penzilla

so long

2007-11-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

This spring would have been my 4 year anniversary on Blogger. Alas, it's time to move on. I'm officially switching over to wordpress. Hope you all will still visit me here. Ciao.

happy halloween

2007-10-31T18:18:00.000-07:00

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

design sponge

2007-10-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most fantastic design sites on the net. Whether you're looking for trends, inspiration, or just good formatting, design sponge is the place. I'm always visiting for ideas.

betting my (fortunate) on

2007-10-26T23:24:00.000-07:00

Jenny Owen Youngs. She is going to be mega. Major.

coming to the end

2007-10-25T06:13:00.000-07:00

I'm making some changes to my little weblog world. They have been long coming, but I've been too busy lately. Spending time customizing and working out kinks, but I'm planning to make the move in a week or so.

on the fall road

2007-10-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

rust belt poets

2007-10-21T10:24:00.001-07:00

I've been interested in what this means--to be a Rust Belt poet. It's been coming up more and more lately, and I'm wondering what everyone thinks about it. My students have been reading Mary's book and somehow we got on the topic of Rust Belt poetry, as if I knew for certain what it was and could easily define it's aesthetic qualities for an intro class. And then one of my students raised her hand and asked, "You're from that area right?" And I said yes. And she asked, "Well, are you a Rust Belt poet?" And it didn't know what to say, though I wanted to claim it--Yes, Yes I am!! Anyway, I am just curious what everyone else thinks.

sunday link

2007-10-21T10:22:00.001-07:00

I've recently been obsessed with photographers working with the domestic. I can't turn away from Julie Blackmon's work. I wish I could afford one.

tagged

2007-10-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

I just realized that Mary tagged me awhile back on this. I hope that I can get the formatting correct. I can't strike through, so I'll just pretend I didn't hate any of these. Here are the rules:

Bold what you have read, italicize books you’ve started but couldn’t finish, and strike through books you hated. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your "To Be Read" list.

Also, I think there is a category missing--carrots around books you scanned the night before it was going to be discussed in class.

Jonathan Strange & M. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22*
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad*
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway*
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius*
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein*
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath*
The Poisonwood Bible*
1984*
Angels & Demons
The Inferno*
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury*
Angela’s Ashes*
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present*
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five*
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye*
On the Road*
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
The Aeneid*
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

burning

2007-10-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

Though everyone down south is thrilled that the fall is finally here, there is a major ecological crisis taking place. The Southeast is facing the worst drought in over 100 years. We had hoped that the hurricane season would bring rains that would refill reservoirs, but we only have had maybe 2 or 3 significant coating rains. And now, we are in the dry season. Today, a news release from the Governor said that we are as little as 90 days from Lake Lanier drying out (i.e. major cities actually running out of water).

Obviously this is terrifying and stunning. Especially how it has come on so quickly. Of course, one of the major problems is that we (most Americans) don’t think about water as a commodity. We don’t have to think about the cost of water, especially of drinkable water compared to many developing countries, for example, where people spend up to 40% of their income just to buy clean water.

But now, in the Southeast, we are moving into a crisis where if we don’t get rain sometime soon there will be something similar to rolling blackouts—rolling water outs, in addition to a state of emergency being declared if the “voluntary” efforts to reduce water usage don’t work. And even still, I’ve seen sprinklers going, people watering flowers. It is illegal now, and if you’re caught you get a fine. Wow, big deal. Not that a fine will put out a fire in a local hatchery. Something is tragically wrong with people in this country, and I fear we’re moving into a time when what people have believed to be true, especially their sense of entitlement of natural resources, will be the worst hard lesson learned.

Anyway, all of this makes me really long for the cloudy, rainy rust belt. But being that I am here and I am part of this place right now, I felt like I should write about it.

october evening

2007-10-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

The temperature has finally dropped into the 70s here (in the evening), and I've been enjoying sitting on the balcony. We get morning sun, so in the evening the sun is behind us and casts the most soothing lights.

still beating

2007-10-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

Experiment in trying to convert imovies to quicktime dvs. Still pretty grainy, but not bad for standard software and digital still camera filming. This is my trip to and from school every day. It's about a two and a half hour round trip condensed into three minutes forty five.

Entoptic Phenomena

2007-10-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

Photographer William Hundley gets people to jump underneath sheets and fabrics and catches them in mid-air, completely hidden behind the fabric. Eerily beautiful.

we circle silently about the wreck

2007-10-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

Sometime around 4pm, I asked Sarah what time we should try to get to the Georgia Museum of Art for Adrienne Rich’s reading. She said that one of her Professors suggested 30 to 45 minutes early, as the “auditorium” where she is reading is small. When we arrived at 7pm, thirty minutes early, all of the seats had already been filled and people were starting to line the walls. Luckily, we thought, we had gotten a quick parking spot, as we were able to get a standing room spot against the left wall. Five minutes went by, and then ten, and the back of the auditorium was filling more and more. I wasn't even able to move my arms. One woman squeezed in and told her friend, “the entire lobby is packed with people who can’t get in.”

Of course everyone was talking back and forth. This is insane. Why would they host the reading here. Why would they put one of our most cherished poets in an auditorium that only seats 150 people?

Then, the Humanities Department head, a woman who had sauntered in a few minutes before the reading was to take place and took her reserved front seat, got up onto the tiny stage and made an announcement. “If there are any students in the audience who would like to give up their seats, who might not really want to be here, please raise your hand. You can leave. Wouldn’t you like a nice dinner at home tonight? We could use the room for people who can’t get a seat.” Of course no one raised their hand. And when she stepped off the stage people started to clap. Everyone was just looking around in disbelief.

About two minutes later she got back up on the stage and said, “I’m sorry, but the fire marshal won’t allow anyone in this auditorium that doesn’t have a seat. So everyone that is standing or is in the back will have to leave.”

I was absolutely stunned.

As I was walking out slowly with the other people who didn’t get in (probably around 400 people or so between the standing room and the filled lobby), I saw her, Adrienne Rich, with a little walker looking confused. She said to her handler, “What’s going on?” All he could say to her was, “There’s not enough room for them so they have to leave.”

I said to Sarah, “at least I saw her.”

And this terrible sadness came over me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I also felt enormously angry, a sentiment, it seemed, shared by everyone who was lingering around in the lobby, unwilling to go home, as if someone might say, "we changed our mind, come back in."

In truth, no matter how early anyone got there, there were only 150 seats and at least 400 people who were not able to get in. I am still in disbelief over this, still angry, especially having worked for the Wick Poetry Center (where this would have never happened) where we labored extensively to make sure that everyone that wanted it had access to the creative arts.

Shame on the UGA creative writing department for thinking that they could host the reading in that tiny room. Shame on them for not moving it next door where there are lecture halls that hold 500 people (it’s not like she had a set, or music equipment, or smoke machines to move.) Shame on the head of the Humanities Department for asking students, students who pay fees for lecture series, students who wanted to see a true hero of contemporary poetry, to leave. Shame on the them for turning people away (students, community members, writers) who came to support the creative arts. Shame on them for making it something exclusive, something Adrienne Rich herself has fought her whole writing life against.

where it's sore

2007-10-10T18:01:00.000-07:00

Regina Spektor. This decade's Tori Amos. I think she's brilliant. I hope she comes down south so I can see her live. This video has re-released this week, but this is the original video by adria petty. It's fantastic.

I suspect that Josh Ritter could be God. He dropped his new album in August, but I just can't stop listening to this song. I can't upload the song, so here is the next best thing. This is definitely the best song I've heard in ten years. Maybe more.

I love Beth Ditto. Total sass.

Tomorrow Adrienne Rich is reading here so I'm going to try to get some photos or video. Seeing her read is really one of my dreams come true.

can't stop progress

2007-10-08T06:52:00.001-07:00

My scores have gone up.

I'm now 65% Dixie on the basic test

And 58% Dixie on the advanced test

little boxes on the hillside

2007-10-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

Scenes from the Westlake District of Daly City, California. One of America's first master-planned postwar suburbs, Westlake was the "inspiration" for Malvina Reynolds' song "Little Boxes," which became a hit for folkie Pete Seeger in 1964 and which has recently been revived as theme music for the TV show "Weeds."

A collection of cartoon drawings by Craig Robinson of famous rock stars, called Lollipops to describe their big flat round heads. Mouse over the image to see who is who.

faces

2007-09-29T19:48:00.000-07:00

click for more

carve

2007-09-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

something interesting until i can figure out something less than to write here.

some dreams do come true

2007-09-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

In three weeks, she will be be reading here.

atlantic ave., brooklyn

2007-09-11T18:15:00.000-07:00

fusion is the broken heart

2007-09-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

watch this. i promise it will make you happy.

edges

2007-09-07T07:45:00.000-07:00

ransacking the rations

2007-09-04T15:08:00.000-07:00

My parent's were in town this weekend for a visit, which coincided with the first UGA football game. Athens was absolutely mad and we all had a blast. I'm trying to catch up on all of the work that I didn't finish this weekend, including recording in-class essays on Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," and grading tests on the parts of speech.

Our fridge and pantry are now morbidly obese, stocked to the screws with bags of flash frozen red snapper, tuna, salmon, a few bags of chicken, rice, sodas, meats, cheeses, veggies. It's funny really. They probably think they provided us with two or three weeks worth of food, so far from the college meal lifestyle that they don't know we could make that last for two months.

Speaking of the old college days, I finally received my diploma from Kent. It only took them four months. For some reason I thought that it would say something about the NEOMFA, but it's just an MFA from Kent State. Curious.

Now that the week is here again, I wish I would have savored the Terrapin a bit more. Oh well, cheers to a good weekend, and a good fall season to come.

finding the axis again

2007-08-29T15:25:00.001-07:00

Today wasn't a great day, really. I gave my first grammar test. Circle the subject. Label the parts of speech. And it was a long, hot ride home too, the landscape seemed slanted, off its axis, not quite earth-leveled as it should have been.

But when I got back into Athens and pulled into the parking spot at my apartment, I saw the neighbor girl who lives with her parents across from us. Four years old, Japanese, builder of flawless sandcastles on the volleyball court before smashing them with her white, Mary Jane sandals.

And as I was pulling in, I saw that she was on the deck, waving. At first, it didn't seem like to anyone in particular, and also it seemed like to just me alone. As I got out of my car, she yelled, "hello," and I said, "hi there."

She started to move in circles, and her blue dress made a bell around her waist.

She yelled, "My name is Akiko," to which I yelled back, "My name is Jessica."

Then, as I started to climb the stairs to the second floor, she rounded the balcony and looked right at me.

"You're here!!!!!" she squealed.

Her mother came outside, nodded her head, smiled, and they both went inside. I unlocked my door and went into my apartment.

It's amazing, really, how fast a bad day can turn around on itself. And who is capable of doing that turning.

one of those days

2007-08-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get some writing done today, but I don't feel that well. It may be because while I was working out, some guys were painting the door to the small workout room, so I was inhaling fumes for about an hour while I was on the elliptical. Why was it taking so long to paint a door? I have no idea. Then again, it could just be one of those days.

For those of you in Ohio right now, this will sound insane, but I really miss the rain and clouds. It hasn't rained here in about a month, and as I did grow up in the cloudiest city in the world, I sort of miss a little gray or two.

I think I also might be grumpy because I haven't bought any new music lately. Though the last thing was Kate Havnevik and I've gotten a lot of miles on that CD. I was trying to find a video on youtube of her singing "Timeless" but all I could find were various Grey's Anatomy montages. But for the sake of hearing a rad song, take a look at this:

Oh, I know what will cheer me up. In honor of blogger adding the video feature--here is one of my favorite videos. ever.

We're going to baby sit a few dogs this weekend in Suwanee, so I'm going to try to take some videos on my cam. Nothing like spending hours and hours editing dog movies on ivideo instead of prepping for classes!

this place

2007-08-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

In some ways, north Georgia is like a lot of places I've been to along the way. My drive to Gainesville every day reminds me a lot of Bloomington, Indiana. I always thought that the best thing about IU, other than the limestone, was the surrounding farms and quarries. Every day things with every day people, I guess. So regardless of the tedium that is grammar workbooks and parts of speech exercises, there really is something wonderful about this place. It's very different from NE Ohio, which I always miss when I leave. But I think I can find a placeholder here, so to speak. I'll try to take some more pictures to show you what I mean.

McSweeney's

2007-08-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

I Am At Work, Wearing My Clothes

and

The Byronic Woman

and finally

Titles from Dr. Seuss's Brief Foray Into Realism

Flying Kamikaze Maki

2007-08-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

Well the first day of classes has come and gone and I'm still here to write about it. I probably won't that much though. I was telling Kelly how pleasantly shocked I was to discovery how polite everyone was. I was getting ma'am-ed all over the place, and it was really nice, actually. Though any attention that I pay to it just singles me out even more as a yank.

I always feel more nervous going into composition classes. Much more than creative writing, in fact, because I know that no one wants to be there. I didn't want to be there when I was at IU. But I'm going to try my best to make it fun for everyone. And hopefully the ma'ams will keep rolling in.

Tonight we're going to go out downtown I think, maybe soak up a little bit of the Athens madness. I have to admit that I much prefer college towns in the summer, when I don't have to wait for my maki at Ru Sans or for a Kellerbier at Copper Creek.

Oh, and this is about as close as I'll ever come to getting married. Other than the middle name, it looks like I've done pretty well for myself.

rescue shift

2007-08-16T22:56:00.000-07:00

My mother's family are West Virginia coal miners. But I've never known that life. My dad's family--Pittsburgh steel. I never really thought about the mining life until I started to write poetry. But there must be something, even just one small molecule in everyone that has coal mining in their blood, that takes you right back there. Anyway, this really isn't a time for sentimentality. But I thought I would put up this picture of some Slovak miners, and a Welsh miner prayer, just for a little hope for the miners who are caved in, maybe entombed now, and those men and women who are sacrificing everything to get them out.

The Coal Miners prayer.
By W.Calvert

Each dawn as we rise, lord we know all to well,
We face only one thing - a pit filled with hell.
To scratch out a living the best that we can,
But deep in the heart, lies the soul of a man.

With black covered faces, and hard calloused hands,
We work the dark tunnels, unable to stand.
To labour and toil as we harvest the coals,
We silently pray "lord please harvest our souls".

on excitement

2007-08-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

Today, as I carefully set out my outfit for back to school tomorrow, it was very clear to me that I am turning into my mother, a woman who irons a week's worth of her school outfits every Sunday afternoon with Catholic precision, and who starts packing for vacations at least a week before the departure date. And there's something really comforting about this fact, the inherited sense of excitement played out in organization and preparation, attention to the details of even the most mundane.

My syllabi are finished, my copies are being run at Kinkos, and now all of a sudden I'm feeling those familiar flutters that can only mean school is starting again. It brings me back to myself at five years old, awake early and dressed at 4am, clutching the Crayola briefcase my mom had packed the night before with pencils and crayons, and an eraser that smelled like a factory of glittery Strawberry Shortcake dolls. That was 22 years ago. Not much has changed.

mojo

2007-08-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

I knew it was coming--the wave of students returning to Athens for the fall. But it really didn't sink in until today, at Kroger, when I saw the hundreds of shopping carts rolling through the aisles, filled with ramen and natty light. I overheard one young gentleman tell his friends--no, seriously, you can buy that loose meat stuff right there and smash it together in a patty and it makes a cheeseburger. Good god, they get younger and younger, and preciouser and preciouser, don't they? Our cart was pretty full too, including all of the new stuff Women's Health suggests as part of the mid-day meal strategy. Mojo bars are the ish. Especially if you like pretzels or peanut butter or pretty much anything delicious.

offer a glimpse

2007-08-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

Looking forward to teaching:

extra splicy

2007-08-12T09:45:00.000-07:00

I'm writing syllabi. Feeling overwhelmed since school starts on Thursday. Is it inappropriate to include, don't be an idiot?

hot hot hot

2007-08-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

Every day, when I see the heat warning on the news, I like to look at the government website, noaaa, to see what the "it feels like this temperature" temperature is. Today it was 130 degrees. Yeah.

Obviously, the only thing we had left to do was to go shop, until we heat-dropped.

party

study

clean

meditate

libate

Old Hog Mountain Road

2007-08-07T12:57:00.000-07:00

Some things I saw today on my way up to Gainesville:

1. A man in a yellow tee shirt walking through an overgrown field, his arms outstretched.

2. Two dead geese like question marks, necks snapped.

3. Sign: Old Hog Mountain Road.

4. Four cows huddled under the afternoon shade-side of a Hawthorn.

5. Sign: Hatchery, turn right.

6. A hitched boat, Lady Lady, rattling on toward Lake Lanier.

passed the time with crosswords

2007-08-05T03:28:00.000-07:00

update

2007-08-05T02:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a mini update. I'm going to be teaching at Gainesville State next year. It's about an hour north of here, but really, I would drive 10 hours a day to be able to teach. Also, I have to decide on a non-fiction book to teach. I've taught War is a Force that Give Us Meaning twice and I'm heading there again. But I'm definitely looking for non-fiction suggestions. What are your favorite non-fiction books. What non-fiction books could you teach/ or have?

made for each other

2007-08-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

Today, Sarah participated in what I feel to be a true rite in the modern world: she bought her first macbook. It's tax free weekend in Georgia, so she got a great deal on top of the education discount. The setup takes about 5 minutes so we had most of the afternoon and evening to play around. Well, really, I spent the time answering the questions...yes, it really is that easy, yes, it really is that cool. Her first desktop widget is called starry starry night, which shows you your night sky and what constellations you're looking at. Now I want another one.

Actually, it's been a good day of news all around. I got hired by a company in D.C that does online educational stuff, curriculum, writing, tutoring etc... and I can work from here so I'm pretty happy right now. Not teaching, but it will keep me sane for a little bit.

freckles

2007-08-01T17:02:00.000-07:00

what became of those horses?

2007-07-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

A big part of my research for my new series is reading over trial transcripts. I just got the preliminary testimony transcript of Ike Clanton, the only surviving "Cowboy." It really surprised me, for some reason. I've read countless trial transcripts and decisions, even in law school, that were absolutely horrible. Especially in criminal law, of course, they chose the decisions that are the most outrageous to impact law students. For some reason I always read them as stories, and perhaps that's why I'm more suited for creative writing than for law. But this transcript really got to me. I'm including just a portion, so you can see what I mean.

Testimony of Joseph I. "Ike" Clanton
in the Preliminary Hearing in the Earp-Holliday Case,
Heard before Judge Wells Spicer

November 9-15, 1881

Q) Did you or not, at any time during the shooting, see a horse or horses on the ground where the shooting occurred? If so, state who, if anybody had them.

(A) Yes sir, there were two horses there. Frank McLaury was holding a horse; Billy Clanton had a horse also, and standing right by him.

(Q) What became of those horses, while you remained there, as far as you could see?

(A) I never noticed the horses after the shooting commenced.

(Q) Were there or not, any arms on those horses, and if so, what kind were they?

(A) Yes sir, there were arms on them. They were Winchester carbines. There was one on each horse, in the gun scabbards.

(Q) State whether or not those arms were drawn from their scabbards while you stayed there.

(A) No sir, they were not, while I stayed there.

(Q) State if there was any previous difficulty between you and the defendants or either of them; and if yes, when and where?

(A) Yes sir, there was a difficulty between Holliday and Morgan Earp and I, the night before at a lunch stand in this town near the Eagle Brewery Saloon, on the north side of Allen Street. As well as I remember, it was about 1 o'clock in the morning. I went in there to get a lunch. While sitting down at the table, Doc Holliday came in and commenced cursing me and said I was, "A son-of-a-bitch of a cowboy," and told me to get my gun out and get to work. I told him I had no gun. He said I was a damned liar and had threatened the Earps. I told him I had not, to bring whoever said so to me and I would convince him that I had not. He told me again to pull out my gun and if there was any grit in me, to go to fighting. All the time he was talking, he had his hand in his bosom and I supposed on his pistol. I looked behind me and saw Morgan Earp with his feet over the lunch counter. He has his hand in his bosom also, looking at me. I then got up and went out on the sidewalk. Doc Holliday said, as I walked out, "You son-of-a-bitch, if you ain't heeled, go and heel yourself." Just as I stepped out, Morgan Earp stepped up and said, "Yes, you son-of-a-bitch, you can have all the fight you want now!" I thanked him and told him I did not want any of it now, I was not heeled. Virgil Earp stood off about 10 or 15 feet from us on the sidewalk. Just about this time, or perhaps a minute later, Wyatt Earp came up where I was. Wyatt did not say anything. Morgan Earp told me if I was not heeled, when I came back on the street to be heeled. I walked off and asked them not to shoot me in the back.

A: Thanksgiving, primaries, this movie

2007-07-30T16:00:00.001-07:00

Q: Things I look forward to in November:

i'll never leave you again, school

2007-07-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had one of those mornings where you wake up, scuffle to the kitchen, and then stand there, paralyzed with daze, debating, for what seems like hours, between grinding espresso beans or eating some of the stale popcorn left over from the at-home movie night before?

Anyway I eventually pulled myself together and went out to look for jobs. Next week I will know for sure whether the Dean at UGA has approved money for new hires and I can work. But I’m not anticipating that. And I know I always joke about working at the piercing pagoda in the mall, but there is a very high likihood that I will be doing that come next weekend. Well maybe not THAT specifically, but I may be holding the STOP/SLOW sign at construction sites.

At least Tegan and Sara’s new CD came out this week. Will be a high point for awhile, I think.

having a word for

2007-07-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

This is my response to Mary B's response to Jeannine Hall Gailey's post.

"Which ten books are the books that have inspired the most writing from you? The books you read that you couldn't wait to put down so you could write afterwards? These aren't necessarily your "favorite" books, but the books that have helped you generate the most new work. If you are a poet, they do not have to all be poetry, they can be fiction, non-fiction, etc."

I thought I would throw my hat in the ring here because it’s something I think of often when I’m stuck or need inspiration.

As I Lay Dying: William Faulkner. He had a word for love. Addie is the strongest persona voice I’ve ever read and whenever I need her, I can pick up any of her chapters and almost instantly get an idea. And I often remember and try to work against what Addie knows for sure, that “words are no good; that words don’t ever fit even what they are trying to say at.”

The House on Marshland: Louise Gluck, master of the unsaid.

West with the Night: Beryl Markham. Hemmingway said that after reading her memoir he was ashamed of himself as a writer. This memoir achieves a kind of quietness, which I think is nearly impossible in prose. Every time I open a page I am utterly stunned.

Written On the Body: Jeanette Winterson. Someone who has actually done something innovative to the narrative voice. She’s really fearless.

Beyond the Velvet Curtain: Karen Kovacik. She moves from Catholic saints to Kafka’s father. It’s about capturing the surges in ordinary life in a way that is utterly believable.

A Companion for Owls: Maurice Manning. I know that I’m beating a dead horse here with mentioning this again in my list, but this book made me want to try out persona.

View with a Grain of Sand: Wislawa Szymborska. One of the two first books of poetry I ever bought and read. Absolutely changed my life.

American Primitive. Mary Oliver. Second of the two first books of poetry I ever bought and read. The Ohio connection, the way of writing about the Ohio landscape, is something that has always influenced and inspired me. I wish I had her vision.

Catholic Saints online: Catholic Saints. I look at this website a few times a week. Yes, I am Catholic. But that’s not the reason. These Saints are absolutely insane and the stories behind their lives are always giving me ideas, even if it’s just one little detail.

For my 10th slot, I have to say that I am always inspired to write from great photographs. Sometimes it’s a collection from (obviously) Dorothea Lange. Or a funeral photograph after the gunfight at the O.K Coral. But most of the times it’s something from the Times or the local paper or a weekly rag where someone with dirty socks is sucking clams or dripping chocolate ice cream on their white shirt. Then again, I’m definitely a child of the symbolic era. I should move to Japan.

cover up those tattoos, young lady

2007-07-25T17:28:00.000-07:00

I've been in pre-pre-pre-production for getting another tattoo. I've wanted two things for about a year. 1. A blue heron. and 2. the white buffalo woman. I've scoured images (my own and others) for both but the perfect thing is always hard to find. Then again, it's a good thing to be particular when putting something permanent on the body.

I have sentimental connections to both and think that the heron will be green-lighted first. I've found a good artist down here, finally, and now the only thing I'm waiting on is my job situation. Most of you know that I already have something all along the inside of my right forearm. My good, success-oriented , Catholic girl sensibilities already know the perils of sleeve tattoos. But isn't that the real reason that JCrew makes the long-sleeve burnt umber pinstriped business interview shirts.

Then again, I'm not sure if it will matter for my interview at the piercing pagoda. It might be a requirement there.

also missing arizona tonight

2007-07-20T19:16:00.001-07:00

leave your taste on my tongue

2007-07-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

10:09 PM. It’s too late for for me to make a Friday confession. Today I realized that these weeks I’ve been able to write 17 pages of a new sequence. I don’t know why. All I can think of is that Patty Griffin song “Long Ride Home.” Sometimes I wish that Emmylou Harris could co-narrate my life.

Anyway, here is how I’m feeling tonight. Joshua Radin and Schuyler Fisk singing “Paperweight.” I don’t know. Just a little calm.

interest you in apple, sweet tea, or rock, ya'll?

2007-07-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

We’ve finally finished moving in and settling and are just now beginning to decorate. The last few days have been an exercise in extreme patience when trying to get the cable company to understand I wanted to set up my apple airport—yes apple—no, not pc—no I don’t have a Windows operating system—no, ma’am, you’re looking at the wrong screen—no, I don’t use internet explorer and don’t need to disable an antivirus program, I don’t have an antivirus program—no. no. Finally, it took a very charming tech guy from Estados Unidos Mexicanos to come to my apartment and call his friend in Mexico (where the cable company call desk is located) and get my info registered for my wireless to work. For the first portion of my time dealing with the utility folks I was having the usual Northerner feelings/responses. Bossy. Sassy. Impatient. I’ll admit, even a little rude. Then, all of a sudden, something happened when Carlos was here—a little southernness kicked in. All of a sudden I was MORTIFIED that I didn’t have any sweet tea to serve and compensated by gratuitously thanking him over and over again for helping me (with a little twang edged into thang-k yuuuuuu).

Here’s a puppy story for you, Mary: When I first brought my black lab, Winston Amadeus home, he was a dream. Very good at the whole crate training thing. Calm. Motivated to learn and be good and fulfill all of my own girl+hound dreams. And I figured this was entirely because I, being the brilllllliant dog-cargiver that I assumed I was, put a baby receiving blanket in his crate. I mean he was NEARLY my first human baby. And I concluded, he’s a dog, not a beast, I couldn’t expect him to sleep on that cold, hard crate surface alone without any softness to soothe him. Well, about two weeks later I came home from school and he had eaten the entire receiving blanket. I didn’t even know it was gone until a whole day of him not eating or drinking water had passed. The vet said his stomach had expanded like 10 times past what it should, that it was like he had a whole little round seedless watermelon inside. Anyway he had to have emergency stomach surgery and it cost me around $1500. He didn’t eat anymore blankets after that, but as if to keep me on top of things, will occasionally eat a medium to large sized rock.

purple haze

2007-07-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

view after lightning strike:

I’ve been helping Sarah pack up the last few days for our move to a new apartment building down from where we are living now. Quite frankly, I just don’t understand. I thought the average person was like me—when moving… throw everything away except for what you would be able to carry in the event of a nuclear attack. I don’t still have a skirt that I wore my Sophomore year in High School. My Sam’s Club membership that expired in 1999, well, I let that paperwork sink into the dumpster—Oh—in 1999. When the National Honors Society pin rusted, I tossed it, along with my Mother’s dreams of me becoming a lawyer. Of course I have 60 to 70,000 boxes of books, but that’s another situation altogether. Anyway, it’s been an adventure.

I haven’t had much opportunity to spend time with Apollonia and (to be egg-hatcher) Michael Corleone.

It rained on Sunday night, finally. We needed it. The raindrops were fat, as you can tell from the light reflection in the photo. Tomorrow, if people set off fireworks—they can be charged with a felony. Yikes.

If you haven’t yet already, check out Sarah T’s poems on SOFTBLOW. They're fantab. And should kick anyone's poet ass in gear!

And now, I have to get back to painting a few canvases for the new living room. I love decorating. Nothing better than a blank wall. Or page, for that matter.

downtown

2007-07-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

This is what I love about Athens. You can roll downtown, one of the coolest, hippest college towns in the country, and still find some soul.

historical conquests

2007-07-01T16:56:00.000-07:00

So it turns out there is something to look forward to

point, game, set, match, happines

2007-06-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me, know that i have, what some may call, a tennis "problem". I'm always bullying people into going out in the hot weather to play with me, pressuring OTHERS to sign their young daughters up on private primary school teams, spending countless hours restringing my rackets and scanning online merchants for the cutest new tennis skirts. But because most of my friends don't play tennis, and a lot of my time lately has been stalking bird and egg, I've only had memories of past tennis happiness to get me through the day. Until this week, which has been full of up at dawn mornings, watching the early rounds of Wimbledon live on the tennis network. Little summer pleasure.

hapless human luck

2007-06-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

Today I made a big mistake. 5 miles outside at 11am. I've been training harder these days, and had intended to go to the workout room and do an hour on the elliptical (a.k.a--suicide machine) but a locksmith was working on the door. So I decided to just run outside, despite my better judgment. After all, I thought I felt a breeze on the way to the workout room, and, I thought, the expected daily high of 97 with 85 percent humidity couldn't be that bad in late morning.

See the problem with the running psyche is totally different down South than it is up North. As I would imagine would be true for anyone doing endurance heat training. In the North, you can get to 5, 6 miles before ever having that little tick needling into your mind--I'm tired, I didn't drink enough water, my calf feels a little tight. But it's a molehill, and eventually you force through it. But down here, especially in the extreme heat, you get to the first mental block in under a mile. And it's not about the body as much, you feel strong. But you can't breathe, your lungs feel hot, your skin is covered in dew.

Anyway I've read that the body adjusts--the exoskeleton and organs learn the new environment. But the brain is a hard thing to retrain.

In other news, I finally snagged a picture of the mama bird sitting on the egg. I had to turn my flash off so that I didn't scare her away, so it's a little whitewashed, but you can see her pretty clearly. I don't know what kind of bird it is. Mom, if you are reading this, ask Dad to show you how to post a comment and tell me what kind of bird this is.

She has sweet eyes. And in the morning, she chases chipmunks through the bushes. It's absolutely hilarious.

Oh, and check this out. Fantastic.

hatch

2007-06-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

long post making up for june slack

2007-06-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

New shoes. Nothing says I’m tough better than blue skulls surrounded by red, yellow, and green hearts.

Back in Georgia from Ohio where I was working to get the Wick website finished so that it can go live soon. I will post a link to that when they do go live. The Wick authors page, which took me about an additional 25 hours than I originally planned, has some good links to journals, prizes, publishers, etc…

I am very glad to be back. I’m a pretty nervous flier and the thought of being ground bound for at least a few months is very comforting indeed. Yesterday the entire 18th row of Airtran flight 205 was entirely hysterical. The two people next to me were holding each other’s hands so tight that I don’t think they’ll ever get the blood back to their knuckles. And across the row from me there were two very logical-looking 40-somethings that just completely panicked when we were at cruising altitude. Every little acceleration was accompanied by them jerking their heads up from their NYTimes suduko and scanning around frantically to see who else was alarmed. Not even my old standby US Weekly-stocked with new photographs of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt and Jessica Simpson’s lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks without going into Kidney failure-kept me calm. Obviously we landed safe enough. More than enough to feel glad to be back.

Two very cool "you ride the bike and we'll film the video in one take" music videos. The first is Bat for Lashes, and very creepy. The second is Rumble Strips and pretty damn cute.

vow

2007-06-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I was home to go to my Aunt's wedding. It was okay. As fun as a dry wedding can be on a hot day with a full Catholic mass. I did get to do one of the readings from Genesis, though, which despite the irony of me actually delivering the reading, was actually a pretty fun thing to do. It made me miss teaching.

Instead of using my grant money to write and not worry about getting a job this summer--all I can do is worry about not having a job for the fall. And last week I watched a marathon on MSNBC of this prison documentary series called "lockdown" for approximately 10 hours. All I know is that I started it after I got back from my run in the early morning, and when it was finished, the sun was going down. And now I'm having dreams that I'm in a prison cell with what seems to be my baby (to whom I also gave birth in prison) and I can't get us out, despite my many lavish escape plans. I think that the baby is my book. But I haven't figured out what the prison is yet.

I forget where I came across this, but it makes me laugh:

Maybe for the rest of the summer, instead of worrying, I'll try to figure out how to do this on a treadmill. Now I just need some band mates as cool as OK Go.

first in the new

2007-06-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Slap Leather

If you want to survive,
you’ve got to show your weapon
first. Every Cowboy knows
the boon of outdraw.

Your horse will wait for you—

he’s slow-chewing the grains,
mane loosening dirt into the trough.

You’ve got to keep your gun
slung low in your waistband.

Let the sun catch it.

But only that for fanfare,
no nickel digs oils-shined,
no gloves to keep the sweat away.

If you want to survive,
you’ve got to starve the appetite,
the ache of the newly blind
on the first auburn evening.

If you outlive the lawmen,
and mob roping for a lynch,
you better run to the railheads.

There’s still the cedar bench,
iron bars, lonely judge sick
of silver prospecting—

that one who watched you,
from the Mining Exchange,
dress those brothers in bullets.

slap leather

2007-05-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve finally started working on a new series. Since finishing my thesis, I’ve been thinking about two different ideas, and even, gasp, writing something that vaguely resembles a confessional poem. But I haven’t been able to write anything about my life recently, though every persona poem that I’ve written since has had something confessional needled into it.

Anyway three poems into the new series I feel a little bit productive. I’m tentatively going to call it the Tombstone series. I’m working with the trial documents after the shootout of the O.K Corral, the private journals of George Parsons and Clara Brown, and a few others. The idea has been marinating since last year when we were in Tombstone, but it was too close at the time and at that point I couldn’t think of anything worse than diving into another project in that kind parched, terrifying landscape. But it feels right now, so I’m going with it. And the research for it is fascinating and quite challenging. Lawmen, miners, Cowboys, newspaper wars, saloon brawls, drunks, prostitutes, New York aristocrats. A good project for a slow summer in Georgia.

I’ve been applying for jobs that can take me through the year before I hopefully start school again or start teaching. Haven’t heard anything yet, but will wait for next week to send out applications to the local air conditioning repair places.

accidents

2007-05-19T05:41:00.001-07:00

Just browsing for some art for the new place and came across Patricia Waller's odd and hilarious and wonderful collection. I think this will look really good on my new desk:

I think it's from her "accidents" series.

peach buzz

2007-05-19T05:34:00.001-07:00

these green plans

2007-05-17T19:41:00.001-07:00

On Monday, Sarah and I drove from Akron to Athens (six states). It took an almost even eleven hours, though it was a fairly easy drive. The ride through West Virginia is really amazingly beautiful (if you’re not the one behind the wheel, whipping through the trucks and curves). I only took two good pictures the whole way. Most of the others were either shadowed by bug intestines in the window foreground, or Sarah’s photographs of the gummy worms and diet coke. I’ll probably have more to say in the next few weeks. I feel excited to be here, but also very nervous to have left so much behind. I’m trying not to force on myself that terrible architecture of worry, though until I am certain that I won’t be the next southeastern regional manager of Chicos, I can’t help but let a few blueprints unroll.

worms don’t dance

2007-05-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

I almost didn’t see this one, and it’s too good to pass up! It is absolutely impossible for me to pick just five because the queue is constantly changing. But, here is what I think right in this moment! Oh, and since there were technically two lists, I've just put in 10. Have I done one of these yet and not cheated? Nay.

1. Kathleen—Josh Ritter
2. Women’s Realm—Belle and Sebastian
3. Sylvia Plath—Ryan Adams
4. Sleep—Azure Ray
5. Worms—Beth Orton
6. Public Service Announcement--(Danger Mouse) Jay-Z/Beatles
7. Schizophrenia's Weighted Me Down--Cat Power
8. Welcome to Jamrock--Damian Marley
9. Beer Run--Todd Snider
10. Visionz--Wu-Tang Clang
10(1/2). We Can Be Strong--Willy Mason

i forgot jane kenyon

2007-05-07T18:13:00.000-07:00

I feel like a jerk-a-holic for forgetting Jane. I wonder how many times that I’ll think that, now that the list of 13 is up. How many poets I’ll feel guilty for forgetting. Jane is the first that comes to mind. I did make my list somewhat in “particular” order, so guilt is only the natural byproduct of forgetfulness.

This weekend was the graduation reading. I have felt really overwhelmed and more than melancholy since. All of the NEOMFA friends were there, which was so amazing. I probably only know 15 of the students in the NEOMFA, and I would say all 15 were there. I was so nervous during my reading, but looking up occasionally and seeing their faces and eyebrows and eyes was really special.

In addition, my heroes were all there. Mary, Maggie, Craig. Anyway I don’t know when I will, if ever, report on it but here, but the truth is that it was such a wonderful way to end the MFA.

And the Deans sprung for J. Lohr. A May miracle!

the carriage held

2007-05-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

Been tagged by Mary and this one was really hard.

Say someone asked me, "I kind of like poetry, but I don't know anything about contemporary poetry. Who should I read?"

No blog friends (because I would have listed Amy Sparks)
No real-life friends (I broke this rule)
No real-life mentors (because I would have listed Mary Biddinger)
Alive as of this writing (I broke this rule too, oh well)

I'd say, in no particular order:

1. Wislawa Szymborska
2. Louise Gluck
3. Martin Espada
4. Maurice Manning
5. Mark Strand
6. Cornelius Eady
7. Richard Siken
8. Joy Harjo
9. Anele Rubin
10. Philip Levine
11. Karen Kovacik
12. Kate Northrop
13. Ed Dorn (dead, but everyone needs a little Gunslinger)

may not have, but must

2007-05-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the tag, Mary B!

"Here are five poetry collections you may not have read but certainly must. (Note: The collections, for whatever reason, should be a bit off the beaten path. And need not have caused the earth to open and swallow you whole.)"

Ok here’s my list:

Beyond the Velvet Curtain—Karen Kovacik
A Companion for Owls—Maurice Manning
Back Through Interruption—Kate Northrop
Lamb—Frannie Lindsay
Cradle of the Real World—Jean Valentine

All of my blog friends have already been tagged, and a retag is just inappropriate! Actually, this tag was perfect timing because I spent all of yesterday going through all of my books, dusting them, packing them in boxes. I uncovered all of my oldies and goodies

not without my soledad

2007-04-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

This morning I turned on CNN for my familiar morning report with the O’Briens (Miles and Soledad) and instead, I was greeted by Kiran Chetry and John Roberts, the NEW anchors. W. T. F?

Not only did I not get my morning fill of Soledad’s news sass, but the 7am lead story was Nora the piano playing cat. Frankly, if it weren’t for Kashi’s Organic Promise Strawberry Fields cereal, I wouldn't have a reason to wake up.

troubled beehive albeit brilliant

2007-04-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

amy winehouse. buy her cd.

black, white, red

2007-04-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

It’s such a beautiful day outside. Finally feels like poetry month. Tomorrow I'm definitely heading to Locke 29 for a run. They've been working on the northside of the trail since fall, but I think it's cleared through mile 3, or a little after Boston. It's good to be in the season of outside runs again. The track was starting to really needle away at me.

I finally got my hands on a quality bootleg of the Grey Album (DJ Danger Mouse mixed the album in late 2004, which is Jay-Z’s The Black Album with samples from the Beatle’s The White Album,) and I can say that the long trek toward electronic civil disobedience was well worth the effort.

I think you can still check it out at bannedmusic.org.

thursday poem

2007-04-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that I've put poems up here, but not of Cora May, who is probably my favorite character. Anyway I'm starting on a new sequence now, but I didn't want this time to pass without a little Cora May.

Cora May Hears of the Slaughter

Abigail said millions of pigs
got slaughtered in late September.

Something about keeping prices
low, but I think the government

men have lost their goddamn minds,
because there’s madness in spilling

those fat, pink bodies to the mud.
Young pigs too, and not yet finished

suckling, Abigail said. My soul,
what are they going to think of next?

Burning pits for ripened apples?
Flour barrels set out in the wind?

the animal month

2007-04-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

Rather than letting the snow bring me down, I'm revisiting a Georgia spring until we clear into ours.

under the pink moon

2007-04-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

So Monday I defended my thesis. And I passed. Mary and Maggie both said that it would be fun and it actually was kind of fun. Not before—when I couldn't stop having mini-daymares about how I'd have to speculate what Saussure would think about the poems or do long division in front of them—but when everything started and I realized that it was really a conversation among poets. And that people who I admire greatly were asking me about my work. Anyway, it was such a nice feeling when they asked back into the room and everyone shook my hand and told me congratulations. I’m not exactly sure what will happen from here. But it was a good day.

curiouser and curiouser

2007-03-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

A few days ago Sarah T. posted about the frustrations of figuring out the whole to PhD or not to PhD thing. I wish I had been more thoughtful about it last year because now I’m just really unsure and I have under three weeks to make official decisions. Part of me wants to stay in for the haul. And the reverse is the thought of just finishing school for now, teaching somewhere, trying to publish. I suppose a big part of the problem deciding is that this is a terrible time in the semester. I feel tired, overwhelmed. I thought after turning in my thesis I would feel unleashed, but really it’s just on to the next big project.

I definitely feel like I’m complaining, but it seems like such a terribly important decision. Of course playing into it is the wealth of fears of personal, academic, and creative inadequacies. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night in a steal of panic and think, “I can’t proofread.” As if that seals the decision.

Anyway, I should be reporting on some decision soon. In the meantime, I have to finish reading Jonathan Culler’s On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism, prepare for my defense on Monday, get something in draft for my final paper, and—maybe—try to enjoy Spring Break.

best concert i've been to. ever.

2007-03-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

here are two clips someone posted on youtube from josh ritter's concert in kent last year. that's lindsay laughing in the background. after, we told him we were poets and he asked us about literary theory. ah. we were in love.

the first one is called "you don't make it easy, babe."

singing w/out the mic. if you haven't already--you MUST see him live.

this one is "lawrence, kansas."

ride on

2007-03-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

So, I’ve been sick on and off for a week now. I had all of these fantasies post turning in the thesis of going out and partying until the sun’s lungs puff up, but I’ve just been gazing around, working if I can, watering plants if the occasion demands. Maggie’s been sick too—worse than me so I shouldn’t complain. Maybe tiredness is exhaustion, or just my moodiness gearing up for Spring Break.

I’m missing Mary’s reading tonight, which I’m really upset about. I definitely won’t miss the reading on the 6th, though. Two days from my birthday. I suppose it would be appropriate to celebrate my new favorite book.

In other news: there’s never been any question about my love for Alison Goldfrapp. But when her band showed up in L World this week, I was a little unnerved. I should be happy, I suppose. Well, I won’t qualify that. I hope more people get into them. Here is a paragraph for a belated Sunday link.

spring eve

2007-03-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

It’s official—my thesis has been clipped. I’m staring at this screen now but can’t really think of anything to say except that I’m tired and happy it’s out of my hands for a few weeks. Thursday I’m off to Georgia for the break and I’m looking forward to reading and preparing for my defense.

Be not afraid. The isle is full of noises—William Shakespeare

the raisins of wrath

2007-03-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

I can't think of a title for my manuscript. Any suggestions? Lindsay thinks "dirtball" would work--so that's already taken, suggestion wise.

lamb

2007-03-07T09:34:00.000-08:00

Today I read a poem that totally knocked me over. I've worked to press the nerve just the right amount--and go a little deeper (as Maggie teaches), especially when writing about animals in my manuscript, but I think this poem by Frannie Lindsay from her book Lamb is really just brilliant and have a hard time reading it without crying.

It's after the biblical verse from 2 Samuel 12.3:

But the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew with him and with his children; it use to eat of his morsel, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.

The Ewe Lamb

I raised my one ewe lamb
as a daughter, fed her
red clover, the last hearts
of my cabbage, offered
her inky lips my cup.
She rested her chin
on my neck at night, her hoofs
on my cloak, her breathing
the wind on the waves
of sleep’s pure waters.
Sleep: an animal’s word
for bless. hoof of her heart
to the hoof of my heart.
The dusk before her slaughter
we walked together, pauper
and kin, over the meadow.
I sang to her, then
I unstrung the rusted bell
from her collar.

the dead

2007-02-23T10:45:00.001-08:00

this is kind of a nice idea.

peach

2007-02-22T10:50:00.000-08:00

Here in the Wick office everyone is abuzz for AWP, and as the weekend inches closer I’m trying to think of my wardrobe selection. Being that it was below zero last week, I’m not exactly sure what 65 is going to feel like. Will I need skirts and flips, as was appropriate last year in Austin (though it was in the high 80s there), or is this still light sweater weather? Or long sleeve & khaki weather? Will it be terribly obvious that we're Yankees when we arrive in bermuda shorts?

Despite the fact that we’re staying at the fancy Hilton, Travie is hopeful there will be a martini Jacuzzi. I’m not exactly sure what kind of attire is appropriate for that.

horror vacui

2007-02-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

I share in Mary’s concern about the Friday veggie meal at AWP. I’ll be at the Wick table from 12:30-2:45 with a voluptuous pile of pretzels and a $10 bottle of warming diet coke, which I will begrudgingly buy from the Starbucks kiosk, not because I want to, but because there is a line there and I’ll feel the need to get into it at some point. I think we should send someone out into the city to find something Lent friendly. I’ve heard Atlanta—well the south in general—is known for vegetarians and vegans. Or is that somewhere else?

A few of you have asked for an update on the manuscript and since I haven’t posted a poem in a long time, I thought I would post an old one and a new one that I’m turning in to workshop today. The first is taken from Thoreau’s advice, “In a journal it is important in a few words to describe the weather, or character of the day, as it affects our feelings.” The second is in response to both Mary’s and Maggie’s question: what does Abigail think about being pregnant? Hopefully I’m not just filling up space here. I'm very good at doing that.

Dust Storm, January, 1934

Leah tried to bring the peahens into the cellar. She could sense the storm from the way the cattle shuffled fence-to-fence trying for shelter under the balding trees. The dogs were showing teeth to stay in, but before Samuel latched the door, he tossed out the tiny birds. We can’t save everything, he said. We could hear their terrified peeping before the dust picked the sounds clean, and the hours after their silencing were the hardest to sit through. After the storm, Leah ran to the fields. The eyeless-feathered chicks were gone. For days, she put molasses on the tumbleweed so the near-dead calves would feed, and never stopped looking through the thistles and taproots for the birds, no matter how many carcasses of jackrabbits and field mice she had to kick through. When she did find them, their hidden bellies still unpicked by hawks, she brought them to the bucket of water I set out on the porch, washed the feathers brown clean, so they would come alive in another world, full of color.

Feeding

At first, Leah felt like a wing, brushing
the inside of my belly, and before I saw her
hand at the wall of my skin, as if to say hello,
I was sure I would give birth to a hummingbird.
Just a brush, just a wing, as if I might have imagined it,
the feeling simple as touching your tongue
to the inside of your cheek. That delicate, that small.

But he is not growing as he should, has not fluttered
his skin against the insides of my skin—
has been low in my belly for a month now, I think
hiding from the terrible air, or needing more of my legs
to hold him up. By the time we were over the mountains
he was all bones, elbows, knees, and my
back felt his pointy weight, turning and turning.

I don’t know if there will be a space for him to survive,
even in this endless prairie. I am not able to imagine him,
as I once imagined Leah, alive, feeding her evenings
at the edge of an indigo steam. Her cheeks soft as tulips,
her fine hair curling at the tips, muddy shoes, dress-scrap dolls.
Who will nurse him, if I can’t? How will he even breathe?
Who will show me how to clean out dust from his tiny eyes?

I am not able to imagine him, as I imagined her.
This is not a place where anything new is blooming.
My first child, who once spent the whole day tumbling
in leaves, painting the mountains at school, now ties
a rope around the waist of her torn dress, so she can find
her way back to our house if a duster blows
in, while she’s looking for dead birds she can wash and bury.

pinko commie

2007-02-18T14:15:00.000-08:00

I’m trapped at my parent’s house. My V dub isn’t the greatest in the new snow. And while I love sliding around, I don’t like sliding down the back alley valley roads into the Cuyahoga River. At least not on a Sunday.

This afternoon I listened to Hannity for a chuckle and marveled at my mom’s new bottle of Kenra Platinum titanium taffy (this is something for hair). All in all, it’s been a good day. My mom and I saw Notes on a Scandal. Judi Dench and Kate Blanchet are such good actors and it makes me somewhat melancholy that I may never do anything well.

I did get a lot of work done this weekend after a meeting with Maggie on Thursday. There are some narrative gaps in my thesis and I hope that I was able to fill in three of them this weekend. After writing three new poems though, I felt like my eyelids might explode or something in my throat. But I’m glad at least the drafts are finished.

Some recent inspiration.

steam

2007-02-10T18:21:00.000-08:00

It’s 9:05pm on Saturday night and I am sitting here alone. The only semi-good component of this scene is that I was able to get some Anchor at Primos, where I had dinner with my folks.

This time last year, well almost this time last year, my mom and I were in DC butter-knifing open a good bottle of white wine. It wasn’t as cold as it is this year. I wasn’t as worried about my future as I am now. Will I be a PhD student? Will I be selling air conditioners?

I was reading through Beryl Markham’s West with the Night again tonight, which is the most beautiful memoir I’ve ever read, and trying to find a quote for my manuscript. I thought if I found one I would start to feel better about it. Anyway, I did find something that I’m going to put as the epigraph for my first section:

There is a silence after a rainstorm, and before a rainstorm, and these are not the same.

I’ve been trying to figure out how someone like me, who has spent these years writing about water, is now writing about the Dust Bowl. Anyway, I guess I’ve figured out that the Dust Bowl isn’t really the point—and really, I am still writing about water.

kitlers

2007-02-08T15:20:00.000-08:00

i've been lied to my entire life. i never knew cats could be so entertaining.

time lapse monster

2007-02-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

Stefen G. Bucher's daily monster.

the joy of repetition is in me

2007-02-03T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hot Chip video for over and over. I have no idea why I love this band so much. They're feathery according to itunes.

Another band that is a must right now is Rodrigo y Gabriela. They're Dublin punk meets Latin sass. Knuckle spraining deliciousness, in other words.

hard out here for a czar

2007-01-26T18:09:00.000-08:00

Found this shirt at Village Thrift. Obviously, I’ll have to give it to B. That place is seriously gold in a jar. It’s like buying a nickel ticket for one of those 1/16 mile track pony trots at the county seat fair and realizing you’re going to get to go on a unicorn safari instead.

everything's so easy for pauline

2007-01-22T07:51:00.000-08:00

I’m listening to Neko Case and eating a banana. I should be trying to stitch on the last buttons for my manuscript, but I can’t concentrate. I want to go snowboarding. Or I want to go back to Athens.

I’m reading Andrew Lycett’s biography of Dylan Thomas and it’s depressing me a bit. I think I’ll annotate some poems and that will cheer me up.

There is a rustling in the Christmas tree that my roommates refuse to take down. I’ve never had a cat because I’m allergic to them, but they have two. They're odd creatures but I really like watching what they do. But is this normal?

Bobo

2007-01-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

It's amazing Winston's christmas present has lasted this long. He doesn't really chew aggressively as much as he likes to lick his toys bald. And eat their ears.

Ralph

2007-01-12T15:29:00.000-08:00

Two days ago I posted a few pictures from the trip Sarah and I took to the Georgia Aquarium. In the second picture you can see a beautiful whale shark swim by. I was distressed to learn yesterday that Ralph, one of four of these fish rescued from Thailand, died. I tried to write a little elegy about him, but all I could think up was—I really liked watching you swim, big guy.

McSweeney's

2007-01-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

Comments on My Short Story I've Received From My Creative-Writing Classmates. By Robert Hinderliter.

You have managed to coldly and persistently rape the English language for 17 pages. Congratulations."

georgia aquarium

2007-01-10T16:54:00.000-08:00

when in the frontier...do as

2007-01-04T18:51:00.000-08:00

on the eve of the falling of the pitless crystal peach

2006-12-30T07:17:00.000-08:00

I’m back in Georgia for the rest of the break and I feel strangely in place in the home of real pit bar-b-q and New Year’s peach drops. I got a new camera so I’m trying to figure out all of the settings. In the process I erased my entire photography library from my Mac. I probably should have had some intense emotional reaction to that, however I just shrugged it away. So, I need to start a new library, and try to remember to back it up this time. Sonny’s seemed to be a good new beginning. I’m in Georgia after all. I’m trying to work on my manuscript as well. Hopefully I won’t deleted it as well.

softer world

2006-12-12T05:49:00.000-08:00

strawberry

all in the family

2006-12-11T18:55:00.000-08:00

my little bro
seen here:

and here:

started his thoughts today. check him out. Now.

hey ya'll

2006-12-11T07:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, while my family and I were committing insurance fraud by not marking down our various mental illnesses on our new health forms, I said something that really threw everyone for a loop. ya’ll.

I’m not sure why I’ve developed a southern accent, but I have, and I blame it on teaching. It started last year in my first composition class. Hi ya’ll. What are ya’ll doin’? Didja’ll like the reading? Though I’m sure I’m picking up a little Georgia twang from my sweetie, it has only come out (until yesterday morning) when I’m teaching.

In my creative writing class this semester I had 16 students that all thought I was from the south. Part of the reason is probably because when they assumed I was Southern I didn’t correct them—but that’s not really the point. My ya’lling has really gotten out of control. It seems nothing is worth saying unless I can say it with a long I and end it with an extended N.

I’ll be in Georgia almost all of winter break where I’m hoping to refine my Savannah Scarlet sound. Then again, I’m not teaching next semester, so it’s really all for naught.

sunday links

2006-12-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

1. These two graphics are by Eduardo Recife. take a look at the portfolio.

2. This is my favorite new font. Very clean. Check these out

3. If you have time: must see commercials. My favorite is #1--the terrorist in the VW.

better than nothing

2006-12-06T10:48:00.000-08:00

A blessing: The semester is almost over. I have started to ceremoniously hate this semester and I’m not even sure why. Or maybe I’m a little head cold sick and therefore grumpy. I still have been very neglectful of writing here so I’m back. At least for now.

My goals for next semester are to finish my manuscript with some level of competency and meet a visionary who will line edit my mess of illogical commas and misplaced dashes. Though I won’t give up my dashes yet. I’m trying to channel E.D.

Good news comes with the beginning of the snow. I’ve been accepted in Nimrod and nominated for a Pushcart. I should feel happy about it. But my mind is full of semicolons and job application and impossible PhD dreams. Go figure. Always a Catholic girl I guess.

sierra vista, arizona

2006-10-30T07:49:00.000-08:00

why you don't want me to dog sit. ever.

2006-07-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

Winston broke his paw at the dog park on Saturday. Even though I wasn't there, I still fee sort of responsible. His red cast is very depressing to look at. But, all in all, he's been a good sport. And in only a few days, he's become a master at the three-legged hop/gallop.