Arsenic Lobster (and a bit about teaching and technology)

I've got four poems in the new issue of Arsenic Lobster. Lovely, lovely stuff in there. I've just barely had a chance to nose around. Can't wait to read the rest.

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I'm quite fascinated with Digital Ethnography and am wondering how I might incorporate some of Wesch's ideas into my comp classes (or even poetry, perhaps) the next time I teach (I'll be doing all my hours in the office this coming semester, no teaching until the fall). I think this video would be a great conversation starter in a classroom:

A much needed ego boost

After Hours has accepted my poem "Advice from a Hotel Maid" for their next issue. That's two journals/five poems in less than a week.

Thanks, universe, I needed this.

My regular readers will know that my confidence as a poet/academic/person has taken a hit this last year, what with my rather uninspired transition to city living and PhD work. It's good to be reminded, even in this small, largely subjective way, that some folks (besides the ones that love me already) appreciate my work.

Two of the poems were written during my MFA, one was written while I was still in Akron playing the adjunct game, and two were written during my first semester in Chicago. I think that's a pretty good spread.

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I got sucked into the abyss that is cable (err--satellite) television for the last couple of days and have not met my goal, which was to write ten pages in less than a week (okay, originally it was to write ten pages in 3 days, then five, then in less than a week). My friend Kristina is coming to the farm to talk poetry on Wednesday, so the new goal is to have ten pages by the time she gets here. I do have 2 new pages, so that's 8 that I still need. I'm channeling Maggie Anderson here, and her 10-pages-in-a-weekend assignment that kicked my ass/provided a much needed break-through in my writing the summer that I was working on my thesis.

Speaking of Maggie Anderson and the post-Bisbee writing assignment, I should give a shout-out to this year's Wick Fellows, including my friend Frank. I think they're starting their workshop tomorrow and will be heading out to Arizona next week, but I could be wrong. At any rate, I wish them much joy and artistic inspiration and camaraderie.

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And before I go, one more picture of my idyllic home in the country. I'm so wishing I could stay forever.

New Work...

at Anti-!

Many thanks to Steve for giving my poem a home!

Oh, and by the way

Two of the coolest kids I know in Chicago have started a journal. They're accepting submissions.

Go check out Artifice Magazine. Right now.

AWP eve

First things first: when I finish updating my blog, I'm going to Target. I can't risk wearing the same outfit I wore last year, so I have to buy all new clothes. Okay, I may have bought a few new items in the last 12 months. Maybe I only need to buy one new outfit. And definitely new shoes.

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I am not planning out my schedule, but you will definitely be able to find me at the Barn Owl Review table (#724, Hilton Chicago, Southwest Hall, lower level) on Friday (3-close) and Saturday (12-3). I will not be around on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning due to school obligations (don't even get me started on how mad I am that I have to continue participating in my regular life while there are spazzy poets and cranky fiction writers scurrying around the loop).

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Somehow I forgot to tell you: I have a poem forthcoming in Anti-!

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There are too many books I want to list them here. Hopefully I remember what they are when I'm wandering the bookfair.

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I am not going to be shy and starstruck this year. But still, it will be easier if you say "hi" first.

Also on my resolution list: 1) I will not spill anyone else's wine on them because I talk with my hands. 2) I will not be rude when introduced to other bloggers and will also not ask them to stop speaking other languages that I don't understand. 3) (and this should prevent #1 and #2) I will not have too much to drink at the Saturday night dance party (off site events are another story).

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Well, since I still have to teach and go to class tomorrow, I should probably quit AWP-dreaming and start getting some stuff done. Sigh.

Updates and stuff

You may have noticed I changed my profile pic. The other one was getting old, I was tired of looking at it. But more importantly, the new one is, I think, a funny little collage of new and old. I'm at Lake Michigan, my favorite part of Chicago, and I'm wearing my lucky Akron sweatshirt (many, many good things have happened to me in this shirt). Maybe this pic will be a sign of good things to come...

Like the acceptance letter I got in the mail yesterday from Hiram Poetry Review. I guess it's not all lost in the USPS. I had a near miss with HPR about a year and a half ago--first time I ever had to withdraw a poem and the editor said he was just getting ready to send an acceptance. So, when they say "send more work," you should really send more work! Now, if I could just get myself to sit down and put some new submission packets together...but not today. Today is for Jorie Graham, Kafka and Deleuze, and Longenbach.

And voter registration...aargh. My Ohio registration was way out of date (try 2004 out of date...yes, I'm one of those awful people who only votes during presidential elections) so I tried to update it at the same time I requested an absentee ballot. Well, the good ole paper pushers lost my paperwork, so now I'm not registered in Ohio and today is the last day to register in Illinois. Hopefully the fact that I don't yet have an Illinois ID is not a problem. If it is, well, you can't say I didn't try.

And now, I hear the laundry room calling. Yes, I was up today before 6 am and already have laundry going. How ambitious of me. But I'll leave you with a little bit of scenery. I've never seen any lake the color it was on Saturday, and even though the leaves haven't turned here yet, I think this picture looks like fall.

Oh, the shame!

I've prided myself for some time now on my ability to organize my life via excel spreadsheets (see here)...but the thing is, it doesn't matter how effective the columns are or how intuitive the color coding is, if you don't update them, they don't work.

The problem is, I can't remember who I got rejections from over the summer. Between the traveling and the packing, the mail got opened and thrown into a pile. Who knows which pile? I think I managed to pay all my bills, but I did not manage to keep track of my rejections.

Now, between my bad records, the fact that I moved, and that I think my last batch of SASEs had $.41 stamps on them, I have a feeling that I'll never know which poems are still out there in the world.

Anybody ever been in this position? Do you query, even though you might have already gotten a rejection? Do you just put those poems aside and wait? Or do you assume the worst and put them back into circulation?

I need a new system anyway. The old one is a mess.

Odd, I know...

but this post actually has something to do with poetry!

I have new work up at keep going, a super-sweet on-line mag. Many, many thanks to the editors.


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In other news, the apartment search might be over. I applied for a cute little studio in Buena Park today. That neighborhood was not on my list, but it looked safe, and the apartmentpeople swore it was just like Lakeview. I wish I could post pictures, but my new phone and I are having issues with email.

Let me tell you, all my fears about living in the city & relying on public transportation are completely valid!!! I think I've got twice as much gray hair as I did yesterday, and my nerves are shot. When I move, I'm going to learn the route from my front door to UIC and then I'm going to be a recluse for the rest of the time. Here's just one example of my ineptness: It took me 45 minutes to get from Union Station to the Wells/Washington el stop. They're four blocks apart. Note to self: don't ask coffee girl at Union Station for directions. She don't know any more than you do.

FRiGG

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

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.

yay!

Ever since I started submitting my poems, I've become obsessed with the mailbox. It kind of reminds me of when I was in high school and had church camp pen-pals all over the place. So imagine my disappointment when nothing but bills and flyers have been in my mailbox for at least a week.

Then I check my email...

Harpur Palate just picked up a poem. Yay!

This is my first print journal/journal affiliated with a University pub (outside of journals somehow connected to the NEOMFA), so it feels different. It means that sooner or later, there will be a little book in my mailbox, and my name will be inside it.

Updates

The Fall issue of Wicked Alice is up! Go check it out. I think I went to high school with this contributor. Weird, huh? I thought I was the only poet from Cloverleaf. And somehow we both end up in the same issue of the same journal.

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My thesis defense went super well, except for the part where I tried to explain my prose poems and started rambling like a moron. Oh well. Other than that, we talked about revision, my advice for other MFA poets (don't wait for your committee to ask to see your ms, don't start your ms in the first semester b/c you'll hate it by the end, and figure out who gives good comments and ignore all the rest), and whether f**k or screw is the right word to use (in a particular poem). Of course, Mom would say screw, but I think I have to go with the other. The worst part? Trying not to look at Mary because every time I did, I wanted to cry. I can't believe I'm leaving the NEOMFA. Why can't I just stay forever?

Oh, and the ms title. It started out as Hammers and Whiskey, changed to In the Weeds, but we've decided neither is right. What am I gonna call this thing?

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Winter Wheat was also awesome, although more for the company than the actual conference, which seems to get smaller every year. I decided not to bring my camera, though, so you'll have to wait for Mary and Adam to post their pictures of the ghost town that BGSU's student union was yesterday.

There was some interesting conversation in our panel on the nature of the workshop...unfortunately, I don't think we solved anything, but definitely got some ideas. One thing that everyone seemed to think was worthwhile: typing one page worth of analysis/suggestions (which should be turned in to the instructor and the writer) instead of just jotting down annotations on the page.

Mary and I didn't get to dance very much last night, partially because we were totally beat, partially because the dj just wasn't playin' the right stuff. If only he'd played this:



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Time to start grading. Now that my thesis defense is over, I have no more excuses for not being on top of things.

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P.S. Thanks everyone for the good luck and congratualtions!

That's Wicked!

Somebody's going to have three poems in the next Wicked Alice. Betcha can't guess who...

This is, quite possible, my most exciting publication moment so far. Why? Because Wicked Alice is the first journal I ever sent my work to.

Yay!

BFS update

It's not the Big Fall Submission anymore. It's the Big Effing Submission. I started working on this at 4:30. It's 7:30. Oy.

35 poems.
20 journals.

I'm sending an awful lot of energy into poetryland. Hope some comes back.

Susie-Homemaker and Gracie McClutzy

I've been a cooking freak this weekend; first the pot roast, then cabbage and dumplings, and spaghetti today (okay, so that wasn't really cooking because the sauce was from a jar, but at least I didn't microwave anything). I also cleaned the kitchen, did two loads of dishes, cleaned my room, hung some pictures on the walls, and took out the trash. I'm feeling better now. For as much of a self-professed slob as I am, I realize that when I'm feeling emotionally off, a lot of times it has to do with the chaos in my physical space.

At any rate, when I wasn't playing Susie-Homemaker, I was grading papers, reading, doing some official Barn Owl business, and studying for the Lit GRE. Over all, a pretty productive weekend. I'm hoping that I can keep the momentum up this week.

An interesting development this semester is my Creative Non-Fiction class. We're required to take one workshop and one craft & theory course outside of our primary genre, and I'm finally fulfilling my C&T requirement. I'm surprised to say I am thoroughly enjoying all the essay reading. Ever since I decided poetry was my one true love, I've been playing catch-up and reading very little prose (except criticism...bleh!). Fiction (especially short fiction) lost its charm a while back, so it's nice to find something besides poetry that I enjoy reading. If I weren't all nicely tucked into bed, I'd grab my folder and list off some titles, but that'll have to wait until a day-time post.

For our final project, we have to write a memoir or long-essay proposal, complete with synopsis, character sketches, annotated bib, etc. I am thinking about doing something about the body. More specifically, my body. My inability to ride a bicycle, catch a ball, or walk and chew gum. My knack for walking into walls and falling down stairs. This is all very fuzzy in my mind right now, but I think there is something interesting about having little sense of balance or hand-eye coordination. It seems that most people have an innate ability to recognize the borders of their body, but I've never been able to. I think this is part of the reason why I'm sometimes socially awkward and definitely part of the reason I'm a writer. I really have no idea where I'm going with all of this, but it's one of my current obsessions and not one that I want to write poems about, so we'll see what happens.

Speaking of obsessions and poems, I'm thinking about taking my grandparents out of my thesis all together. I finally have enough pages to do that. It just feels forced to have those poems staying in a manuscript that has grown totally in a different direction than I expected it would. It's just a thought. I don't know yet.

I still haven't sent out my fall submissions, which has me thinking that I ought to do an even bigger submission than I'd originally planned. To make up for all the procrastinating. I was going through my manuscript and thinking about how many of the poems have never been sent out and am starting to wonder what I'm waiting for. I think there are 30-40 pages worth that are ready to go. Or will be ready if I sit down one afternoon and do some tweaking. That's a whole lotta postage, though. We'll see.

anxiety? what's that?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Holy crap! I am a glutton for punishment.

Nephew/Roommate was making fun of me yesterday because I was telling him how busy I would be and I said, "And I have to go to the bar after class." He said if I "had" to go to the bar, then maybe I shouldn't. He just doesn't get it. I have to schedule every minute of my life for the next 3 months, but that doesn't mean I can't schedule a little fun, too.

I'm behind on my BFS. I picked the journals, picked the poems, but haven't had time to sit down and write my cover letters or print things out or go to the post office for stamps. Although, I no longer know what my packets are going to cost. See, up until this summer, all my poems were one page. So I knew that I would have 6 sheets of paper in an envelope, and that costs 63 cents. Well, now most of my poems are 2 pages (or longer) so I am going to have to get everything weighed again. Hrumph. And when am I going to do that? It doesn't help that my new favorite form of procrastination is finding books on GoodReads.

Last night, before bed, I was watching the national drum corps competiton. (Really, I wouldn't have sought this out, but N/R told me it was on ESPN and thought I might be interested.) I didn't especially enjoy it, but did make me feel a bit of nostalgia. Fall has always been my favorite season, and I think that's partly because I loved being in marching band so much. In the spirit of band season, here are some pics from my days as a band rat. The first is me & my trumpet, circa 9th or 10th grade. The second one is me, senior year, getting ready to go on the field. (PJs and sweats are much more comfortable under polyester uniform pants than jeans are, and we had to tuck our pants into our socks so they didn't hang down around our ankles. I didn't just dress like that for fun.)

Lily

New work up at Lily. Check it out.

More good news

I'm also going to have work (multiple poems!) in the winter issue of FRiGG. That makes my acceptance to rejection ratio since returning from Arizona 1:1. That, my friends, is my best ratio yet.

Even more exciting is that they're taking one of my favorite poems, one that has been read by no less than 17 different editors with at least 2 of them writing "almost" notes. Needless to say, I'm feeling pretty darn good right now. If there was any wine in this apartment, I'd be opening a bottle to celebrate. Unfortunately all that's here is bud light and that doesn't feel like much of a celebration to me.

I spent aaaalllll day today working on my AZ homework assignment - 10 new pages. I finished the requirement and realized I didn't even scratch the surface of all the notes and journal entries I made while traveling. I would love to continue dumping the contents of my brain on to paper, unfortunately, a girl has to sleep every now and then. Also, I have poems for both classes to revise this week because both portfolios are due within the next seven days. That leaves 3 weeks of summer to write more new stuff.

I'm dreading/anxiously anticipating the revision process because I don't normally produce drafts quite this quickly, which means the drafts are probably less polished than I'm used to. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

Okay, kids. I think it's time for me to wrap things up.

I haven't unpacked anything yet. Nor have I done any laundry. I may be going to class tomorrow in an entirley inappropriate outfit. (Nothing like dress pants and a graphic tee, right? Or a wool skirt and tank top?)

Feeling much better today, although one of my sisters has a sinus/respiratory infection which is making me a little nervous that my feeling better is a fluke. Hopefully I will wake up tomorrow and still be able to breathe through my nose.

I have recently (today) forgotten the difference between breath and breathe...hopefully I used the right one in my previous sentence.

When I checked my email upon returning from Arizona, I had two rejections and one acceptance in my inbox. I suppose that's a pretty nice ratio. My poem "Punnet Squares" will be in the August edition of Lily. I'm super excited!

I just realized that most of my publications are in on-line mags. Maybe for my next round of submissions, I'll focus on print journals. That would make CP happy. He's old school.

Oh, and how could I almost forget. Waiting for me in the mailbox? Orange Girl. Awesome.

I'm still not ready to recap my trip. So for now, another teaser.

Bisbee Copper Mine

3rd time's the charm

Check it out, folks. The new Softblow is up. So am I.