mimsy and outgrabe

Grainy shot of my neighbor's zinnia. And butterfly. In the wake of Micro-Sabbatical Summer 2018, I've kept writing and done some small fine-tooth-comb type edits to poems that I've written this summer -- which happen to number FOURTEEN, if you're curious.  I know, I know, I'm just as shocked as you are.  My workspace in August, feat. coffee, sprinklers, bug spray, knee. I know that for other writers this isn't really a big deal, but I know also that there are some of you who understand this feeling -- this feeling of having been treading water for a really, really, really long time and then finally venturing toward some distant shore. The shore may be really far off in the fucking distance, but you're finally able to swim toward it. Maybe that's a lame and expected metaphor.  But I warned you -- I'm still rusty. Yesterday I met with M.S. and we shared with each other the work we've been attempting to eke out this summer, som...

The first week of the academic year went relatively smoothly, although when yesterday came around I was massively under-prepared and so didn't eat much all day OR have a dinner plan for the kids pre- or post- soccer practice. The result was that I was exhausted by 9 p.m., but for all of that chaos, it was still a good day. While it's still too early to confirm any first impressions, the students in my classes are really engaged this year and it's not been an uphill battle to get them to participate in discussion. (And that can really make all the difference. Talking "at" a silent crowd is really, like, the worst. Particularly if they're a silently hostile crowd.) The things that distract me at soccer practice. I teach three classes back to back on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and that makes for a day without much room for error. I just need to prepare more on Monday and Wednesday nights to make sure everything goes smoothly. The week was made a little...

"Be happy; you're writing from the privilege of all your wits about you in your old age, under the thorn acacias by the noon sea, the light on all the places you have painted and hope to paint with the strenuous accuracy of joy, the village houses, the streets untainted by any history, by any thought or shadow on the blank canvas except from the sky; be grateful that each craft stays hard to do. In what will be your last book make each place as if it had just been made, already old, but new again from naming it." -- from "The Prodigal" by Derek Walcott Sure, this little ars poetica at the end of "The Prodigal" is the poet speaking to himself at the end of an illustrious career, and there are few parallels I can draw between the speaker of these lines and myself, but the passage serves as this lovely reminder of the joy found in the act of creation. And that in the end, we fight death by giving birth, over and over again, with new poem...

Today I'm coming off that glow that arrives during, and just after, working on something you're obsessing over for about 24 hours straight. It's amazing how empty I can feel of ideas and music and language for so long and then, thankfully, they all come back in a flood and I create something that makes me excited, happy, and that I read and feel like, "yeah, that's a poem ."  In one of my graduate classes, back when I was a fucking baby with stars in my eyes, Derek Walcott said that most of what we write, if we're lucky, is just good verse. Every once in a while (for him), or once in a lifetime (me), we write a poem. So currently I feel like I wrote a poem, but knowing myself fairly well at this point, I'm conscious of the fact that a few months from now I'll probably look back at the piece and regard it as merely good verse. And that's okay. Because there are fewer stars in my eyes and I'm not quite so young (although maybe I act...

The reading went really well -- a lovely, sizable audience (the IOTA Poetry Series has been going on for well over a decade, and has a dedicated following), and a good opportunity to read poems outside of the context A. and I established with our "Poets on Childlessness and Parenthood" tour. Instead, we could just read poems. I read about 10 minutes from the chapbook and then 10 minutes of poems from the rest of the Fabulous Beast ms, and A. read a lovely selection from his book, Little Songs and Lyrics to Genji .  Here we are in action: (HA!) Isn't this backdrop kind of amazing? Photograph of me and this guy's bald head courtesy of my baby sister, Lil' K. Also, I had a snifter of Bourbon Barrel Stout. Drinking beer out of a snifter is pretentious and really shouldn't be condoned, but sometimes it has to be done. It was worth the risk of looking like an asshole. It was delicious. Beer and poems aside, I'm amazed that I managed to g...

Little Miss Talkalot is Little Miss Very Sad. Because she's caught some kind of virus replete with fever, she missed the Valentine's Day celebrations at school yesterday and she's missing today's 100th day of school celebrations. (Apparently, there's always something to celebrate in our elementary school, which really isn't a bad way to live life, is it?) A. stayed home with the girl yesterday, and today it's my turn. I'm missing two meetings and cancelling the same class I had to cancel on Friday when the boy was diagnosed with strep throat. This season of illness is kicking my butt. It's been a week since I assumed the new administrative role and yet I haven't really had a chance to fulfill its duties. But at the very least, I can say that I'm not falling behind in four classes, just one. Also, it's just really weird to see my daughter so sick. And it's not that she's near-death, but that we're just not used to seeing ...

I'm super-tired at the moment, but fairly content. This has been a rough week, with a lot of changes occurring during a very small time frame at work. I wasn't really expecting this to happen -- in fact, I was striving to have a calm, non-interesting semester in terms of teaching and commitments at the college, but once again I've completely abandoned my previous notions and expectations in order to thoroughly embrace something new and exciting but also potentially disastrous! 'Cause, apparently, that's how I roll. I took on a temporary administrative position at the college that will, hopefully, help out my department and also be a good fit for me in terms of easing back into teaching and working full-time. The colleagues I've asked for advice are evenly divided as to whether this will actually happen. Some think that the job will allow me to accomplish more when I'm physically at work, so that when I return home I can emotionally/mentally "be...

I'm so, so thrilled to share this announcement that Hyacinth Girl Press, a feminist micro press, is going to publish the collection I've been referring to as my fable/"sow" poems in the upcoming year. HGP is a small, new, and energetic endeavor run by Margaret Bashaar, a poet and editor in Pittsburg, PA, and her handmade books and enthusiasm for poetry and poetry written by women are equally beautiful. This is a fantastic way to begin the new year. Did I say earlier that I couldn't quite get my head around 2012? This helps, certainly. And in other, slightly less thrilling announcements, I'm nearly finished with Chapter VIII (page 15!) of the fairy tale. Still haven't managed to complete any prep work for the new semester or even order my books, but I'm feeling fairly productive nonetheless. That is, I was productive, until the HGP announcement came out and now I'm all hyper and happy and jittery. Even still, I'm going to attempt to go ...

After several years of writing, it's comforting to know that you can change and be changed by your writing processes. It's affirmation, I guess, that some parts of you are still growing, and changing without shutting down -- unlike other parts of your being, like your skin and your hair. (Hi sunspots! Hey grey hairs! I'm old!) Yesterday, after having a fairly successful day of writing, I was thinking about how very different my habits have become since I was given this time to write. For years -- years -- I felt an impediment that I called "writer's block" but was probably just good ol' fashioned mania. I never really slowed down long enough -- or separated myself from work, family, and outside noise for long enough -- to focus earnestly on my writing. To be honest, I'm not even sure I did that during grad school -- the one (or most likely) time in your life you're given explicit permission by family, society, and your checkbook to focus entir...

I'm due for my beginning-of-the-month Survey of Completed Sabbatical Work, which more often than not tends to be part of my Continued Sabbatical Freakout. So here I am, ready to take stock of what I accomplished in November -- but surprisingly, even though this precious writing time is dwindling away, I'm significantly less freaked out than I was a month ago. I'm not finished with my Fairytale Poem -- but I've made good progress. I feel so much more sure of myself since I returned to the original storyline and began working revisions of those original lyric poems into the narrative. I realize that last sentence kinda sounds like a recipe for disaster, and I suppose it's very possible that the project could, indeed, turn out to be a disaster, but I'm confident that it won't. For now I'm confident, at least. I finished reading Blank Verse: A Guide to Its History and Use by Robert B. Shaw yesterday, and I would like to go on record as saying that Robe...

Today was good! I managed to turn in the freelance reading group guide I was a business-day behind on (if I'm not careful, they're not gonna use me anymore), AND finish my latest myth poem, AND get the oil changed in my car before our trip to Virginia tomorrow. I felt so productive I'm taking a little time-out, although this could be a bad move because there's a pile of clean laundry downstairs that's about 4 feet deep and needs to be folded. How DOES one household generate so much laundry? Oh, AND, I'm writing in my blog while the boy takes a late-in-the-day nap and the girl does . . . wait, what is that child doing? Why is it so quiet in here? *Pause for investigation* She's playing Angry Birds while her brother naps. Phew. So anyway, where was I? Writing about writing in my blog. Oh yeah -- THERE'S another accomplishment. (To tell you the truth, I'm feeling a little guilty about letting her play video games, and then admitting it online, but ...

I begin the weekend with a rare feeling of enthusiasm and optimism about my work. It's not that I usually start my weekends feeling pessimistic and ambivalent -- about life in general OR about my writing. It's just that I have absolutely nothing going on this weekend but hanging out with my kids. Since my husband's out of town, I'm going to attempt productivity in the downtime I have (early morning, nap time, those odd moments when they're playing with one another peacefully, and after they're in bed.) After writing for the past two days, I believe I've found the happy middle ground with my accursed fairytale poem that I've been searching for, in earnest, since August. It's not time to rest on my laurels can, either. (I don't have laurels. I do, however, have a can. A can in desperate need of some treadmill time, too.) I am all too aware that I made a pledge in my last post to be finished with this manuscript by the end of the month. Of cours...