| Regarding the new earthquakes at Mt. St. Helens... |
[Sep. 27th, 2004|01:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
This from the KOMO news team in a recent report in a possible new eruption...
"Standing on the rim, from what geologists tell us, would not be a good idea," ...
Thanks and now back to the regularly scheduled blog already in progress... |
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| Radio & poetry |
[Sep. 27th, 2004|01:51 pm] |
Seattle has the best radio station K-Rock, Alternative Seattle 96.5 fm, which basically plays old Pearl Jam hits. It brings me back to my college years. I feel a bit like one of those hippie parents in my neighborhood growing up who kept playing "Stop children what's that's sound" into the 80's. My daughter will grow up singing "Jeremy."
In the early 90's, Seattle was all about flannel shirts. Now, it's 2004 and I'm wearing a poncho and listening to Alice in Chains. Maybe things don't change as much as I think. Back then, there was a recession, Bush was in office and we were in war...wait...what year is it?
As for poetry, I've put some submissions together because I'm having trouble writing. BPJ & Cranky. I've also typed up a "core list" of places I'd like be published in as I always forget where I'd like to submit to. My friend submits to states she's never visited and now wants to have a poem in a journal in every state. Good goal.
I like making submitting a game, though I like my list as I can just down checking off each place I've submitted to. Right now, I've got Poet Lore, Kenyon Review, Cranky checked off. I've got a lot of work to do.
Speaking of politics, what happened to "Hope is on the way!"? I thought that was a great motto and it just died out. There are handmade signs all over the peninsula, but even they are fading. I think the democrats need to return to Hope is on the way or after November 2nd it will become "Hope has left the building." |
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| Rejection... |
[Sep. 25th, 2004|02:19 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
Rejection from APR, which was pretty expected. It's sad when you are submitting poems and knowing that most likely, your SASE will send them back. Still, as Wayne Gretsky says, "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." So we try.
I'm slightly under the weather, so poems feel as if they are being pried from the farthest corner of my mind. Even reading hurts. I do things in bits and pieces. Just enough to get things done. |
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| Poetry Friends & Question marks |
[Sep. 24th, 2004|01:55 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | curious | ] |
This week I reconnect with my writing/crit group and it felt so good to be back. Not just because someone made organic apple cake and another poet brought fresh Liberty apples from her trees, but I realize how sometimes I am just too close to my poems.
I have been revising this poem entitled "?" since June and the poem keeps feeling like an "almost." I've almost got it, but not quite. They were able to really help me see where it was working and not. And it wasn't even major things, it was "this line is unnecessary." and it was. Why the line was still in the poem, I don't know.
I think these types of things are what makes a group or workshop work. I'm always concerned a group will get into "Groupthink" but so far our group still has very unique voices. If we all realize we're starting to write like each other, then I think time to break away for a bit. But we're not. And I'm glad
They also brought up something I hadn't considered about my poem--that if it's ever accepted by a journal, it will read ?...............................Kelli Russell Agodon in the table of contents and that amuses me very much. It will be as if the editor will be saying "I'm not sure what this is, so let's label it '?' -but here's some words by Ms. Agodon."
I have a huge list of poems I have decided are not finished and I'm revising. I've known they weren't finished, they've just been hanging out in my "in process" file, but this is act of listing them out and crossing them out feels important. Not important as surgery is important to the patient, but important as seeing a newt crossing a busy street and helping him to the other side safely, saving a drowning moth, or picking up a fallen plant on someone's grave. Either, either or. |
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| Poetry Lottery... |
[Sep. 22nd, 2004|01:56 pm] |
Book Contests---
I've heard book contests called the Poetry Lottery, and I really don't feel "lottery" is a good word for them. In a lottery, every person has an equal chance with their 6 numbers, but in poetry contests, there are ways to up your chances of being chosen.
In fact, just by submitting, you already have 1 of the 6 numbers.
And if you can do the very very basic, submitting a clean, professional manuscript with easy to read font and following the guidelines. You already have 2 of the 6 numbers.
There are some really great poets out there right now without books, or with only their first books. There are submitting against you. There are poets submitting who should have books (you could fall into this category as well). But there are also a lot of manuscripts that aren't very good. 3 out of 6 numbers
Of course, you up your chances even more when you submit your best poems. Really, weed out the poems that aren't working. Just by sending your strongest poems you already increase your chances. 4 out of 6 numbers.
If your books is well ordered and/or has a coherence to it and feels as if it, that's a plus. Is it interesting? Does it say something other poetry books aren't saying? Do you make people care about something? Are they poems you want to read again? If so, you have 5 out of 6 numbers
I do think luck is a factor, connecting with that final judge. Luck, skill & good poems. And this is the one that keeps most of us from getting published. Being the chosen one, but if you get this last one & you connect with the final judge, you've got all 6 out of 6 numbers and you've got yourself a book and you've won the lottery... |
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| $177 |
[Sep. 21st, 2004|08:28 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
Hmm, what could I buy for $177? The new bookshelf I desperately need. Some new books. Clothes, say, new fall corduroy pants? I could buy a pair, then buy new shoes, shirt, wool sweater and new wool socks. Or maybe something special, say an antique inkwell for my desk, I've always wanted one. The one I have broke thank you to my cat Eliot when he was a kitten, a large crystal vase and some tempting hydrangeas.
Or a first edition of Edna St. Vincent Millay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29223&item=6928115715&rd=1) and I've have $32 to spare!
Or maybe I could donate $177 to Poetry Daily, or Copper Canyon Press. Or Tupelo Press. Maybe give $10 to 17 strangers, or $100 to a random poet, just mail it in an envelope as a surprise and leave the $77 in a book with a note.
All these things I could do with $177, but I'm giving it the Bainbridge Island Police Dept because today on my way to what turned out to be a most expensive chat with a friend, I received a ticket for speeding. $177. I just hope I get a poem out of the experience...
As Jessica Rabbit says, "I'm not bad, I just drive that way..." |
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| Mellow Yellow & What's in the Mail... |
[Sep. 21st, 2004|09:13 am] |
Sunday I did my reading/performance with Janet Norman Knox & Serena Tideman. Serena played the cello & I think all readings should have music with them. Serena makes me want to revisit my violin. Or have my own back-up band. The audience loved the music. Readings can get boring. really.
Of course, Janet performs her poems, so she is not boring. Janet was on a chair, under the mesh (or decorations on the stage) over the mesh. And always interesting to watch. She's a dancer, along with being a Yale scientist and poet.
I just read my poems surrounded by the lovely blue mesh and near 3 brightly painted yellow chairs. My big artsy thing? I put my poems in a small beaded journal. woo-hoo. Serena & Janet are much more artsy that I am. My family thinks I'm a bit artsy, but I don't compare to these two, who are fearless. Me? I worry that the blue mesh as a dress would be too see-through, say "the last time I acted I was in 6th grade." I don't balance on chairs. I'm a Capricorn. I'm on time, professional and wear good shoes. My Scorpio rising only rises so far... (when the moon is in the seventh sign and Jupiter something something about sky...it is the dawning of the age of Aquarius....)
they call me mellow yellow...
What was in today's mail...
Alaska Quarterly Issue & a poem by my friend Holly Hughes
Announcement for North American Review James Hearst Poetry Prize judged by Billy Collins
Note from my aunt
I just received the Crab Orchard Review but haven't started reading it yet.
And in email, a rejection by Kenyon Review 2 down, 4 to go... |
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| The Crying Game... |
[Sep. 20th, 2004|11:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  touched | ] |
I feel as if I've been close to putting my angry eyebrows (a la Mr. Potatohead) on today, but have managed to realize that life is a series of unplanned annoyances mixed with incredible happiness and pain.
Still, if anyone has ever tried to contact a live person at Symantec Systems, the kind folks that run your virus-ware, well, you know how warm the cellphone feels on your ear by the time you actually talk to a real person. After being cut off the first time (6 minutes 48 seconds on hold), I waited 38 minutes before hearing a real life woman on the other end of the phone. I was ready for her to say in her best War Games voice, "Do you want to play a game?" I was sure they were all robots.
Anyway, a wasted day of computer troubles, but now night and quiet. And we did watch a movie which I'm embarrassed to say I cried during. You'd think I was going to say something like The English Patient, but I'm not, yes, embarrassingly enough, I cried during 13 Going on 30, the Jennifer Garner movie now out on DVD.
I'm sure if you happen to be the eight other people who saw this movie, you'd be thinking "When at all would there be a crying scene?" It's a good question and I'm sure in most any other person's life, there is no crying scene in this comedy. But I cried when the confused "Jenna" comes back home after not spending time with her parents and regretting how terribly she's lived her life.
I wish I could explain it adequately, but I can't. My husband asked too and I said something about children moving away. I think it was one of those times when I was really crying about something else. Maybe I was crying about my sister and learning her cancer came back. Maybe the fear of not being a good mom or wasting time on things that aren't important. Or maybe I was crying about the future and all the things I don't know.
My husband kept saying, "But no one died, why are you crying?" I was probably crying about my Norton Anti-Virus that took me all day to download and set up. Maybe I just didn't want to be on hold for another lifetime. Maybe one day I will be able to watch a movie and not be trying to stop the tears condign to my eyes. It's why I don't watch the Olympics. I'm a huge mess when the gymnasts win anything.
After the movie, we watched the special features and saw Pat Benatar's video, "Love is a Battlefield" and Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl." I want my MTv, 1986...
So, that was my day, computer troubles, tears and oh yes, I mailed off my first MFA packet for my low-res program. I celebrated with a muffin. |
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