Libraries Have Everything

I've always spent a lot of time at libraries. When I was young my grandmother would take me to one or two of the libraries in the Lucas County system. I loved the Holland and Sylvania branches. She waited for me to browse the rows and stacks and spinner racks full of books. I read the whole Oz series in just a few weeks. I borrowed the same couple of books about dragons and knights over and over again. I read The Mists of Avalon far too young, and Salem's Lot, too. Over the years I borrowed thousands of books. The sad truth is I probably only read hundreds of them.

Station Identification

My name is Michael Kocinski. I'm an amateur poet; a citizen scientist; a casual gardener; an advanced doodler; a cook, a father, a husband; a sometime tutor; an aspiring naturalist; and an utter failure at life. I dream of writing a novel. I have enough poems to collect as a manuscript. I want to learn to play the banjo and speak Sign Language. I want my kids to have a better early life than I had but I don't know if they do; I won't know until one of them is 41 and writing a blog about his or her shit parents.

More Like NOvember, am I Right?

Today I did something I haven't done in many years. I left my house, walked to the woods, and walked right into overgrowth. I didn't use the path managed by my wife's uncle and his bright orange Kubota. I didn't take my phone, a pen and paper, a child, or a walking stick. I plunged into thorns and fallen leaves ankle deep and I wandered. I tried not to look for anything, since it's NOvember after all, and what I really want to see, animals like snakes (I especially and foolishly look forward to finding a copperhead in these woods), turtles, salamanders, and frogs, have all gone to ground for a little while. Well, wait. I don't really know for sure. You see, I'm in North Carolina now and I don't know the laws of hibernation here. It's been cool, and rainy, and NOvember for about eight days now. And if the wild animals around here are anything like me, they hate NOvember too, and will sleep through it if possible. I know I would. 

The Four Chambered Heart, a eulogy for my mother.

My mother died on January 19, 2017, nine days before her 64th birthday. My dad asked me to write something to say at her funeral because I'm the poet in the family. To be honest, I was reluctant to say anything, knowing full well I wouldn't be able to put my whole heart and intention into the words I needed to describe this woman I loved so much. But I did because my dad asked me to, and he's done almost everything I've ever asked him to do for me. How could I refuse?

Portable Concrete Mixer, a poem for National Poetry Month

Here is one of the twenty new poems I challenged myself to write as a celebration of National Poetry Month. 

Portable Concrete Mixer

I don’t think I’ll ever be dumb enough to go to work everyday.

What life is better? Tying boot laces at 5 a.m. and sipping

Squalid truck stop coffee, or this pond life, playing on the wet bank

With mason jars full of tadpoles fat as Buddhas?

The frogs are right--rest in the sun or jump and hide until

All danger passes.

                        Father calls and I quit my squat,

Running to him because I’m not a frog, but a boy.

He’s behind the arborvitae hedge where something’s missing--

The portable concrete mixer used to stand just there,

Sagging on leaf springs, hitch propped on a stack

of wooden blocks, grass that had grown tall underneath it

Yellow as frog thighs, wheel ruts deep and empty and leading

Across the backyard to the gravel driveway, hidden from view.

                        What did you do with my stuff, I asked.

The treasures I collected and hid in there? Yeah, alla them

Sticks and shit you stacked up in the engine housing?

I threw it on the burn pile and tossed the rocks in the fire ring.

Uncle Dick sold the engine for a song and scrapped the mixer,

You gotta help me hitch ‘er up and haul ‘er over to his house.

                        Now stop acting like a little kid, we got work to do.

                        And we did.

After Work: My Grandfather's Eulogy.

On Sunday January 24, 2016, at 4:22 pm, I received a text message from my sister; it said just this: "He's gone." My grandfather had died at the age of 93, twelve days after his birthday. He was a Master Mechanic; he was awarded a Silver Star for gallantry in action against the enemy during the first wave of the Invasion of Normandy by Allied Forces; he was a careful and dedicated gardener; he was a hard worker. When we talked he never asked me "How's work?" but "Are you working?" He knew I was working, he knew I had a job, but he always asked me like that, as if I wasn't, or as if I could stop working. So, when my aunt, and then my father, asked me to prepare a Eulogy for his funeral I started thinking about his legacy, mainly the work ethic he exemplified, the lessons I tried to learn from his example, and that's where I started. I was deeply honored that I was asked to speak on his memory--I loved my grandfather deeply. And I'm also glad I finally got to read in front of him at least one time.

Superheroes Don't Rape

Every Wednesday for the past twenty years I've been stopping at my local comic shop on my way home from work for a little quiet time, a little chat with the regulars, and to pick up a few new releases. I've lapsed a few times over the years. When my kids were born I took a break from buying comics because really, every dollar counts when you have diapers to buy and your wife's on maternity leave. But I continued to read through my personal collection and kept up to date on news via Newsarama or Comic Book Resources. I love Wednesdays. I live for Wednesdays. I chat with the store owner, we talk about our kids, pick dream creative teams for comics that will never see the light of day, ooh and aah over Chris Samnee's Daredevil pages and marvel at Art Adams' covers. 

Look, I'm not a 'serious' collector. There are titles, like Daredevil, that I'm loyal to, and there are creators who I love and give anything they work on a chance. I keep my weekly haul to about 4 or 5 issues, which is a good amount to read in one sitting and it doesn't kill my wallet. It's hard to do, though, maintaining a maximum number of comics, because there are so many good books out there right now, stretching the medium to the edges of possibility. And that's what I love about comics, the versatility, the possibility, the wild imagination unbridled in 22 page, four color brilliance. I love that I can go to a comic shop and find colorful superheroes shelved next to African American soldiers fighting in World War II shelved next to re-imagined literary classics like Madame Bovary modernized as a graphic novel called Gemma Bovary. 

If I spent as much time on anything else in my life as I've dedicated to comics, I'd be a master carpenter by now, or a PhD in Comparative Literature, or, at the very least, I'd have saved a lot more money over the years. But it's okay because lately I've been feeling like we're on the verge of something amazing in this little corner of fandom. I feel like we're so close to another Golden Age, if I could be so bold. Books like Ms Marvel and The Lumberjanes, or The Mighty Avengers, and creators like Kris Anka and G. Willow Wilson, I don't know, there's still a long way to go but there's this sense of inclusiveness afoot, there's a sense of representation stirring, and I think, "Yes! Keep trying, keep going!"

And then a female journalist receives rape threats for not liking a comic cover. Yes, that's right. She took an artist to task, stridently but fairly, for misrepresenting human anatomy and objectifying a teen super heroine on the cover of a comic book and she got rape threats. I'm not going to rehash the whole thing here. The story's on the 'net if you want to read it, but I won't sully my blog by repeating some of the awful things that were said to her. Listen, there are people with stories to tell, men and women, people of color, people of various backgrounds. They should be allowed to tell their stories. People should be able to see heroes who look like them. People should be able to have heroes who don't look like them, too. People who love stories should be able to talk about them with other fans who love stories without fear, without shame, without hatred. Female fans have a stock in this medium we all love so much and I for one am happy to know female fans exist! I'm so glad there are female creators at work in comics. Thanks to them, all of them, we're getting new voices, new stories, new perspectives, hell, we might even learn something!

Young men and women are going to read these stories one day. It does us no good as a society to reinforce negative and dangerous stereotypes not only about women and people of color, but guys, we are going to be the villains of this story and I don't want to be guilty by association. Better writers than me have already tackled this topic, but I think change in the community has to start with guys like me, who don't say much otherwise, who avoid the forums and threads because we hate bullies and ignorance, we hate spoilers and ruiners and so we avoid them, but I don't think it's right to avoid them anymore, so here's my two cents, I guess. I want my compassionate and beautiful sons, and my compassionate and beautiful daughter, to see heroes of all genders and walks of life, in comics, if that's what they like, or in professional sports or television shows. I want them to see that people of color have stories and perspectives outside the narrow one the mass market media provides them with. It's as important to me, for example, that a female Muslim hero stars in a comic book as a female Muslim writes, draws, or edits the comic book.

I want my sons to see how big the world is and I think comics can do that. They taught us a man can fly, they taught us that great power requires great responsibility, they teach us about teamwork and unity and striving for the betterment of our world. Look, my daughter already knows what's in store for her and girls like her. She's 13 and not deluded. As evidenced by the hate spewing out of comics forums directed at girls and young women just like her she still has an uphill battle to wage. What I hope though, is that my sons, and boys like them, will grow up to reject this hatred and be voices of reason and fairness, that their dialogue with their female peers will be thoughtful and inclusive, so maybe my granddaughters can grow up in a world with representation and equality. 

Let me put it in terms we 'fanboys' can understand: when the Fantastic Four foils Dr. Doom's nefarious plan, or when the Avengers hold of a Skrull invasion, it's not only New York they've saved, but the whole world. They've saved people in countries we're at war with, they've saved you and the people you hate: women, black people, transgender, everyone. They are heroes: non-selective, put-their-lives-on-the-line, everyone-gets-out-of-this-alive heroes, and you read their adventures month after month, week after week, and you still want to exclude entire demographics from this hobby, this past time, this serious enterprise you claim to love so much? You think you can threaten someone, a stranger, with rape threats? Who did you learn that from? Spider-Man? The Green Lantern?

You guys--villains rape. Rapists are VILLAINS. Villains, real world, real life despotic villains use rape as a  tool to destroy communities and lives. I won't let you villains do that to my community, to our children, to our wives and daughters and sisters, to our sons, who need more kinds of role models than ever before, I won't let you do this thing. I'm not going to stand by and let you do this. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I know I'm not going to threaten you. I'm going to be a guard, The Guard. I'm going to look out for my peers and call you out when I see bad behavior. I'm going to build and enlarge this community. I'm going to buy comics for every little girl and boy out there, and I'm going to share this medium with everyone I can, and soon, if they don't already, the good guys will outnumber you. And if you haven't gone away by then, hopefully you'll at least keep your villain mouth shut.