Gallaher and Lee at the Ruskin Art Club.

John Gallaher and David Dodd Lee read at L.A.’s prestigious Ruskin Art Club last Saturday. You know, brie and bread, cupcakes and strawberries, Perrier, several bottles of white wine, small book table, a glorious subtropical breeze informing the open room of hope beyond this fiddle—a breeze that slammed the front door shut during Lee’s reading, causing him to jump comically. There were nine people in attendance, including me and my 8-year-old daughter, and also including the lovely Louise Mathias. It was good.

I love Southern California as a place to write and live poetry but have had a tough time convincing other poets of its validity as a region. Even these two poets, both stationed in the Midwest but with (typically) East Coast sensibilities, were reluctant. “Great place to visit,” said Gallaher, earnestly enough. He’d like to bring his daughter back to visit Disneyland. But actually live here? Seems writers need a world that feels more real to them—something along the lines of Lowell’s “Skunk Hour.” Me, I now need just a beach. Or a deck chair. And I don’t even need to feel alive. It’s fine to feel whatever this is.

Did you know that seasons are great but not necessary? We have basically two seasons and two other things that arrive regularly. We have moderate summer weather for ten months. We have cold raininess for about two months. Then there are there are the Santa Ana winds (about which Steely Dan so memorably crooned) and June Gloom, which means a bit of overcastness during the month of June. And did you know that basements are unnecessary? And gutters are extraneous? I promise I am not bragging! We do have plenty of Home Depots and other stuff, so yeah, not 100% paradise.

About a month ago I drove up to Fresno and had a meal in the ranch-style home of Phil and Franny Levine…en route to readings in Davis, SF, and Santa Cruz. Franny took me on a tour of the various fruit trees in their back yard. We had an excellent beef bourguignon and a couple of bottles of wine and then about a third of a bottle of 12-yr-old Highland Park. It was a dream, Phil regaling me with stories of the seventies and eighties, a tennis match where so-and-so Nobelist didn’t play fair, hanging out with Mary Karr and Steve Martin at such-and-such event, etc. Meanwhile, I knew that outside it was a peaceful 70 degrees, and we could go pick an orange whenever. Later on that trip, in the suburbs of Davis, I witnessed a Wii golf tournament in Joe Wenderoth’s living room.

And do you know that I am well aware of how different Levine’s poetic sensibilities are from mine? And can you imagine how much that’s not an issue when I’m sitting with him in Fresno? And I don’t smoke pot, but I loved my time in Davis. This is the land of you don’t have to, or you can, and it’s nice to meet you.

I don’t want to go all Joan Didion on you guys. But on Wednesday I’m driving up to spend an afternoon with Bill Berkson, which is about five and a half hours north (the way I drive). I’ll just say this. If you’re depressed back East or way up North, it might do your soul good to spend a few years in So Cal, within striking range of S.F., San Diego, Death Valley, and Vegas. Soak in a world not defined by the New Yorker, The Nation, or Paris Review. Spend enough time in the backcountry that you begin to regard canyons and coyotes as normal. I can’t imagine that this will hurt your poetry.

[Buy Lee's Nervous Filaments and Gallaher's Map of the Folded World.]

[My view as I write this]