PSA

For those who missed it the moral lesson from this past week's Grey's Anatomy is to not pee in the Amazon River.

sometimes there are those. . .

. . . commercials that break the barrier of taste and achieve humor. Last night I caught the end of a commercial for pregnancy tests. (Sorry, didn't catch the brand.) It seemed a normal commercial until the announcer informs the audience that "it is the most advanced piece of technology you will ever pee on."

Which got me to thinking. And then, perhaps, it is best I leave this post now, before it goes places it shouldn't.

Talent abounds at the . . .

. . . thesis reading tonight. Seven graduating students gave readings from their theses, and it was a display of some serious talent. I was duly impressed all around. It actually got me to think about language (an abundance of poets read), and excited for my own future projects. The other really stunning thing was how much there was a shared admiration for these students from the faculty. I have seen a lot of introductions over the years to writers, and nothing topped the glowing reviews of tonight.

It also gives me a glimpse at what I need to strive for in my own writing. I have tentatively been thinking about my own thesis, and what sort of poetry I want to write. I am lucky in that I already have a tone...there is usually little doubt but that my poems are written by me. But subject, holding that tone throughout an entire manuscript...it is a lot to ask for, and I am not entirely sure that I have the scope of such a project yet.

I am going to be scratching my fiction itch this summer though. The fiction presents no problem in that way. I can think in terms of the novel with a vague idea of balance and interconnections, but the poetry has yet to present itself that way to me. It is a more cantankerous relationship. Tempestuous.

are you a fictoirist?

The other day we (a bunch of fellow mfa-ers) were chatting about creating a new term for a genre that blends the truth with fiction - you know, the same old discussion we must keep having after the Giant James Frey Incident. And now, with Dave Eggers' book What is the What, the conversation is certainly still relevant. Dave Eggers may not know it, but he is a fictiorist. This is the term that spontaneously erupted from our conversation that I feel very proud of, and no doubt, surely, someone out there has already coined it.

So what is a fictiorist? And how do you say it? Well, firstly, with attitude. But for those who want the phonetics of the word: fick-shwar-ist. I liken it to Amy Lowell being coined an 'imagiste' but without the fanfare. A fictiorist is a writer of fictoir: fiction + memoir, in which the rules and expectations of truth are bent to create a wholly pleasing and mostly accurate account that may or may not be true, depending on what tenets of truth the fictiorist deems important.

I feel a sort of lawyerly litigation lust coming out here. Think of the loopholes! The contracts! The lawsuits!

It is truly rife with possibility.

oh, and

another thing: BOOKS! I am going to start keeping track of every book I read here. . . for better or worse. Warts and all. I seriously want to get my book on this summer. So lots of books. Ah, books.

So here is the thing: I have been contemplating the use of a blog, and this one, and particularly with regards to writing. What use is it if I am not going to use it? And how can I keep things on the topic of poetry? Well, it isn't possible, because poetry and fiction do not exist in a vacuum. And so I think I am going to start ranting and raving, and basically soap boxing my self all over the place. In good form of course. There just is no real way to talk about writing without talking about life, etc., so there you have it.

One thing I will mention immediately in my soap box format, is that in this age of technology and personalization, I cannot believe how limited the selection of formats is that blogger provides. It is positively Stone Age. Glad I got that out.

Other things of various levels of importance: I bought wine at the Harris Teeter last night and I wasn't carded, despite the sign in the wine selection that says something about carding if you look under 30. I read in the paper this morning that Bush was thrilled with Alberto Gonzales' testimony, and that he felt it was clear and reinforced his confidence in Gonzales. All I can say is Bush sure makes it easy for Jon Stewart. Speaking of news people, my new crush (which doesn't really replace my former, Russ Mitchell, but since he is not on all that much anymore....) is Steve Hartman, who has this really sweet older Tobey Macguire sensitivity about him. Very hot. Apparently, at my advanced age that requires I not be carded at the grocery store, Steve Hartman is more suitable than Tobey Macguire.

So, there we are, as of tonight. I am heading to Europe soon on a fantastic trip that I will be blogging about as things take shape. I just got the itinerary today, and I am stoked. But tonight I am too tired. . .

native guard

It is kind of hard not to be excited that Natasha Trethewey won the Pulitzer, especially since I raved over her book last summer. It really is worth a read, and then another and another. . .

Poetry Galore

It is National Poetry Month, which means absolutely nothing to anyone who isn't greatly interested in poetry. But I have to admit I feel a bit of glee at reading all the po-blogs and po-sites that are celebrating. It is like being the wallflower who suddenly is asked to dance. A lovely feeling.

If only I could transcend that feeling into my own poetry.

As the weather perks up into the 80s, so does my mood. I want to plant green things in the ground. Make iced tea. Or frozen orange juice pops. I'd even take a mint julep.

a truly terminal degree, pun intended.

This time last year I had already made my decision on what MFA program to attend. I was addicted to the chat boards where a bunch of anonymous hopefuls all obsessed over the ins and outs of every aspect of every program. The minute I made my decision though, I didn't need that instant fix of checking to see what my fellow hopefuls were obsessing over at any given moment.

And now my sympathy goes to those who are as racked with nerves as I was. But I am also questioning the value of an MFA degree. This isn't a case of I came, I saw, I fretted. I've been fretting over this ever since I knew an MFA was a possibility. And the fret grows to new areas of fret when I read the high minded essays currently circulating the po-world over the pursuit of a degree in poetry. A fellow student compared the MFA opportunity to a conservatory of music, a comparison which I truly admire and feel encompasses the spirit of my particular program. We are here to read and write and have good conversation with other writers. It isn't something particularly academic. Which, if it were, would pose a huge problem to many students. We don't do "academic papers." I can imagine the sense of panic that would ensue if we were suddenly expected to treat poetry and fiction like we were pursuing an MA degree.

I still fret over it though. This is something that once you have, you can't suddenly get rid of. I will never be a poet who didn't graduate from an MFA. I will be held to standards in keeping with that, whether the expectations are higher or lower. There is no other decision I would have made, even though sometimes I do think romantically back on my days as a secretary, when I had loads of time to simply write. Wallace Stevens would have approved of that I think.

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.

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.

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.

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......

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Market Street Bridge, Chattanooga 

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!