Happy Mail

A little more good news on the publishing front. The editors of Meridian have accepted two poems for the next issue. This will be my second appearance in Meridian, and they also published a review of Blood Almanac. If you've never checked them out, this is one of my favorite journals...a good balance of work and beautifully produced.

As I've said before, it's hard to stay motivated about writing during the height of the semester, but moments like these prove that all of the work from the summer matters in the end.

Congratulations Are In Order

Good news for a fellow Arkansas MFA and good friend.

Crab Orchard Review and Southern Illinois University Press are pleased to announce the selection of last year's competition. Our final judge, Ricardo Pau-Llosa, selected William Notter's HOLDING EVERYTHING DOWN as the winner of the 2008 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. HOLDING EVERYTHING DOWN will be published by Southern Illinois University Press in October 2009.

Congratulations Bill!

What I'm Reading: Poets & Writers Nov/Dec 2008

Just got the new edition of Poets & Writers and am regretting a schedule that precludes reading it from cover to cover as usual. I did read two of the shorter articles tonight. One is an overview of the Cider Press/Stacey Lynn Brown events. The article presents more information from the point of view of the press, along with Brown's points. Also, I read the profile of Paul Guest, a poet whose work I admire and whose blog I read fairly regularly. If you aren't familiar with his work, check it out. I can't wait to read the profile of Toni Morrison. Also of interest to me is Mike Chasar's piece on being asked to write poems for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Lots to look forward too.

Also in the mail: a copy of Carolyn Guinzio's new book Quarry.

Absentee

I have been prioritizing my time lately, and when I sit down to poetry, I've been reading a lot rather than posting here. I've also devoted time to continue sending out poems to magazines and the book to publishers. Some good news: I'll have poems appearing in the new issues of Hunger Mountain and New South, as well as one set to appear in Linebreak.

What I'm Reading: Poetry October 08

Yesterday, during my office hours, I turned around twice and realized that, aside from some minor homework grading, I had no major school work to do this weekend. Woo Hoo. A return to poetry. So I'm catching up with the stack of journals on my desk.

In the October 2008 issue of Poetry, I found quite a few poems that touched a chord with me. Poets Sarah Lindsay, Laura Kasischke, Jill Osier, and Maurice Manning have been favorites of mine for awhile now, and I was glad to read their new poems. However, it was Eric Ekstrand's work that stood out the most.

This issue contains five poems by Ekstrand, all titled "Appleblossom," with the fifth poem adding "(Leaving Edo)" to the title. The footnote on the first poem says, "Each 'Appleblossom' is a verse translation from the Japanese of a short selection from the notebooks of Chiri, Basho's traveling companion during the years between Withered Chestnuts and Travelogue of Weatherbeaten Bones." Intriguing.

These poems express a fragile strength. There is beauty in the images and humor and grief and desire. While Ekstrand uses long lines, the poems themselves are rather short. Still, after reading each one, I find myself pausing in the best way and rereading, only to discover that the poem continues to unfold.

Recharging the Batteries

Friday was a good day in my creative writing class. Earlier in the week it had become apparent that everybody was feeling the stress and time crunch I referenced in a recent post. The bounce had gone out of our collective step. So we went to the library. We went to the library but not to look at books. Our campus has recently sprouted gallery space for the visual arts within our new library. It's a small area, a set of cases on the first floor, and some wall space on the second floor, but for many of our students, it will be their first opportunity to look at art up close and personal, in the flesh, so to speak. For example, we are currently hosting an exhibit owned by the Arkansas Arts Council.

So, I did what my undergraduate teacher did (albeit in a much larger gallery space). I invited the students to mill about and absorb the art. Then, I asked them to pick a piece that they felt strongly about. Only after they picked a piece of art did I give them the prompt: write a poem or story inspired by this piece of art. I emphasized the inspiration part rather that a summary of what the piece looked like.

For 25 minutes hardly anyone's pen stopped moving. There was an aura of concentrated energy in the space. Once I noticed people running out of gas, I asked for any brave volunteers to read from these very rough drafts. We gathered around each "featured" piece of art. Then, five students read out loud in a public place, and for first drafts, several knocked me back a step or two. Most of the students left with a smile, and one even stopped me outside later that day to tell me she wanted to go back and write about some of the other pieces.

Sometimes it's the little victories that help the most.

An Evening of Arkansas Authors

For anyone who lives in Central Arkansas, I'll be moderating the following reading and discussion with Kevin Brockeier, Hope Coulter, and Trenton Lee Stewart next Tuesday, 9/30/08. Hope to see you there!

Pulaski Technical College Presents

An Evening of Arkansas Authors

Author Readings and Discussion

Tuesday, September 30^th 6:30pm – 8:00pm

R.J. Wills Lecture Hall, Campus Center Building

Trenton Lee Stewart, author of The Mysterious Benedict Society

Kevin Brockmeier, author of The View from the Seventh Layer

Hope Coulter, author of Dry Bones

Sunday Smiles

The Onion breaks the news of a $1.3 Billion Poem. Read all about it!

Grasping at Minutes

The student papers are piling up, the news of the world is more stressful by the day, and poetry is not making it to the top of my priority list lately. I read in fits and starts. I try to keep up with my favorite blogs. And, I recently realized that I hadn't sent out any poems for September, so tonight I made a start. The start feels rejuvenating, but the student papers are leering at me from my bookbag.

I am just about reconciled to being a summer writer, at least for generating new work. I know other academics who work this way, but I had hoped I'd be able to "settle into" my teaching career enough to free up some time during the school year to do some serious drafting. It doesn't look to be happening anytime soon. I make small revisions. I work on the manuscript as new deadlines for book submissions approach. I am carving out time tonight to focus on submissions--the stack of folders teeters to my left. In other words, like so many others out there, I make do.

We've just completed Week 5 of a 16 week semester.

Reginald Shepherd 1963-2008

Reginald Shepherd died earlier this week. Reginald chose Blood Almanac for the Anhinga Prize and changed my life. I never had the chance to meet him and thank him in person, and we only exchanged a handful of emails; however, I will be forever grateful to him for plucking my manuscript from a long history of semi-finalist and finalist status.

More importantly, having read his work and admired it deeply, his voice will be missed.

You, Therefore
For Robert Philen

You are like me, you will die too, but not today:
you, incommensurate, therefore the hours shine:
if I say to you “To you I say,” you have not been
set to music, or broadcast live on the ghost
radio, may never be an oil painting or
Old Master’s charcoal sketch: you are
a concordance of person, number, voice,
and place, strawberries spread through your name
as if it were budding shrubs, how you remind me
of some spring, the waters as cool and clear
(late rain clings to your leaves, shaken by light wind),
which is where you occur in grassy moonlight:
and you are a lily, an aster, white trillium
or viburnum, by all rights mine, white star
in the meadow sky, the snow still arriving
from its earthwards journeys, here where there is
no snow (I dreamed the snow was you,
when there was snow), you are my right,
have come to be my night (your body takes on
the dimensions of sleep, the shape of sleep
becomes you): and you fall from the sky
with several flowers, words spill from your mouth
in waves, your lips taste like the sea, salt-sweet (trees
and seas have flown away, I call it
loving you): home is nowhere, therefore you,
a kind of dwell and welcome, song after all,
and free of any eden we can name

Reprinted from Fata Morgana by Reginald Shepherd, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Copyright © 2007 by Reginald Shepherd.

Job Benefits

I've talked about teaching at the community college level before, but today a new benefit made itself known to me. Each semester, as I begin teaching literature (either in a Comp class or in a Lit class), it is inevitable that a student challenges all my long-held beliefs about the worth of my subject matter. As I explain once again why I see literature as valuable to a student who may never read another poem, story, or play outside of my class, and who may be more concerned with how to pay this month's electricity bill than how to write a literary analysis, I am forced to stop and think and put myself in that student's shoes.

I ask my students simply to give the literature a chance. I ask them to be open-minded and curious. Today, I was reminded that I need to be the same with my students. My hope is that we all learn something from each other by the end of the semester.

Today, I am grateful to be teaching such diverse students, who may yet teach me more about the literature that I love.

A New Field of Dreams...For Writers

I have been under the weather lately, but this post on Poetry's Harriet blog did indeed make me smile. Check out Travis Nichols' Iowa You Make Me Smile. It appears that Iowa City is trying to recover from the horrible pork barrel fiasco of the Rainforest Project with a plan for a museum of literature and other goodies on the site.

Birth Day

Yesterday, two of my closest friends welcomed their baby boy to the world.

Hello, Harper! Welcome to the World!
In a few hours, I'll be meeting you in person.
Can't wait.

First Two Weeks

Well, we've been back at school now for two weeks, and, as suspected, my writing/reading time has dwindled. Unfortunately, time for blogging is suffering the most.

One tough moment in teaching lit. is when I've assigned a story or poem or play that I love, usually a piece that was instrumental in my formation as a writer, and I walk into the classroom completely pumped up and discover that the class or a particularly vocal student finds the piece less than thrilling. Such a thing happened earlier this week. I know not everyone has the same taste and not all of my students are interested in literature to begin with. That being said, it still takes the wind out of my sails a bit when it happens.

In the meantime, I did find time to read the new issue of Poets & Writers and now have several new scraps of paper with authors & titles listed. I thought the article on David Rhodes, an author with whom I was unfamiliar, was especially interesting. I hope to be able to read Rhodes when my schedule eases up a bit. Also, the article on the Dickman twins, Michael and Matthew, especially the sample poems, made me want to check out their work.

When will the cloning machine be ready, or the time-stretching machine?

Sadly

Please read this blog entry from Stacey Lynn Brown regarding one press's unethical dealings with her book, and pass it on.