Free-Will Astrology

CANCER (June 21-July 22): It's finally the right time for you to hear a
piece of advice you weren't ready for before. If I had told you this any
earlier, you would have at best misinterpreted it and at worst had no idea
what I was talking about. But in recent weeks you've recovered a portion
of your lost wildness, which means I can confidently reveal the following
truth, courtesy of poet Charles Simic: "He who cannot howl will not find
his pack."

Time for me to find my own voice.

_____ Is As ____ Does; To Think So?

Pretty
by Stevie Smith

Why is the word pretty so underrated?
In November the leaf is pretty when it falls
The stream grows deep in the woods after rain
And in the pretty pool the pike stalks

He stalks his prey, and this is pretty too,
The prey escapes with an underwater flash
But not for long, the great fish has him now
The pike is a fish who always has his prey

And this is pretty. The water rat is pretty
His paws are not webbed, he cannot shut his nostrils
As the otter can and the beaver, he is torn between
The land and water. Not ‘torn’, he does not mind.

The owl hunts in the evening and it is pretty
The lake water below him rustles with ice
There is frost coming from the ground, in the air mist
All this is pretty, it could not be prettier.

Yes, it could always be prettier, the eye abashes
It is becoming an eye that cannot see enough,
Out of the wood the eye climbs. This is prettier
A field in the evening, tilting up.

The field tilts to the sky. Though it is late
The sky is lighter than the hill field
All this looks easy but really it is extraordinary
Well, it is extraordinary to be so pretty.

And it is careless, and that is always pretty
This field, this owl, this pike, this pool are careless,
As Nature is always careless and indifferent
Who sees, who steps, means nothing, and this is pretty.

So a person can come along like a thief—pretty!—
Stealing a look, pinching the sound and feel,
Lick the icicle broken from the bank
And still say nothing at all, only cry pretty.

Cry pretty, pretty, pretty and you’ll be able
Very soon not even to cry pretty
And so be delivered entirely from humanity
This is prettiest of all, it is very pretty.


Stevie Smith, “Pretty” from New Selected Poems. Copyright © 1972 by Stevie Smith. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Enough Navel-Gazing

Narcissus: His

quiver cast beside
him, stream's quiver beneath him--
what of Echo's quaver?

Way to Go, Elizabeth

This is one of my bright, talented, and successful students in Intro to Poetry in 2007. She writes amazingly well and is a gifted storyteller. Check the article out!

OMG LOL OMG LOL OMG LOL OMG LOL

After receiving my 100th rejection in a row (with over 300 preceding the single acceptance I had earlier this year) I have received the following letter today:

I write to offer you one of our MA/MFA/PhD scholarships in poetry for the 2008 session of the Sewanee Writer's Conference.

I am sweating a lot right now just like Frank O'Hara at the Five Spot. And I am crying tears like the teakettle in Bishop's "Sestina." And I am withering slowly where I stand just like Tennyson's "Tithonus."

Oh my. Best week since the birth of my daughter. A poetry reading on Friday, my successful thesis defense, and now this maraschino of a message.

Even better than my first Bakelite:

Of Sisters, Scathing, and Ceremonies

According to myth, the salamander could walk through fire unscathed and was birthed from fire. Its name comes from the Persian, meaning "fire within."

Yesterday, when I defended my MFA degree, I wore a present from my sister (nearly three years gone). It was a salamander, a beauty of an Art Nouveau piece with diamonds and green garnets. Here's a picture:



One of the reasons I decided to attend an MFA program was that I promised my sister I'd study poetry. She knew that I'd always regretted not going on to school for a Ph.D. or an MFA. One of the last times we talked (a week before she died of stage IV breast carcinoma) she made me promise I'd not put it off, that I'd finish by the time I was 50.

Karen, I did it. I did not come through this unscathed, as the salamander emerges from his burning log, but I did come through it. Thank you for your belief that I could work and write and be a good (albeit untidy) wife and mom. I will wear this pin in your honor on May 9 at the MFA ceremony. I promise to keep the salamander, that "fire within," that passion for poetry alive.

And a little bling amid all that black won't be bad!

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

CANCER (June 21-July 22): "Many a man fails to become a thinker for the
sole reason that his memory is too good," wrote Friedrich Nietzsche. I
suggest you contemplate that riddle, Cancerian. Is your ability to stir up
new perspectives sometimes hindered by the deep feelings you have
about your history? Is it possible that past experiences you've grown to
treasure tend to diminish your motivation to reinvent yourself
periodically? If so, it's a perfect time to break free of the old days and old
ways. Induce a little forgetfulness so that you're more available for the
future.

My thesis is all about memory and how we operate in memory, in fact a section is called A Walk Through The Memory Palace.

I can now reinvent myself, since as of 11:30 this a.m., I am no longer a graduate student.

I think being a dragonfly sounds good--or maybe a cat. I want to have insubordinate claws.

The Writing on the Wall: Defense Day

מנא ,מנא, תקל, ופרסין

Daniel 5:25

Anything in My Thesis, OOPS, the Thicket

18-page introduction; 3 sections, 60 pages of poems. That's a lot of work in 2 years. I so wish that I could include a frontispiece--actually, I can and may! Why not add an illustration or two to all this work? The artists are amenable...

My favorite parts: Haiku from Raleigh about rhyming orange. Remembering my grandmother's love for Keats and disdain for Waylon Jennings. Putting together Quintilian and Hannibal Lecter section. Discovering that I have slugs in 2 poems, Mercury dimes in 2 poems, ironing in 2 poems, and bees in 2 poems--none of which "pairs" has anything to do with the others; none of which is even in the same section. How odd that we don't see our obsessions/motifs until it's time for ordering...

Reading and Writing, Shaking and Baking

Readings: On the Road and The Road

The SIU MFA program was kind enough to host readers from Ball State University, Indiana State University, and Murray State University on April 19. I'd like to thank our generous hosts for their gracious offer, kind responses to our work, and potluck after the reading.

I'd also like to thank Holly Goddard Jones for asking me to visit her Forms of Fiction class and share her students' lively, thoughtful, and incisive commentary on Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I advanced my theory that this novel moves in stanzas, like a long narrative poem, and nobody laughed. Surely this class is comprised of fellow geniuses, or Holly has taught them enough etiquette to respect their elders and humor an old lady! (And since no one can tell the lovely Ms. Goddard Jones apart from her students, I am the old lady in question).
_______________

Whole Lotta Shakin'(and a Little Bakin') Goin' On:

Friday, there were earthquake tremors in the early morning, and also mid-morning. I had had a migraine and had taken the day off from transcription/editing, and Harvey was home being a Walt-Whitman-ministering angel. The first one I thought was a migraine-related aura when the bed shifted from side to side, and the house began to twitch--like Ms. D. Gale sings--or as my left eyebrow does when someone particularly annoys me. The second one? We didn't feel it at the time.

I defend my thesis tomorrow. The shaking here is now my knees knocking, which will exceed 5.4 on the Richter scale tomorrow at 10 a.m. CST. I've worked so hard on this damned thing, and I feel pretty certain that I'll pass but...when one's introduction includes a recipe for hummingbird cake, Mercury dimes, shoplifting, uranium, ironing shirts with Mammaw, POW bracelets, and Dr. Hannibal Lecter--well, one's literary influences are going to be under heavy discussion. (I do mention Elizabeth Bishop, Eavan Boland, Lewis Carroll, E. E. Cummings, Mark Doty, Lynn Emanuel, James Galvin, John Keats, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson--hopefully, they'll give me more credibility on the Works Cited page).

Pray for us now and in the time of our defense

____________

I just went outside for a while, and the egg moon is slightly pink and completely full--gorgeous reason to celebrate insomnia/nerves. I've been thinking about eggs--Easter, mittelschmertz, and other ova--for a while, and since Radish King's post about white cake has made me hunger for sweets, and Corn Shake's cupcakes always make me crave cuteness, here's a recipe for hummingbird cupcakes:

Hummingbird Cupcakes
(adapted from an adaptation of Emily Luchetti's Four-Star Desserts --like Michael Keaton's a copy of a copy in Multiplicity)

3 cups all purpose flour
2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground allspice (very much optional in the cupcakes)
3 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 large eggs (lightly beaten--see note from Pamela below)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups finely diced banana
1 1/4 cups finely diced fresh pineapple

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 24 (3.5-4 fl oz capacity) muffin wells with paper cupcake liners. (ASIDE: The pastel ones that look like crinolines are prettiest--and yellows look best in my humble opinion).

Sift flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and allspice (optional) into a large mixing bowl. Stir in melted butter, eggs, and vanilla until just combined. Gently fold in pineapple and banana. (NOTE: If you want the moistest cupcakes possible, separate your eggs as you break them; beat up the yolks and barely spank the whites. I truly believe that overbeating egg whites leads to a too-dry cake).

Fill each muffin well about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bake until golden brown, and a cake tester/broomstraw/toothpick comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Allow cupcakes to cool in muffin pan for about 5 minutes, then gently remove them from pan and put them on a wire rack to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting. (QUERY: Cupcake torment--put them on the rack?)

Cream Cheese Frosting (almost everyone has this, but just in case...)

One 8-ounce brick of cream cheese, softened at room temperature
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

With an electric mixer or with a wooden spoon, beat cream cheese, butter, lemon juice, and vanilla until light and creamy. Beat in the powdered sugar until well combined. (DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER: Only use this frosting at room temperature, so if you make ahead and refrigerate, allow it to warm. Otherwise it's like adding elementary-school paste to your cupcakes).

Fancy-Schmantzy Dried Pineapple Flowers
adapted from an adaptation of Martha Stewart's flowers



2 large or 4 small pineapples

Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone sheets. (I have used baking PAM with success, too).

Peel pineapple; remove the "eyes" with a "melon baller" (PG-13 ADVISORY: Doesn't that sound kind of dirty--melon baller?). Leave the center core. Using a sharp knife, cut pineapple crosswise into very thin slices. (MUSICAL NOTATION: You can use a mandoline to slice your pineapples if they are small. Not a mandolin, or a violin, but a mandoline. See below for some of Harvey's sculptural tips on how else to cut out the flowers).

Transfer pineapple slices to baking sheets. Bake until tops look dried, about 30 minutes. Watch these times carefully, as ovens differ. Flip slices and bake until completely dried, about 25 minutes more.

Pinch the center of each dried pineapple slice to shape into a cone. (CURLI-CLUE: It's easiest to pinch these into cones/spit curls if you've left the core in). Let cool in a clean egg carton (or something similar) to form flowers). Refrigerate in an airtight container up to 3 days.

Also, Harvey and I have discovered that you can also use a flower-shaped cookie cutter to shape perfect Martha-style blossoms, instead of curling in the carton as above, and you can also cut out/crimp the edges of these petals to make them appear fancier. This is prettier on an actual hummingbird cake or on a carrot cake, than on the cupcakes, the cones are adorable. If you want to go uber-Stewart, add brown sugar for pollen when you're decorating, and Harvey has made royal icing/marzipan bees before--I do love him for things like this and also for migraine/earthquake moments).

Salome: Pink Slip?

>

Heartbreaker #4: W. Szymborsksa's "Hitler's First Photograph"

Watch this link first with the sound muted, then turn it on and re-view. The poem that's being read is Szymborska's. The music is just such a beautiful counterpunch. How can humans make both beauty and the beast from the same womb?

Hitler's First Photograph--Wislawa Szymborska

And who's this little fellow in his itty-bitty robe?
That's tiny baby Adolf, the Hitlers' little boy!
Will he grow up to be an LL.D.?
Or a tenor in Vienna's Opera House?
Whose teensy hand is this, whose little ear and eye and nose?
Whose tummy full of milk, we just don't know:
printer's, doctor's, merchant's, priest's?
Where will those tootsy-wootsies finally wander?
To garden, to school, to an office, to a bride,
maybe to the Burgermeister's daughter?

Precious little angel, mommy's sunshine, honeybun,
while he was being born a year ago,
there was no death of signs on the earth and in the sky:
spring sun, geraniums in windows,
the organ-grinder's music in the yard,
a lucky fortune wrapped in rosy paper,
then just before the labor his mother's fateful dream:
a dove seen in dream means joyful news,
if it is caught, a long-awaited guest will come.
Knock knock, who's there, it's Adolf's heartchen knocking.

A little pacifier, diaper, rattle, bib,
our bouncing boy, thank God and knock on wood, is well,
looks just like his folks, like a kitten in a basket,
like the tots in every other family album.
Shush, let's not start crying, sugar,
the camera will click from under that black hood.

The Klinger Atelier, Grabenstrasse, Braunau,
and Braunau is small but worthy town,
honest businesses, obliging neighbors,
smell of yeast dough, of gray soap.
No one hears howling dogs, or fate's footsteps.
A history teacher loosens his collar
and yawns over homework.

--- Stanislaw Baranczak and
Clare Cavenagh, translators

From the Farmers' Almanac: Egg Moon

April is known for its showers and ever-warming temperatures, but it is also known as a month when spring flowers begin to show up. Herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. As the name infers, the flowers are pink in color, thus the name for April's full moon.

This pink moon has also been called: the full sprouting grass moon, the egg moon, and among coastal tribes the full fish moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.

According to the Farmers' Almanac, this year's full pink moon will take place on April 20th at 6:25 am EDT.


"Time to plant tears." (Elizabeth Bishop, "Sestina")

Heartbreaker #3: From Judy Jordan's 60-Cent Coffee and a Quarter To Dance

Prologue by Judy Jordan


In winter’s spider-eyed light strung through steam grates, the tunnels turn feral.
This is the other city, the dark one
of hidden passages, runaways and orphaned days

and like me it sleeps in broken buildings
and smells of a sad suicide from the fifteenth century, and like me
it has smoked three things on the mold-furred walls

which are the only altars
of those who’ve dropped through holes in the sidewalk
to descend to these steam tunnels rung by slick rung.

This city shambles room to room.
Drawn to the easy sound of sleep,
it knows the pattern night pens on tender skin,

knows your darkest secrets and tells
no one except the sycamore
which rips from its skin with shame.

It wants absolution,
taps your sins on water pipes to shudder out of faucets,
ties them to the tail feathers of soot-mottled birds

who beat up from the concrete-lipped curb,
falter over cars, stutter
then catch an oily gust and wheel into the scalded sky.

It claims to be blind though it might have a thousand eyes,
screams obscenities from 13th and University and pisses in alleys.
Sometimes it drinks too much. Sometimes it begs for more.

It hides tents among trees in the park by the sluggish river
this red-eyed thing blinking from storm grates.
It is a window breaking.

Other people’s blood in its veins, skin on fire,
smack, crack, meth, strychnine and scouring powder sold as speed,
some drug or another telling it die, you must die. But it doesn’t die.

Step around it on your way to the theater.
It crawls through your bedroom window, a warm bed and in the morning
the smell of coffee and bacon spitting in grease. That’s all it wants.
Aching hands in underwear drawers,
snagged silks.
You are its worst nightmare.

Coiled cable, blood and razor-wire, shredded muscle and blue bone,
cold nights, the city under the city
is where you’ll find me. Though not now.

Now it is heat-hazed summer and sunset
and I whisper the four-syllable name of the stranger
I should have become and disappear through the back door

of the Villa Inn where the cook paces the few feet
between the makeline and the ovens
muttering Chimbukee Chimbukee Chimbukee

It’s been nine years since he’s known the burned light
of his own country or a woman’s name churned in sea foam, nine years
since he’s clung to flesh which smells of rosemary and dried tomatoes.

He checks his billfold, thick with this week’s pay. Let’s go
he says to me, pointing toward his apartment across the alley.
Let’s go Super Ju. Party. Party, he says

then reaches his swollen hands deep into his pants
past the flour-grubbed belt line
and with a hard twist adjusts his truss.

We call him Chris though that’s not his name
and I think to myself, Homer, Odysseus,
the blood-blue sea, the sun in its relentless veracity

be damned to hell and back. Sweating pizza drivers, me sleeping
in my truck or if it’s winter in empty buildings and the steam tunnels,
and every weekend the parking lot filling up with dope dealers

with their out-of-state plates
and hookers dropped off by their pimps
and the homeless who stumble

from the boarded buildings and doorways to this oiled kaleidoscope
under the warehouses’ dark windows—
the broken, fish-line-strung and eye-level hooked—

this grease-barrel and sour dumpster-stinking,
trash-can-blaze, busted bottles, pissed on pissed off
fuck you fuck you kill strong-armed ambulance scream, parking lot

and Chris saying Chimbukee Chimbukee Chimbukee
cussing us, Scata. Malaka American. Sto dyavolo malaka,
Pizza malaka. Deliver,Chris yells but slow night

no orders, no tips so we yell back, You malaka.
Give us pizzas. To krima sto lemo sou,Chris says
Greek which to us means nothing.

and just outside the fish-net stockinged, stiletto-heeled
Star, Joy, Princess. Joy, I think, and am too tired to think anything else
when she tells me she swings, asks if I have something,

anything, coke, smack, speed, rock. At least some pot. Come on. Hook me up, she says.
Then the teams. Salt & Sugar. Salt & Pepper. Nilla & Chocolate
with their matching tattoos, Comedy & Tragedy. Happy one day, Dead the next.

Angel, Love Boat, Crystal.
I got first degree I got MG
Blue ludes, 8-Balls, rocks, the dealers yell.

Quiver & Shiver Come
get my stash I got the stuff
Tongo & Cash

Lot of Candy Man & Sweet Stuff.
Slick the Stick, a pimp caught up in his own rhyme.
Lover Boy & Philly Boy. Wanna-be’s and gonna-be’s


_____________________________________

This poem had me at hello. Judy Jordan is an amazing reader, and I'm so glad I was able to meet her and talk with her about her work. More than a little TSE here, methinks.

Speaking of readings, ahem, I am part of one this evening at Southern Illinois University as part of the MFA Writer's Exchange. (Raleigh wanted to know if what she could get for one poet. I told her that was viatical investment, and I didn't approve!). Here come my 15 minutes of fame! I think I'm going to read these poems: "78 RPM," "First Anniversary: Reading Russian Literature," "I Stand Here Ironing" and "Breasts," plus a 3-page supershort story called "Ivy, Too." Excited and nervous, but am pretty sure I'll have the best shoes in the room. Anne Klein (and not II) today. After all, poetry deserves the ruby slippers.

Wilde One

I think Salome may be my newest obsession.

Heartbreaker #2: My Friend's River

The Ohio by Joe Bolton

Seven miles south of anywhere
You'd rather be, it is autumn.
What sweetened shrivels,
What shriveled falls,
And what fell is leaf-rot,
A sick rich scent in the air.

You are paling, you are bored,
You are zipping up your jacket
And walking into a dynamo
Of twilight and raw wind,
Tossing your hair as a brief bruise
Of pink scores the horizon.

Seven miles north, below the lights
From bars and dance halls
Of small towns, the Ohio swells
With a cargo of barges,
And catfish twist through the bones
Of what never bothered to rise.

______

You're missed, friend. You're missed.

Sushi?

NaPoWriMo--Lynda Hull--Heartbreaker #1

Black Mare--by Lynda Hull

It snakes behind me, this invisible chain gang—
the aliases, your many faces peopling

that vast hotel, the past. What did we learn?
Every twenty minutes the elevated train,

the world shuddering beyond
the pane. It was never warm enough in winter.

The walls peeled, the color of corsages
ruined in the air. Sweeping the floor,

my black wig on the chair. I never meant
to leave you in that hotel where the voices

of patrons long gone seemed to echo in the halls,
a scent of spoiled orchids. But this was never

an elegant hotel. The iron fretwork of the El
held each room in a deep corrosive bloom.

This was the bankrupt’s last chance, the place
the gambler waits to learn his black mare’s

leg snapped as she hurtled towards the finish line.

* * *

How did we live? Your face over my shoulder
was the shade of mahogany in the speckled

mirror bolted to the wall. It was never warm.
You arrived through a forest of needles,

the white mist of morphine, names for sleep
that never came. My black wig unfurled

across the battered chair. Your arms circled me
when I stood by the window. Downstairs

the clerk who read our palms broke the seal
on another deck of cards. She said you’re my fate,

my sweet annihilating angel, every naked hotel room
I’ve ever checked out of. There’s nothing

left of that, but even now when night pulls up
like a limousine, sea-blue, and I’m climbing the stairs,

keys in hand, I’ll reach the landing and
you’re there—the one lesson I never get right.

Trains hurtled by, extinguished somewhere
past the bend of midnight. The shuddering world.

Your arms around my waist. I never meant to leave.


* * *

Of all that, there's nothing left but a grid
of shadows the El tracks throw over the street,

the empty lot. Gone, the blistered sills,
voices that rilled across each wall. Gone,

the naked bulb swinging from the ceiling,
that chicanery of light that made your face

a brief eclipse over mine. How did we live?
The mare broke down. I was your fate, that

yellow train, the plot of sleet, through dust
crusted on the pane. It wasn't warm enough.

What did we learn? All I have left of you
is this burnt place on my arm. So, I won't

forget you even when I'm nothing but
small change in the desk clerk's palm, nothing

but the pawn ticket crumpled in your pocket,
the one you'll never redeem. Whatever I meant

to say loses itself in the bend of winter
towards extinction, this passion of shadows falling

like black orchids through the air. I never meant
to leave you there by the pane, that

terminal hotel, the world shuddering with trains.



This poem is exquisitely elegiac, and the way Hull enjambs and then breaks the stanza form at the end is just genius. I was fortunate enough to have a workshop with her at Murray State when she and David Wohjan came to campus, and I'll never forget when she praised one of my poems. I felt like my harp and wings had just been issued, and I had passed through the pearly gates with a get-out-of-Hell-free card.

Chenille?

D-Day Delayed, Definitely

D-day (defense of dissertation), has been postponed for one more week. I am done, but one of the committee members has a reading.

Trade Day was rained out, and thrift stores were a washout, except for a lovely green and black footed candy dish for $2.00 (Art Deco). I plan to add a zero and resell it after I put it under the black light. It might be, just might be Vaseline glass...and if it is, Harvey will claim it. Here's a picture of an almost identical dish on the net...What do you think, oh, junkers?



Today's the birthday of that master of the labyrinthine sentence, Mr. Henry James. I plan to reread What Maisie Knew and Ian McEwen's Atonement to see about articulation and lack of articulation (disarticulation--to amputate?) I wonder, just wonder if Briony and Maisie have more than a little in common...

NaPO Generated Poem

This is a Dylan-Thomas generated poem, from the BBC Website. I kind of like it.

I was pierced star-struck
By the leaves of the twilight

Limping slowly on cold cobbles,
On thoughts of silver streams

Where salmon lie hazily, where
The moonless milk-mild truant boy

Gets a flogging by the twilight,
On the hazily lazy street

As the rodgered horses wait in barns
While the barge-booted fisherman

Go gentle on jolty cobbled streets
Laughing, laughing into the night.

And mildly the boy goes drooping
Home past the henpecked statue,

Erected in praise of the birds
Seesawing while they rave

Over the light grey blind sea
The light grey blind sea

Winking and winking into evening.
And finally he gets home, dreaming

Of sea-shaken birds that wait star-struck,
in the grassgreen grass blushed beefred

by twilight, raging, raging
to sing against the webfoot night.

____________
I just love the webfoot night.

Now that it's generated, what the heck do I do with it?

Suspicious Minds: My Response to a Maurice Manning Interview

Q. Sylvia Plath says in her journals that one of the purposes of poetry is to “make of a moment something of permanence.” As a way to explain poetry to undergraduates, is that something that you think is a fair explanation of the craft?

A. Yes and no. I think if you consider someone like Plath who is in a way ultra-interested in representing her own experience, and obviously keeping the veil down, I think that notion of preserving the past or making a moment last works. But to me the downside of that is it sort of encourages us to only be interested and curious about ourselves, and our own lives. Unfortunately we sort of live too much under that shadow now, and it’s sort of constricted American poetry especially as a result because we’ve got this confessional thing, and tend to think that poetry can only be about the poet’s personal experience.

Isn't this a great answer?

I find myself becoming increasingly more suspicious of language. Language should be suspect in poetry because we are weighing each word for sound/meaning and weighting each word for music/stress...I think I'm going to write an essay on this for NAPO month.

Yes No Good-Bye

Lupeo, Lupeo, Lupeo

And the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her. Matthew 14:9

The painting is Salome by Franz von Stuck, 1906. I've given myself the task of writing a poem on it for NaPoWriMo. I've been writing every day, and only one so far is a keeper--I sneaked it into my thesis.

The Greek word lupeo means more than sorry. Vexed, causing a scruple, in travail, hurled headfirst into sorrow...

A detail I never knew about this story: It was Herod's birthday.

PinkSlip and Other Springtime Treasures

Junking this week: It's been a pink week--set of pink mixing bowls with cobalt trim; pink McCoy cookie jar; vintage clothing (I have a black dress with a pink waist--a pink slip will be wonderful with that).

One of my readers asked me to explain junking. There's no one way to do it, or explain it--but here goes. I know a little about a lot of vintage and antique collectibles--ephemera (the postcards, posters, and advertising ephemera on this blog are almost always from my collection); pottery; 40s/50s collectibles; Art Nouveau and Art Deco frames; jewelry of all types (mainly costume--Bakelite, marcasite animals, and Taxco); perfume bottles; half/pincushion dolls; Japanese prints.

I go to yard sales, estate sales, antiques stores, flea markets, trade day (also known as Third Mondays), thrift shops, anywhere the junk looks promising. I look at and through everything to find things I covet or things I can resell. (Through the years I've made a lot of friends, and we look out for each other's needs). My dad used to be an antiques dealer, so I've learned a great deal about what to look for and have a few outlets for things I'd never need.

I do ask for discounts--almost always--and I'm not above being charming to get a deal. I don't yell, get mad, or stalk away. If a price is ridiculously low, I still ask if it's a professional (trade day/flea market) seller. Most of them love the haggle. When I'm on that side of the table, I will haggle as well. If someone doesn't haggle, then I am disappointed. It's a conversation.

My friends tell me I'd have been a wonderful carnival barker. This is not my usual personality, but wheeling and dealing bring it out in me.

TIPS I ALWAYS FOLLOW: I take plenty of cash so I have correct change. I offer to barter services (resumes, desserts, Harvey's artwork and portraits)for something I love but can't afford. I have even traded a poem for a wonderful antique jewelry cabinet. I don't buy anything damaged that I cannot fix myself (sewing--touchup painting, replacing clasps). I am scrupulous in researching eBay purchases, and I've only been burned once in 10 years. I study research books on items I want and try to learn values. I do NOT carry these books with me when I'm shopping. That's the mark of an annoying mark. Don't do this!

If I love something, I still have to be able to walk away from it if it's out of my price range--this does not necessarily mean overpriced. Only once have I not been able to resist an enameled brooch. It was of a dragonfly, and I paid $200 for it. I didn't eat lunch for 2 months in order to afford it. I later found out that the eyes were real diamonds and it was 18-karat gold and early 20th century French plique a jour. I think that's a great dieting tip--save my lunch money for jewelry!

I still regret the Art Deco clock I didn't buy--it was $400 for the complete garniture. I couldn't have afforded it at the time if they'd knocked a zero off.

I need to learn how to walk away from desks. I have a desk in every room of my house except the bathrooms.

Confession #1: I have removed items from dumpsters and trash bins before, including my favorite antique gilt frame (3 x 5 feet!). All it needed was glass.

Confession #2: I have a crush on Alistair Appleton, Paul, and Jonty from Cash in the Attic, BBC, and I also have an obsession with Leigh and Leslie Keno from Antiques Roadshow..

Confession #3: I married Harvey in no small part because he likes old things, especially those with their original finish. This bodes well in choosing a partner, as when you begin to crackle with age, you will be even more attractive to him/her. (I have had to accommodate his collections of 5000-plus Christmas ornaments, evil clown cookie jars--I secretly like both of these--as well as thousands of McDonald's and Star Wars toys and over 75 plastic Santas from 6 inches to 5 feet in height. This arrangement does have a few drawbacks. He puts up with my Bakelite bracelets and insistence on a pink and black kitchen).

Confession #4: My favorite piece of jewelry is the Art Deco ruby and diamond ring that Harvey bought it for me with his student loan money after we were first married, so it is priceless to me. When a dealer looks at it, he/she will often ask "Is that an estate piece?" My answer: "Not till I'mdead.

Confession #5: One of my favorite collections, which doesn't go with any other interest of mine, is Raggedy Ann and Andy. I have over 200 of these dolls, including the funny homemade versions that show up in the 10 cent bin at thrift shops. I also like Barbie and Gene, but I sold my collection years ago. I love the clothes, though and wish I'd kept them. I did keep my GI Joe and Baby Pat A Burp dolls--the only dolls I had as a child either eructated or fought.

Advertisement: I have a collection of antique purses (from beaded to lucite to funky 60s leather and 70s tapestry bags) that I'm considering selling/trading. Anyone interested?

P.S. The term "to gyp" (not so obvious) is a racial slur. I wish that people wouldn't refer to Romani and other Travelers in this demeaning manner. I hear this one all the time, from people who wouldn't dream of making other politically incorrect statements.

Judy Jordan Reading at MSU

I am so excited that this fine poet is coming to MSU on Thursday. Carolina Ghost Woods is brilliant.

(Update: If you go to the link above, what Judy Jordan said about Brian Barker, my MFA mentor, is absolutely true, except the name of his book is The Animal Gospels. The editor in me couldn't resist this correction!)

Sung to the Tune of "Roxanne," Perhaps?

Citing economic uncertainty, the Borders Group announced last month that it was considering selling itself.

NYT article on the uncertainty of book publishing

Truly, Madly, Deeply

The road to hell is paved with adverbs. Stephen King

April 5, 1908--HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MS. DAVIS!

Good Till the Last Drop?

============SARAH SHUTE, 1803-1840==========

======Here lies, cut down like unripe fruit====
========The wife of Deacon Amos Shute==========
======She died of drinking too much coffee=====
==============Anny Dominy 1840==============

Day #4: From Cigarette Card to Stamp

Here are two of my collectibles, approximately life-size (if you can say life size about inanimate objects...)

My Thesis Is Finished; My Students Are Amazing; All's Right With the World

The Excrement Poem
by Maxine Kumin (Selected Poems 1960-1990)

It is done by us all, as God disposes, from
the least cast of worm to what must have been
in the case of the brontosaur, say, spoor
of considerable heft, something awesome.

We eat, we evacuate, survivors that we are.
I think these things each morning with shovel
and rake, drawing the risen brown buns
toward me, fresh from the horse oven, as it were,

or culling the alfalfa-green ones, expelled
in a state of ooze, through the sawdust bed
to take a serviceable form, as putty does,
so as to lift out entire from the stall.

And wheeling to it, storming up the slope,
I think of the angle of repose the manure
pile assumes, how sparrows come to pick
the redelivered grain, how inky-cap

coprinus mushrooms spring up in a downpour.
I think of what drops from us and must then
be moved to make way for the next and the next.
However much we stain the world, spatter

it with our leavings, make stenches, defile
the great formal oceans with what leaks down,
trundling off today’s last barrowful,
I honor shit for saying: We go on.

________________________
I love to teach this poem. The way the rhyme scheme breaks down from perfect (from and some) to slant (are and were), to just sound echoes, mirrors this idea of the compost heap. Kumin shows us here that we can find history and beauty in any subject, anywhere.

Today, the Boston Globe proves Kumin right.
________________________

If I owe you e-mails, poems, etcetera, I'll be responding over the weekend. I'll be posting more frequently about poetry, I hope, about gardening, I promise, and about junking, my favorite hobby.

This week I remembered why I own one of these:



I wonder if anyone else knows it's National Cupcake Week. Maybe I should write a poem a day about cupcakes. I am trying to do the NAPOMO poetry exchange, but yesterday I had to cheat and send doggerel haiku.

Valentine

Day #3: Bette Davis Quilt

The Language of Fans

Day #3: Spotted M. Maxton's Cousin

Day #2 of Bette Week: The Little Foxes

Naked Poetry?

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In recent years there has been a rash of
climbers shedding all their clothes on Mount Everest. A sherpa by the
name of Lakpa Tharke claims the world's record for high-altitude nudity,
having stood skyclad for three minutes at the 29,035-foot summit. Some
Nepali authorities are seeking a ban on such displays, believing that it
defiles the revered mountain. "How would Westerners feel about people
stripping in church?" they ask. Not meaning any disrespect to them, I
urge you, Cancerian, to make "in the buff on the holy mountaintop" your
power metaphor of the week. Blend sacredness and nakedness in any way
that appeals to your imagination, especially if it's in high places or makes
you high.



Now that I have your attention--I finished my thesis today. I'm defending in 2 weeks. Pray for me now and at the hour of my most naked.