TRAINING FOR THE BIG ONE?!
I can’t say exactly what the appeal of triathlons is, yet I am already beginning to feel that I want to step up to the next level, from “sprint” distance to “Olympic” distance. Last summer I tried an open lake swim in a sprint triathlon in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, and thought I was going to drown with the choppy waves, but I made it, a little shaken and stirred, and came out of the water like someone does for the first time in shock water therapy. I then got on an old 1980’s Maruishi 12 speed and pedaled my way through 15 miles around the lake, and then, on practically the hottest day of the year, started jogging up a steep hill. Well, I did terribly at this event, so I can’t quite figure out why I would want to swim, bike and jog even further, but on that memorable day in Pewaukee, I knew that I wanted to continue to train and improve for these triple heart beat events.
Actually, I’ve been entering indoor triathlons (an oxymoron) since the late 1980’s at a local gym in Milwaukee. Of course the size of the age group I’ve been in is quite small, and if I am lucky, I can pull a first or second or sometimes a third place finish without totally dying. A few years ago I entered an AARP triathlon in Madison, and thought the combination of indoor pool, and outside cycling and jogging worked just fine. A few years later I started to add on biathlons (jog and cycle) but unfortunately the one I entered has now shut down. After the debacle in Lake Pewaukee, I joined a triathlon training group in the Milwaukee area, and started swimming in a nearby lake with other individuals training for lake swimming. After the first dip, I thought I had been infused with a miracle growth hormone, for I hadn’t felt better in my entire life. Perhaps I ingested a few lake microbes that actually gave me a short boost. But it’s a bit chilly out there today for a swim (temp=23F today) so I am back to my gym, working up to 36 full laps or about a mile. For a while, I could only manage 9 laps or ¼ mile, the distance for a sprint triathlon, but with practice and perseverance, I am now training at the mile distance.
So I have to get an upgrade from my 1980’s Maruishi 12 speed and I will need a wetsuit, but for now, I am happy to get up to the gym and envision that I am about to either dip into the Hudson River, or tackle 26 miles in Manhattan and environs, and finish off with a 10K in the Park. Count me in, everybody.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Not All Poetry is Mad Poetry
NOT ALL POETRY IS MAD POETRY
With all the excitement in the poetry business about bipolar, chronically depressed and schizophrenic poets, I’d like to advocate here, briefly, for the non-psychotic, non b-p, non-chronically depressed poet. I admit I sometimes wish I had that rush of energy and imagination that is often documented in poets going all the way back before psychotropic drugs were even thought of as a temporary solace from that “mad” energy. Every year I read about more and more of the world’s gifted poets as having some sort of psychiatric diagnosis. I’ve lived close to these illnesses, I’ve assisted in a funeral of a dear poet who lost herself to the impulse of the noose. I’ve read some of the best poetry criticism that focuses on the mental health of wonderful, wonderful poets. I’ve read just about everything I can by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison who has helped me more than any other clinical psychiatrist to understand what moves and terrorizes the fragile psyche of so many poets.
But every once in a while, admitting that I am a poet, and not diagnosed as a “mad poet,” I yearn for the calm, reasoned, compassionate, clever, charming, witty, imaginative voice of a sane poet. There are a few out there, aren’t there? I’ve learned that this propensity for writing poets gets more artists to the grave sooner than all other writers, and to be quite honest, I am quite saddened by this. At the same time, I know we must have a few elder, middle aged, somewhat aged, youthful and young poets who go through their daily lives without a manic or depressive impulse, just the quiet voice that calls the poet to the writing table, or keyboard, or whatever paper might be available for a dream in language, as some do call it.
Okay, I’ll admit I’ve been mad, sad, elated, ecstatic, joyous, amused, puzzled, perplexed, and all together overwhelmed with the beauty of experience tapped out into the beauty of lines and stanzas. I’ve written poems where I have been crying my heart out as I try to hear the voice of an ancient Incan warlord face the onslaught of Spanish conquistadors. I’ve laughed my way through a few lines, I’ve squinted, I’ve been baffled by the way lines simply appear on the page, and everytime it happens, I know I’m in a special time space warp that is for me the most precious of moments while here on Earth. Yet in all of those experiences, I can’t say they have come from a particular mental diagnosis. It just comes from the beauty of reading and writing, or writing and rewriting poems in the hopes that someone else might appreciate or just enjoy the meager work that I find to be the most fulfilling work of a lifetime.
I do enjoy the confessionalist poets and all who follow in their tradition. I am deeply appreciative for all the poets who have written through their depression and manic episodes, but occasionally, I just want to acknowledge that a poet doesn’t have to be a deeply troubled soul to be able to write deeply troubling poems. I do acknowledge that poetry is written in a particularly unique state of mind. Some might call it a dream state, a heightened state, an extra-sensory state, but just as a small footnote to the volumes and volumes of poets who have written with deeply troubled psychoses, I just wanted to add that a few of us out there, and throughout history, have just simply been awed by either the world, the language in the world, or maybe both. As a brief example, here’s something written just a few weeks ago that might illustrate where I’m going, or coming with this brief blog:
AT THE END OF THE WAR
(after “The End and the Beginning,” Wislawa Syzmborska, 1993)
DeWitt Clinton
We need to do something about all the lost limbs.
Would anybody please volunteer to search
For who has lost legs, arms, faces?
We’re all thirsty, yes, but does anybody know
Where we can find a brook, a creek that
Doesn’t have our floating cousins?
Yes, yes, we need a morgue, but first
We must find a few dogs to tell us
Who is beneath the stones.
We know Gertrude and Maurice and maybe
Alfonse, maybe more, all have to be found.
Bandages, surely someone has some bandages.
We want to rebuild. Does anyone have a ladder?
Let’s leave God out of this for awhile.
Let’s start in the square, and slowly remove
What was thrown down from the sky.
Who knows how to get a weather report?
Will there be good weather for tomorrow?
Yes, that’s a good idea, but we can always
Talk, there’s always a lot of time for talk.
We’ve got such a mess.
Brooms. Everybody, find all the brooms.
Can anyone send a letter, we need to let
Someone know this has happened.
Tomorrow we can start burning our families.
Surely someone will see the smoke.
Surely someone will come.
With all the excitement in the poetry business about bipolar, chronically depressed and schizophrenic poets, I’d like to advocate here, briefly, for the non-psychotic, non b-p, non-chronically depressed poet. I admit I sometimes wish I had that rush of energy and imagination that is often documented in poets going all the way back before psychotropic drugs were even thought of as a temporary solace from that “mad” energy. Every year I read about more and more of the world’s gifted poets as having some sort of psychiatric diagnosis. I’ve lived close to these illnesses, I’ve assisted in a funeral of a dear poet who lost herself to the impulse of the noose. I’ve read some of the best poetry criticism that focuses on the mental health of wonderful, wonderful poets. I’ve read just about everything I can by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison who has helped me more than any other clinical psychiatrist to understand what moves and terrorizes the fragile psyche of so many poets.
But every once in a while, admitting that I am a poet, and not diagnosed as a “mad poet,” I yearn for the calm, reasoned, compassionate, clever, charming, witty, imaginative voice of a sane poet. There are a few out there, aren’t there? I’ve learned that this propensity for writing poets gets more artists to the grave sooner than all other writers, and to be quite honest, I am quite saddened by this. At the same time, I know we must have a few elder, middle aged, somewhat aged, youthful and young poets who go through their daily lives without a manic or depressive impulse, just the quiet voice that calls the poet to the writing table, or keyboard, or whatever paper might be available for a dream in language, as some do call it.
Okay, I’ll admit I’ve been mad, sad, elated, ecstatic, joyous, amused, puzzled, perplexed, and all together overwhelmed with the beauty of experience tapped out into the beauty of lines and stanzas. I’ve written poems where I have been crying my heart out as I try to hear the voice of an ancient Incan warlord face the onslaught of Spanish conquistadors. I’ve laughed my way through a few lines, I’ve squinted, I’ve been baffled by the way lines simply appear on the page, and everytime it happens, I know I’m in a special time space warp that is for me the most precious of moments while here on Earth. Yet in all of those experiences, I can’t say they have come from a particular mental diagnosis. It just comes from the beauty of reading and writing, or writing and rewriting poems in the hopes that someone else might appreciate or just enjoy the meager work that I find to be the most fulfilling work of a lifetime.
I do enjoy the confessionalist poets and all who follow in their tradition. I am deeply appreciative for all the poets who have written through their depression and manic episodes, but occasionally, I just want to acknowledge that a poet doesn’t have to be a deeply troubled soul to be able to write deeply troubling poems. I do acknowledge that poetry is written in a particularly unique state of mind. Some might call it a dream state, a heightened state, an extra-sensory state, but just as a small footnote to the volumes and volumes of poets who have written with deeply troubled psychoses, I just wanted to add that a few of us out there, and throughout history, have just simply been awed by either the world, the language in the world, or maybe both. As a brief example, here’s something written just a few weeks ago that might illustrate where I’m going, or coming with this brief blog:
AT THE END OF THE WAR
(after “The End and the Beginning,” Wislawa Syzmborska, 1993)
DeWitt Clinton
We need to do something about all the lost limbs.
Would anybody please volunteer to search
For who has lost legs, arms, faces?
We’re all thirsty, yes, but does anybody know
Where we can find a brook, a creek that
Doesn’t have our floating cousins?
Yes, yes, we need a morgue, but first
We must find a few dogs to tell us
Who is beneath the stones.
We know Gertrude and Maurice and maybe
Alfonse, maybe more, all have to be found.
Bandages, surely someone has some bandages.
We want to rebuild. Does anyone have a ladder?
Let’s leave God out of this for awhile.
Let’s start in the square, and slowly remove
What was thrown down from the sky.
Who knows how to get a weather report?
Will there be good weather for tomorrow?
Yes, that’s a good idea, but we can always
Talk, there’s always a lot of time for talk.
We’ve got such a mess.
Brooms. Everybody, find all the brooms.
Can anyone send a letter, we need to let
Someone know this has happened.
Tomorrow we can start burning our families.
Surely someone will see the smoke.
Surely someone will come.
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