4
The Clackamas Print
Wednesday, March 6,1996
A&E
Poet writes about the soul and change ‘Mutual Consent’ bristling
Laney Fouse
with tension and humor
Assistant Opinion Editor
There are only two subjects
that lend themselves to a poet’s
pen. These, according to the poet
Li-Young Lee, are joy and death.
To the joy of many who filled
Gregory Forum last Wednesday
night, the young poet transcended
us to another time and place. His
poems, like short stories of his
life, offered us a glimpse beneath
the surface of his character.
Once there, we felt the tug of
his ancestral ties to his Chinese
parents. We endured the love and
heartache he feels for his wife and
sons.
Perhaps, by his own admis
sion, his greatest struggle in writ
ing poetry is to “get it right.” Lee
admits, “there’s a very painful
distance between the person and
the experience. At least that’s the
way it feels to me. No matter what
you do you can’t get closer. You
can’t get inside another person’s
essence.”
Yet, when his strong, clear
voice echoes through the crowd,
you somehow feel his essence.
Speaking to the audience about
his poem about eating a peach,
From Blossoms, Lee says he prob
ably didn’t get to the essence of
the peach. He claims that every
poem he ever wrote was a failure-
-a great failure. His poem, From
Blossoms, he says, “was one of my
finest failures.”
People have asked him how
he does research for a poem. His
answer, “I eat things. I ate about
20 dozen peaches . . . but that’s
my idea of research. I ate peach
after peach after peach. “It
dawned on me one day I was eat
ing a particularly good peach that
I had no idea what this peach was.
So I was trying to get this taste of
the peach. So I’m looking at the
color and the whole thing was just
escaping me. The more I looked,
the more I thought, the more it
was gone. So that’s a problem and
the bigger problem is when you’re
trying to write a poem about it. If
you’re a poet you don’t want to
write a poem about the peach, you
want to be the peach.”
To help further explain his
idea of research, Lee offered this,
“On the airplane here they were
handing out apples. They don’t
give you meals any more on the
airplane. They throw peanuts at
you from the back of the airplane.
“Sometimes they hand out
apples and you’re supposed to say
thank you, thank you. You pay
$600 for a ticket and you only get
an apple. It occurred to me as I
was eating this apple that I don’t
Andrew Beck
Staff Writer
If Hollywood wants to make
an American version of the
French film, Mutual Consent,
its actors should take a course
in “Divorce 101” and “Spousal
Revenge.”
The Portland Film Festival has
some great French films submit
ted to this y ear’s screenings, 1 ike
the gender-bending comedy
French Twist, France’s submis
sionfor Best
Foreign Film
Oscar. Mutual
Consent is also a
impressive piece
of work, but in
stead of using
comedy timing it
uses malicious
intent and quar
relsome behav
ior.
The movie begins with hus-
band Romain (Richard Berry)
and wife Jeanne (Anne Brochet)
fighting viciously over circum
stances in their ten year mar
riage. This heated argument
sets the tone for the entire pic
ture; Romain and Jeanne begin
debating over what looks like
common spousal problems and
ends in a fist-a-cuffs brawl.
The morning after the fight
a painfully sober Romain and
desensitized Jeanne “mutually
consent” to get divorced and
give Jeanne custody of their ten
year old daughter Mado
(Adrienne Winling). All seems
well during the divorce hearing
and yet Jeanne faints outside the
courthouse, a perfect symbol of
things to come.
The divorce seems amiable
enough at first for Romain and
Jeanne as the movie continues
a few month after the divorce;
Jeanne is starting a new life in
Paris and Romain is staying in
the family home. Like so many
divorces Romain and Jeanne
think that they maintain a
healthy relationship after their
hasty divorce.
The movie continues after
the couple has been a few
months apart and we see a
healthy, growing, Jeanne with
a new life and an unemotional
Romain.
Although he
doesn’t show
it, Romain has
been
com
pletely emo
tionally tor
tured since his
family’s defec
tion; this side
of him you
don’t see be
cause of perfectionist and anal-
like qualities.
The writing and casting of
Romain is one of the high
points of Mutual Consent; Ri
chard Berry’s character can get
much better as the consummate
disgruntled divorcee.
Romain deals with his
emotional frustration by taking
it out on Jeanne, trying to dis
credit her among her friends,
family and at work. Mutual
Consent’s script is full of grow
ing tension and is bristling with
witt, humor and hidden sadism.
Romain’s constant war with
Jeanne and her growing inse
curity as a result of it makes
Mutual Consent a good choice
for a weekend movie.
Mutual Consent played at
the Portland International Film
Festival and is now playing at
Koin Cinemas in Portland.
...This heated
argument
sets the tone
for the entire
picture...
Photo by Laney Fouse
Visting Poet Li-Young Lee shares with CCC how he
looks at life differently.
know what an apple is. So I take
a bite out of it. I’m chewing it,
I’m trying to hold that taste so that
I can understand. The more I try
to do that the more it escapes me.
“From taking a look at the
apple I see that it’s not red at all.
There’s blue in there, yellow in
there, there’s a little purple, a little
black, it’s brown. It’s not a red
apple at all. “And I’m sitting
there having these thoughts—I
was sober, I wasn’t on LSD or
anything. I kept looking at this
apple and it dawned on me that
it’s not red at all it’s multicolored.
“I hadn’t a clue about its fla
vor. So I take another bite. The
more I thought about it the more
it escaped me. By the time I’m
done I’ve eaten the whole thing—
the seeds; I’m sucking on the
stem. I’m trying to get everything
I can out of it. The more I do it
the more it escapes me.
“So I thought gee, and I
looked up and everyone is eating
their apple very happily and I’m
having this existential crisis. That
happens to me a lot. This is my
idea of research.”
Lee, a prolific writer, admits
that Ralph Waldo Emerson is one
of his favorite writers.
“[Emerson] is absolutely a
visionary, absolutely mad and ab
solutely an ecstatic writer. If you
read him right, he doesn’t make
any sense at all. He’s speaking
from another place. His sentences
are very incoherent, leaping, mak
ing jumps because he’s all over
the place.”
The love for Emerson’s work
prompted Lee to start reading the
writer’s journals. Ironically, it
was here that he ran across a pas
sage where Emerson was talking
about the Chinese immigrants.
According to Lee, Emerson wrote,
“I really don’t understand them.
They have no poetry, they have
no music, they have no culture.”
Lee laughingly states, “I guess the
Sian, the T’ang and Shang dynas
ties escaped him entirely.”
Besides his poetry, Lee of
fered up a lesson in life. He be
lieves thinking of people in terms
ofrtheir usage is a fatal error. He
insisted, “That kind of mentality
is rampant right now in our cul
ture and on our planet. So, we
think of everything in terms of
equipment. Someone looks at the
Grand Canyon and thinks, ah, oil
fields. Someone looks at a forest
and thinks lumber, not forest,”
He further adds that we tend
to look at people the same way.
“You might look at a women and
think good housekeeper. I’ll
marry her. You might look at a
man and think good breadwinner.
I’ll marry him.”
In listening to Lee, one comes
away from this event feeling
somehow changed. Maybe it’s
because your ancestral roots run
deep. Or maybe it’s because you
value the traditions of your fam
ily. Just maybe it’s because the
poems of Li-Young Lee are about
the body, the soul and about
change. His poems are about life.
But most of all, his poems are
about the challenges joy and death
brings to each of us.
CCC to be graced by Hirshfield
Clofkirvg
Contributed photo
From Perry .Mason to
Lora Wahrgren
Assistant Photo Editor
tine Brady Bundi!!
Open M-Th, 3-6pm; Fr-Sa, 9am-6pm; Sun, Noon-5pm.
Phone: 659-4919
16703 SE McLoughlin
Milwaukie, Or. 97267
(in the old Tax Service office)
Corner of Naef Rd. and McLoughlin
Aaron Rodríguez
Killed junior year.
December 28,1993
San Antonio, TX
If you don’t stop someone
from driving drunk, who will?
Do whatever it takes.
FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS DRIVE DRUNK.
Clackamas Community Col
lege will be graced with the pres
ence of Jane Hirshfield, famous
author of three books in a special
poetry reading today in Gregory
Forum at 2 p.m.
Her most recent book, The
October Palace received two
awards from the Poetry Center,
the Commonwealth Club of Cali
fornia and the Bay Area Book
Reviewers.
She resides in Molino, Cali
fornia and has taught at schoolw
such as University of California
at Berkeley and University of San
Francisco.
“I’ve known her work for
several years...I think she’s one of
the best cotemporary poets in the
US,” said English Instructor
Diane Averill.
This is one reading you
shouldn’t miss.