In the inexcusable distance between
myself & God I built a house, I fenced
my taxes, I filed & folded, I mowed
my forgiveness into a fine fringe …
from “Plenary Absolution”
I’m thrilled, honored, and humbled to say that I’ve got a new poem called “Plenary Absolution” in the latest issue of The Adroit Journal. You can see it — and hear me read it! — here. I hope you’ll take a look at the whole issue, which features tremendously powerful work by Emilia Phillips, Dana Levin, Jane Wong — actually, just read the whole issue. It’s an absolute beauty and I’m so proud to be a part of it.
PS: The title of this poem comes straight from my catechism classes at Catholic school (see, I did pay attention, Father Mullen!). Plenary absolution is an indulgence, which is a way to reduce punishment for one’s sins. A plenary indulgence removes all punishment necessary for the sin. I have a lot of thoughts about all of those ideas, and a lot of them are in this poem. Others are in poems soon to come — stay tuned.
(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.
I’m at this weird moment with my writing. I am, on one hand, working on very very very (to borrow Anne Lamott’s absolutely perfect term) sh*tty rough drafts. They’re the kind of drafts that are necessary for the kind of work I’m doing, which is very difficult and very personal and therefore means that I need to write faster than my brain can run, because my brain will just be like, stop stop STOPSTOPSTOP, and nothing will ever get done. On the other hand, I’m working on almost-to-the-very-end-of-revising-and-beginning-of-submitting revisions. In other words:
I’m cutting large parts of poems out and yelling things like stop trying to make fetch happen at them and then re-writing from the few lines that remain.
I’m spending most of a day (well, okay, a week) working on a poem, trying to coax it out of the form I at first forced it into (because it
Here are some of those notes I was talking about in all of their cryptic glory.
seemed like it wanted to be a pantoum, it really did) and into the form in which (hopefully) it’ll do something close to working.
I’m taking three hours to get two lines right.
I’m taking out all of the commas and capital letters and then replacing all of the commas and capital letters.
I’m changing “the Alabama Shakes’ Boys and Girls” to “that Alabama Shakes album” and realizing that that tiny change revealed exactly what the essay meant all along, and what I needed to do to make it mean that.
I’m trying to translate and expand cryptic notes I leave myself on my phone, on my laptop, on my Kindle, on my Post-Its, on the skin beneath my thumb, on a receipt for a McDonald’s smoothie.
I’m remembering what I meant by FUNERAL WHAT’S SAID STOPPED WRITING ESP ABOUT BC ALSO THIS ISN’T THE CLIMAX END TO TENSION THAT CHANGES THINGS CATS.
I’m taking out all of the commas and capital letters and then replacing all of the commas and capital letters — except for two commas and one capital letter, which finally, finally makes the poem work.
It’s an interesting in-between place. It’s a good place to be — bringing work into the world, preparing to send work out of the world — but it’s also an uncomfortable place. And it’s that, that discomfort, exactly, that makes it such a good place. When the writing gets too comfortable, I start worrying. I start thinking, this is not good. Because writing — good writing — requires risk, and that’s far from comfortable.
This has also made me think a lot about my students, who are all in a very similar place. I’ve often thought that learning how to write is a kind of apprenticeship: you learn the craft from reading and watching someone work, from listening to them talk about how they approach their work, and you learn the art from practicing the craft, from being willing to take risks and sharpen your skills and to work and work and work. Sometimes, I’ll think of the writing teacher as the leader of the apprenticeship, but more and more, I feel like that isn’t true. I feel like it can’t be true, because no one can really be a master. I feel like perhaps the real apprenticeship is to the art itself, to all of its mysteries and wonders, all of its moments of despair and whimsy and confusion. We’re all in the same boat, in a creative writing classroom, wherever we sit, and I often think that the teacher’s job is to start conversations, to nudge students towards risk, to give them a vocabulary to talk about their work and a way to apply those terms and techniques to their own pieces. I think it’s also a teacher’s job to learn — both through one’s own work and reading and from one’s teachers.
Every day, I walk to my office with my folder and grade-book and Diet Coke and Altoids and I feel — excited. Thrilled. Nervous. Lucky. Most of all, lucky. I’d say that this has been an exceptional semester in which I’ve been lucky enough to teach some exceptional students, but really, there’s nothing exceptional about it. Instead, it’s been the rule. I’m continuously grateful to be surrounded by such minds and such energy, such unfailing appetites for learning. I’m grateful to my students for being willing to talk through the routes they’re taking in this strange landscape language makes for us — and I’m grateful to them for the daily reminder that though we are all making our own way in this landscape, we are, none of us, ever truly alone.
When I first sat down to write this, I thought, I am going to write about how all of a sudden we are halfway through 2013 and I didn’t even realize it. And then I realized that I’d been writing “7” for the month for, like, oh, thirty-one days now. And then I mathed and realized that half of twelve is six, not seven, which means we are over halfway through 2013 and I didn’t even realize it.
Needless to say, I haven’t been blogging. Or, I guess, I’ve been trying to blog, but I haven’t been able to put much of my energy into a post. For a while I told myself, Self, you are totally experimenting. You’re just micro-blogging. You’re a revolution and that revolution is CUTTING EDGE. Then I remembered that I am not a revolution, nor am I particularly cutting-edge at anything, and that illusion lay shattered, like the shards in the Delicate Vase Aisle at Hobby Lobby after being visited by a mob of grammar school kids who have just eaten too many M&Ms.
Like I mentioned in my revolutionary and cutting-edge micro-blogging entries, there have been Circumstances, and these were the kinds of Circumstances that require most-and-I-mean-most, if not all, of one’s energies. These were the kinds of Circumstances that require a re-routing of one’s life and how one lives it, the kinds of Circumstances that — very, very literally — stop one in one’s tracks and require one to Think. A lot. And then to Adjust.
That is all very vague, you are probably thinking. Why are we talking in such vague terms and using David Foster Wallace capital letters to try to make up for it, you are probably also thinking. Those are both perfectly legitimate things to be thinking, and I guess the thing is that I have, after Thinking and then a lot more Thinking and then Adjusting, come to the place where I am ready to say that there have been Circumstances but not to talk about what they were/are. I mean, I have been writing about Circumstances, sure, but in the Let’s Put This In Creative Nonfiction Form So I Can Go As Slowly And Carefully As I Need To And Then Use A Couple Of Metaphors About Christmas Lights To Help Me Out Kind Of Way, not the Very Public As In Immediately Very Public Blogging Kind Of Way.
And that’s the strange and spectacular thing about writing, I think, and, really, reading — there’s something terrifying about the blank page, and that’s the thing we tend to talk about. But there’s also something amazing and transformative and meditative about the blank page, and then about the way one puts words onto it. The blank page gives a person the space — and the safety — that they need to think things through. And I mean really think things through. When I write poetry, I’m often prisming off of my personal experience, but in very extreme and sometimes even absurd ways. I’m taking myself to the edges of language and seeing what’s there. I’m taking each situation to its extreme, and then every angle of each situation, to see how it looks. I’m turning it over and over again in my mind, and with each turn it becomes something new. I’m speaking about things in a way I can’t speak about them with everyday language, which also means that I’m speaking about things I can’t speak about in everyday language. That’s because everyday language belongs to everyday life, and there are things that I just can’t spend a lot of everyday time with. There are things that will shut you down, will stop you from moving inside of everyday life, where there are things that have to keep moving. There are groceries to buy and student papers to grade and cats to feed.
The everyday world keeps moving, and one must move with it. Everyday life must be lived. And so, in these Circumstances, I’ve been grateful for that blank page. I’ve been grateful for the moments of respite it provides, for the sacramental space it creates, for the place where I can take a break from moving and just be still for a while with my words and the realities they represent, so that I can keep moving, keep doing, keep living.
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.
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.
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.
This is an entry about my Summer Reading List, which is part of my effort to stop having these strange little camps of books wandering all around my apartment.
I’m still totally jazzed about reading and books and stuff, despite the seemingly endless continued continuation of Circumstances. I’m also jazzed about talking about reading and books and stuff. I’m also also jazzed about finding new books to read and stuff. Therefore, I’m posting the recently-or-close-enough-to-recently released books on my As Of Right Now (Meaning 6:58 PM On Sunday, June 30th) Summer Reading List (Subject To Shift, Change, And/Or Especially Probably Expand As Soon As 6:59 PM On Sunday, June 30th). I’m posting this in the hope that you, Gentle Blog Visitor, will also be jazzed about reading one or more of the books on this As Of Right Now List, and that you would also be jazzed and willing to talk about them. I’m also posting this in the hope that you, Gentle Blog Visitor, can help this list expand — I’m always looking for new reads, especially ones that others are totally jazzed about.
My As Of Right Now (Meaning 6:58 PM On Sunday, June 30th) Summer Reading List (Subject To Shift, Change, And/Or Especially Probably Expand As Soon As 6:59 PM On Sunday, June 30th)
Fuse by Julianna Baggott: Okay, I’m kind of cheating with this one, so I figured I’d put it first as a warning: this blog entry, as a whole, is probably going to be a disappointment. Sorry. But I do have my reasons for posting this, which are mostly related to a heartfelt desire to find other fans of the Pure trilogy willing to FREAK OUT EXTREMELY about how amazing these books are. I mean, SERIOUSLY. I can’t even LANGUAGE.
Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris: I’m cheating here, too. Sorry. I’m a little more than halfway through this book, though I must admit that I’m making my way through it very, very slowly. It just doesn’t seem as Sedarisish as other Sedaris books, and I love some Sedarisishness. Still, it has been a very educational read. For instance, I just finished one essay (which did seem to have some relatively Sedarisish moments) called “Laugh, Kookaburra,” through which I discovered that a kookaburra looks like this:
This is an actual kookaburra.
Which was a good lesson, since I though a kookaburra looked like this:
This is not an actual kookaburra. Should it be? I’ll leave that to you to decide.
Also, my dad says there’s an essay about how good colonoscopy drugs are, which seems both ultimately Sedarishish and very, very accurate.
Bobcat and Other Stories by Rebecca Lee: The cheating, as you may have guessed, is a running theme. I’ve read the main story in this sure-to-be-too-awesome-to-language collection in the single-story-book from Madras Press. Actually, you should follow that link and buy all of their books. I’ll wait. Are you back? Good. Anyway, it’s basically the most beautifully written story ever, and I want everyone to read it so we can talk about the sentence about supping. And because Rebecca Lee is the kind of writer who defines brilliance. Also, Oprah wants you to read it, and are you going to disobey Oprah? I didn’t think so.
Clearly Now, the Rain: A Memoir of Love and Other Trips by Eli Hastings: I actually haven’t cheated when it comes to this item, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. From what I’ve seen, it’s an eloquent exploration of Hastings’ friendship with a woman named Serala, who’s painted in layered strokes in all of her complexity. If it’s anything like Hastings’ Falling Room, we’re in for a gorgeously constructed trip.
Safe in Your Headby Laura Valeri: I have been lucky enough to hear Valeri read from this collection, so I guess I have cheated here, too. But it’s a good kind of cheating because it means I can say this: if you can hear Valeri read, do it. She brings new life to already-jumping-off-the-page-with-life stories. I can’t wait to crack open this collection, about an Italian family who emigrates to America to escape the Red Brigades’ movement.
We Come Elemental by Tamiko Beyer: I’m stoked-beyond-stoked for this and the next book on the list. Pick up any literary journal, and you’ll find Tamiko Beyer just freaking killing it with her poems. Every single time, she shows language who’s boss, and language is glad to be bossed. A masterful poet whose work is finally gathered in a collection.
Mezzanines by Matthew Olzmann: Take what I said about the stoked and the literary journals and the freaking killing it with poems above, and repeat, with Matthew Olzmann’s name. Olzmann’s poems feel more traditional in form, but they also feel as though Olzmann shows traditional form that he is the boss and traditional form is thanking him. As it should.
Red Doc by Anne Carson: So, I’ve actually had this book for a long time, I just haven’t read it. Or, well, I’ve read bits and pieces of it, and those bits and pieces are crazy. Like, Anne Carson crazy, which means crazy in an oh-no-she-didn’t-holy-crap-she-DID-and-it-was-AWESOME kind of way. Let’s all just be honest and admit that none of us understand Anne Carson, and we probably won’t. And that’s okay. I remember reading an interview in which Carson says that none of us will ever understand God, and that’s okay, because the fact that none of us will understand God is one of the things that makes God God. Think about that for a minute. I mean, RIGHT? And that’s how I feel about Anne Carson.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed: No, I haven’t read Dear Sugar’s book yet. And no, I’m not caught up when it comes to the Dear Sugar column on The Rumpus. I’m not even caught up on The Rumpus. I don’t have one of those Write Like An [Expletive Deleted] mugs like all the cool kids do. I’ve had things to do, okay? Important things. Really important things. Like, educating the youth of America and writing books and learning how to crochet granny squares. Okay, maybe not that last part. I’ll read Dear Sugar’s book, okay? God. Thanks for the peer pressure.
This blog has been on hiatus. I’m sorry. There have been circumstances.
I’ll be back from hiatus very, very soon, but in the meantime, here’s a poem of mine published in B O D Y. The poem is about houses and how they know way too much about the people who live inside of them. I’m really happy to have this poem published because it’s one of those gifts, one of those poems that feels like it comes out of no where, a poem that’s completely unplanned but alters the course of your work. That’s absolutely true of this poem. Though it was the first poem in what would become a lengthy series, which then became the backbone of the manuscript I’m putting together, I have no idea where it came from.
Really.
See? See what I mean here? This house? Totally a secret-blabbing jerk.
I mean, I really have no idea where this poem came from. It just appeared. I suppose that my mind has been working on it for quite some time. I’ve always been fascinated with houses — I’m not sure how anyone who’s driven around at night and accidentally looked into an accidentally-still-standing-with-the-lights-on-and-without-the-blinds-drawn window isn’t fascinated with houses. They seem like such solid, impenetrable structures by day — they seem trustworthy, willing and able to keep all of your secrets — and then, by night — no way. Leave a single one of them without the blinds drawn, and that house is telling everyone what you’re doing inside. This is a problem, obviously, because I think it’s pretty obvious that we as a species began building and living inside of houses so we could walk around at night in extra-extra large t-shirts, knock-around-shorts, and knee socks, singing songs with lyrics
Gertrude Stein appears not to have the same anxieties about houses, possibly because she’d just be embarrassed by me.
altered to feature your cats’ names and hobbies, eating frosting out of cans and watching Snapped marathons (all of that is completely hypothetical, of course. Completely, totally, absolutely hypothetical. I mean, who would do any of that? Certainly completely, totally, and absolutely not me).
It’s possible that my mind has been rock-tumbling these ideas around for a while, without my knowledge, and polished them into a poem. Much as I’ll never know the source of most of my ideas and decisions, I’ll never really know. All I know is that I was in the middle of a Grind and wondering if I’d actually be able to finish the month, and then the poem appeared to answer my wondering. It was a pleasant surprise, and I’m happy to have received it — and happier still that the good people at B O D Y liked it and wanted to share it.
(While you’re at B O D Y, by the way, you should check out fellow Grinders Ross White and Matthew Olzmann, two incredibly talented and all-around awesome poets whose work has inspired me and then inspired me again.)
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.
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 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.
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.
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!
I’m thrilled, honored, and humbled to say that I’ve got a new poem called “Plenary Absolution” in the latest issue of The Adroit Journal. You can see it — and hear me read it! — here. I hope you’ll take a look at the whole issue, which features tremendously powerful work by Emilia Phillips, Dana Levin, Jane Wong — actually, just read the whole issue. It’s an absolute beauty and I’m so proud to be a part of it.
