the speckled band

The End of Cursive

2011-07-07T07:35:00.000-07:00

Growing up, I could not wait until second grade to learn how to write in cursive. I would hear whispers passed down through the grades of how the letters all connected to form seamless words, about how adult it all looked, how important it all felt.

I recently came across a box of papers from elementary school. Within the pile were pieces of that delicate brown paper with the light blue and pink lines. On the paper was my fresh and careful cursive, corrected with red pen tracing the line where my "e" should have looped and how my "k" should have looked. I remember how accomplished I felt when I learned to write "like an adult." How independent I felt knowing I had two options: print or cursive. Up until second grade, I only had one. But now, now I had two.

And so my heart broke a little when I found this article on CNN's website:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07-06/typing-beats-scribbling-indiana-schools-can-stop-teaching-cursive/?hpt=hp_t2

Writing is important. Any writing. Whether it be a check or a story, a card or a yard sale sign. Using your hand for that movement and purpose allows you to become intimate with yourself and your language.

So write. Please. Feel the curves of your language.

A Letter I Received

2011-06-19T06:49:00.001-07:00

Last fall, I submitted my thesis manuscript (pared down a bit) to several chapbook contests. Three, in fact. One was rejected, one was lost and never to be heard from again, and one response came in last week. I placed second and will be getting a chapbook of poetry published by Liquid Paper Press (aka Nerve Cowboy). It should be printed by the end of summer. Although this doesn't mean I've been actively writing, it does mean that my past writing has found a home and potential ears and eyes. Vollmer and Jakiela even expressed interest in teaching it in their classes. How wonderful it would be to have students discussing my poetry? Reading it, digesting it, finding themes and hammering out their likes and dislikes of it. That the goal, really. To write it, of course, but to also have it reach its intended audience. The fact that my sentimental poems have been identifiable to a complete stranger, enough to want to see it produced in a larger quantity, means it's more than self-sentimental poetry. It's relatable.

Right before I found out about the chapbook, I decided to get back in gear with my writing. I contacted two fellow writers who graduated with me last spring and scheduled a workshop with them in August. I now have two deadlines for which to write and submit poems for workshop and I am feeling much better about my progress. In the coming weeks I will be fine-tuning the poems I've written over the past few months (barely any), and writing some more for the workshop. So the chapbook letter was some added motivation that felt just about right.

The title of the chapbook. I Fall in Love with Strangers.

Here I Am

2011-06-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

I've been swimming lately, due to some tendinitis in my foot, and have been stealing the techniques of the more-professional swimmers in the other lanes. I'm thinking of taking some swimming lessons, not because I don't know how to swim, but because I don't know how to swim properly. My legs wiggle a bit too much and my arms flail inaccurately. Also, I do not have a proper swimsuit for exercise laps. The one I have is frilly and covers as much of me as possible (which means it has a long top and a long skirt). The first day I swam, my left strap came undone. This happened to be right when I was approaching a group of small children, there for their weekly swimming lessons. Good times.

As far as writing goes, I haven't done any. At least not in any large quantity. I have a few grandma poems, and started a series of poems about my boss, who hates Pittsburgh for the silliest reasons (one of which is because Pittsburgh houses have basements). I take notes when I visit my grandma, who always gives me great poem lines, but I have to disconnect after I recognize them as significant or else I start to cry. And who wants a visit from a crying granddaughter?

But I'm getting back to writing. I hope.

In the meantime, I'm learning to dislike Emma Woodhouse. She's just too . . . shallow? Girly? Insignificant? Something. But kudos to Jane Austen for making me feel something toward her. Even books aren't the same to me anymore.

La Muse

2010-05-22T08:00:00.001-07:00

I am currently staying in the South of France for three weeks for the purpose of writing. However, I am not writing. Instead, I am reading, napping, and eating way too much bread and cheese.

I am land-locked in the small town of Labastide Esparbairenque, which is 1.5 hours from Toulouse and 30 minutes from Carcassonne. During the day I open my windows to let some warmth in (the house is from the 12th? century and holds the cold very well), and end up killing various kinds of insects that find their way into my room. Once a week I am driven to Carcassonne to wander around and buy groceries. Then it's back to my room at La Muse, which is a nice room -- spacious and tiled -- but not a room that I am managing to write in.

In fact, here is my sitting room:

It's odd, how I avoid writing. At home, I write because I have to, for school mainly, and I have a small amount of time that I can schedule in that writing. But here, I am choking on free time, and still, I avoid writing. My head occupies different space over here, and I find myself thinking about different things or nothing at all. I came with the goal of writing more Russia poems, which was a large chunk of my thesis. There were holes in the story though, so I've been trying to fill in the holes to complete a manuscript that will hopefully become a chapbook. Turns out, I write worse when I'm in France. Go figure.

Anyway, here is the view from my sitting room:

Now that right there, that is beautiful.

It Do, It Really Really Do

2010-04-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

In which I fall in love with fashion and its crusaders:

http://www.thestylerookie.com/

Ramblings

2010-02-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

Working on the sixth day of being snowed in, as I'm sure many others are in this area. I keep shoveling my car out, hoping to stay one step ahead of this snow. I'm nearly done reading The Remains of The Day, which is one of the books for my teaching fellowship/independent lit class. I haven't had a literature class in a long time in which I really enjoyed the required books. I've loved every book in this class so far -- Great Expectations, The Fox, and now Remains. But this book is amazing. The main character holds so steadfastly to his duties that he willing gives up all emotions that come naturally to humans. But in doing so there exists, under the surface, a character whose emotions far exceed that of an average person. Repression at its finest. Maybe.

I've also been half-heartedly doing some research for my papers. But mainly I've been trying to get my poems in order. I really have no clue what I'm doing in that area. I think I just pretend half the time. I borrowed an alumnus' thesis to study her poetry. My director compares me to this former student a lot, which is very flattering, but after reading her thesis, I feel more defeated than ever.

My roommate and I, while waiting for the snow to start the other night, decided to get some beer. There's a great mix-n-match shop not far from our place. I usually choose beers based on their labels, and I must say I really outdid myself this time. Various kinds of beer by Dogfish Head, Great Lakes, and Bell's. All dark, all excellent. Now if I could just find the exactly right ending for this prostitute poem.

AAA

2009-12-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

I got a notice in the mail that my AAA membership was about to expire. I haven't used it once during the year, except for that train ride, so I was going to let it lapse. Then my sister's car broke down. She called me and I drove to where she was stranded and called AAA.

We sat for an hour along a desolate part of route 30, shaking our legs because we both had to pee pretty bad. Then the tow truck driver came. He was hairy and loud and I think I fell in love for a brief period.

He followed us to the mechanic's and let us leave before my sister's car was even off the bed of his truck. I thanked him for coming out on such a shitty night, and he gave me a hug. Then he helped me across a patch of ice.

That was the closest I felt to a person for a while now. I just sent AAA a check.

Baking Night at 433 North Maple

2009-12-16T17:35:00.000-08:00

My roommate and I attempted to make lobster claws tonight. Observe the Google image we were expected to live up to:

After forming an odd, amoeba-shaped shell, we were to fill the phyllo dough with a creamy, bumpless, sweet center; however, our center was neither creamy nor bumpless. It had, rather, the consistency of rice pudding. I am a fan of rice pudding. I made it once with my grandmother. She wanted to put raisins in it. When I told her I didn't like raisins, she paused, then said, "Well, you'll like them in this."

But my roommate and I, we filled the phyllo dough and put the lobster claws in the oven. Turns out wax paper is not to hang over the edge of anything when it is in the oven. After the fire department left, we were able to transfer the claws to another baking sheet, sans wax paper. Behold!

The plate is courtesy of my mother. She is a lovely woman.

Dollar Bin

2009-12-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I purchased a "16 Month 2010 Calendar." I found it in the $1 bin at Target.

My friend also showed me this:

Overall, it was a good night.

Welcome to my life, Omaha.

2009-11-30T09:18:00.000-08:00

A friend and I wanted a Train Ride Thanksgiving. Obscure and random destination: Omaha (aka Turnaround Point or Furthest Point West We Could Make It To In Order To Make It Back To Work By Monday).

Turns out Omaha is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful:

Those feelings of happiness that make you shiver are hard to capture in a picture. This is a picture of the Old Market at dusk, which is quickly becoming my favorite time of day, regardless of city:

Sunset in Omaha:

Omaha Graffiti:

So I cheated a bit. This is a picture of a saxophonist in Chicago, which is where we had two longish layovers. Meghan had great luck with this shot, which I think is the best of the bunch:

I took my thesis poems, thinking I would knock out some revisions on the train; but alas all I did was sleep (or attempt to sleep). Those trains have that lulling ability. I've always wondered what it would be like to be rocked to sleep (as an adult with the ability to retain the memory). Also, all these pictures are courtesy of Meghan. If someone in my party busts out a camera, I put mine away. Not sure why, but as we can see, she has it all under control.

Jimmy Santiago Baca's Black Mesa Poems

2009-11-13T16:39:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Black Mesa Poems captures a rural, Southwestern landscape and does so beautifully in places. Lines like “he didn’t protect his life from wind” and “watch me pass, silent/at the shortness of my life . . .” appear as glimmering halos throughout the book (89, 120). There is much to study here, in each poem, each line, each word. I enjoy Baca’s ability to introduce me to the characters in his poems and a lot of them leave me with the feeling that I just gained a new friend. But sometimes, Baca’s poems verge on the side of verbose. Certain ones, when read aloud, turn into tongue twisters, which convolutes the point of the poem. In “Day’s Blood,” Baca uses a series of words that leaves me stumbling over each syllable:

Snouts in weeds for more chance scraps,

in mournful whines and whimpers, heel-nipping,

with floppy, sagging, lopsided shuffle,

the cross fields toward the Onate Feedmill . . . (19)

The adjectives and verbs in these lines overpower the story of this poem. Not many of the words create a common association in my head and I have to pause after each one to picture the image Baca is trying to paint. It is with poems like this that I go to craft to find something I can grasp and enjoy. Although this section falls flat for me in meaning, I can appreciate Baca’s use of eye rhymes. He is very economical in his poems by recycling each letter over and over, thus minimizing the letters used while creating a visual aesthetic. The number of words with double letters in these lines astounds me (heel-nipping, floppy, sagging, shuffle, cross, and Feedmill) and even without the double letters, Baca manages to find visual rhymes in “chance” and “scraps” (reusing the c and a), as well as “whines” and “whimpers” (reusing the w, h, i, e, AND s). As convoluted as this passage is, the brevity of its letters is quite impressive.

In that same vein, Baca has a solid grip on the use of rhyme. He uses it sparingly, but enough for it to be noticed. In “BJ,” Baca uses a nonce rhyme scheme to add softness to a heartbreaking story:

to the old clapboard house,

he combs her, dresses her, shoulders

smelling favorite soup

waver up

from the blackened pot

on the woodstove top.

flute of his tractor

grumbling chapters (86).

Note that these lines are not in succession, as I am focusing only on the lines where I want to draw attention to the rhyme. The first pair with “house” and “shoulders” is another eye rhyme, with the word “house” being completely reused in “shoulders,” as is the case with “soup” and “up.” The rhyme scheme for “pot” and “top” is interesting because it is a transposition of letters – is there a term for that? The last set with “tractor” and “chapters” is a slant rhyme, which is subtle in both sight and sound, but is beautifully recognized when read aloud. It is these rhymes, paired with certain stories, which kept me engaged throughout the book.

Ai's Vice

2009-11-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I tire of critiquing poetry. Sometimes I don’t want to know what the poet is trying to say, or the craft s/he is using to say it: internal rhymes, line breaks, syntax. Sometimes I just want to feel the poem and close the book with nothing more than my own nostalgia on my mind.

Good poets can do this. They can use all the elements of craft to create a poem that is better left felt than critiqued. Ai is one of these poets. As I read her poems, I think of my own experiences, and I am inspired to write about them using the beauty of the language and the power of memory. As a poet, I think any topic can be powerful, as long as it’s powerful to the poet. And sometimes, on occasion, I want nothing to do with form or craft, I only want the reader to feel something. That’s not to say that craft is left out, because it never can be, but it can definitely take a back seat while the story is initially being told.

Now, Ai is not craftless, nor is she unaware of the technicalities of writing – quite the opposite in fact. She is so good at everything technical that her poems seem painless in their construction. In “She Didn’t Even Wave,” she takes the death of a mother and celebrates the beauty in it:

She was walking toward the barn

when it struck her. I didn’t move;

I just stood at the screen door.

Her whole body was light.

I’d never seen anything so beautiful (30).

This language is accessible. I can go into specifics. I can discuss the “o” sound in these few lines and how the repetition of it ads to the “awe” of the poem, the tragic memory of the speaker, the moment where life changed and the only thing the child could do was watch with her mouth open. I can point out the simplicity of the language and how it is working on two levels of this poem: accessibility and the memory from a child. And I guess I just did discuss both points of craft, but I only did it to get to this point: the craft is so exact that it is really the story that the reader is left with. And this story is tragic and beautiful and tragic again. It makes you want to cry from sadness and joy simultaneously.

Ai’s uses of the seemingly simple lines – lines like “I can break your heart” (37), and “I mean to live” (26) – have me crawling across the floor, looking for an appropriate place to hyperventilate. I don’t want to know why she wrote it, I only want to be left with the feeling of having read it.

Gary Lutz Interview

2009-10-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

A wonderful interview with Gary Lutz:

http://htmlgiant.com/?p=16620

gerald stern made me cry

2009-10-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

i have lost sleep over this, the second poem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7udFR6SVOtQ

Lucille Clifton's good woman

2009-10-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

There are so many things that can be discussed and labored over in Lucille Clifton’s poetry in good women – the brevity of it, the space surrounding each small piece, the bluesy and colloquial language – but I am most interested in discussing, in this blog at least, the two voices she uses in her Kali and Mary poems.

Clifton identifies herself with Kali and creates a relationship with the goddess in which both women play a part. In “the coming of Kali,” Clifton allows the goddess full reign over her body and secrets:

running Kali off is hard.

she is persistent with her

black terrible self. she

knows places in my bones

i never sing about but

she knows i know them well.

she knows.

she knows (135).

The intimacy that Clifton feels with Kali is established quickly and matter-of-factly in this poem. It is so deeply rooted that Clifton cannot escape from it, nor does she try (although she does try to pass it on to her sister, which is mentioned in “she insists on me.”) Clifton gives herself to the fate of being connected with this goddess in both feminine and racial ways (although in Hinduism, black is symbolic of death and decay).

There is a tone that is set through Clifton, which establishes a sibling-like relationship with Kali. The bold, bossy language found in “calming Kali,” shows Clifton’s role in the relationship, which is both demanding and maternal:

be quiet awful woman,

lonely as hell,

and i will conform you

when i can

and give you my bones

and my blood to feed on.

gently gently now

awful woman,

i know i am your sister (140).

I have been trying to name this thing that Kali has over Clifton. It is respect, certainly, but it is something else too. There is a respect from intimacy, as opposed to venerability. It is interesting the way in which Kali is always capitalized, whereas other names throughout the book are not.

Clifton’s voice in her Mary poems is quite different from her voice in her Kali poems. This is where you’ll find venerability. There is no bossy tone to Clifton, no dual-role relationship, just observations and personifications that Clifton does not challenge in the same way she does Kali:

joseph, i afraid of stars,

their brilliant seeing.

so many eyes. such light.

joseph, i cannot still these limbs,

i hands keep moving toward i breasts,

so many stars. so bright.

joseph, is wind buring from east

joseph, i shine, oh joseph, oh

illuminated night (200).

In this poem, “holy night,” Clifton creates a persona in which she stands in for Mary. You’ll see that the maternal theme is here, as it is in many of the Kali poems, but the brassy tongue is gone. In its place is a vulnerability on the part of Mary, instead of Clifton herself. If I were to guess, I would say that religion is not something Clifton wanted to challenge, but rather something with which she wanted to empathize. But even in that, there is still the fact that she does not capitalize Mary’s name, like she does Kali’s.

Clifton gives Mary’s character a certain humanness that is often overlooked in religion. In “island mary,” Clifton explores the possibility of doubt in Mary:

after the all been done and i

one old creature carried on

another creature’s back, i wonder

could i have fought these thing (202)?

It is hard, for most religious persons, I would think, to consider the possibility of Mary questioning her role in Christianity. Yet Clifton does it naturally, and believably, in this poem. The vulnerability that Clifton gives Mary in several of these poems is heartbreaking and often times unbelievable. Unbelievable because religion is based on faith and the ability to believe that each role (in the Bible) was taken proudly and without doubt, even though that isn’t always the case (even Jesus had his doubts, yes?).

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with the blatant fact that Clifton can do amazing things with her voice through such short spurts. It also leaves us with the knowledge that Clifton can carry and deal respect on many levels, and has the ability to immerse herself, in very different ways, in the people she finds fit to speak about. And really, that’s all I need in any poem.

Olga Broumas' Beginning With O

2009-09-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

Olga Broumas’ Beginning With O is a book that takes me from one edge of language to the other. It is rich with situations and ideas that were unheard of (or just coming to light) at the time of its publication. Brouma is able to capture her readers with moments of astute rumination in one stanza then catapult them into a world of racy ideas and language in the following stanza.

As wonderful as this visual and mental whiplash sounds, I found myself often disappointed at the predictability of the language. I set myself up for wading through the beauty of the language until I hit the other side, which always came. Broumas does deliver punches in her poems though. There were some wonderful images that were worded perfectly from the very first poem Sometimes, as a child:

you’d dive

from the float, the pier, the stone

promontory, through water so startled

it held the shape of our plunge . . . (1)

What stood out in this stanza is the very unique way Broumas described the dive of the subject. In poetry we are told that nothing is new, nothing is groundbreaking. We, as poets, have to fight a constant battle of finding new and fresh ways to describe the same old things. Broumas did a wonderful job of doing this with “through water so startled/it held the shape of our plunge . . .” The language is simultaneously romantic and dangerous, and the verb “held” paired with “startled,” “shape,” and “plunge” give this scene the appropriate drama that is easily visualized for the reader.

Another poem that stood out to me was Beauty and the Beast. Here, Broumas pairs pain with ecstasy through her word choices:

For years I fantasized pain

driving, driving

me over each threshold

I thought I had, till finally

the joy in my flesh would break

loose with the terrible strain, and undulate

in great spasmic circles, centered

in cunt and heart. I clung to pain (55)

First, let me list the words that I consider to trigger an association with pain: pain (in both instances), terrible, break, strain, and cunt.

Now, the ecstasy words: fantasized, joy, loose, heart.

The word “cunt” is in the former list, not because the female anatomy suggests a place of pain for me, but because of the shock of the actual word. The fact that it is still shocking today (in most situations and to most people) only emphasizes the shock of it in 1977 when this book was published.

This simultaneous presence of pain and ecstasy in the poem is what is found in human relationships. The pleasure sought, and the pain that follows or proceeds. It is a constant back-and-forth-pull on emotions that really emphasizes the confusion in any given relationship that is based on curiosity, and even love. There is one word that takes the poem into a sexual realm: “undulate.” Since “undulate” has the ability to feel and sound both painful and fantastic, its presence helps create a sexual tension that keeps the poem balanced between pain and ecstasy, thus allowing the reader to feel both emotions while reading.

Something that left me disappointed in these poems was the way Broumas attempted to emulate Anne Sexton, and fell short. She used Sexton’s quote “A woman/who loves a woman/is forever young,” as an epigraph in “Rapunzel,” but failed to match Sexton's language in any way (59). An epigraph is supposed to support your poem, not outshine your poem, and I thought that in this instance the latter happened. I couldn’t even quote one area to support this, since it was the poem’s language as a whole. It just fell short for me. Broumas has wonderful language throughout, but I thought she set herself up for failure once she brought Sexton into the picture. Then, to make things just slightly more insulting, she writes this stanza in “Snow White” :

A woman

who loves a woman

who loves a man (69).

Now, there is no way I can know why Broumas did this, or what, exactly, her goal was for this quote. But I know that I wanted to put the book down after reading this. It struck me as weak and insulting, regardless of how it fit into the poem. Sexton nailed it the first time, and I found no need for Broumas’ watered-down attempt at imitation. Sadly, this appears in the last poem of the book, and leaves me feeling a bit ripped-off as to the lingering language that I will remember from Broumas.

Ed Ochester's Unreconstructed

2009-09-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

The thing that strikes me about Ed Ochester’s Unreconstructed is the range in his poems in regard to both content and form. He is one of a few poets I am familiar with who can deliver the same punch in a five-line poem as he can in a three-page poem. His longer narratives have this momentum that never leaves the reader bored or confused. I taught a class at OASIS this summer, and Ochester was on my syllabus. I put him there because he is easy to understand and is familiar to everybody. His language has a way of getting inside the moment, a moment that everyone has experienced in some way.

Many of Ochester’s poems have this seamless movement from one thought to the next. In “September, Listening to the Old Songs,” he goes from music, to nature, to being alone, to a memory of a friend, back to nature, then ends with an emotion:

“I hope you find nothing,” which was

perfect, and here under the stars

once again I realize it is perfect

as, after most sadness,

it always is. (29)

The use of “nothing” and “sadness,” paired with nature, create a loneliness that is actually wanted, one that is appealing and serene to the reader as if this sadness is more therapeutic than the sadness they experience on their own.

Ochester is capturing a universal experience in his poems. He is doing with rural landscape what Frank O’Hara did with urban landscape: he is taking the reader into small moments of intimacy between friends. He succeeds in doing this by putting the reader on a first-name basis with the characters. He lets the characters speak in his poems, and uses minimal space and language to create an atmosphere.

“Ed Shreckongost” is a prime example of this. The setting is intimate (the roof of the speaker’s house), and the landscape is established with “Deciduous mountains, old men/sleeping, lie down all the way to Saltsburg,/here & there the unhealed scars of stripmines.” Every word in this section lends description to the environment from which these men are inside: The lackadaisical, maybe even defeated, population of a small rural town; the deciduous mountains that are very specific to the eastern side of the country; and the stripmines, which are specific to Western Pennsylvania. In a 25-line poem, he uses only 3 lines to create a landscape that is relatable to every reader.

Another strength to this poem is the voice of Ed Shreckongost. His direct voice is used in 12 of the 25 lines – nearly half – and is the meat of the poem. This is an instance where a direct quote does so much more than mere story telling. There would be a disconnect between the reader and the subject of the poem if it were not for the presence of Ed’s voice. The lines: “’. . . Verne,/I’m a coonhunter,/presently/unemployed,’” works on many levels. The one-word lines slow the poem down, forcing the reader to recognize the breathiness in the speaker. They also capture the personality of the speaker by showing his lifestyle and priorities through the quote.

These are just a few examples of what I love about this book. I could go on for hours writing about Ochester’s use of language and knack for storytelling. His poems read like journals, revealing stories that capture the American Experience and are universal in their meanings and familiarity. His accessible language and common stories make writing look simple, until you sit down to write.

Anne Sexton's Transformations

2009-09-14T15:26:00.000-07:00

Transformations was actually my first introduction to Anne Sexton. Not the name Anne Sexton, nor the literary references, but the actually sitting and reading of Anne Sexton.

I found two things:

1. Fairy tales can be overdone if read and written in succession.

2. Anne Sexton has a very enchanting voice, which makes me stop breathing at times.

I’ll be pithy about the former since it is a general comment about the book as a whole. Sexton’s retelling of fairy tales is just that: a retelling. The stories hardly changed from the original versions, at least from what I remembered and researched upon reading this book. There were a few fairy tales that I had never heard of – “The Gold Key,” “The White Snake,” and Iron Hans” to name a few – which read as a new story to me, but that is only because they were, in fact, a new story to me. I often found myself very aware of Sexton’s formula for writing (not rewriting, as I said before that I felt these were simply “retellings”) these tales. Each poem starts with her voice, a moral or explanation/introduction of sorts, and then retells the tale. Her voice is clear in the first few stanzas, since this is where her take on any given tale is told, but the actual fairy tales are quite textbook with a few exceptions.

Now, onto the latter comment. Throughout the book, Sexton’s language really made me stop to marvel at its simplicity. Her similes were so wonderfully subtle in their imagery and diction that it made me envious that I did not think of such beautiful references:

“But the princess smiles like warm milk” (p 13)

“. . . with a daughter as lovely as a grape.” (p 18)

“ . . . as clean as an almond.” (p 26)

“One with two eyes,/as common as pennies.” (p 61)

“. . . letting her arms go loose as kite tails,” (p 73)

“. . . at each window secrets came in like gas.” (p 75)

These, along with other images and perfectly worded segments, were what got me through the book with ease. Yes, the fairy tales were easy to read, as they were story-like in their telling, but it was the craft of certain lines that made the read worth it.

Another aspect of the book that I kept noting was the references to, what I gathered to be, Pop Culture. The first to grab my attention was in “Rumpelstiltskin” where Sexton writes, “He speaks up as tiny as an earphone/with Truman’s asexual voice:” (p 17). This is followed by references to Isadora Duncan (p 39) and Al Jolson (p 54) among others and I am curious to see what others make of those references.

I would read Sexton again, if for nothing other than her unique use of language, but I might be more apt to lean toward one of her books where the theme requires a less formulaic approach.

This One Book

2009-08-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

I've slowly been working my way through Joyce Carol Oates' Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart for the past three months. This book feels impenetrable. I am a big fan of Oates. We even share the same birthday. She is such a prolific and exacting writer that I find myself often overwhelmed by the craft of her work. I've read four other books in tandem with Oates' because I am finding that I constantly need a break from her tight construction. But I love it. I was only to page nine when I got hung up on this sentence:

"And a shiver walks over them another time."

This is a paragraph of its own and stills my breath every time I read it. It's not a "chill," it's a "shiver." It doesn't "get them," it "walks over them." And it doesn't walk over them "again," but "another time." The shiver is visible, tangible. It has dozens of legs and leaves its mark when walking over "them." This sentence slows you down, as a reader, forces you to visualize every word as a separate picture, then encourages you to combine them together to make the whole. It's an added bonus that the sentence is eerie enough to give the reader shivers as well.

Another sentence, or part of a sentence, that caught my eye, is on page 143. Jinx Fairchild is watching his father play checkers with himself -- watching him control the blacks and reds simultaneously, and Oates' describes it as:

" . . . a peace to the wettish air like the hush of fresh bread cooling."

This sentence fragment has nearly everything: touch/feel (the wettish air), sound (the hush), smell (the fresh bread cooling), not to mention the fact that Oates even thought of comparing something, anything, to the "hush of fresh bread cooling." But, indeed, it is a hush, a lingering hush that is as easily smelled as wettish air is felt.

I'm starting on my thesis this semester. I have my book list picked out (mostly poetry), but I think I need to get this book in there as well if for no other reason than the exactness and beauty of the language.

No Teeth Poetry Blog

2009-06-19T12:09:00.001-07:00

Check it out:

http://noteethapoetryblog.blogspot.com/

Gary Lutz Lecture

2009-05-03T16:05:00.001-07:00

Wonderful lecture by Gary Lutz given at Columbia University:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200901/?read=article_lutz

Movement

2009-05-03T15:50:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting on my couch, watching a rerun of House, and waiting for K to come so we can go over the co-existance rules and regulations. For the first time in my life, I am voluntarily moving in with someone. A roommate. There are so many reasons to do this: economy, practicality, convenience. There are so many reasons not to do this: personal space, moodiness, someone other than myself eating my peanut butter. In the end, I want to live in an apartment where I have room to move in a quiet and safe location, both of which are currently out of my individual economic means; thus, the roommate. We found a great second floor apartment on Academy Hill in Greensburg. I can ride my bicycle to work, not to mention the convenience of coffee and the gym. But turns, we have to have turns. Cleaning turns, doing-the-dishes turns, taking-out-the-trash turns. These turns were horrible in London, culminated in fights and fights and fights. I thought it was me: I am hard to live with. And perhaps I am, but there are other sides, right?

So now I will share, cross my fingers for the bigger bedroom, and hope I have enough guts to keep things okay.

Some inanimate bonding

2009-04-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

There is a copy repair man working on the Cannon that sits outside my cubicle. He asks me if he can use some of my "office space," then proceeds to throw his brown leather coat onto my office floor before waiting for my answer. Every two minutes or so he comes around the corner into my office to talk to his coat. "I hear you talking to me," "Is that you I hear," and "Now what do you want?" Each time, I start to answer, sure that he is speaking to me, as would be appropriate with these types of inquires, but he is not. He is speaking to his coat.

The stress of flying

2009-03-25T15:16:00.000-07:00

I keep scheduling flights knowing how stressful flying is for me. It takes every bit of my concentration to keep myself from imagining the plane spiraling into a corn field from 32,000 feet, or into the side of a mountain because the control panel has a glitch and the fog hid the landscape.

I pray a lot. Or rather, I chant, which only means I repeat a prayer over and over and over, often for hours at a time. I did this when I went skydiving. It kept me from erratically jumping from the plane prior to having my parachute secured. A nice, evenly paced chant seems to calm me down, allows my concentration to focus on words, not images, and keeps my breathing natural.

Speaking of natural, it has been over five years since I've stopped dying/coloring/destroying my hair. I realized this in a peculiar way:

I went to New Orleans this weekend with some old friends. I had gone to New Orleans with this same group of friends eight years ago. Back then, my hair was various shades of white, pink, blue, green, and so on. I took pride in not knowing what my natural color was, actually. Between shaving it all off and stripping it of all color, I somehow lost some of my hair's natural thickness and healthiness. I haven't done anything artificial to my hair in years, but these old friends didn't know that. A few commented on my natural color and it took some math to realize it's been a while since I've played around with the hair dye. It's been a while for a lot of things, I suppose.

But back to the flying. The flights I mentioned previously also include visits with old friends and new cities. So if anyone has some Minneapolis or Charlotte entertainment suggestions, I'm ready for you.

Sign up here for your free food and critical self-analysis

2009-02-03T06:04:00.000-08:00

It never occured to me that Denny's was doing it for anything but profit. I wasn't sure how it would profit, but I know everything in business is driven by profit. Free Grand Slam for eight hours, even during the lunch rush? That's absurd. That's bad business. That's helpful. Helpful in the way that, even with the line of customers wrapping around the building, a father who has just lost his job can take his family out for breakfast.

I didn't think of it as helpful. When I woke up at 6:23 AM to meet my friends for free food, I thought I was sticking it to Denny's. Finally, I was going to get compensation for all those times I had to pay for stale mashed potatoes and flat Pepsi.

Turns out the line was too long. Teenagers wrapped around the side of the building, waiting to stick it to the man. I couldn't wait in that line. No, I wouldn't wait in that line. Not at 7 AM, not in 20 degree weather, not before sunrise, not when Bob Evans was across the highway and I had a $20 in my pocket. But 10 years ago, I would have stood all day. I would have piled my friends in my car and took them to Denny's at 7 AM to get our free meal. Ten years ago I was 19. Ten years ago I was broke and had time to spare. Ten years ago I wasn't an unemployed, middle-aged man with a family.

We ate at Bob Evans and paid for our meals instead. We paid with our convenience of money. Then I went to the Y. I enjoy running on the elliptical without headphones on. This helps me concentrate on my breathing. While running I usually read the TV captions on Fox News. The reliability of that channel is topic for another piece, but I will just say that today, Fox News made me think about my faith in other people - their point managed to shine through the misspelled captions. It wasn't until after I saw the throng of teenagers at Denny's that I even thought about the economic turmoil we're all in. Fox News did that for me. They proclaimed Denny's to be somewhat of a savior to these families who had fell short of stability and any type of assurance that it's going to get better. The Denny's featured on Fox News was filled with adults and their children - families who appreciated the meal rather than felt entitlement.

I felt like an ass. I've spent my whole life fine tuning the belief that people are innately selfish and unreliable. Conversations about this leave me winded with my vocal cords in a frenzy. So now, Fox News is telling me that perhaps there is kindness in, well, unexpected places. Yes, Denny's is begging to that down and out, working-class audience. As they should be, they are a working-class restaurant. And yes, Denny's may get that sympathy pick for the next time a family can afford to pay for dinner. But for right now, they're not getting much of anything but muddy floors, hungry families, and a 20% tip. But at least they're feeding these families, giving them a luxury that has been cut from their lives, a social easiness that people take for granted. Meanwhile, I'm not being kind to anybody. I've just spent my morning watching a franchise extend a kindness and now I'm sitting on my couch writing about it.

It was the wording

2009-02-01T07:39:00.001-08:00

Correction to the last entry: Roy Orbison is NOT my father. As least not that I know of.

It's this school thing that keeps me away

2009-01-19T05:20:00.000-08:00

I currently have no time or motivation for hobbies. And I’m not a prolific writer. Combine the two and you have a lack of a blog. That is where I am right now. I’m in between Bill Bryson and Susan Orlean, writing a memoir piece about my dad, Roy Orbison, and myself, and writing poem about Roy Orbison that was inspired by the memoir. But the thing that is taking the place of a hobby right now is my pedagogy course. I will be designing a 15 week class of my choosing. Working title: The Poets of Pittsburgh. I’m looking forward to the research, the teaching statement, the lesson plans, the syllabus, and polishing up on my Vollmer, Krygowski, and Daniels, but after the semester is over so is the developed course since Chatham offers no where to teach the very thing they require you to produce.

But it’s ok! Because a break is coming. I can feel it. I will finally have time to submit my poems, read a book of my choosing, bake muffins, and once again find myself becoming cripplingly distracted by the various species of chickens found on the internet.

Take for instance this Black Breasted Red Game. Did you know they are strictly an ornamental fowl from Great Britian? Well, now you do.

The things that come with holidays

2008-11-30T10:26:00.000-08:00

First, you swirl it around while it's in the glass, then you press your face into the opening and sniff, next comes the act of drinking - but don't swallow! - instead, swish it around inside your mouth for a few seconds. Okay, now you can swallow. Feel the taste swelling inside your mouth? The floral scent, or maybe some blueberries? This is wine-tasting. This is my new obsession.

I love holidays when they are accompanied with a trip to, well, really, anywhere. This year I went to Smicksburg, PA, with some friends to immerse myself in Amish life and wine tasting at Windgate Winery.

They may or may not be pretending . . .

Hannah hoarding her blackberry and cherry . . .

They have the best fruit wines. My mouth waters at the thought.

Onto the town of Smicksburg, which is very rural (and Amish). Shops are set up inside farm houses and the only indication that they are there are the small signs along the road. This involves a lot of turning around as said signs are hardly noticed on first pass. But once you commit to a sign, hence a store, you will be glad you exercised your reverse.

I went for the Pumpkin Pie fudge. The calories were worth it.

Some things end with a question mark

2008-11-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

The snow is pulling on my heart strings. I was just thinking today how it never snowed in London, and while I enjoyed not having to worry about slipping on the sidewalk, I missed that soft blanket that covered everything I took for granted. Or sometimes it fell just enough to highlight things I ignored.

A Pittsburgh Community

2008-10-13T07:21:00.000-07:00

Ed Ochester was shaky. I saw it when he first managed to climb the stairs at the edge of the stage. There was no hand railing so he reached for air, hoping that would hold him. He managed to walk up the stairs to the stage, but after booming out his poems, decided it was easier to sit on the floor near the edge of the stage and hop down. Decided it was easier to ease his whole body onto the floor instead of stilling two shaky legs. His body is betraying his mind. The book he read from vibrated uncontrollably, which was in contrast to his steady voice. It was hard watching someone you admire show their realness to you. It was hard not to want his physical condition to match his poems: bold, strong, sure.

It was Poetry for Obama yesterday (I don't know if that was the official name, I may be making that up) at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. There were probably 20 or so poets who read for four minutes each. Yes, four minutes. That's approximately one long poem, or two medium-length poems, or three shorter poems, or four short poems. And that's also approximately the way I like it. Continuous droning from one poet makes me sleepy and this was just the right length to keep things fresh and at attention in my mind.

And, in the midst of all the people, all the reading, I managed to walk away with a new chapbook from a Pittsburgh poet that caught my attention: Debrah Bogen. Her narratives absolutely make me hold my breath, which in poetry, is a good thing for me. Living by the Children's Cemetery was $2. Yes, on a table of $10 poetry books I managed to walk away with a hand-held narrative beauty for $2.

Her poems are so real to me. They're grounded in roots and family and place:

The moon’s/stuck in a milk bottle and ancient horse/track hangs on the porch where my grandfather drank

I've been looking for "my" poet. You know, that one defining person that has done what it is you wish to do. I haven't found them yet, but Bogen is writing in that same style that I've found myself in for the past 10 months and she's doing it beautifully.

But back to Obama. I'm not much of an Obama supporter. There's something there, aside from the Democratic rhetoric, that I just do not trust. The Pittsburgh writing community loves him though. One writer even said "I believe Obama is a writer at heart." Well, yes, maybe, but can he lead a country? Maybe not. I don't think so. And if he can, I don't know that he can do it well. But these poets think he can, and since all proceeds from the reading went to the Obama campaign, I was careful as to what I was buying.

The poet turnout was amazing for this event: Jim Daniels, Ed Ochester, Jan Beatty, Lynn Emanuel, Judith Vollmer (be still my heart!), and they read such well-placed poems. Vollmer read, what was arguably the best piece, from a torn piece of computer paper, and two writers read from nothing, opting instead for reciting their pieces from memory.

The sense of community, especially the writing community, is strong in Pittsburgh. Their collective voice rivals major cities whose writing community lacks the loyalty found in these writers. They are Pittsburgh-natives, and those that aren't may as well be. They write about it, live in it, fight for it. This pull they have in the community is relieving, mainly because other cities lack that loyal bond that Pittsburgh is grounded in. They are amazing writers who support one another, regardless of style or background or education. They support one another because that is what's needed to build a community, that is what's needed for loyalty and respect to exist.

And Ochester? He came to East Liberty from Shelocta, Pennsylvania, a desolate speck on Route 422 lined with farms and family restaurants. He drove 90 minutes to read for 4. And he did it better than most.

this may just be a phase

2008-10-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

oh, i've been slacking. more than slacking. i've all but quit everything. i was coerced into joining Live Journal, and have since neglected this site, which i find more inviting anyway. i don't understand this newness that is always forced on website users. people have a site at certain web addresses for a reason. mostly because they're easy to use. by the time i'm into the groove of the whole thing (i.e. facebook, myspace, etc.) things change. buttons relocated, or become hidden altogether, layouts rotate, new options are added (but not explained), blah blah blah. but i guess things always need revised. profit scheme. adobe just came out with CS4. this may not mean a lot to the person who pastes their friend's heads onto llamas using the program, but it means a hell of a lot to people who use the program as the core of their job. i fall into the latter, and sometimes former, and this new edition means upgrades. expensive upgrades. business upgrades. for what? a new web interface that is so beyond human comprehension it will never be used? yes, probably. and people will fall for it. not printers, like me, but those that fall into the former group, who consider themselves "cutting edge," who can tell their other office-friends that they work on CS4. ugh. and the kinks that will need worked out? the printing snafus, the font defaults, yeah, that falls on me too since i'm the one printing it.

back to quitting. i forced out some poems yesterday. mainly because i haven't written a decent one in so long. i'm taking a craft of poetry class that focuses on forms. i have sonnets galore with recent revision dates, but no free verse, which is where my heart is. oh, those sonnets. they bring out the generic in me. vagueness from all corners. to follow that rhyme scheme AND iambic pentameter? i lose it. completely lose it. we've moved on to villanelles but i have my doubts about that one too.

i've quit doing homework, quit sleeping, quit stressing. this last one worries the hell out of me. i'm usually stressed to maximum stressness during the semester. i don't really like my grad school. the professors are either too lax or spread too thin to be at the attentiveness a writer-in-learning needs. i'm kind of stuck. i keep thinking about switching to a different school, but do i really want to stack that financial responsibility onto myself?

my light: i observed some classes at PITT Greensburg today. Gary Lutz and Judith Vollmer. in a business comp 3 class, Lutz studied the roots of "jargon" for 20 minutes of the 50 minute class. the man knows where details need to go. knows what needs the focus. the right side of his upper lip lags behind the other side when talking. that engaged me more than he'll ever know. and Vollmer, what can i say about her? i love her. she has this odd pull. very odd. she knows how to steer a class of poets. knows how to get them to say exactly what she's alluding to as if it was their genuine idea. and she knows the meaning and history of the most obscure references. Rumi makes a lot of ancient Green and Roman references, and she knows them all. she is who made me want to be a teacher then a poet, in that order.

Roomforcream

2008-08-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

A few things you should know:

1. I never make a full cup.
2. Mine is always weaker than most
3. My milk ratio is 1:1

I once read that William Burroughs purposely became addicted to heroin. That seems kind of odd. Right? A few months ago I was introduced to Starbucks (obviously I don’t have much of a public-immersed life) and somehow, after years of hating it, I found that coffee did have a certain appeal. I’ve always liked the aroma, as most do, but the taste was what ruined it for me. But with Starbucks, I found I could weaken the potency by counteracting it with such flavors as vanilla and caramel. This is half-assed, I know, which is why I set a goal to become a coffee drinker, sans artificial flavoring. I want to be that woman in a long skirt who orders “coffee, black” and reads Dostoevsky in a corner.

Luckily, my parents’ had an old coffee pot they didn’t want and very readily and kindly gave it to me with the assurance “We use instant,” which is a statement I’m sure I’ll learn to turn my nose at, in the spirit of a true coffee drinker. It’s a 10-cup Mr. Coffee and mostly squared in all areas (i.e. the filter and body):

Meghan helped me find some cool coffee samples, one of which is flavored as I have to ease my way into this

and I made the decision to prolong my baby steps by buying vanilla Coffeemate.

I’m learning by trial and error. I’ve yet to make a full cup but am confident by the end of September that will be accomplished.

Hopefully this is the only one of Burroughs's ideas that piques my interest. Cause that dude was fucked up.

wherefore art thou, employment?

2008-08-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

finding a job is proving to be more difficult than i thought. i've sent over 60 resumes in the past 6 months and got exactly 2 interviews prior to last week. i was offered both jobs but had to turn one down in order to take the other. sadly, two hours prior to my starting time, the job i accepted (marketing director with tidwell realty) called and told me they no longer had any hours for me. i sent an email to the job website where i found the position. i also researched better business bureau thinking i could do something there. but in the end, i just sighed and moved along. so now i have a very stunted work schedule at the job i've had for the past year (i had just hired an intern to take my place so i no longer have the hours available to me), a job i hate. a job that makes my heart drop a little every time i think about it.

but alas! within 24 hours of the dreaded we-have-no-hours-for-you phone call, i snagged an interview at a print shop (i have a second interview wed.) thanks to a friend's quick networking tactics and also managed to get another interview with a different print company. things are looking . . . up, maybe? i guess i just need to calm down and wait for the plan to fall in line around me instead of attempting to snatch it from its womb. that's kinda gross.

i wrote this by myself

2008-08-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

i should probably write something, but i'm stuck. writing workshops are the only motivation i have, and i'm not in any right now. so here's a poem i wrote this summer, sans motivation. well, sans workshop motivation. i used to have this friend walter. we fell apart somewhere, but i still think of him everyday. he was the motivation for this:

We went differently

You were inside bowls
of changing glass, mixing
with heat, green green plants
against your pumped limps.
Seeds swallowed,
throat kneeded,
stretching for more air
against your insides.

That was when I was learning
how to eat alone.
How to ask for a table for one,
to concentrate
on a spot on the wall
while couples mixed their hands
and stared. I ordered
easy things – fries, lemonade.

I heard you got fired,
stole guts of rusted carts
that left traces
along aisle legs,
lung linings, burnt thumb
prints on the body
of your bic.

This restaurant isn’t crowded
anymore. I eat soup now,
not afraid of missing my mouth
or staining the shirt
you got me for my birthday.
My fingers are thinner, my rings
slide off in dish water.

Your mother says you won’t
graduate. She says you
spend days spray painting
rocks that line her driveway,
fall asleep with your bowl
still lit, sparking
fear into knuckles
that cradle it, ashes shake
into tin palms, calloused.

I’m moving tomorrow.
These restaurants
are expensive and their menus
give me paper cuts. I found
a town that has a diner.
I will start over.

nostalgia never looks as good in person

2008-07-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

memories are nice. they create an atmosphere specific to your own mental process. you may remember a certain moment very differently than the friend who was with you, experiencing the same moment. people appear, dialog is tweaked, time bleeds. it's all yours, the memory.

however, sometimes it is nice to have proof of those memories. perhaps a nice canvas painting, or an etch a sketch. sometimes, even, an appreciative modern picture. yes, a picture. a small rectangular, flimsy piece of paper where you and your event are caught in action. george eastman knew what he was doing. apparently, i didn't.

i'm a fan of film cameras. mainly because i'm a nostalgic idiot who hangs onto romantic ideas and processes for too long. but two years ago i cut the ritualistic cord and purchased a digital camera. i did my research - price, features, mega pixels, reviews . . . i ended up with a sony cyber-shot. it was a little above my price range, but it had that traditional-camera look and i figured - "hey, it's a good camera and will last me a while."

lies. all lies. it lasted me less than a year. i was pretty pumped when i discovered it came with two rechargeable batteries. even more excited when i realized it came with a batter recharger. the honeymoon phase was wonderful. there was nothing i wouldn't take a picture of - door frames, carrots, a nicely placed bug - but things somehow started getting tricky. after 6 months the camera started shutting off in cold weather. i let it get away with this, mainly because i sometimes shut off in cold weather. but then it started doing it in any weather. then the batteries started dying instantly, even after they were freshly charged. when i moved to london, it got so bad i had to ask my friends to take pictures for me with their cameras (incidentally, all their cameras worked. well, except for lauren's. her's was an hp.)

eventually i gave up on my camera. my memories are no longer proved in any tangible way. i can remember a certain event as horrible, when it may not have been, simply because i have no proof otherwise. my friends age in shocking bursts since i no longer have a visual reference as to how they looked before. my niece has gone from a 1-week-old to an 18-month-old in one blunt step.

i've been thinking about getting another one. this time a cheap one. maybe it will work better that way. i want those proven memories. i want the phases of my mother's hair and the spring my sister's perennials grew between the rocks in her driveway. because mentally, there is no in-between in memories. there's only then. and now.

that word doesn't belong there

2008-07-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

gary lutz has words by the balls. he manipulates them, rearranges, rapes. i am in love.

i discovered lutz this year at a meeting for writing majors at my university. he is socially awkward. his face perches, his limbs slump. but this posture works for him. he wears black and sometimes a wedding ring. he cuts his pickles with a knife and fork. his office is covered in unorganized heaps of paper and he uses commas correctly. his short fiction makes me want to throw couches:

People, in truth, had got the wrong ideas about me - that I responded well to cosmetics . . . that my teeth had been sewn tight into my gums with thick black thread.

lutz's story aren't page turners. they are based around words being inevitable to one another within a sentence. he proves that the following word cannot exist without the preceding word. my head freezes on sentences when i read his stories. i study syntax, connotation, syllable stresses, vowel placement, font size, leading.

his characters are not memorable. they have no names, no description beyond their eccentric psychological oddities. but in the end, you want more. you want all those sentences back and in a different order. you want those confusing moments when you walked away from the sane part of your brain. you want sisters with hair swells. you want a relapse.

you just need thread that blends

2008-07-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

i'm learning to sew. or rather, learning to use a sewing machine. my first attempt was a purse, which (almost) immediately started to lose its shape and with it, its quirkiness. the outside fabric was transparent, the seams started pulling apart, and the marketable and conveniently located pen-holder sewn into the inside started to sag. i no longer use the purse.

but i haven't given up! i've since bought some sturdier fabric and am attempting it once again. this time it's for my sister's birthday and i've even invested in some aesthetically pleasing owl iron-ons to up its value once the crooked seams are in place. what a dud present. sorry, candy.

to leave you with a more smiling image, my friend recently sewed this little guy together, igniting my sewing-jealousy: