a different kind of thesis freak-out

Since I still don't have any chairs to go around my kitchen table, I've moved it into the living room and turned it into a catch-all for my paper-writing paraphernalia: library books, drafts, post-its, and...I don't know what the calculator is doing there.

As you can see, I'm writing about Dorothea Lasky's AWE for my contemporary poetry class. I have mixed feelings about this book. (Oh! I just realized I had a dream about Lasky last night. That's my first author dream ever. I think we were doing a reading together. Anyway.) There are some poems that I just read and think, Huh? You got this published? For example, there's this: "You are so summery / You summery summery love." And then there are poems that I love, that floor me and make me sad, and I think that's what she wants. There's rarely anything exciting happening with the language in Lasky's work, at least not on the surface, and images are often lost in the exclamatory silliness of things like summery summery love. But I've spent weeks with this book, read it and reread it, and it continues to haunt me. It has something to say. I just have to figure out what that something is.

And thus we come to my post title today: A different kind of thesis freak out. I'm not talking about a master's thesis, just a tiny little thesis statement. Or, to be true to how I'm feeling now, the one sentence that makes or breaks a paper. The one sentence that is escaping me despite the fact that I have more complete rough drafts for either of these papers than I've ever had before (which is to say I don't usually make it past the first draft with term papers because I wait so long to start them).

I have no idea what my point is, what I'm arguing, why it matters...and so these papers are going no where, even though they keep getting longer as I meander through my sources and my notes. I really, really need to figure out what my damn arguments are.

Wish me luck...

Caution! Venting Zone Ahead!

Sometimes, even people who are detail oriented miss the details.

My thesis is due on Monday. As in, final draft. As in, convert it to a pdf and submit it electronically. As in, my whole committee, the chair of the English department, the Dean of the college of arts and sciences, and the dean of the graduate school have to sign off on it.

I didn't want to have to worry about it over the weekend, so I set myself a goal to finish it today.

I called the Dean's office to make sure he would be in his office today. I dropped the form off at 12. It took until 3 for him to sign it. No big deal, right? I was busy trying to convince Microsoft Word that it is not smarter than I am. Changing page numbers, margins, doing one final proofread.

At 3, the Dean's office calls to say my form is ready. Around that same time, I successfully complete the pdf conversion. Pick up the form, drive to the Polsky building (it's cold, I'm not walking 30 minutes round trip just to drop off some papers). It's now 3:30. I'm in a great mood because I think my thesis will be 100% finished in just a few minutes.

But no, that's just not how life works. I wait for fifteen minutes in the grad school office to hand someone my forms. She takes one look at my signature page and says, "Your margins are wrong. You're going to need a new form."

Great. Just flippin' great. Have I mentioned that I am in a consortial program? That one of my committee members lives in Youngstown and the other lives in Salem (which may as well be Pennsyl-freaking-vania)? Both of these places are at least an hour from Akron. And 45 minutes from each other. I'm instantly thinking, great, I'm going to have to drive around for 3 hours on Monday morning getting these signatures so I don't miss the deadline. I tell the girl with the ruler in her hand that I have a major problem with said ruler. She looks at me like I killed her puppy.

I apologize, say I didn't mean to be rude, it's just, well, I can't easily get these signatures again. No worries, the Monday deadline is just a submission deadline. You don't really have to have everything perfect until the day before commencement. Everyone has to make changes after they turn everything in the first time.

Okay, fine. But if everyone has to make changes, why on Earth do I have to convert it to a pdf first? And if the form has to be so damn perfect, then why don't they generate one for us to use? Seems to me, that would make everyone's lives a whole lot easier. But I'm just a poet, what do I know?

You know what else sucks? Not drinking soda for a whole week. Coffee is not the same. I miss my carbonated sugar.

Oh, yeah, and then I get home and there are 2 rejections in the mailbox. Hello salt, meet wound.

13 hours left...

before my thesis defense! I really can't get my head around the fact that tomorrow will be the culmination of 3 years of craziness.

*

I feel myself working up to a really sentimental post, but maybe I'll save that for after my graduation reading on December 7.

*

Tonight, I'll be making some mix CDs for the drive to BG (A Fine Frenzy, Damien Rice, and Paolo Nutini will all be making appearances), reading through the ms one last time, writing down some notes so I don't just start rambling at my questions, and packing my suitcase (which smells like a frat boy because my nephew borrowed it last weekend and his cologne exploded in it).

*

Tomorrow, I'll be missing my favorite little guy's 4th birthday party. Happy Birthday, Philip!

Simplify? Not yet.

This is going to be one heck of a week. First, I'll be driving all around the NEO stalking H.L. Hix. Okay, not really. But he's speaking in Kent today and hanging out in Akron on Thursday, and I'm going to try to make it to as many events as possible. But before that, I need to read some of his poems.

Then...Thesis Defense on Friday! Holy Crap! I know I'm ready. But it's still scary.

After that, it's off to Winter Wheat. Me and some other NEOpoets (Jen, Jay, and Jessica S.) will be talking about workshops, poetry pedagogy (is there such a thing?), and genuine responses on Saturday at 2:30. I'm thinking about doing a little celebrating on Friday night, but since Mary's job market talk is first thing in the morning, maybe I'll save all my energy for Saturday night. I'm looking forward to meeting some people (Gary, Adam, who else?) that I somehow missed at AWP last year.

*

Mom and Dad are moving to Florida. Well, nothing is set in stone just yet, but they've been talking to a realtor and their friends in Florida are scoping out houses for them. I guess I'm pretty unusual in that until I went to college, I lived in the same place my whole life. Mom and Dad bought the house I grew up in in 76 or 77 and have lived there ever since. But now they're moving. I would love to be in a position to buy the house from them, but I don't think my tiny little stipend will pay a mortgage. Besides, I'm supposed to be leaving, too.

That's what's really weird. Mom and Dad's house has always been the center of our family, and we (me and my 4 sisters) have tried to stay relatively close (except Carla, who has been bouncing around for the last 10 years with her then-boyfriend/now-husband while he learned how to be a periodontist). Now, the folks are planning to leave, Carla's in VA, and hopefully I'll be somewhere far, far away, too. Maybe I'll end up at Florida State and I'll be able to "go home" on the weekends. Or maybe I'll end up in Nebraska and no one will come visit me because they'd rather take their vacation time to go see Mom and Dad.

Regardless of where I end up, I think my family as I know it will soon fall apart. I don't know that we'll stay as close when we aren't geographically close. (Although Carla and I seem to get along better the further away she gets, so maybe I'm wrong.) Most of us hate talking on the phone. Between jobs, limited incomes, and other obligations, none of us have the luxury of traveling frequently. We do like email though.

I'm afraid we're going to turn into one of those families that gets together on Christmas and can't wait to get back home. I'm afraid that my sisters and I will become distant, unfamiliar. I suppose I have as much control in not letting that happen as anyone, but frankly, I'm bad at keeping in touch between visits at Mom and Dad's house now, so how good am I going to be at it while studying for the comps or writing a dissertation?

My mother's favorite bit of advice is to not worry about something so far off in the future that you can't do anything about it. So I suppose I'm wasting time and energy fretting about this now. What I should be worrying about is those PhD applications, b/c if I don't get those done, none of this really matters, now does it?

The Biz

Lately, I seem to have forgotten the root of all this madness in my life: an absolute obsession with writing. When I decided to go to grad school instead of going on the HR job market 4 years ago, it was so I could find out if writing could be more than a hobby for me. Could I stick with it? Would I continue to enjoy it if I didn't have to steal the time from something else? Would I be able to hone my tiny gift into a real talent, a skill that might bring someone (besides me) some enjoyment?

The answer to all those questions is a resounding "yes," but I haven't written a poem just because in months. Everything has been about finishing my thesis. Will this poem fit? Will my workshopping buddies approve? Will my profs/thesis committee be proud of what I've done?

That's not to say that I don't like the poems I've written for my thesis--I LOVE most of them, I'm amazed at what I've learned and what I've managed to accomplish these past few years... but today, I'm feeling like everything I do is a business transaction. I'm tired of weighing priorities and itemizing every minute so I can keep up with it all. Where's the spontaneous creativity, the blood-pounding, skin crawling need to put pen to paper? Have I intellectualized it away?

This isn't a crisis of faith or anything; I'm not changing my plans for pursuing a PhD and I'm going to continue trying to publish, I'm just worried that I'm taking myself and this part of my life much too seriously. I need to let the joy back in. Maybe throw away the to do list and just follow my whims. But that's not very practical, and I still have a lot to do if I want my plans to work out the way I think they will.

Maybe this has to do with the fact that I completely, completely bombed the subject test this morning. I'll be surprised if I'm in the 40th percentile. I care only because I usually do better, because I usually try harder...but I chose not to study and what can I expect after making a decision like that? I'm still hoping that the other parts of my application out weigh whatever the outcome of this test was, but I'm embarrased that I didn't put in more effort.

Alas, there's nothing I can do now, except go pour a glass of wine and try to relax. I can start stressing out again in the morning, right?

All Poetry, All the Time

*Warning - Excessive caffeine and lack of sleep induced rambling below*

I am planning to finish my thesis tomorrow (i.e., today, for people who don't read my blog in the middle of the night). Well, maybe finish is too strong of a word. But I have to get the ms to my committee by Friday, and the rest of the week is looking awfully busy, so Tuesday is crunch day.

I just spent the last two hours hashing out the annoying pronoun problem I've got going on. The problem began when I invented Stella, the cousin of the speaker. The speaker is, of course, me-but-not-me. Little miss Stella wants to have her own voice, but she happens to have many similarities to her cousin, hence, many of my first person poems are confusing. To make matters worse, I've been all willy-nilly with the 2nd and 3rd person pronouns too. There are at least six different yous and a few hes and shes.

So, here's how I've straightened things out: unless there is some sort of identification in the title of the poem, all I's refer to me (or should I say the me-but-not-me speaker). If there is a she and a bird in the same poem, then the she is my sister Carla (one poem doesn't fit this rule, but I just couldn't get a bird in there). All yous refer to the same unnamed (ex)boyfriend of the speaker (unless the you is identified in the title or the you is a generic you-the-reader).

Okay, unless you're Mary, Jen, Jay, or someone else who's read most/all of my poems, that's not going to make sense. So...I guess you'll just have to wait until I win a first book contest to understand. (haha, don't you love my psuedo-cockiness?)

Now that I know who's who (because I really wasn't sure before) I am hoping to crank out those last few fill-in-the-narrative-gap kind of poems. I think there are between 4 and 8 floating around in my head, plus two that I wrote about a year ago but was too close to revise. It may be overly ambitious to think I can do all that in the next 24 hours (I do plan on sleeping), but I like lofty goals.

*

Varley, the new fiction/non-fiction prof at KSU, told me today that if I hadn't told her I was a poet, she would have thought I was primarily a prose writer. Eric Wasserman, the visiting fiction writer at Akron, is trying to re-convert me. Mary, you're going to have to help me fend them off.

Actually, I still think someday my psuedonymous (is that a word? did I spell it right?) romance novels will make me rich. And I wouldn't mind writing a memoir. But maybe I should stick with one project at a time.

*

Decisions, decisions. Another can of mountain dew or try to get some sleep?

Jigsaw Puzzle

Well, it's official. My thesis/manuscript has sections. 5 of them. This seems somewhat excessive to me, but I can't make it fit into 3. One section always ends up too long.

Oh, and there's a new title. But I don't think I ever said what the old one was.

I'm afraid to post any more than that...it feels like jinxing the process.

It is incredibly weird to think that in just a few short weeks, I'll have a manuscript ready for the contest circuit. That means I need to start finding contests. This semester, however stressful, has been really exciting so far. Thinking about PhDs and first books and having absolutely no idea where I'm going to be or what I'm going to be doing a year from now is pretty freaking overwhelming, but in a good way. As attached as I am to this place, the people I currently share my life with, and this time in my life, I do feel like I've gotten what I needed from my MFA, both in terms of professional development/as a writer and on a personal level. As someone who's said "I want to be a writer" for probably 20 years already, it's surreal to say "I am a writer" instead--to say that I've achieved a life long dream feels a little like a stretch (maybe it will feel less so when I have a shiny, glossy book with my name on the cover), but I'm getting used to it.

Well, I have many more thoughts to share, but class starts in 45 minutes so I should probably go.

October, Already?

Oh, how time flies when you only have one semester left of your MFA. It's hard to believe that in just five weeks, I'll be defending my thesis. I think there are still some holes I need to plug, which has gotten me thinking about order. I have been avoiding chronology...although I'm really not sure why...but today I plan to put my poems into a timeline to see what's missing. Maybe they'll stay in that order, maybe not. But I think it's an exercise I can't finish my thesis without.

*

Yesterday, I got really, really mad at my students. But for some reason, I always feel silly and a little embarrassed when I get angry. Maybe it's because I'm conflict averse. At any rate, they asked for more time on their rough drafts last Friday, and I didn't have a problem with that, except that it threw off my plan for the week. So, I told them that if they wanted more time, they needed to bring drafts and questions to class on Monday. But they didn't bring questions, so all I could do was give them quiet writing time. I wanted to slap them on the wrists and send them home, but that would have seemed more like a reward, so I held them hostage.

*

I'm hemming and hawing about going to see Michael Dumanis read at John Carroll tonight. I would really really love to hear Michael read, and to show my support because I think he is such a wonderful addition to the MFA faculty, but I just found out about the reading yesterday, and I really have a lot to do today. (Plus Phil Brady is reading in Youngstown tonight and I had kind of planned that if I got caught up, I would go there. But I've heard Phil read before...) I suppose I could try to be super productive for the rest of the morning and afternoon and reevaluate my level of swampedness later. We'll see.

*

New American Writing rejected me less than a week after I mailed them my stuff. I'm all for quick response times, but I can't help feeling like the girl who goes to the audition and gets kicked out before she reads her lines.

*

You know what's not on my to do list for today? Updating my blog.
Maybe I should go do something that is.

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.

Morning Routine

Ever since I moved into the new place, I've been starting my day on the porch with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Sometimes with a book, or a note book, but a lot of times just to sit there and let my head unclutter. Today, it's 50 degrees, which was a tad uncomfortable. And it's just going to get colder. I don't know what I'm going to do when summer completely gives way to fall. It's not the same sitting in the garage.

I'm struggling this semester with keeping things balanced. Obviously, by my previous posts this month, I'm not feeling...emotionally stable...these days, which isn't terribly odd for me (or most poets, I assume, but there's another stereotype), but I can't put my finger on exactly why, and that's frustrating. I'm happy to be doing what I'm doing, but for some reason, nothing feels right.

I've barely written since I got home from Arizona, which was almost two months ago. I think I have 3 or 4 new poems. I have to get my thesis to my committee in about 33 days (but who's counting?) and I don't feel like I've written everything that I need to write. In a perfect world, I would write 10-15 more poems in the next couple weeks so I could cut out a few of the older ones. It's not that I'm unhappy with the old ones, it's just that I feel like I'm forcing them to fit. When I met with Steve (Reader #3) last week, he asked me about some of the grandfather mobster poems, thought they should be grouped together, at the beginning, and I've been resisting doing just that because I don't want my thesis to be in chronological order. But he's right--those poems don't blend well with the rest. I think if I'm going to do something with that whole family secret nonsense, I need to dedicate a lot of time to it, a lot of research. And I don't have time for that. I'm thinking second book. I know my thesis doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be ready to go in the mail the day after my defense, but I can't help wanting it to be a cohesive whole, and it doesn't feel that way to me just yet.

As far as the rest of my life goes, I'm behind on everything. Granted, I'm only behind based on the target dates I set for myself, but I'm still behind. I haven't spent much time studying for the GRE, I haven't narrowed down my PhD list, I haven't started thinking about my writing sample or my personal statement. I have only sent out one submission packet. I haven't become the super-prepared and enthusiastic teacher I imagine myself to be. And my apartment is, as always, a mess, despite my promise to myself that I would keep up with my laundry and clean on a regular basis.

People have a tendency to tell me I'm being too hard on myself when I get into moods like this, but here's the thing: I'm by nature a very slow moving, low energy person. If I let up on myself I will get absolutely nothing done. Because when I push myself like this, I still find time to watch at least 2 hours of TV every day, so just imagine what I would be doing if I told myself it was okay to relax? I've struggled with this most of my life. I'm very driven, I like to have a lot on my plate, and I'm at my best when I'm juggling. But at the same time, I love to sit around and daydream, I love to read romance novels and watch stupid movies, and there's nothing better than waking up in the morning and deciding to roll over and go back to sleep. I have a very hard time finding the balance.

Well, enough of this introspection. Time to check out the to-do list and decide what to stress myself out about today.

I lied.

You know I can't stay away.

Today, someone popped my thesis bubble. The one where I'm writing about this guy named Donny who works for ODOT.

Today, someone said, "Why are you trying to write persona poems? Couldn't you just tell these stories in your own voice?"

Today, I thought my brain was going to explode.

Tomorrow, I'm going to see about fixing this Donny issue.

***

The Pre-Bisbee workshop is pretty awesome though, regardless of the existential problems it's creating in my life. Yesterday, though, was a rough day. I started class at 10 a.m. and was still in class almost 12 hours later (a different class, of course). By the end of the day, I was twitching and slap-happy and exhausted. Didn't get to bed until around 2 and started again at 10. I'm so glad I have the weekend to recuperate. And just a few more days before I go west.

Poetry Homework

A few things I'm doing this weekend in hopes that my thesis will rock:

• Reading Ordering the Storm from Cleveland University Press, edited by Susan Grimm, who happens to be in my workshop this summer. A couple quotes I love: 1.) What kind of response do I want the reader to have when they've finished my book, given all possible demographics? Ideally, I hope my reader will be revitalized by the end of the process, gratified, or profoundly moved. I want my reader to perhaps feel the need to linger and savor, or to simply sit with me for a thoughtful length of silence. I want to have touched them, across space and time. I want them to taste my youth and enjoy my sassiness. I want them to be excited by my concerns and ideas. I want them to bemoan my losses and my trials. I want them to sample all life as it has defined me. I want them to have moved through my flesh. Wanda Coleman 2.) [a book] printed while the composition is still warm, reflects one blossoming consciousness, wayward and purposeful, playful, but fully intended[...]you rearrange, fiddle; spread them out on the kitchen floor[...]If this is your first 'kitchen cabinet' your job's even harder, since the poems buttering the tile are the ones that taught you how to write. Philip Brady
• Trying to take what I've read, and every other bit of advice I've heard about ordering a manuscript, and trying to apply it to my own ms. It seems a bit too early for me, but CP insists he cannot read my thesis unless it is in order. When I printed it out back in May, I put the poems in semi-chronological order, but after sitting with that for a while, I realized it was a terrible idea. Now I'm at square one and having lots of trouble.
• Reading bits of The Catechism of the Catholic Church and seriously considering the possibility of going to mass tomorrow. Other than weddings and funerals, I haven't been to mass in about 4 years. I won't get into my weird theological hang-ups, but I will say that I looove mass even if I'm not sure I believe what the church teaches. But this list is supposed to be about poetry homework, right? Well, it is. Because I've been thinking a lot about ceremony and poetry, and what is more ceremonial than mass?
• Reading Charles Simic's Selected Poems 1963-1983 with an eye towards evocation. Do I know what that means? Not exactly. But again, CP said to.
• Studying the list (I forget where it came from) of words all high school grads should know, b/c apparently I am behind. A few words I still don't know: abjure, fiduciary, gamete, gerrymander, obsequious, tautology
• Revising the poems I've turned in so far this summer
• Writing (hopefully) 3 new drafts so I don't have to worry about it while I'm getting ready for Bisbee
• Rereading Leilani Hall's Swimming the Witch and trying to figure out why it isn't jarring to hop from family poem to 17th century witch trial poem to 1970's volcano eruption poem back to family poem...because I feel like when I switch between time periods or subject matter, it is.

Well, I think that's about enough to do, don't you? Meanwhile, I'm making dinner for my sister and brother-in-law tomorrow because they have been making Sunday dinner for years and I want to return the favor. Plus, it's supposed to be +90 tomorrow and they don't have A/C.

Who has time for a social life? People pick on me because I don't go out very often, but seriously, this list sounds way more gratifying than, say, drinking 8 beers and throwing up in the woods like I did last weekend.

Count Down

15.5 hours of work until I'm back on summer vacation!

3 weeks til I fly to Arizona!

2 months until fall semester begins...egads!

***

This has been a good poem week. Reworked 2 that have been sitting around not working for a while. I think they're good now, but we'll see how it goes in workshop.

Thesis meeting last night was good. (Thanks Mary!) I can't believe my MFA is almost over, though. This is starting to make me feel very uneasy.

***

July 3 is my mom's 2 year lung-transplant anniversary. She calls it Independence Day. We don't need to talk about how stupid I am for smoking considering this little tid-bit of family history, but you have no idea how amazing it is to see my mom walking around, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry (doesn't sound like an exciting list, but believe me, my mother wasn't herself when she couldn't care for the family). Between say, 96 and 05, my mom got progressively worse until just before the transplant when she was in a wheel chair and using oxygen 24/7. Sometimes I'm still surprised to see her walking without her little air tank strapped to her back. Sometimes I'm just surprised to see her walking. Aaah, science.
Happy Lung Day, Ma.

Stuff n' things

An interesting way of re-visioning over at Peter's. CP talks about two sides of poetry, the first side consisting of music, imagination, and disorder; the second side: form, story, order. He claims, if you balance both sides, your poem's working. Well, I think we all know that I'm doing fine on the form, story, order side of things. Just sometimes I don't get the imagination and music like I want. I'm trying to work on this. I'm trying to find other revision ideas/strategies until I find one that clicks with me, because nothing has just yet.

Tonight, I'll be hanging out at Mary's with Amy and Jana to talk thesis. Freaking thesis! I am so not ready to graduate. Or maybe I am ready to graduate, but I don't feel like I have time to finish everything I wanted to do while I was in this program.

Mona was talking about how much she loves Washington and now I'm wishing I had the money to fly out and sleep in my friend Brad's barn again. He lives out in the middle of no where, in an old barn that's been converted into an apartment. It's smack in the middle of a sheep farm. With grape vines and all kinds of good stuff, see:

This makes me think about place, about calling a place "home." I've never lived anywhere but here. I've never been more than an hour from Mom and Dad and my hometown. When I was in high school, I desperately wanted to get out. But that desire has faded over the years and I deeply love this little corner of the world that I occupy. But what else is there? Am I missing something by not leaving the proverbial nest? As I think about PhDs, I think a lot about location. Climate. Population density. Cost of living. Comfort. How on earth do you choose?

I met my replacement today. She should be starting sometime next week, which means I will soon be back on summer vacation. Thank goodness.

Last night, I workshopped my first persona poem and found it infinitely frustrating. All of a sudden, I realize that the poems, as the are being generated, are too reliant on each other to stand alone. I can't explain just yet exactly how stumped I am by this predicament. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon.

This weekend is all about homework, errands, and Father's Day brunch at the Galaxy, a sorta-fancy restaurant near my home town. About as fancy as Medina county gets anyhow. And hopefully a good amount of sleeping. Come to think of it, I may be doing just that very soon. But I thought I should try to get some work done first.

Another rejection today. And I thought I had this one in the bag, especially because the envelope was thick... until I realized they returned the poems. Time to put some packets together.

volcano, volcano, volcano

The long awaited At the Drive-In Volcano came yesterday, and I sat down and read it cover to cover in about an hour. I love when books of poetry are easily digestible like that, and I like it even better when I finish reading and want to start over. I've been anxiously awaiting this book since Winter Wheat 05 when I heard Aimee read some of her "new poems" after reading several from Miracle Fruit (which I promptly bought and devoured). I haven't digested enough of Volcano to do a proper review, but I have to say that I love what Amiee does with food, with sea life, with plants. She does what I think poetry should do (but I haven't mastered yet): makes everything new, makes me think I've never seen a fish, never tasted a mango, never touched someone else's skin. And, having heard Aimee read, her sweet little voice is bouncing around in my head. I love it.

***

Last night, I watched a biography of Marilyn Monroe. How sad. And a tiny bit surprising to me that our celebrity obsessed culture started decades ago. I never realized, or thought about it to realize how long we've worshiped normal people who manage to get some screen time. I'd be a hypocrite to criticize it though, since I can tell you a lot more about celebrity relationships and scandals than I can about the war in Iraq or what W is up to this week. I don't know why that is...I grew up watching the 6:00 news at dinner almost every day, so I've always been somewhat aware, but I've never had the desire or discipline to keep up with it as an adult. Partly because I get frustrated and confused. Partly because I prefer to live in my own little bubble, feign ignorance, and tell myself that the only thing I can change is myself, so I'll just focus on that. I guess it makes me a little selfish, but I'm a scorpio. It's in my nature to be self-involved.

***

I've been diligently working on my thesis this past week for a couple hours almost every day, but I'm having a little trouble. I'm trying so hard to produce new stuff and get to my page minimum, but as I write the new poems, a lot of my older ones start seeming lack-luster. I wonder if it's just because they're no longer new to me? They seem less mature, less crafted, and it's really hard for me to revise something that I've thought was done for a year or more. I don't know how to revise the old stuff. I'm hoping to crank out a bunch of new ones so I don't have to revise them, but we'll see what happens as the summer goes on.

I'm also struggling to come up with a publishing strategy. I would like to enter some chapbook competitions this fall, but I feel like I should have more individual poems published before I do that. Especially since the few publications I do have are mostly poems that I won't be including in the chapbook. I don't know how important that is, but I do know when I read a chapbook or first book, almost every poem shows up on the acknowledgement page. I've got about 10 poems still out there from my last two rounds of submissions, so maybe I'll get some good news before it's time to submit the chapbook, but you never know.

I am getting kind of nervous that I'm almost done with my MFA and only have stuff published in 4 journals. I'm starting to question my skill/talent...and I know that most people get rejected a ton at first, so rationally, I know I'm just being paranoid, but it seems like other people who are finishing their MFAs are a bit ahead of where I am. I have to constantly remind myself that I started writing poetry late. I came into the program as a fiction writer and didn't take any poetry classes as an undergrad, so realistically, I've only been writing poetry seriously for less than two years. Give myself a break, right? I'm trying.

***

Thunder has been rumbling in the distance all morning. I hope we're in for a storm.

before bed

After a day spent lounging in a medicine induced haze (bloodwork good, got a new perscription) I thought I wasn't going to get much accoplished. I had planned on putting in some new job applications, getting some work done at the old apartment, and grocery shopping, but the new medicine made me woozy and drowsy, so I decided driving wouldn't be the best idea. Luckily, I got a second wind around nine and drafted a poem, my very first 2 pager ever! For some reason, I usually run out of ideas about 2/3rds down the first page. It's very frustrating. But not this time.

My thesis is now 37 pages long. Only 13 more to get to the minimum. I've been doing a lot of incubation the past few days, making notes and listening to the poems rattle around in my head. I guess it worked. I'm still struggling with the idea of writing persona poems, but I've kind of committed myself to the project, so we'll see if it gets easier as I get into it. One of the problems I'm having is point of view. I use a lot of I's and You's in my poems, but they're not consistent. The you in one poem is the I in another. I'm afraid that once I've gotten them all written, it's going to be confusing. I feel like I should have one speaker throughout and use third person for the poems she isn't involved in, but that would mean a lot of revision and I'm not sure it would really benefit the poems as individual pieces. I've been thinking about "The Series" so much that I'm having trouble thinking of single poems. I can't wait for workshop to begin--I need some readers.

Adjusting

So, I've been in the new place for 2 days, and so far, things are pretty good, but there's a lot of adjusting to do. The only real problem up to this point has been reminding my nephew to close the bathroom door when he pees. I think there's something in all men that makes them naturally exhibitionist.

I'm having trouble getting used to being on break, too. I guess that's not exactly right. I'm having trouble keeping myself motivated because I am on break. Last summer, I didn't work, so I could do what I wanted, when I wanted. I can feel myself trying to get into that frame of mind again, and I have to keep reminding myself that I need to get a job. That's what tomorrow is for. Today, I'm going to call the cable company and set up an appointment, pay some bills, and then go hang out with some friends to celebrate the end of the semester.

I'm hoping for a poetry filled summer. I've got a workshop two nights a week from June-August, and the Bisbee workshop at the end of July, so it shouldn't be difficult to get a lot of work done. Plus, there's thesis meetings on Mary's back porch. I'd really love to have my thesis pretty much complete when the fall semester begins, so I can just focus on tightening, revision, and ordering during my final semester (FINAL semester! OMG!) (Did I just type OMG? I did.)

Well, enough procrastinating. I'm about to sit on hold with Time Warner for 47 minutes.

I consider myself

memed. This is going to be tough. Here are the rules:

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

No personal friends, mentors, or blogroll buddies are eligible, sorry.

1. Joy Harjo
2. Rita Dove
3. Sharon Olds
4. Philip Levine
5. Li-Young Lee
6. Kim Addonizio
7. Denise Levertov
8. Michael Ondaatje
9. Louise Gluck
10. Denise Duhamel
11. Afaa Michael Weaver
12. Eve Alexander
13. Charles Bukowski

I'm not following the living poet rule...but since I memed myself, I don't have to follow all the rules, do I?

***

In other news...I printed and ordered my thesis and made a table of contents. I have a manuscript!!

14 out of 23

Well, I just got back from teaching my last class for this semester. Only 14 of my 23 students turned in portfolios on time. I'm not sure what my policy is for late ones. Still, even with this tiny half a class, they managed to eat all 4 large pizzas I ordered.

I'm overwhelmed with relief that this semester is over (almost). It's been a stressful one, for whatever reason I'm not sure. My MFA courses weren't too tough or demanding, and although my students gave me some trouble, over all it wasn't too bad. So why do I feel like I can breath again for the first time in 15 weeks? Strange.

So, it's time to grade portfolios, finish up one last assignment, and get on with my life. As I mentioned yesterday, that means moving and trying to find a summer job, but it also means compiling my thesis manuscript so that I can start ordering it and looking for poems that haven't been written yet. Previously, I've been toting around a folder with a bunch of rough drafts at various stages of revision and calling that my thesis, but I went through that folder the other night and realized about half of those drafts won't make it into the manuscript, so it's time to clean up and look at it realistically. Also, I need to put together a chapbook manuscript so I can enter some contests in the fall.

It's strange to start thinking about chapbooks seriously. Back when I first did it, I just thought: hey, I have 20 pages of good poems. That's a chapbook. Now I realize how much more complicated it is, and I think I have 3, maybe 4 beginnings of chapbooks: there's the one where I deal with my felon grandfather (only 3-4 poems right now, so who knows when it will be long enough), the one about my childhood (probably almost ready to go), the Bird-Witching Carla poems (which mostly overlap the childhood poems, so then what?), and the newer stuff I've been writing about working class relationships. I need to decide which one to focus on first. But that feels like deciding which one of your kids you'll feed because you don't have enough food for all of them. Or something? It doesn't feel right to neglect one in favor of the other is what I'm trying to say. So...hopefully I will hurry up and make a decision.

Back to work.