s only about the numbers," Art agrees. "But it’s a good venue, particularly for people who are not used to regular poetry events…It’s an interesting, new way to appreciate the art."

Lizard Lounge team member Jamele Adams—known almost exclusively on the slam circuit as Harlym 1two5, a name he chose to celebrate 125th Street, which he calls "the vein of culture" in Harlem—looks the literati squarely in the face. "Don’t criticize it ‘cause you don’t dig it," he asserts. He goes on to note that slam poetry has been a positive force in the lives of many people he knows as an outlet for creative expression and a way to make sense of life. Because slam is a literary movement of true cultural value, Matthew Rucker believes that "the world would be a better place if poetry slam were as popular as sports or stand-up comedy."

As the applause swells for Marlon’s poem, it seems that the audience agrees.

Round Three: Arthur Collins

In Round Three, both Art and Marlon take the stage to perform a group poem. Making hand motions that suggest rifles, they shout in unison, "Pull it back and squeeze!" Pictures of urban violence illustrate American capitalism’s lack of conscience. Art delivers his line: "Years ago we were moving targets / Now we’re the urban market." Marlon joins in, the euphony of their combined voices adding emphasis to the final words of the stanza: "Targeted in different ways."

1two5 emphasizes that group pieces have to be generated organically for them to be effective. One way this happens, says Marlon, is when a team member realizes that he or she has a snippet of poetry that matches a snippet another teammate has written. Blending them begins to form a distinctive group piece.

But great group pieces also arise, Marlon says, simply from close friendships between the poets. As the poem’s rapid-fire back-and-forth continues, it’s clear that the hours Marlon and Art spent together have resulted in perfect timing and the ability to play off each other.

Art: But the truth is self-evident.

Marlon: The inhabitants of this country

Both: Still go hungry.

Art: For the proof isn’t in the pudding;

Marlon: It’s in the putting of your faith

In these small green rectangles.

Art: When the wool is over your eyes

Both: You can’t see all the angles

Art: They wash your thinking cap

And now your brain is star-spangled.

The camaraderie evident in this powerful group piece unifies this year’s Lizard Lounge team. Art explains, "Over the years, I had always said to myself, if there could be a team of myself, 1two5, Marlon, and Cole, we’d bring a different dynamic…We’ve all known each other for a couple years. I’ve seen Marlon grow up; I’ve seen Cole come from just reading poetry to actually performing it to winning the slams and doing very well with it. So I think we bring a good history and a good experience and a good chemistry." Cole agrees, "The excitement around wanting to work together was palpable."

Cole also notes that each of them brings a different skill set and attitude to team meetings. She and 1two5 are strong advocates for meeting agendas and planning ahead. Marlon, on the other hand, complained at one point, "The bureaucracy is killing me!" Cole laughed in response, "You’re such a poet!"

Cole says that Art’s personality is "to figure out what’s not being done and do it…If the room is really loud and boisterous, Art is the one that’s quiet. If no one’s saying much, Art is the loudest voice. He’s really good at reading what’s needed in the moment."

While the other three have been on the Lizard Lounge team in the past, this is Art’s first year as an official member. He has performed slam poetry for 14 years, but this year he worked especially hard to get on the team by competing in the Lizard Lounge’s weekly qualifying slams every Sunday from September until April. "Unless the Patriots were playing," he adds seriously.

Art was an alternate on the 2008 team, and Marlon notes that his poetry and performance grew and changed a lot through that experience. "He was able to see what Nationals was all about, see what he was trying to get to." He adds that he aspires to learn from Art’s theatrical talent and ability to get in character for a poem. "This year," Marlon says, "I’ve been focusing a lot on breaking the fourth wall, on resonating, on going where Art’s going."

Round Four: Harlym 1two5

According to 1two5, being able to break that fourth wall is the essential ingredient in making a powerful slam experience. Bringing poems from "page to stage," he says, is "heavy on performance…The poet immerses human structure into the delivery of that poem…and commits every ounce of their human existence to those three minutes."

And that’s just what he’s about to do.

Going into the fourth and final round, the Lizard Lounge is in the lead but less than a point ahead of Los Angeles. Luckily, 1two5 is prepared with a killer piece that celebrates black heritage and culture. "I’m the porch monkey that became President / Right after that reform Nazi became Pope," he begins. "The architect of Rock-n-Roll… / The trim of the sunset / And the highlight of midnight / Deep chocolate and Hennessey on fire / Wade in the water / Beautiful / And say it loud! (I’m Black and I’m Proud)."

As the poem goes on, it progresses from music and hairstyles to slavery and racism. "Slavery couldn’t break me / And even though the colonists / And the masters and the Spaniards / Raped me / Separated my children from me / Mutilated me / Hung me / Sold me as property / And betrayed me / I still have my black family / I taught Betsy Ross how to sew / I’m the bloodstain on the right hand of the pledge of allegiance / I’m the missing two-fifths / From your definition of three-fifths."

The repeated motif, "I’m black," casts a wider net near the end of the poem. "There was nothing before black / Before black there was more black / And just when you think you’re not black / You are black." We’re all interconnected and we’re all black—and proud of it.

The judges respond enthusiastically, bestowing on the poem a 28.4, the highest score of the entire slam. Their decision is mirrored in the audience’s resounding applause. The Lizard Lounge is officially in the semifinals, having edged out their closest competitor by a wide margin of almost five points. The team cheers excitedly and hugs in celebration.

Despite the Lizard Lounge’s stellar performance tonight, perhaps their greatest contribution is yet to come. Tomorrow night is the National Underground Poetry Individual Competition (NUPIC), an unofficial event hosted and organized by 1two5 and the rest of the Lizard Lounge team. In the spirit of slam’s oral tradition, NUPIC is not advertised in bulletins, brochures, or flyers; the time and location can only be discovered through word-of-mouth. 1two5 calls or texts the 16 individual competitors on the day of the event, and the news spreads like wildfire. "The entire poetic family ends up there," he says.

NUPIC, affectionately known amongst poets as the "underground indies," was initiated last year by 1two5. He came up with the concept because Poetry Slam, Inc., the official organization that runs the National Poetry Slam, stopped holding an individual competition at Nationals. Though poets can compete in the much smaller Individual World Poetry Slam, many missed being able to exhibit their work for the massive slam community that shows up at Nationals.

To get to this year’s NUPIC, poets wander through the deserted St. Paul skyway at 1:00 a.m. until they get to a fuchsia-colored room in the Hilton, the host hotel for Nationals. Soon the room is packed with poets sitting on the floor or in stackable chairs, and 1two5 welcomes everyone and explains how the competition works. Pairs of poets each deliver a poem and are judged, not by numbers and scorecards, but by applause alone. Whichever poet gets the louder cheer from their poetic peers moves on to the next round; the process continues until all but two poets are eliminated.

1two5 and Cole trade off facilitating rounds until, a little after 4:00 a.m., Eboni Hogan of New York City wins the crown over Oz Okoawo of the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the final round. She will get to perform on the prestigious finals stage at Nationals, and she also earns the purse money, which comes from the $125 entry fee paid by each of the competitors. The amount $125 was chosen, of course, because of 1two5′s name. He explains that he requires an entry fee because "I like for us to demonstrate the ability to invest in each other."

This supportive spirit is the core of Nationals. Though the official stages are fraught with intense, heart-pounding competition, the driving force behind the event is a shared passion for poetry. "It’s not a point of whether we win or whether we lose," says Art. "It’s more about the experience of sharing and meeting with different poets."

The Final Stage

Every poet wants to get to the finals stage. This does not conflict with the oft-quoted remark that slam is all about the poetry, not about the numbers. "On finals stage," says Marlon, "in this auditorium, it is dead silent. Dead silent; you could hear a pin drop. And the mics—you could hear yourself breathe! I want to get on the finals stage! My goal is just to get there for the good mic."

But only four teams will make it there, and they must win a semifinals bout against other top teams in the nation. The Lizard Lounge’s bout is held in the Artists’ Quarter, a dimly lit jazz bar with an ambiance not so unlike the team’s home venue in Cambridge. An hour before the bout is scheduled to begin, the line of people waiting to be let inside sprawls down a hallway and up a long staircase. By the time the bout begins, the bar is packed beyond its capacity.

It’s an outstanding night of poetry featuring two teams from New York City, the louderARTS and the Nuyorican Cafe teams; Loser Slam from New Jersey; the Berkeley Poetry Slam; and the Lizard Lounge. Unfortunately, despite wonderful performances by all the poets, only one team will go on to the finals. The legendary Nuyorican team wins, heralding the end of the Lizard’s competitive journey at Nationals.

On the finals stage the following night, the Nuyorican takes second place, just behind the Saint Paul Soapboxing team. It’s a special moment for St. Paul to reclaim the national champion title on their home turf.

But win or lose, it’s been a special week for all involved. Looking around at the cheering poets and poetry lovers filling St. Paul’s massive Roy Wilkins Auditorium, Matthew Rucker must have smiled to himself. The huge and happy audience and the extended family of slam poets are under one giant roof, celebrating the power of words, the solidarity of community, and one heck of a show.

There are some stories that unite Bostonians — that get even chilly New Englanders talking on the T, on bar stools, or in line at Dunks. Usually there’s a ball involved, or a demented referee. If the Boston Book Festival has its way, though, the story that brings us together this fall could be literary in nature.

For their recently announced initiative, "One City, One Story," 30,000 copies of a short story by an established local author will be bound into booklets and circulated throughout Boston. In the weeks before the second annual Festival, to be held in Copley Square on October 16, copies of the featured 5,000- to 8,000-word story will be available for free at the Boston Public Library, in subway stations and at other public locations, as well as on the Festival Web site.

Says Boston Book Festival Executive Director Emily D’Amour Pardo in a press release, the booklet will be "beautiful, lightweight, and easy to carry, and the online version will be available to anyone who wants it."

The initiative was inspired by the Brooklyn-based One Story literary magazine, which mails one short story to subscribers every three weeks. According to One Story’s Web site, the booklet format "allows readers to experience each story as a stand-alone work of art and a simple form of entertainment" and is "designed to fit into your purse or pocket, and into your life."

Says Boston Book Festival Founding President, Deborah Z Porter, "stories were requested from almost two dozen established authors who have ties to New England," and the final selection committee, made up of "a designee from the Mayor’s office, several branch librarians, several Boston Book Festival Board members and one or two other representatives of the community," will pick the winner from the best four or five manuscripts. The featured writer, whose name will be announced later this summer, will make multiple local appearances in the weeks prior to Festival and will lead a talk at the event. It’s a great opportunity for the writer, but the real focus of "One City, One story" is to get readers talking to each other.

"We love the idea of many thousands of people in Boston reading the same story and talking about it against the backdrop of the Boston Book Festival," explains Porter. "Boston has a passion for reading. We want to explore this further by uniting the city around a single story and examining it from the many different perspectives that exist here."

Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino shares her vision. "’One City, One Story’ is a wonderful idea for engaging many people in the joy of reading for pleasure and a great way to start a citywide conversation about a work of fiction," he said.

At a time when library branches are closing around the city, obituaries for the book are being written every other week and media is increasingly tailor-made for "niche markets," it will worth seeing if, just for a couple of weeks, the Boston Book Festival can get us all on the same page.

Jason Rabin of the Blast staff contributed to this report

NEW YORK — "And now this child with rusty knees / and mismatched shoes sees poetry as her scream / and asks me for the words to build her mother again."

Patricia Smith’s voice reverberates through the narrow, dimly lit room in the basement of the Cornelia Street Cafe, a charming French restaurant in Greenwich Village that tonight is transformed into a hub of poetry. The evening begins with an open mic reading in which a series of poets deliver works varying in caliber and style. Whispers and the clanking of silverware can occasionally be heard throughout the room. But when Smith takes the stage, the audience is captivated, sucked into the vortex of her poetry, drawn in by the power of her words and performance. "Can you teach me to write a poem about my mother? / I mean, you write about your daddy and he dead, / can you teach me to remember my mama? / A teacher tells me this is the first time Nicole / has admitted that her mother is gone."

Smith begins every reading with these verses about how poetry helped 6th grader Nicole process her mother’s death. Tonight is no exception, even though she considered devoting her brief 20-minute reading exclusively to newer pieces. She doesn’t feel grounded if she opens with another work because this poem is her manifesto; it is a bold declaration of what poetry can do for others and, of course, what it has done for her.

As the winner of the most prestigious awards in the spoken and written word, Smith has also done a lot for poetry. In her early career, she was crowned the National Poetry Slam champion four times, and her spoken word roots continue to be evident in her heartfelt poetry readings. Later, she garnered the coveted Pushcart Prize for the best literature published by small publishing houses, the very first Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in the poetry category, a National Poetry Series award, and a National Book Award nomination.

But for Smith, poetry is not an esoteric pastime to be used as a backstage pass into elite inner circles. She believes in the profound power of language, and she shares her poems because she knows there are people like Nicole who are waiting to hear them, who need to find a way to come to terms with something intensely personal. "You will always find at least one person in every audience who is there for a reason," Smith says. "And it might be a line that’s inconsequential in a poem of yours that will get them to sit up and go, ‘You know, I’ve felt that way; I just didn’t know there was a way to express it.’" In this moment of connection between speaker and listener, these audience members realize "they have a second throat that they’re not using," Smith says. "Poetry is a responsibility and not just an art…You are responsible for how your words are going to reach other people…You need to know that they will have an effect."

This audience connection is so important to Smith that she makes a point to present her new poems to live audiences as soon as possible. The audience’s response and emotional tenor guide her revision process. For example, audiences often have very strong reactions to selections from Blood Dazzler, her book of poems about Hurricane Katrina. She explains, "If I see somebody who’s a little jumpy when I’m doing the [Blood Dazzler] poems, I think, ‘That might be someone from New Orleans; that might be somebody with something to teach me.’ So you can never put a period at the end of the last line of a poem and think, ‘That’s it; I’ve got it; I’ve done it.’ It’s got to be a conversation." The interchange between audience and poet doesn’t even need to include words. "You can actually feel whether or not a poem is working," Smith says.

Smith’s dynamic relationship with her audiences is one of the reasons her poetry appeals to such a wide array of people. She has shared her work everywhere from hole-in-the-wall Chicago bars and a train platform in Berlin to Carnegie Hall and Rotterdam’s Poetry International Festival. People from every walk of life—age, race, class, sexual orientation, educational background—gather together to hear her and possibly discover the words they’ve been waiting for.

The Birth of Slam Poetry

The first audience Smith captivated with her poetry was a community of spoken word poets from her hometown of Chicago. Their brand of poetry was imbued with the sound and the fury of language, and they loved the feel of well-crafted, rhythmic words in their mouths. The excitement of their performances escalated when they instituted poetic duels known as poetry slams. In these competitions, a handful of poets deliver poems of three minutes or less. Audience members are selected to judge the poems and eliminate about half the poets each round. After three rounds, the last poet standing is the winner. The amateur judging process means that audience connection is the lifeblood of slam poetry.

As a journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times in the 1980s, Smith discovered slam poetry when she reported on the city’s first Turf Poetry Festival, little knowing that she was destined to become a defining figure of the movement. She gave her first performance during an open mic night at the Green Mill, the cocktail lounge that hosts the famous Uptown Poetry Slam. Her thrilling performances and moving narrative poems quickly won her the respect and admiration of Chicago’s slam community.

In the beginning days of slam, Smith says, "we had no idea, really, what was going on. It just felt really good and a social circle was building up around it. We were all very nurturing and supportive." The poets thought carefully about each others’ work and offered suggestions for perfecting a phrase or rearranging lines for maximum impact. But, says Smith, "it wasn’t just poetry that connected us…We know each other on a deeper level than just, ‘Hi, what’s your sign?’ If there’s something bugging me, I’m more likely to turn to a member of that community than I am to my own family, just because they know more about me in a deeper way. I’ve said things in poems that I haven’t said to a lot of people."

One member of this close-knit artistic group, Michael Brown, eventually became her husband. The pair of sizzling slammers moved to Boston in 1990 and brought the spoken word revolution with them. Initially, Boston was wary of the unpredictability and competitiveness of slam. "Chicago was pretty much ready to try anything," remembers Smith. "When I came to Boston, it was like backtracking…We just had to change our expectations and get people excited about things we were already doing."

Smith and Brown initially introduced slam at the Stone Soup poetry reading, which was then meeting at T. T. the Bear’s Place in Central Square. However, "the staunch Stone Soup readers…didn’t trust where the performance was going," says Smith. They had spent a long time gathering an audience of traditional poetry readers and weren’t prepared for what Smith calls the "crapshoot" of slam performances. She acknowledges that some slam performers "continue to be clowns year after year because they think that they’ve learned what poetry is and how to push buttons." For these performers, the slam is all about finagling laughter, groans, and applause during their three minutes in the limelight. Many of the highly educated Stone Soup crowd were appalled by these types of poets and consequently believed that slam poetry had very little of the linguistic value found in conventional, printed poems.

However, plenty of slam poets—including Smith—were just as entranced by the written word as any Stone Soup writer. Their performances were so thrilling precisely because they had spent hours laboring over their poems, granting life to their beautiful creations through the birth pangs of thoughtful writing, editing, and preparation. One of Smith’s greatest contributions to slam poetry was that her well-crafted verse legitimized the movement in the minds of the literati who were open enough to listen. Her words cut through the "page versus stage" debate and demonstrated that good poetry can succeed in both arenas.

Though the Stone Soup readers rejected slam poetry, Smith knew she could find some Bostonians who would share her passion for it. And she was right: Boston eventually became one of the first cities to adopt slam outside of its Chicago birthplace. When she and Brown moved the slam to a bookstore called the BookCellar, large crowds began to flock to the competitions. In fact, there were so many people crowded on the stairs inside and trying to listen from outside that, for the first time in Boston, poetry became a safety hazard. Slam soon found a permanent home at the Cantab Lounge and, a few years later, spread to the Lizard Lounge as well. "The slam—if you give it air—will work exactly the way it’s supposed to work," Smith says. Fanned into flame by the frigid air of Boston, slam soon became a national phenomenon.

At the forefront of this exploding movement, Smith was quite a rising star herself. She won the individual title at the very first National Poetry Slam championship in 1990, and she went on to reclaim her crown three more times in 1991, 1993 and 1995. One of the pieces she performed in the 1996 championship, "Undertaker," was turned into a five-minute independent film that won awards at the Sundance and San Francisco Film Festivals. She also appeared in the documentary Slamnation, which chronicled the 1996 championship. In this film, many competing poets spoke of Smith with a mixture of reverence and fear, all agreeing that she could be the downfall of their respective slam teams. She was not just the most successful slammer to date; she had become a legend.

Burning the Landscape

While Smith’s career as a slam poet was taking off, her day job was writing columns for the Boston Globe. She had almost as many fans of her journalism as of her poetry. No matter which genre she employed, Smith painted the full humanity of her subjects, and her readers were touched by these authentic portraits.

In 1998, Smith’s incisive stories earned her a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize. And that’s when the ugly truth came out: Smith had fabricated sources and quotes in some of her columns for the Globe, violating the first rule of journalism ethics. One of the most notorious made-up sources was a cancer patient whom Smith claimed went by her middle name, Claire. The centerpiece of a column about a new cancer treatment, Claire is portrayed as a formerly optimistic person turned somewhat morbid and gruff by what she calls "the ogre" of cancer. In Smith’s farewell column, she said that she had fabricated characters like Claire "to create the desired impact or slam home a salient point."

But while her journalist’s voice and eye often enriched her poems, her poet’s imagination never should have entered the fact-filled world of reporting.

To her credit, Smith admits that her actions cannot be justified by her lack of time, by her drive to succeed or by her desire to produce a shining column every week. She wrote that these hollow excuses "point to the cursed fallibility of human beings, our tendency to spit in the face of common sense." Some of Smith’s colleagues and readers relished the downfall of a heroine while others felt betrayed, disillusioned and disappointed. But many recognized that despite her ability to stir readers’ thoughts and emotions, Smith was only a human being, just like those she wrote about so poignantly.

Smith’s life quickly spiraled downhill. She lost her job at the Globe, as well as her American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award and Pulitzer nomination. At the same time, both her health and her marriage fell apart.

But like an arsonist phoenix rising from the ashes of her own making, Smith refused to let these events defeat her. Not knowing where else to go, Smith returned to Chicago and to her last remaining source of strength—slam poetry. She gave what many consider the most memorable performance of her life at the Chicago Cultural Center in front of the community she had always been real with, the one group that would not turn aside because of her professional sin and her personal despair. To thunderous applause and a standing ovation, Smith laid bare her soul.

Almost a dozen years later, Smith says people still remark on that reading. The audience had initially gathered out of curiosity, wondering what Smith would say after suffering through public demonization and private hell. As her words washed over them, they were deeply moved by the gritty emotion, heartache and triumph. These were words they had been waiting for, words that suggested hope and redemption against all odds.

While Smith says that "it was very important for me to be in that place at that time," it wasn’t until the National Poetry Slam, which took place a few months later in Austin, Texas, that she fully recognized how this group of people could be her saving grace. "That’s when I realized that the poetry community is a really unwavering community," she says. "They had kind of pulled me out [of my depression] because I wasn’t talking to anybody. They really just closed ranks, and that was very, very helpful for me."

The poetry community was the lone encouraging voice in the cacophony of opinions about what the Globe incident would mean for Smith and for her career. Smith recalls people asking her what she would do with her life now that she could no longer write. "The world [was] telling me who I was supposed to be," she recalls. "It’s like, nudge nudge, hint hint hint. And you don’t take the hint, so the easiest thing to do is to burn the whole landscape clean and start over."

Fortunately, when Smith burned the landscape of the journalism career she had built for over two decades, she was not bereft of all avenues for writing. In fact, these events allowed her to focus all her energy on writing and sharing poetry, which she says is "exactly what I should have been doing all along. I’m finding great rewards in it. It’s giving me some personal movement; it’s giving me a way to translate my own life without looking to outside people to legitimize me." While the loyalty of the slam community was immensely helpful for Smith, it was pure, unadulterated poetry that enabled her to find strength in herself. She says, "It was a real revelation to realize that I could find solace in poetry when I needed it, that not only was there a community that I could turn to, but that whenever I’m searching for answers, I feel like I have the power to find them myself and that’s in the writing." It’s not always an audience member who needs to hear a poem; sometimes a poem contains the words the author herself needs most.

Smith’s missteps at the Globe actually helped her to stumble onto the path toward becoming the writer she is today. She says, "I’m not thrilled with how I got there, but to tell you the truth, I probably wouldn’t change anything."

Reluctant Hosannas

The many naysayers who thought Smith’s writing career had screeched to a permanent halt clearly did not have their fingers on the pulse of poetry. Before the events at the Globe, she had already published three books of poems, and her work had appeared in literary journals such as The Paris Review and TriQuarterly. But the applause from critics grew increasingly louder as she continued to pour her heart into her poetry. Teahouse of the Almighty, the first book of poetry she published in over a decade, became a 2005 National Poetry Series winner, and Blood Dazzler was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award.

But regardless of the censure or praise her work receives, Smith will always find in poetry a source of personal strength. It’s not about concrete achievements—putting a period at the end of a line, winning a slam or racking up poetry awards. Rather, it is an important exploration, a process, a journey. As Smith says, "It’s not reaching a goal that matters; it’s [the process of] getting to the goal…When you reach what you think is the goal, you look up and say, ‘Well, damned if there’s not more road there.’" This is a road a poet must walk for herself. According to Smith, "Poetry becomes the way you move your own life forward."

Nevertheless, poetry is also about others. In her poetic manifesto dedicated to 6th grader Nicole, Smith proclaims the weighty responsibility poets have: "Angry, jubilant, weeping poets— / we are all / saviors, reluctant hosannas in the limelight." While finding her own answers through writing, Smith’s words also help people process emotions they thought were too deep and complex to express. Her poems lend a voice to those who are often overlooked or forgotten and plumb the varied human experiences that tragic news headlines cannot fully communicate.

In the low lights of the Cornelia Street Cafe, dozens of people listen closely to the forgotten voices buried beneath the torrents of Hurricane Katrina’s flood. Smith introduces "34," the first poem she wrote for Blood Dazzler: "The story [about Katrina] that pushed at me the most was the story of the 34 nursing home residents who were left behind to die. So what I tried to do is turn the clock back just a few seconds and give each one of those 34 people just a minute of their voice back."

After the reading, Jackie Sheeler, webmaster of poetz.com and one of the hosts of the Cornelia Street reading, stops by Smith’s table to tell her privately how much she loves the book: "I normally don’t just sit and read a book of poems that isn’t an anthology because it’s too much of just one voice. But I couldn’t put Blood Dazzler down because it’s filled with voices." The book is replete with the nuanced voices of victims and villains alike, tracing the common thread of humanity that binds us all together despite our differences.

In the midst of her literary success, Smith’s goal remains the same as when she first started out as a slam poet: she writes so that both she and her audience can heal and connect, remember and understand. Words have the power to change lives; in different ways, they saved both Smith and Nicole. Fully convinced of poetry’s profound purpose, Smith concludes her poetic manifesto with an exhortation to her fellow writers: "So poets, / as we pick up our pens, / as we flirt and sin and rejoice behind microphones— / remember Nicole. / She knows that we are here now, / and she is an empty vessel waiting to be filled. / And she is waiting. / And she / is / waiting. / And she waits."

Original fiction

Bronsan "Suds" Belton sits on his front porch and greets the parade of visitors to his cottage on the beach in Brant Rock. "Welcome kingmakers!" he cackles to a posse of beer enthusiasts lugging hefty clampdown ceramic top growlers. "I think it was the great philosopher Humphrey Bogart who once said: ‘The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind’". Inside the cramped living room, an iPod is blaring Carbon Leaf’s "What About Everything?" and people are dancing. It’s as rowdy as a house party, and the sun hasn’t even gone down yet. Just another typical summer afternoon at Suds’s, but it’s a helluva way for a Boston brewmaster to try to rest up between mixing his next inventive beverage.

A fratboy in a Ford pickup, looking for Suds’s son, eases through the parked cars littering the beach. He needs someone to help him lift some kegs tomorrow. Suds tells him to check back in the morning.

Next comes a high school history teacher, a straight-laced dude holding a six-pack of Mayflower Pale Ale. This is me. My Hawaiian shirt and TJ Maxx clearance-rack cargo shorts tickles Suds, and he laughs like a man who’s seen it all and done damn near everything, a sinister guffaw that comes from dark places that I never imagined in my worst nightmares.

"Life is too short to drink cheap beer," says Suds, flashing his bright-white grin. "People who like light beer don’t actually like the taste of beer — they just like to piss a lot." He ambles through the living room and back through the kitchen to his bedroom, where he keeps his own private fridge to guard against prying kin (which includes a gaggle of snooping grandchildren). He pulls out a couple of Coronas, grabs a liter of Bacardi Limon and prepares his specialty: "Happy Corona".

"I only drink this Mexican urine sample in the summer," he says. "The rum gives it enough of a kick where I can make peace with it."

I take a couple slugs of my Happy Corona (good stuff — I never was much of a rum man) and tell Suds about my approaching wedding. It all started with a bottle of cheap champagne (Cristalino), I explain. He nods in sympathy — turns out he proposed to his wife when he was cocked on Mai Tais. That’s how it is with Suds. Any story you’ve got, he can top it with something better, funnier, crazier. "I stuck the ring at the bottom of a Scorpion Bowl and made my lady-to-be slurp the whole thing down like a Slush Puppie," he says. "I figured the odds of her saying ‘yes’ would be much better if she was helplessly obliterated."

The first thing you need to understand about Suds: Forget everything you think you know about beer — and the polished turds of Budweiser imitators that use TV to sell beer. Next to those amateurs, Suds’s beer wisdom is like Homer Simpson compared with Jessica Simpson. So what is he doing with a new brewery, full of wild ales and farmyard beers? For Suds, this sort of cross-cultural whiplash is nothing new. It comes as natural as mixing Coronas and rum. It doesn’t matter what he decides to brew a beer with — the final product always comes out vintage Belton. "Suds is a raging enigma," says Bobby "Baby Suds" Belton, his son and manager of the new brewery. "His whole life revolves around inhaling the sacred incense of the drinking man."

Baby Suds is a 32-year-old Northeastern grad ("1.3 GPA," he brags) who’s spent the past decade making moonshine in his basement. "The thing about Suds is that he does not pay attention to public opinion," says Bobby. "He gave me my first pilsner when I was three-years-old and I thank him every day for it."

Suds spent the large bulk of his existence doing backbreaking labor jobs, such as roofing, until the past decade, when he hit his stride at an age when most people are migrating into middle management. His gift is to take the rough knocks he’s had in life and instill them in unique beverages. Take the case of his black lab, Oreo, featured on the label of his seasonal Dead Dog Ale. Oreo was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. "Some drunk dickheads passed by at night and he ran out to the road and started to bark, and they popped off two shots and killed him." Oreo was not only a loyal friend but also a guard dog — protecting Suds’s sacred and stocked beer fridge: "If any of my amigos touched my good shit he’d get at them," he says. "One time Baby Suds tried to take a quick sip of my secret sauce and he bit him in his man business."

Suds’s wicked sense of humor is part of what makes Crotch Vomit one of the oddest concoctions ever made by a brewmaster, anywhere, anytime. It was created in three months in a rented hunting lodge not far from his house. He used three oak casks for aging, so that each of their respective native funks would culture the beer. At the end, the casks were blended together.

Before it was released last year, Crotch Vomit had already become like ultra-collectible rare-release Air Jordans, with beer geeks fretting over the fact that there were only eight barrels, and anxiously strategizing about how and where they’d get a bottle. Its awesomenimity was a nearly foregone conclusion.

A reddish hue color with a cloudy texture with a scent reminiscent of fruit nectar and a Border Collie’s stale breath — it was dry as champagne and as mouth-puckeringly sour as a package of SweeTarts. One beer blogger wrote: "Crotch Vomit smells like the small crevice behind a homeless guy’s grundle but tastes like magical babies and Angelina Jolie’s ear salsa."

In a single day, it was gone.

Beer purists called Crotch Vomit blasphemy — others hailed it as the greatest farmhouse ale that had ever graced their lips. "It exemplifies Suds’s real spirit more than any other beer," says Bobby. "His brewing is so physical. He’s got brass balls — I haven’t tasted anything as strong. I was still busted stuff a week later."

Crotch Vomit is a one-of-a-kind beer packed with as much bitter flavoring and spices as Flavor Flav and Ginger Spice’s lovechild — and it showcases Suds, the genius brewmaster, in all his unfettered glory.

I’m not much of a wine aficionado, but after visiting Europe with my fianc© last year I had become something of a beer buff. Some say my bushy eyebrows, wire-rimmed glasses, and diarrhea of the oral cavity make me ideally suited to the parsing of obscure beverages. A few years earlier, I’d discovered a bar in Boston called Pepe Le Brew that had several unusual beers on tap. The best, I thought, were from a place called Barecove Brewery, in southern Massachusetts. The brewery’s motto was "Create like a God, Command like a King, and Drink like a Kennedy." They made everything from elegant Belgian-style ales to experimental beers brewed with lobster claws and onions saut©ed in butter. I had never seen anything like it — or tasted anything like it for that matter. The summer seasonal Burnt Human Hair was as adventurous as its name and its thin white head bubbled with fruit nectar and nutmeg. I was hooked after one visit. Every night for the next two weeks I would leave work and mosey up to the bar and sample a new bold and brave beverage: Boiled Cabbage Ale, Decaying Elephant Corpse, Bacon Grease Stout — I tried them all. There was something about the place — the d©cor, the location, the service, the people — that I thoroughly enjoyed. For some reason, most likely the high-alcohol content of the beers, I felt invigorated, free — almost audacious. Before I give off the impression that I am a neurotic couch-surfing worrywart who calculates the risk of riding Ferris Wheels, let me save you the drama for your baby’s mama: I am. Put it this way, I had never been out of the country until recently, I wore three condoms the first time I had sex, and my bachelor party is being hosted by my mother and we are having a Yankee Swap. My entire life has been one safe move after the next and lately, for some reason, I have been craving The Safety Dance. Yes, I want to rock out to the best-selling single from the 1980′s synth pop group Men Without Hats. And the weirdest part of it all is: I don’t even dance. I don’t know how to. Well, at least not good. Heck, not even vaguely good. My fianc© says I look like "The Tin Man with an atomic wedgie." We’re scheduled to take ballroom lessons next month. That should be as smooth as an epileptic bluefish.

So the bottom line is that my wedding is two months away and my inner bowels are urging me to explore. What I don’t know. I thought I was having a midlife crisis but I’m only 34. I ruled out the Jack Kerouac open road possibility since I despise jazz, poetry, and drug experiences. Plus, the idea of having sex with random loose women is not exactly conducive to starting a marriage off on the right foot.

After two weeks of exhaustive soul searching, I abandoned the need to know exactly what in the wild was calling for me. I just embraced the fact that an expedition was in order. Luckily, one of my colleagues in the English department is a major literary and cartoon enthusiast and subscribes to The New Yorker. One day on my lunch break in the teacher conference room I stumbled upon the May issue. In it was a compelling profile on Brother Thomas Schmitz, a Trappist monk who lives in a luxurious castle on the top of Mount Schadelfreude, Germany’s highest mountain. He spends his waking hours obeying an ancient way of life guided by the principles of simplicity, self-suffiency, and prayer. Oh, and brewing, what he claims to be, the world’s first holy beer. A beverage that not only tastes like God’s saliva but intoxicates you with "a divine and indestructible feeling that makes you believe you could bend lightning bolts and use them as toothpicks." He has spent the last five years in seclusion working to perfect all the essential ingredients of his "celestial golden nectar". Next month he is opening the gates of the castle and inviting the public, well, those brave and capable enough to scale the dangerous summit, to join him in sampling the world’s first "God-breathed brew."

It was obvious. I had found my almighty excursion. The big question mark was: who in the hell was I going to get to join me on this fantastic journey?

After much careful and thoughtful debate — there was only one obvious choice: Bronsan "Suds" Belton.

I found Bronsan’s email address on the contact section of the Barecove Brewing website and, on a whim, I sent him a long and detailed message outlining my plight, the specifics of the trip, and the allure of the "unprecedented Godly beer".

An original story by Blast writer Roger Gude

It was hot and sunny as Henry Splinter tossed a ball up into the air. It was way up there, yardsticks high. The audience sat comfortably tan or flushed in the face. There were couplets of attendees fanning themselves with conversations until the umpire quieted them. The umpire sat on the edge of the court with an umbrella and bottled water and watched Henry with desperation. After all, the umpire’s job depended on Henry; well, it depended on every tennis player, but most importantly on Henry at that moment. The ball boys and girls were all where they needed to be and there were white lines framing action. Henry knew he had to do something to the ball floating above his head. His body was already arched; his arm drawn back and his feet ready to lift themselves off the ground. One swift overhand slam shot the ball towards the net. It was too close. The umpire raised his voice and called “Let,” as the neon ball slapped the top of the net.

Henry paced at the baseline and waited for his opponent to ready. The tennis ball sprang back up from the ground and he watched his opponent shuffle around his own baseline in navy blue shorts that swayed in unison with his body and the rare breeze that rushed from the top of the arena down into the faces of the crowd. There was sweat on his brow, it was shiny, and depending on the angle of his head you couldn’t see his face. When Henry did catch a glimpse at it, his eyes were darting left to right at the crowd around him.

Henry’s opponent wiped his brow and readied himself; knees bent like arrowheads, and squinted between the sun and the court at Henry. Henry tossed the ball up again, high above his head, his body arched and his feet left the ground, slamming the ball over the net. He was quick to ready himself after the serve. His coach always reminded him to be ready for a return no matter how much better you think you are. Henry didn’t like that he was thinking about his coach right then. It distracted him, and when his opponent returned his serve he almost didn’t have time to set his body up for a strong, two handed backhand. The thought of losing a match today frightened Henry. Just a couple years ago he was ranked third in the world, on the court that day he ranked somewhere in the twenties and found himself caught by an unranked African at what Henry thought was the end of his match.

Henry faced the left side of the court; his whole body faced that side, and stepped into the return quickly. The top spin he applied to the tennis ball he prided himself on. He managed to do that with a backhand every time and most other players couldn’t handle it. When he first made a name for himself two years ago on a misty grass court in the dead of summer, he knocked the number two ranked player, Leonardo Sandal, a man not unlike every other skilled tennis player out in a quarterfinal bout at Wimbledon. Henry only made it one step further.

He regained his footing on this desert colored clay court and the crowd gasped as his return made his opponent lunge. Good, he thought, he won’t beat me. Henry won that point and continued to win every point for the rest of the match. He beat his opponent, Tsonga Djimbe, 6-3, 6-1, 6-0. It was a clean sweep pretty much and the news broadcasters and the fans draped themselves over the guardrails of the stadium in an attempt to get Henry’s attention. Two young Americans with red and white face paint waved an American flag up and down. Cameras in the stadium matched Henry and the American flag on all the oversized screens above the crowd.

On his way to the locker room a few people stood around handing out directions to anyone. A twenty something man with a polo shirt and khakis and a camera around his neck stood with them. He acknowledged Henry and smiled with everything but his eyes. Henry wanted to ignore him but he flashed a bright white light at Henry and developed a picture for some paper somewhere. Henry blinked rapidly and thought about breaking the camera. Just a thought. If he did anything, the inevitable lawsuits would put a strain on his bank account and he needed money. His wife waited in the locker room.

#

In Henry’s awkwardly lit locker room were his wife, Melanie Splinter, and his niece Vanessa. Melanie wore her brown hair in a ponytail, up in a pink visor, and had a natural tan about her. Henry knelt down and hugged his niece.

Henry spent a lot of time playing tennis because he loved it but the way his wife and niece dressed and acted. It told Henry they didn’t feel the same way. He loved the intensely intimate atmosphere of a duel between two people and when he hugged Vanessa it reminded him. The amount of pressure on the tennis player’s shoulders gave him confidence; every success or mistake rested solely within himself. He thought of people like his wife and niece who wore Polo shirts and khakis to these games; you know, those people who spent a significant amount of time buying merchandise rather than enjoying a good match. They were just one big vampire, sucking all that was good out of it.

Henry was bitter and cynical, and some would say without cause. In the locker room after his match, that was all that he was. His wife had begun to sigh as she watched him caught in a stupor. His mind was completely detached from his body and she read it through the dullness of his eyes and face.

Six months ago Melanie started to notice the amount of time Henry spent just zoning out. The first time she noticed it, he had been sitting in the living room with no television on, no radio, nothing, in a pair of pajama bottoms and his father’s beaten up posture. He looked awake and he was breathing, but he sat like royalty. Eyes straight ahead until somebody asked for them. He snapped out of it a couple seconds after she put her purse down on the coffee table. The same thing happened the next day. This time he was sitting in the kitchen with a warm cup of coffee and an unfolded crossword puzzle hardly filled.

She thought he was depressed but Henry wasn’t only depressed. He was distracted too. Depression wasn’t something that Henry really needed to deal with or address. Sure he was depressed, but that depression he always muffled with a pillow in the back of his mind. Not to say that he never dealt with it, but he was stronger than it. It all had to deal with spirit, for Henry. If you’ve got enough spirit, he used to say, you’ll ace it every time. Sometime around his peak, after he’d reached the highest point he was going to reach in his career, he started to lose spirit.

It hit him heavy one night after practicing for a few hours before his next tournament. When he was twenty-three and finding his name on sports networks worldwide calling him the next Pete Sampras, he had it all. He had everything he’d asked for as a child. He had fame, health, a wife, a salary. He rode that wave for as long as he could and he felt it slope downward once some new talent joined the circuit. Once he lost. He was never going to be that good again and it tore him apart. He didn’t know how to replace what he’d lost; he wanted to get it back. If it was something in particular, a technique, he’d fix it as quickly as he could. But, it wasn’t any specific thing. It was more like he’d lost a persona. He’d lost that spirit of youth and confidence he’d once had in just about five years time, that fast.

In the green tiled locker room, where the fluorescent lights flickered from a bad electrical current, where Henry’s wife stood with all her weight on one leg and his niece squinted her eyes even harder than Henry did, he couldn’t take his eyes off Melanie. She still had everything he’d lusted after when they first met. Although her skin crinkled around her eyes a little more when she laughed and her body had filled with age. When he could see her bra strap, it paved valleys in between her soft skin. They were his, his little villages in between mountains, where he’d call himself mayor when his fingers dug under them. She had some success in selling real estate around St. Louis and people still acted like she was something special. Henry didn’t think he was good enough for her sometimes, or more that they both differed enough that he could never find himself committing as sincerely as some other people would whenever the two of them would go out to eat or have sex.

“That was a tough match, baby,” said Melanie. Her tone wasn’t pleasant when she said baby.

“Huh . . .” Henry said.

“Don’t say too much at once,” Melanie said, resting one hand on her hip.

Her hips were already starting to look like her mother’s. “What do you want me to say? I’m tired.” He paused and looked up at the lights and shut his eyes tight.

“Well I thought you did great, Hank!” said Vanessa. She smiled at Henry sitting slumped over with his elbow on his knee in a chair with his duffel bag and racquet next to him. Henry smiled back.

“Don’t worry honey, he’s upset right now,” she said and winked at Vanessa, who smiled and asked if she could go. Melanie told her she could wait outside.

Henry and Melanie had been taking care of Melanie’s niece for a few months now. The child was sent to them as a last resort. Melanie’s sister was the only other surviving member of her immediate family, and she wound up dead last May. The coroner pronounced it as a heart attack . . . at thirty-three . . . Vanessa didn’t have anywhere else to live. She told a policewoman about Melanie, and the next thing Henry knew they had something like a daughter.

“So, do you want to talk about this?”

An original story by Blast writer Roger Gude

I was eating hot air when mom told me we were out of gas. I didn’t like that she included me, I wasn’t out of gas. She neglected to buy gas in the last town we had passed through, that’s why our car came to a sputter halt on U.S. Historic Route 66. Hell, I was downright pissed that we were here. It was hot, I wanted to be somewhere else, and mom had been regurgitating her failing relationship with my father for the past two days so much so that I couldn’t stand sitting in this beat up station wagon anymore.

“So?” I said.

“So. . . we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere, it’s hot, I’m grouchy, and-”

“Just shut up Mom, you put us here.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. You wouldn’t be anywhere without me. Now help me find my phone, I should be able to call someone to help us out.”

I crossed my arms as she got out of the car. This 1987 station wagon was a joke. It’s the year 2005 and she’s still driving her dad’s car. It was two years ago today that she got the keys to it. Her father passed away hiking up Mt. Pilatus in Switzerland, he slipped on a rock, and when she met with the rest of her family to receive his will all he left her was a set of car keys and some memories. This thing has over 100,000 miles on it and guzzles gas like a champ. The engine coughed like someone with emphysema every time we started it up and the metal surrounding the radio kept me from tampering with it. It heated up fast in the sunlight. The tires reeked of use and as nice as wood paneling goes for the color of a car, it’s time had passed.

I watched mom shuffle through her purse in the backseat, her expression of desperation faded when her fingers rubbed against the familiar grooves of her cell phone. The leather on the seat had started to boil my skin. I was used to the heat by now, even the way the leather grabbed onto my skin, but the metal on my seatbelt made me hiss as I feigned interest at her. We couldn’t get reception out here. Satellites don’t care about us.

“Found it!” she exclaimed.

“Great. . .”

After about fifteen minutes of fidgeting with her phone she gave up. I’d begun to watch the road through the passenger’s side rearview mirror. I watched the wavering heat rise from the pavement and listened to the wind tickle my ears. She said something about her phone not working. She decided that our only plan of action was to hitchhike to a gas station. My tennis shoes hadn’t seen a good walk in a while and I was glad to get away from this old, four-wheeled cocoon, plastered with images of my father and mother’s failure.

I got out of the wagon, opened the backseat door, it took two pulls of the handle to get the door open, and grabbed my duffle bag. It was a heavy log with a strap attached. Mom was struggling with her three suitcases and oversized purse when I walked around the back of the car and grabbed one of them for her. They all matched, had jewel encrusted initials on the top, S.K.O., and shined like wasted money. But the worst part about them was the fact that they weren’t even very big. The suitcases were small and cute and matched and that negated the idea of a suitcase in the first place. A suitcase should be practical and carry as much as possible without breaking bones instead of being cute and impressive to people who don’t travel.

It took us a couple hours of walking through the heat before we took a break. I finally agreed with her when I couldn’t take her whining anymore. She’d been telling me to take a break every fifteen minutes with excuses ranging from, “My feet hurt,” to “I feel like I’m about to die,” and my nerves were bound to concede. That and the fact that my clothes were plastered to my skin, my hair was drenched, and this damn suitcase was killing my arm were about all I could handle. We found a few large boulders off to the right of the highway and sat near them, flirting with shade.

“What’s in those suitcases, anyways?”

“Nothing really,” she tugs at her shirt and straightens her shorts out, “just some clothes and stuff.,,” She lights the cigarette. “It’s important to me. You wouldn’t want me to throw away all of you comic books because they were too heavy would you?”

“No, but I didn’t bring all of my comic books on a trip across the country, now did I?”

She didn’t respond.

I watched the cigarette smoke leave her lungs and wondered how that could offer her any relief. She’s filling her body up with something from outside for just a couple seconds and for what? Satisfaction? You can’t be satisfied this way. Relief is nice, but temporary relief should not be a goal. We human beings should try and obtain permanent relief and as much as we want to take a drag from a cigarette permanently that just can’t happen, well it could I guess, but those people would smell horrible and die in a couple years.

Watching her sit there with her cigarette in her mouth made me feel the heat even more. It was a stupid idea to travel across the country in the middle of the summer. It made sense to vacation to the south in the winter time; cold hurts because the spring and summer make use forget about it, but huffing across the country when I should be back at home playing video games and smoking pot made me boil.

Her oversized glasses, her obviously dyed brown hair lightly framing her sweat profile, and her consciously slumped posture under the shade of the rocks made me despise her. I don’t know why she got to me so much when we first took a break; I think it was my arm. The muscles in my arm were fighting each other and it felt like both sides were losing. The pain from carrying the largest of the cute suitcases for a couple hours was catching up to me and venting on her was the best I could do to alleviate myself. But who was she feeling? I was the only one around for the next 20 miles or so and she was acting like at any moment some mechanic with broad shoulders would appear out of thin air and whisk her off her feet.

We’re sure you’ve heard of “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe. You’ve probably even heard that famous line: “nevermore”. What you might not have heard is the rendition given by The Simpsons during one of their yearly Halloween specials.

Click here to view it, and them complain to them that their videos don’t embed in Internet Explorer.

Published in 1845, Poe’s dark poem is pretty daunting. We might not say things like “surcrease” or “beguiling” anymore, but I think you’ll find Homer and Bart make this poem a little bit more accessible. Even though Lisa tells Bart “Don’t worry Bart, you won’t learn anything” you just might learn a thing or two yourself.

The Raven
By: Edgar Allen Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door –
Only this, and nothing more.’

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore –
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore –
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door –
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; –
This it is, and nothing more,’

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,’ said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you’ – here I opened wide the door; –
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!’
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!’
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,’ said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore –
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; –
‘Tis the wind and nothing more!’

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door –
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door –
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore –
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!’
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning – little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door –
Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as `Nevermore.’

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered – not a feather then he fluttered –
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before –
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.’
Then the bird said, `Nevermore.’

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,’ said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore –
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of “Never-nevermore.”‘

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore –
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.’

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,’ I cried, `thy God hath lent thee – by these angels he has sent thee
Respite – respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!’
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’

`Prophet!’ said I, `thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil! –
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted –
On this home by horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore –
Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!’
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’

`Prophet!’ said I, `thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore –
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore –
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?’
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!’ I shrieked upstarting –
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!

If this poem sounds familiar to you, it is probably for one of two reasons (maybe both):

1. You took an advanced Literature course at some point in time.
2. You watched the season premiere of “Heroes”.

If it’s the second one — don’t feel bad.

However, just in case you feel left out now because you thought Dr. Suresh had just come up with this brilliant ending narration by himself, I’ll share a little bit of background information about the poem. “The Second Coming” was written in 1919 in the wake of World War I by William Butler Yeats, an Irish poet who won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in 1923. Also, line 3 of this poem inspired the title of Things Fall Apart, a critically acclaimed African novel written by Chinua Achebe.

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The Phoenix and the Turtle is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love. It is widely considered to be one of William Shakespeare’s most obscure works.

The Phoenix and the Turtle

Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end,
To this troop come thou not near.
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather’d king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice-white
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender makest
With the breath thou givest and takest,
‘Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead:
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance, and no space was seen
‘Twixt the turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the phoenix’ sight;
Either was the other’s mine.
Property was thus appall’d,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was call’d.
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded,
That it cried, ‘How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.’
Whereupon it made this throne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.

This is the first post in Blast’s new Literary section — aiming to insert a little more culture into our Gen Y world.

Many years ago there lived an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of grand new clothes that he spent all his money upon them, that he might be very fine. He did not care about his soldiers, nor about the theatre, and only liked to drive out and show his new clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day; and just as they say of a king, “He is in council,” so they always said of him, “The Emperor is in the wardrobe.”

In the great city in which he lived it was always very merry; every day came many strangers; one day two rogues came: they gave themselves out as weavers, and declared they could weave the finest stuff any one could imagine. Not only were their colors and patterns, they said, uncommonly beautiful, but the clothes made of the stuff possessed the wonderful quality that they became invisible to any one who was unfit for the office he held, or was incorrigibly stupid.

“Those would be capital clothes!” thought the Emperor. “If I wore those, I should be able to find out what men in my empire are not fit for the places they have; I could tell the clever from the dunces. Yes, the stuff must be woven for me directly!”

And he gave the two rogues a great deal of cash in hand, that they might begin their work at once.

As for them, they put up two looms, and pretended to be working; but they had nothing at all on their looms. They at once demanded the finest silk and the costliest gold; this they put into their own pockets, and worked at the empty looms till late into the night.

“I should like to know how far they have got on with the stuff,” thought the Emperor. But he felt quite uncomfortable when he thought that those who were not fit for their offices could not see it. He believed, indeed, that he had nothing to fear for himself, but yet he preferred first to send some one
else to see how matters stood. All the people in the city knew what peculiar power the stuff possessed, and all were anxious to see how bad or how stupid their neighbors were.

“I will send my honest old Minister to the weavers,” thought the Emperor. “He can judge best how the stuff looks, for he has sense, and no one understands his office better than he.”

Now the good old Minister went out into the hall where the two rogues sat working at the empty looms.

“Mercy on us!” thought the old Minister, and he opened his eyes wide. “I cannot see anything at all!” But he did not say this.

Both the rogues begged him to be so good as to come nearer, and asked if he did not approve of the colors and the pattern. Then they pointed to the empty loom, and the poor old Minister went on opening his eyes; but he could see nothing, for there was nothing to see.

“Mercy!” thought he, “can I indeed be so stupid? I never thought that, and not a soul must know it. Am I not fit for my office? No, it will never do for me to tell that I could not see the stuff.”

“Don’t you say anything to it?” asked one, as he went on weaving.

“O, it is charming – quite enchanting!” answered the old Minister, as he peered through his spectacles. “What a fine pattern, and what colors! Yes, I shall tell the Emperor that I am very much pleased with it.”

“Well, we are glad of that,” said both the weavers; and then they named the colors, and explained the strange pattern. The old Minister listened attentively, that he might be able to repeat it when the Emperor came. And he did so.

Now the rogues asked for more money, and silk and gold, which they declared they wanted for weaving. They put all into their own pockets, and not a thread was put upon the loom; they continued to work at the empty frames as before.

The Emperor soon sent again, dispatching another honest officer of the court, to see how the weaving was going on, and if the stuff would soon be ready. He fared just like the first: he looked and looked, but, as there was nothing to be seen but the empty looms, he could see nothing.

“Is not that a pretty piece of stuff?” asked the two rogues; and they displayed and explained the handsome pattern which was not there at all.

“I am not stupid!” thought the man: “it must be my good office, for which I am not fit. It is funny enough, but I must not let it be noticed.” And so he praised the stuff which he did not see, and expressed his pleasure at the beautiful colors and charming pattern. “Yes, it is enchanting,” he told the
Emperor.

All the people in the town were talking of the gorgeous stuff. The Emperor wished to see it himself while it was still upon the loom. With a whole crowd of chosen men, among whom were also the two honest statesmen who had already been there, he went to the two cunning rogues, who were now
weaving with might and main without fibre or thread.

“Is not that splendid?” said the two statesmen, who had already been there once. “Does not your Majesty remark the pattern and the colors?” And they pointed to the empty loom, for they thought that the others could see the stuff.

“What’s this?” thought the Emperor. “I can see nothing at all! That is terrible. Am I stupid? Am I not fit to be Emperor? That would be the most dreadful thing that could happen to me. O, it is very pretty!” he said aloud. “It has our highest approbation.” And he nodded in a contented way, and gazed at the empty loom, for he would not say that he saw nothing. The whole suite whom he had with him looked and looked, and saw nothing, any more than the rest; but, like the Emperor, they said, “That is pretty!” and counseled him to wear the splendid new clothes for the first time at the great procession that was presently to take place. “It is splendid, excellent!” went from mouth to mouth. On all sides there seemed to be general rejoicing, and the Emperor gave the rogues the title of Imperial Court Weavers.

The whole night before the morning on which the procession was to take place, the rogues were up, and kept more than sixteen candles burning. The people could see that they were hard at work, completing the Emperor’s new clothes. They pretended to take the stuff down from the loom; they made cuts in the air with great scissors; they sewed with needles without thread; and at last they said, “Now the clothes are ready!”

The Emperor came himself with his noblest cavaliers; and the two rogues lifted up one arm as if they were holding something, and said, “See, here are the trousers! here is the coat! here is the cloak!” and so on. “It is as light as a spider’s web: one would thin one had nothing on; but that is just the
beauty of it.”

“Yes,” said all the cavaliers; but they could not see anything, for nothing was there.

“Will your Imperial Majesty please to condescend to take off your clothes?” said the rogues; “then we will put on you the new clothes here in front of the great mirror.”

The Emperor took off his clothes, and the rogues pretended to put on him each new garment as it was ready; and the Emperor turned round and round before the mirror.

“O, how well they look! how capitally they fit!” said all. “What a pattern! what colors! That is a splendid dress!”

“They are standing outside with the canopy, which is to be borne above your Majesty in the procession!” announced the head Master of the Ceremonies.

“Well, I am ready,” replied the Emperor. “Does it not suit me well?” And then he turned again to the mirror, for he wanted it to appear as if he contemplated his adornment with great interest.

The two chamberlains, who were to carry the train, stooped down with their hands toward the floor, just as if they were picking up the mantle; then they pretended to be holding something in the air. They did not dare to let it be noticed that they saw nothing.

So the Emperor went in procession under the rich canopy, and every one in the streets said, “How incomparable are the Emperor’s new clothes! what a train he has to his mantle! how it fits him!” No one would let it be perceived that he could see nothing, for that would have shown that he was not fit for his office, or was very stupid. No clothes of the Emperor’s had ever had such a success as these.

“But he has nothing on!” a little child cried out at last.

“Just hear what that innocent says!” said the father: and one whispered to another what the child had said.

“But he has nothing on!” said the whole people at length. That touched the Emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but the thought within himself, “I must go through with the procession.” And so he held himself a little higher, and the chamberlains held on tighter than ever, and carried the train which did not exist at all.