Interview's up!

I was interviewed this summer by Dan Jaffe for his "Talking Across the Table" series; the interview is up now and you can read it here. The blog is mentioned at the end, but the URL isn't provided. Of course, if you're heading there from here, that's not a problem. I'll see about getting that fixed.

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I'm still leading off each class session by reading a "daily poem" (though I forget every now and then). Here's the list so far, including this week's scheduled poems:

• Thomas Lux, "Virgule" (Split Horizon)
• Tess Gallagher, "I Stop Writing the Poem" (Moon Crossing Bridge)
• David Groff, "Birthing" (Theory of Devolution)
• Tony Hoagland, "Fred Had Watched a Lot of Kung Fu Episodes" (Donkey Gospel)
• Linda Bierds, "Seizure" (The Ghost Trio)
• Ron Koertge, "The History of Poetry" (Making Love to Roget's Wife)
• Betsy Sholl, "Back with the Quakers" (Late Psalm)
• Robert Pinsky, "Poem of Disconnected Parts" (Poetry, Feb 2006)
• Tony Hoagland, "Self-Improvement" (Donkey Gospel)
• Mary Ruefle, "Glory" (Cold Pluto)
• Terry Ehret, "At the End of the Season the Apples" (Lost Body)

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I have eaten three tomatoes from my windowsill plants. They're exquisitely tart, almost citrusy. Such a treat.

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In my foundation seminar, I like to save time for a short writing prompt: usually a brief phrase with some kind of fill-in-the-blank element, something that arises from my expectation of where the day's discussion might lead. We start with the prompt and write like hell for about five minutes, and then the brave among us read what we've written. This morning's prompt was My parents looked _____. Just for the hell of it, here's mine:

My parents looked unhappy. They looked like they were waiting at the dentist's office. My parents looked at the table, looked at their hands. My parents looked out the window. They did not look at me. My parents looked tired, battle-weary. She looked beaten. He, he looked guilty. My parents looked like they were about to speak. My parents chewed their potatoes and peas. The sound sticky and loud in the dining room, where my sister sat goggly-eyed in her high chair, trying to put her whole hand into her mouth. My parents looked like someone else's. Her green eyes--none of us had those. His yellowed fingers, the black wiry hairs on his knuckles. My hands were scabbed, my nails bitten to the quick; sometimes I'd pick at the skin until it bled. I had weak hands and I punished them. My parents' argument felt like a hover of gnats that wanted to morph into hornets, break the window, sting us all to death. My parents were danger.