In other news, I've been busy, but not necessarily in a good way. HR at Stuffolk royally fucked up when it came to my non-maternity-leave maternity leave (we have "maternity disability" because, of course, having a child is JUST like having a gimpy leg), and informed me a week ago that I wouldn't be receiving my salary for all of July and August. Luckily, for everyone involved, we came to some agreement that I would work all of the 7.5 days I missed in May and didn't have enough sick time to cover (for, you know, my "disability") by the end of June. So I've been in the office. Working on stuff for our annual Creative Writing Festival. With my baby and my mother, who came for a little vacation but was instantly put to work. She's an awfully good sport. So's the baby, for that matter.
So, you know. Fun and excitement never stops over here!
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Also, I now have an author web site of sorts. It's still kinda under construction. But here it is, if you've nothing better to do. (I hope you do.)
Get yer minds out of the gutter, folks! "It" refers to one's self, one's consciousness, the essential voice that one shares with the world when one publishes a poem, or an essay, or an article -- or an essay on poetry printed in a journal, such as this one by my friend Stephanos Papadopoulos in the Los Angeles Review of Books last week.
I love this essay. It's beautifully written, introduces me to poets I was not familiar with previously, and speaks to an issue that's timely and relevant. Also, and more importantly, I think it does what an essay should do, which is similar to a function of poetry: to raise a question that weighs on the mind of the writer, to reflect on that question, to explore that question. It may or may not answer that question, but you follow the writer's process as he or she thinks. (This idea -- of the essay as a mode of thinking -- is the most difficult to teach in Freshman Comp.)
Of course, as I said above, the author is my friend so I may be a little biased. In the past week, however, this article has kept popping up all over the place -- so, perhaps, I'm not the only one who admires it.
First, there was this:
And then this mention, which I almost missed at the bottom of the Boston Review newsletter:
So, you know, maybe my taste in essays isn't suspect! (Or maybe these just prove that it IS suspect. Hmmm . . .)
ANYWAY, usually the best essays, like the best poems, end with a kind of
jumping off point for further discussion. S.P.'s essay is written in sections, and each section begins with a question and then comes to a quiet summation -- nothing forceful or showy, but the author's sober insight about the role of Greek poetry in the past and at present. These insights are, naturally, based on the author's perception and so may be debatable depending on the perspective and experience of the reader, such as this one from the comments section of the LARB:
danasta•
3 days ago •Essay reinforces stereotypes
initially but the poetry is more interesting. people borrow all over the
world--Greek borrowed cars? Greek private debt to GDP is very low (most
own homes, credit card use is low)--it's the gov't debt that's high. I
traveled to Greece recently and I found that the reality doesn't jibe
with the perception. The problem is corruption on high--the people live
their lives with more general restraint when it comes to consumerism
than the majority of countries I've visited in the west. But Greeks tend
to think it's the borrowing/consumerist tendencies that are killing
them.
While I'm not sure I can agree with the point of view of a tourist when I've just read a an essay BY A GREEK CITIZEN AND SOMEONE WHO LIVES PART OF HIS LIFE THERE (!!!), at least this comment was put forth with some intention to engage in a conversation with the author and other readers. This next example gives the impression that the comment's author would like to engage in conversation, but he or she doesn't, really. He or she just wants to sound intelligent, so he or she bandies around some big-time-stuff vocab and essentially skirts any topic that the essay actually dealt with:
Working class poet•
6 days ago
•This essay makes it clear that
the translation of poetry practices in Greece for an international
audience only reproduces hegemonic practices of poetry within Greece
(with all the rewards that this positioning provides). Can we imagine an
alternative telling?
I love, love, LOVE, however, how "Working Class Poet" (note the irony between Working Class Poet's diction and his/her title? Isn't it charming? READ: IT'S NOT CHARMING) is more or less shut down by another reader who recognizes Working Class Poet's game:
Working class poet•
6 days ago
•This essay makes it clear that
the translation of poetry practices in Greece for an international
audience only reproduces hegemonic practices of poetry within Greece
(with all the rewards that this positioning provides). Can we imagine an
alternative telling?
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA. Ahem.
And then there's the guy who doesn't really want to engage in any kind of conversation, even the appearance of it -- he just wants to promote his own work:
*Groan* This guy wants to talk at you, not with you.
I have such a love-hate relationship with the comments section in the online world. I cannot read the comments section of most news outlets. One can only take so much vitriol and stupidity. The comments section of online publications like the LARB are usually filled with far less vitriol and stupidity, but as we can see, even the LARB has its off days. I love hearing what other people, other readers (THOSE ITALICS ARE DIRECTED AT YOU, YANNIS LIVADAS) have to say about articles -- particularly when they introduce an idea or concept or opinion I hadn't considered before. Sadly, though, such comments are few and far between.
And so it strikes me as an act of bravery to publish in the online world -- to, essentially, put yourself out there. Not in blogs, like this one, because such blogs have a small and limited readership (usually) and that's like preaching to the choir (Heeeey, choir! What's up, my peeps?). But in online publications that have a wide, diverse readership -- to print is to be very brave. Particularly when one is writing about issues close to the heart . . . because any jackass can comment, and comment anonymously, and in some cases, carelessly and viciously.
Sometimes I wonder if that's why I've dragged my feet on so many writing projects, and most particularly, non-poetry writing projects, in the past. Because I lack that kind of courage. Nevermind that there's no guarantee I'd ever see those projects published -- but just the idea of presenting my thoughts to others, my arguments, which I've always been incredibly self-conscious about -- makes me freeze up when it comes to the act of writing. The idea of seeing others react, and not just in a negative way, but in a way that tears apart or destroys my argument, terrifies me into stasis. I'm afraid, admittedly, of being told there's a flaw in my thinking.
Why is that? I mean, so what? What is so devastating about being wrong? Maybe it has something to do with traumatic grade school experiences (not that I can think of any, offhand). Maybe it has something more to do with a graduate school experience (which I can remember, quite vividly, thank you very much). Graduate school was probably too late in the game, however, and that experience is too easy a target. I think this fear was formed earlier than my mid-twenties. Anyway, psycho-analysis of myself is boring -- but I think the first three questions of this paragraph are interesting.
I mean, it's obvious to say that often we feel attacked when someone criticizes or attacks the product of our intellectual efforts, particularly if we build our identity around those efforts (as opposed to, say, a Kim Kardashian type, who clearly builds her sense of identity with something different). (Sorry K.K. You're an easy target. And I haven't had enough caffeine to think of a less-easy target.) (Less-easy . . . damn. Sorry again, K.K.)
ANYWAY. . . But why does it mean so much? Why is it so difficult to separate ourselves from our thinking? After all, as the comments section of Newsday or HuffPost will demonstrate, more of us should separate ourselves from our thinking!
Are our egos that fragile? Is my ego that fragile? (And inflated? Is this fear a sign of the inflated ego?)
Questions to end with. Questions to begin a new blog post with. Sadly, some other time -- the boy and the baby demand some attention now. (I've been a writing hog today and pushed my luck. The boy is MAD. As you can see from the pic on the right. The baby has been sleeping.)
I did a lot of interweb reading over the month of April. As I read, I'd cut and paste each and every link I liked, or wanted to comment on, into a draft blog post on my smartphone. I'm finally getting to the point where I have a few moments to spare/type unencumbered on a real keyboard (I'm probably jinxing myself by even thinking I have a few moments to spare), and I decided I'd better get to this post before it became completely unwieldy and/or boring.
April, National Poetry Month, brought with it a slew of "poem-a-day" posts to my email inbox, because I belong to two listservs, the Poem-A-Day from the poets.org (the Academy of American Poets web site) and Audio Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation. Generally, I find that I like the taste of whoever manages the Poetry Foundation's listserv more than I like the taste of whoever manages the Academy of American Poets listserv.
For instance, early in the month, I received this through Poem-A-Day. For those of us too lazy to open the link (don't worry, my hand is raised over here, too), these are the first four lines of the excerpted piece, from Anselm Berrigan's "Primitive State":
Thingitation righteousness for pre-avail to drive away the mighty kraken
Put me in a room full of strangers and leave me alone
...cauldron in twine, disarray as fair game, keen ablution borne skeezed ...
Forced into assertions by a lack of attention
WTF, man? I mean, really. W. T. F. I have so little patience for poems like this . . . the associative leaping thing. It's not that the poem asks me to work hard; it's not that I don't "get it" because I'm not reading carefully. It's that I don't find much reward for the work I do when I engage with the poem. It asks that I work, and then it doesn't provide much pleasure.
Aside from my fondness for the kraken, I find little here that compels me to read further. I don't like the second line because I find it smacks of a sullen four-year old (A.B., or speaker for A.B.'s poem, if you want me to leave you alone why are you making me read this godawful stuff?) (and believe me, I'm totally schooled in 4-year old sullenness at the moment). I suppose I like the music of "keen ablution borne skeezed" but it's kind of like Katy Perry's music: Sure, she can sing, but what the fuck is she singing about? OH! Oh! I'm like what? A firework? Do I care? No! Moving on . . .
Old A.B. (Or not-so-old A.B., as his Poetry Foundation bio reveals, as he was born in 1972) is the progeny of poets Alice Notley and Ted Berrigan. I'm not gonna go on some tirade about nepotism -- although holy hell, the boy's published four books already and he's just a smidge over forty. FOUR BOOKS. FILLED WITH POETRY THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE JUST LIKE THIS POEM. Instead, instead, INSTEAD OF GOING ON A RANT ABOUT NEPOTISM, I'll say that having parents with such a pedigree, couldn't they have taught him about restraint?
Perhaps I'm being mean. My chances of ever meeting A.B. are slim, and I think that the chance he'll ever read my blog is slim, too -- but let's imagine for a moment that I had to actually look A.B. in the face someday knowing that he'd read this post . . . how would I feel?
I think that's an interesting question. I'm sure critics deal with this all the time, and I suppose I'd like to know how they reconcile their taste with their humanity. Some people say that cultivating taste and having discretion and being honest IS having humanity, but I think I'd have a difficult time being in a conversation with someone after calling their work crap.
And to be honest, I don't find A.B.'s work complete crap. I do find it self-indulgent. I do find it not-to-my-taste. I guess I wish people like those at poetry.org wouldn't applaud such work, and send it out into the world as an example of excellent poetry. Because if I'm going to have a poem show up in my inbox every day, and take time and attention away from all the things that are demanding my attention also, can't I demand that those poems be not just rewarding, but an example of excellence?
And so, to answer my question above, I guess I'd feel, well, not exactly comfortable, but okay, saying to A.B.'s old A.B.-face, "Sorry, A.B., but I don't think that piece was the best." I think poetry.org should have done better.
Of course, I'm not half so witty or cutting as David Yezzi, who offered this gem when writing about Mary (yawn) Oliver in The New Criterion:
One of the things I plan to do is pass up, inasmuch as possible, reading more poems like this one.
Thingitation righteousness for pre-avail to drive away the mighty kraken
Put me in a room full of strangers and leave me alone
...cauldron in twine, disarray as fair game, keen ablution borne skeezed...
Forced into assertions by a lack of attention - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23430?utm_source=PAD%3A+from+Primitive+State+by+Anselm+Berrigan&utm_campaign=poemaday_040413&utm_medium=email#sthash.hXZPhGXS.dpuf
Thingitation righteousness for pre-avail to drive away the mighty kraken
Put me in a room full of strangers and leave me alone
...cauldron in twine, disarray as fair game, keen ablution borne skeezed...
Forced into assertions by a lack of attention - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23430?utm_source=PAD%3A+from+Primitive+State+by+Anselm+Berrigan&utm_campaign=poemaday_040413&utm_medium=email#sthash.hXZPhGXS.d
Zing!
I thoroughly enjoyed Yezzi's essay, which was about how poetry today doesn't take enough risks. A.P. thought he didn't quite get it right -- A.P. blames readers instead, and in particular, those readers and/or publishers who reside in or just came out of MFA programs . . . and how, according to taste, those readers aren't willing to do enough hard work to understand or appreciate poems that aren't, as Yezzi describes them, "the genial revelation, the sweetly poignant middle-aged lament, the winsome ode to the suburban soul."
(Am I paraphrasing you correctly, A.P.?)
Of course, using the standards established by this essay, perhaps A. Berrigan's work holds up, because it does take risks. But I'm not sure that flirting with difficulty or providing a not-so genial revelation is strong or reasonable criteria for good poetry.
OR, perhaps this is good poetry, but I can't recognize that, because it doesn't suit my personal taste. I prefer poems that are less showy, less antagonistic, and more musical, more subtle: if they're going to be antagonistic, insidiously so . . .
Well. That's enough for now. More tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or whenever I can find time to jump in here again.
Welp, I'm not going to blog for long since I've been reduced to using my smart phone for almost all types of communication -- I'm rarely able to put the baby down for long enough to sit at the computer, and using the laptop when my lap is already occupied by a sleeping or nursing baby is impossible ...
But I wanted to post, maybe by way of public resolution, that I'm going to at least READ a lot of poetry this month if I can't find time or space or the requisite quiet inside my head to WRITE it. So many people are participating in the poem-a-day exercise I started to feel a little out of the loop ... And then I looked down at my smushy kissable Vampire Baby (who, while adorable, is still sucking my life force from me, even if she's now outside the womb) and said ... Fuck NaPoWriMo or whatever the hell it's called, I have a BABY... And then I said to myself, since the baby was asleep and the dogs were outside and there was really no one else to talk to ..."Self, stop being surly. Good for those who can write a poem a day. You've NEVER been able to do that, even when you had all the time in the world ...." And THEN I said, "Self, pick up a damn book, you lazy bastard" and then I stopped talking to myself, 'cause things were getting weird.
So I just finished Brooklyn Copeland's chapbook with Hyacinth Girl Press, "Salt Ballads," which combines Copeland's original poems with translations of the work of Swedish poet Edith Sodergran. I liked it -- Copeland's work pairs nicely with the small fragments she's borrowed from Sodergran. It's an interesting conversation in verse.
My goal for April, then, is to move through the rest of the HGP chaps that I haven't read yet, and some of the back issues of lit journals that have been gathering dust since this strange new year began.
And occasionally I'll post my thoughts about that reading here, as well as cool things I find on the interwebs, like this:
I've spawned! Sunday, March 10, 10:56 p.m. To one super squirmy infant (7 lbs, 15 oz, 20 inches long -- for those who care about the stats) who has decided to be just like her older sister: a night owl.
We're not sleeping much these days, but we forgive her. She's squishy and fun to cuddle.
I'm not taking an official hiatus from the blog, since this blog isn't really an official, respectable piece of interweb fodder anyway, but it'll probably take a while before I can write often or with any regularity. I do intend to write, though -- this is, after all, a very cathartic exercise for me. And having to adjust to this new three-child system may call for a little bit of catharsis, methinks.
The past two weeks have been filled with grading, emails, web site updates for the festival, and other school business that has consumed my thoughts and my time constantly -- when I'm not panicking about giving labor birth, that is.
Last week I thought I might be going into labor, but it turned out that I just had a stomach bug. Strange, I know -- but apparently the signs of early labor can mimic those of the flu. That was fun! I had to cancel some classes and deplete my already-insufficient stock of sick leave, so now I'm in the process of pleading with HR to allow my office mate to donate sick time to me -- all so that I have enough days to finish out the semester.
Otherwise, I'm going to drag my postpartum ass back into the office in May for five days and grade final exams . . . because fuck the system, that's why. They don't want to grant us maternity leave? Fine. I'll do what I think is unprofessional and pedagogically disastrous and return for the end of the semester to "teach" for five days (meaning, I'll collect final projects that my substitute professors have assigned and then grade them. That should provide some nice consistency for our students, who are already having their semester disrupted by my departure at the end of the week.)
Somewhere early on I did manage to send out a lot of manuscript (chapbook and full-length) and journal submissions, so it's nice to know I'll have some work circulating, and doing some work, in the months immediately following Vampire Baby's birth. (Vampire Baby is ginormous, by the way, according to my latest appointment with the midwife. And in other news, "ginormous" is considered a word by Blogger's dictionary.) I'm wondering when/if I'll get back to the business of writing anytime soon, though -- my head has certainly not been clear or relaxed enough to write over the past two weeks. I'm kind of hoping that I get a little bit of "down time" between my last day of classes (this Friday, March 8), and the baby's arrival.
That probably won't happen -- but I'll just hold on to the dream for a few more days . . . it'll help me get through the week and the 80+ papers I have to finish grading by Thursday.
And of course, while all of this is going on I've been grumpily and jealously reading everyone's AWP updates on Facebook. Judging by my News Feed on the ol' effbook, it feels like everyone will be in Boston but me this week. I'm being childish and sullen about it, I know, but I was really looking forward to the conference this year. Of course, I thought my chapbook might be ready by then, too, but apparently that's not happening, so I guess that if I'm going to miss AWP, at least I'm not also missing the publication of my first (hopefully "first," not "only") chapbook. (I did want to catch up with certain friends, though, and be part of that writing community once again for a few short days, and listen to Walcott and Heaney banter back and forth during the keynote . . . but *sigh* . . . it was not to be . . .)
So I'm going to go tackle some of that grading now . . . if I can manage to stay awake. (It shouldn't be too difficult, actually -- the puppy is laying on the bed with me and destroying a chew toy as loudly as possible, a situation that's not very conducive to sleep.) So, to conclude a post lacking any real substance, but certainly ripe with lots of complaining, here are two links to items I found interesting:
No Justice Done to Poetry at The Inauguration: On Richard Blanco in The Contemporary Poetry Review (I like this last review. It makes some really good points, I think -- and remember, I liked Blanco's inaugural poem -- but without feeling like an attack on Blanco's character or without resorting to any "Blanco sucks" kind of schtick.)
