Tuning in: Same HAT Time, Same HAT Channel

Those of you who have been to my apartments over the past few years prior to cable would remember the wonderful little tinfoil rabbit ears that I used for my little t.v. antennae. They served me well, in most cases, because I didn't even have basic cable, and with those little gadgets, I've had a lot of luck tuning in to many great shows. Whenever there was a threat of rain or wind which could weaken the signal, I would stand next to the aluminum rabbit ears and the screen would clear up. If things were pretty bad, I could touch it with my finger, or reshape/recast the tinfoil around the cheap-o t.v. antenna and everything would be fine.

It happened quite often (in Arlington, in Wilmington, and for a short while in Berkeley) that I would have to stand next to the t.v. to watch something clearly on the screen, but it was worth it just to get the strong signals (it's my compulsive need to see the end of all shows, which is why I had shows that end in "To Be Continued"...Hmmph).

Several days ago, I would have gladly used my body as an extension of some sort of antenna just to finish hearing the game between Nederland and Uruguay (in the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup). While driving back to STL, I listened to the game on ESPN radio. As we ventured further and further from the city limits, the signal became weaker and weaker which, naturally, compelled me to continue turning the dial back and forth to find the right signal strength. No matter what I did, though, the station was gone. (Perhaps that was a good thing -- otherwise I would have heard the news and would have been an unhappy traveler the rest of the way.) It was silly thinking that I could turn the dial this way and that in order to get a clearer sound of the game. If I could have, I would have stuck my head out the window holding tinfoil rabbit ears as we traveled along I-80/94. But, the channel was lost.

In Chard de Niord's interview with the poet Ruth Stone (in the July/August 2010 issue of The American Poetry Review), Stone said the following about her writing process and her muse:

Even as a child, I would hear a poem coming toward me from way off in the universe. I wouldn't hear it. I would feel it, and it would come right toward me. If I didn't catch it, if I didn't run in thehouse and write it down, it would go right through me and back into the universe. So I'd never see it again. I'd never hear it again. I've lost about ninety-nine percent of my poems this way. Sometimes I would catch the last line and write it through the bottom up. I have to say. I never thought they were mine. They weren't mine. They belonged somewhere else.

That never happens to me. Or, rather, if this sense of universe-streaming (like webstreaming?) had happened sometime in my past, it was such a long-ago time that I no longer remember ever being a conduit of such burning poetry, the kind that sinks into your soul and your consciousness and you can recite lines from heart-memory as if they were ingrained in my veins. No, I don't think this has ever happened.

Stone admits, though, that there are times when she really has to revise and revise before she gets something just right, and it's not just about tuning in to the right channel of the universe so that the poems just pour right out of her (p. 50). In the interview, the 95-year-old poet says she "couldn't get the last line for years" for the poem "Things I Say to Myself While Hanging Laundry."

It took her several years to get the last line, however, it was only one elusive line that held the entire poem in limbo, waiting. I, on the other hand, have been waiting my entire life for just one line. One poem. One book.

Mind you, I've been working hard to fashion me some fancy rabbit ears just so I could tune in: All the degrees, all the workshops, all the peer-editing, all the writing groups. Then the writings and editing on the side, perusing and analyzing collections, reading and contemplating. Old poets, contemporary poets, classics and experimental. Fiction and nonfiction. Journals, magazines, reviews. The jazz shows and the art galleries, the readings and the lectures -- all for inspiration, like stretching myself into different shapes, twisting my mental torso into different forms, with my finger slightly outstretched to touch that magic "tinfoil" that will help me channel the right word, the right line, the perfect image.

Alas, alas, although I feel like I've fashioned all the rabbit ears that I could with all the tinfoil that exists out there to channel "a poem coming toward me from way off in the universe", my muse isn't easily found (not like the old Bat-Man t.v. shows which were shown same bat-time, same bat-channel). So I will continue tuning and fine-tuning, and hopefully one day I'll finally get to universe-stream what was meant for me all along.

I wish I could say that we eventually picked up the soccer (ahem, football) game again on the radio that day, but we never did. We drove far beyond the limits, and truth be told, the conversation in the car was much more interesting than listening to the game on the radio. I learned some fascinating history about my dear old dad, and that, I think was much more valuable. A secret (writerly?) part of me was mentally recording our car conversations for future material, I think.

[Also see a fun article about rabbit-ear TV antenna and Photo source]