Category: Going to eleven

  • Event(s on the) Horizon

    (See what I did there?  In the title?  It’s a pun.  About space.  It’s a space pun.)

    If you enjoy awkward puns like the pun above, and if you enjoy people even more awkwardly over-explaining their already awkward puns, then you might be excited to learn that soon, very soon, depending upon your geographical location, you may in fact be able to see me a.) make awkward puns and b.) awkwardly over-explain my awkward puns in person.

    I am proud, humbled, honored, super-nervous, and super-exciting to say that I’ll be part of Writers Week Symposium at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.  I am all of those adjectives largely because Writers Week was one of my very most favorite things about the MFA program at UNCW, which makes me even more proud and humbled and honored and super-nervous and super-excited.  You can find the entire schedule here, along with a list of presenters.  I’m still not sure how I’m on that list, and I feel a little bit like it’s an elaborate version of that One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other skit from Sesame Street (in case you follow that link, as you probably should, I am the big bowl of bird seed that has Big Bird so confused).  I’ll be giving a reading from Maleficae with several of my favorite fellow alums — Xhenet Aliu, Yvette Neisser Moreno, and Kate Sweeney — on Friday at 2:00.  I’ll also be speaking about life and writing and teaching and watching ANTM marathons and writing some more after graduation at 3:30.  I can’t promise a Miley Cyrus karaoke session, but, given my other choices when I was at UNCW as a graduate student (those pink-and-magenta-striped spiked heel ankle boots, that homemade Sifl and Olly t-shirt, that weird phase when I dressed like an extra from Valley of the Dolls), anything is possible.

    And the excitement doesn’t stop there!  If you’re in the greater Statesboro area, then you should know that the third annual The Write Place Festival takes place next week.  I am especially excited for the main event, which takes place on Thursday, November 14th, at 7 PM in the Emma Kelly Theatre.  This year, six incredible local writers will be reading their work in the Festival.  Readers include GSU faculty member and fiction writer Sarah Domet; GSU faculty member and poet Christina Olson; GSU alum, faculty member, and poet Zach Bush; GSU alum and novelist Jordan Fennell; and Maya Van Wagenen, a local fifteen year old and multi-category winner of last year’s Write Place high school literary awards competition, whose first book is coming out in 2014: Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek (you may be thinking to yourself, oh, how cute, she’s fifteen, but really you should be thinking to yourself, oh my God, she’s fifteen and she’s an absolute firecracker of a writer with a dynamic and original voice and just wow).  I’ll be signing books after the reading, and am again proud and humbled and honored and all of the other adjectives to be part of this wonderful event and included in this group of writers, big bowl of birdseed or not.  You can find more information about the Festival and see the dates and times for the full schedule of events here.

  • Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Alice B. Toklas*

    If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself and my writing, it’s that major breakthroughs and advances — well, they don’t come easy.  Sure, from time to time a breakthrough will come hurdling through the clouds and sky and onto my laptop or notebook page, but I know that I can’t depend upon that.  I also know that these breakthroughs only come hurdling through the clouds and sky and onto my laptop or notebook page if I’m there at my laptop or notebook page.  In other words, I do sometimes have breakthroughs out of the clear blue sky that make everything very much easier,

    This is a photograph of the feline Alice B. Toklas, who is the hero of today's story.
    This is a photograph of the feline Alice B. Toklas, who is the hero of today’s story.

    but said out-of-the-clear-blue-sky everything-easier-making breakthroughs only come from hard work.

    And when I say hard work, I mean hard work.  I mean hard, frustrating work.  I mean minutes and hours and days and years of hard, hard, hard frustrating work.  And sometimes it takes a very long time, and always it takes being honest with myself in a way that isn’t exactly comfortable.

    It’s a funny thing, being a writer — often, when I finally figure out how to do something and do something well, it’s exactly the point when I know I shouldn’t get comfortable.  If I get comfortable, I do the same thing over and over again, kind of like my treat addict of a cat, Alice B. Toklas — she’s figured out that if she goes in the kitchen and meows and looks up at me in this certain unbelievably pitiful way, she will receive two treats.  But writing isn’t like that, no matter how pitiful the look I give my laptop.  Eventually, the treats stop coming.  Or else the treats do keep coming, but they’re increasingly stale.  Like, moldy stale.  Yes, I’m doing something I figured out how to do, and sometimes even to do well, but I’m not growing.  I’m not moving to the next level.  I’m not taking risks and challenging myself and thinking, really thinking, about what I’m doing.  I’m not engaging with language and the way it’s built.  I’m not doing myself or my work any favors.

    And so I keep pushing myself to push myself, even if I don’t get the treats.  And usually, when I’m moving towards a breakthrough, there are no treats anywhere to be found (apparently, I have decided to stay with this metaphor and stretch it beyond its capacity.  Which is, incidentally, one of the things that I do when I’m not pushing myself the way I need to push myself as a writer.  Harumph).  There are just — pardon me, but Anne Lamott’s phrase is too perfect not to borrow — shitty first drafts.  And shitty second and third and fourth drafts.  There are hours of staring at a screen, putting a line in one place and then moving it and then deleting it completely, only to put it exactly where it was the next day.

    See?  Frustrating.  Like, beyond.

    And that’s the state I was in a while ago, when I realized that I had no idea where Alice B. Toklas was (the feline Alice B. Toklas, of course; it’s pretty clear where the actual Alice B. Toklas is, or was).  This is generally bad news because it could mean that she’s eaten a couch or gotten arrested for spying on my neighbors.  I started walking around the house very slowly and saying Alice very softly, both because I didn’t want to scare her and

    This is the ball and the corner in question. I'm posting a photograph of it mostly to remind myself, in the future, of what kind of ball Alice B. Toklas likes for when Alice B. Toklas eats it or gives it to the cicadas or something and I have to buy more of them.
    This is the ball and the corner in question. I’m posting a photograph of it mostly to remind myself, in the future, of what kind of ball Alice B. Toklas likes for when Alice B. Toklas eats it or gives it to the cicadas or something and I have to buy more of them.

    because a disappeared cat is a generally terrifying situation.  When I found her, she was in the corner of my bathroom, trying to wedge her let’s-call-it-big-boned-and-just-very-furry body between the toilet and the bathtub.  At first I thought this was just another thing that Alice B. Toklas likes to do, like licking the windows or hiding under things by only putting her head under them and closing her eyes.  Then I started hearing a bell, and I realized that there was a reason for her hiding behind the toilet, besides, you know, hiding behind the toilet: she was trying to get her ball out of the corner, and with the kind of complete and total focus my cats usually only give their food bowls or my feet when they want to bite them.  I decided to help her out and picked up the ball and threw it, expecting her to jump joyfully after it.  Instead, she just looked up at me in great confusion — or, at least, more confusion than usual, which I admit is quite a bit of confusion.  I said what and she just sat there, staring with great confusion until, finally, she walked off in defeat to chew on a sofa or something.

    That’s when I realized that it wasn’t the ball itself that Alice B. Toklas wanted; it was the challenge of getting to the ball.  She enjoyed the struggle, the fight.  She loved the work itself — and then the bell went off in my mind.  I realized that’s what I needed to do, too — to let myself relax, to allow myself the shitty first, second, third, fourth, and nth drafts, and to just enjoy playing with language, finding new ways into words.  I may get the ball.  I may not.  In the end, really, I think it’s not about the product but the process — not the solution, but the struggle — and learning to be happy with both.

    * That is, the feline Alice B. Toklas, of course.  Everything I learned from the human Alice B. Toklas is only legal in Amsterdam, Washington, and Colorado.

  • It’s that time again, folks.

    Needless to say, I haven’t been blogging.

    I haven’t been blogging because EverythingIsHappeningAndAllAtOnceHolyGodAlmightyKnows.  There’s been life stuff and writing stuff and teaching stuff and job stuff and personal stuff and health stuff and angry feline companion stuff and just — well, stuff.  There is, in fact, so much stuff I can’t even really think of words to express all of the stuff, so I thought I would instead offer a visual that represents how the end of a semester, especially spring semester, always seems to feel.

    Slide1

    That?  That’s it.  That’s pretty much basically exactly IT.

    The good thing is that there will hopefully soon also be this —

    I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE YELLED AT A GIRL LIKE THIS.

    — because really, at this point in my life, I’m at peace with the fact that I will never be able to recuperate after a long, hard haul through an academic year and all of its attendant stuff without Tyra Banks yelling through the television screen that her mama yells at her like that because she loves her.

  • A Reading and A Dinosaur

    Are you going to be in the general Statesboro, Georgia area around, say 2:30 tomorrow?  And are you looking for something awesome to do?  Because there’s something awesome going on in the general Statesboro, Georgia area around 2:30 tomorrow — specifically, that something awesome is going on the Georgia Southern University campus, at the Georgia Southern University Museum, at exactly 2:30 tomorrow, April 19th, 2013.  More specifically, the something awesome that’s going on is a reading from some of the Georgia Southern University Department of Writing and Linguistics faculty — including, yes, yours truly.  I’ll be reading from my book, Maleficae, and I’ll be selling and signing the book as well.  I’m super-extremely-very-much-for-real honored to be sharing the stage with two of my talented colleagues, who also have had or soon will have books come out: Jared Yates Sexton, who’ll be reading from his recently published short story collection, An End to All Things, and Laura Valeri, who’ll be reading from her soon-to-be-published short story collection, Safe in Your Head.

    And just in the off-off chance that that’s not enough to bring you to the general Statesboro area around 2:30 tomorrow — and, specifically, the Georgia Southern University Museum — there’s the added excitement that there IS A DINOSAUR THERE (insert approximately twelve thousand exclamation points).  Well, okay, it’s not a real dinosaur.  Neither is it, as I imagined, a giant dinosaur sculpture that you can somehow operate through animatronics or get inside, as I had dreamed.  Still, it is A DINOSAUR, which is awesome in general.  Specifically, it’s a Mosasaur, which is basically like a giant dinosaur alligator eel (SO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS).  The Google Machine tells me the Mosasaur looks like this:

    Meh.
    Meh.

    But I think that this is probably more accurate:

    Mosasaurpaint
    TOTALLY ACCURATE.

    That’s not to frighten you, of course, but just to say — things? Will be AWESOME.

  • 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.
    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.

  • Radio Free Gertrude

    Here's my call-in radio show call-in station. Please note my fourth cup of coffee. Please also note that telephone. Children, that's called a "land line." It's an ancient artifact from the days in which people didn't need everything to be confusing and realized it was totally gross to have your phone with you in the restroom.
    Here’s my call-in radio show call-in station. Please note my fourth cup of coffee. Please also note that telephone. Children, that’s called a “land line.” It’s an ancient artifact from the days in which people didn’t need everything to be so terribly confusing and realized it was totally gross to have your phone with you in the restroom.

    So, on Friday, I called in as a guest on Katrina Murphy’s excellent radio show, Questions That Bother Me So.  I must thank Katrina for what was, all in all, a totally awesometacular experience (I’m thinking at some point that the archives will pop up here, so keep an eye out) (keep an eye out — that’s a really, really weird thing to say, isn’t it? I mean, if your eye was out, you wouldn’t really be able to see, would you?) (that’s not a tangent, as it keeps with the theme — I mean, if any questions bothers you so, it should probably be that one).

    I have to admit that I love talk radio, especially live talk radio.  There’s something about the cadence of the human voice, the magic of language happening in real-time, that’s absolutely captivating.  That is, it is as a listener — while there is a fascination with how you are the human whose voice is cadencing over the Interwebs and the air, and it’s your language that’s happening in real-time, I have to admit that, as a participant, I was a little terrified.

    This could be due to the fact that I prepared for my on-air appearance by drinking five cups of coffee and attempting to lure my overly vocal feline companions into other rooms by plying them with treats.  Or it could be due to the fact that I spent all morning obsessively repeating to myself the following mantra: for God’s sake don’t say um and don’t say like, for God’s sake, please.  Or perhaps I was nervous because I was wearing owl pajamas and Muk-Luks, as I often do, because I am a grown woman, which of course I knew no one could actually see, but perhaps they could just sense it.

    This is what I suppose Alice B. Toklas was doing when I was talking, when she wasn't creeping out the neighbors or eating a table or something.
    This is what I suppose Alice B. Toklas was doing when I was talking, when she wasn’t creeping out the neighbors or eating a stack of firewood or something.

    Thankfully, I was in very good hands, and Katrina calmed my nerves immediately.  Gertrude Stein, who’s part Siamese and really loves to talk about that, did make her way into the living room, but somehow managed not to meow and to only bite me once.  Alice B. Toklas, thankfully, held to her belief that watching whatever the neighbors are doing and chewing on cardboard boxes is way more interesting than anything I’m up to.  And I found myself letting go of my fear and just having a great time talking to someone — which is also, I think, why I love talk radio so much: it’s like eavesdropping, at its best, on a really juicy conversation.

    Gertrude Stein decided to help me with the poem I needed to read.
    Gertrude Stein decided to help me with the poem I needed to read.

    I think that part of my nervousness, too, has to do with the fact that in conversation, I’m not very focused.  That’s because everything is interesting.  Seriously.  I could talk for three hours about the Statesboro formal wear store, Frills and Fancies, on the corner of Main, Main, Main, and Main, and then for six more hours about how, in Statesboro, there’s a corner of Main, Main, Main, and Main.  Every single detail — from the revolving mannequin in a feathered prom dress to the fact that their Hunger Games-themed prom window display seemed to be made Hunger Games-themed only by the edition of an old-fashioned big screen TV — is interesting to me.  That’s largely why, I think, I was drawn to writing in the first place: in writing, every such detail has a place.  It has a weight and a significance and it works with other details to build an entirely new world.  And I think, too, this lack of focus is why I was drawn in particular to poetry: it’s a form that, by its very nature, demands focus.  It’s a way I learned to sift through the details I collect every day and weigh their significance.  It’s how I learned to learn from them, and how I learned to focus enough to find the words to show other people what I’ve learned.

    And if I end up with a collection titled Frills and Fancies, well, now you know why.

    Gertrude and I. Sigh.
    Gertrude and I. Sigh.

  • “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.
    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.
    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.
    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.
    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.
    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!

  • Are There Things That Are Important Beyond All This Fiddle? Or NaPoWriMo and You

    People, here’s the thing: it’s April.  That means it’s National Poetry Month.  That means it’s National Poetry Writing Month.  That means I’m writing a poem a day.  That means I’m participating in a poem-a-day writing challenge.

    NaPoWriMo FTW!
    NaPoWriMo FTW!

    And that means I’m writing a poem a day along with my fellow writers on campus.

    Publicly.

    As in, where everyone can see.

    Yes, those were the sounds of panic you just heard.

    Here’s the thing: sometimes, you hear people say that those who can’t do, teach.  Here’s the other thing: that’s totally wrong.  I mean, sure, maybe some people who can’t do teach, but I think there’s a qualifier there: they may teach, but they probably don’t teach well.  And I’m not saying that as a teacher, really — I’m saying that as a student.  I’m saying that as someone who learns, which I will, God willing, always be, teaching or no teaching.

    Here, I guess, is the thing I really mean: I learned how to teach from those who taught me, and I praise everything out there that those who taught me taught very, very well.  They taught very, very well because, well, they did.  And they weren’t afraid to let me watch them doing.  My writing teachers wrote with us: if they gave us an exercise in class, their pens were always moving, and they read their drafts when we read our drafts, no matter how terrible or wonderful any of our drafts were.  They read poems and puzzled through poems and thought through problems and they did it all out loud, in front of me.  And from their thinking, I learned how to think.  From their writing, I learned how to write.  And I learned, about writing, about everything, the most important thing: keep doing.  Do and do and do.  Yoda was right: there is no try, there is only do — because trying is its own form of doing.

    If there’s one thing I have learned as a teacher, though, it’s that that?  That’s not easy.  Writing along with my students means that I could write something that’s terrible, and reading along with them means letting them know I wrote something terrible, right then and there, before their very eyes.  Sometimes, it’s easier to hide behind the screen, like Oz trapped in a cinderblock room.  Sometimes, it’s easier to pretend like I’m the expert, the all-knowing, and they should listen to me just because I’m in the front of the room.

    Easier doesn’t mean better when it comes to most things, teaching included.  When I first started teaching, I was so terrified of doing and failing that I came into class every day with a full script, sometimes one that I’d rehearsed in the bathroom mirror beforehand.  I even wrote out jokes, which, of course, failed, as the classes themselves tended to fail.  I told myself that perhaps my humor was just too awesome for my students to get, but eventually, I had to realize that they just weren’t funny.  They weren’t spontaneous.  They were fake, and rehearsed, as was everything that happened on my end of the classroom — I wasn’t doing anything except reading lines, and when unexpected things (like, say, questions) came from the other

    This is how I know my writing's going well.
    This is how I know my writing’s going well.

    side of the room, I hadn’t rehearsed a response.  I didn’t know what to do.

    All right, I’ll say it: my classes sucked.

    And I wasn’t the only one who thought so.  Within three weeks of my first semester teaching, my name popped up on The Website That Shall Not Be Named, and there was a nauseously green frowny face next to it.  One student wrote that she would rather jump out of a building than be in the same room with me.  I drove to the gas station up the street, bought a bottle of cheap red wine, and sat on my couch and cried.

    Looking back, that comment still has its sting, but most of the sting comes from the fact that I don’t blame her.  I wouldn’t want to be in a room with me either, especially a classroom.  Not long after that, I realized that I couldn’t keep up being a robot in class, even if being a robot was far more comfortable.  I realized that in order to teach, I had to do.  I had to show my students how I think, how I work, how I write.  I had to get comfortable with acting out that process instead of some lame script, and I had to get comfortable with the fact that sometimes, I would falter.  I’d be wrong.  I’d fail.  And I’d recover.  I had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable — because what else would I ever want to teach?

    Now, I’ve reached the final frontier of discomfort: writing a poem every day and posting it for my students and colleagues — and, well, the Interwebs — to see.  Sometimes, I will falter.  The poems will go wrong.  They’ll fail.  I’ll recover.  And in doing, I’ll do the most important thing: I’ll learn myself and let the language teach me, which is, after all, all I could ever want to teach.

  • There’s Gonna Be Some Changes Around Here

    If you’re looking at the online-at-Wordpress-on-your-computer-through-the-Intertubes-and-stuff version of this blog, you’ve probably already noticed that there have been some major changes.  If you’re looking at the on-the-emails-digest of the blog, allow me to explain: every once in a while I remember/realize that something major has just happened, like, say, oh, my first book was published (it’s called Maleficae!  From GenPop Books!  You can get it here!).  Then, I’ll think to myself, There are probably things I need to do because this major thing has happened.  And then, a few days (let’s be honest: weeks) (okay, months) down the road, I’ll think to myself, Oh!  That’s the thing I need to do because this major thing happened!

    In the case of the book and the blog, I realized that I need to make the blog a little more website-y, so I can post information about the book (called Maleficae!  From GenPop Books!) and readings and appearances and publications and whatnot, so I used my awesome WordPress skills (let’s be honest: rudimentary WordPress skills) (okay, seriously rudimentary WordPress skills) to make that happen (okay, okay: sort of happen).  Now, on the static front page (see! I know what it’s called!  SKILLS, I tell you!), you’ll find links to information about the book (Maleficae!  GenPop!) and poems and essays and readings and so forth.  You’ll also, of course, find a link the ye olde blogge, which is still here and all.

    And I’m going to try something new with ye olde blogge, too, which you might have noticed, when you saw, like, a post about how John Stossel terrifies me mixed in with a lot of long and rambling posts about avant-garde poetry and the like.

    Here’s the thing: when I taught my Creative Writing and the Web course last semester, I went against my Sarah Lawrencian training and used a textbook about blogging.  The textbook said a lot of very interesting and useful things, but the two things that stuck with me most were these:

    1. You should blog a lot.  Like, a lot.  And you shouldn’t do things like, say, let your blog just totally vanish for days (weeks) (okay, months) while you’re busy putting together course proposals and attempting to correctly fill out increasingly mind-grinding travel reimbursement forms and writing poems about jellyfish and volcanoes.
    2. You should come up with a concept for your blog — a theme, if you will — and you should stick with it, all the time, in every single post.

    The first thing makes a lot of sense to me.  More and more, I’ve come to see the blog as its own form of writing, a record of a life and mind at work as it works.  There is emphasis, of course, on a finished product, but more and more I’ve come to see the importance of the blog as a record of change, of a mind and a life at work as it works.  If you let your blog go quiet for forever, it doesn’t work as well in that light.  And the blog has an extra element of interestingness, which I’ve decided is a definitely a word, if only because it seems very much applicable to what this extra element is: it goes beyond the kind of record that one leaves in a journal because it’s a record of the part of the mind and the life that a person wants to/is willing to/can make public.  I’ve decided to see what happens if I keep up with the blog more often, if only to see what evolves and what that extra element is for me.  I realize this may at times bring out things that seem like total non sequiturs, which leads me to the second thing.

    The second thing didn’t make as much sense to me.  The thing is, a Sarah Lawrencian can only let go of their Sarah Lawrencian training to a certain extent.  I mean, I was okay with using a textbook, but at this point it’s just a natural part of my thinking to question that textbook — and a healthy part, too, which I try to pass on to my students.  While I do understand the benefits of theming one’s blog (making up new words and verbing nouns, I should add, also seems part and parcel of Sarah Lawrencianess), that also feels contrary to everything I just wrote above about the blog being a record of a mind and a life at work.  And though I’m perfectly happy with contradictions and letting them just exist, I have to say that I’m more interested in watching them unfold.  It seems to me an odd thing to say that a blog has to be one thing only: just thoughts about bicycles and their repairs, for instance, or pictures of cats, or way-too-long rants about avant-garde poetry.  This seems to me an odd thing to say because it seems to say that people should be about one thing only, or they should try to be, or they should strive to only show that one thing to the world.  That’s definitely not me.  Some days, I feel like over-analyzing the history of the sonnet in contemporary poetics.  Some days, I feel like over-analyzing the Brandi Glanville/Adrienne Maloof battle on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  Some days, the only thing I ever want the world to see from me are photographs of my cats being awesome.

    So it goes.  And so my blog goes.

    I could probably set up multiple blogs for these purposes, but let’s be honest, I’m too lazy for that, and also too easily-confused, and would probably follow a five-post series on the line break since Robert Creeley with a seven-post series on Kim Richards’ obsession with turtles.  So one blog it is, and that one blog shall contain multitudes, and hopefully shall contain more posts from here on out.*

    *Of course, I’m writing this the day before NaPoWriMo starts and I therefore start writing a poem a day, and right before the last month of a semester, and on an Easter Sunday because it’s the only day I’m not up at the office (not because I don’t need to be in my office — I do — but because I decided to refuse to go up to the office on Easter Sunday), so we’ll have to see if how the blog goes is really how it will go …

  • 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.
    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