I’m tired of talking about me. You talk about me, for a while.
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, Memoir
Aeons ago, during the 1st exile (right after my first divorce, when I was in Los Angeles), I was fixed up with a former opera singer on a date. It was just lunch. We had met socially at an event featuring my good friend David Demeter, who is a very successful drummer in the LA music scene, and a friend of a friend passed word that she wanted to see me socially.
We had a pleasant enough lunch, no major awkwardness, and even agreed to see each other the next weekend. Knowing she had a 10 year old child from a previous marriage, I even did the gallant thing to reassure her that I was not kid-phobic and told her that after the recital we were going to attend, we could all three go out to lunch. She seemed pleased.
A few days before the date I got word from one of the mutual friends that she (the opera singer) did have a criticism of me from our first date. She felt my "dating skills" were "primitive".
I was taken aback, having usually been accused of being too charming in conversation, and having been raised appropriately by my mother to be a gentleman. I asked for further clarification and was told they’d try and find out in what area I was failing the civilization test.
Word came back the next day that the issue was that I did not talk about myself enough on the first date. That I asked a lot of questions about her, but did not follow them up by offering up information about myself. I always had thought that people liked it when you didn’t start every sentence with "I" (of course, this being LA, that might be a little alien). I was truly flabbergasted and, although I went through with the date and even took her and her daughter to lunch afterwards, I let the potential relationship drop there.
The truth is, I am not aversive to telling people about myself, it just usually doesn’t occur to me unless asked (yes, just wait until Barb Holmes and I do the interview thing, you’ll get plenty). Maintaining a blog is a bit of a stretch for me, as most of what I am expected to write about is me; my day, my feelings, my poetry, my books and CDs and appearances. I find me…boring.
So, here’s a break. For you and me. I’m going to drop the topic of me for a bit and write about politics, religion, society, television, film, how to make grilled cheese sandwiches that don’t stick to the griddle, the theology of love, and all those other ten gazillion things that are not about me, per se.
We’ll see how long this lasts…and if you get bored and want to find out what I am up to, go over to Amomancer and read the poetry for the bread crumb clues to my heart and soul.
memories may be beautiful and yet
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Brigit, Journal, Karla Sasser, Memoir
I had to tell this anecdote before it grew cold in memory.
Or so I thought.
I shared it with the person it most involved and they had concerns about how they came off in it. So I rewrote it. Still not perfect…and I hate the notion that anything I might say could be construed as intentionally cruel or harmful to another person’s reputation. If you have to be cruel to others to have your own way, you need to re-evaluate your life and your goals, as you are still a failed experiment.
So…no anecdote, at least not now. I thought back to my memoir that I recently blasted to atoms. A lot of stories in there that make me, and others, look like themselves, but not in the best lights. The lesson isn’t supposed to be about people feeling bad about who they are or what they have done or been perceived as being, saying or doing, but rather that we are all human and everyone falls down…or is thrown down.
Maybe one day I will again write that memoir. When I have something interesting to say about love and life and poetry. When I know the answers to a few of my more nagging questions about who or why or when. Too many of those right now.
I left the tags on this one after pulling out the anecdote, to drive everyone crazy.
pantherization +13
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, Memoir, PanthEon, The Compleat Panther Cycles, The Panther
Thirteen years ago, today, I put pen to paper and wrote a small set of poems I dubbed The Panther Cycle, owing to a pre-discussed "totem" to be used for the young woman whose picture had caught my fancy.
That spawned 92 other cycles of work to and about that same woman and relationship that flourished and fell in full public view as my mailing list of people who wanted to be informed whenever a new cycle was written grew to hundreds of people. And not just random people, most of my subscribers were fellow writers, some even well-known and respected authors of modern fiction, genre fiction and poetry, even a biographer or two. It was an heady time.
In time came the book PanthEon, and finally The Compleat Panther Cycles, all full of the stuff that filled those eighteen months with wonder, passion, pain, regret and poetry. I divorced, gave over practically all my worldly possessions, only to have her retreat in guilt, marry another and have a child, before moving to my beloved Los Angeles, which I had eventually deserted (at least temporarily). I moved on and married (and divorced) a Leopard.
The works themselves have kept and expanded their audience, despite the fact that I rarely give them a nod in public or read them at appearances. They make up, numbers told, about 3% of my total poetic catalog, but have an outsized reputation thanks to the feeding frenzy back in the mid-nineties, during an early part of the digital renaissance, before the web was flooded with poetry sites.
So, for 13 years of making life…interesting…I’d like to just now tip my hat to the works, their legacy, and the woman who inspired them. For good or for bad, they are and she is a part of my legacy, and while since then I have lost my heart more than once, written other poems and published other books, they will be part of what is remembered when I am gone.
Happy Anniversary, Lauri. 
I remember Mama voting
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Memoir, Thoughts about Life, West Virginia
My good friend Nordette Adams has broken up my weekend by giving me a writing assignment, to write about my mother’s influnce on me, politically, particularly as it pertains to voting.
I have known my mother all my life as a woman of fierce principles, particularly her more Conservative bent, especially in relation to the abortion issue (I avoid the topic around her anymore, we have a very divergent view on this issue). But I recall her always trying to sort her busy schedule as a working mother to make sure she had opportunity to vote, to make sure her voice was heard and that she could feel good about the process including her.
My father has always been very liberal, working-class Democrat, much the dove on international affairs, my mom the opposite. I always felt they sort of cancelled each other out, so it was my job as a liberal Democrat to make sure the balance was tilted. I note that West Virginia went for Bush only after I had moved.
I think the impact our parents have on us is more than the lectures and the obvious hand-holding, but the examples they set. I never recall my parents trying to dodge civic responsibility, whether it was to vote or serve on jury duty. These things are inconveniences in a free society, they are the paltry pence we pay for such an environment.
There, Nordette, now I can post the link to http://acorn. org/moms and report I am done!
a tribute to Mary Tomasky
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, Memoir, People, Poetry, West Virginia
Those of you who have read the pages about me in the Appalachian Educational Initiative’s "Art and Soul" volume know that I included a tribute (an essay, not a poem) to the only Creative Writing teacher I ever had, Mary Tomasky. She was the CW and Art teacher at Morgantown Junior High School when I attended there, and our relationship was stormy, mostly because she didn;t let me get lazy,
She never really understood the level of impact she had on me as a writer until years later, when I was selected into that volume and wrote of her influence. I am at my best when challenged. I am smart enough and talented enough that I can "get by", and being human, sometimes that’s exactly what I try to do. She recognized this and kicked my butt around the table when I gave her less than everything in my poetry or fiction.
She has had more than her fair share of personal tragedy in her life, and I won’t go into that here, but when I think of my most crashingly bad day and how hard it was to rise again, I recognize in her someone who exemplifies the human spirit.
This is for her.
to my teacher
lessons learned, burned into my soul
kind intentions, a steady hand to guide
and the ability to take great pride in what comes from the effort
I am, in part, made of your will
in forcing me, in time, to face
that which in me gives grace to the random gifts I sport
you did your Maker justice
who did give you the will to reach,
to teach me and countless others, lessons of life’s report
William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.
chasing Abstra
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion, Memoir, Muses
Originally posted at Author’s Den, this examination of my greatest muse is as relevant today as ever. Originally written in 2005, I haven’t changed a word. I guess I’ve pretty much been on this wavelength for some time.
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I was down at my favourite hang out, the "Black Bear Burrito," working on a summary of my book "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion" when a whim struck me.
Being the "Romantic Poet of the Internet" and all, people often pay a lot of attention to whom my poems are written, sometimes misleadingly (i.e., "Arachne and Red Lace" is not about drug addiction, it is to a former lover who told me she was buying that red lingerie for my delight, not that of some other lover I did not yet know about) but with some passion.
I started charting the 87 poems in that book, gridding them out to whom I know the poems were written. I have to admit, I’m a fraud.
Of those 87 poems in the book, published in 2002, only four. Yes, four. Only four were written to my wife at the time (the cover model). That’s just under five percent. Pretty lame.
At this point you are scrambling for your copy to try and figure out who the other 82 were about. Relax, it gets complicated and you are going to need your wits about you.
Fourteen were earlier pieces, written to my first great love. Five. Yes, five. Five were written to my first wife, whom I have had a less than amicable relationship over the intervening years (she once said, publicly, that she would never have me killed because it would ruin her chance to make my life a living hell.)
Thirteen were of an aspect that they were not of or about any woman or relationsip.
But twenty five. Yes, twenty five. Twenty five of the poems in "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion" were written to an abstract romantic figure I will now give the name "Abstra". She seems to be my most common muse.
Indeed, a painstaking review of my catalog of about 9,000 poems shows that, even if you credit all of the "Panther Cycles" to "the Panther" (many are patently not about her, as they describe aspects of her that I already knew were absent) she comes in at 7.1% of my total recorded output.
Abstra has around 11.4%. Sounds like a can of whup-muse if ever I heard one.
Who is this Abstra? That makes it interesting, even further. Certainly my view of her has evolved over the years.
In her earliest days she was an amalgam of the women I desired, Psyche and Alabaster and others. But as time went on, she began to take on those characteristics I was not finding in my lovers.
Most of my relationships have been terribly one-sided affairs, with me doing the heavy lifting, emotionally and financially.
Abstra is an equal partner who takes care of me when I am sick and calls me sometimes just to check on me, not just when she wants a favour or to borrow some money (the stories I could tell…)
Abstra is passionate, publicly affectionate, and isn’t afraid to tell me when I am screwing up. But before I actually make the mistake, rather than waiting until the dust clears then telling me a resounding "I knew that would fail."
She has her own space, her own identity, her own goals and dreams and achievements, which I celebrate with her. And she is proud of me when I succeed, not envious.
She has my back. She likes to snuggle. And doesn’t mind being with a man who, while extremely monogamistic, has the appetites of a teenager.
She has a spiritual side, but knows we live in the real world and that needs taken care of, too.
She likes animals, but doesn’t consider them more important than people.
Big one here. She’s not a liar. She doesn’t lie to me. She doesn’t expect me to lie for her, or to take the blame for her mistakes. She doesn’t lie about me when it suits her manuevering.
Gee. Now that I think of it, I have known a few women like her, but so long ago they have passed from my sphere. Known in times before I knew what was of value, what was of need.
I don’t think it is time to raise my standards, but to hold to my standards. To embrace and accept them for an integral part of me, and my artistic vision.
But enough about me. I salute you, Abstra. Through many years you have kept this heart beating, as did Glatisant with King Pellinore, as I keep my lonely quest for you.
And I shall, as is my duty to you, and to love.
random bits of time
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Memoir
I remember my 4th birthday party.
Neighbors who I barely knew showed up and my favourite gift was a friction-powered toy car that, when you revved it up and turned it loose, went slowly down the sidewalk, with the little man inside looking back and forth. I thought it was very interesting.
Because my brother, Robert, and I were so close in age (two years) someone even brought a present for him, so he wouldn’t feel left out. A ring toss game, as I recall, with the "Three Stooges" label across it, as if a generic toy had been made all the more precious because we might think Mo, Larry and Curly would approve of it (or play with it…I can imagine the havoc they could cause).
We lived in Washington State, off-base, my Dad was in the Air Force at the time. We had a chicken coop out back, thanks to a shipment of baby chicks my Grandmother had sent us. It meant we had fresh eggs and the occasional fresh chicken (ghastly memories of helping Dad with the executions).
I recall little moments of that tapestry and time: The girl from down the street who was learning to play the clarinet to be in the school band, the divorced woman who everyone said had committed suicide on the day we saw al the police cars and ambulances at her house, the time I went to get a drink from the backyard faucet and ended up with a large, perturbed beetle in my mouth.
Life.
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