Category: EPIC WIN

The Story Behind “The Damage”

Today, one of my dreams came true, and I say that without exaggeration: a piece of mine, from Inch magazine, is featured today on Poetry Daily. I found out about this a while ago but didn’t really believe it was actually happening until I saw it today, and I’ve had to look at it again and again to make sure that I’m not just dreaming. I mean, I’m not, right? You can see it too?

Here’s a picture of the beheaded cherub. I miss it, still.

I thought I’d write a short blog entry about the piece, since I’m always curious about the poems that pop up on Poetry Daily and, well, like, everywhere that poems tend to pop up. I won’t tell the whole story behind it because a.) I already did that, and b.) then where will the mystery be? Suffice it to say that the story behind this involves a huge move, which is a new beginning, and a huge break-up, which is, of course, an ending. Besides the relationship, a few things were broken during or missing after the move: a couch cushion, my bicycle, and the head of a cherub on this terrible and beautiful planter my grandmother had used as storage for cotton balls. It was a strange time, a time when beginnings were muddled with endings, and I could hardly tell the difference between the two anymore.

Flash to September of 2012, over a year later. A friend and I had just finished a stint on The Grind (explained beautifully here by Grind founder Ross White) and were following it up with a submissions grind. We promised each other that we’d send out at least one piece a day. One Saturday, I was poking around for places to submit short essays and I came across Press 53, (which, as it turns out, published a remarkable collection by fellow Grinder and all-around amazing poet and person, Shivani Mehta — Useful Information for the Soon-to-be- Beheaded) and then Press 53’s Tumblr, with their weekly 53-word story prompt. The prompt for that week was to write a 53-word story about moving. I read the prompt and the rules and then promptly shut down my computer and headed to Hobby Lobby for some emergency crafting supplies (the emergency, as always with Hobby Lobby, was just that it was Saturday, and they’re closed on Sundays, which always sends me into a crafting/quilting/crocheting tail-spin — what if I need very fine glitters on a Sunday? It happens more often than one would think). As I wandered around trying to figure out why there were so giant zebra-striped flowers, I found that my mind was working on a poem. When I got home, I wrote it: and word count showed me that it was, miraculously, 55 words. I cut two, and submitted it. Boom.

Of course, the micro-essay (though I guess now I should probably call it a prose poem) was rejected. I revised and sent to another magazine. Rejected. Repeat. Rejected. Then, I saw a call-for-work for an all-micro-essay issue of Inch, one of my favorite magazines, and I sent to that. Miraculously, it was accepted — and so began the road to Poetry Daily. I’m especially happy that this is the poem that made it, since Inch is a journal I really love and a journal that shines light on oft-ignored micro-forms, and since they were willing to give this triply-rejected piece a fourth chance.

Sometimes, I’ll end up with a poem or essay that just feels like a gift. It feels like a well-made thing, though I don’t feel like its maker. This poem/essay was just such a thing: I hadn’t intended to write about this part of my move — ever, really — and I didn’t set out to focus on the beheaded cherub. But there it was, and then it was on the page, called into being by forces which didn’t seem entirely under my control.

I suppose, when I think about it, it does make sense that I wrote this poem at this time. It was a time when everything seemed to be changing, again. My relationships changed, my friendships changed, my health changed and therefore my body changed, and therefore my world and the way I lived in it changed. I didn’t make a move, but the world around me moved. It was a time of muddled beginnings and endings, and I again couldn’t tell which was which. It was the beginning of a moment of great change, from which I am only now starting to emerge, to look around, and to assess what was damaged beyond repair and what remains.

And this, I suppose, is the greater gift, the greater dream come true: to have a poem that acts like a lens and focuses on what damage is, and what beginning and ending, for me at least, really means.

April 14, 2013
“And on the radio you hear ‘November Rain;’ that solo’s awful long, but it’s got a good refrain.”*

People of the Interwebs:

Listen.

It’s April fourth. I live in south Georgia. Like, coastal south Georgia. And it’s cold. It’s cold and awful and rainy and generally so terrible weather-wise that Gertrude Stein has been inspired to spend all day and night singing her “Cold and Awful and Rainy and Generally So Terrible

This is a picture of Gertrude Stein, taken as I type. She’s this close to my face. And singing. It’s a lot to deal with.

Weather” aria, which is the saddest song in Gertrude Stein’s entire repertoire, besides the “You Didn’t Set You Alarm and I Realize You Want to Sleep In But Hey, Treats?” aria.

However, it’s April. It’s National Poetry Month, and if poetry celebrates anything, it’s anything that’s cold and awful. Therefore, I’m making the best of the weather and looking for the best in today — and one of the best things is this announcement: I’m going to be on the radio tomorrow.

No, really. Someone is actually going to let me talk on the radio without the FCC present.

That someone is the wonderful and talented and generally amazing Katrina Murphy, who’s invited me to join her on her wonderful and talent-filled and generally amazing radio show, Questions That Bother Me So. The show will stream live tomorrow from 1:00 – 3:00 Eastern time (I think — Eastern time, right? Like the one that the East coast is on? Time zones are confusing and I can’t think about them too much because I start thinking about how time is just a construct and then I get confused). You can listen along here (go to “shows,” then “Questions That Bother Me So”), and I’ll be live-Tweeting the experience from my Twitter feed. There will also be a chat room. It’s going to be totally meta. Topics to be discussed may or may not include poetry, National Poetry Month, Maleficae, witches, witch trials, witch burnings, writing poetry about witch trials and burnings, cats, velociraptors, sloths, and more poetry. It’s going to be awesome. The last time I was on the radio, I had pink eye and a kidney stone, and I still managed not to drop an F-bomb, which was a major triumph, as you know if you’ve ever had a kidney stone or, like, been in a room with me. This time, I probably also have a kidney stone, but hey, no pink eye. Let the F-bombless awesome commence.

And there are other exciting things afoot, so please keep your eyes on this small section of the Intertubes. In the meantime, here are some pictures of how I tried to make the best out of this gray and cold and awful day.

If there’s one thing I’m very good at, it’s losing my reading glasses. I had a gorgeous green pair that I left somewhere in the Charlotte airport, or possibly on an airplane. Or somehow in the sky. I still miss them. I was thrilled when I came into my classroom today and found that my glasses were still where I apparently left them on Tuesday. Rainy day triumph number ONE.

Seriously, the weather today? TERRIBLE. I decided to make the best of it by making it into an exercise. My students had to complete this sentence — “The weather was ____” — fifteen times. If they used weather words, like cold and rainy and awful, they had to use a simile. I did the exercise along with them and ended up with my poem for today. RAINY DAY TRIUMPH TWO.

A few months ago, Alice took this Purr Pad out of a chair and pushed it across the room, right next to the front door. Today I found out why: she sits here to wait for me to get home from work. RAINY DAY TRIUMPH THREE. CUTENESS TRIUMPH INFINITY.

Chinese take-out once again proves it’s the best boyfriend ever. RAINY DAY TRIUMPH FOUR. Well, plus Chinese food in general, and food that’s delivered to the door, both of which are always triumphs.

* Bonus points to anyone who catches the reference in this post’s title!

April 5, 2013
AWP: Traditions, Revisions, Permissions (Or I’m Okay, You’re Okay, Let’s Skip The Dance Party)

The Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Annual Conference and Bookfair (henceforth known as AWP) has been over for, like, a while now, which means it’s time for the tradition of Very Belated Wrap-Ups of Events that Probably Don’t Really Need Wrap-Ups, Or at Least Wrap-Ups by Emma Bolden, Since There Are Far Better and More Timely Wrap-Ups Out There in the Intertubes, Let’s Be Honest to continue. But first, a disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: I hate AWP.

Okay, that’s a little extreme. I usually hate AWP, but I also usually hate doing things like picking out fruit and vegetables at the grocery store (I mean,

This is the map of AWP I made while I was waiting for a panel. I accidentally skipped a letter because apparently being a writer and working with the alphabet every day doesn’t guarantee that you actually know the alphabet, at least not in order.

really, why is this so difficult? Why isn’t there a central method for testing for fruit and vegetable freshness? Why must I smell mangoes and thump other fruit? And why can’t I remember which fruits must be thumped?) that are ultimately very good for me.

Maybe the problem is that I came late to AWP. I never went when I was in graduate school, and so I started attending AWPs when I already had a job in academia and enough rejection slips to Dementor-suck all the joy from my tender, hopeful heart. Perhaps it’s for this reason that AWP has always left me feeling overly exhausted and inadequate and like I would never make it anywhere, ever, so much so that I wished I could just throw all the swag I got at the Bookfair out of the airplane window and then go back to school for something else, like gardening or slothology.

Or maybe it’s the kinds of panels I attended back in the day, when my mailbox regularly belched out rejection slips (that’s a disgusting image but it was totally necessary) and I stood and looked at them and despaired, knowing they meant that I would never, ever, ever get a job with more than a three-year contract and less than seventeen thousand classes. Maybe I chose panels based on my desperation, based on my desire for someone, anyone, anywhere, to unfold in front of me the map with the pathways to “Acceptances Instead of Rejections!” and “Permanent Job with Insurance!” and “Not Endings Up in Someone’s Attic Dressed All in White with Ten Thousand Cats and Their Ten Quadrillion Fleas!” marked clearly.

At this point in my life, I know there is no such map (there is no such map, right? Right? And, um, if there is, can you get me a copy?) — or, at least, no universal map. There’s just the path we each tread, in our own lives, in our own ways, to our own lives and ways.

At previous AWPs, though, I didn’t know that, and so I hung desperately on every word from every member of every panel, every writer I passed hustling from table to table in the Bookfair, every man and woman handing out business cards and manuscripts and cocktails and questions. What I ended up with, what exhausted me so much, was a series of directions that I could never follow: you have to go to these parties, these conferences, these retreats; you have to get these residencies and publish in these magazines and get this kind of job at this kind of institution and wear this kind of Chucks while you’re doing it; don’t publish chapbooks, publish full-lengths; publish your full-length before you apply for a tenure-track; on Mondays you wear colored shoes, Tuesdays shirts with cute slogans, Wednesdays pink … It was overwhelming. To say the least.

But this year, things just felt different. There were a lot of writers, and all of the writers were — well, different. From each other. Sure, the majority of us were probably academics, but there were people with day jobs, people who wrote for money, people who did nothing that had anything to do with writing for work. There were people who went straight to the full-length and others who started their writing careers through e-mail lists. Suddenly, there were many, many maps, and many, many people being more honest about the maps they used, how they got where they are and how they earn the money they need to stay there. At one panel, Steve Almond mentioned that the old adage that time is money is especially true when it comes to writing: you work to finance the time you need to write, and, as a writer, you have to do what you have to do.

I think, perhaps, that’s what made this AWP feel so different to me. In the end, that’s the one thing about which everyone agreed: the writing is what’s important. Not the press, not the position, not the invitations to attend secret and exclusive hotel room parties or to sit with The Plastics for a trial week. It was all about the work, the real work we all come home to do, the real work in which we all find our homes — and, as I flew back to Georgia, I found myself smiling as I flipped through my notes. And if I could make a cake made of rainbows and smiles, we could all eat a piece and be happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUFT35S7Jb4

March 18, 2013
Sometimes things are exciting …

… and when things are exciting, dear denizens of the Blogosphere, I like to share them with you. One of the best things about the Internet, besides the seemingly endless and ever-regenerating number of photographs of cats wearing fruit on their heads and of sloths Photoshopped into the middle of the Crab Nebula, is that the Internet gives us the ability to share in IRL experiences we wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend IRL. For people like

This is a photograph of me reading. I’m taking off my reading glasses but it looks like I’m doing something dramatic and meaningful. In fact, forget the part about the reading glasses. This is a picture of me doing something dramatic and meaningful.

myself, whose bodies periodically refuse to work and who are, let’s face it, always like two and a half at the most seconds away from dressing all in white and living in somebody’s attic (because really, what’s the fun if it’s your own attic?), this is the definition of a blessing, a word that can so often feel insincere and general gives me a queasy case of agita, but which, in this case, absolutely applies.

Another part of The Great Blessing of the Internets (ugh, there’s the agita again) is that it allows people whose bodies periodically refuse to work, perhaps because they’re never much more than two and a half seconds away from Emily Dickinsoning up some unsuspecting nuclear family’s attic, to share with others the times they make appearances In Real Life. Such is the case with my reading in the Indian Springs School Visiting Writers Series, which you can hear here.

The first reading in the recording isn’t mine, it’s Kate Greenstreet‘s. If you listen to it, you’ll see why my knees were positively shaking because, seriously, how do you follow that? You’ll also see why I’d ordered a copy of Young Tambling, her newest collection from Ahsahta Press, before I’d even left the building that evening. I’ve been hungrily devouring the poems and people, this is one of Those Books — by that, I mean this is a life-changing book, the kind of book that leaves a reader wowed and restless and with a completely new way to look at poetry, books, art, life, everything. That’s because, in many ways, the book isn’t really a book. I mean, yes, it is a series of pages with words printed on them sewn together and bound. But it doesn’t solely exist in that form, in that bound structure. Greenstreet’s reading shows this: she re-orders the text and the text slips seamlessly into a new narrative, a new sequence of development. Each re-ordering creates a new story, a new series of images, a new work of art. Like she writes in the end of the collection, next to an insanely amazing oh my God seriously photograph of this book in a different incarnation, as pages of

This is a photograph of Kate Greenstreet’s Young Tambling. It’s been Instagrammed because its unfiltered awesomeness would make the Interwebs EXPLODE, and then where would Al Gore, astronaut sloths, and fruit-hatted cats be?

typeset and photographs arranged (and, presumably, re-arranged) on the wall:

Although I was thinking in two-page spreads, at some point I realized that I wasn’t actually (physically) making a book. I was making a

big rectangular piece of temporary art.

Which is SO RIDICULOUSLY INSANELY AMAZING OH MY GOD I CANNOT EVEN TALK ABOUT IT. It’s like she’s created a work of code-based electronic poetry without the code. Which, seriously. AMAZING.

And there are MORE EXCITING THINGS, the first of which has to do with my actually leaving the house and going to another location, specifically Boston, where I will be talking about writing and working and how those things go together at AWP 2013 (HOLLAH). I’ll be moderating a panel on the academic job market with three lovely friends and colleagues, Hannah De La Cruz Abrams (you should totally read her book, The Man Who Danced with Dolls, which is so beautiful I can’t even talk about it and is one of the few books I immediately read again after finishing), Sarah Domet (author of 90 Days to Your Novel) and Jared Yates Sexton (author of An End to All Things). The panel’s called Navigating the Track: The Writer and the Nontenured Position. It’s at noon on Saturday in Room 104 and should be pretty awesome. You can find more information about it on the AWP Website, here. Keep scrolling ’til you find it. I’ll also be a’signing books at the Toadlily Press Table in the Bookfair on Friday at 11:30 am. Come and find me and say hello! I will probably desperately need some coffee too, so if you’d like to bring some my way, that would be great.

See? EXCITING THINGS. And God bless Al Gore for inventing the Interwebs so we can all share in them.

March 3, 2013
The Witches Are Flying Your Way

PEOPLE OF THE INTERNETS! This message goes out to all ye dwellers of the greater Birmingham, Alabama area, which, I’m pretty sure, now includes approximately 4,242 cities, town, and/or municipalities — or, if ye dwell not in one of the approximately 4,242 cities, towns, and/or municipalities that make up the greater Birmingham, Alabama area and have been itchin’ to take a bitchin’ road trip, this message is also for you. For lo, soon Emma Bolden will board a plane and take to the skies on her way to her olde stomping groundes, where, on Monday, February 18th, at 7:30 PM, she shall participate in the Rock Awesome Indian Springs School Visiting Writers Series. It’s free and open to the public, and you can find out more about it here. She’ll be reading from her book, Malificae, forthcoming in April from GenPop Books. She’ll also be reading with Kate Greenstreet and trying not to pass out from the sheer awesome of being in the same room with her. There will be poems. There will be poems about witches. There will be awkward jokes and swigs from water bottles. And there will be KATE GREENSTREET.

Whistle wet? Here’s some more information about the series:

PEOPLE THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING.

For a preview of poems from Malificae, you can go here and here. To hear what these poems sound like when Abraham Smith reads them, go here. To hear what these poems sound like when Emma reads them, go here. To pre-order Malificae, go here. And for a preview of why Emma might pass out from the sheer awesome of being in the same room as Kate Greenstreet, go here and look at everything. Seriously. Just be careful and put down a pillow or something for when you pass out.

February 16, 2013
How to Make a Mason Jar Snow Globe: An Obsessively Step-By-Step Guide to Obsessive Crafting

If there is one thing I cannot deny about myself, besides the fact that my hair is unmanageable and that I miss Tyra Banks having a talk show so we can all talk about how often she does that weird baby impression, it’s this: I love a craft project. I always have. Whether it was making beads from the pages of my mom’s old Victoria magazines to making little drummer boy ornaments from clothespins to pasting giant picture of giant frogs on the inside of my Trapper Keeper, I grew up crafting, and I’ve never stopped. Though I hate Christmas, I have to admit that I do love that it gives me an excuse to pull out my hot glue gun and power drill and my extensive collection of glitters. People have asked me to post a tutorial for one of my favorite Christmas crafts, the Mason jar snow globe, and in the spirit of holiday crafting and peer pressure, I give you just that.

First, you’ll need to gather supplies. It will probably take you four trips to Hobby Lobby to gather all of said supplies because you keep forgetting what you need once you get in the store because there’s so much glitter there that it’s mind-blowing, and you also keep forgetting to make a list of what you need before you go to the store and see the mind-blowing array of glitters. Said supplies include: Mason jars, glycerin (which is completely impossible to find, so it’ll take you about a week of going to every drug store possible looking for it until you find it in the pharmacy across the freaking street from where you live, for Chrissakes, next to the hand lotion and Tincture of Merthiolate because apparently that makes sense), glitter, and festive stuff to go inside the Mason jars.

The most important supplies, really, are the festive things that go inside the snow globe, because that’s what makes the snow globe festive and festivity? It’s important. Here, I’ve gathered a plastic deer (because it was the cheapest little plastic figurine at Hobby Lobby that made any sense in a snow globe) and a bunch of little trees which are apparently called “bottle-brush trees.” That’s your craft fact for the day. You’re welcome. I read somewhere on the Internets that these can discolor the snow globe water, so I sprayed them with acrylic top-coat sealer. I’m not sure if that’s actually going to be effective, but it made me feel useful and pro-active and really, let’s be honest, it’s the holidays, and anything that makes you feel useful and pro-active is important.

Arrange your festive stuff on the Mason jar’s lid. This is important so that you can make sure your festive stuff will actually fit inside of the Mason jar. It’s also important to make sure your festive stuff is festive enough. Here, I’ve created a scene in which a deer is frolicking in a bottle-brush tree forest. Frolicking? Definitely festive. Other suggestions for festive snow globe items include: snowmen, non-terrifying Santa Claus figurines (if you can find one), tiny recreations of Dickensian town squares, velociraptors covered in Christmas lights, velociraptors covered in Christmas lights attacking tiny recreations of Dickensian town squares, and tiny replicas of your enemies wearing only their undergarments so that they’ll be forever trapped in a freezing, watery, festive globe of terror.

Now that you’ve created your festive scene and made sure that the Mason jar can handle all that festivity, glue the figurines to the jar lid using the superglue you accidentally left out of the photograph you took of necessary supplies.

At this point, you’re totally impatient and really want to get this snow globe assembled. Tell your horses to hold their festive selves — you are about to put these things in water and if you don’t let the glue dry, it’s going to be a bad scene. Let the jar lids dry overnight. You can take this time to make other holiday crafts, like yarn-covered-styrofoam-form-Christmas trees or voodoo dolls of all of the relatives who will soon ask you embarrassing and relentless questions about why you’re not married and have so many cats.

Once you give the figurines time to dry, it’s time to take another look at the directions for making a snow globe and notice that they call for distilled or boiled water. Realize that you are too cheap to buy water because it is water, and you’re also too lazy to change out of your owl pajamas and Muk Luks to go to a store to purchase said water. Boil the water instead. Just don’t watch it. See how this water isn’t boiling? That’s because I’m watching it. So don’t.

Once the water has boiled and then cooled back down to room temperature, you’re back in snow globe business. Pour the water into your finest glass pitcher because this sh*t is going on the Internet and you don’t want people to see how you live. Now, pour the water from this fine glass pitcher into the Mason jars. It’s probably a good idea to make sure you have enough water to fill the Mason jars, too.

Add a dash of glycerin to the water, even though you have no idea what a “dash” is and you don’t really know what glycerin’s actually supposed to do here, except that other actual craft bloggers said stuff about how it makes the snow not fall as fast and you guess that’s about right, plus who are you to argue with actual craft bloggers? Also, while you’re adding the glycerin, you’ll freak out thinking that your fingers are bleeding. Your fingers are not bleeding, they’re just covered in pink Glitterblast spray paint. Don’t panic.

ADD GLITTER. The craft blogs will say you can add as much glitter as you want, and you want A LOT OF GLITTER.

Put some superglue around the edges of the Mason jar. If you spill some, you might think it’s a good idea to touch it with your bare fingers. It isn’t.

Put the lid upside down on top of the Mason jar. This will probably be about the time you remember that you bought some sealant from Lowe’s like a year ago because your duplex is, let’s be honest, a little tragic and the sink didn’t want to stay in the hole where the sink was supposed to stay. You’ll think to yourself, well, better not let all that sealant go to waste, but you’ll also panic before you use it and Google eleventy combinations of sealant + superglue to make sure you’re not going to make your duplex explode because even though it is slightly tragic, it’s still full of you and your pets and things.

Screw on the Mason jar’s outer lid and wipe away any excess sealant with a picture of a monkey you have laying around because you forgot to bring in paper towels and you are the kind of person who has a picture of a monkey just laying around.

You will want to turn the snow globe over immediately to experience the hand-held wonder of winter. DO NOT TURN THE SNOW GLOBE OVER IMMEDIATELY. Actually, it might be okay if you do this, but you’re kind of obsessive when it comes to crafting and you want this craft to be right, so you decide to wait until it dries overnight. Again.

And there you have it! A tiny deer frolicking amongst a tiny copse of tiny bottle-brush trees in your own hand-held winter effing WONDERLAND!

Now you can display your snow globe with all of your other festive holiday crafts on a little table in your hallway where you keep all of your favorite books, because really, what says merry Christmas and happy holidays more than a collection of books by poets who died tragically and/or committed suicide? I’ll tell you what: NOTHING.

December 14, 2012