The Great Whatever

living without the electronic fire

2009-06-17T07:11:00.003-05:00

No cable + no converter box + old television = NO TV. It's been 5 nights (never watched during the day). Kind of miss that narcotic flickering, but maybe I'll get some reading done. Anyone forgoing the TV set?

hello long lost

2009-06-03T15:20:00.002-05:00

We made it from winter into spring and are now inhaling muffleheads, mayflies, and/or midges that are living out their paltry lives right where our houses are...but it's a symptom of a healthy lake, so go ahead and high whine around, you damn insects...

The art museum opens its new Raphael Vinoly wing with modern and contemporary art, finally, this month. Seems an age since we've seen some of the old faves. And there is new work, too. Ben got a sneak peak the other day and said, "Who needs LeBron James? We have this!"

Does anyone have a cure for an addiction to coffee ice cream?
Does anyone have a cure for writer's block?

Barn Owl

2009-02-23T15:06:00.003-05:00

Barn Owl 2 is out--and looking beautiful. Avail yourself of one. Also, I have a review published on their website: here.

The Poem and The Poet

2009-01-21T13:39:00.002-05:00

Okay, so. I really thought the poet had been canceled since no one should ever have to speak after Obama (except, maybe Rev. Lowery). But there she was, with a too-folksy poem (for me), and a cadence that sounded like stomping in new boots compared to Obama's speech. But I hope poets keep getting included in such rip-roarin' events. (And it was far better than Maya Angelou's fluttery fritterings....)

What did you think?

leap into prose

2009-01-05T12:40:00.002-05:00

Been reading only poetry for awhile (and my favorites happen to be in the area--Susan Grimm and Mary Biddinger), but broke my fiction fast with the much-hyped, in-need-of-editing The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I liked much of it for reasons that don't really matter to anyone else, but it got me rolling on more fiction (which rhymes with addiction for a reason). Next up was The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud and described as a comedy of manners set in New York right before 9/11. Very ambivalent about this one. Then I gravitated to Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris, which contains a bit of viciousness that I liked. Last night I plucked from my massive, unorganized piles The Catherine Wheel by Jean Stafford, which I've tried to read before.

Anybody read these books? Although interesting, they are not helping me with writer's block.

Helluva Nella Cucina 2008

2008-12-24T09:19:00.005-05:00

Until you've eaten at Chez Guy's house with a curled braciole resting on its little cradle, a lamb roast studded with garlic and redolent of rosemary, a perfectly cured pig jowl resting on the counter, Miry's lovely mache and shiitake salad, Tony's famous spicy scampi, and Mike's pasta fagiole (spelling?), accompanied by many tiny glasses of wine and surrounded by friends bonded by the simple joy of one thing or another or many and many other things, well, you don't know how rich and warm one can feel in a poor and chilly place as this.

Thank you, thank you.

newish lines

2008-11-29T11:14:00.001-05:00

The owner glides across parquet floors,
a cushion of air beneath his tassles.
The cuneiform you can’t read says
judge something something slave mutter
mutter something something then king.
You know what you are.

another goodbye

2008-11-09T11:24:00.002-05:00

Cleveland--and the wider world of writing--has lost a bright light: fiction writer, beloved teacher, mother, wife, and friend to many, Sheila Schwartz, whose sardonic wit was always a pleasure. Blessings to her family, friends, and students.

unusual day

2008-11-04T06:34:00.004-05:00

I don't remember an election day like today: my windows are open, I can hear the gulls out over the water, and I already voted along with many many other folks.

It'll be near 70 today, and I hope many people take the day off.

I'm giving my students "extra-credit" if they wear their "I Voted Today" stickers.

Am relieved Ohio isn't the sole "decider" that it has been, but I don't like living in a toss-up state.

Is it my imagination, or are perfect strangers being more civil to each other?

crazy obama fans

2008-11-03T08:29:00.002-05:00

Two of the 80,000 folks at the Obama rally, downtown Cleveland, November 2.

All Hallow's Even

2008-10-31T11:18:00.002-05:00

I was fed up with words (too many! overheated! too competitive!), hence the images below. But now I'm teaching (mostly) kids for whom words must be wrestled to the mat before using. Blessed words. Keep 'em coming.

The walls between the living and the dead are thin tonight. A toast to us all.

thinking about

2008-10-12T23:19:00.019-05:00

there you go again, thinking

2008-10-10T13:10:00.002-05:00

"Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all — men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch."

Why conservatives don't like people who think. Check it out here.

$$$ and poems and Olbermann

2008-10-08T03:32:00.007-05:00

Reading tonight with Michael Dumanis and John Gallaher at U. of Akron, 7:30, at the Martin Center. Looking forward to it. Check out Gallaher's post on why we write.
***
It's 4 am and I'm watching the financial news. I am glad my father is not around to see this. He was a stockbroker--a quiet one, with a couple blue-chip clients who bought blue-chip stock "before the war," meaning WWII. No junk bonds, no hedge funds, no computers, even. My sister and I would run to the bus stop to meet him at the end of the day and ask, "Did the market go up or down today?"

We had no idea what the market was...

And no, any financial savvy my father may have had did not rub off.

the world is too much with us

2008-09-30T08:48:00.002-05:00

Wordsworth never really floated my boat, but this famous sonnet suddenly comes to mind:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

which street are you on?

2008-09-30T08:04:00.003-05:00

A couple semantic peeves: I know it's an easy shorthand during an uneasy time, but this Wall Street vs. Main Street business is ridiculous. I don't live on either street, and don't know anyone else who does either. Can't someone get a little more creative? Side Street? Urban Alley? Dead End? Boulevard of Dreams? Sunday Drive? Off the Beaten Track?

Also, if you live in Ohio or certain other places, the fear of "falling into a recession" is a joke. We're already in one, here. We have already fallen. We're just waiting for the rest of you...

Finally, here's a non sequitur:

b nice

2008-09-26T18:58:00.000-05:00

overwhelmed & apocalyptic

2008-09-24T14:38:00.003-05:00

Between reading (finally!) the bleak The Road, the Wall Street screw-ups, the Palin factor, a pile of debt, and a truck that refuses to brake, I have not been able to do much but scowl at other scowlers on the bus, go to work, and scowl again on the way home.

But here's something that made me smile. It's been surging around the Internet, but I'm posting it anyway: donate $10 to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin's name, and she will receive a postcard that lets her know we're thinking about her.

Go to PP's website, click on "donate" and choose to donate in honor of someone else. It will ask for that person's name and address, so input this: Sarah Palin, Alaska State Capitol Building, P.O. Box 110001, Juneau, AK 99811-0001. OR McCain Campaign Headquarters, 1235 W. Clark St., Arlington, VA 22202.

reading at the Lit last week

2008-09-16T16:42:00.003-05:00

Me. Phil Metres.

dear collectors

2008-09-15T15:49:00.003-05:00

Since you have warned me that you will use any and all information in order to collect a debt, I want you to know I just got a second job. Teaching, which is something I love. But a third job might look like this (payment made in tomatoes and peppers):

confused, but not dazed

2008-09-15T15:12:00.005-05:00

RIP David Foster Wallace. Terrible to lose an intelligent person when there are so many stupid ones running around.

(See Sarah Palin's governing style.)

am reading this week

2008-09-06T12:35:00.005-05:00

with poet Phil Metres at the Literary Cafe, Thurs., 9/11, 9:30.

last line of Obama's speech

2008-09-06T08:43:00.002-05:00

Hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

all of a sudden

2008-09-05T09:24:00.001-05:00

I feel inadequate because I don't know how to field-dress a moose.

shocked and awed

2008-08-30T08:17:00.007-05:00

"I hope they kill him."
This is what my neighbor said about Obama.
"Don't say that. Why would you say that?" I say, stunned.
She handed me some tomatoes. We were standing in her garden.
"Why not? I hope they do."

I would expect, say, a white separatist man from Idaho to say this. Or someone who proudly flies the Confederate flag.

But we, my neighbor and I, live in inner-city Cleveland. We are homeowners, so theoretically we chose to live where we do. And this woman was/is a Hillary supporter. I don't expect all people to love Obama, or Biden, or democrats, or black folk. I don't expect hardly anyone to agree on anything anymore.

But I still believe words have power. That when something is said, it becomes manifest in some small way. Even if one thinks about--or hopes for--assassination, don't speak it. Not here. Not around me.

Those tomatoes she gave me? Outside on a shelf. Uneaten.

how i'm feeling lately

2008-08-18T13:32:00.002-05:00

not thinking

2008-08-17T09:04:00.002-05:00

just staring. eating. objects. black walnuts taste like mushrooms. blue-infused goat cheese. vintage wine tomato my brother grew. blueberries. blueberries. not combining. not cooking. watching water. not poeming. listening to water. water. weird word for lovely thing, water. waiter. waiting for something. wearing blue and wading. knife that slices tomato, spreads the cheese, also severs crabgrass. at the root. summer slowly saying something. swaying heads of fennel. seed me they say. serve me up in the blue chair on the second floor porch. perch. there. bluejay branch. swerve. summer swerving just out of reach.

water spout?

2008-08-10T07:21:00.002-05:00

Excellent storm came in over the lake last night. Much rotation in the sky, but no water spouts. Soon, I hope. Instead, my neighbor's big party tent popped its stakes and took flight, landing upside down in my garden looking like a carnival version of Kafka's cockroach.

Friends' garden party turned into a garage party last night--reminding me of childhood days in the suburbs, hanging out in neighbor's garages, drinking Little Toms and bothering our parents.

It's a cliche, but what's better than good food and good friends?

barn owls

2008-07-30T17:24:00.003-05:00

Good news: Barn Owl Review took two new poems for their second issue! Check out their cool, new website. Poems upcoming in Harpur Palate and Gargoyle too.

Back to killing tent worms.

jade tomato 2

2008-07-26T08:51:00.002-05:00

More ditties from work:

"The shoe is not traveling to San Francisco."

and this, said with deep, dry sarcasm:

"Aah, the neoclassical plinth...is highly prized."

__________

A poet has sent me work to critique (and enjoy). Now I have to reciprocate. Any cure for writers' block out there?

jade tomato

2008-07-11T21:24:00.003-05:00

I realized I have a somewhat interesting job when I gave this report to a colleague: "No workmaster for the jade tomato."

Here's some others:
"Is the turtle near the elephant bell push?"
"The cranberry has been removed."
"Art and architecture has been changed to a wedge."
"The crown is the surprise inside the egg."

goodbye orange girl

2008-06-27T06:20:00.004-05:00

Chloe, found in the snow in front of Miracles, 1992?-2008

happy solstice

2008-06-21T08:29:00.003-05:00

"...poor, frail universe, born of nothing, all we are and do resembles you." --Italo Calvino

how long is too long?

2008-06-15T14:51:00.006-05:00

Compared notes with a fiction writer yesterday. One magazine kept her work for 10 months before rejecting it. I just received a cheerleadery note from an online journal that kept my poems so long my style has changed. Then rejected me with an urgent request to send more. Questions for writers out there: How long is too long? Do you distinguish between print and online journals?

Put the kayaks in for the first time this summer. Sounds lovely, but it was straight-up urban: dragging them over rocks to a patch of pebbles and launching next to the storm sewer.

No poems. But garden is flourishing. Ate walleye last night steamed on the grill with homegrown fennel and baby arugula.

This is not a joke, but it's funny: A blind man got on the bus, and some grumbling folks created a small space for him to sit. When he asked where he could sit, everyone pointed.

Ben said I should write the next break-out musical, titled BUS!

wicked alice

2008-05-29T06:30:00.003-05:00

Poems up at wicked alice. Thanks to Kristy Bowen.

better they laugh than cry

2008-05-26T08:10:00.003-05:00

My friend Paul Cox is doing his dissertation on a 1942 piece by John Cage, so I went trolling for Cage material on the web and found this: John Cage on "What's My Line". When the host of the show says People are going to laugh, Cage responds with something like Better they laugh than cry.

memorial cherries

2008-05-25T10:11:00.002-05:00

My father grew tomatoes every year--big, fat, beefsteaks that we would eat sometimes right off the vine. They rarely made it into sauce. Perhaps in honor of my father, or something else, my brother and I drove to a parking lot in South Russell yesterday and bought tomato plants. Well, he bought them. I'm broke. But he set me up with three cherry tomato plants I picked partially for their names: brown berry, yellow pear, Thai pink egg.

bleeding hearts & wrapped van

2008-05-24T21:41:00.005-05:00

No words are flowing, but the garden is shaping up. This cold, wet spring has made a bunch of plants really happy. The white bleeding hearts were glowing in the sunlight yesterday morning. Ben shot this image of a wrapped van in the neighborhood.

reading tonight & good news

2008-05-10T08:30:00.006-05:00

Reading with Nin Andrews, Major Ragain, Toni Thayer, Emily Dressler, Mary Biddinger and others at the former Poets and Writers League at E. 25th and Superior (www.the-lit.org). In honor of Mary's new Barn Owl Review and the "Muse."

In the good news department: 2 poems accepted to Harpur Palate.

I swear the blog will return to musings instead of diary entries soon. Promise.

post grad

2008-05-05T13:41:00.002-05:00

No photos from graduation, alas, but it was swell (and I didn't even properly shave my legs and never got that manicure...). Now for less intellectual pursuits, like obsessing about the amount of violets in my garden (like an old lady). Many thanks again to Mary and my pals.

may day reading

2008-04-30T11:53:00.003-05:00

Reading tomorrow, May 1, at Visible Voice bookstore on the south side with Jen Sullivan, Jason Venner, Karen Schubert, and Ginny Konchan. Starts 8:30 pm.

excellent girlfriends

2008-04-28T20:02:00.003-05:00

Was with my true blue canaries Saturday.

Here's a snippet of new work:

of the run on of the life sentence
series and into the thick forest
of revenge where all the shrubs
say ho hum and on you go
where false friends spade
into dirt and true blue
canaries crow your excellent
balance, kneecaps like lanterns
in the tunnels ahead where
speed takes the form of yes

reading, graduation, etc.

2008-04-25T10:49:00.009-05:00

READING: Thursday, May 1, 8:30, at Visible Voice bookstore in Tremont, with awesome poet Jen Sullivan, and Karen Schubert and Ginny Konchan. Post-prandials at The Literary Cafe.

Thesis successfully defended. Check. Complicated formatting of thesis accepted and filed. Check. Unsolicited offer of a teaching job received. Wow! What's left? A paper for the mad genius. Hopefully not the last beer at Pints.

wishful thinking

2008-04-20T09:56:00.002-05:00

I wish to graduate so I am wishing I was finished formatting my thesis according to Kent State's strict formatting style.

Ben designed a "book cover" for my unpublished thesis. Something to wish on.

m.f.a.

2008-04-11T11:57:00.001-05:00

Successful defense of my thesis occurred this morning. Whew. Thanks to Mary B., Maggie, Robert, and Michael (the disembodied voice on the phone). Going back to bed.

Billy Collins, poetry, the abyss

2008-04-09T14:39:00.000-05:00

Clayton Eshleman on a roll.

good news finally

2008-04-07T08:44:00.003-05:00

Dawson Steeber and I each won an Academy of American Poets prize! With honorable mentions going to my pals Jay (Whisper Shifter) and Lindsay Bennett. Pats us on the back!

bad numbers

2008-03-27T14:10:00.003-05:00

My spirometry (breathing test) numbers were so poor at the Clinic the docs said they were in the "transplant" range. Transplant! I'd love a new set of lungs (plus other things), but...

So if you hear me wheezing on the bus, at work, in class, or on the phone, it's because I have "bad numbers."

reading May 10

2008-03-24T15:11:00.004-05:00

In the illegible type on this flyer, it says the following folks are reading May 10 at 2570 Superior Avenue, Suite 203: Toni Thayer, Maj Ragain, Nin Andrews, Shurice Gross, me, R.A. Washington, Emily Dressler, and Michelle Rankins.

awe

2008-03-24T10:17:00.006-05:00

Ever read an unpublished manuscript and get chills? After poring over some really good, too earnest poetry, I find one that sizzles on page 1 and doesn't let up till the end. I hope it wins the contest.

in the voice of the heron

2008-03-19T11:55:00.003-05:00

My brother took this photo on a trip to Florida not long ago. Craving real green here on this grey-on-grey day. Fiddling with poems. Cate Marvin, author of Fragment of the Head of a Queen, is coming to read next week. Love her stuff, maybe because I'm an only semi-reformed, postconfessional poet.

If I had students, I'd ask them to write in the voice of the heron.

writers block and

2008-03-17T07:02:00.003-05:00

Up at 4 am to see moon on ice. Can't write. Reading Cate Marvin, who reminds me about rage, something I buried, but barely. Can't even find my D.A. Powell book (hidden in the couch?). Am preparing a presentation on "difficulty in poetry," because someone told me my work is "difficult." Ha. I'm feeling as simple as a slug today, hoping god isn't holding a salt shaker over my head.

Happy day to my Irish friends. I wonder what they think of green beer in Saudi Arabia?

catch-up

2008-03-15T12:27:00.010-05:00

Saw the film about Rev. Albert Wagner, One Bad Cat. Amazing, and not just because I'm in it with Pam. A complicated man, The Rev's contradictions and his powerful personality are caught well in Tom Miller's direction. Pam's gorgeous painting, Ramona, is featured, as is my favorite painting, The Other Woman. Hope that it comes to a festival near you. Hope that a distributor picks it up. Don't listen to PD's Steve Litt, who panned it (so what else is new?).

Missed the Jim Jones tribute last weekend at the Beachland, and inadvertently deleted a link: go here for a tribute by Mike DeCapite and samples of Jones's music. Scroll down to February 26. Jones was the same age as my mother when she died. Hm.

Am reading new work on May 10 at The Lit (the former poets and writers league, not our old favorite bar) with Nin Andrews and Emily Dressler and others from Barn Owl Review. More to come later.

Happy Birthdays to my sister, Jenny, and to The Beloved Bean and The Beloved Bean's mom. You fabulous fishes.

canaries born

2008-03-09T09:40:00.002-05:00

My thesis is now in the hands of my committee. It was blessed by Mary Biddinger (bless you!) and sent on its little journey. I predict (hope) each member of the committee will like a different part of it. I don't expect all of them to like all of it. I also hope I can graduate with my pals Jen and Jason and Dawson and Lindsay in May.

after the storm

2008-03-09T09:33:00.005-05:00

My back gate (top). My front yard (bottom).

meet thai

2008-03-04T11:35:00.003-05:00

I went shopping for a female dog, and came home with a male cat. I wonder if that means anything. Thai is a Javanese cat mixed with something else. He talks a lot, is very affectionate, and is more exotic-looking than his picture actually shows.

the Rev

2008-02-16T09:06:00.008-05:00

If you want to be inspired, and are within driving distance of Cleveland, you must come see this film: One Bad Cat, about the Reverend Albert Wagner, sinner, preacher, and painter. It was directed with care and precision by Tom Miller and produced by Nancy Dickenson, both former Clevelanders. (Dickenson once owned a folk art gallery on Mayfield Rd. in Little Italy.)

I am proud to have known "the Rev," as we called him, to have been welcome in his amazing home, and to have written about him and his work over the years. Also happy to have several of his paintings, which have not lost one sliver of vibrancy.

The film is screening at the Cleveland International Film Festival on March 13 (7 pm) and March 15 (4:15 pm). After the Thursday screening is a reception at SPACES at 9 pm. Come meet the filmmaker, the Rev's friends and family, including the mighty Sister Bonita, his daughter, who continues the ministry of The People Love People House of God.

There is also a show of his paintings at Convivium33 Gallery on E. 33rd Street, with an opening on Friday evening, March 14.

Check out the movie's trailer.

(The photo above is courtesy of Tesseract Films and shot by Janet Macoska.)

praise him!

there really was a St. Valentine

2008-02-14T07:30:00.002-05:00

the lake today: dirty, crumpled lace striped with pale blue silk

there is a black market in red roses today in Saudi Arabia

there is no mistaking the sound of an engine throwing a rod

my friend Pam has returned from Africa, only to keep moving west

like all good love stories St. Valentine's includes a girl, illness, and visits to a prison

writing new

2008-02-09T21:04:00.001-05:00

Am writing in a completely different style now, one that a critic recently called "false etymological wordplay."

But I love it. I love being freed up from narrative, or just having a thread of narrative in big, loose stitches that can be pulled out. I'm taking straight-up autobiographical images and events and making them non-stories. Not fake stories, not fiction (which is incredibly difficult). The non-stories form the architecture of the poem.

Maybe because I'm no longer in journalism, and no longer need or want to "translate" a work of art into digestible bits for the reader, that pressure of being earnest is gone. Maybe it's age, but writing poems that shout "please understand me!" -- which is what I did when I was younger -- is no longer interesting.

post AWP

2008-02-04T10:07:00.001-05:00

Back from AWP, where it was more peaceful walking the streets of Manhattan than inside the Bookfair. Overwhelming: about 500 booths, thousands of publications, 7000 people, 30 panels each hour, readings, book signings, famous writer sightings, too much.

Best experiences for me: James Tate reading followed by hilarious interview with Robert Casper (editor of jubilat); presentation on hybrid forms by Ander Monson and Michael Martone; Frank McCourt's hammy homage to teachers; hanging out with poet Jen Sullivan; strolling Central Park (see image of Balto); 24-hour French restaurant; cool night air.

Worst experiences: miserable Gate A1 at LaGuardia; skipping dinner and eating crappy nut mix in the hotel bar; overheated rooms; no free WiFi; not enough $$ to gorge on books.

Next year, Chicago. Hm.

Barn Owl Review

2008-01-28T12:33:00.000-05:00

I've been remiss in posting about Barn Owl Review, which debuts its first issue this week in New York. Founder Mary Biddinger is the only artist I know who has used Individual Fellowship money from the OAC to create something that features other artists' work. Well done, Mary (and the BOR staff)! (Also, there is a poem by yours truly in it.)

random stanza 12

2008-01-26T11:12:00.000-05:00

I’ll walk the artificial streets again collecting
hair-do reliquaries and sob songs

cold day update 2

2008-01-25T08:36:00.000-05:00

cold day update

2008-01-20T13:54:00.000-05:00

Very rough draft of my thesis is with my director, Mary B., who has some brilliant solutions to some problems. It's a whopping 9 degrees outside and I'm out of coffee. Now that's a crisis! Read Jessica's blog Penzilla, about Georgia's "snowflake" day--hilarious. Went dog-shopping yesterday at the APL, and fell in love with a cat. Am reluctantly, nervously attending AWP in New York. It's completely sold out, which means lots and lots of anxious people. Hm.

roadtrip

2008-01-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

The most fascinating structure in Washington, D.C.

A quick roadtrip with my longtime friend Jo to visit Kate, our other longtime friend, in Bethesda, Maryland. By longtime I mean from 4th grade. Non-stop talk, chatter, catching up, a nice outdoor fire, and heated political talk (it's in the air there). Childless, Jo and I watch how moms of teenagers organize and manage and coax their kids. I don't remember sleeping till noon, but I'm sure I did. I do vaguely remember giving my mother hard time...

Gorgeous weather, meaning cool air and sunshine. Like good tourists we went "downtown" and visited the American Indian museum--a gorgeous building, a strangely laid-out and presented collection. The most powerful object: one of three Ghost Dance dresses from 1890 made of animal hide, with a simple crescent moon painted green on the breast, and a green star on each shoulder. No photos allowed. The museum does not usually exhibit Ghost Dance material (too sensitive and special), but these dresses were part of a temporary exhibition. The dresses can't take too many white eyes on them.

Drove in rain and snow back to the land of gray.

procrastination

2008-01-06T09:38:00.000-05:00

I wish I were one of those people who must clean the house when procrastinating.

Need to be in "lock-down" to work on my thesis, which, by the way (Frank) is now in 5 sections.

Haven't seen a movie in months and months, till last night. At the end of No Country for Old Men I burst out laughing, the only sound in the theater. When I saw the black-out signalling the end of the film, I thought, "No! They're not going to...will they dare to...yes, they are going to end the movie here!"

Those Coen Bros--I like them again.

hello oh eight

2008-01-04T06:15:00.000-05:00

Check out two new poems in Hobble Creek Review, alongside my fellow poets Pam Anderson and Sara Tracey. (Clevelanders may recognize Tremont in one poem, Euclid Beach in the other.)

Obama and Huckabee. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. A good speaker and a frank talker. Maybe it's all about verbiage, since we haven't had a coherent leader in awhile. Perhaps we like to hear people speak in full, hearty sentences. I'd like to believe in Obama, but am afraid he'll have to compromise at every turn, once he's among the slugs.

Oh yeah, we rang in the new year with the best of friends, excellent food, good drink, and a bit of buckshot falling out of the sky. After all these years still not used to the weapon-firing bonanza in the city at midnight.

bye 07

2007-12-31T08:53:00.000-05:00

Although good things happened to some people (or thoughtful people made good things happen for them), I'm personally happy to say farewell to 2007--a year of great loss and challenges.

If I didn't work precisely where I work, and live exactly where I live, and have the family and friends I have, I would not stick around this old town.

Most disturbing local news: three generations of women in a single family team up to kill a teenage girl.

Looking beyond the county line, Benazir Bhutto's assassination is an awful exclamation point at year's end. Mike Huckabee's rise in popularity is gut-wrenching. The fact that only 6% of Iowa voters decide the winners of the first caucus (and can kill a campaign) is just ridiculous.

Looking for a sea-change in 2008. Maybe it's already on its way.

Best to you and yours.

tagged

2007-12-30T13:15:00.000-05:00

I'm responding LATE to being tagged by Sara to "share 7 random or weird things about yourself."

1. I think about God most days, usually with irritation.

2. I hate literalism, but want people to be precise.

3. I love to travel, but hate to leave home.

4. I am righteously indignant about righteously indignant people.

5. Favorite childhood memory: twisting the tire swing up very tight, jumping on, and spinning out till very dizzy.

6. I learned a lot by watching my grandmother slip money to my mother under her kitchen table while they talked about other things.

7. I don't believe humans are always the most important creatures.

holiday feasting

2007-12-29T15:08:00.000-05:00

Best part of the holidays was feasting with friends and family. First, the fancy, heritage, organic turkey at my sister and bro-in-law's place.
Next, a sweet but blurry pic from the 11th annual Nella Cucina mostly Italian feast, featuring the chief chef and host, Guy, and BFF Pam.
Last pic is said bro-in-law wrist deep in said turkey. (His T-shirt says "Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism Since 1492," with an image of Native Americans...)

Alas, no pics from 15th annual christmas eve feast for orphans on the lakefront. Still trying to figure out camera phone...

Happy New Year to all.

happy solstice, good news

2007-12-22T21:31:00.000-05:00

More light per day starting tomorrow. And tomorrow is the annual Nella Cucina feast--old friends, robusto food, gallons of wine, much expansiveness (photos to come).

We planted spring bulbs today (finally!). Apricot beauties and elegant ladies, azureum and white wedgewood iris. Have to finish my thesis by the time the flowers pop up, by the time my BFF Pam starts her new job in Seattle, proving that it's possible to leave the Cleveland gravitational force.

And two poems of mine were accepted today by Hobble Creek Review. Yippee!

As the world turns...

my ex, xmas

2007-12-15T10:16:00.000-05:00

What happens if you don't celebrate Christmas? I've been withdrawing from it for years. This year I think I'll break up with it for good (or for at least this year). I don't think Christmas will miss me.

My old friend Kirk Anderson once rebelled against Christmas and gave his friends and family special rocks and stones he had picked up on beaches. This was not well received.

Last year I made ornaments out of shells and small stones. The tree looked a little, uh, rustic.

The dead are not coming back to visit.

I predict the lake will be grey, and with a lighter grey sky.

The solstice, however, is welcome. Pretty soon it won't be dark at 4:30 pm. That's something to cheer about.

eggers, kimmelman

2007-12-15T09:29:00.000-05:00

Dave Eggers and Michael Kimmelman were good. Eggers is self-taught in everything he does--drawing, writing, publishing, etc. He was very refreshing. He talked about working for Esquire, which has 1.2 million readers, compared to McSweeney's, which he founded so he and his friends could publish what they wanted. He said he couldn't have done what he has without the internet, but he has some "Luddite" tendencies (my word). He likes publishing tangible, limited edition books which are art objects themselves.

Three young men from the Lost Boys community in Cleveland were there, and eventually Eggers spoke about Sudan, stressing that the Darfur nightmare and the plight of the Lost Boys (and girls and their families and villages) are connected: the same regime in Khartoum has perpetrated years of horror.

Eggers and his McSweeney crowd have developed these tutoring centers for kids. The founding one in San Francisco is simply called 826 Valencia. There are now similar places in six other cities. One audience member asked if we could get one in Cleveland. There was a visible stirring among folks in the crowd. (Humorous fact: the landlord of 826 Valencia wouldn't let them just have a nonprofit tutoring center; they had to sell something too. So the front of the place is a "pirate supply store," complete with fake parrots, eye patches for special occasions, etc.)

I'd love to hear Michael Kimmelman speak alone, and speak frankly, about the art world.

(Sorry, this is a long post.)

reading, Dave Eggers, winter

2007-12-09T12:39:00.000-05:00

The new NEOMFA grads all gave great readings on Friday. Anthony, especially, entertained us (if not the deans....?). Although very different in style, both Jessica and Sara were wonderful. And Jason Mullin, a PROSE writer, read part of what is a great short story.

Their readings made me think more seriously about the next few months--writing and rewriting my thesis, pleasing everyone (an impossible goal), and preparing to read and thank everyone properly and not tell stupid jokes because I'll be nervous. How many readings have I given? Hundreds? Thousands? In how many cities? Dozens? But this one will be very different, and important.

Am procrastinating my Emily Dickinson paper by reading Dave Eggers' What is the What, partly because Eggers is in town Thursday evening as the second in the Spectrum series at Cleveland Public Library, funded by the late Lockwood Thompson. Eggers will be with NYTimes art critic Michael Kimmelman. (Earlier this year, Kimmelman appeared onstage here with Art Spiegelman. It was supposed to be a dialogue, but Spiegelman overwhelmed the stage, and chain-smoked.)

What is the What is Valentino Achak Deng's story of being one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, one of the thousands of refugees driven from their burned villages and massacred families by (mostly) northern Sudanese ethnic Arabs. I had read much about the Lost Boys earlier, when I was interested in whatever stories there were of the Lost Girls of Sudan. 4000 Lost Boys were brought to the U.S., mostly from the Kakuma refugee camp. Only 89 Lost Girls came to the U.S. The stories of the rest of the Lost Girls are too horrible to even recount.

It's no brighter now than it was at dawn today. The winter pot lid has descended.

mortarboards

2007-12-07T08:48:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to these NEOMFA graduates, who receive their MFA today!

Jessica, Sara, Anthony, and Jason

random stanza 11

2007-11-25T09:02:00.000-05:00

cold mallards in the cove
a no-clover one-dove day,
a two sundog day
on the walk to Russia

--from "Laughing Sal Walks to Russia"

"shaggy muses"

2007-11-21T11:29:00.000-05:00

To paraphrase Emily Dickinson:

"Zinc is dead--will you instruct me now?"

The jumpy pup I rescued from the County pound 12 years ago died suddenly yesterday morning. She was named Zinc because of the unusual metallic color of her fur. Both her eyes were blue and brown, blue on top in one, brown on top in the other. Everyone deserves a Zinc in their lives.

I hope she does not rest in peace. I hope she's animating some heaven somewhere.

is anybody else sick

2007-11-17T10:31:00.000-05:00

of hearing about Barry Bonds?

publication!

2007-11-09T16:14:00.000-05:00

The DMQ Review is pleased to announce the release of the Autumn 2007 issue featuring the poetry of R.S. Armstrong, Michael Baker, Chris Crittenden, Andrew Demcak, Brent Goodman, Melissa Holm, Kim Mahler, Rodney Nelson, Larry Rapant, AMY BRACKEN SPARKS, Susan Varnot, Donna Vorreyer, Christine Walsh, and Cyril Wong with artwork by Bob Dornberg.

Check it out.

small rant

2007-11-03T12:28:00.000-05:00

Day of the Dead passed without the usual nod. Am too distracted by not having any heat. Thanks to the friends who have helped me recently (you know who you are).

Got a rejection from an online magazine I really like. They said they "really enjoyed" my submission and suggested I try again. Since it's online, I have no idea if this is their standard rejection notice or if there really was some "enjoyment" when they read the poems. And does that mean they were laughing hysterically? Or a smile crossed their faces before they put it in the "no" pile?

Not so ironically, I'm reading submissions myself, from the slush pile, and enjoying single lines. That's all. I despise narrative poetry. Everyone has a story (or many), that can be told via memoir, photos, fiction, letters, video, performance, text messaging, lectures, oral histories, radio essays, etc. Save poetry for what can't be done elsewhere. Take risks in logic and language. Condense, condense, condense.

fire and water

2007-10-27T09:43:00.000-05:00

Watching snippets of California fires all week, then looking out the window at fresh water to the horizon. Hearing from Jewell that Georgia is running out of water.

Water is the new oil.

Just living by water doesn't guarantee access to it, but it provides that illusion.

My sister's new house burned down yesterday. They hadn't moved in yet, but the former owner hadn't moved out. He is a former firefighter.

Strange days.

certain birthday

2007-10-22T08:20:00.000-05:00

Celebrated with my girlfriends and others on Saturday night. Their special gifts made me cry.

Celebrated with my family yesterday over really good food. They created a photo album of long-lost photos, some I had never seen before, including one of my mother that she somehow didn't cut up. She looks furious. There are maybe three extant photos of her among tubs of photographs. More crying.

Celebrating again tonight with Jesus, Mary and Joseph. (Actually, Ben, Mary and Joe.)

I am lucky indeed to have such people in my life.

post pennant race

2007-10-22T07:43:00.000-05:00

Well, back to Emily Dickinson and the war.

Reading

2007-10-18T09:04:00.000-05:00

Mary tagged me for this reading thing on LibraryThing.

The Rules:

Bold what you have read, italicize books you’ve started but couldn’t finish, and strike through books you hated. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your "To Be Read" list.

(I can't underline, but there's only a couple I want to read, and I hope there's not a test.--AS)

Jonathan Strange & M. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22*
One Hundred Years of Solitude*
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick*
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest*
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time*
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five*
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye*
On the Road*
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Baseball Hangover

2007-10-14T11:29:00.001-05:00

I bailed on the game at about 3 hours, when Ortiz limped to first and was somehow safe. Boston took the lead at 6-5. I checked back after midnight, and it was 6-6 in the 10th. My heart can't take such stress. I only learned this morning that the Indians put 7 on the board in the 11th inning.

You can't say Boston's just a slug machine when they have Josh Beckett pitching. But what about Curt Schilling, who no longer throws true fastballs, but is considered a "finesse" pitcher?

Is that what they'll say about writers when we're older and have more control of our sentences? Can you imagine saying that about artists? "He's a finesse painter," or "She's a finesse writer now that she's of a 'certain age.'" Maybe.

I guess we were writing raw, explosive poems when we were younger, the way Fausto Carmona ends each pitch almost drilling into the dirt with surprise on his face.

Cleveland might be in the world series on the day I reach "a certain age." What a lovely gift! I'll get Sizemore on the phone and order up a grand slam.

October baseball and poems

2007-10-13T17:23:00.000-05:00

Just from a language perspective, a fausto should beat a schilling any time, right?

Does anyone hate Manny Ramirez's smirk as much as I do?

Good news! DMQ Review and Barn Owl Review picked up some poems of mine. See links to their sites below and to the right.

Morning Comment

2007-10-06T08:03:00.000-05:00

It's October. Everyone who is staying the winter is here. It's Sierra mountain weather--bright sky, cool breeze. The lake spreads out like a jeweled carpet. The marigolds are two feet high, the green zinnias twice that. I am on my front porch on an old metal glider. A week ago some old, dear, hilarious friends celebrated a landmark birthday together. October sailing; October baseball. Nothing better.

Sweet

2007-10-06T07:36:00.000-05:00

This week the alt-weekly Free Times gave me a nod as best poet. Very sweet. Many thanks. They even published the address of this blog, so I thought I should post some of my own poetry.

29 Palms

for Mary B. + Kate G.

prayer wheels, yes-wheels, joshua tree

a flood of ground glass
I tread day and night such roads

Marine cap in the sand, blood
long-ago-bloomed
on the door

dried iron = cozy

which way to LA? no I am
not wandering the desert for 40
or any years
my messengers continually cruise
away or bring their returns to me

sometimes you wade through dunes
getting to St. Monica

who sits on the pier with the other story
sellers:

YOUR NAME ON A GRAIN OF SAND

(the italic lines are from that old fart Whitman)

Jeannine Hall Gailey

2007-10-04T20:31:00.000-05:00

This Seattle-based poet visited University of Akron this week. Her book is called Becoming the Villainess. Check out her website.

Though I don't like narrative much, and prefer more "languagey" poems, this is one of my favorites of hers:

The Snow Queen

You tell yourself he only left you for her
because of the wicked shard of glass in his eye,
but the truth is, every man wants an ice princess.
The truth is, you're too easy to get used to--

your sloppy warmth, the heat from your skin
fresh from the garden--it's too much for him.
He'd rather marvel at her tedious snowflakes,
caress her frosted hair, basking in that cold gaze,

that veneer of symmetry. So you wander
around town like an idiot, forgetting
even your shoes. The boys there
are all still in awe of her. "Did you see

that thing she was driving?" they keep asking.
You set off to bring him back, not thinking
you are the last person he wants to see.
"He's trapped in that ice castle" you murmur,

"He needs to be rescued." Dogged, you follow
the tiny shards of glass, and their sparkle.
And when you finally find him, dark with cold
from her brutal kisses, he doesn't even

recognize you. You stop blaming the shard
in his eye; how can you rescue a man
whose heart, transfixed by skeletal crystal,
craves the bruising of frost?

Insane + Brilliant

2007-10-04T13:30:00.000-05:00

Emily Dickinson has a perfect description of depression:

"But the Heart with the heaviest freight on --
Does'nt -- always -- move --"

Aeolian Piano

2007-09-26T06:46:00.000-05:00

Trying to write a poem for more than an hour. It's usually delivered whole to me. Otherwise I don't trust it.

All I hear are waves and birds and my old dog crying for breakfast. A plane far off.

Poem not born this morning, just pieces and parts on a page.

Eclectic poetry news

2007-09-23T10:18:00.000-05:00

Having blog and blog-friend withdrawal. Too busy last week with school, work, and fabulous baseball game (a two-run homer in the 11th inning, us standing right next to the fireworks), Pandemonium at CPT, Jeff Chiplis's neon work at Arts Collinwood gallery, reading old manuscripts, etc...

Hate to leave the lake when it's cool, sunny, and breezy...

Met with M & M (Mary Biddinger and Michael Dumanis) my thesis director & advisor yesterday. Poems coming together in an organic way (hopefully). Breaking some old habits. My love-hate relationship with narrative (why do we crave it? why should I care?). Poems becoming deductive and reductive. This book will be totally different than my first, that's for sure.

Changes at Whiskey Island: The annual poetry and fiction prizes are now $500 each, with no "runner-up" prizes being awarded. Denise Duhamel is the judge for poetry; Karen Joy Fowler the judge for fiction. Contest submissions open October 1, 2007, and close March 31, 2008. Expect to see a different Whiskey Island than in the past. Editor Karen Schubert, fiction editor (Travis Hessman), and poetry editor (me), going in a new direction. Stay tuned.

The Whiskey Island stuff has absolutely nothing to do with the Cleveland State Poetry Center contests and publications. But director Michael Dumanis is shaking that up too...

Girlfriends

2007-09-15T11:48:00.001-05:00

Sometimes these girls were and are reason enough to keep going. The one on the left is gone now. The one on the right is "sundowning." Sweet peas. B, thanks for the pic.

School 3

2007-09-13T06:18:00.000-05:00

Instead of complaining about dead poets, I will celebrate the living ones. Courtesy of Mary Biddinger at University of Akron, we met poet and painter Kate Greenstreet last night. This is what school is for!

If you shun poetry because it seems like prose that has been broken into shorter lines, or if you shun poetry for its overwrought language, or its (sometimes) dripping emotion, or anal attention to seemingly irrelevant details, you should read Greenstreet's case sensitive (published by Ahsahta Press).

It's a fictional road trip, a rumination on great women of science (who are never named). It's about salt and its high and low attributes. It's about a break-up, a character who talks to ghosts who is journeying toward an empty house that has been willed to her. It's about eating tuna fish sandwiches in motel rooms and listening to a murder mystery on tape. All mashed up together.

She took risks, and garnered more than 300 rejections before publishing this and a chapbook. Now that's some kind of grit.

School 2

2007-09-09T11:33:00.000-05:00

Okay, am relating to Whitman in a couple ways:

The first time I saw the Pacific Ocean, I pressed my legs together and sawed like a cricket.

Also, he worked for many, many publications, wrote essays, had columns, published poems in them, and usually left under unfavorable circumstances (didn't like the owners' politics, the owners didn't like his politics, he clashed with the money people). He wasn't liberal enough for the abolitionist papers; he wasn't conservative enough for the pro-slavery newspapers. It reminds me of the time when the editorial workers of the Free Times tried to unionize the paper, and I managed to anger both sides.

Obviously, my world has gotten very narrow: school, work, home, school, work, home. Isn't there a war going on?

School

2007-09-05T12:35:00.001-05:00

School has started with a vengeance. Already behind in reading.

My first impression: Whitman and Dickinson were wack-jobs.

I'm sure that will change under the guidance of my professor.

The trouble with poetry is either the poet tells too much or too little. And why do we have to have narrative at all? Isn't that the novelist's (or the carny's?) domain?

Monarch days

2007-09-01T07:58:00.000-05:00

It isn't a swarm. It's more of a gathering. All of a sudden monarchs. Tree to tree, as if looking for their tribe. Having crossed the lake, it's time to rest and collect in the silver maples. At dusk they look like miniature bats, drunk on nectar. They have so far yet to go.

Random Sentences 2

2007-08-31T06:46:00.000-05:00

Everything was yellow then. My bedroom had pine furniture painted a shiny lemon. The wallpaper, over which my mother and I fought, was a cheery yellow-and-green-flower-cluster pattern, as if one could force sunshine into a cloudy house. A wicker rocker painted white sat in the corner.

Smart humor and smart blogs

2007-08-26T09:23:00.000-05:00

I'm working on medieval arms and armor at work.

This and that are two favorite places.

Jacobus has a half-dozen video blogs from the 14th century.

Random Stanza 10

2007-08-21T06:50:00.000-05:00

What regular lightning
marshalls up to greet me?
The sea tilts hello,
hello, hello all
evening into my lap.

--from "Phosphoresence"