Blue Suitcase

I bought a new suitcase for AWP. It's huuuugggggeee, so there's lots of room for all the journals and books I'll be bringing home.

See you in New York!

Because I'm bad at making decisions...

I'm just going to follow Mary around for most of AWP.

One exception--I'm holding down the BOR fort with Jay on Thursday from 8:30-2. Here are the details:

Barn Owl Review #1 will make its debut at the AWP bookfair, table 406, Americas Hall II, access from the third floor. Fabulous books from the Akron Series in Poetry, and information on the Akron Poetry Prize, will also be available at our table.

I'll also be at the NEOMFA table for a little while on Saturday (I think), representing for my alma mater. (How weird!)

Hopefully I will not forget to take pictures.

Don't Cry for Me

I'm going to see Evita this afternoon. I've lived and or gone to school in Akron for almost a decade, but I think this is the first time I'll be going to EJ Thomas for anything other than a high school graduation (a lot of Akron public schools use it for commencement). I need to get over to the art museum sometime soon, too. They have weird hours and whenever I want to go, they're closed.

When I was a kid, my mom had a CD of Andrew Lloyd Weber's greatest hits. I used to know the whole thing by heart. But I've never seen any of his shows.

Sometimes, Varley talks about living in NYC and going to shows on Broadway. I can't imagine living a life where going to Broadway doesn't involve plane tickets and lots of planning. Have you read Varley's books? I loved A Company of Three but haven't read the others yet. I hear she's going to be signing The Cure at AWP.

I started The Road this morning. It reads like a giant prose poem, which, in my opinion, is a really, really good thing. I'm only about 20 pages in, though, so I'll reserve judgement for later.

Jason Bredle's Standing in Line for the Beast pretty much rocks. Everyone talks about how funny it is, but when I finished, I was sad and lonely. Okay, so I'm pretty much always sad and lonely, but what I'm trying to say is that it wasn't as silly as some make it seem. In her foreward, Barbara Hamby says, "These long loopy poems make you laugh out loud and then crumple your heart like a Dixie cup." That's what I'm trying to say.

There was something in that foreward that bugged me a little, though. Hamby wrote: "[These poems] do not come from ... a breathless world where people are just too sensitive or confused or mired in their childhood for words." I can't help feeling like she was talking about my ms, which is sensitive, and confused, and mired in childhood. I guess i won't be entering any contests Ms. Hamby is judging.

PS - The 10 day forecast has already changed. Next weekend will be warmer than it is now, but not 50.

AWP forecast

Okay, I know 10-day forecasts are notoriously unreliable, but as of right now, "they" are predicting a high of 50 for next Saturday in NYC. I have been seriously worried that we would be in New York during a raging blizzard or 10 below wind chills, but that may not be the case.

Yay! It's so much easier to wear cute skirts when it's not snowing.

Insert catchy title here

Still bummed about Heath Ledger. Kind of sickened by the media circus (which I am, in a way, feeding), which surprises me because I'm usually all about random celebrity stalking. Maybe it's because Ledger wasn't usually in the tabloids much, so this seems unusual.

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AWP is 7 days away. I'm not ready. It seems too soon. I'm not even adjusted to the semester yet.

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I'm having to be more of a disciplinarian in my classes this semester than I have in the past. Strange to hear myself yelling (to be heard over all the errant talking, not because I'm mad).

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Borrowed this (Eric W. says it's the best book he's read in ages) and this today. Yesterday, I read this. Hopefully I'll have time to post something literary soon.

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I've been a bad, bad associate editor. I didn't tell you we got issue 1 back from the printers. Then again, most of you read Mary's blog, too, so you already knew.

I bet you want a copy real bad. I think you should pick it up next Thursday morning when I'm working the table. Don't wait around for Mary to show up in the afternoon.

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That's all. Time for bed.

Heath Ledger

This is such sad news.

Normally, I don't have a very strong reaction when I hear about celebrities passing away, but I've been a Heath Ledger fan since I was in High School, and this really bums me out.

I may have to watch Ten Things I Hate About You tonight. Just to say good-bye.

FRiGG

Hey ya'll, check out the new issue of FRiGG. There just might be five poems I wrote in there. : )

Even though we ain't got money...

After reading this post about non-profit salaries, I'm thinking about money.

I'm thinking about my ever increasing debt (no, that's not accurate. For the moment, my debt is not getting any larger, but not any smaller either).

I'm thinking about being a "part-time" instructor, which means I carry the same load as most profs in my department, but get a fraction of the compensation. I'm not bitter--I knew what I was signing up for. Just thinking.

I'm thinking about when I made $14.88/hour and thought livin' was easy. (If you're trying to do the math, that comes out to just over 30K/year.)

About a year ago, when I got my first acceptance letter (email), my dad asked how much I was going to be paid. When I said nothing, Dad got pissed, said it wasn't fair that someone else was profiting from my hard work and creativity. I had a hard time explaining that the people who published my work weren't making a profit either.

I've talked about this before--practicality vs. passion and all that, plus a working class mentality and growing up with parents who were born during the depression (my mother reuses paper towels, makes "garbage soup" instead of throwing out leftovers that have passed their prime, and my father thinks Velveeta boxes are the best organizational tools ever), so when I think about teaching and writing poetry just because I love words and books, I get a little itchy.

I don't want to be "rich" -- which is a relative term, because I think if I made 50K a year I wouldn't know what to do with it -- but I'd like to be in a position where I don't have to think about money quite so often. I guess the problem is that whatever amout of money I make, I find a way to spend it, so that there's always a need for more.

Upward mobility is expensive.

I'd Rather Be...

here:

It is so cold in Ohio today that I don't even want to go see if there is any poetry news in the mailbox.

At the same time that I'm struggling with transition, I'm aching for change. For something new & different. To stir the pot.

I've never been to NYC before, so maybe that will be enough to get things moving, but being that I am a country bumpkin, I'm not sure the big city will inspire me like the Chiricahuas did. I suppose it's a wholly different thing. The similarities: both big, immense, and overwhelming. Good for perspective.

The sky today is like old blankets. Dull and fuzzy. But not warm.

Sanitizing

My Comp 2 students created blogs today. That means it's time to make sure all my old posts are PG. Probably a good thing to do anyway.

By the way, does anyone know of some good non-writer/non-lit blogs? I'd like to give the students some examples that aren't all poetry, all the time.

holy moly!

I'm exhausted!

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I need to write a poem for tomorrow. Or commit to a draft I've already written. (Taking Mary's workshop this semester--part timers get a free course.)

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I'm recording American Idol right now so I can fast-forward through the bad-but-not-funny auditions and the stupid interviews. Sooo looking forward to reading Collin's recaps.

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If my measurements are correct, I walk appox. 1.5 miles between my classes. Not so much, until you factor in the frigging 20 degree weather and pointy little snowflakes jabbing me in the eyeballs. And the un-ergonomically correct bag I carry my shit around in. I'm going to have to buy a backpack b/c I am not gonna be seen on campus with a wheely bag. (No offense to those who do use wheely bags. I'm just not ready to accept that part of my fate yet.)

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Strangest thing about being a graduate: Professors morphing into colleagues. No one wants me to call them Dr. anymore. So it's "hey you" for anyone who ever had me as an undergrad.

2nd strangest thing: being kicked out of the grad office. who woulda thought I'd be sad about not hanging out in the bull pen? My new office has a door. Hopefully my new key opens it.

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Day One: Back to the Grind

Well, I just got home from Day 1 of my life as a part-timer. I have a really interesting, diverse bunch of students this semester, and they seem to be eager to engage in conversation and *gasp* several of them said they love to read and write. We'll see how long that lasts!

I'm so, so glad to be back into a semester...break was sucking the life out of me. Lots of work to do this week because last week I was a couch potato. But that's all right.

I think I'm going to be looking for a part time job in the next couple weeks. I checked out Sylvan Learning Center tutor positions, but it looks like they require a teaching certificate. Next up, Kaplan. I'd prefer to do something that isn't totally unrelated to my degree. Maybe Borders will be the next place I turn in an application. Or the library. My schedule is kind of perfect for a part-time job, since most days I'm finished teaching in the early afternoon. I've gotten so spoiled as a grad student, so I need to start easing myself back into full-time work. (although I don't know why teaching 3 classes is considered part-time, since that's about what most profs teach...but we don't need to get into that whole debate, do we?)

Whitey's Booze'n'Burgers

Went to Whitey's last night for a friend's 30th birthday, but spent most of the evening catching up with those three (above), some of my closest friends from high school. High School was a rough time for my friends and I--a bunch of misfits who spent too much time thinking and listening to sad music. Not much has changed. On the way home, we were singing along to the oldies station, which is something we used to do back when Mike was the only one of us with a car. The biggest difference? Back in the day, we were all on the straight and narrow--no smoking, no drinking, just good Christian kids eating french fries at Eat'n'Park after youth group meetings on Wednesday nights. Hard to believe, I know.

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So school starts tomorrow, and I'm still not ready. Well, I'm ready enough. Got my Tylenol PM so I don't stay up until 2 in the morning like I have been over break. I'll be up before sunrise tomorrow morning and that is not a pleasant thought.

My first class starts at 9:55...which makes it seem like I won't need to be up all that early, but I am a victim of the Tracey curse: Just because I'm out of bed and walking around doesn't mean I'm awake. I need at least 2 hours to get the cobwebs out. It's a good thing I will never have an on-call sort of job, because I'd probably sleep through my pager.

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Did you see the Barn Owl Review proof over at Mary's place? Are you as psyched as I am to have a copy all to yourself? Just a couple more weeks.

Oh Dear

I can't decide if it is a good thing that break is almost over or not.

I didn't finish half of what I wanted to. This either means I am going to be on a procrastination-induced work binge this weekend, or I am going to start the semester much less prepared than I had hoped.

Either way, I'm a little annoyed with myself, but am starting to accept the fact that I put too much on my to do list and I need to chill once in a while.

Break has been rough--between the evil uvula virus and my post-graduation funk (not to mention the migrating sticky keys on my laptop--today it's "r" yesterday it was "j"), I have been rather unpleasant to be around, even for myself. That's bad, isn't it, when you get sick of yourself?

You may have noticed that I'm already slipping up on my resolution. but I haven't done much poetic this week, and I don't think anyone wants to read text-book reviews here. That's what I've been doing: reading text books. I'm on a mission to make my classes more structured. This is admittedly for my benefit more than my students', since I've been somewhat disorganized in my teaching methods this past year and disorganization stresses me out.

So I'll be heading to the office shortly to turn in my syllabi for copies, even though the syllabi are not as in-depth as I had imagined. They're just the usual: requirements and due dates.

I'm a little anxious about the transition from TA to part-timer. I have no idea what it's going to be like to teach 3 classes--how much time I'm going to spend prepping and grading, how often I'm going to tell one class the same thing and forget to tell the other class completely, if I'm going to learn 60 students' names as quickly as I learned 20... And most importantly, am I still going to like teaching when I do it all day, every day?

Maybe it's the weather. The whole world is gray.

The Work

I've been thinking about writing today--the actual work of it--and realizing that as a poet, I don't do much of it. Poems either come quick or a couple lines at a time over days or even weeks. I spend more time revising, and I usually do that in chunks of several poems at a time. In any given week (the last 3 or 4 excluded, since my brain has been on vacation) I probably spend less than 4 hours actually writing. I wonder what would happen if I tried to do it on a more regular basis. I tend to think I would stare at the screen and not get much more done than usual, although my post-Bisbee blitz from last August sort of proves otherwise.

This is a major difference from when I considered myself primarily a fiction writer. When I first sat down to try to write a novel (this was about 6 years ago), I spent every free moment at the computer. I wrote 80 pages in a month--and I was working full time. Now, I never finished that draft, and I doubt I'll ever go back to it since the writer I was at 21 is not the writer I am today, but it shows me that I can produce pages, words, pretty quickly if I put my mind to it.

I wrote the outline for a memoir this past semester for my Non-Fiction class, and I've been thinking about fleshing out that outline. But I don't know if I want to commit myself to that kind of project. I could easily spend 6-8 hours a day hacking away at it...and then what would happen to all my other projects? I'm all for multi-tasking, juggling, keeping my plate full, but I feel like a prose project would become all-consuming, and aren't I, after all, supposed to be finishing this poetry manuscript I keep freaking out about?

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I met a friend for beer yesterday and we talked writing and academia...and I freaked out a bit. K has a PhD in something else and is working on her MFA in poetry, so she knows all about the life of the grad student and academic. She's been on the job market. Defended a dissertation. She re-opened my eyes to the un-glamorous side (okay, so academia isn't really glamorous from any side, but she talked nuts-and-bolts) which I had been ignoring while going through the application process. I am so, so glad that I finished my apps before I had this conversation, because if I had had it before, I might have talked myself out of it entirely.

I want this, I do...but sometimes I think about sitting in my office with my books and my poems and forget about the politics, the creepy MLA hotel interviews, the committees, the hoops. I forget about being poor. The conversation yesterday reminded me of these things, and now I'm thinking, "It wouldn't be so bad to go back to HR."

AAARRRRG! Why can't I ever make up my mind and then stick to it? Granted, I'll be back to gung-ho in a week or so, but right now, I'm flailing. Good thing the wheels are already rolling.

Daydreamer

Lately, I've been obsessing over my dream-office. Watching a lot of home renovation shows will do that to you. I must have built-in floor to ceiling bookshelves and a giant window seat before my life will be complete. In the meantime, I will continue buying cheap-o particle board bookshelves at the end of every semester to keep up with my ever growing collection.

I'd like a nice kitchen, too, but really, that is so much less important.

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The weather here is friggin' awesome today and was awesomer yesterday. I know awesomer isn't a word, but I don't care.

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OSU lost. Normally, I wouldn't know this, but I was talked into watching the game with friends.

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I think the delay is almost over. I think I will write something today.

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So, no one is going to help me decide about the ms conundrum, huh?

Monday Updates

Good things happen when Karen cleans out her office, see -->

Thanks, Karen! It will certainly be a while before I run out of reading material.

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deleted to protect the innocent : ), but still, congrats!

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Speaking of mss and first book contests, I was telling Mary this morning that my goal was to have my ms ready for the mail by the end of the week so that I can hit some of the later deadlines.

Since then (an hour and a half ago), I've been thinking that maybe I don't want to do that. I have about 20 poems published right now, but more than half of those (more than 2/3, probably) didn't make the cut when I put my thesis together. Note - I'm not saying I don't like the poems I've published, just that many of them aren't part of the manuscript. At any rate, I think I'd like to have a better publishing record before I start sending out the manuscript, and it certainly wouldn't hurt to revise the thing a bit more now that I'm not rushing for thesis defenses and deadlines.

I know some poets (not naming any names...) who had published nearly every poem in their first books individually before they were published together--but I've also seen acknowledgement pages with only five or six credits. I'm not sure which is better, but I wonder, if the poems aren't jumping out at editors in groups of five or six, then are they going to jump in a group of fifty? I'm not complaining or whining. I'm really happy with the responses I've gotten so far, and I think 20-some poems in a year is pretty awesome, but maybe I'm rushing. So, the question remains: do I let my ms incubate for 8 months or so and try for the end-of-08 contest season, or do I get what I've got in the mail for the February deadlines?

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Working on my syllabi this week. But more importantly, working on class plans. I'm hoping this semester, I will be able to plan far enough ahead that I only have to prep before class when something unexpected comes up.

UA is doing a huge, cross discipline forum on race relations in February, with lots of speakers and round table discussions. We had a meeting about it this morning, and I think it's going to be pretty cool...but I get flustered whenever the conversation in my classroom turns to something sensitive, so I'm worried that I won't be able to teach it effectively. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Quickies

Check it out - Hobble Creek Review is all new and shiny. Good work, Justin!

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What is going on with AWP? If you did get a pass, make sure you visit me and Mary and Jay and Jay at the Barn Owl Review table, and all of us at the NEOMFA reception on Saturday night.

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I just finished reading Nickel and Dimed, which didn't tell me much I didn't already know, but brought back some unpleasant memories. Ehrenreich did her little experiment durning the same year that I did mine (ha! I wish it was an experiment, but unlike our author, I did not have stock options and a savings account waiting for me in "real" life.) One thing I forgot until I started reading--the constant, and I mean constant, job hunting. You never want to accept that this job is the best you can get, so you keep looking. I started at least four jobs in two months. Fun!

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Had coffee with Jennifer and Jay yesterday. It was good to talk poetry, theses, life in general. Funny how much I miss my classmates during breaks.

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Doing better with the reading list this week. I also finished Boomer Girls, an anthology of women poets born between 1946 and 1964, which is apparently kind of hard to get your hands on (I got it from a UA used book sale). Lots of familiar names in that one: Kim Addonizio, Cathy Song, Jan Beatty, Rita Dove... and a lot of good poems (I only rolled my eyes a couple times). So, where's the next generation's anthology (let's say 1965 to 1980 or so)? I'm imagining a list of poets I'd solicit if it were my project, but who would you include?

The Essential Delay

The other day, my brother-in-law asked me if I was writing. It was one part artist-to-artist (he's a musician) "how's work?" and one part parent asking "did you clean your room?" or "did you check your oil?" I'm sure I'll be hearing this question a lot, since the great fear is that MFAs stop writing when they finish their programs.

I answered with: "a little, not much...well, I've been writing in my journal." Actually I've written two poems since school let out, so I'm not so terribly far behind. I, like Jeannine, am more of a wait-for-inspiration poet, so I don't feel like I'm slacking off because I haven't been glued to the blank page lately. But the question got under my skin. Maybe I should be trying harder, forcing inspiration instead of waiting.

But then there's this--I can't find the article so I can't give direct quotes, but I believe the piece was written by Donald Murray, one of the few composition scholars I can really stand behind, and he wrote that what many people call writer's block isn't. He calls it the "essential delay" and explains that when experienced writers aren't writing, it's not because they don't have the ideas, or the inspiration, it's because it isn't the right time. People need time to process information, to do mental cataloging, and to deal with the internal editor before they sit down with pen and paper (or laptop and blank screen). A writer can sit on an idea or project for a week, a month, until the last possible moment before the deadline, but they're not procrastinating, they're processing. I love this idea. (I apply it to my academic writing all the time--I need a lot of time to think about my research before I can come up with a good, arguable thesis.)

Maybe it's just a fancy, academic excuse. But I'm sticking with it. For me, the essential delay is in this transition between my thesis and whatever comes next. Like a rebound relationship. I'm afraid that anything I start now won't stick. I need to finish, I mean really finish my thesis--to the point where it's no longer my thesis but a manuscript I'm circulating--before I can get serious about project #2. So no, I'm not writing much these days. But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking. That doesn't mean the poems aren't writing themselves in the back of my mind right now. There's not a lot of new work piling up on my desk, but that doesn't make me any less a poet than I was this summer cranking out 10 pages in a weekend.

So, what do you think? Is the "essential delay" a fancy excuse, or does it happen to you, too?

Good morning, 2008 (and some thoughts on poetics)

I guess it isn't really morning any more, but I'm still in my pj's, drinking coffee, so it's morning here. In my little world.

I've been thinking a lot about change these last few days because my life is in transition. I'm not a student anymore, but maybe I will be again soon. Between now and March, when the PhD gods tell me my fate, I'm treading water. I don't get to make many decisions right now, except what to do with my time while I wait. One thing I'm going to try to do: wallow less, live more. I like to spout off about how "comfortable" I am being alone, how "happy" solitude makes me, but last night I realized that those are just a couple of new brick walls I use to make myself feel better that there aren't more people in my life (in the real world...perhaps this is why I blog so often) or that I don't spend more time with the people who are.

Another thing I'd like to do: stop using this blog as a journal. Stop whining at the cyberworld. I started this blog because I wanted to be part of a community of writers, so I need to try to get back to that. Becoming part of the discussion. Reading and reflecting and reviewing. Confession: I don't read lit mags very often. I feel horribly guilty about this, especially when I ask the editors of those lit mags to read my work. I read the stuff that comes into my hands easily--passed on from Mary, or my classmates, or free copies picked up at book fairs (I read more online journals, but still, not enough). I prefer to read books...but as a poet who does not have a book, I'd like for people to read what I write, so I should be doing the same for others. Plus, now that I'm a BOR editor, I'm sitting on both sides of the fence. So lit mags. I promise I will read more lit mags.

Well...we all mean well on New Year's Day, but that rarely lasts, does it? I'll be back here whining in a week. But in the meantime, some thoughts on Written in Water, Written in Stone.

I'm not very good with dates/historical movements, etc., so forgive me if I get things wrong. It seems most of these essays were written long before they were published (the preface says they were printed between 1976 and 1996, but at least a few had 1971 printed below the author's name and many "felt" older) and because of that, I sometimes felt excluded from the discussion. This was partly because I didn't fully understand the historical context, partly because some essays were written so early in the women's lib movement that authors were still discussing "women's writing" as something alltogether different from "Poetry." I've always been confused by feminism (see my posts from last Febuary), but reading these essays helped me to see how, if I were born in 1960 instead of 1980, my perspective would be different.

At any rate, many, many of the male poets included in this collection became all the same guy to me: A stodgy little old man who likes to make his girl students cry, (Yes, there is a teacher (or two) in my past who helped shape this perception.) and he was yelling at me all through this book. Telling me that I don't know enough to even put pen to paper, that every interpertation I have of a given poem is wrong, and that as long as my poems are written in free verse, they are useless, temporary, and ultimately forgettable. Perhaps I'm being harsh, but there were several articles belittling the advent of free-verse, the laziness of beginning writers, and claiming that writers "today" (10-20 years ago) don't have any idea what was written before WWII. I may be exaggerating a bit, but that is the overall message I came away with. Pretty unfortunate considering where I'm at in my life and in my writing.

On the up side, there was a lot of good advice tucked in between these rants against young poets (and MFAs--I finally got to read the Donald Hall McPoem essay, and it's pretty scary). I came away thinking about lines and line breaks, stanzas, the shape of my poems, in a way that I hadn't before, as the same poets who complain about free verse discuss musicality and rhythm and what a line of poetry should represent. Many complained that contemporary poetry is nothing more than prose with line breaks (and haven't I said the same about my work?) and encouraged writers to bring music back into poetry. That's a good thing, I think, and something that I need to work on. Although I'm still not sure how to articulate it, much less do it.

Many essays also talked about personal experience and confessional poetry--a debate I know a little more about. This is the best explanation I've ever come across, from Louis Simpson's "Reflections on Narrative Poetry":

"Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, among others, were said to be confessional poets--that is, to be writing directly about their lives. But [...] the incidents they relate have been shaped so as to make a point. The protagonist is seen as on a stage. In confessional poetry, on the other hand, there is no drama. The drama is not in the poem but outside it, in a life we cannot share."

So, personal expereince + drama = good narrative poetry? Maybe an oversimplification, but it works for me.

Final thoughts: A good book, although frustrating at times. Helpful in looking at poetry as a growing, changing, evolving artform; like gawky pictures from your teenage years, a little hard to look at, but if you're careful and patient, there are a lot of lessons to learn. And here is my favorite moment. This is from Robert Francis' "Four Pot Shots at Poetry."

It Really Isn't

It isn't expensive to be a poet. A pencil and a piece of paper are all the equipment needed to get started. Homer managed with less.

A pencil or pen and a few pieces of paper. Then an envelope or two and some postage stamps.

[...]

You may fancy writing in an Italian villa or a French chateau, but the poems you write there will be no more immortal than those written in your bedroom at home.

Nor do you need very much of the most precious of all items, time. Odds and ends will do. Evenings, early mornings, noon hours. Sundays, holidays, and when you sprain your ankle.

It's quite otherwise with a painter. Paints, brushes, and canvases cost money, and a painter can't very well paint in his bedroom. [...]

No, if a poet can support himself he can support his poetry. If he can keep himself fed, his poems won't starve.

So, when you come right down to the brass tacks, a poet doesn't really need the aid, assistance, subsidy, and support that munificent philanthropy stands ready to grant him. In this, isn't he lucky?