silence
Sunday, January 30, 2005
sunday
Identity is an odd little beast. I have been reading a lot on other blogs about how people identify themselves. I’ve been thinking about growing up in my very “white” town in Maine and how in every society there tends to be a need to classify people. I was 12 when I was told not to date the “French” boys.
I also think about this a lot as a parent. Both my daughters go to an international peace school and I can honestly say that none of their friends come close to looking alike. We live on a street made up of a lot of same sex partners (most have children) and it is openly discussed at the dinner table the different ways to think, love and live.
When I read other people’s blog about the racism they have encountered I realize I live in a bubble. Well in some ways.
What’s interesting to me is that in writing I have felt this same boxed in feeling. I have been told more times than not, what a poet is suppose to be and what a poet with two children is supposed to look like. When I received one of my first poetry awards, with a poem I had written about living in Haiti, I was told they would rather I did not “read” the poem out loud because I turned out to be white yet I could to keep the $100.00 check.
And I wonder if what ever feels the most freeing to a person (gender, sexuality, love) are the things that society at large tries to control because there is nothing more frightening than freedom.
http://www.jubilat.org/n8/colburn.html
I also think about this a lot as a parent. Both my daughters go to an international peace school and I can honestly say that none of their friends come close to looking alike. We live on a street made up of a lot of same sex partners (most have children) and it is openly discussed at the dinner table the different ways to think, love and live.
When I read other people’s blog about the racism they have encountered I realize I live in a bubble. Well in some ways.
What’s interesting to me is that in writing I have felt this same boxed in feeling. I have been told more times than not, what a poet is suppose to be and what a poet with two children is supposed to look like. When I received one of my first poetry awards, with a poem I had written about living in Haiti, I was told they would rather I did not “read” the poem out loud because I turned out to be white yet I could to keep the $100.00 check.
And I wonder if what ever feels the most freeing to a person (gender, sexuality, love) are the things that society at large tries to control because there is nothing more frightening than freedom.
http://www.jubilat.org/n8/colburn.html
Saturday, January 29, 2005
List
My love is driving cross county to visit family so I have more free time and a much colder bed. My goals for week are:
find the lost copy of the Orchard hiding somewhere in my house
buy those cool poem slip covers Patty Smith had for her book
do all the work I made notes for at the conference
secretly order more books
write my next book review
send the manuscript to three more places
get the poems in order for the two readings in February
submit to the anthology that B.C wanted me to submit to
Yes my friends I am a busy girl. It is hard to believe that a week ago at this exact moment I was sitting across the table from Billy Collins and Thomas Lux sipping a martini.
find the lost copy of the Orchard hiding somewhere in my house
buy those cool poem slip covers Patty Smith had for her book
do all the work I made notes for at the conference
secretly order more books
write my next book review
send the manuscript to three more places
get the poems in order for the two readings in February
submit to the anthology that B.C wanted me to submit to
Yes my friends I am a busy girl. It is hard to believe that a week ago at this exact moment I was sitting across the table from Billy Collins and Thomas Lux sipping a martini.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Homework
One of Billy’s assignments was to write down twenty “I” statements of what you did during a day. Here are mine from the conference
I laughed
I never apologized
I missed my children once
I lied about missing my children once
I opened my hands
I told myself I was a door, then a jar
I wondered about the right way
I stopped trying to be funny
I was funny
I drank beautiful things
I fingered a lime
I talked about high heels
I saw my daughter in the face of an old woman
I felt the need to protect
I walked away
I tucked grass in my pocket
I slept with my eyes open
I got lost
I was late
I found my way
I laughed
I never apologized
I missed my children once
I lied about missing my children once
I opened my hands
I told myself I was a door, then a jar
I wondered about the right way
I stopped trying to be funny
I was funny
I drank beautiful things
I fingered a lime
I talked about high heels
I saw my daughter in the face of an old woman
I felt the need to protect
I walked away
I tucked grass in my pocket
I slept with my eyes open
I got lost
I was late
I found my way
First Book
To go along with what I posted before, I actually went back to my notes from the conference. You must understand I was staying up till 3am with certain people who were speaking so my whole mind could be warped. It is easier to listen to people you don’t know well but here are some of my notes on the first book manuscript workshop…
-you need urgency of subject matter
-fresh language
-original poems and subject matter
-submit to journals
-build a mailing list, most editors won’t invest in a book without readership
-give yourself a good 20 to 30 rejections per poem (I am so bad at this)
-submit to publishers whose books you admire
-look for favorite authors w/the same publishers
-attend conferences like AWP, Breadloaf, etc.
To go along with what I posted before, I actually went back to my notes from the conference. You must understand I was staying up till 3am with certain people who were speaking so my whole mind could be warped. It is easier to listen to people you don’t know well but here are some of my notes on the first book manuscript workshop…
-you need urgency of subject matter
-fresh language
-original poems and subject matter
-submit to journals
-build a mailing list, most editors won’t invest in a book without readership
-give yourself a good 20 to 30 rejections per poem (I am so bad at this)
-submit to publishers whose books you admire
-look for favorite authors w/the same publishers
-attend conferences like AWP, Breadloaf, etc.
Sharon
I was impressed a great deal with Sharon Olds. She talked about writing hundreds of poems that she doesn’t show to anybody, she said she is continually writing. She was totally different in person than who I expected her to be. The media portrays her as this over the top woman who continually talks about her abuse and that is not all how she is in real life.
Sharon is very calm, kind, and you can tell she would be doing exactly what she is doing even if she had no recognition. She would be the woman writing, creating poems in her basement, going to schools and teaching children about literature.
Poetry is her first love. I am drawn to poets like that. I know it sounds incredibly corny but words do feel like this god we all serve and there are people who serve it for different reasons. I was impressed by her love for poetry. She is a very interesting human….
Sharon is very calm, kind, and you can tell she would be doing exactly what she is doing even if she had no recognition. She would be the woman writing, creating poems in her basement, going to schools and teaching children about literature.
Poetry is her first love. I am drawn to poets like that. I know it sounds incredibly corny but words do feel like this god we all serve and there are people who serve it for different reasons. I was impressed by her love for poetry. She is a very interesting human….
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
One of the best workshops at the conference was the first book workshop where Nickole from Sarabande went through exactly what their editors look for in a first book manuscript…that my friend was worth the price of admission.
*put your strongest poems first, by the third poem they know which pile it goes in.
* build your readership, they look for writers who have a strong following
*worry less about the flow and more about the strength in the first half
*a top heavy book can be fixed before it goes to print
*develop an email list of ppl who would buy your book
* and if you have a friend who has published a book that did well have him/or her show your manuscript to their publisher/editor and get it out of the contest circle.
Okay that last one was given to me when we were at the bar so I don’t know if that was more personal advice. I use to be believed to be a successful poet I had to win some big title. I don’t think that anymore. I have more possibilities for my book than before. Did I mention it was a great conference?
*put your strongest poems first, by the third poem they know which pile it goes in.
* build your readership, they look for writers who have a strong following
*worry less about the flow and more about the strength in the first half
*a top heavy book can be fixed before it goes to print
*develop an email list of ppl who would buy your book
* and if you have a friend who has published a book that did well have him/or her show your manuscript to their publisher/editor and get it out of the contest circle.
Okay that last one was given to me when we were at the bar so I don’t know if that was more personal advice. I use to be believed to be a successful poet I had to win some big title. I don’t think that anymore. I have more possibilities for my book than before. Did I mention it was a great conference?
Honey I'm Home....
Well I went from 75 to 25 degrees in only three hours. It is so sad to live in Minnesota. The conference went extremely well, better than I could have imagine in fact I don’t believe I could of thought up some of things that happened. It is good to be home and I will try to post some photos tomorrow.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
News Flash: you make more money doing workshops than going to them. It seems I will not be able to attend Breadloaf at all because I’ve been asked to teach two workshops in August, the exact same time Breadloaf is. I struggled with it for a few days and then realized that one week teaching pays for my mortgage. The struggle was short lived.
Oh well. If anyone knows of a good conference in June, let me know. I am tired of talking about Florida so I won’t bore you. It seems the reading I am doing in February is for twenty minutes and they are sending me postcards to send to all my friends, twenty of them. Do I have that many friends? Should I feel bad, if I don't?
I also have to answer this question What poetry book published in the last twenty years do you keep returning to? Well hell, I return to a lot of books but for different reasons, it is really hard to pick just one. Any suggestions…
Oh well. If anyone knows of a good conference in June, let me know. I am tired of talking about Florida so I won’t bore you. It seems the reading I am doing in February is for twenty minutes and they are sending me postcards to send to all my friends, twenty of them. Do I have that many friends? Should I feel bad, if I don't?
I also have to answer this question What poetry book published in the last twenty years do you keep returning to? Well hell, I return to a lot of books but for different reasons, it is really hard to pick just one. Any suggestions…
Sunday, January 16, 2005
2 out of 3
Okay I am posting two of the three for billy, I am still looking for the other one. Let me know what you think though I may delete this post in a few days.
While Watching Russian Films
Silos are waking in the sun
and the mother is pouring wine to the boys
watering it down with rainwater and you’ll never know
what is in the blue box drowning
with the father, waves first covering his fingers
then his wrists and it would be wonderful to die
like this, slowly. Children running on a beach
calling papa, papa and everything is more
than beautiful, it is lonely--
a boy’s cut lip, black hair slipping
deeper and deeper. The body grows
at the bottom of a river. Camera goes black
then to the mother
pouring wine and now you know
everything. It is simple to die.
To show dying. Do it slowly
like filling a cup.
Women are beautiful
or ugly and even the houses are sad
flooding the screen then disappearing to white.
And you want to be cold, to have love
even though your tongue would be blue
but truth does not matter, it’s obsolete
and here’s a quality you admire.
Generally there is no sex
but violins mate as if underwater
and these hums are lullabies for the fish
in plastic bags, breathing in, out.
Yet you always return to the silos.
----------------------
Hide
Deer wandered in my father’s store
on the backs of men; their tongues hanging
as hunters held their dripping heads
counted horns, unless it was a doe
then they’d stop, spread her legs, talk of tender meat
rest a tired hand on the inside of her thigh.
The first time I touched the fur of my body,
my fingers slipped easily into the folds.
I remembered the men, their dark coats, how a knife
removed the last bit of skin, sharp bend of bone.
Soon I would be hunted, the sweet smell
on my hands tracked and I would lie
like the doe, my eyes open
beautiful, almost life-like.
While Watching Russian Films
Silos are waking in the sun
and the mother is pouring wine to the boys
watering it down with rainwater and you’ll never know
what is in the blue box drowning
with the father, waves first covering his fingers
then his wrists and it would be wonderful to die
like this, slowly. Children running on a beach
calling papa, papa and everything is more
than beautiful, it is lonely--
a boy’s cut lip, black hair slipping
deeper and deeper. The body grows
at the bottom of a river. Camera goes black
then to the mother
pouring wine and now you know
everything. It is simple to die.
To show dying. Do it slowly
like filling a cup.
Women are beautiful
or ugly and even the houses are sad
flooding the screen then disappearing to white.
And you want to be cold, to have love
even though your tongue would be blue
but truth does not matter, it’s obsolete
and here’s a quality you admire.
Generally there is no sex
but violins mate as if underwater
and these hums are lullabies for the fish
in plastic bags, breathing in, out.
Yet you always return to the silos.
----------------------
Hide
Deer wandered in my father’s store
on the backs of men; their tongues hanging
as hunters held their dripping heads
counted horns, unless it was a doe
then they’d stop, spread her legs, talk of tender meat
rest a tired hand on the inside of her thigh.
The first time I touched the fur of my body,
my fingers slipped easily into the folds.
I remembered the men, their dark coats, how a knife
removed the last bit of skin, sharp bend of bone.
Soon I would be hunted, the sweet smell
on my hands tracked and I would lie
like the doe, my eyes open
beautiful, almost life-like.
Hard, Unmovable Body
When you are away
I move the bed closer to the wall
so your absence does not wake me.
I check, recheck
doors, children’s breathing, gather
the piles of our day
leave them on the floor.
In translation
Ana is lonely and Celan dying
but it does not matter,
books fall from the bed.
You will never return
unless of course you do, as promised.
Fear moves in my body
creeps to my bones like cold
and this knowledge of need,
the very need of you
straightens my back
against the wall till I sleep.
When you are away
I move the bed closer to the wall
so your absence does not wake me.
I check, recheck
doors, children’s breathing, gather
the piles of our day
leave them on the floor.
In translation
Ana is lonely and Celan dying
but it does not matter,
books fall from the bed.
You will never return
unless of course you do, as promised.
Fear moves in my body
creeps to my bones like cold
and this knowledge of need,
the very need of you
straightens my back
against the wall till I sleep.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Oh crap this is my horoscope...
LEO (July 23–Aug. 22): Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby is the best Hollywood movie of 2004, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. But Salon's Charles Taylor panned the film, calling it leaden and boring, "a compendium of every cliché from every bad boxing melodrama ever made." I suspect that you will get equally contradictory reviews for your life and work in the coming week, Leo. For instance, some people may regard you as a magician who has transformed rot into splendor, while others may think of you as a dabbler with too much self-esteem. Both are wrong. More importantly, their opinions, whether good or bad, shouldn't concern you. Be your own judge.
little voices
I like my little Billy, now if I could only get him to talk and tell me what poems to bring to the conference. Of course I am bringing my laptop which has everything I’ve ever written on it. I wonder if they will let me read by computer light.
Everybody keeps telling me to bring my “best” and I really wish I knew how to qualify that. Does that mean the poems I’ve placed or the ones I love, which may or may not be my most accomplished poems. But the poems say what I want them to say, they are well behaved poems. Oh btw, I don’t know which ones are my accomplished poems either.
And I wonder if I am the only one who has no fricken clue about her own writing? Am I the only one out there who has no idea what is her best? What makes strong work? Will it be strong enough?
I have never doubted myself as being a writer, it always has seemed the one thing I just was, but the closer I come to it, the more that little voice in side rises up and says maybe it isn’t so. Maybe, I will be sitting in a room and a women's voice will speak, her words will be sweet like Anne Sexton when she reads and that voice won’t be mine.
Everybody keeps telling me to bring my “best” and I really wish I knew how to qualify that. Does that mean the poems I’ve placed or the ones I love, which may or may not be my most accomplished poems. But the poems say what I want them to say, they are well behaved poems. Oh btw, I don’t know which ones are my accomplished poems either.
And I wonder if I am the only one who has no fricken clue about her own writing? Am I the only one out there who has no idea what is her best? What makes strong work? Will it be strong enough?
I have never doubted myself as being a writer, it always has seemed the one thing I just was, but the closer I come to it, the more that little voice in side rises up and says maybe it isn’t so. Maybe, I will be sitting in a room and a women's voice will speak, her words will be sweet like Anne Sexton when she reads and that voice won’t be mine.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Little Billy Collins
Seven days to Florida!!! Personally I think I should have a little Billy Collins head on the side bar counting down the days till the conference. Oh the things I would do if I was brilliant.
Today the State Of Minnesota called a wind chill advisory because (and I am not lying) it is suppose to get 40 below zero by morning. Seven days, seven days….They’re also said they might cancel school but of course no one is canceling my work. I think my children will be just as warm in a classroom verses driving me absolutely nuts. Okay there is probably more heat expelled driving me crazy but it is a close call.
Today was a full day. I ate sushi. I went to the dentist. I picked up my new reading glasses for the conference and my lover said I looked like a CAT, and cat is not said here in a positive tone. There was also a debate at lunch with our sushi chef about whether I now look part Chinese or not. I am not kidding you!!!!!!
Anyway it is pretty safe to say nobody is getting lucky in our house tonight and I don’t care how bloody cold it is. I like my new glasses….
Today the State Of Minnesota called a wind chill advisory because (and I am not lying) it is suppose to get 40 below zero by morning. Seven days, seven days….They’re also said they might cancel school but of course no one is canceling my work. I think my children will be just as warm in a classroom verses driving me absolutely nuts. Okay there is probably more heat expelled driving me crazy but it is a close call.
Today was a full day. I ate sushi. I went to the dentist. I picked up my new reading glasses for the conference and my lover said I looked like a CAT, and cat is not said here in a positive tone. There was also a debate at lunch with our sushi chef about whether I now look part Chinese or not. I am not kidding you!!!!!!
Anyway it is pretty safe to say nobody is getting lucky in our house tonight and I don’t care how bloody cold it is. I like my new glasses….
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
chapbook
Today was another day back at work. I taught a young Picasso class this morning and had preschoolers crawling under the tables (our ceiling) to paint like Michael Angelo, next week we are painting giant flowers on the wall. I love teaching this unit by the time we get to Van Gogh chopping his ear off, they're eating out of my hand.
I received another email about the reading series today. (It is the only good poetry news I’ve had in a month so I’m going to milk it.) It seems they are putting a chapbook together to sell at the event so I guess I have one now. lmao Ivy’s link is still very useful though—thanks Ivy.
I am in a Jane Kenyon kind of mood today, it is snowing outside and I've spent the evening looking up green places to escape to and write. I found this wonderful house in Mexico right on the beach. Oh for the day when poems count for cash.
I am off to read Miss Jane…sleep well everyone
I received another email about the reading series today. (It is the only good poetry news I’ve had in a month so I’m going to milk it.) It seems they are putting a chapbook together to sell at the event so I guess I have one now. lmao Ivy’s link is still very useful though—thanks Ivy.
I am in a Jane Kenyon kind of mood today, it is snowing outside and I've spent the evening looking up green places to escape to and write. I found this wonderful house in Mexico right on the beach. Oh for the day when poems count for cash.
I am off to read Miss Jane…sleep well everyone
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
one of my favorite poems of all time
Manifesto by Margot Schilpp
I know that dying is how we escape
the rest of our lives. I think that trees
send us a message: do not believe
you are lucky. The skins of apples
and the peeler will marry; it's simply
a question of when. Believe
in mourning and carrion birds.
Look how their fleshy treasures
dissolve in the sun before their very eyes.
To love something
you must have considered what it means
to do without. You must have thought
about it—the coefficient of the body
is another body—but do not forget
that there are people who are willing
to staple your palm to your chest.
Know there are places it isn't wise to go.
Begin again if you must: there are ways
to make up for what you have been before,
the dust in the corners that collects you.
Sympathy is overrated.
Rethink how lack
becomes everyone's master, drives us
into town and spends our money.
Quiet: the trees are napping.
Water meets itself again.
We reach for the days that precede us
and the world keeps us from knowing
too much. The body loves music,
the abandoned road of it;
each day a peel
lengthens in the shadow of blossoms,
fabric weaves itself into light.
Pay attention to the patterns.
They repeat—terraces erode,
groves lie fallow—order is cognate of joy.
I know that dying is how we escape
the rest of our lives. I think that trees
send us a message: do not believe
you are lucky. The skins of apples
and the peeler will marry; it's simply
a question of when. Believe
in mourning and carrion birds.
Look how their fleshy treasures
dissolve in the sun before their very eyes.
To love something
you must have considered what it means
to do without. You must have thought
about it—the coefficient of the body
is another body—but do not forget
that there are people who are willing
to staple your palm to your chest.
Know there are places it isn't wise to go.
Begin again if you must: there are ways
to make up for what you have been before,
the dust in the corners that collects you.
Sympathy is overrated.
Rethink how lack
becomes everyone's master, drives us
into town and spends our money.
Quiet: the trees are napping.
Water meets itself again.
We reach for the days that precede us
and the world keeps us from knowing
too much. The body loves music,
the abandoned road of it;
each day a peel
lengthens in the shadow of blossoms,
fabric weaves itself into light.
Pay attention to the patterns.
They repeat—terraces erode,
groves lie fallow—order is cognate of joy.
Half Baked
Well I actually have poetry news today. I was just asked to read on the 26th of February as part of the Loose Leaf Poetry Reading Series in Minneapolis. The funny thing about it is, they want to bill me as “almost famous” which is kinda like half baked, don’t you think? Not that I am about to kick any horse in the mouth but Bible verses of being luke warm and being spat from the mouth of God keep coming to my head.
Luckily I just ordered new poetry reading glasses, really funky ones and I can test them out and see if the half baked theory holds true. The things so far you have gained by reading my blog that you would of never guessed about me
I’m almost famous
I’m vain
I post way too many photos
I wax my legs
I whine
I whimper
and I don’t have a chapbook
Luckily I just ordered new poetry reading glasses, really funky ones and I can test them out and see if the half baked theory holds true. The things so far you have gained by reading my blog that you would of never guessed about me
I’m almost famous
I’m vain
I post way too many photos
I wax my legs
I whine
I whimper
and I don’t have a chapbook
Monday, January 10, 2005
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Bloom
I am reading Amy Bloom’s, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You which is a fricken wonderful title. The working title I had for my manuscript turned out to be another poetry book published this year so by the time my book actually sees the light of day all good titles will be gone.
Anyway, I am reading all of Bloom’s work from start to finish and I’m almost done. I’m like this when I find an author I love. I read no one else for a week and consume everything they have ever written. I am a horribly fast reader. I read a full book a day which in some ways feels unfair because most writers spend years writing what takes me such a short time to digest. Sometimes I feel guilty about it then I move on to the next book.
I received a letter from Belo__ yesterday and they are holding the new batch of poems but they will not be next issue. I am little sad about it but the editor said they talked about “Watching” for a long time and could not come to an agreement about the line that says, nineteen bones sleep in the foot. Oh, well…it is the sleeping they had a problem with but I think it works so it stays.
In some things I am oddly unmovable. I do care about getting published but there are certain lines I write that I know are absolutely right for the poem, granted is hardly ever the whole poem.
Carolyn gave me five journals she wanted to see me submit to this year and I am almost done with the list. I have gotten in one and two letters so that is not bad.
I hope today will be a writing day. My kids left this morning on their first road trip with their aunt by themselves. They are happy to be missing school for two days. I restrained myself from telling her what to do if the van caught fire or to hand her a pamphlet on basic first aid. I will be a nervous wreck all day. Yes, I know I’m pitiful.
Anyway, I am reading all of Bloom’s work from start to finish and I’m almost done. I’m like this when I find an author I love. I read no one else for a week and consume everything they have ever written. I am a horribly fast reader. I read a full book a day which in some ways feels unfair because most writers spend years writing what takes me such a short time to digest. Sometimes I feel guilty about it then I move on to the next book.
I received a letter from Belo__ yesterday and they are holding the new batch of poems but they will not be next issue. I am little sad about it but the editor said they talked about “Watching” for a long time and could not come to an agreement about the line that says, nineteen bones sleep in the foot. Oh, well…it is the sleeping they had a problem with but I think it works so it stays.
In some things I am oddly unmovable. I do care about getting published but there are certain lines I write that I know are absolutely right for the poem, granted is hardly ever the whole poem.
Carolyn gave me five journals she wanted to see me submit to this year and I am almost done with the list. I have gotten in one and two letters so that is not bad.
I hope today will be a writing day. My kids left this morning on their first road trip with their aunt by themselves. They are happy to be missing school for two days. I restrained myself from telling her what to do if the van caught fire or to hand her a pamphlet on basic first aid. I will be a nervous wreck all day. Yes, I know I’m pitiful.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
blubber
I blubber on and on about things but in truth I do think I know my own voice, this is just the way I process. I have always been this way. I turn things over and over in my mind discovering every possible route and maybe I use this blogging forum too openly to jot down all my fears. I don’t know.
The truth is I have never changed any poem unless I believed it was better for the poem. I told Carolyn when we began our mentorship together that though I respected her opinions I needed to see it for myself. I don’t think any other way will ever work. No matter what happens in the end you write only for yourself, no matter how much you may want your thoughts and ideas to be heard, it is your voice speaking.
I think I will bring three unpublished poem for the workshop, though published poems feel safer (I might use them at the reading) I need ten unpublished poems for the Breadloaf application and I think this would be the best use of my time. No matter what happens I will be in sun and by the ocean and that is a good thing.
The truth is I have never changed any poem unless I believed it was better for the poem. I told Carolyn when we began our mentorship together that though I respected her opinions I needed to see it for myself. I don’t think any other way will ever work. No matter what happens in the end you write only for yourself, no matter how much you may want your thoughts and ideas to be heard, it is your voice speaking.
I think I will bring three unpublished poem for the workshop, though published poems feel safer (I might use them at the reading) I need ten unpublished poems for the Breadloaf application and I think this would be the best use of my time. No matter what happens I will be in sun and by the ocean and that is a good thing.
Friday, January 07, 2005
book or not to book
Okay so my question for the day is, if you had a choice of any poet (living) to read your manuscript in process who would it be? Or do you think it is a good thing to have anyone read your manuscript? Does it take away from your own voice to have another finger in the pie.
Carolyn still has my manuscript and I am more concerned what she thinks of it than Yale. I would like to make her incredibly proud of me someday. Does that sound childish?
Oh and deleted my post last night. Sorry Ivy, I still love your voice. I just sounded like a bit like a sap. I need more sleep, less tea. I cannot believe in three days my vacation is totally over.
I just got an email from Billy Collins asking me to bring three poems to read for class time. Three poems. Shit. Should I bring three poems I think are done (are poems ever really done) or three I think need a lot of work. Uggggg, now I wont sleep....
Carolyn still has my manuscript and I am more concerned what she thinks of it than Yale. I would like to make her incredibly proud of me someday. Does that sound childish?
Oh and deleted my post last night. Sorry Ivy, I still love your voice. I just sounded like a bit like a sap. I need more sleep, less tea. I cannot believe in three days my vacation is totally over.
I just got an email from Billy Collins asking me to bring three poems to read for class time. Three poems. Shit. Should I bring three poems I think are done (are poems ever really done) or three I think need a lot of work. Uggggg, now I wont sleep....
Thursday, January 06, 2005
I Am Thinking Of My First Deer
A doe, her legs spread open
in the back of my father’s truck. Her body
a white map next to the blue sky and when
my father turns her over she is the color of dirt.
My small hand went into the cave of her death.
She was warm and my fingers smelt of sage
and blood. I pieced her together in my mind
as my brothers removed her skin. I gave her back
her body, the same way I was promised
Jesus would return to us on earth. I am thinking
of my first deer because you are sleeping
still and underneath your lids, your eyes are open.
My fingers smell slightly of things broken
and I realize you are always frightened
of the way I open myself and how I must
swallow up every sadness. I wonder if somehow
I have always known you. If you have returned
and risen in another form, as the angels promised
and somehow left behind the wild fur of death.
I see your eyes even though you are sleeping.
I need to know this sadness will not swallow me up
that somehow we will leave this animal.
in the back of my father’s truck. Her body
a white map next to the blue sky and when
my father turns her over she is the color of dirt.
My small hand went into the cave of her death.
She was warm and my fingers smelt of sage
and blood. I pieced her together in my mind
as my brothers removed her skin. I gave her back
her body, the same way I was promised
Jesus would return to us on earth. I am thinking
of my first deer because you are sleeping
still and underneath your lids, your eyes are open.
My fingers smell slightly of things broken
and I realize you are always frightened
of the way I open myself and how I must
swallow up every sadness. I wonder if somehow
I have always known you. If you have returned
and risen in another form, as the angels promised
and somehow left behind the wild fur of death.
I see your eyes even though you are sleeping.
I need to know this sadness will not swallow me up
that somehow we will leave this animal.
Notebook
Most of my notebook is in my head. I tried to work on those pretty little black leather ones that seem so “poetry” but I always loose the damn things and so far my head has not fallen off. I find though, as I get older less things stick in my head so I might have to Velcro a notebook to my body somewhere.
Once my best friend told me to tell her everything I was thinking about while we walked down the street, kind of like a mental tickertape, which by the way I always thought would be the best invention. After three minutes she said, “Okay, stop I am tired.”
So in response to posting a page of my notebook, someone would have to crawl into my ear with a digital camera, which I really don’t think would be a good idea.
Once my best friend told me to tell her everything I was thinking about while we walked down the street, kind of like a mental tickertape, which by the way I always thought would be the best invention. After three minutes she said, “Okay, stop I am tired.”
So in response to posting a page of my notebook, someone would have to crawl into my ear with a digital camera, which I really don’t think would be a good idea.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Maxine Kumin
Male Privilege
to the younger poets, to be cleansed of envy
Wash from your hearts
all dark thoughts of me,
rinse free all memories
of my young worshippers,
sweet things eager to be bedded,
who would afterward raise up
on one elbow asking
at Bread Loaf or Sewanee,
at Aspen or Park City,
now tell me, what do you
really think of my poetry?
Soon I will fall silent,
my mind will wander,
I will read the same poem
twice in one reading
and fail to notice. I will
consume more martinis
than the fabled number
downed by Nemerov, I will grow
drunker than Berryman,
cruder than Dickey, I will become
my own myth, they will remember
me for my outrageous behavior
and a few immortal poems.
to the younger poets, to be cleansed of envy
Wash from your hearts
all dark thoughts of me,
rinse free all memories
of my young worshippers,
sweet things eager to be bedded,
who would afterward raise up
on one elbow asking
at Bread Loaf or Sewanee,
at Aspen or Park City,
now tell me, what do you
really think of my poetry?
Soon I will fall silent,
my mind will wander,
I will read the same poem
twice in one reading
and fail to notice. I will
consume more martinis
than the fabled number
downed by Nemerov, I will grow
drunker than Berryman,
cruder than Dickey, I will become
my own myth, they will remember
me for my outrageous behavior
and a few immortal poems.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Girlie Girl
I took down the tree today and put it in the back yard for the sparrows. When it is warmer or I need a fire I will burn it in the pit. I walked around all day like a bird in her cage. I had so much to do and all I wanted to do was read and write which I should have done but felt too guilty to stick to anything more than five minutes.
All day I’ve been looking for my copy of The Orchard and I can not find it in my house. I will be upset with myself if I lost it. I am always taking poetry books places so I can catch five minutes of freedom when the opportunity presents itself.
Already I am thinking about what to wear to Florida, “sexy poet”, “earthy poet,” “the I can’t believe I didn’t rent a car and had walk to the hotel poet”. This week I will get my legs waxed so at least I won’t be the “dear god, is that a bear poet.” Yes, I am that girlie. I am not even going into the other things I am doing;)
I am off to take a bath with my new lavender soap and read the poetry books I can find. Did I mention I was a girlie girl?
All day I’ve been looking for my copy of The Orchard and I can not find it in my house. I will be upset with myself if I lost it. I am always taking poetry books places so I can catch five minutes of freedom when the opportunity presents itself.
Already I am thinking about what to wear to Florida, “sexy poet”, “earthy poet,” “the I can’t believe I didn’t rent a car and had walk to the hotel poet”. This week I will get my legs waxed so at least I won’t be the “dear god, is that a bear poet.” Yes, I am that girlie. I am not even going into the other things I am doing;)
I am off to take a bath with my new lavender soap and read the poetry books I can find. Did I mention I was a girlie girl?
Saturday, January 01, 2005
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 breeze 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 the aorta bring it to her mouth, a red wafer
so she would be forgiven. For what
she did not know, but she must beforgiven.
All her life, calling the slow tick
then the tock. It was not a lost leg
or a arm she morned nor 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.
something that beat outside of herself
slowly, the way one watched birds from a window
feeling the air but there was no breeze 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 the aorta bring it to her mouth, a red wafer
so she would be forgiven. For what
she did not know, but she must beforgiven.
All her life, calling the slow tick
then the tock. It was not a lost leg
or a arm she morned nor 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.
orange
Well I’ve gotten a lot of email about the oranges, some think they are sexy and others sad. Light is an amazing thing. Ordinary is beautiful. These are things I know. Sometimes I write about questions on this blog that already know the answers for.
I know I am okay where I am, content most of the time with myself as a writer. It seems at times I have to work out the demons here. And I always struggle between distance and revealing myself.
Today was a quiet day. There were ice storms outside, the rain hitting the window. Thunder in January. Sometimes with all that is going on it is hard to believe the world is not ending. But I suppose it has been ending for a very long time.
Dorriane read her new poem about the moon moving away from the earth. It was beautiful. Word moves me. Today I sent out two submissions: The Seneca Review and Hunger Mountain. No mail today which means stalking the mail man has not paid off.
I am quiet with myself, not happy, not sad. I am just enjoying my time as an orange.
I know I am okay where I am, content most of the time with myself as a writer. It seems at times I have to work out the demons here. And I always struggle between distance and revealing myself.
Today was a quiet day. There were ice storms outside, the rain hitting the window. Thunder in January. Sometimes with all that is going on it is hard to believe the world is not ending. But I suppose it has been ending for a very long time.
Dorriane read her new poem about the moon moving away from the earth. It was beautiful. Word moves me. Today I sent out two submissions: The Seneca Review and Hunger Mountain. No mail today which means stalking the mail man has not paid off.
I am quiet with myself, not happy, not sad. I am just enjoying my time as an orange.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Shut off notice
I've been in an odd mood lately, maybe it is the conference with Billy Collins, maybe it is coming so close and yet not close enough to my writing goals. Tonight I’ve read several interviews with Amy Bloom and she talked about being a mother & a writer. She talked about not having a MFA and even goes so far to say that the best writers in the last 400 years did not have one.
When I did the conference with Dorrianne she suggested I enter her MFA program in Portland and I turned it down. One reason was the girls and the other, I just wanted to write. I see how easily I could get caught up in trying to “make” poetry and I read, study poetry more than most MFA’ers I know. I respect it, the way I respect a fine arts degree but it does not make a painter, all that matters is the work in the end.
Lately I have been lost. I get lost often. I wonder if the road I am taking is the right one or if I’ve made mistakes. When asked what she believed was the greatest thing that helped her (Amy Bloom) when she was first being published was, she did not think. She wrote.
She didn’t wonder where to send it, or if it was something she should even be writing about.
I think too much, I always have. I want to wake up every morning and write a poem because I love poetry the way I love my daughters. It is in me. I do not want to think anymore.
When I did the conference with Dorrianne she suggested I enter her MFA program in Portland and I turned it down. One reason was the girls and the other, I just wanted to write. I see how easily I could get caught up in trying to “make” poetry and I read, study poetry more than most MFA’ers I know. I respect it, the way I respect a fine arts degree but it does not make a painter, all that matters is the work in the end.
Lately I have been lost. I get lost often. I wonder if the road I am taking is the right one or if I’ve made mistakes. When asked what she believed was the greatest thing that helped her (Amy Bloom) when she was first being published was, she did not think. She wrote.
She didn’t wonder where to send it, or if it was something she should even be writing about.
I think too much, I always have. I want to wake up every morning and write a poem because I love poetry the way I love my daughters. It is in me. I do not want to think anymore.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
I finished Amy Bloom’s Love Invents Us last night and am starting tonight on The Known World by Edward Jones who won the Pulitzer Prize for his first book. That is the kind of news that makes me deeply depressed. I have an almost kick me in gut reaction, most of the time I just want to get a book out there and then the other half of the time I worry that it won’t be good enough, what ever the hell good enough is.
Sometimes I feel like a race horse with the need to focus ahead, ahead being that place that says just write all your stories down and let the rest sort itself out. Not to think about anything else but getting words to paper.
I just finished my first book review of Dancing in Odessa which will be published in the next issue of Tryst. One of my favorite poems in that book is the Authors Prayer here is a taste…
If I speak for the dead, I must
leave this animal of my body,
I must write the same poem over and over
for the empty page is a white flag of their surrender.
If I speak of them, I must walk
on the edge of myself, I must live as a blind man
who runs through the rooms without
touching the furniture.
Sometimes I feel like a race horse with the need to focus ahead, ahead being that place that says just write all your stories down and let the rest sort itself out. Not to think about anything else but getting words to paper.
I just finished my first book review of Dancing in Odessa which will be published in the next issue of Tryst. One of my favorite poems in that book is the Authors Prayer here is a taste…
If I speak for the dead, I must
leave this animal of my body,
I must write the same poem over and over
for the empty page is a white flag of their surrender.
If I speak of them, I must walk
on the edge of myself, I must live as a blind man
who runs through the rooms without
touching the furniture.
take it all off
To keep up with the dream posts going around in the blog world, last night I dreamt I was taking an Anthropology class and for the final the professor had us be strippers. We had to work on routines, pick out our own music and clothing. It was a hell of a lot more work than one would imagine.
He told us to reveal ourselves only to the point we felt comfortable. Needless to say, I was bare-chested swinging around a pole in black undies to Billy Joel’s Only The Good Die Young, which with the logical thinking of waking, I realize would be a very difficult routine. Maybe something simpler like BINGO.
Anyway quite a bit of dream was about whether to take my bra off while facing the audience or with my back turned and then the realization of never being able to the undo the metal clasps.
Why can’t I have Steve’s literary dreams? Wow even in my sleep I am blocked. May the poetry gods smile on me soon or may I get better hips so I can make a living.
He told us to reveal ourselves only to the point we felt comfortable. Needless to say, I was bare-chested swinging around a pole in black undies to Billy Joel’s Only The Good Die Young, which with the logical thinking of waking, I realize would be a very difficult routine. Maybe something simpler like BINGO.
Anyway quite a bit of dream was about whether to take my bra off while facing the audience or with my back turned and then the realization of never being able to the undo the metal clasps.
Why can’t I have Steve’s literary dreams? Wow even in my sleep I am blocked. May the poetry gods smile on me soon or may I get better hips so I can make a living.
Monday, December 27, 2004
Queen of Mutable Selves
I am quoting Mr. Mueske today because I think he brought up good points below that did not get enough attention.
“I believe each poet wrestles with the amount of distance between the personal "I" and the inhabited "I". To complicate matters further, Joseph Brodsky often talked about the self as "a congress of selves" meaning, of course, that the self is mutable, too, and often takes up contradictory positions with itself base on context, emotion, distance, and other factors.”
I think I might be the queen to mutable selves but how does this apply to a body of work. How do we as writers take this self and make a book of poetry? One of the things I love about Kaminsky’s work is that he takes this self and makes it multidimensional. He brings in personal history, culture, other poets. It becomes a living, breathing thing.
When I write a poem that really works I always get this feeling that I can walk around it, that is becomes a sculpture, stand it on its head and it is still art. Unfortunately most poems tend remain flat on the page.
“I believe each poet wrestles with the amount of distance between the personal "I" and the inhabited "I". To complicate matters further, Joseph Brodsky often talked about the self as "a congress of selves" meaning, of course, that the self is mutable, too, and often takes up contradictory positions with itself base on context, emotion, distance, and other factors.”
I think I might be the queen to mutable selves but how does this apply to a body of work. How do we as writers take this self and make a book of poetry? One of the things I love about Kaminsky’s work is that he takes this self and makes it multidimensional. He brings in personal history, culture, other poets. It becomes a living, breathing thing.
When I write a poem that really works I always get this feeling that I can walk around it, that is becomes a sculpture, stand it on its head and it is still art. Unfortunately most poems tend remain flat on the page.
I am ready to sell my children off as cheap circus animals. It is wrong for them to have two weeks of school off in the dead of winter. It was ten below this morning, needless to say there is a lot of bouncing on the couch.
I sent off one submission to the Southern Poetry today which was an act of god with two children in the house. No one ever brings up the correlation that two of the greatest female poets were single mothers when they went off the deep end. Somehow this thought does not make me feel better.
I sent off one submission to the Southern Poetry today which was an act of god with two children in the house. No one ever brings up the correlation that two of the greatest female poets were single mothers when they went off the deep end. Somehow this thought does not make me feel better.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Beast and Tree
Funny, how when you become an adult you never believe you will change at all. I have spent my whole life growing into being human. Yesterday, the girls had the traditional “wake you up while you eyes are sandpaper” morning then we went to my best friend’s house. We have been friends since I was 17. We met in Belgium while I was backpacking across Europe and now we live in the same city, we always come back to each other. She calls me Tree, I call her Beast. It is a good life.
There are few people you can grow old with, I am beginning to realize now it has less to do with compatibility and more to do with acceptance. We lived through each other bad dates, bad husbands, my child birth, her need to call me during labor and ask it was painful. There is nothing she could ever do to make me stop loving her.
Oh and I know this always brings to mind where the woman finds her best friend in bed with someone she loves, a) I would laugh my ass off b) I can honestly say we have never found the same person attractive, unless they were dead or in a movie.
We have very few things in this life we will be able to carry to the end. Today I feel sad about that. Today I feel blest.
There are few people you can grow old with, I am beginning to realize now it has less to do with compatibility and more to do with acceptance. We lived through each other bad dates, bad husbands, my child birth, her need to call me during labor and ask it was painful. There is nothing she could ever do to make me stop loving her.
Oh and I know this always brings to mind where the woman finds her best friend in bed with someone she loves, a) I would laugh my ass off b) I can honestly say we have never found the same person attractive, unless they were dead or in a movie.
We have very few things in this life we will be able to carry to the end. Today I feel sad about that. Today I feel blest.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Two Giraffes Talking to A Towel
Today it is 20 below zero with wind chill so Florida is looking damn good. Actually, the inside of my fridge seems tropical at the moment. I can’t believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve, we still have Halloween candy. I do not think that the powers that be should start another holiday until we have finished the food from the ones before. It seems wrong.
Every morning Bella and I see what messages Jack Frost have left us on her window. She believes he tells her stories with ice. Today it is two giraffes talking to a towel. Sometimes the greatest poetry that happens in my life has nothing to do with the written word.
I am reading the Collected Poems by Robert Lowell, one review I read of the book said it was almost impossible to put together because he keep changing his poems even after he had published them. A poem for him was never done.
I am starting the book again. I will be working on this first book of poetry till the day I die, even when it is published I will go back and rewrite it, change its bone structure. I know this about myself. Every day I wake up believing I can write a better poem, every day I look for the messages on the window.
Every morning Bella and I see what messages Jack Frost have left us on her window. She believes he tells her stories with ice. Today it is two giraffes talking to a towel. Sometimes the greatest poetry that happens in my life has nothing to do with the written word.
I am reading the Collected Poems by Robert Lowell, one review I read of the book said it was almost impossible to put together because he keep changing his poems even after he had published them. A poem for him was never done.
I am starting the book again. I will be working on this first book of poetry till the day I die, even when it is published I will go back and rewrite it, change its bone structure. I know this about myself. Every day I wake up believing I can write a better poem, every day I look for the messages on the window.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Last night I typed out a long entry about privacy because I am feeling a little invaded lately. It is constant war of how much of your self to reveal. I believe a good writer must reveal everything and then you have readers who then want to talk about it or repost somewhere you did not want it to be.
Plus one of the horrible/ wonderful things about word is that it cannot be owned. You can cut /copy anything. Yet I feel like my words are the deepest part of who I am. I believe I could be fully understood if someone listened to my poetry, really listened. It is the core of who I am…these words. So what do you do when they come back to bite you on the ass?
I suppose you move on, write some more. Believe that every day you have the possibility to write a better poem. Every day is waiting for that one moment when all the letters obey, fall into their place, when you are blest or damn because there is nothing more beautiful then this.
Plus one of the horrible/ wonderful things about word is that it cannot be owned. You can cut /copy anything. Yet I feel like my words are the deepest part of who I am. I believe I could be fully understood if someone listened to my poetry, really listened. It is the core of who I am…these words. So what do you do when they come back to bite you on the ass?
I suppose you move on, write some more. Believe that every day you have the possibility to write a better poem. Every day is waiting for that one moment when all the letters obey, fall into their place, when you are blest or damn because there is nothing more beautiful then this.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Ventricle
A man held a heart;
An ornament. At small intervals
He’d examine the vast corridors,
Pathways; he’d lay a finger
Over the beating tunnels
Trying to find an exit.
His meals consisted of organs:
Chicken's, turkey's, sautéed in butter,
He’d add stems of garlic,
Heads of onions
Till it was a communion.
He was the reaper,
Gatekeeper. The same man
Who laid his ear
On the flannel vest of his father,
Who said, beat, stop, beat again.
This is more than a story.
Here is the man, the red heart
And the pot boiling over.
The reader needs to know
Truth. Does the man live?
Always there is heart
Singing outside, a man
Making meals of things
He cannot swallow.
A man held a heart;
An ornament. At small intervals
He’d examine the vast corridors,
Pathways; he’d lay a finger
Over the beating tunnels
Trying to find an exit.
His meals consisted of organs:
Chicken's, turkey's, sautéed in butter,
He’d add stems of garlic,
Heads of onions
Till it was a communion.
He was the reaper,
Gatekeeper. The same man
Who laid his ear
On the flannel vest of his father,
Who said, beat, stop, beat again.
This is more than a story.
Here is the man, the red heart
And the pot boiling over.
The reader needs to know
Truth. Does the man live?
Always there is heart
Singing outside, a man
Making meals of things
He cannot swallow.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Levis
My nighttime reading tonight is Selected Levis and I am thinking how so many people have different opinions about his poetry and how wonderful it would be to write something that people had opposing views about.
At the conference this summer Lax and Millar talked about how brilliant he was, we spent an hour reading the same poem over and over. It bothered one girl in the glass immensely and when Jenn went to another writing workshop they said, that Levis poems were sloppy or something to that affect.
What do I think? Well he died way too young, he was an amazing voice. I think he was just coming into his prime when he had his heart attack. There is no way to know what he might have accomplished if given a longer life.
One of the things I love most about poetry is that takes on the form of a living being. You can love it, hate it and another person can come along and have the opposite view. Isn’t it beautiful? Plus sometimes I need to grow into word or into certain poets. Who I loved when I was 15 is not who I love now. Who knows who I will love when I am eighty. (God please let me still be able to read.)
Well I am back to Levis while I still have my eyes….
At the conference this summer Lax and Millar talked about how brilliant he was, we spent an hour reading the same poem over and over. It bothered one girl in the glass immensely and when Jenn went to another writing workshop they said, that Levis poems were sloppy or something to that affect.
What do I think? Well he died way too young, he was an amazing voice. I think he was just coming into his prime when he had his heart attack. There is no way to know what he might have accomplished if given a longer life.
One of the things I love most about poetry is that takes on the form of a living being. You can love it, hate it and another person can come along and have the opposite view. Isn’t it beautiful? Plus sometimes I need to grow into word or into certain poets. Who I loved when I was 15 is not who I love now. Who knows who I will love when I am eighty. (God please let me still be able to read.)
Well I am back to Levis while I still have my eyes….
Thursday, December 16, 2004
short list
Well you asked for a list so here it is. Okay, Laurel asked and the rest of you must suffer through it, this is my small list. The truth is I have six books I already bought for myself that I will have for the girls to give to me when who ever is packing the tree turns to me and says, “oh what about the girls presents to you.” and if no one does this? Hell I still have the books under my bed.
The Sharon Olds book I am ordering because I have only read about ten of her poems and I have nothing for her to sign at the conference, plus I’m cheap and would rather bring it down with me. On the opposite end I have every Billy Collins and Thomas Lux's book ever written and I bringing every one on the plane. Forget suntan lotion, I’ve got books.
Please don’t point out they are all women. I know this and this will further the impression that I am a feminist pig. I can live with it. Truth is, I read far more women poets than men but if you don’t have Paul Celan or Ilya Kamisky you are missing something. Okay, if you have not read Paul Celan you can’t read this blog anymore. The man was a genius which leads to the bumper sticker all great poets are dead.
None of the poets below are dead (okay two are dead) but the vast majority are still breathing. Secret: when on amazon I always engine search my own name to see if a book I have not yet written will pop up;) Okay, if anyone else does this, they can still read this blog even if they have not read Paul Celan but it is a thin, thin line….
Unswept Room by Sharon Olds
Ariel: The Restored Edition
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
The Orchard (American Poets Continuum) by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Year of The Snake Lee Ann Roripaugh
The Known World by Edward Jones
Book of Orgasms by Nin Andrews
Out of Silence by Muriel Rukeyser
Collected Stories by Grace Paley (who I love)
Lark Apprentice by Louise Mathius
The Sharon Olds book I am ordering because I have only read about ten of her poems and I have nothing for her to sign at the conference, plus I’m cheap and would rather bring it down with me. On the opposite end I have every Billy Collins and Thomas Lux's book ever written and I bringing every one on the plane. Forget suntan lotion, I’ve got books.
Please don’t point out they are all women. I know this and this will further the impression that I am a feminist pig. I can live with it. Truth is, I read far more women poets than men but if you don’t have Paul Celan or Ilya Kamisky you are missing something. Okay, if you have not read Paul Celan you can’t read this blog anymore. The man was a genius which leads to the bumper sticker all great poets are dead.
None of the poets below are dead (okay two are dead) but the vast majority are still breathing. Secret: when on amazon I always engine search my own name to see if a book I have not yet written will pop up;) Okay, if anyone else does this, they can still read this blog even if they have not read Paul Celan but it is a thin, thin line….
Unswept Room by Sharon Olds
Ariel: The Restored Edition
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
The Orchard (American Poets Continuum) by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Year of The Snake Lee Ann Roripaugh
The Known World by Edward Jones
Book of Orgasms by Nin Andrews
Out of Silence by Muriel Rukeyser
Collected Stories by Grace Paley (who I love)
Lark Apprentice by Louise Mathius
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Note Body
I have so much I need to do and hardly anything I WANT to do. Writing seems like a distant memory and writing keeps me sane so I don’t think the days look brighter up ahead. Yesterday, I tried to self talk myself into thinking of poetry as another child and to make time for it accordingly but nothing as changed. The truth is the screaming, flesh and blood kids make more noise.
I am asking for books for Christmas. I am sure you’re all shocked by this. After the holidays I have two weeks off, of course with the girls so it really isn’t time off but I did sign them up for several days of fun with someone else and I plan to read, write, read and then I might write.
Bella (my six year old) has her first notebook because she starting to write out words and make sentences. She wanted her own space like mommy. Today on the cover I found this “My Note Body” which I think is a hell of lot better then notebook. I am horrible at not correcting her because I like the words she makes up far better than the ones I am offered in the dictionary.
My note body. I really need a note body. I need everything that I think in my head to come flying out on paper then it would truly be a beautiful day.
I am asking for books for Christmas. I am sure you’re all shocked by this. After the holidays I have two weeks off, of course with the girls so it really isn’t time off but I did sign them up for several days of fun with someone else and I plan to read, write, read and then I might write.
Bella (my six year old) has her first notebook because she starting to write out words and make sentences. She wanted her own space like mommy. Today on the cover I found this “My Note Body” which I think is a hell of lot better then notebook. I am horrible at not correcting her because I like the words she makes up far better than the ones I am offered in the dictionary.
My note body. I really need a note body. I need everything that I think in my head to come flying out on paper then it would truly be a beautiful day.
hunger
Rukeyser said, "If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger."
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Conversation on the phone with my father the lobsterman
Ring, ring
Hello
Thank god you are not the answering machine
Hello dad
Your mother wants me to call and see what you want for Christmas
Oh (thinking I should not of answered the phone)
I need to know
Books, dad, books are good
Don’t you have books?
Yes (thinking what the hell)
Have you read them all?
nooooo (in a very quiet voice)
Well…
Well what…
What book do you want?
(And this folks is where I should have said the word, Gift Certificate in a very loud voice but nooooo)
Nin Andrews, she is a poet
Oh your mother said you were going to some poet thing
(defensive voice) yes, I am going to a workshop with Billy Collins
Billy who?????
Billy Collins, he was poet Laureate of United States
What the hell is a poet Laureate?
(and this is where I realize that though being a poet is my life goal I have no fricken clue)
uhhhhh well he is…a poet
Yes
and he promotes poetry.....and he is very famous
oh (in a voice that say yes, and my child is completely clueless all in one word)
so what book do you want, some from this Billy guy?
No, I have him
Have you read them?
(Lying) yes I've read every page
Well what book do you WANT....
Nin Andrews (and then I realize this is my revenge) The Book of Orgasms
THE BOOK OF WHAT?????
Orgasms…
Is that porn?
No poetry (feeling very happy with myself)
Do you write that stuff?
What poetry?
Yes, about you know (here my father can’t say the word)
No, I don’t have any orgasm poems (lying again) but I do have a masterbation one....
I think you need to talk with your mother.
Hello
Thank god you are not the answering machine
Hello dad
Your mother wants me to call and see what you want for Christmas
Oh (thinking I should not of answered the phone)
I need to know
Books, dad, books are good
Don’t you have books?
Yes (thinking what the hell)
Have you read them all?
nooooo (in a very quiet voice)
Well…
Well what…
What book do you want?
(And this folks is where I should have said the word, Gift Certificate in a very loud voice but nooooo)
Nin Andrews, she is a poet
Oh your mother said you were going to some poet thing
(defensive voice) yes, I am going to a workshop with Billy Collins
Billy who?????
Billy Collins, he was poet Laureate of United States
What the hell is a poet Laureate?
(and this is where I realize that though being a poet is my life goal I have no fricken clue)
uhhhhh well he is…a poet
Yes
and he promotes poetry.....and he is very famous
oh (in a voice that say yes, and my child is completely clueless all in one word)
so what book do you want, some from this Billy guy?
No, I have him
Have you read them?
(Lying) yes I've read every page
Well what book do you WANT....
Nin Andrews (and then I realize this is my revenge) The Book of Orgasms
THE BOOK OF WHAT?????
Orgasms…
Is that porn?
No poetry (feeling very happy with myself)
Do you write that stuff?
What poetry?
Yes, about you know (here my father can’t say the word)
No, I don’t have any orgasm poems (lying again) but I do have a masterbation one....
I think you need to talk with your mother.
those little elves
Oh Sundays, the tree is up and the girls are walking through the house wrapping up random things they find: a clothes hanger, glue stick, one shoe. Okay, my six year old is mostly doing this, Olivia at least goes for things in pairs but the fact is you cannot walk two feet without finding remnants on the floor. I must start this day as a steam shovel, walking behind trying to clear up the chaos they have left behind. I am tired already.
Yesterday I sent off a submission to the Water&Stone Review. It is a Minnesota based journal and several people have asked me to submit there. Then I worked on other submissions, the good thing about being a lazy ass is that I had the Mid American poems all typed up but never sent them off so I went over them yesterday and fixed a few things.
One of the things I dislike most about writing is when at night, I write what I think is this amazing thing. I have that total god like feeling and then I go to bed. Wake up and the poem is pure shit. I have no idea how that happens, I think it might be little elves twisting words while I sleep.
Yesterday I sent off a submission to the Water&Stone Review. It is a Minnesota based journal and several people have asked me to submit there. Then I worked on other submissions, the good thing about being a lazy ass is that I had the Mid American poems all typed up but never sent them off so I went over them yesterday and fixed a few things.
One of the things I dislike most about writing is when at night, I write what I think is this amazing thing. I have that total god like feeling and then I go to bed. Wake up and the poem is pure shit. I have no idea how that happens, I think it might be little elves twisting words while I sleep.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Oh the poems you find at christmas parties....
When Syphilis Was Happy
But he meant to say, Sisyphus, the greek god
who rolled the stone up the mountain yet syphilis
is what I heard, for a whole conversation
prostitutes rang through the room
like shiny bells and I tried to push them out
the door, in rabbit fur to the corner lamp.
The stone rolled back again
and he was tormented, his labor futile.
How sweet the girls underneath the moon,
back of a thigh so smooth. A mere mortal
begged Pluto to chastise his wife
still the rock waits. And the girls are patterns
of light, shaking their fingers around a flame.
Free. A cigarette for free but you must pay the man.
Happy, Syphilis was happy when the stone rolled
down the hill but Sisyphus was tortured.
But he meant to say, Sisyphus, the greek god
who rolled the stone up the mountain yet syphilis
is what I heard, for a whole conversation
prostitutes rang through the room
like shiny bells and I tried to push them out
the door, in rabbit fur to the corner lamp.
The stone rolled back again
and he was tormented, his labor futile.
How sweet the girls underneath the moon,
back of a thigh so smooth. A mere mortal
begged Pluto to chastise his wife
still the rock waits. And the girls are patterns
of light, shaking their fingers around a flame.
Free. A cigarette for free but you must pay the man.
Happy, Syphilis was happy when the stone rolled
down the hill but Sisyphus was tortured.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Quiet Day
Today was a quiet day. I mailed off gifts to my parents in Maine, my father is probably the only person on the east coast who does not have the movie The Titanic. Well, he does now. One of my claims to fame as a child was my great grandfather’s brother was the helmsman on the real Titanic. I grew up playing hurricane and icebergs. Sometimes I feel very sorry that my children will not grow up by the sea or jump across rocks with their arms outstretched to get home. The ocean is my place.
Tonight Olivia and I watched the National Geographic channel with their special on sharks. It made me very homesick which is odd because we have no men in wet suits crazy enough to dive under water and throw red meat at animals. In Yankee terms those men deserve to be in eaten.
I have a very distinct memory of being four years old with my father in boat and watching these two people try to go UP the rapids in a canoe. I remember my father telling me, see honey those people are tourists and now they are going to fall into the river.
It was bred into me at an early age to never be a tourist. No matter where I have gone in this world I’ve tried my best to blend in, which by the way isn’t very easy when you are living in Haiti up in the mountains in a place where most people have never, ever seen a white woman. They always rubbed my hands to see if the color would fade.
One of the lines in my new book is I am a tourist in my own land which is something I use to write in my journal when I was 15 and going through what my mother deemed the dark year. Sometimes I think the journey of poetry is to bring up all that we know. It is a discovery into the deepest self.
Joseph Millar at our writing conference this summer said that a thousand years ago we (poets) would have been the holy ones. The people who sat in the night and told the sun to rise, that we would have believed our very existence had power to do that. Well that thought made it a bit easier to send submissions off today….
Tonight Olivia and I watched the National Geographic channel with their special on sharks. It made me very homesick which is odd because we have no men in wet suits crazy enough to dive under water and throw red meat at animals. In Yankee terms those men deserve to be in eaten.
I have a very distinct memory of being four years old with my father in boat and watching these two people try to go UP the rapids in a canoe. I remember my father telling me, see honey those people are tourists and now they are going to fall into the river.
It was bred into me at an early age to never be a tourist. No matter where I have gone in this world I’ve tried my best to blend in, which by the way isn’t very easy when you are living in Haiti up in the mountains in a place where most people have never, ever seen a white woman. They always rubbed my hands to see if the color would fade.
One of the lines in my new book is I am a tourist in my own land which is something I use to write in my journal when I was 15 and going through what my mother deemed the dark year. Sometimes I think the journey of poetry is to bring up all that we know. It is a discovery into the deepest self.
Joseph Millar at our writing conference this summer said that a thousand years ago we (poets) would have been the holy ones. The people who sat in the night and told the sun to rise, that we would have believed our very existence had power to do that. Well that thought made it a bit easier to send submissions off today….
Blue Coat
Blue Coat
We’ve been together too long
What will you tell me that I don’t already know?
Trees are whispering to each other
In this place we are naked, listen to the cold
Slipping through us, as if we’re visible,
Somehow we’ve forgotten how to matter,
How to mean anything. Trees tell us nothing
Dressed in their white cloaks. Tall brides
Wed to winter. Alone I’ve forgotten.
I am the sparrow. I am the blue coat.
You must push their shiny heads into warm fabric,
quickly because your father is waiting in the car
and your mother is silent,
you are invisible, slipping into her pocket and she is gliding past;
a penny on the slippery floor. Then she is gone,
you know she is gone before the car
pulls out of the driveway. You are alone.
The coat does not matter.
My death will be blue.
I will say to my children
dress me in clouds, slip rings of water
around my wrists. Let me beautiful.
Let me be light.
We’ve been together too long
What will you tell me that I don’t already know?
Trees are whispering to each other
In this place we are naked, listen to the cold
Slipping through us, as if we’re visible,
Somehow we’ve forgotten how to matter,
How to mean anything. Trees tell us nothing
Dressed in their white cloaks. Tall brides
Wed to winter. Alone I’ve forgotten.
I am the sparrow. I am the blue coat.
You must push their shiny heads into warm fabric,
quickly because your father is waiting in the car
and your mother is silent,
you are invisible, slipping into her pocket and she is gliding past;
a penny on the slippery floor. Then she is gone,
you know she is gone before the car
pulls out of the driveway. You are alone.
The coat does not matter.
My death will be blue.
I will say to my children
dress me in clouds, slip rings of water
around my wrists. Let me beautiful.
Let me be light.
Nin Andrews
I think I might be in love with Nin Andrews
read this great interview with her at Mi Po
www.mipoesias.com/Volume19Issue2/andrewsinterview.html
read this great interview with her at Mi Po
www.mipoesias.com/Volume19Issue2/andrewsinterview.html
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Pet Peeve and Little Mikey
My pet pee today, rejection letters that say “we enjoyed your work but could not reach an editorial consensus” or worse “I wish you luck finding a home for these poems” Luck, sweet jesus was that meant to be nice?
Of course I got a rejection letter with both those things in them today. And it always bothers the beejesus out of me when they make my poems sound like wayward children. Little Mikey was almost good enough for us to adopt but he threw up all over the floor.
I would much rather have, “this doesn’t work for me” or the ever loving "HAVE YOU READ OUR JOURNAL???” Maybe I’m just not a polite girl.
I would say about one out of twenty of the poems I write is stunning/good so here comes the bigger question of what to do with the other 19? I think they hold themselves better in a book than individual print but then you have your best poems sitting in wait land for the next three to six months waiting for someone to adopt them. Little Mikey please sit up straight and stop masterbating.
I am having that problem right now with the American Poetry Review. They don’t want any poetry under consideration elsewhere but don’t respond for 6 months and Carolyn after reading my manuscript wants me to submit there. It could be she is torturing me or maybe its little Mikey.
Yes, I've read this same complaint other places and thought people were whining at the time but now its me lol and also this is the first time in three years that I’ve had to write letters to journals and say ummmm, you’ve had these forever, care to drop me a line, any line.
Okay so I have comes to terms after this entry that 1) I am not polite t 2) I might be a little spoiled and 3) I am not patient (like that was ever a question.)
Of course I got a rejection letter with both those things in them today. And it always bothers the beejesus out of me when they make my poems sound like wayward children. Little Mikey was almost good enough for us to adopt but he threw up all over the floor.
I would much rather have, “this doesn’t work for me” or the ever loving "HAVE YOU READ OUR JOURNAL???” Maybe I’m just not a polite girl.
I would say about one out of twenty of the poems I write is stunning/good so here comes the bigger question of what to do with the other 19? I think they hold themselves better in a book than individual print but then you have your best poems sitting in wait land for the next three to six months waiting for someone to adopt them. Little Mikey please sit up straight and stop masterbating.
I am having that problem right now with the American Poetry Review. They don’t want any poetry under consideration elsewhere but don’t respond for 6 months and Carolyn after reading my manuscript wants me to submit there. It could be she is torturing me or maybe its little Mikey.
Yes, I've read this same complaint other places and thought people were whining at the time but now its me lol and also this is the first time in three years that I’ve had to write letters to journals and say ummmm, you’ve had these forever, care to drop me a line, any line.
Okay so I have comes to terms after this entry that 1) I am not polite t 2) I might be a little spoiled and 3) I am not patient (like that was ever a question.)
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Palm Beach here I come...
So I booked the hotel today and paid for the airplane tickets, lets just say everybody’s stocking is going to be a bit lighter this year thanks to Billy Collins. Thanks to everyone who left kind notes below. Whenever I go to these sorts of things I start to feel slightly nerotic b/c I don’t have a MFA. You don’t even want to visit this blog if I get into Breadloaf. But once I actually get there I am fine.
Dorrianne offered to get me into her MFA program in Oregon but I turned her down so I don’t even know if it is the issue of the degree. Writing is such a private thing at times, going to a conference is like getting naked with a whole bunch of strangers. There are good parts to it and times where you go, you know I really didn’t want to see that.
I am curious about what other people think about writing conferences. Are they needed? Is it possible to really learn anything about poetry in such a short time? Or is it more a money making thing than anything else. It is also leads me to realize how many people are shut out of these thing because of the financial factor. Split Rock (which was amazing) paid for the whole conference in August. I would not have been able to go without it, of course I had to prepare a manuscript for them.
Still I am wondering what all this adds up to, if I am not better off to rent a cabin somewhere and just write for a week then I am to jet down to Florida. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Dorrianne offered to get me into her MFA program in Oregon but I turned her down so I don’t even know if it is the issue of the degree. Writing is such a private thing at times, going to a conference is like getting naked with a whole bunch of strangers. There are good parts to it and times where you go, you know I really didn’t want to see that.
I am curious about what other people think about writing conferences. Are they needed? Is it possible to really learn anything about poetry in such a short time? Or is it more a money making thing than anything else. It is also leads me to realize how many people are shut out of these thing because of the financial factor. Split Rock (which was amazing) paid for the whole conference in August. I would not have been able to go without it, of course I had to prepare a manuscript for them.
Still I am wondering what all this adds up to, if I am not better off to rent a cabin somewhere and just write for a week then I am to jet down to Florida. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Monday, December 06, 2004
Billy and Barfin'
It seems Florida and the writer’s conference is getting closer and closer. Today I received an email about Sunday brunch and I began to realize that in less than one month I will be sitting at a table with Billy Collins. (I'll try not to blurt out all the secrets between him & Suzanne lmao)
The truth is I am nervous as hell. This is how paranoid I am-- I googled the names of other people who will be attending the workshop with me, of course some are professors, translators, most have their first books already completed. I am trying not to freak myself out. All that ever matters is the work, they could put me in a class with Jesus Christ and he’d still have to write better poems than me.
I keep thinking of what Rebecca wrote, how you must love your work more than anyone else. You must be enamored by your own voice. It feels so arrogant saying that but there is a part of me that believes without any doubt my voice is necessary. In the world of writing I am needed. There are lots of things I do well and lots of things I could be but writing isn’t a choice, it just is.
Of course then there’s that question about whether or not I am delusional and we may have to wait a good fifty years for the results to come in. But the fact is I am, in less than 30 days, going to read my poetry in front of Billy Collins and then I am going to throw up…..
The truth is I am nervous as hell. This is how paranoid I am-- I googled the names of other people who will be attending the workshop with me, of course some are professors, translators, most have their first books already completed. I am trying not to freak myself out. All that ever matters is the work, they could put me in a class with Jesus Christ and he’d still have to write better poems than me.
I keep thinking of what Rebecca wrote, how you must love your work more than anyone else. You must be enamored by your own voice. It feels so arrogant saying that but there is a part of me that believes without any doubt my voice is necessary. In the world of writing I am needed. There are lots of things I do well and lots of things I could be but writing isn’t a choice, it just is.
Of course then there’s that question about whether or not I am delusional and we may have to wait a good fifty years for the results to come in. But the fact is I am, in less than 30 days, going to read my poetry in front of Billy Collins and then I am going to throw up…..
Sunday, December 05, 2004
what a strange machine
"What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams." ~Nikos Kazantzaki
Always the wingless birds hang on the wall
their skin absent of feathers. Where is your love?
Sleeping in the November fields of corn
or upstairs? She must be sleeping
if not for the birds my love would wake.
Lately I’ve been dreaming of spoons
the thin weight of their bodies. I hunger
for metal, the taste in my mouth.
I hunger for what the body cannot digest.
Always the wingless birds hang on the wall
their skin absent of feathers. Where is your love?
Sleeping in the November fields of corn
or upstairs? She must be sleeping
if not for the birds my love would wake.
Lately I’ve been dreaming of spoons
the thin weight of their bodies. I hunger
for metal, the taste in my mouth.
I hunger for what the body cannot digest.
a subconscious is a horrible thing
Usually when I dream, I dream in stories, sometimes I am in the stories sometimes I am watching from this odd vantage point in which I am aware of it being a dream. There are nights when I fall into my poems, actually find my body in the words and I try to move the lines around, sometimes these can be maddening, other times the dreams are comforting.
Yes, I know it's the mind’s job to bring out what we are hiding but I must say I was feeling no anxiety about the manuscript being off in the world (so I thought) until I had the envelope dream. The problem is it felt so real, I opened it and it said I had won the book competition and I thought “no way in hell” and all the emotions were there and I felt about a million miles off the ground and then of course I woke up.
Now what was resting comfortably in my head has somehow wiggled its way through my whole body and become a disease. I want a book more than I have ever wanted a book and I keep trying to talk myself out of wanting it so much. And torment is so over rated, besides when I think about writing I never write and thus adding to pain.
Friday when I was at work I talked to one of my student grandparents who recently immigrated from the Ukraine. I told him I would bring in “Dancing in Odessa” for him to read, it is one of my favorite poetry books and I was lucky enough to correspond with Ilya this summer a bit. Ilya is an amazing a writer and the book is such a journey into his soul. I want a book like that and I don’t know if I am there yet….or more frightening, if I will ever be.
Yes, I know it's the mind’s job to bring out what we are hiding but I must say I was feeling no anxiety about the manuscript being off in the world (so I thought) until I had the envelope dream. The problem is it felt so real, I opened it and it said I had won the book competition and I thought “no way in hell” and all the emotions were there and I felt about a million miles off the ground and then of course I woke up.
Now what was resting comfortably in my head has somehow wiggled its way through my whole body and become a disease. I want a book more than I have ever wanted a book and I keep trying to talk myself out of wanting it so much. And torment is so over rated, besides when I think about writing I never write and thus adding to pain.
Friday when I was at work I talked to one of my student grandparents who recently immigrated from the Ukraine. I told him I would bring in “Dancing in Odessa” for him to read, it is one of my favorite poetry books and I was lucky enough to correspond with Ilya this summer a bit. Ilya is an amazing a writer and the book is such a journey into his soul. I want a book like that and I don’t know if I am there yet….or more frightening, if I will ever be.
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Sex or is she just sexy????
Sex is everywhere lately, blogs, poetry, horoscopes even the cover of books. Why do so many back covers say “her poems are sexy and intelligent” and why is it more female writers than male who are described this way?
None of Billy’s books say that about him and Paul Celan was sexy as hell but his back cover just says, he was brilliant which by the way I find incredibly sexy.
Personally I am going for the book cover that reads “she is completely frigid.” I mean wouldn’t you as a reader, 1) laugh your ass off and 2) actually buy the book to see if the author indeed did not put out. That is the whole point isn’t it, to buy the book and that’s why we have these lame ass descriptions?
But what if that isn’t the point. Sales I mean, look at European book jackets, you know those beautiful translations you can hardly get anyone to publish here in the states. Not a sexy quote among them.
The reason I bring this up is because I always question how much society affects art and what our responsibility is as artists to not be affected by it. Because I believe that what stands the test of time (those books that last a hundred years) are books that rise above what society “expects”.
Laurel always loves to give me horoscopes which I like. Years ago I remember reading one that said it was important to know what I wanted, to stand the test of time or be famous. I read that just about the point I started writing again and I took it very seriously. I thought about what it would mean to me not to be well known in my life time and to be honest I still struggle with that question.
But if I had one wish, it would be to have a book that out lived my children, grandchildren, great-great grandchildren. And isn’t that what most of us want, to not just published but to write the best damn book we are capable of writing…or is it just me???
None of Billy’s books say that about him and Paul Celan was sexy as hell but his back cover just says, he was brilliant which by the way I find incredibly sexy.
Personally I am going for the book cover that reads “she is completely frigid.” I mean wouldn’t you as a reader, 1) laugh your ass off and 2) actually buy the book to see if the author indeed did not put out. That is the whole point isn’t it, to buy the book and that’s why we have these lame ass descriptions?
But what if that isn’t the point. Sales I mean, look at European book jackets, you know those beautiful translations you can hardly get anyone to publish here in the states. Not a sexy quote among them.
The reason I bring this up is because I always question how much society affects art and what our responsibility is as artists to not be affected by it. Because I believe that what stands the test of time (those books that last a hundred years) are books that rise above what society “expects”.
Laurel always loves to give me horoscopes which I like. Years ago I remember reading one that said it was important to know what I wanted, to stand the test of time or be famous. I read that just about the point I started writing again and I took it very seriously. I thought about what it would mean to me not to be well known in my life time and to be honest I still struggle with that question.
But if I had one wish, it would be to have a book that out lived my children, grandchildren, great-great grandchildren. And isn’t that what most of us want, to not just published but to write the best damn book we are capable of writing…or is it just me???
Thursday, December 02, 2004
A Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
I am having a series of horrible days
-I washed my cell phone in the washing machine
-I then put my cell phone in the dryer
-after drinking too much red wine I decided to register
at classmates.com for my high school reunion
-every divorce or never married middle age man in my high school
class has written me by email. Thank god we had a small class.
Thank god I no longer live in Maine.
-I responded to only one, come to find out Jim is not John Plant, the boy I held
hands with in second grade, but rather the one who threw spit balls at me in English class
-I had a dream I won Yale and then I woke up
-had a fight with my love
-and I think I’m catching a cold
Now I am scurrying off to bed to feel even sorrier for myself, if that’s possible
-I washed my cell phone in the washing machine
-I then put my cell phone in the dryer
-after drinking too much red wine I decided to register
at classmates.com for my high school reunion
-every divorce or never married middle age man in my high school
class has written me by email. Thank god we had a small class.
Thank god I no longer live in Maine.
-I responded to only one, come to find out Jim is not John Plant, the boy I held
hands with in second grade, but rather the one who threw spit balls at me in English class
-I had a dream I won Yale and then I woke up
-had a fight with my love
-and I think I’m catching a cold
Now I am scurrying off to bed to feel even sorrier for myself, if that’s possible
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