Friday, October 20, 2006

lost chicken eggs. damn.

Does another poem about loss ever need to be written after Elizabeth Bishop so aptly handles it in her poem? Do other poems become redundant? If the point of poetry is to elucidate the human experience, how many ways do we need to explore what a particular aspect of humanity is like before we throw in the towel and retire the jersey number?

Obviously, I have been thinking about loss.

About being omitted from the lives of others.

What exactly is it about loss that humans fear? Perhaps it is the loss of control (already another loss), or the idea that loss is irreversible. Maybe then, every poem is inherently about loss, whereas previously (and while in a better mood) I had contemplated that every poem was fueled by the concept of love. Intense love for life, powered by the (ta-dum) loss of it. A chicken and egg quandary. Every art should have one.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

the seventh sense

I am settled, and must extol fervently on the wonderful city of Wilmington. It is truly amazing. I love the water, and being in a town with rivers, lakes, marshes, and the ocean is heavenly.

I am rereading a book that I have read several times merely to become immersed in the setting. The book is Belinda, by Anne Rice, back when she was writing as Anne Rampling. This time around I am noticing things I never did in my previous reads (and to think that there are those who scoff at the idea of rereading a book). Particularly in how Rice develops as a writer. The sense of place in her books is always central - to the way she writes, to the way the characters interact with each other and their surroundings, to the development of the story itself. Before I moved, when all my books were packed, I picked up a spare copy of Interview With the Vampire. In thinking about these two books, and the way setting is central, and keeping in mind my favorite book she's written to date (The Witching Hour), it suddenly became clear to me how Rice took those early elements and fully implemented them into The Witching Hour. New Orleans culminates in that book, breathing heavy fire, and smelling like a salty whiskey drink. In short, she doesn't just create a city, she invocates it into living in her pages. Considering New Orleans today, those books may wind up being more important than Rice or any of her readers ever dreamed they would be. Perhaps one could even say her books would preserve the fundamentals of the old New Orleans the way Fitzgerald is often credited for saving a fraction of the 20's with The Great Gatsby.

Sense of place...It is more important than it is given credit for. In books, in life. There is a sense in this city of vitality, and health. Of the way a clear glass of water can taste of the earth when all other senses are stilled.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

one week

This time one week from now I will be in my new town, in my new place, utterly exhausted from driving and unpacking the rental truck. The very yellow rental truck.

I already have a deadline for a piece of writing, and the deadline is very soon. I am rather apprehensive about it actually. I thought that I would have more time to contemplate what I wanted to write...I don't actually write nonfiction...But apparently my time has come.

I am slightly worried. As in, freaking out.

The house looks strange with all my pictures off the walls, the mounds of boxes tucked into corners, and a half arranged furniture design that screams "garage sale refugee."

I have work tomorrow. I am ready for the summer to be over.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

beirut

A few days ago I came across this blog, Beirut Update, which is written by a young woman in Beirut. She started it when the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began. I can only imagine that for her it is a way to vent, to express what she sees that the media cannot, and to give the perspective from an artist's point of view. Since launching it, she has become the receptor of loads of comments, from encouraging ones to hateful ones. Most Americans who post apologize profoundly for the actions, or lack thereof, of the US government, as well as acknowledging that most Americans have no real idea what goes on in that particular region of the Middle East, or the history of it.

I have a very good friend who lives in the UAE, and he tells me about the sorts of things they see on their news coverage. (I should also tell you that, in the UAE at least, they do have CNN, CBS, and BBC in addition to local channels from Jordan, Turkey, etc...) While our news coverage is plastered with the atrocities of the bombs dropping unguided in Israel, his news is plastered with stories of Israeli children kissing bombs before they are sent to kill Lebanese children.

How are we to form opinions of who is right and who is wrong when the media does it for us?

How can there even be a right or wrong when both sides are killing?

Doesn't that lead straight to determining which ideology is right or wrong?

How can you tell someone that the fundamentals of their beliefs are inherently wrong?

Because people do. They fight over the 'rightness' of their particular belief, nevermind that by killing in the name of that belief the action renders the belief invalid in some ways. In all ways. Like hitting your kid to teach them that hitting other children is wrong. No logic. No heart. No belief.

I have a feeling that this time, this conflict will be the catalyst to something bigger. The US has no idea or compassion for warfare fought in the backyard. We are a fat and complacent country with our hands in too many cookie jars. The higher a country is, the harder it will fall when it finally does fall. (Roman Empire ring a bell?)

How many of us will be writing blogs then, with the sound of bombs hitting our neighbor's home, and empty grocery store shelves, nothing to feed our families or pets but canned beans, and the daily routine of living becomes a crap shoot? What would we be saying?

Where would we put the blame?

How can I renounce my citizensip of one country and become a citizen of the world? Somehow, if you are on everybody's side, it seems you can finally have an objective viewpoint......

Monday, July 24, 2006

a packing note

While packing today I came across a shelf full of old spiral notebooks and other writings from as far back as my senior year in high school. While I am happy to report that I did write prolifically, I won't ever be divulging the contents of that writing.

It is too [insert your adjective here].

I have more boxes than I thought possible. It appears that what I lack in furniture I clearly make up in books and other decorative items.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

terms

It's been a while between posts, and in keeping this sort of online running dialogue, I wonder at times what is the best stuff to post? Which occurrences during my days warrant rendering here? The other night on the news it was mentioned that the majority of bloggers are under thirty, and most tended to blog about their personal lives. I'm not actually sure what all I am willing to give up here, what I find fit for public consumption, and what would even interest others. Which is sort of comical considering writing is what I do, what I've always wanted.

I stumbled into poetry by accident; a friend suggested I take a workshop and I did. It was an immediate and irrevocable addiction. Poetry makes so much sense that it is hard to recall a time when I didn't revolve my life around it. I'm not a disciplined writer by any means though. I don't have a set time to write, and when I do make time I wind up staring at a blank screen. I write prolifically when I am busy with ten other important things to do. The best lines come to me when I am driving. When I first started workshop I was still working full time as a secretary, doing school part time. I wrote furiously during work hours, managing phone lines and all the other myriad distractions with gusto. It was intoxicating.

I leave in 17 days to begin an MFA program. I am excited at the thought of once again being busy, but this time, on my own turf. No more heinous math courses or dealing with a truly wonderful but hopelessly misguided environmental science professor who wanted to "put the math back in science" (doesn't he know that we major/minor in environmental science precisely to avoid the math?!?!?!), or useless classes that make one want to fall asleep.

I am slowly coming to terms with leaving. I find myself with attachments all over the place though, even new ones, and it is hard to actually envision the morning when I will wake up at an obscenely early hour, and head to the rented truck, and take off. I'll have eight hours to negotiate deals with myself about my mood and give in to the calling I have let so much in my personal life suffer for. And it's fine actually.

At this moment it is everything I need.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Snafus

26 days left! I can barely stand it. The weather has finally turned extremely humid, although I think there is some sort of statute of limitations on how much complaining one can do about 90 degree weather when one's best friend lives in the Middle East, and 90 feels like fall weather.

Packing still going on. It is an odd sort of dance, since I am also sorting through the items that are mine, and the stuff that is my mother's. We went through the books and cd's without bloodshed, but the dvd's are up next and already I can feel the battle brewing. Naturally this also takes more time, because packing involves heated discussions over who bought what and where. My fresher age leads to better memory, but also can lead to wheedling, I have discovered. So far I have scored a Macy Gray cd, Gone With the Wind, and Dune. Also a baking sheet. Small, but important, victories.

I've packed ten boxes of books so far. I still have one bookcase left to go, plus about twenty or so books lying around. (Okay, thirty. Forty. Whatever.) I still do not understand how everyone tells me I should just leave them behind. As though I won't need them! Admittedly, I did go through quite a Stephen King phase. I probably won't be rereading all of those. Or my Michael Crighton phase. (I didn't say I went through extremely literary phases.) And I likely will not be revisiting my Nancy Drew series. But the point is, all those books are important. I remember a really great detail with each book: where it was bought, what was going on when I read it, the impact it had on me. Well, these are memories I guess. And I can't just discard them.

I have run into one tiny snafu. (Besides just catching my wily alpha female dog Gizelle in the pantry, eating the cat food, which required her to maneuver around a baker's rack, over a high back chair, and past an opening to the counter.....grrrrrrrr.) Okay, anyway, my snafu originates with the inability of an entire industry to be able to design a gerbil cage. Seriously people. Gerbils are not hamsters. Gerbils chew plastic. Gerbils chew anything and everything that they can. Why, oh why, are all the cages made of plastic in hideous primary colors? Gerbils also like to dig. Profusely. With gusto. So why are all the cages not made of plastic, made of metal bars that allow all the shavings/bedding to drift ever so carelessly to the floor when the gerbils dig? I may have already mentioned the chewing thing, right? So why the hell are all the glass aquariums sealed with toxic glue??? I am sensing an anti-gerbil barrier in the pet kingdom. I never would have agreed to let my cat have a gerbil if I knew this would be such an issue. All I can say is that it is a damn good thing Yummy (Dakota's gerbil) is cute. Because the little bastard is messy.

Friday, July 07, 2006

optional stop lights

Yesterday, to my extreme horror, I witnessed an act of, well, lawlessness. My mother very kindly offered to drive me to the health department so I can get those required shots for UNCW (apparently a disease free campus), and on the way back, as we were in the left turn lane, despite the clear fact that the light was RED, not green, but RED, for some unknown reason my mother decides to execute a turn. I was horrified. After years of ribbing about her safe driving record (is it considered safe when the driver turns the steering wheel every time they turn their head, regardless of the straightness of the road?????), I finally had caught her in a totally unlawful act. Hehehehe. I was giddy with glee.

I must call my brother.

So, if any of you saw this, I apologize thoroughly for the old woman's bad driving. And don't worry, she'll be punished. She's never going to hear the end of it. Excuse me, have you met my lawbreaking, reckless driving mother?

Saturday, July 01, 2006

still reading. will it ever stop?

Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel
by Arthur Golden (a native Chattanoogan no less)
Such an inspiring read. Not that it makes one want to run out and become geisha, but because it inspires one to read deeply and to transcend into another version of the world as it could have been. This is Golden's debut novel and it is a book. None of this potential crap - the man can write. (Still reeling from my encounter with Ms. Parkhurst a few entries ago.)

I haven't really intended this blog to become such a laundry list of books I am reading (rereading Beach Music by Pat Conroy right now for the charm of the South as only he can describe it), but books are so essential and vital and I think that the one thing about college that was lacking was the fact that I had almost no time to read for pleasure. There are so many books I've missed. And to make up for it now is marvelously delicious.

This takes me back to the summers of my youth when school was out and I could openly read without the nagging concern for homework always putting a drop of lemony bitterness in my pleasure. From my earliest memories I can still conjure myself lying in bed with a book in the right hand, my left hand lying across my chest in mock flag salute or stomach depending on how high my head was propped by pillows. The other favorite was to lie on the couch with my legs propped on the sofa arm, feet dangling over the edge, book in both hands. To this day, these are my favorite lounging and reading positions. It is as if they were ingrained in my DNA, the way a spider knows how to spin a web without question.

Friday, June 23, 2006


Market Street Bridge, Chattanooga Posted by Picasa

Thursday, June 22, 2006

lessons in exuberance (and desperation)

In the news this week I came across a story about a man who proposed to his girlfriend. At her balking, he decides to take off his clothes and streak through the street to show her that risk taking is a marvelous thing. However, this idea turns out to be rather bad, because naked proposer ends up hiding in a bush when some people walk by, and one of those people spots him, takes out a gun, and begins to fire. Naked proposer runs for his life. Yes, yes, risks are good! Not all end in gunfire! The story neglects to mention whether or not still-fully-dressed girlfriend accepts.

Also read this in my new issue of the Smithsonian on their Last Page section, where they are touting other recent discoveries that bring new light to commonly accepted ideas (prompted by the discovery of the Gospels of Judas):

"Henry David Thoreau's woodsy 19th century journey of self-discovery yielded Walden, which championed moderation in all things and a harmonious relationship between man and the environment. But then, more pages, written in his hand, were found nailed to a rafter in his cabin. 'If I am bitten by one more damned mosquito, I am going to burn down the whole forest. And another thing. It's cold out here. And lonely. Very lonely. My best friend is a piece of tree bark that looks like Zachary Taylor's head. Thank God for moonshine. And guns! Pow! Pow! Pow! Blam! Pow! Gimme a life of loud desperation!'"

And finally, the countdown to The Big Move stands at 47 days until. 47 days in which to pack, to throw away stuff I've had for no reason whatsoever (who needs a water bill not in their name that they paid in full four years ago???), 47 days to visit all the places here that I will miss, to come to a reckoning with the loss of friends, the loss of being able to not get lost in a familiar city (at least, not too terribly lost), 47 days in which to spoil my dogs rotten. Or, conversely, 47 days until I live on the coast!

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Still reading like a mad woman. . .
. . . last night it was a harrowing emotional journey through Carolyn Parkhurst's debut novel, The Dogs of Babel. The emotion was on my side, as I went from hate to love, annoyance to admiration and finally, why?

The why question stems more from wondering why a publisher would take a novel that is obviously not polished. There was such potential for a truly original piece of work (how many novels deal with a professor of linguistics trying to teach his dog to talk so he can find out how his wife died?), and instead it only showed that Parkhurst has potential. In some later chapters, the more meditative ones, her writing shines through, but on the whole there are just some strange plot twists and unbelievable coincidences that wind up sticking out. The characters are contrived and honestly, well, the wife doesn't act at all like someone who would have given the protagonist peace, which is what he claims in the beginning, and yet the author fails to show.

Why do I rail on this?

Well, let's see. Firstly it seems that a lot of books showing up on the market these days are first books by MFA grads. Likely these are the products of two to three years of intense workshopping, and after that amount of time, naturally the author would want to publish. But sometimes first books should remain unpublished, or given time to ripen with considerable amounts of revisioning. Not editing, but revisioning.

Secondly, who on earth selected this book to be the Today Show's Book Club selection? With all the millions of books out there, they select this one? I find this baffling . . . As far as books go, it is a rather mediocre read, although the author shows promise. She isn't ripe yet.

How do we, as writers, know when we are ripe? I still cannot tell from my own poetry what poem is actually worthwhile and which belongs in the trash. (Okay, sometimes the trash ones are glaringly obvious.) While I was reading this book last night I kept thinking, if only she and I could discuss this point here, and see how she would rewrite this aspect. . . So much potential.

And so I fear writing fiction myself. So much potential, but what if you reach your potential and find it isn't half as good as you'd hoped? So much easier to be a critic. So to Carolyn Parkhurst, wherever you are, keep on keeping on. The next one is the one to shoot for.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

on the shelf

The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
Excellent book, just finished at 2 a.m. last night. Had to keep reading it - very compulsive. It sat on my bookshelf for over a year before I had time to consume it, and consume I did.

A Personal Matter, Kenzaburo Oe
Also fairly amazing stuff, but I bet a lot of impact is lost in the translation from Japanese to English. Still it manages to successfully keep the reader at a loss for justifying humanity, wondering what humanity is even out there, and still hoping despite the odds. . . I admit it was also a page turner for me (although it took a few chapters to get really into caring about this character who isn't particularly likeable), and stayed up the previous night in thralls.

The Art of Fiction, John Gardner
This is a reread for me. I am finding it to be interesting the second time around, and just as helpful as it was the first. I have to admit I don't retain this sort of stuff well, and rereading criticism and theory is a must for me. This book was used in the one undergraduate fiction writing workshop I ever took, and it was about the only useful thing to come from the class. More on this below....

Collected Sonnets, Edna St. Vincent Millay
A book so old, it is out of print (although in poetry, shelf life seems to be less than a bag of pork rinds). I am currently still perusing because I find, as I do with all rhyming iambic pentameter, myself speaking and writing in a sing-songish manner, which necessitates reading this in smaller doses. Does anyone ever read an entire book of poetry straight through anymore, or am I the only one who does this? At any rate, with the popularity of the chapbook returning, perhaps there is some sort of trend going on. I am finding these poems to be dated, but one can say that of almost any dead writer I suppose. I want to like these poems more than I do - I feel that there is more to them than I am getting out of them, and I recognize that St. Vincent Millay wrote in the sonnet for the sake of the art form itself, but in places, so many places, she holds back in what could have been a stronger image/phrase/sound, all for the sake of the form. (In some of the sonnets she does manipulate very marginally the form, but since most of her sonnets are series poems, they all have that manipulation, making it still, somehow, restrictive.) In thinking about this, and about how other poets sometimes stay within set limits and manage to do so successfully (although that is a very objective matter), I think that she was also very limiting in the images she used, the language (including very odd syntax to get the rhyme or syllable as the line dictated), and overall arching themes. I guess I just don't see the mastery that I expect from her poems that other sonneteers hadn't already accomplished, making her poetry less exciting, and therefore, moot.

Of course, I may change my mind tomorrow.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
Halfway through. So many things different from the movies. . . and I specifically waited until after seeing all the movies because I know that if I read a book first, the movie never lives up to it. I am starting to wonder if it may have back fired on me this time though.

Workshops, etc...
Well, my schedule for the next semester is set, and I am fairly ecstatic about it. I will be taking a fiction workshop, and here is where the excitement twinges. As mentioned, I had the misfortune of being in one that was horribly disappointing, and soured me on them after that. I know it was 100% the fault of the instructor, and I wonder how on earth this woman ever managed to get herself hired in the first place. (She seemed to have thought out an awful lot about the internet pornography industry in a very small scene in one of my pieces which I am not sure is redemptive or a further sign of her instability.) That aside, I am carrying this ambivalence with me. Fiction has always been the core of my writing desires, but being waylaid by poetry has been the best thing to happen to me in my writing life. I think of writers like Woolf and Faulkner, who I think manage to blend the rhythm and beauty of poetry into prose, and I feel that that is the caliber to aim for.

But I have trouble thinking in terms of short stories. Always have. My mind thinks novel length, always has and always will. (From one extreme to the other here, no chance for middle ground.) I am hoping that this workshop will redeem my earlier experience, or solidify it. We shall see!

As for moving, I did find a place that I am happy about. Living alone. Ah, the sheer loveliness of it all.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

a long post

Hmmmmm. The trip to North Carolina was a mixed nut bag. In early preparation for my move to attend UNCW, I thoughtfully arranged a self guided trip to visit my new city and get acquainted with the different areas of town, etc. All the things that anal people do when they are faced with a situation. (I swear, I am going to be stripped of my title as ‘poet’ when the full extent of my need to be thoroughly organized is finally understood. Have you ever met an organized writer? Perhaps this paranoia of mine comes from having spent the past three years under the most, umm, lax, poet mentor ever.) So, highlights of the trip are below, categorized. (I know, I know!)

The actual drive. . .
Is eight hours! Eight! Most people understand how the freeway works, but let’s face it, some have yet to discover what the passing lane is for. Umm, passing? This problem is most prevalent in the stretch from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Since I drive in Chattanooga every day, I can safely assess that it is the Chattanoogans who have the difficulty with this particular issue. Grrrrrrrr.

Wilmington. . .
Also has some road issues. Like, there are only four main roads that span the entire city. This causes traffic. All the time.

But. . .
It’s Wilmington, and it’s really fantastic! I spent 90% of my time trying to figure out where things are and getting lost. I’ve been lost every way it is possible to be lost. Including the exact second I got off the highway into downtown, where the streets have no name, but highway markers. Very confusing to my sensibilities. After almost nine hours in the car I was ready to find my hotel, take a shower, eat something. As I finally conceded I was lost, utterly, I pulled into the parking lot of some steak joint, and a bird crapped on my front window. A huge crap. We are talking the kind of crap where you know that bird hates you, is aiming, and chuckling as it flies away. I felt very welcomed. It was a moment I considered chucking in everything and running away to live life as a secretary again, dreaming of having James Spader as a boss.

UNCW. . .
Is an amazingly gorgeous campus. I can only imagine when it is packed with students. The most striking thing about it is that it is truly an expansive campus, with charming brick buildings and lustrous lawns everywhere. Trees that drip with leaves, and this sense of earthiness that permeates the air. It is also blessedly flat. Anyone who has trekked Cardiac Hill on the campus in Chattanooga will appreciate this statement. However, it is so large that I am betting one would have to drive to make it from one end of campus to another if they had a class.

MFA folk. . .
Are incredible so far. I say ‘so far’ because when things are this amazing you know there must be a catch. Like, in the second week of the program they’ll introduce their tradition of slaughtering young baby lambs and sticking their heads on poles and dancing in the faculty office while wearing togas made from the torn pages of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and listening to Barry Manilow. (I’d be fine until the Manilow, of course.)

Disclaimer. . .
Uh, they don’t really do that. I don’t think. And I am a raging vegetarian. I remove spiders from the tubs, and walk over ants. Swear.

Apartments. . .
Do not allow, in any case, for people like me. Doesn’t matter. In fact, forget even trying to rent a house. There is just no possibility within a reasonable budget to find someplace that will accommodate. I actually knew this going in (same problem at current location which is why I had to buy). However, houses are kinda expensive, and I am not really into collecting them, so I suppose I shall have to make do. My mother, the saint, is going to pet-sit for a few years for me. I consider it a good faith payment on her part for when she becomes in need of elderly care. She is merely ensuring that I won’t dump her off at some government run facility that ensures all residents are equipped with a long stick during meal times so they have a fighting chance against the roaches. Damn her.

The beach. . .
Yes, there is a beach. No, I didn’t get to see it. This is likely a good thing since it would have guaranteed another several hours of being lost, trying to find the road back into town. Sigh.

Speaking of fish. . .
According to the phonebook, there are more fish markets than grocery stores. This is a town that has its priorities straight.

Another disclaimer. . .
By ‘raging vegetarian’ I meant I get enraged when people question my ethics on eating fish. I eat fish. It is a difficult thing to explain the depth of thought that goes into my vegetarianism. At times I am a vegan, at others, I eat fish. This is a wholly different post, at a later date. Promise.

Final thoughts. . .
Include the impending homesickness that I will actually feel upon leaving. Nervousness at teaching. (What were they thinking, letting me do that?!?!?) Guilt at the pet situation. Excitement at being truly on my own. Rapture at being able to write so much.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

a bunch of stuff

Saw my good buddy on a different corner today. He does get around. Same outfit, same message.

I have found a summer job, a perfect temporary position that pays in the realm of above the poverty line. Even at part time I find myself tired at the end of the day. Naturally I choose to blame work and not the fact that I spend all night reading, engrossed in much more interesting things than the function of work.

I ordered Chinese delivery for the first time in about ten years. It is such a lovely feeling. Hope it arrives soon.

I finished the Simic book, and was so pleased with it. What an interesting man. I brought up my semi formed ideas about current generation self confessional poetry to a friend of mine this past weekend. It is an interesting topic to consider. I just received class course offerings for my MFA program, and one of the poetry workshops was focused on first time books. Ah, the choices. It was such a grand moment. Everything is pulling together.

I will be visiting the school this next week. I am giddy with joy at this prospect. I certainly wouldn't want to be around me right now if I weren't me. The joy is sickening.

Friday, May 19, 2006

666

Today, at a busy intersection near the mall, a very interesting scene unfolded. An older black man was walking up and down one side of the street with a bullhorn. And a ventriloquist dummy. And a billboard on his back, which I was only partially able to read, that said something about Ronald Reagan being the devil and God's wrath. To top this all off, he was underneath an enormous black umbrella. It wasn't raining.

I did want to know what he was saying, but I felt disinclined to turn down my music.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

simic

I'm currently reading Charles Simic's memoir A Fly in the Soup, and it has me thinking again on some issues I have with contemporary poetry. Simic lived through some incredibly adverse situations in war torn Yugoslavia as a kid. These experience enrich his life perspective. This shows in his poetry. He is one of the most influential poets (among a plethora of others) I think we have seen in contemporary poetry. And so I worry.

Poetry that comes from his generation is infinitely more worldly and contextualized in a sense of deeper human trauma. Love becomes enormous - because to love when death is at every corner is an awe inspiring thing.

Then we have my generation. What have we lived through exactly? Poetry turns inward on itself and there comes another bout of self confessional poets. Not that this is bad in any sense. Some of my favorite younger poets are self confessional in a way that touches on the world and their place in it. But I can't help but be reminded of the romantic poets (Keats, Shelley, Byron) who were truly just so enamored with themselves and their feelings and experiences in a sensory manner, that I wonder if we are entering another era of the self examinatory poet.

Obviously this generation will be much more concerned with repression than flowers and woods and other Wordsworthian themes. The repression of the self and the instability of the future seem to be emerging themes. Who are we and where are we going?

And yet, poets like Levine who ask those same questions are not really self confessional, but rather observational and emotively charged to aggressively seek change, not recompense. And that is what I fear new poetry may lack. The ability to step outside one's experiences and to look at things on a larger scale and then be able to step right back inside oneself and have a sense of understanding. Simic writes how he understands it is all just circumstance that he was the one on the other side of the gun, but it could have just as easily been reversed.

And so we get great stories of how Simic meets Richard Hugo and they discover that Hugo was dropping bombs on Simic's street when he was five years old. And they transcend that. They become friends. How beautiful is that?

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

uh, houston, you've got a problem

Just got a nice letter from the admissions office at Houston letting me know that they've received my application (odd, considering I mailed it in December), and that I should be hearing from the creative writing department as soon as they've made their decisions (even odder, since I've already received an unsigned rejection letter riddled with typos and misspellings sometime in March or thereabouts).

Huh. Well now.

In other news, I spent my first Mother's Day weekend being wished a "Happy Mother's Day!" at every store I went to. A few clerks quickly amended this when my bewildered, unfettered womb began sending panic signals to my face. "If you're a mother!" Oh God. I've reached that age. The age when people assume someone this age should have birthed a kid or two.

Huh. Well then. . .

Monday, May 15, 2006

to the slaughter

I've been killing adorable, fluffy, white bunny rabbits lately. Metaphorically speaking, of course. The type that are just so cute and innocent you can't help but want to pet them, and then overcome with the baseness of human nature, you hold them down, wiggling, and lop off those tiny heads with imploring eyes.

Love is a complicated thing.

Monday, May 08, 2006

graduation

Well, I doubt that you will hear it elsewhere, so it is my supreme pleasure to report that Senator Bill First was indeed heckled at graduation during his incredibly boring speech. Ah, it was so worth graduating to hear that.

_____________


Well, job prospects are looking up, the family has left, and there is still cake in the fridge. Beer too. Which does one go for first?

I had no idea that graduation would come with so many perks. Dinners paid for, presents, loads of praise for finishing college, etc. I had been very reticent about this whole procedure but now that it is over, and I didn't trip or doing anything embarrassing, I rather enjoyed the whole shenanigan.


_____________

Started reading Lord of the Rings last night. So far so good. No complaints.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

stuff

Just finished reading Natasha Trethewey's stellar book of poems Native Guard. First book of poems of the summer for me, and it was well worth it.


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It is strange to have nothing to do. Have applied for summer jobs, waiting on calls. Will call tomorrow to follow up on a few. This inbetween period could be productive, but is bogged down by the uncertainty. Graduation looms ever nearer, family coming in. Shall be interesting.


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Haven't written a new poem in weeks. Plenty of them seem to visit me in my sleep, or when I am reading, but I haven't been compelled to actually commit them to paper. In some ways, this fosters the idea that they are indeed the best poems I have ever conjured. Surely. I have no way to prove otherwise.

Monday, May 01, 2006

waxing sarcasm included below

Well, my first (and likely last) editing job is officially over. Have I been paid? Negative. Did I initiate the 'break-up'? Affirmative!

Bad writing is depressing enough without dealing with a prima donna. "You changed what?! Yada yada, ramada, tostada, oli-ada...some more here, a little more there...dippity do dah!!!"

Yes, that's right. I added some clarity to your sad little story.

It isn't that I am bitter. It is that I was stressed working for this person, and this person really has no idea how poorly of a written story it was. And still is. Sometimes we can only patch the wall so much before it falls down anyway. Consider the wall tumbling, fella.


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This of course means I am now unemployed for the summer. Um, help? I have been looking to enlist a sugar daddy only to find no applicants. (One friend told me if I had any idea how little sugar he had I wouldn't be asking.)


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Graduation is officially on May 7th, and to my supreme joy, I have found that my keynote speaker is Senator Bill Frist, the soon to be Republican Presidential Candidate. By supreme joy I mean something along the lines of:

- nails on a chalkboard

- the taste of chalky medicine

- like a really loud and obnoxious alarm clock that goes on and on and on

- like a Pauly Shore movie

- like hearing that Cher is on the tenth year of her super last good bye tour ever, before the real last good bye tour

- like stubbing your toe on a bedrail that is also rusty, requiring a tetanus shot given by Nurse Ratchet on a bad day when her coffee was a little too strong

- like the moment you find out that Clark Gable had halitosis and then you forever recall the scene where he is so close to Vivien Leigh, and she is trying to fight him off but gives in to a long, slow kiss, and you know deep down inside that what she is really thinking is my god, someone get him a breathmint

- like waking up to find Dick Cheney in your bed

In short, supreme joy.


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Ugh.

Sunday, April 30, 2006


Yummy's owner, Dakota, not looking very happy with the flash on the camera.  Posted by Picasa

Yummy still being cute.  Posted by Picasa

Yummy being cute.  Posted by Picasa

Friday, April 28, 2006

Huh.


I quite possibly can claim that I have seen it all. Today, while driving, I spotted the ultimate in do-it-yourself creative, possibly bordering on suicidal, ways to handle a malfunctioning air conditioner. The car in front of me had installed, I shit you not, a ceiling fan on the, well, ceiling of the car. Complete with three flower shaped lights.

Ghettofied? Yeah. I'd say so.

It was also running. The driver, a hopefully already short woman, was crouching to avoid being hit by the rotating fan blades. This is one of those things it is hard to wrap your mind around. But it was certainly very interesting. I wished she hadn't tinted her windows quite so much, but I am certain of what I saw.

Now that's what I call a custom job.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

moving

Moving in a few months to begin one of those elusively seductive MFA programs, where I will be lavished by the ocean breeze. Okay, more likely it will be one of those cases where I won't make it to the beach until February and then it will be a frozen spray of ocean mist. I can't complain. The program is amazing, and the town should be as well.

I am still in the phase of fantasy about this endeavor, where the stipend will be enough to live on, the students I'll be teaching will all be brilliant, and I'll find an apartment with a management company who will be only to thrilled to welcome me, my two dogs, my four cats, my two birds and my cat's pet gerbil Yummy into their community.

I never should have agreed to let my cat have a gerbil. It's the gerbil that will put me over.