| 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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| What's the Rush to Publish... |
[Sep. 19th, 2004|10:43 am] |
Another poet, Suzanne Frickshorn who is lovely poet in her own right, asked this question on a poetry discussion board:
What's the rush to publish?
There was some talk about why, mostly people saying they weren't in a rush, but here was my response to it--
I think I agree that in the beginning there may be a *rush* to publish your poems just to prove to yourself that you're any good. But problem is, publication doesn't prove that.
I think if a person is writing poetry to be fulfilled by the success of publication then they won't be writing too long. The reason? The fulfillment from publication, awards, etc. is superficial. It is a quick high and I don't think it can continue to sustain you.
Or as Marvin Bell says, "The mountain of Parnassus is never high enough." You will be striving to achieve something you can't reach, once you get to a level, you will want something else and so on. You will never achieve success because it keeps moving higher and higher up the mountain.
I think it needs to be the writing that sustains the poet. Not the publishing. But don’t get me wrong, I think publishing is the other part of the job. It’s not one or the other, it’s a balance of both.
As for being in a rush, time is a different matter to each individual. My urgent rush may be someone else’s slow walk through cornflowers.
I think it’s good for poets to have goals, though to realize, these too are just external guideposts and not to be taken very seriously. I think they help you stay organized though and help poets who don’t really like to submit, to continue to do so. I have a group of friends that make me be accountable for sending out X number of submissions every 2-3 months. The X is determined by me.
If I didn’t make this agreement with them, I would hardly ever submit because I get such a joy from the writing and revising of the poem. But I know that submitting and publishing poems has made a big difference in connecting with people, which for me, is one of my personal goals as a poet when writing a poem, to connect with the reader and make a difference (tiny or large) in his/her life.
I felt a bit of a rush to have my first book published for a few reasons—
1) I had been working on it since 1999 and just wanted it out in the world
2) I had received two grants to complete it and I felt by not publishing it, I was letting down the artist organizations that had supported me
3) I thought that by publishing my book, I’d open doors and allow me to work on book two with the freedom to do whatever I wanted once the first book was out of the way.
It’s a funny way to look at it, but I am glad book one is finished, published and off my desk. Now, I feel whatever happens, happens. If I continue writing good poems and publishing, yay me, but if not, life moves on.
Now, I’m much more picky about the journals I submit to. Though I don’t look back at my poems that I published and wish I had kept them longer or not submitted them. I see them as the feathered hair I had in 80’s. When I published them, they looked good and made me feel good, to judge them now would be like returning to my old photographs and combing out Aquanet to update my style. I think they record who I was at that time and I’m not sorry for that. Some certainly could be better, but ten years down the line I could be looking at what I’m writing now and say the same thing.
I do hope that one day I will look back to a poem and see it as one of those photographs that captures a person’s classic beauty and timelessness. I guess, that’s what I’m trying to write and if I publish mostly those poems, well, then I’m a happy girl. |
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| Dream... |
[Sep. 19th, 2004|08:44 am] |
Last night I had a dream that I yelled at a high school teacher for not teaching poetry and sending her class away before teaching them a poem.
I then began reciting Sylvia Plath's poem "Poppies in October" and later on the bus, this poem took a sort of human form and chased after me.
I just remember telling the bus driver to watch out for the poppies...
Poppies in October
Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly ----
A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky
Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.
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 |
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| Reading is fun for mentals... |
[Sep. 18th, 2004|11:31 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  mischievous | ] |
blah blah blah poetry blah blah blah poetry blah blah poetry poetry me me me blah blah blah poetry me poetry blah...
pardon me, I've just been reading some blogs tonight. My own included. blah blah goodnight
poetry
poetry
me |
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| Misread Headline... |
[Sep. 18th, 2004|11:22 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | groggy | ] |
I just misread this headline:
IAEA Inspectors in S.Korea for 2nd Investigation
as
IKEA Inspectors in S.Korea for 2nd Investigation
__________
I need a new nightstand. Furniture is all I can think about. |
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| What's in the mail... Nametags |
[Sep. 18th, 2004|11:00 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  nerdy | ] |
A letter from a friend
2 copies of Crab Orchard Review (since I don't remember subscribing, I'm guessing this was a consolation prize for something I didn't win. But two copies? I must have been a big loser.)
A check for $2.67 for stock I own (I'm in the money...) It says I own 7 shares. Woo-hoo, I'm Donald Trump. As my mum would say, Don't spend it all in one place... This must be what they pay poets, oh wait, that would be much less...
A Pottery Barn Holiday edition catalog
______________
I have finished my critical essays for grad school. I have a nervousness writing them, which I believe is from my undergrad days at the UW. There was a prof there who wanted to hear his own words regurgitated back to him on our essays. If we raised a different point or disagreed, our scores showed it. Problem is, now I find myself wanting to say what I think others want to hear, which may or may not be what I believe or think. And maybe it's wanting to please, or wanting to be right or the fear of sounding stupid.
My husband believes that most people's greatest fear is to be found out as a fraud, that most people don't believe their success is deserved and that someone will uncover them as the phony they are.
In America, I think if you say something long enough people will believe you. Or if you look or act the part, you become it.
I tell myself every day I'm Donald Trump, but no one is buying it. At the Floating Bridge party, a woman had a nametag on that said, "Jorie Graham." I almost believed her.
My nametag said my name and I wrote the word "poet" under it. There was also a scribble next to that where I was going to write "Dyslexic" to be funny, but forgot how to spell it. I wish I was making this up.
I'm pretty happy being who I am and I guess I can't imagine being someone else. Though, then I'd really know what I smelled like. I think I smell like Tide. (not the beach, the detergent.)
It's obviously late as I'm muttering about smells. Tonight if I had a nametag on it would "Achy-neck at the Keyboard," or "Last Blow-pop of the Evening" or "She Who Types Nonsense." or maybe "The Donald." I've been watching too much Apprentice. I'm sorry, but I love a good job interview. |
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| What I am thinking about... |
[Sep. 17th, 2004|02:16 pm] |
Was Elizabeth Bishop's poem "Sandpiper" a response to William Blake's "a world in a grain of sand" or was a comment on the craft of poetry? Or something else completely?
Sandpiper
The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.
The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet
of interrupting water comes and goes
and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.
He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.
--Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them
where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains
rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs,
he stares at the dragging grains.
The world is a mist. And then the world is
minute and vast and clear. The tide
is higher or lower. He couldn't tell you which.
His beak is focussed; he is preoccupied,
looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed!
The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray
mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.
Elizabeth Bishop |
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| Let's Get Cranky! |
[Sep. 17th, 2004|01:34 pm] |
Last night was the Cranky Literary Journal reading and I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a reading so much. First, it was on schedule, a detailed, exact schedule down to minute.
The hosts Amber Curtis & Patrick Thiessen were generous and witty. The featured reader, Ilya Kaminsky was incredible. If you don't have Dancing in Odessa, buy it. It's published by Tupelo Press, one of my favorite presses. They publish beautiful books and so good!
Dancing in Odessa is a remarkable book, as well as Ilya is a kind, intense reader. Two adjectives you rarely see next to each other, but he is both kind and intense and I'll add, remarkable to that as well. The audience was captivated by him.
Some of my other favorite readers, both local and from all parts of the country were: Richard Jordan, Dana Elkun (who I'd love to read more of), Martha Clarkson and Julie Laros.
This issue of Cranky (Sept 2004) features a wonderful 8 page interview with Ilya Kaminsky who is teachign a workshop in Seattle today. A workshop I wish I would have signed up for for, but didn't as I was worried about money or time, or both.
I had Ilya sign my copy of Dancing in Odessa and I was taken that he remembered who I was, actually recognized me from my photo, as we had never met, only on email. There was a large group of fans waiting to talk with him, they circled around his chair and kept coming up. I had ot leave to catch the ferry (as always, I'm ruled by a schedule of boat and water), but was so thankful I had the chance to hear him in person, especially since Ann & I had went to see him, but realized as we arrived that he read a week prior.
I'm glad we have Cranky in Seattle now. It's a terrific magazine deserving the attention it's receiving. |
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| Submitting...money to burn... |
[Sep. 15th, 2004|11:05 pm] |
What? Yes, it's true. 2 submissions in one day. One to Rhino. One to Indiana Review's Collaboration project.
I'm more interested in the writing. Again I'm wishing for a personal secretary to submit for me.
Nothing in the mail today except ads, a fancy catalog with fancy decor & strange items for small dogs.
A friend who was recently published in Beloit PJ, said after being rejected over a 100 times in the last 10 years, he sent them his longest, craziest poem...and that's what they took. Okay- long/crazy poems to BPJ...got it. |
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| Vote early, Vote often... |
[Sep. 14th, 2004|01:54 pm] |
Sent in my absentee ballot, basically, I'm absent from getting in my car and driving down to the school to get my sticker.
The democrats have been calling a lot lately reminding me to vote. I'm always kind to them on the phone. My favorite call was when a younger person called me and asked if I'd take a survey. We started through question by question... Would do you plan to vote for Republican ____ or Democrat _______. After question 3, I told him that I was a yellow-dog Democrat and just check off all the Democrats down the list. He was thrilled, both in the fact that I was voting for so many democrats and that I just made his work night that much shorter.
I love to vote. Reminding me to vote is like reminding Cheney to frown, it's going to happen whether asked or not.
Oh, someone once asked what a yellow-dog democrat was-- it's a Democrat who'd vote for a yellow-dog for an office before I'd vote for a Republican.
Here's the actual quote by a Democrat in 1928:
"I'd vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket"
There's a whole history about Yellow dogs (and now merchandise)... http://www.yellowdogdemocrat.com/history.htm |
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| Gratitude Journal |
[Sep. 13th, 2004|11:58 pm] |
1. Family & friends, family & friends, family & friends
2. Thousands of different kinds of purses
3. Leftover pasta from Spaghetti Factory
4. A happy greyhound
5. Ant farms
6. Elizabeth Bishop
7. Cheesy magazines
8. Corduroy pants
9. Kelly purses
10. Chinese hot mustard
11. Oprah & free cars
12. A clean living room
13. Shakespeare's sonnets
14. Poet parties & spring rolls
15. Wood Works Press broadsides |
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