Grasping

Just walked to the office, schlepping a bunch of hanging file folders: I'm trying to sort & organize old files and to take advantage of the two roomy file cabinets in my new office. So much paper ends up in boxes. Less these days--I'd say I achieved a major shift about a year ago, after working toward it for a while: a combination of requiring my students to turn in 90% of their work online and of finally becoming more efficient with (and trusting of) my computer and laptop (and those handy USB jumpdrive thingies).

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We were treated to a nice dinner last night by Steve & Kathryn, who picked us up. Three orders of blackened salmon with mango salsa, two orders of watermelon gazpacho (yummy, but could have been more picante for my taste--can't wait to make some!), one order of basil chicken over couscous. I wanted coffee after, but refrained.

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Nice to see Robin Becker featured on Poetry Daily today. I love her work and can't see why she's not, well, bigger. Looking forward to reading the new book, Domain of Perfect Affection.

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New fun word: planemos. They're planets that orbit each other rather than circling a star. Several have been found over the years, but apparently this new pair is causing a buzz.
One quote from this BBC article made me grin: "They appear to have been forged from a contracting gas cloud, in a similar way to stars, but are much too cool to be true stars."

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Just got a call from HR: time to schedule my benefits meeting. Sweet words: health insurance. After three years without. (Happy feet!)

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Still working on the new story. It's coming through slowly, about a page a day, but still feels much larger than I initially thought. This is a good thing; it means I'm letting it be what it wants to be instead of clamping down and prodding it into some safe form/length/shape. Here's an excerpt from what I wrote Thursday morning:

Charlie leaned closer, examining the mask: a papier mache Green Man composed of individual leaves, each hand-layered onto a paper pulp base form. I tried to construct the mask based on photos I’d made of Nelson sleeping on the sofa—hands folded across his chest, exhaustion tugging his features like gravity itself, he always looked like he was practicing—but in the end, I asked him to model for it.

“A death mask?” he mused, arching his eyebrows.

“I’m thinking more of a Green Man.”

“What, again?” he groaned, and I remembered the afternoon I’d posed him endlessly amid the branches of a bushy camphor tree on the lawn near the Menil Museum. The tree had been cut to the ground at some point, but multiple trunks had arisen to ring the central stump, a platform I coaxed Nelson to stand upon. Shooting roll after roll of film in the late afternoon light, I coached as he peered dutifully from the glossy thick leaves—a little more covering the forehead, now just the left side—while his patient expression turned weary, then stoic, then openly curious: had I captured the essence I was asking him to provide? Were we through yet?

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[photo: gourd vine climbing past our (second-story) bathroom window, 8/2/06]

Farewell to the Fishers

All right. I am officially lifting my ban against any discussion of the Six Feet Under final season. We watched the last episode tonight, open-mouthed and leaning forward during the end sequence, which was, I think, in the heady minutes after, simply perfect. The final shot of Claire--the eyes! Wow.

[photo: crow leaving maple, 8/3/06]

Update: click here to watch the final sequence on YouTube.

The squeaky wheel...

...precedes the emphatic clunk. Or it did this afternoon, anyway. On our way back from State College, where we had a rapturous birthday lunch at Say Sushi, the truck started making squealy noises. A loose belt? I wondered, itching to loosen my own after so much exquisite food. And so affordable. So worth the wait (we make the pilgrimage to Say Sushi maybe twice a year). Anyway, in the middle of our journey, in a dark wood (literally, the road passes through Bald Eagle State Forest, and we were following two wide-hipped RV campers) the squealing escalated to a grating crescendo, and Randy couldn't get the truck back into gear. "Let's coast," I suggested brightly, as we slalomed down the mountain road. Meaning: please don't let the fun end here. Meaning: think of the towing charges. And we coasted a bit, and the truck slipped back into 4th. Fourth was fine with me. Fifth gear? Ehh, overrated, who really needs it, we're two queers in a pickup truck, we don't need to go over 45 mph on a rural mountain road.

And so we tooled along, holding our breath. "If we make it to town, should we just drop the truck directly at Buck's?" asked Randy. (They know our truck at Buck's. They just fixed the starter two weeks ago. In fact, they had to re-fix the clutch two summers ago, after it went out on my trip to New York--another story, but the damn clutch went out on the George Washington Bridge! As Cher said in her farewell concert after riding a sequined elephant onto the stage, "Top that, you bitches." But I digress.) Sounded like a good idea to me.

Out of the woods. Passing Cowan, which meant maybe eight miles to go. At this point I'm thinking, we need groceries. "If it still sounds okay when we get home, maybe we can use it to run errands this weekend and take it over to Buck's on Monday," I suggested hopefully.

Three miles to go. KERRRRRR-R-R-GRRR-R-THWOK-UNK-UNK! Or something like that. A loud, grinding, heavy sound of something mechanical popping out of place and emphatically not going back in. "Can we coast?" I asked (meekly). Not into town of course--I'm not a complete frothing idiot--but maybe a few hundred yards, say to that gravelly patch up yonder? And we did. And at that point, I realized (again) why we carried cell phones.

Thanks to Deirdre and Bill, for driving out to pick us up.

[photo: cast-off lawn mower flywheel (or something mechanical from a lawn mower; what do I know, I'm no rocket scientist), 3/1/06]

46...

... tomorrow. I don't feel a day over 45.


[photo: bicycle sprocket in store window, 7/22]

Okay, I know I said I would never complain about the heat again after leaving Houston, but...

... this is ridiculous. I got lightheaded just walking home this afternoon.

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Reading Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood this week: I've only read her stories and letters before. I was hooked immediately into the world of Haze Motes; my god, O'Connor can establish a voice in one deft sentence.

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Also picked up a new (for me) book by Allan Gurganus from the library--The Practical Heart (I think) (it's upstairs; I am not moving from this spot for a simple fact-check). . . I love his work. Looking forward to this one.

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We picked our first cucumber this afternoon: it's outrageously huge. The vines are loaded; I wish our tomatoes were doing as well (alas).

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I am ditching the ball game in the 9th inning (Philadelphia vs. St Louis) and heading upstairs where it's air conditioned. Though with all the southern fiction I'm reading this week, maybe I should read some John Haines or something to draw a cool northern breeze?

[photo: miniature rose in our garden, July (digitally torqued)]

New quilt layout

So I decided to piece a new quilt this week--not too large, something roughly 36 x 36 or so. I'm posting these photos in reverse order so you can see the pattern develop from the initial block, which is called a "broken dishes" pattern. Scroll down for the rest of the photos. This evening I will "square up" all the blocks (trim them to a uniform size and squared-off shape) and piece them together; tomorrow I will add borders to complete the top. Randy is planning to start quilting on it before the weekend is out, while I put the binding on the small quilt he is just finishing up.

New quilt layout (2)

Here, then, are the initial blocks, arranged on my flannel wall as they will appear in the quilt.

(A flannel wall, by the way, is simply a large sheet of flannel that's tacked to a wall: when you place and lightly press fabric pieces against it, they stay in place. This is great for figuring out block arrangements.)

New quilt layout (3)

Continuing in reverse order, here is the second block pattern--a simple four-patch--arranged on the flannel wall.

New quilt layout (4)

And here is photo #4, which shows what happens when you merge the two separate block patterns. It may be immediately apparent to some of you that there would have been an easier way to create this quilt pattern, but since I didn't know where I wanted to go with the broken dishes blocks at the start, I am happy to have arrived by this route.

Fly united

A few years ago, the Monarch butterfly population was devastated by a killing frost in Mexico; researchers waded through the bodies like dead leaves. In the summers since, I noticed very few local Monarchs, though last year there were a few. This summer, hardly a day goes by that I don't see one. On our drives up into the mountains last weekend, Monarchs were everywhere (and, given the choice, who wouldn't prefer the spectacular views, rather than risk a windshield-squashing?), although according to experts their numbers are still in a precipitous decline.

This past fall, I meant to gather some milkweed seeds: we have a small sunny area that could be set aside to grow them. I like the pinkish flowers anyway--similar in color to Joe-Pye weed, which is starting to bloom everywhere in the roadside ditches and fields, though its relatively immense height (5 to 6 feet or more) makes it an unsuitable candidate for our small back yard.

So I was delighted to capture this photo last Saturday, on an overlook of the North White Deer Ridge of Bald Eagle Mountain. Three or four Monarchs were feeding on a stand of milkweed--which also drew a hummingbird--and then we spied these two. When they eventually lifted off they were still conjoined.

[photo: mating Monarchs, 7/22/06]

Hammock time

Reading, writing and quilting. My e-mail is set to vacation mode (sort of like screening my calls--I still check messages but only answer the most interesting ones).

Stopped by the office to water plants--my Tom-Toms have 4 tomatoes!--and there was a little ant trap thingy in the hall outside my door, completely swarmed by teeny black ants. Are these sugar ants? As kids, we always called them piss ants.

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Great visit with my sis Sandy, who had business in Hershey & came on up afterward for the weekend. Bearing a box of Busken butter cookies. They're already gone. I'm still moaning. Busken's is one of the five things I miss about Cincinnati (1-4: my parents & siblings). Oh yeah, #6:Half Price Books. How I miss Half Price Books.

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Congratulations to Paul Guest: his manuscript, Notes for My Body Double, has won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize! And congrats to runner-up Stacey Waite: a thousand bucks makes second place look pretty sweet.

[photo: heirloom morning glory on our cucumber trellis]

Home stretch

Three days left of the summer semester--it's going fast--and then a weekend of somewhat mad grading, dovetailed by a visit from my sister Sandy, who'll be in Hershey for business at the end of the week. We're thinking about a jaunt up to World's End on Monday--as soon as I turn in my grades--if the weather has cooled as predicted. I just want to unwind.

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Tinkered on a little poem this morning, "The River Path": something quiet and meditative that ends with a vibrating apple. I may read it in September at the Upper Susquehanna River Basin Conference here at Bucknell. There's a poetry reading scheduled for 5:30 after a full day of topics. The conference is on Saturday, 9/23; you can get more information by emailing Hannah Holm.

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Thinking about some poems-in-progress that I'm collaborating on with my friend Darcy. I want to start a new series with him, based on lines by Cavafy.

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Eeek: need to eat some lunch and rush off to class--

[photo: canna leaf, July]

Blue gift

The neighbors went away on vacation last week. So did their neighbors, and the neighbors in the corner house. We sat in our garden and marveled at the silence, broken only by the frequent blurring of wings as numerous sparrows, house finches, cardinals, robins, one dull yellow-and-brown striped mystery bird (possibly a warbler?) and a trio of sleek gray compatriots busied themselves at the thistle feeder and birdbath. I thought the gray ones were catbirds but they lack the dark Mohawk-style cap. I don't know what they are.

The Kellys left a red vase of flowers on our patio table. I couldn't stop photographing the delphiniums. So blue.

First rain lilies of the summer

Glanced out the back door this morning and noticed that the rain lilies (zephyranthes) have send up two buds. They will prolly be open by the time I get home this afternoon, but I culdn't resist dashing out in the rain to snap a photo.

I first remember seeing zephyranthes in flower in Indiana, at my aunt's house. My family had driven out for a typical weekend visit, and as we were walking up the front steps, my mom asked what those pretty pink flowers were. "Oh I don't know the name," my aunt replied, "I just call them rain lilies." Because I have always had a naturalistic temperament (and yes, because I was a little gay boy drawn to "pretty pink flowers") I always remembered rain lilies, though I didn't see them again until my twenties when my friend Eddie Woods grew them in Lexington.

In Houston, I would stop the car to jump out and examine the smaller white-flowered zephyranthes (z. alba) and a sweet little lemon-yellow one (z. citriodora?) that grew right through the lawns of dense St. Augustine grass. And I bought pink zephyranthes bulbs at the local nursery to plant in my garden, where they multiplied like crazy.

Here in the north, the bulbs have to be protected from freezing (and, I've found, from squirrels). Two winters ago, I had them in a hanging pot that I hung in the laundry room; half of them rotted from getting too cold. So last winter I hung the pot in the basement stairwell (we have a dirt-foor basement, very spooky and totally useless except for maybe burying a body). So these flowers are a long-awaited treat.

Not so fast

Recent developments over the weekend have thrown my fall plans into a tizzy, but now that the dust has settled (and official confirmation has been sent down from the deans), I can share that I won't be editing West Branch this fall.

Instead, I'll be interim editor in the spring. All is well, all is well: instead of three courses this fall, I'll have two; instead of one in spring, two. So if you were planning to send me work after August 15, please go right ahead and do it. We always contract on an either/or basis (your poem, "Child Drowned in Breast Milk" [thank you Meg; I have never forgotten that] will appear in either 60 or 61--that sort of thing). I'm editing #61. For #60, I'm fiction ed, as usual (but still read about 20% of the poems that come in).

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We have a car. With air conditioning. For two weeks. I arose at 5 AM yesterday to accompany Betsy to the Harrisburg airport and bring her car back to Lewisburg. She's in Minnesoh-ta. I'll pick her up the day after I turn in summer grades. She says we can go anywhere we like in the car. Baltimore? I asked. Uh-huh, she said. (I'm taking Randy out for a memorable meal as soon as my summer pay hits the checking account; he so deserves it.)

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Our campus e-mail system (Eudora) filters spam in a fairly efficient manner. Stock picks slip through, as well as the occasional line of gibberish: it looks like text lifted from several sources and spliced together. Something like, well, actually, here's one from the other day:

remember. When the panic began he and all his neighbors ran to the bridge in
search back to Alice's tea party to find a scene as mad as the chamber of
without question. If someone starts fumbling or asking questions I'll hit
details were blurred - something about fighting for food, and being

This got me to noticing the subject lines in the filtered spam (one has the option to check over the list of nabbed messages, in case a "real" person is trying to get through), and I found some quirky, energetic language that seems accidental or perhaps the result of mistranslation, but nevertheless got me copying a few into my notebook. Nothing yet has come of this, but I feel something beginning to gel. All you hip language poets out there are prolly way ahead of me on this; for the rest of us I say check it out.

Here are three examples of intriguing (to me) spam subject lines: internal tiebreaker, mope-eyed, and (my favorite) mutual wow.

I love that one. I think it's going to replace "happy ending" in my sexual vocabulary.

What is it?

Last weekend while the Kellys were away, I poked around in their garden and took a few photos. Here's one I especially like. I will send a signed copy of my newest chapbook (a $10 value) to the first person who can correctly identify this plant.

[Contest limited to U.S.-dwellers only; those outside the U.S. are welcome to request a PDF file of the chapbook.]

If a tree falls on your parents' carport and you're too far away to hear it, say oh, 500 miles, how long will it take for someone to let you know?

Well it was Mom herself who finally phoned. They are fine. Could have been worse. Dad's van is totaled; they're not sure yet about Mom's car--can't go near the carport because it could fall down the rest of the way. Insurance said they'd pay to have the tree removed from the roof but not from the property. Lots of photos taken. Impressive crane and other machinery enlisted by the tree crew. Insurance companies can go suck toad urine.

Bugged

Delightful painting on the wall of the student lounge, 3rd floor of the chemistry building. Large skylight overhead, huge windows, nice sofas and tables. I had glanced out the window of my building the other day while at the soda machine and noticed some folks in various lounging poses, so decided to investigate.

Even nicer, in terms of the view anyway, is the faculty lounge on the opposite side of the hall (front of building): the tall windows provide a great panoramic view of the surrounding hills, and of the area's other major employer: the penitentiary.

Couldn't find information on the artist. Will ask.

Decisions, decisions

So yesterday, on my way to class, I was waylaid on the stairs. I was buttonholed (nicely). Gently detained. Made an offer which, though it may cost me my sanity, I do not think I can refuse:

"Ron, would you consider teaching a course overload?"

"For spring?" I warbled.

"For fall."

But I already have an overload for fall, I thought. (But it's only 15 more students, I reasoned.) But it's an extra course prep, and my summer will be nearly over when I finish teaching composition, I thought.) But I could use the same texts in the extra intro section, so in some ways it's still only three preps, I argued.) But I'm editing West Branch this fall and we have one less editor on staff already, I thought, and I have no idea if that work is equivalent to one course or--more-likely--two. (Come on, people do this all the time, look at the 4/4 loads that some of your friends are handling, I bullied.) But I won't get any writing done, I mewled. (But it's more money, I goaded.)

"We would truly appreciate your stepping up for the department in this situation." (Oh. He's still standing here. Shit.)

I blinked. How much more money? Should I ask him? Would that give the wrong impression? Wait, I'm a visiting assistant professor this year, it has to be more money than if I were adjuncting. But what if I crash and end up with horrible evaluations? Will "stepping up" offset the downtick on my student evals? Wait, wait, I can *do* this. I just won't be able to do anything else, or go anywhere, or write anything. What would Randy say?

"Thank you for asking me. I need a little time to ponder this and to talk with Randy about it."

"Of course."

And off to class I wobbled.

Beetle orgy

This photo is for Ben Grossberg, after his poem of the same title [see his chapbook, The Auctioneer Bangs His Gavel, just out from Kent State].

The roses in the Lewisburg Cemetery have been chewed to lace.

4th and long(ing)

Worked at the office today. My students had yesterday & today off--that is, we arranged to put in extra time last week so they could take the holiday--so I didn't teach. Amazing, the amount of work one can accomplish in a straight sitting. I got all caught up on their homework papers, read all my e-mail, typed up their midterm grade reports, and chatted online with a new buddy (hey, JP).

So no right to kvetch at all, but yesterday my mom phoned and we talked for a good hour, making me miss my parents acutely. I wish there were a way to pursue my career and still find time to be with them.

Good news from Pebble Lake Review: they are taking two poems. For the record, I am swearing right here, right now that the Rope Lady is fictional. Wild horses couldn't drag the rest of the story out of me. Only a book contract could do that.

Ehh, bedtime. Past bedtime. Happy 4th and all that.

Bumblebee

Snapped this photo on my morning walk to campus. There's a row of hollyhocks, all colors, planted against a garage on our alley: the lower leaves are chewed to lace each summer when the Japanese beetles emerge, but before that--before that--they're a riot of activity. It was still cool enough to catch some of the bumblebees at rest, apparently sleeping, or too drowsy to move. They practically moan with pleasure, burrowing into the hollyhocks, pollen spilling all over their brawny little bodies. Such fun to watch.

Memory lapse--and gain--and lapse

Dashed off to class today and forgot, in my haste, Jason Schneiderman's book. Didn't realize it until I got to class and dug into my bag. No daily poem. Ah, wait: closed my eyes, recited Yeats ("The Song of the Wandering Aengus"). Applause afterward, which was sweet, but really, if I could think of a justification in a comp class, I'd have them each memorize a poem.

Could have gone with Frost, or Bishop's "One Art." And gosh, I think that's all. I used to know so many poem by heart.

I remember Cynthia Macdonald, in her undergrad workshop in Houston, asked us each to memorize a poem. Everyone chose something in form--so much easier--except Nels Highberg, who impressed the shit out of me by reciting (a good part of) Adrienne Rich's "Diving Into the Wreck."

Will read Jason's poem next week. The summer session is halfway through. Then a month off before my crazy busy fall.

Hello, boys

I can' help it: I'm a sucker for Mother Nature's wonderful gags. These mushrooms sprang up in the neighbor's lawn this week. I could not resist sharing a couple of photos.

Rising rivers

The West Branch of the Susquehanna will not reach flood stage from our rain event. However, many of the counties east of us are experiencing flooding--some will be severe. We watched a house get torn in half this morning on the news.

It's all inside

I looked it up, and thanks to garden web, now I know that the long tubelike thing in the center of a tomato blossom actually encloses both male and female organs. I can't believe I didn't know this. But I see now that the paintbrush method may not work--these blossoms are so small, and they fold up in cloudy/rainy weather. I will have to resort to shaking the whole plant.

I do have a greater appreciation for the delicate work that bees accomplish.

Tacking--

--my first rejection slip of this year onto my bulletin board above the PC, where I'll see it daily at the office and remember that everyone does not share my high opinion of my work. First rejection slip, you ask? Yes, but not because I've been blessed with acceptances; this is the first clutch of poems I sent out in oh six. Looked them over last night and I still believe in them. Sending them out again today.

I'm rusty at this. Tried coasting for a while on the good news of the last chapbook, but I didn't work very hard on trying to get readings because the cover--well, I've talked about this before. This is not a whine. I showed the chap to a friend recently (because she asked) and her reading was dead-on: a group of not-quite-narratives that slowly give up the central subject, she said. And that the overwhelming word in her mind after reading them was dread. And I thought: okay, I am on the right track with this manuscript.

Tom-Tom has two blossoms, but I can't quite figure out where the pollen should be coming from (lacking office bees, I plan to use an artist's brush to pollinate them). Do tomatoes have separate male and female flowers? These look to me like big ovaries. Must read up on this.

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This week's daily poems:

• Jill Rosser, "Patience Is a Virtue" (Misery Prefigured)
• Mark Levine, "Work Song" (Debt)
• Adrienne Rich, "Dedications" (An Atlas of the Difficult World)
• Jason Schneiderman, "The Unnaming" (Sublimation Point)
• Eduardo Corral, "Border Triptych" (The Border Triptych)

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Back to grading--

Gift horse

There's a gift in our apartment. I saw it, all wrapped in nice red paper. I should have shut up and paid more attention. Now I think I am going to have to wait until my birthday.

Bad Ron, no cookie.

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This morning I woke with an image that may work as the conclusion for a short story I put away a couple of years ago. I thought about it on the way to work, and took a few minutes to record what was in my head (I keep a micro-cassette recorder in my desk) (though I really ought to carry it in my messenger bag).

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My sister had to put her dog down a week ago Friday. His name was Thoren. No words. No words.

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Randy so deserves a back rub tonight.

Wet pre-fourth

Here in Lewisburg, the annual 4th of July parade is held in June: this year, it was today. We usually go and take bunches of photos--much easier now with the digital cam (I still believe you've gotta take twenty shots to get the right one). Anyway, we didn't go this year. Though since we live only half a block off Market Street, we could still hear the bands and bagpipers, the horses and fire trucks.

I'm grading essays half-heartedly, giving myself frequent distraction rewards. In the past, these would be in the form of Oreos or some other chocolate--grade a paper, get some candy--but now that the weight is slowly coming off, I reward myself by taking little trips out to the garden to poke around and see what's new. In the narrow alley between our house and the Kellys, we filled two large storage bins and planted tomatoes, hot Thai peppers, and birdhouse gourds--the latter on a netting-and-bamboo trellis we ran to the upstairs window sill. One of the gourd vines has raced about halfway to the window and I don't really know what it will do once it hits the top. In Houston one year, I planted luffa gourds near a telephone pole: they climbed up then snaked out along a phone line (big flapping leaves, long green gourds dangling over the street: quite a sight actually). So I guess it's possible that these vines will just rocket across the gap and grab hold of the house next door. Or punch through the window and eat the cat, like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Does anyone know an easy way to tell the difference between an American toad and a Fowler's toad? We may have both. I'm not sure. They are fairly small, and one hides in the mint bed, though we've seen another along the patio (Randy watched it snag a bug with its tongue!). And the one I saw in the lettuce a while ago looks different from the little one I saw yesterday hunkered in a flower pot.

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More garden stuff: A couple of weeks ago, on my way to work, I clipped a small sprig of blooming comfrey to put in a little egg-shaped vase on my desk. It wilted, dramatically (which reminds me of little Lily Kelly's impression of the wilted lettuce plant in their garden, sooo cute), for two days, then--surprisingly--perked back up. I hadn't remembered to bring anything else from the garden to replace it until Monday, when I cut a piece of the 'Moonbeam' coreopsis (feathery leaves, nice pale yellow blooms) to replace the comfrey. But when I pulled the comfrey from the vase, it had rooted! So I put it back. With the coreopsis. Which (come to think of it) will probably follow suit.

Anyone need a comfrey plant?

[photo: comfrey in bloom in our garden]

Prose (& cons)

I got up early to write--always a good feeling--and ended up with two pages of something new, not sure yet what it is but I knew when I went to bed last night that I had the voice situated clearly in my mind. Simple, really, but emphatic, it said All right. This is what I remember. And for a few days, that was all. Then finally, the logjam broke and I couldn't get words onto paper quickly enough, scribbling one scene while visualizing another and another, jotting key words and phrases and hoping I could come back to them and still have the voice recognition key that would allow me to re-enter the stream of it.

I don't care if it turns out to be crap. It felt so good to be such an open conduit again.

* * * * *

A cover letter that I couldn't throw away after recycling the appalling poems:

Dear Mme/Sir:

Enclosed are five of my poems. I have never been published before. I have decided to make my living as a writer, so I hope that you like these poems and decide to publish them. I'm currently working on a novel called ________________, its an anti-war novel and will take time to complete, so I hope to get a good start in my career with these poems. I have written 110 poems and they comprise a book called "___________." The five poems I have selected most clearly represent the whole.

Sincerely,

X________ Y__________

The voice reminds me of myself at around age 14: I was so certain I was going to be a Poet and write Poetry (note how I distinguished between the two). It's the combination of innocence and hubris, intelligence and absolute lack of experience that's almost heartbreaking. "I have decided to make my living as a writer." As if tomorrow morning I should get up and decide to be an architect, I who know nothing of scale, dimension, who can't hold a picture in my mind well enough to sketch it.

And yet. . .

I did this. I wanted first to be a writer. Eventually, I wanted to learn how to write. And I do this, this thing which has nothing really to do with making a living, but so much to do with making a life.

Who will save this young writer from the harsh, indifferent world? How will he grow from "being" to making? How much encouragement is too much? How much, in the end, does discouragement matter?

When I was in my late teens, I sent terrible poems to journals--journals I'd found listed in Writer's Market, journals like Antioch Review and Bitterroot and Cape Rock (working, as I recall, alphabetically through the listings). Someone, Menke Katz I think, once scribbled a note on a rejection slip: "Try again in five years." I heard a poet recently say that the most succinct comment she'd ever received (or maybe this was already a second-hand tale and she was relaying that it happened to a writer friend) said simply: "Not these." Which led us to joking about notes we'd love to see (though not necessarily on our rejection slips): "God, no." "Never." "Please stop." As if writers would obey such admonitions, as if we didn't already have at least some small belief in our gift that was inviolable. My novel is going to take a while, so golly I hope you take these poems because, after all, I have decided to make my living at this.

Wow. And-- wow.

Bragging rights ...

... of a sort: Randy did all the detailed work on this--the hand quilting--and a wonderful job. I made the binding and sewed it on. Oh, and I designed the quilt, chose the fabrics, and pieced the top on the machine. But Randy did the hard work. The photo really shows his quilting: a modified "open grid" pattern in the central area, quilted on the diagonal (his own design) and a nice authentic "Baptist fan" pattern in the outer borders.

The quilt is copied from a 19th-century Mennonite "bar" or "strip" quilt made in the Lancaster PA area; the fabrics are reproductions of authentic 19th-century colors & patterns. Note especially the "poison green" fabric (I should get a close-up), a color and pattern found often in original PA quilts of that era. The yellow is a repro of "chrome yellow" and the pink is a repro of "double pink" (or "cinnamon pink").

We sold the last two we made; this one goes (is) on our wall.

[photo: "Bar" quilt made by R Mohring & R Barlow, June 2006]

Pushcart!

After years of nominating outstanding work from West Branch for the Pushcarts, we're delighted to learn that one of our writers finally got one: congratulations to Jean Nordhaus, who won a Pushcart for her poems in WB #56.

* * * * *
Bit by bit, I've been re-reading Paul Monette's novel Afterlife. When I first read it about ten years ago, I was deep in the grief zone of having lost David. This story of a loose group of "AIDS widows" had a strong emotional resonance. It still does, but now I can see how the writing careers unevenly--a brilliant, one-line characterization (two power brokers haggle by phone over a Hollywood contract, navigating loopholes "delicate as crochet") followed a couple pages later by a cheesy B-movie passage (bared chests under the gibbous moon). Still, I don't mind the tonal roller coaster. Monette was under enormous pressure to complete his last few manuscripts (he fully believed he'd die before finishing Borrowed Time). I'll take the high with the low. Even his brilliant memoir Becoming a Man, which won the National Book Award, has its off-key moments, though it's certainly tighter than Last Watch of the Night, which veers into shrillness at times. The latter feels more like this novel: I sense the writer working in haste, resorting to easy tropes and tricks at times in order to race forward.

I remember, too, feeling such a connection with Stephen, the protagonist of Afterlife, and with how he tries to find a way to pick up the threads of his life. . . Only a few people (including Jim Elledge, who published it and suggested I change the title) know that my first chapbook, Amateur Grief, was initially titled Afterlife in homage to Paul Monette's work.

Does anyone else still read (or remember) this man's (critical, in my view) prose? I'd love to see a symposium on his influence upon today's queer writers.

Better

Feeling better, day by day: when I cough, I think my head will explode, but fortunately I'm not coughing all that much. I attribute my recovery to the remarkable healing qualities of kim chee, which we had with dinner, and which I thoroughy enjoyed in today's leftover lunch.

* * * * *
Met with Paula this morning: she handed over some files and correspondence that I'll need for fall. It's now as official as it gets: I'm the interim editor of West Branch. We're setting the fall issue (#59) this summer and I am very happy to say it includes new work by Betsy Sholl and Paul Guest. This fall, we're reading for the spring '07 issue (#60).

Have poems, you say? Have an essay? A dandy story that will knock my socks off? We resume reading on August 15. Send poems by mail [West Branch, Bucknell Hall, Bucknell Univ, Lewisburg PA 17837]. You can save trees, stamps, time by e-mailing your fiction to wbfiction at bucknell dot edu. (Yeah, we'll still read fiction via snailmail.)

* * * * *
One of the cool plants I started from seed last month is the smallest, damned-cutest tomato I have ever laid eyes on. It's called 'Micro Tom' and when the seedlings first came up, I thought "You have got to be kidding me, these puppies will shrivel to gray-blue wisps by morning." Or I thought something like that. Only four seedlings even came up (though I think I planted six seeds, so that's actually not too bad).

I start my tomatoes in egg cartons. I cut off the top lid, seal the tab holes with waterproof packing tape, and use it for a saucer/tray. Then I cut a slit in the bottom of each cup and poke a sliver of capillary matting--about 1.5 inches long x 1/16 inch wide--up in there: about 1/3 inside the cup with the other 2/3 dangling out. This way I can water the whole contraption from the bottom: the wee wicks suck up the water evenly.

So I had three tom. varieties in this one egg carton, and the last seedlings--the absolute runts, the slow boys in the class, were these micros. Yesterday I finally popped them out--nice root balls, healthy, stocky leaf development, and two wittle teeny flower buds--and set them into flower pots. I brought one to the office this morning. The pot itself is less than 3 inches tall, 4 inches wide. The tomato plant (actually two, so intertwined were the roots that I decided to let the twins remain in their conjoined state) is maybe 1.5 inches tall, about 3 inches wide, stocky, fuzzy, very very green and just cute as shit. Two of the flower buds are starting to open. I am hoping to keep Tom-Tom going on my window sill all year. Snow's gonna fly, but my Micro tomatoes (size of a pea? a nickel? who knows?) will bask in their own ruddy glow.

Slogging on

I was just lying on the floor, trying to get my flash key inserted into the sole USB port on my office PC: you have to flip open a hinged cover and then feel around for the slot. Couldn't line it up without getting on the floor. Small openings, low interior hum from the big gray plastic box. I put my eye up to it: faint amber light inside. Like standing in a dark alley next to a warehouse late at night. Bugs batting at the sodium vapor lamp. Nothing here needs you.

* * * * *

Is anyone familiar with Peter Waldor's work? We were very excited by a batch of poems he sent this spring, but--ack!--our contract crossed in the mail with his letter indicating most of what we wanted had been accepted elsewhere. I'm e-mailing him today. Hoping he has more on the level of this first batch.

* * * * *

Energy level is still way down. If I had a pillow I'd nap on the floor.

* * * * *

Daily poems for this week:

• Jack Gilbert, "The Revolution" (Monolithos)
• Betsy Sholl, "Back with the Quakers" (Late Psalm)
• Ruth Stone, "The Sperm and the Egg" (Simplicity)
• Thomas Lux, "Virgule" (New & Selected Poems)
• Matthew Rohrer, "incensation at the funeral" (A Hummock in the Malookas)

[photo: spent rhododendron, june 1st]

Bleh

The sore throat that started mid-week has given way to full-body congestion: I feel dull and clumsy, ache all over. Up for a few hours at a time, but even a ten-minute walk leaves me worn out and queasy. I graded papers and worked on my lesson plans this afternoon, then, after an early dinner with Randy, went back to bed at six. Up at ten for a little while, just to check in: apparently there've been sirens down the street for the past hour, but I heard nothing. Randy says there are lights flashing just down the block; I think he is going to walk over.

Ow. My ear just popped. Maybe this is a good sign that my head is about to clear.

[photo: post-storm on campus last January, all the ice beginning to thaw and drop away.]

Ooo eee ooo ah ah

Rushed uphill to my office after an engaging talk by Michael Waters (on sound and form in poetry) in the June Seminar, which enters its final week. Scarfing down peanut butter and crackers, my usual non-lunch, before heading out to teach. My throat and sinuses are raw; I wonder if that has anything to do with the woman at Zelda's yesterday morning who coughed horribly while taking everyone's orders? Extra zinc, extra C, extra Reiki: unleashing my arsenal against a summer cold. Extra sleep will be nice, too; so glad it's Friday.

Michael read new poems last night in Bucknell Hall (I think he said they are newer than the ones in his forthcoming book): sensual, edgy, smart, they seemed to barely be contained: I got the sense, over and over, of the language muscling its way through each line, testing the limits. He does this so well with sounds, images, ideas. I think he's such an interesting poet.

Ah, I want to write. Something in my head today about the tundra swans--or were they snow geese?--on the river last year. Something about them descending en masse through the line of trees to land on the water. An almost molecular form.

Daily poems

Borrowing a practice from Jeff Hardin, last year I started reading a "daily poem" at the beginning of each of my classes. Continuing this in my comp class this summer. This week's poems are:

• David Groff, "Birthing" (Theory of Devolution)
• Chana Bloch, "Coasting" (Mrs. Dumpty)
• Marie Howe, "How Some of It Happened" (What the Living Do)
• Mary Ruefle, "Why Did I Endlessly Chatter?" (Post Meridian)
• Pattiann Rogers, "Geocentric" (Geocentric)

Next week's list is still open. Want to suggest something? I have my ideas (and machinations) but I'm (very) open.

Early hours

It's so hard to get to bed early--esp since I didn't teach this spring; I've completely fallen out of the rhythm of keeping my "academic hours." Walked back to campus tonight to hear the June Poets read (some good poems!) . . . now that I'm teaching every day, I don't find myself wondering how things are going over at the Poetry Center quite so often.

Good night, all you lovely people.

[Photo: no parking zone, taken on my walk to campus]

Blogs vs. iPods

Quick item, before I fix some lunch and head off to teach: yesterday in my composition class, I explained that students would be keeping individual journals on Blackboard. "Just think of them as blogs," I said, and was met with blank stares. Hmm. "Okay, how many of you have a blog?" Not one hand went up.

"How many of you have an iPod?"

Every hand but one went up.

Turns out they all rely on Facebook.

See you in six weeks

Actually, I don't expect it to be *that* bad, but summer session begins tomorrow. So we had a lazy Sunday, the last in a while that I won't need for grading papers.

Randy finished the quilting on our latest project, so I spent about an hour today marking, cutting and pressing fabric for the binding tape. I hope to have the binding completely finished by the end of this week. Will take photos: this is an especially nice one.

ISR is installing new computers in the West Branch offices tomorrow. Our main databases are kept on a Mac, but tomorrow we'll get a new PC and everything will be transferred. All day, the thought of losing data needled at me . . . so this evening I walked over and e-mailed our submission databases to myself. It's the only way I know to save data from a Mac. It's not that I don't trust the ITech folks, it's just--well, I've written before about "the island vs. the mainland." Anyway, I feel better about it now.

The Tony Awards are on tv tonight and I can't even get interested. I'm usually such a fan of all those glammy awards shows, and even get choked up sometimes. I understand it completely: the Leo in me wants to be recognized for doing a good job, whereas the Libra in me doesn't want anyone to make a fuss and can't handle genuine attention. So when I watch people get recognition for doing something they care passionately about (or seem to, anyway), I get all verklempt.

Gonna check my class enrollment to see if I need more copies of anything. Adios--

Moon River

A wonderful, relaxing day. Randy and I drove out to Mifflingburg to pick up quilt batting at Verna's fabric shop and got out of there without dropping TOO much money. Then off the beaten path toward the line of hills, then along Penn's Creek, where we stopped at a covered bridge to take some photos. We were delighted to see a long black snake at the opposite end of the bridge, all stretched out in the sun. It slowly turned toward us, then nosed into a hole beneath the bridge, disappearing lazily as Randy snapped photos. I thought of Dickinson's "unbraiding in the sun," which I hope I have right from memory.

Tonight, I proposed that we take the camera and tripod and try to get some night shots of the full moon (for the second night). This time we walked down to the (Susquehanna) river. I took this one of moonlight on the water, then fiddled with the color balance. I'm pretty happy with the effect.

Just about ready--

--to teach on Monday. About time, no?

* * * * *

I've been seeing "my" damselfly everywhere for the past few days, the kind with the metallic bluegreen body, black wings. It's reminding me to write poems. May sound crazy, but that's how it is between me and this delicate creature.

* * * * *

BIG lightning! BOOMing thunder! I'm supposed to be packing up my things so R can pick me up to do a few errands together. I need to get a move on--

Nymph

On the bronze fennel, there were two TEEEEEENSY grasshoppers. I chased one with the camera for a few minutes: the fennel is so ferny, its fronds kept getting in the way. Very hard to focus on the hopper itself, but I finally got one!

So cute. So ravenous. So lucky I no longer have Oscars to feed it to.

Worker bee--errr, boy

Awakened this morning by a steady tapping--no, not a raven, but two workmen repairing the brick steps of the house across the street. Masonry saw, hammer and chisel, sacks of concrete mix. Drifting gray dust. One man did most of the work while the other (worker boy) mainly paced back and forth and occasionally dug his finger into his navel. Now they're gone, and it's just as hard to write in the relative silence.

Pollen heaven

(for a bee, that is)--here's a closeup of one of the portulaca blossoms in our garden. And I've seen lots of carpenter bees, but very few honeybees this spring.

Same Planet, Different Parameters

I'm in the Stadler Center offices this morning, tidying up some West Branch business. There's a stack of new literary journals on the desk, and among them, by accident, this:

Parameters: US Army War College Quarterly

Perspectives on the Long War:
--Stability Operations in Strategic Perspective: A Skeptical View
--Challenges in Fighting a Global Insurgency
--Tentacles of Jihad: Targeting Transnational Support Networks
--The Long Small War: Indigenous Forces for Counterinsurgency
Losing the Moral Compass: Torture and Guerre Revolutionnaire in the Algerian War
Cyber-Mobilization: The New Levee en Masse
Beware of Boldness
The Environment, the US Military, and Southern Africa

A stranger's letter

About two months ago, at our local antique mall, I bought a hardbound copy of R.C. Allen's Roses for Every Garden. Published in 1948, it offers some wonderful old color illustrations, anecdotal advice, and some suggestions which--well, we've grown wise enough to avoid. Here's an example, from the section titled "Insects, the Common Eight" (boldface mine):

LEAFHOPPERS

Leafhoppers appear in most parts of the country and the adults are large enough to be seen. Injury is usually restricted to foliage where they feed on the underside of the leaves. From above, the injured leaf develops a grayish, mottled appearance and there is general loss of color. When plants are shaken, leafhoppers will be seen jumping among the leaves. Like thrips, leafhoppers often come to the roses from other plants.

As a rule, when insecticides are applied for red spider mites or thrips, leafhoppers are not a serious problem. DDT either as a dust or spray seems to be the most specific remedy. A treatment or two, when leafhoppers are prevalent, will usually hold them in check.

My garden doesn't have room for more than one full-size rose, so I selected an heirloom variety, a climbing "Dawn"--full white blooms with a pink blush on the buds--and compensated by planting a dozen or so miniature roses through the flower bed. I didn't need to buy this book, but as I was browsing through it, I found a letter inside, dated July 17, 1961. I wanted that letter. Could have tucked it in my pocket, but the way I saw it, the letter belonged in the book. So I keep it there. Here it is:

* * * * *
Dear Irene & Wells,

I dont know if you are home yet or not. I saw Gladys up at The Lake. I went up Thurs night and came back to Greene Sunday night, then Elmer and his girl friend brot me home Tues. George had a cottage from Mrs. Williams and we staid over an extra day, and she didn't charge for that one day, said she was glad to see me back, she was very nice to me. I stood the trip fine but now Im back I dont eat.

I got a pretty good shock of electricity Fri afternoon, my left hand was numb for over two hours. I was lying on the couch and it seemed to come in the hallway. I sure was scared for a while.

Douglas & Hyla & Mary phoned while I was gone, so here's hoping they will be out. I was hoping to see you drive in during your vacation, but I guess not.

I got a short note yesterday from Mr. Clugstone and he is still in the hospital poor old guy, I wish I could go to see him. I still dont know his trouble.

Has Rex said anything more to you about that lot? I really would like it & Nick thot that I could swing it. I dont know, but I know that I cant stay here this winter. Mary says I can come there.

How did you find Dick and family. I bet you had a wonderful time.

I guess Karl isn't going to bring Lee out anyway they dont say any thing.

Its raining part of the time here today, so just a little dreary. Willis is up to Gertrude's so Im alone.

Guess this is all the latest.

Love-- Auntie

* * * * *
The letter was sent to a rural address in Binghamton, New York: I was eleven months old at the time. I love "now I'm back I don't eat" and "I still don't know his trouble." I love the names--Elmer, Hyla, Mr. Clugstone--but mostly I can't stop thinking about the electricity that "seemed to come in the hallway." What the hell is up with that?

There's nothing like an interview--

--to make you seriously question every opinion you've ever (thought you) held. Fun opportunity, nonetheless: I'm being interviewed by Dan Jaffe for his "Talking Across the Table" series that appears in BiblioBuffet. Mine won't appear for a few months, but I'll post a heads-up when it does. Meanwhile, check out Dan's current interview with the handsome, talented, steamy, prolific, gorgeous playwright Leo Cabranes-Grant. Woof!

(I can woof. I know Leo.)

Thanks again, Dan.

* * * * *
Congrats to Betsy Wheeler! Her manuscript's a prize finalist . . . She's being secretive about it, so that's all I'll say.

* * * * *
. . . working on a new poem. Genesis: the image of silver maples flashing their underleaves, "praying for rain" as folks used to say. If this one works out, it goes into the "Trees" manuscript.

I shouldn't call it that. Evokes the Joyce Kilmer poem. Gad. The ms. is still called "The Boy Who Reads in the Trees."

Saint Joan

I've always loved Joan Baez: her music, her writing, her politics, her bravery. When last week she camped in a tree with activist Julia "Butterfly" Hill to protest the demolition of an urban farm in Los Angeles, my admiration deepened even more. Come on, people now: this gal is 65, and look at her walking the walk! That's right, you'd better put your hands together. You GO, Joan!

Garden shots

Pics of what's blooming this month in our garden . . . these are all columbines--the single red is the species or "wild" columbine, Aquilegia canadensis. The others are all double-flowering types ("Barlow" mix) that I raised from seed last year, except the very tightly frilled deep blue: it was already here in the garden, and bloomed last year for the first time.

More of these to follow (you've been forewarned).

No Rau Rom--

--at Reiff's, our favorite nursery, where we buy whatever herbs we can't grow from seed. We've checked twice now. They usually have it. We also went to Gilbert's, where the herb selection was even more limited, but the perennials tempted us. We still had our gift card and ended up buying a dwarf columbine and a lady fern--the fern went into the new bed under the white pines, at the end of the walk. About the pines: whoever planted them years ago put down heavy black plastic to prevent weeds. It also prevents rain from soaking through beyond the first couple inches of soil. Over the years, the pines' roots have snaked across the soil surface. I pull up as much of the plastic as I can find--it's impossible to get it all--and put down well-composted mulch.

Back to rau rom, aka Vietnamese coriander: it looks like a knotweed, with faint "shield" marks on the narrow lance-shaped leaves. Grows vigorously in warm weather, and even though it roots well from cuttings, I've been unable to keep it over the winter inside. It's a gangly, sprawling plant, an excellent cilantro substitute. I think we may have to search for some online.

Moccasin flower

Every May, we drive out to an undisclosed location (if I told you I would have to kill you) and hike into the woods to see the wild orchids. There's just one small colony, but they seem to be increasing each year.

Batty

Thumping in the attic late last night: another bat, this time chased by Allie. Randy came downstairs for the "bat net" (a butterfly net we keep in the laundry room in case the neighbors should need it). We chased Allie out from under the spare bed and then I came back down to the kitchen for the flashlight. Randy found the bat squeezed into the floor heater and couldn't get it to come out. We closed the door to the attic and propped it shut with a box to keep the cat out.

This morning: no sign of bat. Is it hiding in a box? Did it escape through the same mysterious route by which it slipped in?

I like bats; they're amazing little mammals. I like watching them dart silently around the trees in the back yard, or along the river where insects are plentiful. But I always feel helpless and a little guilty when they blunder into "our" house. (How we define space: inside/outside, ours/theirs. . .)

June approaches . . .

. . . and with it, the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. This is the first time I haven't been on staff in five years. I can't explain how connected I feel to this program: it just clicks with my own communal bent, I guess. It's such a critical boost for young poets--the lucky few who get in. I'll be directing the seminar next summer: please urge your undergrad poet friend/students/acquaintances to apply this fall.

* * * * *
Kudos to Tyler Mills, who won this year's Gulf Coast Poetry Prize! Tyler was one of my intro CW students a few summers ago--not that I can claim any credit for her serious talent--and has just finished up her first semester of grad school. (Talk about getting a critical boost!)

* * * * *
I'm just about moved into my new office. No phone yet, and no computer. Apparently they can't just take the one off the desk in my old office (which was not being used). Nor can they give me either of the two in my *new* office (in the geology/psychology building), though they haven't taken them away yet either. Or the non-functioning telephone.

How am I posting this, you ask? --On my trusty laptop.

I had to stop working on my summer syllabus in order to move and unpack (and arrange alphabetically on the shelves) my books. Had to. Could not function without being able to spin around in my chair and see them there.

Oh, and I asked for Bob Taylor's plaster bust of Mark Twain. (I inherited Bob's old office last year) I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I couldn't leave it for some visiting history professor.

Best of all, I also got Bob's old comfy green chair. Super place to read.

And I think there's room on the wall to hang a quilt.

It's only mine for a year, but for that year, it's mine.

* * * * *
If you see Eduardo, pinch him. He owes me poem installments.

* * * * *
Has anyone ever used Rita Dove's "Ten Minute Spill" exercise (from The Practice of Poetry)? I use it in the classroom, because it's a great way to kick-start the poetry-writing half of the semester. I've never tried to write my own poem from it--other than doing the exercise in class along with my students. But last year I ran across this poem by Jennifer Clarvoe, in her book Invisible Tender:

Thread of Song

How would you take a stitch in time?
And where is the boy who looks after the sheep?

The blackberry bleeds on your thumb, bleeds voice.
Come blow your horn. Where is the horn?

Come save the nine lives kittens lost
the the mother's voice, the cloud, the rain,

the rain in needles. Needles lost
under the haystack, fast asleep.

A stitch to keep. Keep time. Keep time.

--I'm convinced that this poem (such as it is) arose from the Rita Dove exercise, though JC doesn't credit her in the book. I would. Wouldn't you?

Congratulations

How delightful that Anne Pierson Wiese has won the Walt Whitman Award--she's a wonderful poet, and truly deserving. Here's one of her poems that we ran in the spring/summer '05 issue of West Branch:

The Great Roberto

Cooking bare chested to avoid staining
his good shirt, he stirs the risotto,
pours champagne into crystal flutes, sews
black bass into parchment painstakingly.

What we want to know is: Where's your bed?
The apartment is 300 square feet
and we can't locate it. No--really,
where is it? He waves at the long banquet

table and the cocktail bar he's improvised
with a board and French linen: Relax.
Do you know the trick to risotto? He extracts
a one-ounce orange box, passes it before our eyes:

truffle powder. A pinch. His long fingers
linger wand-like above the pot--then flicker.

Idiocy

We were awakened in the night by a terrible smashing noise. Randy grabs his glasses and heads to the window, while I (bearishly) mumble and roll back into sleep. I vaguely recall more noises.

Turns out Randy had gone outside to check on things. This morning he got the full story from neighbors across the street: a Bucknell senior, extraordinarily drunk, had sped around the corner from Market onto 4th (our street), colliding with a parked car and starting a chain reaction. A guy who'd just gotten out of the third vehicle (also damaged) jumped back into his car and drove backwards down the street, pursuing the fleeing student. Who is now in jail. On the weekend of his graduation.

Idiot.

Peripathetic

Well I'd just got settled into my office again when the dean's office asked if I would relinquish it to another visiting assistant professor. Sure, no problem, I said, though there was the possibility that I'd have to move *three times* over the next academic year. Fortunately, they offered me a second option, an office in the Geology/Psychology building (yes, for those of us with rocks in our heads) that turns out to be vacant right now. So I think I can move early (next week) and stay in one place through next summer. Sweet.

Every summer I promise myself I'll learn some new technique or tool to improve my teaching efficiency. Because I'm teaching summer session this year, my fall prep time is really chopped in half. So I'm punting: set up an appointment to learn PowerPoint on Monday. I know, I know: I'm the last person in the world to learn this program. But at the faculty workshop I attended Monday and Tuesday, I was impressed by a PPt presentation that someone made and I can see useful (and non-boring) applications in my poetry classes. And the lad at the tech desk today promised they could teach me pretty quickly.

Listening to Patricia Barber's Nightclub: love her.

Old gardener, goodbye

Stanley Kunitz has died. Sometimes even a hundred years are not enough.

THE LONG BOAT

When his boat snapped loose
from its moorings, under
the screaking of the gulls,
he tried at first to wave
to his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.
Too tired even to choose
between jumping and calling,
somehow he felt absolved and free
of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:
conscience, ambition, and all
that caring.
He was content to lie down
with the family ghosts
in the slop of his cradle,
buffeted by the storm,
endlessly drifting.
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way was home;
as if he didn't know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.

- Next-to-Last Things, 1985

Tardy congratulations. . .

. . . to Charlie Jensen, whose chapbook Living Things won this year's Frank O'Hara Prize. I wish we could round the whole gang up: what a reading that would be.