mimsy and outgrabe

Little Miss Talkalot is almost thirteen now and is slumping more and more into that sullen nontalking teen thing, so the name doesn't really suit her anymore. It IS, however, really really apt for her sister, who is no longer as vampire-like as she used to be (a huge surprise to everyone).  Soooooooo, the little one is going to be referred to from now on as Little Miss Talkalot the Second and the big-but-not-as-big-as-she-wants-to-be will go by Little Miss Tween (up until, of course, the day she actually turns into a teenager). Little Miss is not necessarily supposed to be a condescending diminutive but more of a nod to some favorite, exceedingly-bizarre books from my childhood, the Little Miss and Mister books by Roger Hargreaves. And sure, for some reason the Misters never had "Little" added to their names and that's sexist and terrible but really, they're just incredibly strange British children's books and their strangeness is kind of wonderful and i...

I've been feeling a little uncomfortable with my interview in the Hand of Wheel podcast this week. Not because of Maura and Haele, the hosts, or the fact of the interview itself, but in my relatively privileged response to some of their questions, primarily about the MFA. I feel a little douchey. Douchy. How does one make douche an adjective? Anyway. I feel alternately like a shit heel, and then defensive of my relatively low and insignificant place in the world of poetry, because it's a hard-won place even if it is cramped and spectacularly unremarkable. Also, listening to yourself laugh has got to be one of the most torturous exercises ever. But I'm getting sidetracked. I cringed inside whenever I heard myself say something on the podcast that I felt could, quite easily, be countered reasonably (and/or unreasonably attacked by internet trolls). A skilled rhetorician I am not, and it's quite evident here. And yet, part of me shrugs, too: nothing is accomplis...

As you may have guessed from the stunning lack of posts on this blog over the past few months, I haven't had a lot of time for outside reading. I did, however, have a few minutes in the middle of the night (while feeding Vampire Baby) to catch up on some of my blog reading, and I stumbled on this lovely and sad piece of flash fiction by Jen Knox. Also, one of my former colleagues (now happily retired and writing full time), interviewed me about Fabulous Beast: The Sow over at The Best American Poetry Blog, and the post went live this week. I babbled on for way too long and L.E. probably should have edited my answers, but it was fun to talk about the poems and be forced to think about the process of writing them, and why I made certain aesthetic choices. (I should note, too, that it took me over a month to answer six simple, direct, good questions from L.E., who has endless patience with me. He's a good friend.) Anyway, onward and upward  . . . or sideways and backwa...