Friday, December 23, 2005
A bunch of disparate thoughts. I'll write the (short) one I have in mind and add as the rest reoccur.
1) Lynn Emanuel has some very good poems in the new "Ploughshares." Especially especially the first one. My fingers ache (from rocking Halcyon to sleep for what turned out to be nearly an hour), which makes typing difficult now! so am not typing it in, but it shouldn't be too hard to find, if you want.
2) A poem is better off a window, than a mirror.
3) Thought tends to reify and promulgate itself (I know, no shocker. Just where my head is at.).
1) Lynn Emanuel has some very good poems in the new "Ploughshares." Especially especially the first one. My fingers ache (from rocking Halcyon to sleep for what turned out to be nearly an hour), which makes typing difficult now! so am not typing it in, but it shouldn't be too hard to find, if you want.
2) A poem is better off a window, than a mirror.
3) Thought tends to reify and promulgate itself (I know, no shocker. Just where my head is at.).
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
I really need to be posting more . . . I'm trying! (or will be.)
Here's a photo of Halcyon a friend took. She is a very wonderful baby. She does ^not^ like her mommy to leave her for very long. Other than that, super peaceful.
I was staring at a first draft last night, all the possibilities I write in--usually where the poem has an uncertainty, I'll write and write possibilities, and look and weigh--I think I'm actually trying to find simultaneously a finality for that part and a phrasing/imagining which preserves the uncertainty. Anyway, my drafts can get really messy and I have to be careful to rewrite or to type them up occasionally because it has happened that I become unable to figure out what I had in mind. Actually, that can happen just from my handwriting, my 'a's, 'e's, 'o's, 'r's and 's's become frustratingly indistinguishable.
Anyway, I scanned the draft, you can see it below the Halcyon picture--it should be legible if you click on it, to enlarge it. I can't say as to the quality of the ^writing^, I haven't read it since I jotted it down last night before going to bed.
Here's a photo of Halcyon a friend took. She is a very wonderful baby. She does ^not^ like her mommy to leave her for very long. Other than that, super peaceful.
I was staring at a first draft last night, all the possibilities I write in--usually where the poem has an uncertainty, I'll write and write possibilities, and look and weigh--I think I'm actually trying to find simultaneously a finality for that part and a phrasing/imagining which preserves the uncertainty. Anyway, my drafts can get really messy and I have to be careful to rewrite or to type them up occasionally because it has happened that I become unable to figure out what I had in mind. Actually, that can happen just from my handwriting, my 'a's, 'e's, 'o's, 'r's and 's's become frustratingly indistinguishable.
Anyway, I scanned the draft, you can see it below the Halcyon picture--it should be legible if you click on it, to enlarge it. I can't say as to the quality of the ^writing^, I haven't read it since I jotted it down last night before going to bed.
Halcyon
what a draft looks like
Monday, December 12, 2005
This is really fun--Jonah's been spending lots of time just playing with it. It's kind of mesmerizing.
You can click through to all sorts of other simulators, too.
You can click through to all sorts of other simulators, too.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Wow that was fun. Thank you, everyone, for listening.
I feel like a grinning idiot who just keeps saying 'thank you' to whoever'll listen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Beyond that, I don't have much to say. It was wonderful to read for so many people. And with such talented writers--for each reader, I had the distinct feeling that that person's poetry was the poetry I was there to hear. Wonderful. And everyone so nice, and generous. And Halcyon, who'd been teething all day and kvetchier than ever, slept the whole time, until she woke up around 11ish to let us know we really had to get home. What a good baby.
So now I have the chapbooks. Well, only one, mine--I'll have more copies soon. If interested, you can buy here, at the PSA store (or should be able to very soon), or if you want a scrawly signature from yours truly, from me. I think they're $10, though again, I'll know when I get them. If you've sent me for trade, I'll reciprocate soon, as soon as I can.
When I said generous before, I meant it, btw. As part of the whole thing, I get also to spend a month at the Millay Colony (which I thought I was going to have to say no to, but Dara said say yes, so I did), as well as give a reading & a one-time class at SUNY-Purchase. The people at the Poetry Society--all of them--are phenomenal, warm, and dreamily generous. I can't thank them enough.
Continuing, regarding the near future: I'm also going to begin teaching for the Rutgers Writing Extension program (poetry & fiction, I think, so two classes). And I'm giving a lecture at some point in the Spring at Middlesex County College on something literary. And in a few weeks Dara goes back to work, which means I'll be taking over for Halcyon a good bit of the day. All to say, I'm gonna blog when I can, but I could say the same thing for brushing my teeth. I'd been preparing myself, mentally, to move the blog way back towards the involved-reading-of-a-text-and-contemplating-it-in-keystrokes mode (i.e. Moby-Dick, Stanley Fish, Spicer), and I will when I can. Really. Though I'll probably often only have time to post pictures of Halcyon being cute. Well, maybe not only, but at least.
I feel like a grinning idiot who just keeps saying 'thank you' to whoever'll listen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Beyond that, I don't have much to say. It was wonderful to read for so many people. And with such talented writers--for each reader, I had the distinct feeling that that person's poetry was the poetry I was there to hear. Wonderful. And everyone so nice, and generous. And Halcyon, who'd been teething all day and kvetchier than ever, slept the whole time, until she woke up around 11ish to let us know we really had to get home. What a good baby.
So now I have the chapbooks. Well, only one, mine--I'll have more copies soon. If interested, you can buy here, at the PSA store (or should be able to very soon), or if you want a scrawly signature from yours truly, from me. I think they're $10, though again, I'll know when I get them. If you've sent me for trade, I'll reciprocate soon, as soon as I can.
When I said generous before, I meant it, btw. As part of the whole thing, I get also to spend a month at the Millay Colony (which I thought I was going to have to say no to, but Dara said say yes, so I did), as well as give a reading & a one-time class at SUNY-Purchase. The people at the Poetry Society--all of them--are phenomenal, warm, and dreamily generous. I can't thank them enough.
Continuing, regarding the near future: I'm also going to begin teaching for the Rutgers Writing Extension program (poetry & fiction, I think, so two classes). And I'm giving a lecture at some point in the Spring at Middlesex County College on something literary. And in a few weeks Dara goes back to work, which means I'll be taking over for Halcyon a good bit of the day. All to say, I'm gonna blog when I can, but I could say the same thing for brushing my teeth. I'd been preparing myself, mentally, to move the blog way back towards the involved-reading-of-a-text-and-contemplating-it-in-keystrokes mode (i.e. Moby-Dick, Stanley Fish, Spicer), and I will when I can. Really. Though I'll probably often only have time to post pictures of Halcyon being cute. Well, maybe not only, but at least.
