Help Wanted

Help! I'm working on a revised CV. (No, I'm not on the job market. I need to include it with a proposal.) I think I once heard that after a certain amount of time, you shouldn't lead with your degrees but with either your teaching or your publications. Does anyone have any good advice on this? Anyone willing to forward a sample?

What I'm Reading: City of Regret

For the past six months or so, I've been intrigued by individual poems written by Andrew Kozma and appearing in different journals. Most recently, I found two poems in Copper Nickel 12 that moved me to ask the library to ILL Kozma's book City of Regret. (I'm still trying to buy several books of poetry each month, but recently the budget monster reared its ugly head!)

I think I'm drawn to Kozma's work because his poems seem steeped in elegy and the kind of images that surprise without showing off. City of Regret is certainly a book about mourning but it is also a reconciliation with what it means to be alive in this amazing, conflicted world. The main mourning of the book centers around the loss of the speaker's father, but there are also hints of mourning for a lost lover and an opening toward hope in the end.

Here's a short poem in example:

The Transplant Ward

Even the most sincere in need
wait months or years, eyes fixed

to the walls like water stains.
They practice feeling hollow

with hands on their chests,
caging those small moments of space

they won't remember
when surgeons unhook the heart

and hold the body open
as it rushes to fill itself.



Some lines from "Dedicatory Letter"

... Now the silkworms
are wrapped tight in their own madness.

Will you hear their cries? Their demands lack teeth.
Their hold on you is an emptied leaf.

God, your eyes are closed, and though your breathing is even
this means nothing. Crops are as easily destroyed

by an apathetic rain as a broken dam.

And the closing lines from "Elegy for the End of the Day"

When the shadows devour the leaves
I remember your skin, perfect
for vanishing against unlit wood.

Bless this ending, this empty husk
that does not need to be saved.




City of Regret
Andrew Kozma
Zone 3 Press, 2007

Head Full of Hornets

I was going to say "head full of bees," but I think it's more than that, more "hornety." Today, I have some breathing room, and I came to the desk so full of hope. However, it appears that I can't settle down. I keep jumping up and jumping around in my brain. I fiddled with some household mini-chores in the hopes I would work off whatever excess energy this is, but now, I pick up one book and read a bit and fail to be sucked in, so I pick up another one, only to have the same thing happen there. As frustrating as swatting hornets, which I know is never a good idea.

Tomorrow I plan on checking over the manuscript one more time and sending it out to one contest this month. There is one last poem that still feels like a thorn in my side. I will most likely excise it tomorrow. I also have a few newer poems that I want to check on. They may or may not fit in this project. I know some poets see their manuscripts with clear edges and boundaries, mine are so often blurred.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Alas, A Lack of Time

Today's another loss to grading, but I'm finding the grading a reward of its own kind this year. I switched back to Comp I and the change had been good for me. Also, a colleague and I have been swamped with organizing a conference we are hosting at the end of the month. After Nov. 1, the time management should get a bit easier!

Dear Kind Editor,

I humbly beg your pardon. You are one of a small and select group who received a particular submission packet from me in August. In my rush to return to the world of poetry, I fear I spoke too soon. I sent forth these few half-formed darlings in a less than beautiful state. It is only now, upon quiet reflection as the rejections arrive one by one that I have realized my mistake. My only hope is that you erase this episode from your memory. I've heard tell of the mountains of poems that you receive each day, each month, each year, & Etc. May you find it in your heart to lose all knowledge of this one particular lapse in my judgment and not hold it against me (or my now more darling poems) upon future attempts at pleasing you enough to guarantee my words are published.

May it be so.

I am resigned,
Your Reckless Submitter

~~~~~

This subject has been on my mind for the last two weeks. The poems in question I felt quite strongly about in August. So strongly that I disregarded the very smart comments of my faithful friend, Tara Bray. I shrugged her off, when I know better. (T., I'm so sorry!) You see, the poems were too new, and I made the same mistake I've made in the past (although not too recently). I rushed the poems out into the world before they were old enough for me to see them clearly. Today, I did not start a new draft as I had intended. Instead, I was recording rejections, and as they often do, they sparked revisions. Finally, finally, I saw what Tara meant about the ending of one poem. I began to tinker with one line and low and behold, I rewrote the last five lines of the poem. It seems that however long I've been working and reworking this process, it's never long enough. I stumble at the same points. Yet, I am heartened by the fact that I seem to stumble less often now.

Along the same lines, Victoria Chang has a post up about the errors she sees in manuscripts submitted for book contests. It's one of those dangerous posts that sends me back to my binder, scouring The World Made of Such Weather as This for any transgressions named in the article or post. Still, I think it is a valuable reminder. And some of the things she describes, I've never done, so I do get to feel a little reassured by that.

Now out into another gray and drizzly day here in central Arkansas. (For the love of God, where is the sun?)

Weekend Update: Sappho and Sedaris

I love the juxtaposition of the two events I attended this weekend. In fact, my brain is overflowing with very different stimuli.

Thanks to Josh for asking about the Sappho event. I had planned to blog about it Saturday when I returned home, but, alas, I became sidetracked. First, let me reiterate that the translator is my very good friend Rebecca Resinski, a classics professor at Hendrix College.

The word that came to mind after viewing and hearing the performance of Fragments from Sappho was "enchanting." On stage, twenty dancers (16 women and 4 men) performed, sometimes as a whole, sometimes in pairs or larger numbered groups but still all together, and sometimes as pairs or solos while the rest of the group posed in interesting configurations and "attended." (Let me just say that commenting on this type of work is way outside my realm of expertise, so I'm sure I'm missing some of the lingo.) Also on stage were two local soprano vocalists, Suzanne Banister and Joanne McDade. The music had been pre-recorded, but with the quality of technology today, it felt seamless with the whole. So, from time to time, the sopranos sang from the translation while the dancers created the most amazing forms on stage. From time to time, the dancers recited (sometimes still and sometimes moving) from the translations, forming a Greek chorus effect.

Rebecca gave me a little backstory into how this all came together, and I hope she won't mind me sharing a bit for the curious writers out there. Several years ago, she was working on a translation project of Sappho fragments. She translated the fragments and then "re-envisioned" them into a larger whole. Her piece contains 17 sections. Each section draws on words and clauses from different fragments, reformed into a whole. At the top of each section, she labels from which fragments the words are drawn, but does not break it down any further than that.

Rebecca showed her piece to some folks in the arts department and they wanted to collaborate on a performance piece. The translation was given to Karen Griebling, who composed the music and decided what would be sung and what would be recited. This was given to Brigitte Rogers, who choreographed the performance. Finally, the student dancers and the sopranos were brought in to rehearse and perform.

As I watched the piece, it struck me that I rarely see true performance pieces such as this. It was performed four times over the weekend, and now it is done. Poof, as they say. I'm sure this is a common occurrence in larger cities, and maybe even here in Little Rock and I'm just unaware of such things. However, most of the events I attend here are readings and performances of plays and such that are already in the canon. Of course, there is a chance that somebody might hear of this and want to perform/reproduce it elsewhere, but it would not be quite the same, I think. I feel fortunate to have been there.

~~~

Shifting gears to David Sedaris, there isn't nearly as much to say, mostly because he's so well known. His reading was amazing and hilarious and touching in small moments and just what I needed at this point in the semester. On the walk back to the car, my chest ached from laughing so hard. It was great to hear that 1,300 people attended because the whole show was a fundraiser for the Arkansas Literary Festival. Unfortunately, I won't be at the Lit Festival this year because it is the same weekend as AWP, but I'm glad I was able to chip in last night and get such a great return. on my contribution. "Laugh kookaburra, Laugh kookaburra, Gay your life must be!"

Events This Weekend

I've got an action-packed weekend of great events to attend.

On Saturday, I'm traveling down the road to Conway, AR for this:

Fragments from Sappho
Fri.-Sat., Oct. 9-10, 2009, Fri., Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., Oct. 10, 2:00 p.m., Reves Recital Hall, Hendrix College
This collage of poetry, movement, and music will invite audience members to make their own connections among and within the arranged pieces. Text arranged and translated by Rebecca Resinski. Brigitte Rogers, director. Karen Griebling, musical composer.
For more information contact Henryetta Vanaman at 501-450-4597 or vanaman@hendrix.edu.

Rebecca is a good friend of mine, and I can't wait to take in this performance!

On Sunday, I'm heading to west Little Rock for this:

An Evening with David Sedaris

Best-selling author David Sedaris will appear at a one-night event to benefit the Arkansas Literary Festival at 7 p.m. Sunday, October 11, 2009. Sedaris is the author of Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice, as well as collections of personal essays, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You are Engulfed in Flames, each of which became immediate bestsellers.

Yay!

Rejection

Because I just read another blog about a poet's distaste for other poets blogging about their acceptances, I give you this. My rejection count for this week is 3. That means that roughly 15 poems were rejected, since my average submission packet is composed of 5 individual poems and when I receive a rejection it is for the entire packet.

Perhaps news of these rejections will outweigh those pesky acceptance posts.

Perhaps this flood of rain we can't seem to shake is making me snarky.

Wow, Makes Me Sad

John S. O'Connor has a short blog up at Harriet today that made me say "Wow" and then made me sad. It's about talking to "classroom teachers" (I think this means K-12) about poetry. Here's the clip that got me:

Novels and plays are the serious works, she suggested — actual books that serve a vital function, substantial texts that might really require some heavy lifting. Poetry, by implication, is regarded as wall art, something exotic rather than essential — not something to plan a room (or a unit) around.

At the end, he mentions a teacher who starts every class with a poem. When I first started teaching freshman comp, I used to end every class with a poem. I think I might go back to doing that! It's never too late to introduce poetry to the world. If you have a captive audience, please consider sharing some of your favorites. You'll be surprised how many people will appreciate it.

New Linebreak Poem Worth Reading

This week's poem over at Linebreak intrigues me. Amy McNamara's "unnamable fororce in reserve" is seductive in its sounds and there is a deeper "something" lurking beneath the beauty of the words. There is a mystery here that I hope for in my own work.

Enjoy!

New Draft and Process

Sluggish morning. One of the cats sabotaged my alarm, knocking the tuner from NPR to silence sometime in the night. I woke up 30 minutes late, befuddled by the silence. It's still gray, but at least the rain has stopped for now.

Today, I wrote a draft, so I'm ahead for the week. Yay! It was an interesting process, and I thought I'd give a few details. I usually begin any writing time by reading a few blogs and then picking up a book of poetry or a journal. I'm the kind of writer who needs transition time to move from the world of doctor's appointments and cats that need feeding to the world of words. Many people recommend that one not read the blogs before writing, but for me, it settles me into "poet space." Then, I read poems by others to get the words percolating in my morning-dense mind. Finally, my own words will come, or not, at no predictable interval.

I always begin in ink in my journal...a true mess of bad handwriting and scrawling attempts to bring something out of nothing. After I have a few lines or a stanza, I switch to the computer and finish the draft there.

For some reason, I had Neruda's Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon (translated by Stephen Mitchell) out on my desk. I started going through it and right away decided I would collect words from the book to use in a draft today. I think I hit on this technique because I used to use Neruda when I participated in Writers in the Schools at the U of Arkansas, and I'd have the students do word banks from these poems. So, I read the poems and captured strong nouns, verbs, and adjective on one page of my journal. When I had 60 of them, I decided to throw in another technique I've read about. I numbered the words and then used a random number generator on the internet to form pairs of words. Some of the pairs were awful and uninspiring, but when I'd done this about a dozen times, three sets stood out to me. And they became the first lines of my new draft. I continued to refer to my word bank as I drafted, but I didn't rely on the pairs or the generator after that. After the poem felt somewhat formed I went back and re-read with a clearer eye. I noticed I'd overdosed on adjectives again. I love Neruda for his lush descriptions, but I'd taken too much here and there and had to trim. The draft is 10 lines right now and titled "Late Aubade." Late as in autumn and late as in 9:30 a.m. when I drafted it but the light today is very "dawn-ish" since the sun can't quite make it through the cloud layers.

All in all, I'm thrilled with today's work. Happy Monday to all.

Rain, Rain, Rain

Some would argue that this persistent gray drizzle is perfect for a Sunday...some would be wrong. Central Arkansas has had its share of rain already. Move along!

I had a hard time getting going due to said rain, but I did manage to read a bit and then tackle one of my "to-do's" for the day. I just finished sending out six submission packets. I sent out a good number in August, and then September passed by with nary a cast into the slush pile pool. Mostly, this is because I experienced such a silent summer that I'd run out of things to send. I'm happy to say that I've built up one packet's worth of material (sent simultaneously to six journals). Woo Hoo!

So, now I must find something to eat and then read for my classes this week. At least the rain is good for staying in doors.

Bonne chance, mes petits poèmes.

What I'm Reading: Time and Materials

It's been out for quite a while, but I just now borrowed the library's copy of Time and Materials by Robert Hass. I read the first poem in the collection in the American Poetry Review two years ago, and I still love it. Here it is in its entirety:

Iowa, January

In the long winter nights, a farmer's dreams are narrow.
Over and over, he enters the furrow.

So much happens in those two lines, and the feel of the words on the tongue is sublime. I like Hass' shorter, lyric poems the best. The book is a mix of those and longer, more narrative works, which did not hold my interest as well. This is probably a failing of mine, as I can admire the fine craftsmanship of all of Hass' work.

Here are some other favorites:

from The Problem of Describing Color

If she tells a fortune with a deck of fallen leaves
Until it comes out right--

Rouged nipple, mouth--

(How could you not love a woman
Who cheats at the Tarot?)

Red, I said. Sudden, red.


from Breach and Orison: 3. Habits of Paradise

If I saw the sleek stroke of moving darkness
was a hawk, high up, nesting
in the mountain's face, and if,
for once, I didn't want to be the hawk,
would that help? Token of earnest,
spent coin of summer, would the wind
court me then, and would that be of assistance?


from Time and Materials

Or to render time and stand outside
The horizontal rush of it, for a moment
To have the sensation of standing outside
The greenish rush of it.


from "...White of Forgetfulness, White of Safety"

Ticking heat, the scent of sage,
Of pennyroyal. The structure of every living thing
Was praying for rain.


Support Poetry! Buy or Borrow a Book of Poems Today
Time and Materials
Robert Hass
ecco: An Imprint of HarperCollins, 2007

PS: This book is definitely in the running for best cover art and design I've seen this year.

New Draft, Just Under the Wire

I was a little worried if I would be able to draft a new poem this week, given all the grading and school tasks I had to do. I missed my writing time on Monday and Wednesday, and so that left today. My usual process is to begin to settle my mind by reading someone else's work and then see where that takes me. Lately I've noticed that the first few poems I read might be getting the short end of the stick. It takes me a while to shift from the world of my to do list to the world of reading and writing. In any case, I hadn't even begun to think about drafting this morning, and I'd barely settled into Lynne Thompson's book Beg No Pardon, when all of a sudden, I knew what I wanted to draft today. Strangely, the poem turned into a prose poem, I think. Those familiar with my work will know that this is not my typical form and so I'm quite unsure of it at the moment. Still, it was good to get the words going again. Hopefully, I'll do a better balancing act with my teaching load so as not to miss many more writing hours.

The Universe Smiles On

Adding sunshine to plentiful sunshine, after withdrawing the poems that were accepted earlier this week, I received an email from Allison Joseph of Crab Orchard Review accepting the last poem still available. The submission packet originally included four poems, and all of them have been taken, which is an amazing and wonderful thing. As most of you know, I have nothing but love for Allison and Jon Tribble and the great journal they produce. I'm thrilled to say that this will be my third appearance there. Wow. I'm humbled by their support (and that of the students who work on the journal) and eternally grateful. On a side note, it looks like their website has been redesigned. Check it out.

Also, because the universe knows the ego must remain in check, there was a rejection in my inbox as well. And so it goes.