Poetry Night at the de Young

Last night, Julie, Cynthia and I went to see Robert Haas read poetry at the de Young Museum. We arrived at the museum a bit after 6, and they were having their usual Friday night party fully equipped with bands, a bar and art project stations. You were encouraged to make yourself a silly hat or to re-style your prom dress into something fun or punk or both or something else entirely. I noticed a lot of colors.

Julie and I got “white sangria” to drink which included chunks of watermelon, honeydew mellon, and cantaloupe. I was impressed. The theater had sloping seating area of orange leather chairs which were remarkably eager to make fart noises. Behind the stage, a variable polkadot texture let in the daylight before they closed the shade for the program.

The opening speaker said: “If people aren’t sincerely, actively, even emotionally involved with the arts, they lose their vitality, and the arts lose their momentum.”

Robert Haas took the stage and focused his talk on San Francisco and the arts. He mentioned that Wurster convinced Maybeck to build the Swedish Church in San Francisco. He told us how Telegraph Hill didn’t used to be so steep but while the ships transported wood from the Northwest, they filled their decks with rocks from the Hill to weigh them down for the return trip – that’s how the Port of Seattle was built. To paint an image of the region, he included the smells of juniper and lemon.

Haas is thinking about compiling a book of German poetry about it getting dark. I love the immediacy and peculiarity of having a book of poems about a moment of the day.

“Unsentimental” – what a word! He spoke about how violence against women is in the very character of war not an aberration. Sexual violence is part of war.

While he was Poet Lauriat, for which he was paid $30K/year – not enough to support his family and 2 kids in college, he aimed to bring poetry into the mainstream with weekly columns in the Washington Post (then syndicated throughout American media). The result had become his book called Now and Then, which I bought and got him to sign. I realize now that I also already had a copy of Human Wishes signed to me in exactly the same way though I don’t remember getting it. He wants everyone to buy Now and Then because the publisher is small and local – you know what to do!

An audience member asked him about his relationship with Czeslaw Milosz. He explained that translating all those poems was like “being alive twice” as he felt he really lived the sources of other poet’s verses through translating them into English.

Haas is a charming man with fine social skills. Cynthia, Julie and I speculated as we left the museum that very successful people tend to be likeable because those around them have encouraged and supported them. He seemed to be aging gracefully into his always-destiny of being an older professor-poet in kaki pants and a tweed coat, calm and carefully-spoken. I couldn’t help but wonder what the female equivalent of that is. The female archetypes are all young be they smart, beautiful, or witty. I thought of the old lady in purple, but she’s no great mind – just eccentric. What will I become?

After the program, we met Sultan and friend for dinner. Thai food – Marnee Thai on 9th Ave. – was excellent. I entertained the group with some of my very recent dating stories that I realize I need to type up for the blog. Sultan’s friend observed that women process their relationships with their friends. They talk them out and try to understand them with people who know them well. He said that men don’t do that. Men process their last relationship in their next relationship.

I can’t help but think that this is what happened with Jared. Our problems seemed so random and unnecessary. I felt like I was living someone else’s life… on someone else’s planet. I think I was playing the part of his last girlfriend for him but without my knowledge or consent. Alas – I guess life is neither perfect nor fair.