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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1976)
Emerald seeks literary works by readers-. ■ .■— Befuddled nuclear physicist vents frustrations via poetry Editor 's Note: Beginning Oct. 20, the Emerald will publish bi monthly a collection of reader submitted poetry, short stories, drawings and news stories. Deadline for the first edition is Fri day at 5 p.m. Except for poems, no selections will be accepted un less typed, triple spaced and writ ten 65 characters to a line (set in margins at 10 and 75). The mater ial will be screened by a commit tee that will change every two months. While there is no length limit, special consideration will be given to short selections. Material should be submitted at the Emerald offices on the third floor of the EMU. In some of my weak moments (like when I feel rattled after giving a particularly bad lecture!) I write poetry (really!). So as soon as I heard about the new supplement I went to see Claudia Giselle Reel She is one of the gutsy people who will screen the poems for pub lication. Without beating around the bush I asked: "Look Claudia. I thought you want new poets, particularly uni que types of poets. Now look at me! I am brand new. Never pub lished a poem before. I am also a unique type There isn't another theoretical nuclear physicist in Oregon who wntes poetry.” The last statement was trivially true because there are only two nuc lear theorists in Oregon. But I don't think Claudia knew it. “Claudia, would you like to pub lish one of my poems? I shall be happy to contribute one.” I meant what I said. Indeed, discovering a new poet of my caliber might be just ttie break the Emerald needs to establish its credibility in this field. "Amit, I know you have pub lished a few papers in physics, but what makes you think that your work in poetry is worth publica tion?” Now that threw me! To me it is fairly obvious that anybody who can write physics can write poetry provided he gets rattled often enough. However, I have learned to be cautious about communicat ing such obvious things to these literary types. They have a habit of getting offended. So I said in as nonchaient a manner as I could master, “I have to look at some of your stuff before I can commit myself." "That's no problem." I opened by briefcase and handed out a bunch of my poems to her. She looked them over and frowned. "Amit, I am sorry to say, but these are all love poems. I sym pathize with your reasons for tak ing the love poem route, but we are just not accepting any love poems. “Well, I do have one hate poem.” I wrote this one when I was so rattled that I just couldn't think of love. I handed her the sheet of paper. After a while, Claudia said, “Amit, I commend you for being able to write so many obscene words in such a short space, par ticularly since you blush every time you hear any of us utter any such words. But sorry, there just isn't enough hate in that poem.” I was getting desparate. "Listen Claudia, you must admit that I am a pretty good physicist. Maybe you would like to look at my science poem.” “Realty? You wrote a science poem?” Finally she sounded a bit interested. “Yeah. I also read this one to my class last summer.” It was about the Atlantic Ocean and mov ing tectonic plates. Great stuff! Well, Claudia was reading it with some interest. But a frown showed up again on her face. “What's wrong this time?" “Listen Amit, you just have to practice more on your poetry.” “But Claudia, there were forty students in that class and every body liked the poem!" “How could you tell?" “They looked sort of con tented." “That’s probably because it was a diversion from the even more horrible stuff that you teach." County sanctions public defense By CAROLE HAMILTON Of the Emerald Following three years ot de bate. the Lane County Board of Commissioners recently ap proved a program that establishes a Public Defenders Office (PDO) in Eugene. The PDO is a non profit. county-funded organization which supplies defense counsel to those who are unable to afford a private attorney A seven-member board of trus tees. appointed by the board of commissioners, is responsible for governing and appointing the PDO staff, which includes one public defender, seven staff attor neys and two attorneys specifi cally for juvenile cases. The office takes over juvenile cases in November and adult cases in January. Up until now, private attorneys were assigned all of these cases. After careful modification of the original proposition, the PDO will be responsible for approximately one-half of all court-appointed cases. The remaining cases will continue to be assigned to private lawyers. Ned Briner, assistant county administrator, feels the "mixed system,” using both public defen ders and private attorneys, is be neficial to Lane County 's sytem of justice. There will be a larger source of lawyers available, says Bnner "Also, public defenders will soon develop an expertise in crim inal procedures and the handling of a case will be on par with the DA’s (district attorney’s) staff.” Bnner believes a staff specializ ing in public defense will cause an equalization between defense and prosecution Under this new program the as signed private attorneys will re ceive pay equal to the public de fender and DA. Bnner feels that this will be a definite improvement in the quality of client defense. Previously, private attorneys “were, for all practical purposes, donating their time," says Briner. They did, however, receive pay ment, but it was a salary far below their usual wage. According to Briner, this was helpful to the budget, but not to the client. A lawyer may not devote as much time to a non-paying client as to a profitable one. Apparently the public defender won’t have this problem since none of his dients will pay for Ns service. Instead, the public defen der will receive a wage from the state, which will be equivalent to an attorney in private practice. Briner feels that another major advantage of the PDO is that it will be equipped to provide a speedy trial. Briner explains that although the program will add approxi mately $19,000 to the budget, this expense will be regained in the number of trials able to go through the courts in a given amount of time. Under the previous ar rangement, the average time bet ween arrest and trial was 200 days, but the use of a PDO is ex pected to shorten this time to 90 days. The public defender program has undergone improvements since its conception in 1973. Orig inally, the proposition advocated a "pure” public defenders system, meaning that the office would handle 100 per cent of the cases. If this had been approved, Briner says, the source of attorneys would have been seriously li mited. He believes that by com parison, the mixed system pro vides an adequate number of lawyers for the work. you don’t like to spend your noontimes indoois? If not the EMU Food Service Trailer would like to eat lunch with you. m Library turnout 11-130 Johnson Had Claudia seemed adamant for some strange reason. I had run out of poems by now and had to try another approach. "Claudia! I know the reason you don’t like my poems. The English is too simple, right? They sound like translations. So why not say at the end something like “translated by the author from original Beng ali,” or better yet ’original Sanskrit.’ Don’t you think that could be the most exotic item of the literary supplement, the center of the centerfold?” “Amit, I am sorry. The answer is still no. You just have to, what’s that phrase you physicists use, ‘go back to the blackboard’.” I was about to give up. I was really feeling sorry, not so much for myself, mind you, but for so many people missing out on a new approach to poetry writing. Sud denly Claudia said something that brought a new ray of hope in me. There is a way for you. See, frankly we are not getting too many worthwhile contributions. So, we have been thinking about starting a competition to come up with the most effective publicity gimmick that wiH bring in the most contributions. The winner gets to publish one short poem, no ques tions asked. Now, there is your chance, Amit.” So, dear readers and past, pre sent and future pupils, here is an appeal from your favorite profes sor. Come forward and be counted. Contribute to the Emerald literary supplement. Now, I don’t like to threaten, but if you don’t (thus ruining my last chance of publishing a poem), I shall have no other alternative but to publicize my poetry through reading them in my classes. Now what would you prefer? 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