Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
From The Telegraph
This links to a great article on learning poetry by heart: Here's an excerpt:
As anyone who loves poetry will testify, when you learn a good poem, you make a good friend. You have a voice that will pop up in your head, whenever you want it, and say something beautiful and consoling and true. A poem can keep you going when you are driving on a lonely motorway, or when you are trapped on some freezing ledge in the Alps, or when you are engaged in any kind of arduous and repetitive physical activity, and need to keep concentration. When some disaster overwhelms you, or when you are feeling unusually cheerful – or when you are experiencing any human feeling whatever – it is amazing how often some line or phrase will swim to the surface and help to articulate your emotions, to intensify them or to console.
Resolution for April (poetry month): Instead of a poem in my pocket, I'm going to put a poem a week into my brain.
As anyone who loves poetry will testify, when you learn a good poem, you make a good friend. You have a voice that will pop up in your head, whenever you want it, and say something beautiful and consoling and true. A poem can keep you going when you are driving on a lonely motorway, or when you are trapped on some freezing ledge in the Alps, or when you are engaged in any kind of arduous and repetitive physical activity, and need to keep concentration. When some disaster overwhelms you, or when you are feeling unusually cheerful – or when you are experiencing any human feeling whatever – it is amazing how often some line or phrase will swim to the surface and help to articulate your emotions, to intensify them or to console.
Resolution for April (poetry month): Instead of a poem in my pocket, I'm going to put a poem a week into my brain.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Really great poem (via Land Mammal)
I heard Alicia Ostriker read this at AWP and longed for the the line/stanza breaks. (I took it down in shorthand--does anyone even use those hooks and crooks anymore?) I was glad to find it at Coal Hill Review, where one can also find other fabulous poems, and it's serendipity that the red tulips are blooming in my front yard today.
THE BLESSING OF THE OLD WOMAN, THE TULIP AND THE DOG--Alicia Ostriker
To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God’s love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow
To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended
skirt
To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other dogs
can smell it
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
My Patchwork of 10 Favorite Lines
The Ten Commandments
To make a prairie it takes a meadow and one bee
But what prodigious mowing we did make
And dreamed we dreamed we dreamed
Nobody not even the rain has such small hands
I look down at my hand and there’s a wrinkling ocean in it
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
Such waltzing was not easy
I am inhabited by a cry
Was it a vision or a waking dream?
When I open my eyes you are what I wanted to see
__________________
(Emily Dickinson, “To Make a Prairie"/Theodore Roethke, “I Knew a Woman”/James Galvin, “Hematite Lake”)
(E.E. Cummings, “somewhere I have never traveled"/James Galvin, “So Long”)
(William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”/Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz”/Sylvia Plath, “Elm”)
(Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”/W.S. Merwin “A Birthday”)
To make a prairie it takes a meadow and one bee
But what prodigious mowing we did make
And dreamed we dreamed we dreamed
Nobody not even the rain has such small hands
I look down at my hand and there’s a wrinkling ocean in it
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
Such waltzing was not easy
I am inhabited by a cry
Was it a vision or a waking dream?
When I open my eyes you are what I wanted to see
__________________
(Emily Dickinson, “To Make a Prairie"/Theodore Roethke, “I Knew a Woman”/James Galvin, “Hematite Lake”)
(E.E. Cummings, “somewhere I have never traveled"/James Galvin, “So Long”)
(William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”/Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz”/Sylvia Plath, “Elm”)
(Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”/W.S. Merwin “A Birthday”)
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Windowpane, do you remember?
My best friend died 23 years ago of AIDS. I miss him every damned day. Back in the bad ole days, we used to dance to this:
I still can't stand it.
I still can't stand it.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sort of Doing the Excitement Dance
In the last month, so many excellent things seem to be happening at once:
* My mom is doing so well at home. We went out for lunch yesterday. Her color and her strength are back to baseline. Thank you all for your good wishes.
* Son and daughter are doing well, too. A's for them in school (college and 6th grade).
* Tree damage from the Infernal Storm 2009 is almost all repaired.
* 150 daffodils nodding in choirs of yellow, white, orange and pink (This morning). Crocus in bloom, big and white as standard lightbulbs. Tulips sending up the sabres of their leaves, peonies pushing up their red wands.
* Backyard now getting sunlight--we can have a real vegetable garden this year.
* Husband has won first place in a mixed media contest and has wonderful new work on Etsy. His book is coming along, too, and teaching for him is going well.
* My ankle is finally healed. No more steroids, and I can walk half a mile without pain. Ten pounds down, too. Twenty to go, but now I feel like it might actually happen.
* I have also had some poetry and an essay taken, for which I am grateful.
I wish Harvey would sing this for the camera, but you'll have to make do with the second best version:
* My mom is doing so well at home. We went out for lunch yesterday. Her color and her strength are back to baseline. Thank you all for your good wishes.
* Son and daughter are doing well, too. A's for them in school (college and 6th grade).
* Tree damage from the Infernal Storm 2009 is almost all repaired.
* 150 daffodils nodding in choirs of yellow, white, orange and pink (This morning). Crocus in bloom, big and white as standard lightbulbs. Tulips sending up the sabres of their leaves, peonies pushing up their red wands.
* Backyard now getting sunlight--we can have a real vegetable garden this year.
* Husband has won first place in a mixed media contest and has wonderful new work on Etsy. His book is coming along, too, and teaching for him is going well.
* My ankle is finally healed. No more steroids, and I can walk half a mile without pain. Ten pounds down, too. Twenty to go, but now I feel like it might actually happen.
* I have also had some poetry and an essay taken, for which I am grateful.
I wish Harvey would sing this for the camera, but you'll have to make do with the second best version:
Monday, March 16, 2009
"Careful, man, there's a beverage here!"
Last night, I dreamed I was a supporting character in The Big Lebowski. This afternoon, when I opened my e-mail I found my local independent cinema is offering the following fundraiser:
THE BIG LEBOWSKI
This event is sure to be epic. Tickets are bumped up a bit due to the unlimited White Russians, beer and food spread. Giveaways, bumper stickers and bowling jerseys . . . . you don't want to miss it!
(See link above for more details).
And I want to know....can I attend the Guy's Night Out?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Plath and Plate
O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.
Sylvia Plath, "Poppies in October"
Saturday, March 14, 2009
MFA Ladies' Luncheon: A Retrospective
I'm in red, Brie is in white, and going clockwise from there are Caitlyn, Liz, and Amy. What a fun meal that was!
My first semester in the MFA program, there was only one female in poetry. (YUP, me). (The first semester of the MFA program, the one before I started, there had been only one woman in the entire program!) We initiated a semester's tradition of all females in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction having lunch during our week-long residency. That tradition is now suspended, as there are now too many women in the MFA program to fit comfortably into the banquet room of the restaurant. YAHOO!
(Photo is courtesy of Rachel Rhinehart Johnson, Creative Nonfiction)
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Always Inspiring Barbara Kingsolver
Question: I just watched a PBS documentary about you, in which you mentioned your "ten rules for writing fiction," but only explained two of them. Would you mind divulging the other eight? No doubt the show's editors cut them without realizing that aspiring writers would hyperventilate at their omission. (Gasp!)
Answer: Okay, slow down and breathe into a paper bag. I'll answer the question, but remember that things are never really so simple as they seem on TV. In that documentary I spoke of taking a class from Francine Prose in which I learned "about ten basic rules for writing fiction." Well, I exaggerated. From Francine I remember learning three specific, helpful things that might qualify as rules. They were:
Your first sentence (or paragraph) makes a promise that the rest of the story (or novel) will keep.
Give your reader a reason to turn every page.
Keep a very large trash can beside your desk.
I follow these faithfully, though I've updated the wastebasket to a recycling box. Now, lest anyone turn blue, I'll offer up a few more things I've figured out over the years which might qualify as rules. Maybe there will be ten. We'll see.
Show, don't tell. Everybody knows this rule, and most of us still break it in every first draft. Be ruthless. Throw out the interior monologue.
Be relentlessly descriptive. Use details from every sense you own.
Set your scenes in places you know well. Otherwise, your details will be bogus.
Know what your theme is. If you can't express what you intend to get across in a concrete sentence or two (or for a novel, a few paragraphs), do you really think anyone else is going to get it? Write it out for yourself, point blank. Then toss it, and return to your story with a better sense of direction.
Write with nobody looking over your shoulder. After your book's published, you can worry about whether the subject is commercial, how your mother will like the steamy sex scenes, etc. But while you're writing, your only worthy concern is defining your particular passion and giving it a voice.
Revise, revise, revise, revise. Fill up that recycling box. A first draft is a work of construction; the seventh one is the work of an artist.
Don't wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.
I could easily keep going here, but I'd better get back to work. Meanwhile, breathe deeply and kill your television.
Here's another take on that last point:
Answer: Okay, slow down and breathe into a paper bag. I'll answer the question, but remember that things are never really so simple as they seem on TV. In that documentary I spoke of taking a class from Francine Prose in which I learned "about ten basic rules for writing fiction." Well, I exaggerated. From Francine I remember learning three specific, helpful things that might qualify as rules. They were:
Your first sentence (or paragraph) makes a promise that the rest of the story (or novel) will keep.
Give your reader a reason to turn every page.
Keep a very large trash can beside your desk.
I follow these faithfully, though I've updated the wastebasket to a recycling box. Now, lest anyone turn blue, I'll offer up a few more things I've figured out over the years which might qualify as rules. Maybe there will be ten. We'll see.
Show, don't tell. Everybody knows this rule, and most of us still break it in every first draft. Be ruthless. Throw out the interior monologue.
Be relentlessly descriptive. Use details from every sense you own.
Set your scenes in places you know well. Otherwise, your details will be bogus.
Know what your theme is. If you can't express what you intend to get across in a concrete sentence or two (or for a novel, a few paragraphs), do you really think anyone else is going to get it? Write it out for yourself, point blank. Then toss it, and return to your story with a better sense of direction.
Write with nobody looking over your shoulder. After your book's published, you can worry about whether the subject is commercial, how your mother will like the steamy sex scenes, etc. But while you're writing, your only worthy concern is defining your particular passion and giving it a voice.
Revise, revise, revise, revise. Fill up that recycling box. A first draft is a work of construction; the seventh one is the work of an artist.
Don't wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.
I could easily keep going here, but I'd better get back to work. Meanwhile, breathe deeply and kill your television.
Here's another take on that last point:
Sunday, March 08, 2009
"It's Like Rain on Your Wedding Day"
Today's the International Day of the Woman. It's also her 50th birthday:
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Jazz, by Toni Morrison (an excerpt for H.)
It’s nice when grown people whisper to each other under the covers. Their ecstasy is more leaf-sigh than bray and the body is the vehicle, not the point. They reach, grown people, for something beyond, way beyond and way, way down underneath tissue. They are remembering while they whisper the carnival dolls they won and the Baltimore boats they never sailed on. The pears they let hang on the limb because if they plucked them, they would be gone from there and who else would see that ripeness if they took it away for themselves? How could anybody passing by see them and imagine for themselves what the flavor would be like? Breathing and murmuring under covers both of them have washed and hung out on the line, in a bed they chose together and kept together nevermind one leg was propped on a 1916 dictionary, and the mattress, curved like a preacher’s palm asking for witnesses in His name’s sake, enclosed them each and every night and muffled their whispering, old-time love. They are under the covers because they don’t have to look at themselves anymore; there is no stud’s eye, no chippie glance to undo them. They are inward toward the other, bound and joined by carnival dolls and the steamers that sailed from ports they never saw. That is what is beneath their undercover whispers.
Friday, March 06, 2009
ACLU ALERT: Act Now to Stop Discrimination in Kentucky's Adoption Procedures
Breaking News: Act now to allow unmarried couples to adopt
The Kentucky Senate Judiciary Committee Chairperson, Sen. Stivers, called a surprise meeting late Thursday afternoon to hear two bills. One of those was Senate Bill 68 ("Divisive Child Welfare Act").
Sadly, the Committee passed the bill favorably after hearing testimony only from the bill's sponsor, Sen. Tapp, and a representative of the Family Foundation of Kentucky.
The ACLU took a part in a rally just over a week ago in Frankfort, speaking out against Sen. Tapp’s bill, with over 25 other groups including the Fairness Campaign, Kentucky Fairness Alliance, Kentucky Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, and the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights.
This bill would prohibit unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children in Kentucky and would therefore deny a loving home to hundreds of children waiting for a family of their own. There is already a rigorous screening process for adoptive and foster parents and every major health and child welfare organization in America has affirmed same-gendered couples as equally qualified parents.
Here's the ACLU Statement:
I oppose any efforts to shrink the pool of potential adoptive parents in Kentucky, such as SB 68, which would preclude children from being adopted by unmarried persons, because:
-- There is a surplus of children who are waiting to be adopted. On any given day, there are hundreds of children in Kentucky waiting to be adopted. These children are often the hardest to place in homes because of their age or special needs, and are essentially "legal orphans." Politicians should be working on solutions that will find each and every one of these children a home, not eliminating potential parents from the application pool.
-- SB 68 will add to Kentucky's economic crisis. A new impact study from The Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that enacting such legislation would cost over $5 million to the state of Kentucky.
-- SB 68 prevents child welfare professionals from placing children in the homes that are in their best interests. Often children are adopted by relatives or other adults whom they already know and trust. Placing an automatic ban on who can adopt, regardless of a child's particular situation or needs, is just wrong.
-- All that blanket adoption exclusions do is throw away willing individuals who can provide a good family for a child. All adoptive parents already undergo a rigorous individualized evaluation of whether they can provide a safe, stable, nurturing home. SB 68 would automatically bar individuals from adopting, even if they meet the state's rigorous requirements.
-- Blanket exclusions, like SB 68, is opposed by all major child health and welfare organizations. The American Academy of Pediatricians, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the Child Welfare League of America all agree that automatic adoption exclusions do not serve children's best interests.
___________________________________________
This bill extends its reach to any committed couple who doesn't want to wed, and any committed couple who wants to wed but cannot. This is so wrong I cannot even begin to address it. The logic is astounding: You cannot get married so you cannot adopt a child. You cannot adopt a child because you cannot get married. You won't get married, so you cannot possibly offer a child in need a good home.
The Kentucky Senate Judiciary Committee Chairperson, Sen. Stivers, called a surprise meeting late Thursday afternoon to hear two bills. One of those was Senate Bill 68 ("Divisive Child Welfare Act").
Sadly, the Committee passed the bill favorably after hearing testimony only from the bill's sponsor, Sen. Tapp, and a representative of the Family Foundation of Kentucky.
The ACLU took a part in a rally just over a week ago in Frankfort, speaking out against Sen. Tapp’s bill, with over 25 other groups including the Fairness Campaign, Kentucky Fairness Alliance, Kentucky Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, and the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights.
This bill would prohibit unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children in Kentucky and would therefore deny a loving home to hundreds of children waiting for a family of their own. There is already a rigorous screening process for adoptive and foster parents and every major health and child welfare organization in America has affirmed same-gendered couples as equally qualified parents.
Here's the ACLU Statement:
I oppose any efforts to shrink the pool of potential adoptive parents in Kentucky, such as SB 68, which would preclude children from being adopted by unmarried persons, because:
-- There is a surplus of children who are waiting to be adopted. On any given day, there are hundreds of children in Kentucky waiting to be adopted. These children are often the hardest to place in homes because of their age or special needs, and are essentially "legal orphans." Politicians should be working on solutions that will find each and every one of these children a home, not eliminating potential parents from the application pool.
-- SB 68 will add to Kentucky's economic crisis. A new impact study from The Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that enacting such legislation would cost over $5 million to the state of Kentucky.
-- SB 68 prevents child welfare professionals from placing children in the homes that are in their best interests. Often children are adopted by relatives or other adults whom they already know and trust. Placing an automatic ban on who can adopt, regardless of a child's particular situation or needs, is just wrong.
-- All that blanket adoption exclusions do is throw away willing individuals who can provide a good family for a child. All adoptive parents already undergo a rigorous individualized evaluation of whether they can provide a safe, stable, nurturing home. SB 68 would automatically bar individuals from adopting, even if they meet the state's rigorous requirements.
-- Blanket exclusions, like SB 68, is opposed by all major child health and welfare organizations. The American Academy of Pediatricians, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the Child Welfare League of America all agree that automatic adoption exclusions do not serve children's best interests.
___________________________________________
This bill extends its reach to any committed couple who doesn't want to wed, and any committed couple who wants to wed but cannot. This is so wrong I cannot even begin to address it. The logic is astounding: You cannot get married so you cannot adopt a child. You cannot adopt a child because you cannot get married. You won't get married, so you cannot possibly offer a child in need a good home.
Spring has sprung a surprise on me...
Reading: "Death the Whore" by Anthony Hecht
Writing: Poem on piano lessons
Working: As a medical editor
Giving Up for Lent: Time not related to grading papers
Giving Up in the Fall: Composition (if I can afford it)
Hoping to Avoid: Decomposition, by doing the former
It's been a wonderful, life-changing 3 years while studying and reading poetry. I really appreciate my teachers, my fellow students, my students in the comp and 214 classroom, and the few readers of this blog. It's time to write, starting this summer, and while I will miss so many things related to teaching, I am looking forward to time at my house, in my yard, and in my right (write) mind.
Writing: Poem on piano lessons
Working: As a medical editor
Giving Up for Lent: Time not related to grading papers
Giving Up in the Fall: Composition (if I can afford it)
Hoping to Avoid: Decomposition, by doing the former
It's been a wonderful, life-changing 3 years while studying and reading poetry. I really appreciate my teachers, my fellow students, my students in the comp and 214 classroom, and the few readers of this blog. It's time to write, starting this summer, and while I will miss so many things related to teaching, I am looking forward to time at my house, in my yard, and in my right (write) mind.
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