Best Lines From The Movie Sideways

I can’t believe they didn’t take the book manuscript. I want to die.

Maybe that's the angle. It worked well for Sexton, Howard and Woolf.

But they were published writers.

What about that guy from Confederacy of the Dunces, he wasn’t famous or published when he killed himself and they took HIS book.

You're not helping

Tonight I watched a wrinkle in time with my daughters. It is the first book I have ever loved. I met Madeline L’Engle when I was 16 and she is the first person who ever told me I would be a writer or maybe she was the first person I believed.

On Allison’s blog she has a post about “remember who you are doing this for.” The fact is I am doing this for me. I have always been. It is just sometimes I forget.

Wisdom teeth and the women who love them

I don’t know why I find that photo so funny. A) why would you stand up AGAINST a fence post naked B)why would you wear a hat and C) I am having my wisdom teeth out tomorrow and I am not making wise posting decisions.

I am freaked out about the whole thing. I am worried I’ll have a bad reaction to the medicine and children will find me three days later when they need milk money. And it feels wrong to leave this world without all my body parts.

Maybe I will ask for them in a jar. What do they do with the extra teeth?

On a side note what I never understood about Christian Science is that it’s not okay to go to a doctor if you’re bleeding to death but you should always go in for your 6 month cleaning. If Jesus could close up an open wound don’t you think he could get your teeth on the way.

Anyway I promise that in some post soon I will mention writing/poetry. I will say something wise and insightful unless of course, all of my mojo is in my teeth then well, this is hell.

I'm the one with the gun;) 

I sometimes goggle my own poems. A good poem has a way of traveling, well I suppose bad poems can do this too but I’d like to think it just happens to the work I actually want people to see.

Anyway the funniest thing is that one of my love poems is now posted at
http://mexicomiamore.com/Poems/T.E.BallardBees.html which is as far as I can figure out, is about finding Mexican love and I have no idea how these people got my work.

Plus I have no idea what Mexican love is. Does it differ in some way from Swedish love? Pigmy? Is there Poet love? How about blocked poet love because to be honest I think we deserve it more. But hey if I can have that cover photo for my bio page I think I would get published a hell of a lot more. It sure beats one free copy of a poetry journal.

I am cheating horribly at this poem a day, sometimes it is just a stanza, sometimes it a stanza from an old poem that will not leave my head but I need to find a better house for it. And it is only the beginning of the month; I am going to be posting cereal ingredients by the end of the week.

Poetry right now feels like diving. I need to dive into a deeper level of myself, hold my breath and go but that always equals change for me. I hate change.

One of greatest gift we can give ourselves as poets is the ability to not censor. That is what makes Dobbins wonderful, Celan. The ability to put everything down on paper without value, I am also horrible at this.

C.D. Wright, Adrienne Rich and Donald Justice all slept in my bed last night and only Donald was there when I woke up this morning.

my day 

singing dolls and sylvia

I decided for about 15 minutes today that I would not blog anymore. I also made a list of the reasons I don’t think I am writing very much lately. Sadly it was titled why T.E. Ballard is writing shit and had reasons like owning too many books and getting laid on a regular basis. My mother says ladies are not supposed to use the word laid but it is a wonderful word. I also have singing dolls on the list—if you don’t have children you have no idea how many poems singing dolls can suck out of your head.

On the quest to find something to blow my socks off I bought Adrienne Rich’s new book and the wonderful C.D. Wright that the very tall Charlie introduced me to. I also ordered Eating in the Underworld and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Hopefully my mind will be stirred.

And because it is the first day of “Teresa’s alone writing time” I rented Sylvia and bought of a bottle of Goats Do Rome. The Sylvia movie was okay. I hate Paltrow and I wish ppl would stop giving her literary roles but at least she did not play Sexton.

Oh and my alone time ended by 8 because my baby wanted to come home and sleep in my bed instead of staying at her friend's house. She is now in her bedroom with her dolls and yes, they are singing....

I want to be blown away with a poetry book today. I want to read something that takes my breath away. I can honestly say that within the last year or so only two books have done that for me, Dancing in Odessa and Her Soul Out of Nothing. I have read good books in between, The Clerks Tale and Mercy was an excellent but it not make me weep with the beauty of it. I want to weep today. I want to be blown away.

..... 

How Big Are You?????

A University of Alberta study finds that measuring a man's index finger length relative to his ring finger length predicts his predisposition to being physically aggressive.

The shorter the index finger relative to the ring finger, the higher the amount of prenatal testosterone and the more likely the man will be physically aggressive, they researchers say.

and now I have a head. It is amazing what you can figure out when you spend hours & hours just trying to post a photo in your profile. My links are next.

I woke up this morning walked to the coffee shop and then walked back home in a thunderstorm. This is my favorite kind of day. I wish there were some sort of exercise program that involved natural elements. Today I am going to the gym to swim up stream or jogging between lightening bolts. Yes, I need an element of danger to move my body. I could try the tread mill with a fork and a toaster.

I also read Wallace Stevens this morning, finished my new issue of Poetry and bought a new couch. I think I might even go to the bookstore and call it a perfect day.

Mother’s Definition For Crows

Every September
she’d pull the car to the side
for crows crossing the sky.
A bad omen.
Once one landed
on the hood of her car
and a tree followed.
It was not death she feared
but wings, startled and dense
searching the September fields
for corn. When I told her
in Jung’s book of symbols
birds represent self
the darker the color
the more repress
the need.
She laughed then sighed.
It is all hunger
she said
hunger and flight.

american editors

Well my friends are heading off to AWP and I am at home with sick children. I am comforting myself with the fact that at least I might get some reading in. One of my good friends wanted me to come down to Atlanta next week. She is in charge of the poetry readings with Bly and McHugh. It would have been interesting. I have met Bly several times and he lives here in Minnesota so I am not too sad about that but I really would have like to hear Heather McHugh read.

At lunch we had this great discussion about the worst cover letters ever and some of them are so funny it is hard for me to believe someone is not trying to play a joke.

Hello, my name is ____and I was not born in America. I actually don’t like Americans and they really haven’t produced any important poetry. I am a professor of literature at ____and I teach mostly Americans, they are rude and do not care about books. I am enclosing three poems to be published in your American Magazine. You probably will not like them.

Okay this was so funny to me this weekend that I almost peed my pants. I mean I get, that as a society we have done some horrible things but man, don't you WANT to be in this review.

Dead Racoons and chocolate bunnies

The day started out with an Easter egg hunt in the back yard where Bella while digging behind the oak found a dead raccoon in the grass. She was frozen to the side of the barn. Every spring and summer we feed the raccoons peanut butter and watch the babies grow into fat, furry mommas and papas. They never bother us except they tend to use the kids toys if they are left in the backyard…i.e. they have a swim party at 2 am or try to go down the slide three a time.

if you haven't read the tractor poem on Rebecca's site it is damn fine

known world

I am trying to get through The Known World which won a Pulitzer but so far the only reason I can figure out it won, is that is has enough characters to fill about three towns. Anyway it is historical fiction, I will get through it and I will be a better person and then go back to my beautiful poetry which never confuses me with the thought, who the hell are you.

Two rejections letters yesterday, not that I’m counting but it gets incredibly frustrating when I send out four poems that Carolyn calls my “perfect poems” and they come back to me every time. The thing is, I am also rather fond of them but what I seem to be noticing is that everyone wants you after you get that first book title but what the hell does that have to do with the work in end.

Anyway my job for the month or so says the little scrap of paper by my bedroom mirror is to “just write” not to worry about thing else. Did I mention I will be alone in my house for four days during Spring Break? In mom time that is like a year and a half.

boom chicka boom 

The rain falls
like a woman
and the sky
is not strong enough.

A fox sits at my window
her yellow eyes
a thousand mirrors
biting at glass.

Tonight we are
each of us
curling our own tails
waiting to be fed.

to yin or not to yin 

Yin

Yesterday I got a call from the Minneapolis Institute of Art and they just receive a grant to bring in more art education to the inner city which is wonderful. What is even better is they want me to be the artist. Hopefully I will not jinx myself by writing this.

Lately I’ve been telling the universe I am open to changing my job, to taking different paths. I’ve also told the universe I open to having my book published by a major press but they haven’t gotten back to me on that one yet;)

Anyway we are opening with an exhibit on Japanese Tigers which is interesting b/c they are no tigers in Japan but artists created these creature by stories in the early 17th century and by the closest creature on hand, the cat. And as media comes in to play i.e. the photograph the image of these tigers change.

I have to say I am little in love with the bug eyed creatures. Also to bore the hell out of you Tigers are identified as the yin, the power of the feminine. Don’t tell me there is no connection.

one of my favorite paintings 

I am tired. All the business of the last few weeks is catching up to me. I realized this when I found my self drooling over Peter’s pool photos and wondering if I could actually throw myself through the computer screen.

I think I have been reading too much poetry lately. Yes, I did say that out loud. Sometimes I think you have to live a poetic life as much as read about one. I mean all the great artists packed up their bags and ventured off somewhere. I am ready to write a travel grant to study butterflies in Mexico. I have a friend who did that.

The world is an odd place, they actually gave her 10,000 dollars to sit in a field and feel inspired. It is true, I may be resentful but it does feel a bit foolish. I need to write more grants. I need water. I need sleep.

This is my last stick after this people have to start throwing beer.

What is the strangest compliment you received on one of your poems?

Didi talks about someone coming up (it has to be a guy, yes I know this is sexist but I bet I am right) and saying he masturbated to one of her poems, how you keep a straight face during that I’ll never know.

Anyway my compliment is kind of the 360 of that, one of my poems Hide which I read quite a bit has a section that says

the first time I touched
the fur of my body
my fingers slipped easily into the folds

which means I have to tell (on a good night) 40 strangers that I like to touch myself.

Anyway my compliment was when an older woman came up to me after I read that poem and said, “I am so very proud of you dear.”

I am still to this day not sure if she was proud that I read it out loud or because I could find my vagina.

FYI

-I want someone to bury the damn stick or think up new questions.
-I worked for ten hours today
-my new boss from hell made someone cry and it wasn’t me
-I am having 8 eleven year old girls sleep over tomorrow and that beats out anything Dante could think up.
-it snowed two feet or maybe 6 inches, anyway it equals a hell of a lot of stuff on my steps.
-my chapbook it done
-my manuscript is done (again)
-and I am really, really mad at myself for not going to breadloaf and for making money instead
-all the writers I have crushes on are dead which may mean I have some intamacy issues.

The Big Stick

Okay chickas Jude gave me the stick so you might want to stand back cause I’m not afraid to use it.

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
Dante’s The Divine Comedy

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
I have crushes on writers not characters (those people are made up) though I do think Jane Eyre was pretty hot.

The last book you bought is: I buy books in packs. I haven’t bought one book at a time since I was twelve and received my own allowance.
Velocities: New and Selected Poems
The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
Swallow: Poems
The Porcupine’s Kisses
Waterbone

The last book you read: Mercy by Lucille Clifton and I read it six times. The last fiction I read was The Collected Stories of Grace Paley.

What are you currently reading? Cocktails by D.A. Powell, Blind Huber by Nick Flyn and The Monster Lives Of Boys and Girls by Eleni Sikelianos.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: I’ve actually read this several times and if you have to land a plane or fight a bear I’m your girl.
The Complete Kama Sutra: Eventually somebody is going to show up on the island and if they don’t, hell I have pictures.
Complete Works of Anne Sexton: because I love her and she loves me. (Did I mention I have crushes on dead writers:)
Complete Works of Paul Celan: because I am pretty bi about whom I have crushes on.
Complete Works of Shakespeare: He wrote a hell of a lot of stuff and I love to read.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
Emily Lloyd: because she smokes by her computer and this will keep her hands busy.
Wendy Wisner: because I like her and she has her own Wendy House.
Eduardo C. Corral: because his name is fun to say and I am sure he will bring in cute boys somehow.

Danger

I just finished writing an article last night that involved the power of poetry and though I am not going to give it all away before the issue goes to print it has led me to think about the danger of poetry. In history poets have died for their craft, where is that power in modern word? What is the last dangerous book of poems you have read?

This has made me evaluate (once again) my own manuscript and how safe I remain and that my goal should not only be to tell my own story but to do so in such a way that I don’t always remain safe.

We have become a complacent people not only in politics but in word. I would venture that the maturity of modern writers don’t believe what they are writing will effect the outcome of history. We have forgotten that words are indeed dangerous.

I was just putting the girls in the car for school this morning and one of their babysitters walked by on her way to high school. She had been in Spain last year and I had not seen her for a while. She then went on to tell me she had been in the hospital and just got out. It turns out she was in lock down which is a horrible place. Surviving adolescence while being an artist is a difficult journey, I am so lucky I lived in a very small town in Maine. The worst adults ever did was tie me to a chair and tell me I had demons. Oh the joys of the Christian right.

I have been thinking a lot about our human journey, Rebecca with mushy lobes, my own daughter’s quick entrance into tweendom and I know without doubt writing has saved me. Why I serve it almost as if it is a deity. As with Jung theory I have enter a deeper room inside myself, a true place because of my art.

Sometimes I forget this I get caught up in all the crap that is involved with being a published writer. I worry about order, publishing credits, that I am not doing something right. Maybe embracing chaos has nothing to do with craziness maybe it is just realizing that the shortest distance between two points in not always a straight line.

Well I did not win the wine but my friend did and I sold her the ticket so I hope that entitles me to a least one good bottle of red. I did however come home with Carmen tickets so I am very happy. I have something to look forward to at the end of April.

I plan to get some reading done today. I have so many beautiful books sitting by my bed. The Academy of American Poets is posting a book a day of the most Ground breaking poetry books. I hate things like this because it shows me how little I have read and I read A LOT but I think I have only about half their list completed.

You know I really need to be independently wealthy so I can get all this poetry and reading done in one lifetime. If the gods aren’t going to give me that I should at least get another life.

????

If you could have any three poets write the "blurb" for the back of your book who would it be?"

Math Problem for the day

I am expecting Carolyn’s notes on the manuscript soon so I am in a holding pattern again. Tonight is the big Art Gala—hurray for free wine. I have been informed by my love that I am not allowed to buy any “big” art but I am sure there is a way around the word big. Last year I bought two beautiful black and white photos, one of rocks and another of a woman in Ethiopia. They are stunning. I am still in trouble for those purchases.

The weird thing is, when I was married I could have brought home a painted cow and my husband would have not said a thing. It is funny how we are attracted to different spectrums of people in one lifetime.

Tonight there is a raffle to win your own wine cellar—60 bottles of top end wine. Last year I won the big raffle of a hotel, I am still hoping for the wine. Now if I win we are having a blog party in my back yard.

Now here is a math problem for you, how many poets would it take to finish off 60 bottles and how long?

those fat little ugly babies

My book hates me. I am trying not to take it personally, the way it changes order every time I turn around but today I figured out it was personal. The book does it to make me crazy. Last week I thought I had beautiful poems and today they are all fat little creatures with no home. I have changed the content 60 times and there is no order. I want to see it…I need to see it.

This was my first batch of rejections sending the manuscript out. I told myself there was no way it would get accepted right out of the box but I guess deep down I thought it might because that would explain the hole in my stomach when I opened the letter.

This too shall pass. Tomorrow I will wake up and send those ugly babies off again and hopefully this time they will stand next to each other and behave.

the staff meeting from hell

Sadly I am being totally serious

So I arrived at the staff meeting to be greeted by those plastic Hawian necklaces and little plastic clappers –we are suppose to use them to cheer each other (dear sweet Jesus.) My new boss then begins the comparison of the staff to the crew of the love boat and for two hours (no shit) we list qualities that make good leaders ALPHABETICALLY. A is for Alert, B is for busy and of course I was getting ready to slit my wrists till we got to M and then for some reason my mouth yelled out MARTINI. Well, that did not go over well.

Anyway it sucks because I love teaching where I teach. I love my clients. I love the kids I work with, some people I have been working with for over five years but I don’t think I will out live this woman. She has been there 6 months now and I bet you a buck she can’t even tell you what I do, but she does seem to know all the actors of 80 sitcoms.

And to make matters worse she is the queen of paper work. I think a small tree was killed tonight with all the things I need to fill out and of course on my own time. Please, please have mercy on me and call in a bomb threat at my next meeting.

Questions For the Day

What font do you use when sending out submissions?
Do have special rituals?
Do send them out in batches, like threes or two?
and what do think was the best title for a poetry book ever?

to the person who bought my children Best Of ABBA for their birthday-I HATE YOU

Who Wears The Big Hat

Okay I am going to get all feminist on you, so if you can’t handle it as CD says, get out of the room and don’t send me letters. I love it when he does that. Anyway I’ve been thinking about Emily’s poet Laureate statement, along with Carolyn Forché’ never being named poet Laureate of the United States, I believe Lucille Clifton hasn’t either.

If you think about the fact that she IS THE ONLY POET IN HISTORY to have written two books in the same year to be nominated for a Pulitzer that is a pretty astounding fact. What does a girl need to do?

I know a poet laureate fairly well, enough so that if he called me up for dinner I would go and though I like him, I would say he is more then an entertainer than anything else. Not that he is a bad poet but there are certain people who consider poetry their religion and other ppl. who consider it their job and there begins a whole other debate but that's not what I want to talk about today.

In my ideal world which I live in quite a bit, I find it incredibly wrong that people like Clifton may die without ever receiving Poet Pope. Hell with character, it would bother the beejus out of me if I had done the things both her and Carolyn have done and been left out of the loop.

So the question for today is WHY? Do you think it is because they are women? Political poets? Or because they just don’t go after it and play the game?

i know some of you have seen these before but I am trying to find the right one 

for those of you who have a $100 and a Levine fetish this was in my email box this morning.

(There are still a few spaces remaining for this very special benefit
reading by Phil Levine. If interested, please contact Terry Ehret asap.)

Dear Literary Folk,
As most of you know, back in 1999, I co-founded Sixteen Rivers Press
with several other Bay Area Poets. We're a collective publishing outfit
(meaning no one makes any money, but we make beautiful books!), and
we have recently become a non-profit venture as well.

On the evening of April 7, 2005, we will be hosting a benefit reading with
Phil Levine. This will be held in a private home overlooking Sausalito. It
will give 40 people an opportunity to meet Levine in a champagne
reception, and to hear him read from his newest collection, Breath. It's
pricey ($100), so I know many of you won't be able to consider this, but
since the seating will be so limited, I wanted to give any of you Phil Levine
fans first crack at the opportunity.

If any of you are interested, please contact me at my home e-mail
(tehret99@comcast.net), and I will make sure you get an invitation mailed
to you.

Good Things To Read On The Web

Stephen Dobyns’s interview at Cortland (I hear their new poetry editor is hot)
http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/26/stephen_dobyns_interview.html

and Illya Kaminsky’s discussion about arrogance and Wright’s work.
http://webdelsol.com/WDSRB/WDSRBKaminsky.htm

Mr. Kaminsky is my favorite young poet hands down and if you haven't read his book Dancing In Odessa well that is just wrong.

oh and the Burnside interview with Dorriane Laux was damn good but I think that is just in print.

Theory
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I always believed vertigo
was a place and not a state of falling
so when you came in the slip, sliding way
to my bed. I was not afraid
though I suppose fear enters.
Isn’t sanity half the quotation for love?
E=mc squared and what follows is light or chaos.
I want to name you vertigo, angle, something solid
like square. Feeling is abstract, yet when you enter
emptiness are you there? And did not Plato
speak of shadows, is it crazy to believe
what you read with your tongue on the inside
of my cave is word. Y=X if the X is constant
yet Y will never equal the sum A.
It is not part of the equation.

okay so pick a photo below and let me know which one I should donate to the art gala on Saturday. I am on the board to host this big party to raise money so kids can make art, ohhh the woes of the public school system. Don’t get me started and I need to figure out what I am donating.

Odd fact, David Mura’s children go to the same school as my girls. Another not so odd fact, when are kids were in the same class together last year and I told him I was a poet he looked at me like I had gum on my shoe.

please dear lord, let me and rebecca loudon have a better horoscope this week. I can't keep hugging chaos

hmmmm...I suppose I could donate all three but then I have to get the bloody things framed. 

or this one 

okay I need to pick one of photos for the art gala on saturday, which one should I pick, this one? 

Getting old

It was a beautiful spring day here but I heard it was going to snow this week so it will be short lived. I have pussy willows popping out, don’t you love that word? I am sure the other flowers will follow suit. This will be the first spring of my whole life without a lilac tree. I have never lived anywhere, where there was not one in yard. Ours was killed last fall by the freak accident of a lover trying to help “clean” the yard and my beautiful lilacs are gone. I suppose I will turn into one of those old ladies by the high way with scissors and a jar. It is a sad fate when you are not even forty yet.

I’ve always been told I would a fabulous old lady. I think that is the polite way to say, you are incredibly eccentric and eventually that will be a good thing. Anyway bring it on, I need some wisdom in my life. Please don’t let me just get old and stupid.

person at the window 

My first lover was a pianist
now he is bald,
a truck driver, married
to a woman with my hair.

He was never allowed to date
his parents would drive us to church
while his fingers fell into my body

and before the first hymn
lifting a hand to his mouth,

he’d look over the congregation
a god beginning to play.

For three years he found
the small parts of my desire
hidden, as I stood silent

in worship, a Mary
with all the dead angels at her feet.

And no one ever knew
we were lovers. Even today
while giving a list of names
I do not say his.

But his mother once told me
when I was seven
sliding around in my chair
during the part in Revelations

when Jesus comes again
that I would never find love
because I was one of those girls

who never understood
the word sit.

want

Okay so the two questions I was asked last night (in between martinis) were

1) Do you think blogging helps your life as a poet?
2) If you could regain one thing in your writing life you believe you’ve lost what would it be?

Well I have no idea if blogging helps me, sometimes I think it does, sometimes I don’t. At times I believe if I was more serious I would just write all the time. But I really wanted a more in depth writing community and I think I have found it here with blogging. It does help to see other people going through the same woes and having the same questions. Still, I use it sometimes to avoid what I need to get done.

The second question is easier to answer and even though I bitch about it, I miss my arrogance, when I first started writing I believed I could change the world. Maybe everyone believes this, I don’t know. I have only been me. But even as a little girl I wanted to be the writer in my generation.

For example, the first time I had my palm read the woman did several double takes and said you will affect countless people and I didn’t even flinch, I was like well I KNOW that now explain who I am going to date. lol

But somehow I think I’ve lost that sense of knowing and it is the thing I miss most. Now I see the amazing writing of other people. I don’t feel like anything I say is new or different and I have to constantly remind myself of my own truth. And I think those countless people may not be my readers at all but the children I stand in front of everyday and say you are an artist, you can do anything.

I’m not knocking that vocation, I love my job but it is not all I want. I want so much more.

The two poets I would have slept with just because they had brilliant minds are Anne Sexton and Paul Celan. Yes I know, deeply wounded people but amazing and there is something drastically different about wounded people verses screwed up people. I would say Sexton and Celan are like two sticks broken in half and well screwed up people are just, well screwed up. And hell that is not sexy.

But this:

Whichever stone you lift—
you lay bare
those you need the protection of stones:
naked,
now they renew their entwinement.

Whichever tree you fell—
you frame
the bedstand where
souls are stayed once again,
as if this aeon too
did not
tremble.

Whichever word you speak—
you owe to
destruction.

yep, that does it for me. Plus I am listening to the tape Anne Sexton Reads and I have to tell you, I adore her.

The Ten Poems That Define Me

drum roll please

The Unbosoming by Olena Kalytiak Davis
Which Ever Stone You Lift by Paul Celan
Homage to My Hips Lucille Clifton
Alberto Rojas Jimenez Come Flying by Pablo Neruda
Manifesto by Margot Schilipp
Her Kind by Anne Sexton
I Belong There by Mahmoud Darwish
Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith
The Colonel by Carolyn Forché
Variations of Sleep by Margaret Atwood

chaos

I am suffering from submission woes which don’t seem to have a cure except publication. I sent off three batches of poems today, one journal I’ve submitted to three times. The please, dear god take me did not make it into the cover letter but almost.

My problem, besides no desk of my own and 130 boxes of girls scout cookies sitting in my living room, is that I am at the difficult place of “stuck”.

The bigger print journals I need to get into I am “close” to getting into i.e. hand written notes, we fought about this poem at staff meeting yaddaaa ya but at last NO. And it would seem for sanity sake I would forget about them and concentrate on the more “lovely” smaller journals that at this moment I would say have better taste. I don’t know. Maybe because I am nuts…

Okay so my horoscope says to accept chaos and that if I do that, I will find god. WHATEVER. Personally I would like a cabin in the woods, several bottle of Merlot and a good type writer then we will see what deities show up.

This would be me not trusting chaos

Okay somebody tell me how the HELL to get my blog off google so that every editor I submit to when looking up my work will not see my bitchen and whinning.

The moment you come to trust chaos, you see God clearly. Chaos is divine order, versus human order. Change is divine order, versus human order. When the chaos becomes safety to you, then you know you're seeing God clearly.

gockel 

So I still need to figure out how to put another color on the side so I don’t blind poor Rebecca with all this green. Green use to show up in my poetry a lot and now it is deer, deer are everywhere. At least I am through my stone phase but I am still waiting for something original to show up, oh to have an original thought.

I had a good conversation this week with one of the people from gray wolf press. I think I am going to send my manuscript there. It is funny how all your ideas about a book change; when I first began all I thought about was Yale. I did not see anything else and than it began to include a couple others. Still Yale for me will be a hard thing to give up.

I am preparing myself to hear from them at anytime rejecting the manuscript because I think I have about as much chance of being chosen as wings sprouting from my back, still the Vodka is waiting in the fridge.

Right now I just want to concentrate on my work and not worry about publication. I want the joy to come back and I think I have been thinking too much about how to get things done. Oh the balance…

The speaker of the word
and the hearer of the word
and the words themselves—
all three become spirit in the end.

-Mathnawi [VI, 72]

From Jewels of Remembrance, by Rumi

oh glorious green 

Mercy

Good god I have so much to do today and all I WANT to do is finish Mercy by Lucille Clifton. I love her. I grew up with a poet grandfather who had me reading Emily and Longfellow while other girls where learning how to put on make up. I will never forget in high school reading Clifton for the first time and realizing there was a whole other world of poetry.

And by the way I have never been forgiven for leaving form behind, my grandfather is 87 years old and tells me every time I see him that I am not really a poet because I can’t write a sonnet worth a damn. It goes something like you people think this crap you write is poetry….

Anyway a lot of money has gone into therapy because of this man and I am not even diving into my knee jerk reaction about rhyme. The thing is I could win a Pulitzer and he would still be saying this stuff.

Oh well my plea for today is for everyone to go read the next issue of Pleiades, especially page 32 and drink a glass of wine with me. I love the journal, I like my poem…those two things don’t always happen.

clapping with joy by price 

Reading Part II

The Reading went well. I used up almost all of my time—I had two minutes to spare which is damn good for me. I talked a bit, tried the small talk thing. It helped a great deal to have the discussion here on the blog beforehand, it made me feel more comfortable.

I hated the space tonight and it was a full house like maybe 60 to 70 people. The best thing about the reading was the food afterwards. What is it about food after ten o’clock at night? It tastes so good. And I had good friends show up so we laughed and then oddly, someone came up to the table and asked me for my autograph which has NEVER happened before. I was so freaked out by it all I almost spelt my name wrong. My best friend said she had a vision tonight of me signing my book. I don’t know if I will ever feel that comfortable.

Oh and another funny thing was, the woman who wanted me to sign her chapbook said, oh and it would be nice if you wrote something and I thinking, what the hell. So not only did I almost write my name incorrectly I wrote something lame like nice to eat with you.

Among Men by Jason Shinder

Even at the moment
of kissing a girl
because

I was a boy--
there was always
another boy

looking to see
how long
I could place

my lips
on her lips
without stopping

without ever knowing
I was kissing
And then

what to tell the guys
coming out
of their coats,

asking, How'd it go?
Meaning:
did I get any?

Why don't you
just get laid?
my father said.

moon by Gockel 

bad hair

Okay so my confession is I have never, ever watched American Idol until last night. It was only because all these all poets were making a fuss and I felt a bit left out that I turned it on in the first place. And now because my life travels in circles I had my hair cut today and I look like that young Italian guy with curly shoulder length hair, which would be okay EXCEPT I AM NOT A BOY!!!! This is not good. Now do I not only have 30 min. to fill at the reading but I have really bad boy hair.

Oh and the hairstylist was horrific, she cut herself three times and was bleeding on my head then she ended our time together by BLOWIN IN MY EAR which I just have say, if she was trying to pick me up, maybe making me look like the geek from American Idol who almost got kicked off last night was not the way to go.

sun 

Get Out

If you are in my blog get out and go read C.Dale Young’s post for the day. www.avoidmuse.blogspot.com He has brilliant advice about publishing and how to deal with rejection. Now if anyone would answer my question about the best time to send submissions. Does the time of year make a difference? It seems I get into more journals in Winter verses the Spring or Fall. What is up with that? It is possible that the gas fumes from being inside during a Minnesota Winter make me a better writer but I would like to hope it has something to do with the journals.

my roadtrip 

weekend

This weekend will be the weekend from hell. A lot of good things are happening but they all seem to be happening at the same time. Saturday I am teaching two workshops on Creativity & Children for The Rainbow Family Conference (it is an amazing conference) and that night I have my reading and the next day my best friend gets married, now if you throw in a kids birthday party that Bella just has to go to, you have my weekend.

The really sucky thing about having a busy weekend is that you spend all week getting really stressed out about it and I can’t change any of the above things. Now to take a deep breath and figure out what I am wearing.

Today in the mail I received my copy of the Comstock Review with my poem “Speak” in it; I have been a finalist three years in a row for their poetry competition always a bridesmaid never a bride.

Anyway I got over it because the galleys for Pleiades came in and my poem is on page 31. It has been a year and two weeks from the time the poem was accepted till now and it will be in the next issue. I really like Pleiades and I plan to break out a good bottle of wine.

Essential Crap

When I was a little girl I would go into the Public Library of Sarah Orne Jewitt house and sit in that small room and feel overwhelmed by all the books there were to read. In my child’s mind it held all the books in the world and the first time I step inside a “real” library I was depressed for days because I knew I could never read all those books in my lifetime. I love knowledge; to me the mind is the sexiest part of the body.

Today I am feeling overwhelmed by all the things I need to read and not enough time to do it. It’s rather irritating how making a living cuts into my poetry life but I suppose that is the way of all artists.

There has been a bit of talk in blog land lately about what I call “essential crap” the poems we need to write to get to the other poems we need to write. Rebecca Loudon said Each poem insists, each poem carries the seeds of the next poem in its mouth. and I think that was the most brilliant comment I’ve read in a long time.

When I stop judging my work as good or bad I opened it up to another possibility. I know this about Art. I know that the artist who is afraid/ judgmental tends to never make great art and the one who throws himself/herself into this a place without judgment has no limitations.

Career Day

Today for career day my daughter gave a presentation on being a potter. She followed three nurses, a doctor, two mechanics and a vet. I really love my kids. She spoke about what a wonderful job it would be to have when you grow up because you can get really, really messy and no one tells you to wash your hands. And you get make anything you want out of mud, she then showed her mud balls to the class. It’s pretty safe to say she was a first grade hit. Sadly there were no poets....

Oh books, beautiful books

There’s not much I would not do for books. I am horribly addicted and honestly it is one of the few things my love and I fight about. I am an addict. I buy them secretly, hide them in my car and I have way too many I’ve not read. But I know what it is like to grow up not having “your own” books and living in Haiti where all you can find in English are Bibles, for a pagan I’ve spent way too much time in the Old Testament.

Anyway in my fight yesterday the word glutton was used and I can live with that. I think I have enough poetry now to read till the next ice age and it’s possible that once I start reviewing books I won’t love them as much. It could happen—that’s the statement that ended the fight so I am sticking to it:)

For The Birds at the Chinese Market Who Sing When the Lid is Open

I envy you the darkness
the four heads of your brothers
a quartet of voices silent with waiting
and I envy you the child’s hand
the way it flutters there
with indecision how he decides the lid
must go and I envy you the song
filling the boy with wonder
He calls to his friends to explore
and then the lids returns, each song
stops begins again and the boy
plays this game of rhythm
and there is no reason.
Yet you sing when the box
is open and I envy you
the dark.

Practice

I've been thinking a lot about what essential poems are for me in my life. The things I need to write, what I feel turns over and over in me. It isn’t always what turns out well, in fact it sometimes seems like those poems are the ones I never feel I do well. They are “too big” to tell. Dorrianne said to always try to put on paper the poems that are too much, those are words which challenge us to keep our work fresh.

Bella Waring said, when you write a poem for its own sake, this is a holy practice that, once you start to publish, you are in danger of losing.

I’ve been thinking too much about the book, my next steps in writing and I’ve forgotten the holy practice of poetry.

Isabel's First Grade Spelling Test

Am I the only one who likes her words better?:)

1. Sope =soap
2. Rore =roar
3. Bote =boat
4. Lofe =loaf
5. Gole =goal
6. Wode =road
7. Koste =coast

yep 

Reading

The Reading went well except that now I’m tired and my voice hurts which hardly ever happens to me. It was nice to see Steve Mueske there—he is such a nice guy even though I forgot the book I’ve been promising him.

I get a bit wound up before I read and I am naturally dizzy so I tend to forget things. I didn’t read enough poems. I have a whole 30 minutes to read next week and my friend told me tonight I need to make small talk. I hate small talk. I want to go through the poems and not explain. I figure if you are explaining, the poem already doesn’t work. But of course, that is not what she means, she wants me to tell cute stories but I am DARK…I have no cute stories.

The ironic thing is I am funny in real life but not in my writing. It is like I store up all the deep things I think about and put them all down so maybe it's hard for her to see another side me. Whatever the case, there is still 30 minutes to burn next week and that is a hell of a lot of poem unless I talk in between. Maybe I will sing, I could always sing, that ought to clear the room.

Dark Blonde by Belle Waring

IT WAS MY FIRST NURSING JOB

and I was stupid in it. I thought a doctor would not be unkind.
One wouldn’t wait for a laboring woman to dilate to ten cm.

He’d brace one hand up his patient’s vagina,
clamp the other on her pregnant belly, and force the fetus

through an eight centimeter cervix.
She tore, of course. Bled.

Stellate lacerations extend from the cervix
like an asterisk. The staff nurses stormed and hissed

but the head nurse shrugged, He doesn’t like to wait around.
No other doctor witnessed what he did. The man was an elder

in his church. He chattered and smiled broadly as he worked.
He wore the biggest gloves we could stock.

It was my first real job and I was scared in it.
One night a patient of his was admitted

bleeding. The charge nurse said, He won’t rip her.
You take this one.

So I took her.
She quickly delivered a dead baby boy.

Not long dead—you could tell by the skin, intact.
But long enough.

When I wrapped him a blanket, the doctor flipped open the cover
to let the mother view the body, according to the custom.

The baby lay beside her.
He lay stretched out and still.

What a pity, the doctor said.
He seized the baby’s penis between his own forefinger and thumb.

It was the first time I had ever seen a male not circumcised
and I was taken aback by the beauty of it.

Look, said the doctor, A little boy. Just what we wanted.
His hand, huge on the child, held the penis as if he’d found

a lovecharm hidden in his grandmother’s linen.
And then he dropped it.

The mother didn’t make a sound
When the doctor left, she said to me in a far flat voice.

I called and told him I was bleeding bad.
He told me not to worry.

I don’t remember what I said, Just that
When I escorted her husband from the lobby

The doctor had already gone home. The new father followed me
with a joyful strut. I thought Sweet Jesus Christ

—Did the doctor speak to you?
—No ma’am, the father said.

I said quick-as-I-could-so-I wouldn’t-have-to-think—
The baby didn’t make it.

The man doubled over. I told him all wrong.
I would do it all over again.

Say—
Please, sir. Sit down. I’m so very sorry to tell you—

No. It’s been sixteen years.
I would say, I am your witness.

No. I have never told the whole truth.
Forgive me.

It was my first job
And I was lost in it.

-Belle Waring

Brilliant Post

Charles Jensen has an amazing post www.dreaminsidetherapy.blogspot.com

Yes I Accept

Today I felt horrid so I called in sick. I find the older I get the less I want to push my body or I find that when I do “push” my body it breaks. I began my official role as editor today and spent a few hours doing submissions. I am reading the stuff that already has been gone through so it has not been painful at all. It is teaches me a lot about my own submissions and lord love the people who know how to write a good cover letter, those ones that go on and on do not built you up for a good poem.

Today helped me understand those “near miss letters” which I bitched about a few weeks ago. The fact is, I am one of several people who need to accept a poem before it goes to print. I found one poem out of about 20 that I loved but the other have to love it too or at least like it a great deal. So okay, I am growing up a little, it was actually kind for those editors to write to me and tell me my poems were thrown around at the staff meeting because that means someone (god loved ‘em) wanted my work and was willing to fight for it.

Heart

At first she believed in the phantom heart
something that beat outside of herself
slowly, the way one watched birds
from a window, feeling the air
but there was no movement inside
her room and suddenly
it was there, a heart's thump
and her only desire was to open it.
A lid to a box, look inside
follow the right ventricle to an aorta
bring it to her mouth, a red wafer
so she would be forgiven. For what
she did not know, but she must be
forgiven. All her life calling the slow tick
then the tock. It was not a lost leg
or an arm she mourned nor the absent flesh
but this loss was more of a hum,
constant buzz of never reaching
far enough into herself finding
one place where a heart could live.

Good Mail

I worked on the manuscript for five hours today, now if I can get in the habit of doing this every week. It seems like I have two or three manuscripts going, I am always thinking of my next book which is an odd feeling considering I don’t have ONE yet.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion today that my writing life is very much like my real life. I am hardly ever satisfied. I don’t mean I’m not happy—I’m deliriously happy at some points but I always wonder what is around the corner, what the next thing is which is probably why it took me so long to find a good love but that’s another story.

In the mail today, good things; oh and I love my new mail man, he comes two hours earlier and he does not drop any of my mail in the yard. I’ve actually spent time in the past looking for the “pretend” acceptance letters which may or may not exist.

Anyway the Burnside Review came today and I am there along with Ms. Loudon, Paul Guest and Dorriane Laux. One of the cool things is that along with being in print with people I know, I have the poem I wrote while studying with Dorrianne. It was the first poem I wrote in class. The other thing is that they led with my two poems in the journal which is a nice surprise. I am hardly ever the first poem unless it’s alphabetical and all the A’s have been killed off. So I will take my present today and I will be content, at least for a moment.

Stolen from C.D borrowed from Suzanne, Charles and Laura

bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...


Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida/ Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C.

Have you ever had one of those days where it feels incredibly idiotic this notion of being a poet? I am in constant war with myself. I still feel incredibly sad about not going to Breadloaf because I will be teaching. When I was at the conference I felt so confident and tonight I spent the evening just trying to find the order of the book, for like the 100 time. A book that needs to go in the mail tomorrow, a book I want to be perfect but never will be. It feels foolish today to be a poet when I am so many other things without trying.

my day 

poor mommy

Today I attended a roller rink with 17 of Isabel’s closest friends for her 7 th birthday and if you haven’t been to a roller rink since the early 80’s not much has changed, not even the music. I haven’t seen grown people dancing to Queen in a very long time, the only thing that seems to be different is that things glow in the dark which if you are trying to keep track of 17 kids is very helpful.

It is days like today when I believe every inch of poetry in my body has been sucked out by strobe lightening. I think of those people with their desks, papers and books and I wonder if I will ever have time to write. I had to hide in the bathroom for 15 minutes to read Celan for sanity. Maybe I should try alcohol.

The poetry gods must be working extra hard this week. I received a phone call yesterday asking if I would consider coming on as a poetry editor for The Cortland Review. It is one of my favorite journals and I have been reading it for years and my thoughts are today that I will try it for three months and see how it works in with my writing. No matter how it all plays out, it was nice to be asked.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how editors shaped the face of poetry and how really good editors respond and work with writers and I guess the universe it answering my questions. Hopefully this will be a good experience and may I never write really horrible rejections letters.

Dobyns

For years he thought madness must be peaceful-a positive letting
go—and he looked forward to a time when he would no longer
need to hold on like a man hanging from a high branch. He even
thought it would restful, as if madness were an interior spa
where he could reclaim himself before rejoining the daily agitation.
As a result, he hadn’t expected the noise, the discord, like a radio
stuck between stations, a multitude of voices, each with advice, en-
treaties, commands, but hardly audible, just noise, static, no way
to bring it to a halt, and vexing him even as he slept. Now he knew
that if he found his way back, he would work harder, be reliable.
Such were his promises, but the choice was no longer his to make.
It had become confused with the tumult, the racket, like a motor
rushing out of control, pistons rattling, metal fracturing, gobs of
oil flung off.

I am sooooo happy

Check out Suzanne Frischkorn great news www.litwindowpane.blogspot.com

Readings

I will be reading in St. Paul, Minnesota on February 17 at 7pm, email me if you want directions and I will also be reading in Northeast Minneapolis on 26th for the Looseleaf Poetry Festival.
For you in the Portland area Dorriane Laux just sent me an email and she will be reading February 16th at the Blue Monk (3341 SE Belmont, PDX). Drinks at 7. The Reading starts around 7:30. It is for the Winter issue of Burnside Review which I am also in as well as our very own Rebecca www.radishking.blogspot.com I am not sure if Rebecca is reading but I may have to skip my own to attend hers.

I am glad both are close together. Looseleaf is forty minutes and I have never read that long and I am more nervous about it. I am afraid I may have to break into my tap dance routine plus they are billing me as a Forché’ protégée—no pressure what so ever!!! Personally I think if everyone’s expectations are low they are all pleasantly surprised and one can only be a let down compared to Carolyn Forché’ and besides I am my own voice. My head is very twisted on this issue.

Have I mentioned I am reading The Monster Lives of Boys and Girls, by Eleni Sikelianos. I like it a great deal, the whole book is set up in a different way and it is about half the normal size in height and fits into your pocket. It reminded me of those bibles we had to carry around in middle school. It was in love at first sight. I have so many books to read, I am forgetting that I have one to write or shall we say rewrite. A sad, sad truth.

Good Mail

Okay so I am sick of this black background and I tried to change it and I made the entire links tidy bowl blue. Oh well I will try again later.

Great things came in the mail today, my new issue of Poetry and it had two poems by Sharon Olds that she read at the conference. It is really wonderful to hear a poem out loud before it goes to print; there is something beautiful in that for me. And I spend my last Christmas gift card and got the soundtrack from Garden State, The Monster Lives of Boys and Girls and Out of Silence by Rukeyser. I have wanted that book for a long time.

Sadly I am still looking for the Orchard, yes my children hide things that well or someone put it away in an odd spot. I of course bear no responsibility to the fact that it has gone missing. But please have mercy on my soul and stop telling me what a good book it is. I know it is in this house somewhere.

I suppose I could break down and buy another one but I am infamous at our Barnes and Noble for returning books I don’t like. I frighten them, especially when they tell me something is out of print, like Carolyn Forche’s Blue Hour which is what, two years old? Yes, I know I get this weird passionate look on my face that the general public doesn’t understand even at Barnes and Noble. Now be a good lad and point me away from women’s fiction.

I’m off to read my treasures. My daughter has me signed me up for a bonding experience with 23 other 10 year olds tomorrow so this may be the only time I see in days.

Helpuful Hint #352

Patty Smith used had these great folders at the conference, she put all her poems in sheet protectors and then she could put her work in order for the reading without having all those loose pages. I really love this idea and it has been very helpful in putting the manuscript together b/c I can change the order and it already looks like a book which helps my brain immensely.

Eduardo Corral in one of his previous posts suggested taping the pages to the walls, and I did try it but my girls took that as a free for all and it took me weeks to get the tape marks off so I am sticking with my sheet protectors.

She is studying the place where flies
have gathered to lay their eggs, eyes sinking
into the belly of a fish. She’s investigating
life with the point of her stick, one small flick
and the universe is over. The trout returns
to the pond belly up, floats, turns
and now is a boat to be guided
by six year old currents. When done
she’ll gather the flat stones from the shore
bury then unbury the dead, look for signs
of movement or change. It does not matter
that everything is dying. Last week
two wings beat in her hand then
stopped. She does not know
that the round song of her body
will straighten. All around
the world is open like a cut.

hunger

I feel very boring lately. I am sure a hangover does this to a girl but I think I felt boring before the martinis last night. I believe in waves but I miss the hunger to get everything down on paper. I like hunger.

Pollock’s writings on painting are amazing. It is always interests me how someone can be so fearless in one area and so fearful in another, that someone being brilliant does not cut across the board. It is almost as if he used it all up on his art, his risk taking and it left him mad and broken.

I use to believe I would give up anything to be a great artist but then I found out sanity was underrated. And I don’t believe you need to suffer to reach the core of creativity.
I say I believe that, but I do have this small voice that says the hunger is gone because I am happy. I am in love, my girls are doing well. Is it possible to have all that and hunger????

Oh the pretty drinks...

Well I went to my best friend’s bachelorette party tonight. You can tell we are getting old—I’m home before one and I can actually type. She is getting married the day after my reading on the 24th of this month. I was totally freaked out when I saw the invitation because I thought it was the day of my reading. Of course I would be at her wedding but everything had gone to press for the posters and such. I would have really needed to come up with some kick ass excuse.

There is so much to write about right now and I am not sure if I should say anything out loud. It is possible I will be leaving next month to meet C.K Williams, Robert Bly and Heath McHugh when they read for an invent my friend is putting together. She invited me to stay with her and “hang out” with them. I am not sure what I am going to do. It really feels unfair to my family to pack up for another trip but it also feels stupid not to go. I am tossing all this around in my head.

Oh well I really need to get off my ass and work on this book. I haven’t had a rush of poems sine the plane ride home and then I lost them all because my computer was out of reach. I will make time for myself to write this weekend. I will (she says clicking her feet together.)

now imagine this a million times bigger 

Pollock

"When I am in a painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc, because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well."

I read this quote by Jackson Pollock to my students today and halfway through I realized I needed to substitute painting for the word poetry. When I remember this about poetry, that there is nothing I can do to destroy it, when I let it have its own life force, it is amazing.

At the conference we were talking about, at small group time, why we were there and I found myself saying the most truthful thing. Poetry is who I love. I love writing the same way I love my children. It does not matter if they are good. It doesn’t even matter if they love me back. It is this thing that rises up inside I cannot explain and lately I am realizing I don’t have to.

Bitter Tea

Well it is official the last positive energy from my time in Florida left my body today. It is amazing how quickly two children and two cats can drain it out of you. I don’t even remember what it felt like to wake up in a bed without elbows under my chin. And I am seriously depressed about it. None of my goals are met, the dishes aren’t done and I think my youngest child smells funny even though I’ve bathed her several times.

The bad thing about reading other people blogs is that you get to see how much free time everyone else has to write. The "I am drinking red wine and writing a poem" is making me sucidal so I need to stop reading blogs tonight. Well poetry is not happening in this house at the moment and I think I may be bitter, yep I’m bitter. I need tea and some more sleep.