Organizing your writing life

JUST SAY YES: I saw the brilliant new film Yes from one of my favorite directors, Sally Potter (who helmed Orlando and The Tango Lesson). The entire film is, literally, poetry. The dialogue is written in variations on iambic pentameter and is absolutely compelling. Only Sally Potter could have written this script...she's a genius filmmaker. Joan Allen plays an Irish-American woman (known only as She) having an affair with a Middle-Eastern man (Simon Abkarian), who is just called He. The affair evolves into a confrontation over religion, politics and sex. James Joyce's Ulysses is evoked in the story, especially Molly Bloom's closing, orgasmic soliloquy (...I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.)

What is really fascinating on the DVD is the documentary called "Finding Scene 54," which the entire film hinges on - a devastating confrontation between She and He in a parking garage as they hurl insults at each other: terrorist, imperialist, pig, bitch. The emotional intensity of Joan Allen is really something to behold as she transforms into this stateless character, having left the troubles of Belfast as a young girl, growing up in America and now living in London. The final day of rehearsal for this scene took place on the day American invaded Iraq, and Sally Potter's despair over the news is raw. The film takes on a whole new urgency. I watched Yes twice and was mesmerized. A stunning achievement in poetry and film.

Received word that New Delta Review will publish two of my poems in the next issue due out in early 2006. It's a respected journal which has featured Billy Collins, Anne Carson, Andrew Motion and Robert Pinsky to name a few. I'm also excited that new work will appear in the final edition of The Chiron Review, which comes out next month, and Terminus, published any day now.

Iraq's leaders - the ones America has been trumpeting about being Democratically elected - are now calling for the US to set a timetable for troops to leave the country. The end of 2006 would be preferable. Since the administration won't listen to the American public, maybe they'll listen to the government they ushered into power. Won't they?