A Longhouse Birdhouse

Monday, December 4, 2023

Sunday, December 3, 2023

Saturday, December 2, 2023

RUSSELL ATKINS ~

TRAINYARD AT NIGHT

TH UN DER TH UN DER

the huge bold blasts black

hiss insists upon hissing insists

on insisting on hissing hiss

his s sss ss sss sss ssss s

ss sssss ssss

when whoosh!

the sharp scrap making its fourth lap

with a lot of rattletrap

and slap rap and crap —

I listen in time to hearing coming on

the great Limited

it rolls scrolls of fold of fold

like one traditionally old

coldly, meanwhile hiss hiss

hiss insists upon hissing insists

on insisting on hissing hiss

his s ss ss sss sss s

sss s s

___________________________

Russell Atkins

World'd Too Much

The Selected Poetry

CSU, 2019

Friday, December 1, 2023

MENG JIAO ~

Why Complain

Bad poetry gets you good posts.

Good poetry

Gets you to a mountain.

Hugging the mountain

You shiver

Daylong you hug it

For cold

With a dour face.

Some position, that.

Poetry,

Good for nothing, you think,

— It courts envy.

Daggers drawn soon point at your clenched teeth,

The good & the great are long dead.

You chew over their work. Best dead.

For what it's worth.

& shall I not, now nearing the end of life,

Have some peace of mind —

A person of few words

Who has withstood his time?

The pack descended,

Glowering

You are wanted.

______________________

In the Same Light

200 Poems for Our Century

translated by Wang May

The Song Cave, 2022

Thursday, November 30, 2023

GUARDIANS OF THE VALLEY ~

Yosemite’s “Three Brothers,” taken east of El Capitan, 1865Credit...

Carleton E.Watkins, via Library of Congress

R E A D M E

Scribner, 2023

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

I’m not sure what has happened — you invited me into the fold to send a piece about Kent Johnson for your proposed anthology I ONCE MET KENT JOHNSON. The title, of course, drawn from the two titles Susan and I edited, designed and published from Longhouse of Kent’s delicately mountaineering written portraits I ONCE MET. It sounded like a terrific idea and you sent me the almost finished manuscript of all those already involved. I wrote a little piece for the anthology, sent it along, and the rest is history, which I believe I will share in all our correspondence shown below — and why not — also with the general public. Kent would understand. I’ll also show my tribute to Kent at the closing, since all went quiet (never a good sign in publishing) after you accepted my tribute, revealed you wept reading it, and then months later published the anthology for Kent without my tribute. Why not tell me why there has been no explanation to my tribute being erased, nor any word here to the book's release. I had to ask an old friend of Kent's and mine who let me know about the book's publication. My copy arrived a week after his, which I thank you, but not for this treatment.

[BA]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Kent
Date: March 13, 2023 at 2:09:36 PM EDT
To: longhousepoetry@gmail.com

Hi Bob and Susan--

We are putting together a collection of tributes to Kent called I Once Met Kent Johnson. I attached some below so you can get a sense of what people have written. We'd very much like it if you could contribute something, especially since you published Kent's book. I'm hoping to get something together in next couple of weeks. Let me know if you'd like to add to it.

Best,
Mike

--
Michael Boughn

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Kent
Date: March 13, 2023 at 10:01:56 PM EDT
To: Michael Boughn

Mike,

What a cherry idea!

What’s you latest deadline?

We have too much snow and too much mud to deal with.

Plus Susan just got out of the ER.

Time, at the moment, is funny.

Let me know.

stay warm & well,

Bob

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: March 14, 2023 at 7:15:45 AM EDT

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Hi Bob — sorry to hear of your various travails. There’s no tight deadline, but I’m hoping to be able to put something together in 2-3 weeks.

Michael Boughn

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: March 18, 2023 at 10:19:53 PM EDT

To: Michael Boughn

Hi Mike,

Nor’easter here gave us over three feet of snow. No power, phone, water, road for days. I’m writing now but no way to send it because the Internet is out. It may be out for a week or weeks. The power is back after five days. We’ve been moving snow everyday. One day this note will go out and get to you. With luck, I’d like to have a piece for Kent in your hand by the end of the month.

See you when I do.

Bob

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: March 19, 2023 at 2:06:41 PM EDT

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Terrific, Bob.

Michael Boughn

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Kent Johnson

Date: March 27, 2023 at 7:18:14 AM EDT

To: Michael Boughn

Hi Mike,

After the Nor’easter here (42 inches of snow in 24 hours) we had no power for a week and no phone or internet for almost two weeks, plus there is no wi fi reception in this valley, period, except by the phone line — finally some restoration at the end of March — getting this piece for Kent off to you. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Will this gathering be both on-line and book form?

all’s well, Bob

Bob Arnold
P.O. Box 2454
West Brattleboro
Vermont
05303

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: Kent Johnson
Date: March 27, 2023 at 3:18:23 PM EDT
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

That’s terrific, Bob. Had me in tears. I really miss him, too.

I’d explain why you got drawn in later than some others, but it’s complicated. Suffice to say, the whole process was ad hoc and anarchic. And it was all on me, and I am grossly ignorant and isolated when it comes to the poetry world. Not mention usually stoned.

Thanks for this. If Susan is sending something, I will wait.

m

Michael Boughn

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Kent Johnson
Date: March 27, 2023 at 4:41:30 PM EDT
To: Michael Boughn

You’re a good sport, Mike, appreciate it.

Susan is quite happy with what I wrote.

She likes Kent in there, voice man and all.

When is it all appearing?

all’s well, Bob

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: Kent Johnson
Date: March 27, 2023 at 6:09:16 PM EDT
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

It shouldn't be too long, at least in PublishingTime. Billie Chernicoff and I started collecting these when Kent told us he was terminal. There's a small group of us, most of whom were on the Dispatches editors list. It was half social and half Dispatches sounding board. We kept up a conversation after Dispatches closed up shop. When he broke the news to us, we all wrote something to give him cheer and let him know how much he was loved and respected. He sometimes had a hard time recognizing that, and according to Deb, his wife, while he was sick he was frequently despondent about the universal enmity he felt. So we decided to ask a few others to join in. No one was in charge. Everyone reached out, but mostly it was me. I knew the names of a lot of the people he had close relations with because I witnessed it during Dispatches. So I reached out to them. The manuscripts collected in Billie's computer because there was just too much else going on to make a book, too. I was out of the country for a while, then had a cardiac issue. Anyway, you know how it goes with time at our age. Poof. When we got back to it last week, I decided to reach out to people I had missed the first time around. And you and Susan came up. And now you have the whole sordid story I said I wasn't going to bother you with.

I think it will be available in a couple of months -- say June. Or July. I definitely want to make a book and I have some very reasonable ideas how to do that. As well as get it online.

All the best,

Mike

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: IOMKJohnson
Date: August 7, 2023 at 10:37:53 PM EDT
To: Michael Boughn

RE: I Once Met Kent Johnson

Hello Mike,

Deb has sent the lovely memorial booklet of and for Kent which includes a brief passage or two from IOMKJ.
Has the book now been published?
Please let me know.

all’s well, Bob

________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: IOMKJohnson
Date: August 7, 2023 at 11:16:19 PM EDT
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Hey Bob --

It's on hold. I am waiting for one last important contribution that's been held up because of health issues. I've been led to believe that I should get it soon.

Deb took that from the old pdf.

Glad to hear all's well. Here, too. I have been up on Georgian Bay a lot at our cabin. With my dog. It's good.

______________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: IOMKJohnson
Date: August 7, 2023 at 11:18:12 PM EDT
To: Michael Boughn

Thank you, Mike — we’re all looking forward.

stay well, Bob

______________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: November 19, 2023 at 3:07:33 PM EST

To: John Bradley

Dear John,

Between letters, a question — have you ever received the anthology Mike B and others were planning for Kent Johnson?
I thought I had heard from Mike they planned to have the book out this year.
Please let me know whatever you know.

all’s well, Bob

______________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: John Bradley
Subject: Re: Kent
Date: November 19, 2023 at 3:23:36 PM EST
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Dear Bob,

I just received a copy of the book this week.

I don't see your essay in the book, though, Bob.

John

__________________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: November 20, 2023 at 9:52:21 AM EST

To: John Bradley

Dear John,

That is a bit of shameful news to receive on a Thanksgiving week, but thank you, John, I thought those involved in this project might be capable of such a cowardly move.

Glad the book is out for Kent. Glad those contributing are there for Kent. More than glad Kent and I were together and Susan and I were able to publish I ONCE MET not only once in a hand-sewn gold cover booklet but the expanded and perfect-bound edition that Kent knows we plan to keep in print.

However, to never have Susan and I included in the first place (and I have to ask) and then to be invited, my submission taken (all shown in the spool of this brief correspondence) and then be dropped without any explanation — heavens to betsy!

I believe I’ll show all this correspondence to allow what happened to speak for itself, and then post my piece to Kent, which turns out to have a little wave of foreshadow.

all’s well, Bob

___________________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: i once met

Date: November 25, 2023 at 10:46:42 AM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Dear Bob Arnold --

First of all, please accept my profoundest apology for omitting your contribution to I Once Met Kent Johnson. It must have been hurtful to discover that and I feel horrible about it. I'm not sure exactly how it happened--especially after I went to the trouble of tracking you down and requesting a contribution. I was diagnosed a few years ago, along with my then teenage son, with ADHD and mild dyslexia, something I have spent most of my life covering up and feeling less because of it.. Somehow your contribution to the book fell into the hole in the corner of my mind where I am wont to lose things. This is not the first time this has happened. I probably shouldn't be in this business at all. My very first published book (by the University of Virginia) -- the bibliography of HD -- failed to include in the bibliography a crucial article I referred to in the introduction, a failure I was humiliated to learn from the book's first reviewer. I still agonize over it. I could go on and on with other instances. All of which is to say, your omission was a terrible mistake I am deeply apologetic for and will continue to feel awful about for the rest of my life.

That said, your response--to publicly excoriate me online in your blog without any attempt to contact me first--was what we we in the olden days called "chickenshit." That was really a chickenshit move, Bob. We also sometimes referred to such a gesture as the act of an "asshole". The truth is, I don't know you well enough to know if you are truly an asshole, or if you just acted like an asshole because you were feeling hurt. But it was an asshole thing to do.

All the best,

Mike

______________

The message below was written as a combined email to MB and his “co-editor” Billie who I have had previous correspondence with in the past. Billie requested not to have her two emails included in this thread, which is fine and understandable.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: i once met
Date: November 25, 2023 at 9:33:04 PM EST
To: Michael Boughn

Thank you, Billie, and I would never post your email since none of this was business between you and me.

I posted Mike’s emails, and mine, and carefully removed Mike’s email address in each of his emails ( and not mine ) but apparently from an email from Mike today, he can’t live with his words.

History is tough.

Stay warm and well this winter.

all’s well, Bob

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: i once met
Date: November 26, 2023 at 6:24:51 AM EST
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Dear Bob Arnold —

I can live with my words. That’s not the problem.

Your failure to talk to me before posting a private conversation on line is the problem.

You are rude.

But, hey, etiquette is tough.

_________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough

Date: November 26, 2023 at 10:02:41 AM EST

To: Michael Boughn

Etiquette is tough, Mike, but notice you failed to sign your name in your letter below.

Please understand you made a dreadful mistake in developing and presenting the anthology I ONCE MET, whether it was done to me or any other author. And you have no wherewithal to know what to do about it. I’ve been 52 continuous years in the writing, editing and publishing world. I have made mistakes, and I learned and lived through them. It isn’t up to me to contact you about anything here. You made the mistake of leaving my work out of the anthology. You aren’t built to advise, so please don’t. Please heal. And I mean this Mike. Addressing me as an “asshole” is dire weakness. Either scrap the anthology and with dignity re-print it correctly, including everyone who was promised and should be involved, or go about thrashing and making excuses for yourself. If you do the former, you’ve done your job. If you don’t, you haven’t. Continue to surround yourself with people who give you kudos, but know you have learned nothing.

Best to you and have a warm and kind winter yourself.

all’s well, Bob

_____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough
Date: November 26, 2023 at 12:18:49 PM EST
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Dear Bob Arnold,

I’m certainly not going to compare publishing histories with you. You win, hands down. I have never been more than an occasional amateur. Nor have I ever made a cent from it. I paid for the printing and distribution costs out of pocket for the tribute to Kent and gave it to the contributor’s, and I am not really in a financial position to redo the entire process. I did have a possible remedy to propose. It would have been nice if you had written to me about the omission error before publishing my private correspondence to you. Then I would have suggested printing your contribution on a sheet the size of the book and mailing it to everyone with an errata slip and an apology. Which is still a possibility.

Most sincerely,
Michael Boughn

Ps: I did not call you an asshole. In fact if you read the note carefully, you will see I explicitly said that I don’t know you well enough to know if you’re an asshole or not, but what you did by publishing my private correspondence without consultation was an asshole act. Even the most pure among us occasionally acts like an asshole. I speak from personal experience.

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough
Date: November 26, 2023 at 7:20:43 PM EST
To: Michael Boughn

Dear Mike,

Ed Ochester has a terrific poem about an “Asshole”, old poem of his, very old, I once had it tacked up inside my woodshed door. Very short. The weather eventually took it away. You might be able to find it in the world of the Internet.

Those separate sheets, like errata sheets, almost always go lost. Few keep them. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Kent knows the truth.

all’s well, Bob

______________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough

Date: November 27, 2023 at 6:16:36 AM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Bob, I hear your concern for loose sheets, but I would very much like to set the record straight about my omission. Some people may lose it, but some won’t, and everyone that’s part of the project will get a chance to read it. So unless you vigorously object, I will go ahead and send out an errata package in the next couple of months.

Best,

Mike

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough

Date: November 27, 2023 at 9:44:08 AM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

is this the one ?

Monroeville, PA

One day a kid yelled

"Hey Asshole!"

and everybody on the street

turned around

it reminds me of Kent's bar joke

______________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough

Date: November 27, 2023 at 10:11:55 AM EST

To: Michael Boughn

Correct, Asshole.

_________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough
Date: November 27, 2023 at 10:17:21 AM EST
To: Michael Boughn

Dear Mike,

I simply object, because while all good intentions, it looks lame. The press looks lame, the editor, and me. Not my way.

I don’t want to go into what losses and pride I have gone through in 52 years of running a press correctly — if you wish to dig around, you could find the Longhouse story. But you made a mistake and a strong contribution was left out for Kent and there is only one way to correct it, since there will be only one book. One Kent. One Mike. One Bob. One future.

all’s well, Bob

Nov 28: No reply from MB. I believe this ends the exchange. Regarding Ed Ochester’s poem to “Assholes”— I trust MB understands my reply was made in the same jest as the classic poem. We’re all assholes, folks. The other day, working alone in the woods, ready to fell a tall and dying cherry tree, I was into the work and reaching to my back pocket where I always slip in a felling wedge, it turns out I forgot it. I said to myself, “Go get it, asshole.” None of us are spared. My essay to Kent that was omitted from the anthology is down below —

(and since the very last messages above between Mike and I and posting it all on the Birdhouse, comes this addendum of very last messages below)

_________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~

Date: November 29, 2023 at 11:23:25 AM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Interesting what you deleted.

_________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~
Date: November 29, 2023 at 2:56:20 PM EST
To: Michael Boughn

Hello Mike,

If something was “deleted", perhaps be a supportive writer, and show me what is missing. Nothing was purposely “deleted.”

all’s well, Bob

__________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~
Date: November 29, 2023 at 3:05:06 PM EST
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Sure Bob. Here. Maybe I missed something. We know how that goes.

Thanks,
Mike.

_______________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~
Date: November 29, 2023 at 3:08:17 PM EST
To: Michael Boughn

Mike,

I found your letter before your return email here, and it is important, and it has been put in its place.

all’s well, Bob

________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~
Date: November 29, 2023 at 3:09:37 PM EST
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Thanks.

Mike

______________

KNOCK KNOCK, A Visit With Kent Johnson

I not only ONCE MET Kent Johnson, I saw Kent the other day — waiting for me up in my woodlot in Vermont, sitting with his legs comfortably crossed on the large ash tree Yuri the Russian and I dropped a few weeks ago. A very big tree, maybe 100 feet tall. The tree has been dying now for some years but still taking its time. Like a cat who finds the softest spot in a room to curl up or a dog who slumps into the warmest spot in the dooryard on a winter day, Kent knew where to find me. He, of course, asked about the tree. Pointed to all I had bucked up and hand-split. It’s nearly two cords of prime firewood. Kent wanted to know all the juicy details — like, who was Yuri?

Yuri was from Moldova. He’s half my age. I was looking for a young tree-surgeon and one afternoon at the grocer’s Susan got out of the truck and cried, “Oh wow! the top of that pine tree just fell over.” That was Yuri up there. I didn’t know him yet but I was going to. He was working as a favor for friends from the same neighborhood church. Susan went off to shop and from the parking lot I watched awhile Yuri work. Then I walked over for a closer look. I got Yuri’s phone number from one of the ground workers since Yuri was too high up in the tree. Yuri was at our place a week later with his little family snug in a company work truck. Not his truck. We took down the ash tree when it was ten degrees, late February. The money Yuri earned would pad his pockets for a three week trip back to Moldova to visit his young wife’s family since they hadn’t yet seen the baby. Kent loved all the story. Told me again of his own travels to that part of the world, the poets he met. He then put one of his hands deep into the hollow of the big log he sat on. I still had the last twelve feet of the ash tree to buck up. It was three feet thick. The hollow rot would at least give me a leg-up when starting to split the large chunks. Kent asked how long it would take. He kept smiling and shaking his head as I described everything. Taking his hand out of the hollow he then asked was it true it was only after twenty or so others were invited to this anthology of I ONCE MET, I was then invited?

I beamed and nodded. “Nothing new in club-house poetry America, Kent.” I added that the editor was kind enough to share with me many of of the contributing pieces. “I know, Bob, but you published the book I Once Met. Hell, you encouraged me to write this bigger book of memories from the smaller handmade golden booklet you and Susan published. Don’t you remember how I told you I planned to go to this bar I like and sit there and write? Well, I did! And then you added in all those great photos”. . . “By the way, how is Susan?” I told Kent Susan was back at the house keeping the wood fires up but as the sun gets warmer she’ll follow my snowshoe tracks and see us. Kent asked if I was going to write a piece for the anthology. I said I hoped to. We had a real true blue Nor’easter blow through the week the invitation arrived laying in over three feet of snow in twenty-four hours. We lost power, phone, water and even the dirt road along the river for days. But I read through portions of the anthology that was sent to me and saw mutual friends John Bradley & George Kalamaras in there, plus a sharp, warm remembrance by George Quasha. I never met Quasha but I bet maybe Kent had (he nodded his head). I bet you also felt the same thrill I did when young and finding a copy of his Active Anthology? Kent didn’t say anything, just kept smiling at me. Neither a nod or a head shake; he was a man in love. I waited while Kent came back from wherever he was, thinking or dreaming of poets and books.

He then blinked and looked me dead in the eye and said, “I died too young, Bob. I miss my family. I miss my dog Ben Jonson. I miss you all. Look at me — my hair’s grown back!” We laughed and let that all sink in. The sun had finally reached our spot in the woods. Snow was melting around the big log. “Yeah, you died too young Kent,” I said. “Everyone misses you. But you still lived almost twenty years longer than Basho.” Hello rolled into goodbye.

Bob Arnold

_______________

28 March 2023

Green River