Doug Anderson: Anonymous from the Han Dynasty
What a relief to sit by the waterfall
and let my mind go like this, each thought
a bubble rising from the bottom of a pond
Video: My Journey from Marine to Actor — Adam Driver
Before he fought in the galactic battles of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Adam Driver was a United States Marine with 1/1 Weapons Company. He tells the story of how and why he became a Marine, the complex transition from soldier to civilian — and Arts in the Armed Forces, his nonprofit that brings theater to the military. Followed by a spirited performance of Marco Ramirez’s “I am not Batman” by Jesse J. Perez and Matt Johnson.
Doug Anderson: Prancing
I remember sitting on the sofa in my grandparent’s house–my day care center–watching television with my grandfather.
Doug Anderson: Green Fire
When the captain got old
and sick, he had the same
nightmare every night
Doug Anderson: Tucson, 1964
I’d been up all night with a broken heart and saw him.
Skull deformed, one eye larger than the other.
Then back in his truck and gone before the rest of us were up.
Doug Anderson: My mind is weighted toward sorrow
My mind is weighted toward sorrow
and I feel unbalanced when I walk.
There are old rooms there, certainly,
that I’ve now abandoned, with their coffee spills
and unmade beds…
Doug Anderson: The Dictator
He built a wall around himself and demanded
that his image be painted on the inside of the wall
looking back so he could imagine the shouts
on the outside were cheers for him
Doug Anderson: Burning Man
Burning man comes from an instinct and need for carnival, a masking of the respectable self in order to release the animal/imaginative self, but with ritualized decorum and boundaries.
Doug Anderson: How it happens
God help me, I don’t know where I’m going.
We hold each other’s hand like children
finding our way home among the closing wolves.
Doug Anderson: Living Will
For those who loved me I leave nothing because
they require nothing of me and never did and instead
send me on my way, my boat full of burning flowers.
W.D. Ehrhart: The Farmer
A farmer of dreams
knows how to pretend. A farmer of dreams
knows what it means to be patient.
Doug Anderson: Letter to Me
Yes, I said, to that other self that younger self that
swaggering young ass
who sewed up his heart with cat gut, yes
