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.

Little pack rat in a great big room

You know by now that Randy and I like to quilt. One of the most basic activities (obsessions?) that quilters engage in is the building up of what's called the "stash": a hefty and ever-growing hoard of various fabrics from which to design and create one's quilts. But like rabid bibliophiles who buy way more books than they will ever have time to read, most stash-builders know (secretly or not) that they'll never be able to use all the fabric they already have. That doesn't stop them (us) from accumulating more.

Enter eBay, forum of the obsessive collector and bargain-hunter, and rationale behind my own fabric binges: what I don't use, I insist, I can always sell on eBay to other fabric-holics. The only trick is forcing myself to part with material I really like but will never realistically get around to using.

My current quilt project requires a relatively small piece of fabric from each sample, and a large number of samples, most from the 1930s (for authenticity: I want the fabric to match the pattern era). Because we live in central PA, it's not that hard to find what I need at yard sales, flea markets. Sometimes I'll spy a reasonably-priced bundle of scraps at an antique store. And my justification for buying it is always: I'll cut what I need for this one quilt, and sell the rest on eBay.

Enter the pack rat, or "Obsessive-Compulsive Lady" as we call her. If you ever go to estate auctions, there are often boxes of assorted junk piled around the perimeter: a box might hold a (used) scented pillar candle, a Tupperware bowl, a pair of flip-flops, some mayonnaise jars, a straw hat, some plastic flowers, a book or two, a heavily-pilled acrylic sweater, a soiled flower pot, drapery rings, a gimme cap with a farm logo on it, a piece of tacky jewelry with some of the shiny beads missing--any or all of the above. These boxes usually go for a dollar apiece. People will paw through them during the auction, checking out the contents, "surreptitiously" moving things so there are *two* beaded handbags in one box *plus* the mayonnaise jars (or whatever seems of value to them). It's kind of interesting to watch, but no one, you tell yourself, is really going to buy all these boxes.

OCD Lady does. I think she buys them all. And she has a building: a huge, sprawling, cavernous, many-roomed building. And let me tell you, boys and girls, it is full to bursting with dollar boxes.

Last Sunday, at a local flea market, I bought a 1945 Reader's Digest (more on this in another post) and a small piece of 30s fabric from her, and we got to talking about her shop (which, it turns out, R and I had been to--once, last year, where we kept to the main room, which actually had shelves, though we had to climb over boxes to make our way through: we actually found some pretty nice fabric--aha!--at a great price.) We've passed her place since then but there's always a chain across the gate, and more and more assorted junk disgorged from the front door (a rusted potbelly stove with intricate scrollwork but one side missing, broken chairs, tire rims, and lots and lots of rain-curled boxes). So we arranged to phone her one day soon and meet her there. Which brings us to yesterday morning.

She directed us to the fabric from the relative safety of the main room: Go past the book room and turn left, watch out for the cat--she's just had kittens and she'll let you pet her but then she turns and bites, the litte bitch, you'll have to squeeze past the bookshelves to get to the clothing room, then work all the way around to the right to get to the fabric room. You'll have to climb over some stuff. Just yell if you need anything.

Imagine a large garage with cinder block walls and sunlight passing weakly through old dirty windows. High, high ceilings, wooden beams among which noisy sparrows are darting around, kicking down what looks like straw and whatever decomposed remaining substance once comprised the ceiling. Broken half-sheets of plaster have fallen, covered in dust. All this sifts down upon what is basically a twelve-foot-high mountain of "fabric": it completely fills the room and the only way in is to step, to climb, onto it. Which we gamely did. We each chose a spot and started digging, pulling on the arm of a sweater, the edge of a jacket, and setting (tossing) each item to another area of the pile to see what was beneath.

I pretty quickly worked out a system: I opened a sheet and spread it across some fallen plaster. Whenever either of us found something of interest (we were digging for vintage cotton), we'd toss it over to the sheet. Dust flew. Some of the mountain was composed of plastic trash bags--these usually contained sweaters or draperies--and there were lots of boxes. Once in a while I'd recognize a corner of fabric as a vintage pattern, grab it, and tease it from the mess. Twice, I found boxes with someone's sewing stash intact: small bundles of fabric rolled and tied with torn strips. Some were good cotton but mots were synthetic blends, which is just too messy to quilt with.

After over an hour, I started working backward, into the "clothing room" where R had retreated earlier, setting things of interest out where I could easily find them. I had stuffed everything I wanted into a large trash bag. I tried balancing it on my shoulders, on my head, as I squeezed between sagging bookcases (of ruined books!) and made my way back to the main room. R, whose obsession is vintage photographs, had found a really interesting one ($5). My trash bag, plus a smaller bag, cost 40 bucks. We thanked the OCD Lady, blinking like moles in the afternoon sun, loaded our treasures into the thruck, and drove away, blowing our noses. I wondered what she would do with her $45: buy food? Or 45 more dollar boxes?

Submission limbo

Well this hasn't happened in a while, so I guess I'm due for a slice of humility: on the recommendation of a good friend, I sent some poems to a newish journal a few months back. I haven't been writing all that much, but I tell myself that's okay because I just had another chapbook published, so (some of) my stuff is "out there" (as opposed to being stuck in my laptop where no one will ever read it).

So it's been a while now, and all last week I kept thinking "gotta check on those poems" and then forgetting again. Just thought of it again tonight. Here's what I found at their website:

"Effective immediately, [XYZ] is on hiatus. We are not sure how long this break will last or if we will have to simply call it a wrap — that remains to be seen."

"As Editor, I appreciate all of the support and encouragement that I encountered along the way.

"Best to all of you on your journey. Writer, may you find the prefect [sic] rhythm in your voice. Reader, may you discover and be changed by these worlds within great stories — worlds we would all surely dream up otherwise."

Okay, so I indulged in a teensy moment of snit by pointing out the editor's typo above. That's all the unkindness you'll get from me.

Except for the following gassy bubble of resentment that climbs my esophagus like Frankenstein clanging up the windmill's spiral staircase to blurt out its monstrous little thought-bile: Would it KILL THEM to notify the writers who've sent work? Who are waiting patiently, dutifully, hopefully? If I hadn't thought to check the website, how much longer would my poems have remained in limbo?

One year, within a span of about six months, my poems went missing at no less than five journals. I was writing like crazy at the time, and had roughly a dozen batches of poems constantly circulating, in a crazed push for validation that I hope I never repeat. I grew so caught up in the unfairness of my work being lost--who are these people who can't keep track of a simple envelope?--that I started enclosing, in addition to the SASE, a stamped postcard that listed the names of the offending journals with a reprimand: "What do V, W, X, Y and Z have in common? They've all misplaced my manuscript within the past six months. Please distinguish yourself from their company." The journal's editor/reader was then asked to both sign and date the card and return it promptly.

Now that I've worked in an editorial capacity for several years--and now that I've misplaced a few manuscripts and written a few apologies--I'm disconcerted--no, appalled--at the egotism of some writers. If your batch of poems is so earth-shatteringly important, if the possibility of human error in their handling is so abhorrent, then why bother sending them to a magazine at all? Why not bypass the slush pile and simply stride right up to the Nobel Committee and demand your fucking prize? And I'm embarrassed to have bought into the same mucked-up thinking that places the writer in some ridiculously imagined position of privilege. If thinking of "my" journal as a living, breathing community of writers--with those who've made it in no more privileged than those who haven't yet--is foolish and passe, then fine, I'm a fool.

Yeah, I wish [XYZ] had let me know that I could send my few poems elsewhere. But jeezustapdancingchrist, it's not the end of the world. I wish the editors well, and thank them for giving the endeavor their best shot.

Week in Review

I meant to post yesterday and the day before. Oh, well. Here's what's been going on of late:

• Last weekend I finished a blurb for Jeff Mann's new book of poems, On the Tongue, which is due out this summer from Gival Press. Check out Jeff's web site for more on his (prolific!) work.
• We got our new cell phones on Friday. Randy had studied the on-line reviews & compared models, so it was easy to go along with his recommendation. So now we have flip-phones, kinda neat: they take photos (with flash!) and do all sorts of things that I will probably never learn or need.
• My sister, whose job takes her all over the country, offered to provide us with a rental car so we can drive to Ohio to see the family. I promised to send her my schedule so we could coordinate a visit. We have a truck, and it's been very dependable, though it doesn't have air conditioning. (My Saturn is still parked in the alley: one of the first things I want to do when my new salary kicks in this fall is get my car roadworthy again. This will probably mean new tires, new battery, new hoses. It's just been sitting there. Our money goes to pressing things like food and rent. I don't like to talk about it.) Randy thinks that I should go, if I can, in mid-May, and then later this summer (late July, after summer session) we can both try to go.
• We need rain. It's been, like, sixteen days, and this, added to the relatively dry winter, has our region in the early stages of a drought. It's maddening to watch the radar and see rain showers just an hour to the south, knowing it won't reach us.
• My friend D's manuscript is a finalist for the National Poetry Series. I'm so excited for her. I know they select a pretty large number of finalists, and that chances of winning are only one in ten at this stage, but still it seems to me an incredibly validating event, especially given that so many of the poems are new--I've seen several of them over the past six months as D has been writing them--and since I don't know anyone else who's a finalist this year (I'm sure I probably know *someone* else, just haven't heard) I am totally rooting for D (whose anonymity I preserve here because it really is *her* news, not mine).
• Still waiting for my copy of Amanda Auchter's new chapbook, which I ordered back in the Pleistocene.
• The columbines are blooming: these are "Barlow" columbines, generally double-flowered: they look like very full petticoats and so far each plant bears a different color, which is exciting because I started them from seed last year and the wait is finally ending as to what they will actually look like in bloom. The first to open was a dusty rose-pink, very nice. Then a deep violet which, though not double, is (so far) Randy's favorite. Then another pink, much paler, with a cream interior. Then a sort of rust-red. I planted I think twelve seedlings along the shaded side of our back walkway, and those in the sunniest area are large and robust, but even among the five or six plants in deeper shade under the white pines, two have sent up smallish bloom stalks. I also gave several seedlings to the Kellys next door, and one of theirs is the same pink as ours. Also, the last time I visited the folks, I dug some seedlings of wild columbine from their (gravel) driveway. These are the great-great-great offspring of columbines that grew in Rue's garden, which I still remember vividly from my childhood. (More about Rue some other time.) The species is Aquilegia canadensis, the common eastern columbine that grows in rocky forest crevices--the same plant on a limestone shelf might grow six or eight inches high; in our garden, they are two feet tall. It will be great fun to collect the seeds this summer and see what sort of crosses may have developed. Randy says it's fine with him if I plant *lots* more columbines. I'll take photos to post soon.
• Paula (Closson Buck) has wonderful news: her second book, Dogs at the Temple, was taken by LSU Press and will be out in (I think) 2008. LSU published her first book, The Acquiescent Villa, in 1998. I've seen many of the poems in the new manuscript over the past couple of years, and it's really strong: I think its publication was inevitable, just one of those extraordinarily good works that has to eventually land a good home. And though LSU's titles are off-puttingly expensive, it's a pretty fine press to call home.
• Eric Leigh (according to Eduardo) is a winner of this year's Nation/Discovery Award! I love Eric's poems--we published a couple in West Branch a while back. Very happy to hear this!
• I wrote Eduardo a postcard--twice--while he was at MacDowell, but the first time I didn't have a stamp and I stuck the card in a book. The second time, what I'd written just seemed sappy and pretentious. I need to get better at this.
• Oh, and my P&W entry came up really quickly, within less than 48 hours I think--I received a e-mail notification but haven't yet gone to look myself up.

It's cool and cloudy today. I'm writing upstairs and trying to remember to check the laundry once in a while. Randy called his dad this morning--R has had dreams several nights in a row now about his late mother--and heard a little about another ancestor, a Rowsey I think he said, who was married to a guy who helped to guard Lincoln's casket. Our local mail carrier, Mike, has written several books about the Civil War era, so R flagged him down--I could hear them outside talking about how to research this name--and pretty soon R was online and had located some interesting stuff.

I can't believe it's almost 3 in the afternoon. We've both had rotten headaches all day; I'm just trying to push along but there's this out-of-time-ness to everything I do, a dull throbbing bubble I can't escape.

Directory Insistence

I finally submitted my data to Poets & Writers for inclusion in their online directory. It was pretty easy to do online, just a series of forms to fill out. The site says it takes a few weeks for the entry to show up.

Last year, I urged all the poets in my department to fill out the (paper) forms so we could submit them together and get listed. I think one other person besides me actually filled out the forms, and I thought that I'd mailed them in. But I was working between several offices then, and I fear the paperwork probably ended up in a box with other "urgent" stuff. It's amazing how mail will wait for years in a forgotten box (instead of, what? spontaneously exploding into flames after 30 days?)--and, for the most part, it's a relief that so much of it ends up not really mattering at all. But I do feel bad about P's application. Which is somewhere in my possession.

One other thing: the online directory is searchable by category (i.e., how writers self-identify) and, just to see, I did a search for L/G/B/T writers. I was surprised at how few turned up. So I'm glad I included that tag in my listing.

One last thing: big congratulations to my friend Ben Grossberg, whose manuscript has won the Richard Snyder Award from Ashland Poetry Press. Ben's chapbook, The Auctioneer Bangs His Gavel, is just out from Kent State. Please buy it--it's really very good. The new book is going to be called Underwater Lengths in a Single Breath (nice title).

Thinking

That's pretty much it these days. I'm certainly not writing much. Reading, yes: I usually fall asleep reading something from the pile beside the bed. Oh, and the garden seeds arrived (late!) , so I spent a couple of hours this weekend happily starting tomatoes, cucumbers, Thai peppers, more lettuce. And some flowers. And bottle gourds, which we're going to try to grow in big tubs, from which they will--we hope--climb trellis netting tacked to the second-floor windows between our house and the neighbors'.

On Sunday afternoon we drove out to R.B. Winter Forest and walked in the woods, sat by the creek, scrutinized the few wildflowers that are up. It's much cooler up in the woods. No ferns yet. There are colonies of violets growing in the sunny marsh areas--in the running water--and some of these have started to bloom with incredibly tiny white blossoms. And the marsh marigolds are blooming. They're so intensely bright (yellow).

Six weeks now until summer session. Teaching comp in summer is going to be an interesting challenge. (I've probably said this before.) Any writing I hope to do this summer needs to happen soon. . .

Hysteria Lane

Speaking of spring flora, am I the only person in America who gets nettled every time they show those utterly FAKE blooming wisteria vines on Desperate Housewives? Wisteria doesn't bloom all year long. And it's not made of silk. Don't they pay people to check stuff like this? Is it always spring on Wisteria Lane? Fake, fake, fake.

Slushing

I've parked myself in the Shaker rocker in the living room to read through the latest batch of slush (what a crummy word for unsolicited manuscripts, even though some of the contents are--admittedly--awful). I usually drop by the office once a week to clean out my mailbox (and slush box). Meant to catch up on Monday, but this has been a week of garden work: beautiful weather, the lindens and pears in full bloom, the first violets opening in our back yard. Ferns uncurling in the shade garden. Hostas poking up. The crabapple tree looks ready to burst, as do the ornamental cherries that grow everywhere, everywhere in this town.

Yesterday we hauled three truckloads of raked leaves and garden waste (our plus the neighbors'--an annual gift to them) to the town lot (behind the baseball fields) where the borough grinds and recycles everything into enormous piles of mulch. The mulch is free for the taking. We filled three trash cans full and got it all onto the beds by early afternoon. We need more.

Thunder and rain last night--we fell asleep with the window open just to enjoy the sounds--and thunder again this afternoon. We need the rain; there wasn't enough snow this winter and we're at a deficit.

You can tell I'd rather be outside. Poking around the garden. Starting more seeds. Reading in the hammock.

* * * * *

PA Poetry is the name of my other blog--it's new--so if you know of any readings, calls for work, special announcements for Pennsylvania-area poetry (mainly here in central PA but heck, we'll announce whatever you send) please feel free to post there--or send me an e-mail and I'll get the pertinent info up ASAP.

* * * * *

Changing horses

We decided last month to change our e-mail server. The new package includes digital TV, which has Randy excited, and I must admit that the caller ID feature is impressive: when the house phone rings, a box flashes in the corner of the television screen (because where else would anyone be, right, but parked in front of their television?) & identifies the number and caller. Freaky cool. One less reason to get up and walk into the dining room.

So the installer [a bear!] came today around noon, and I took Sadie & Allie into the bedroom and closed the door. Allie was TOTALLY freaking out--Who is this? What the--Ohgod ohgod ohgod--her whole body was just quaking. I have never seen her do this before, and I was half-afraid she just might pee everywhere. Sadie, on the other hand, was only mildly curious. She threw Allie a look, then turned to me as if to shrug and say, Cats: why even bother?

I read fiction submissions at my laptop. All day. Only came out to snack and to pee. So this is a short post, to say my new e-mail is up and running: rmohring at dejazzd dot com. Don't send mail to our old ptd accounts; we're deleting them soon. [My BU account is still fine.]

Shout outs to Nadine, Robin, Miriam, Kay and Nels. I need to catch up with each of you. Will try soon.

Wednesday morning surprise

The pic just about says it all. . . April is so fickle.

Looking ahead

As part of my '06-'07 contract, I'll be directing the 2007 June Seminar. Today I had a delightful phone conversation with Nancy Eimers: she and hubby Bill Olsen have agreed to be our visiting poets next June. I'm so happy.

Tee hee

This photo is for S.

Friends recalled

I met John Hedge in Houston, shortly after moving there in April 1985 to live with David. John was David's friend and lived in a secluded apartment near the corner of West Gray and Shepherd. Sometimes we went to his apartment for dinner, but mostly he came to our house. John and his lover, Craig, were the only people I ever met who were allowed to smoke in our house. (This was David's rule and I knew that he valued John and Craig so much that I never questioned it.)

At our first meeting, I was intimidated: John was well-educated, spoke carefully, and made frequent references to literature, films, opera which I knew nothing about. I stammered responses to the few direct questions he posed to me--where was I from (Ohio), how did I like Houston (it was enormous), what were my career plans (I had none but had just volunteered to train with the Gay & Lesbian Switchboard, a volunteer commitment I kept for eight years).

John and David also talked about their health, and the health of their many friends and acquaintances. When David and I first started dating, he said that, based on our sexual histories, he assumed I was seronegative, he seropositive, and that we should take appropriate precautions. I had volunteered as one of the first "AIDS buddies" in Cincinnati--ironically, my buddy, Stephen, had lived in Houston but had come back home to die--and so I had developed a mindset about AIDS and the virus, a kind of intellectual buffer I guess: my response was to volunteer and to subvert any emotional doubt or fear. I don't think John had been tested when I first met him, but--like David--he assumed the worst.

I don't think I ever saw him as he really was. John was extraordinarily well-read, and when he learned that I wanted to become a poet, he tried to encourage me and lead me into discussions about Whitman, Eliot, Bishop: poets whose work I was horribly ignorant about.

John and Craig fought rather famously. They both drank hard, and Craig, I eventually learned, had a cocaine habit. (Craig was also rumored to have appeared on the cover of a Houston magazine in Halloween makeup--the costume was allegedly composed of not much more than makeup--but I never saw a copy.) One day over lunch in Montrose, John told the story of one of their fights: he had stormed out of Craig's house (the top level of a duplex near Allen Parkway with a beautiful view of downtown) and, backing his car out too recklessly, had broken the axle. Undeterred, he started walking home (a distance of, I would guess, two miles). Craig followed him outside, begging him to come back. "I broke my car!" John shouted. Craig got into his own car and followed him all the way home.

Once, when John was in the hospital for perhaps the first time, we stopped to visit on our way to St. Thomas University: I had been selected as a juried reader for the Houston Poetry Fest. John asked me to "say" a poem (I now know that Robert Frost used this phrase, as in "I'd like to say one of my poems"). I was too nervous to comply: how could my stuff compare to anything he'd read? He gently persisted, even though he seemed much too ill to really care, and I'm ashamed that I didn't have the courage to comply. "Then say just one of your lines," he finally said. "Say the first line." It was the summer that scared Maria, I squeaked out. "Hmm," he said. "That's intriguing. It was the summer that frightened Maria."

Of course I changed the line.

Craig died first. I remember one day at the hospital, when David and John had gone downstairs for coffee, and I was left alone in Craig's room. He was burning with fever, emaciated, skeletal, past recognizing any of us. He breathed in deep rapid gasps, his arms flung wide and one bony leg drawn up. I couldn't help thinking of a photo I'd seen somewhere of a prehistoric bird--Archeopterix--fossilized in stone. And I couldn't help realizing--I'm ashamed even now to admit this impulse--that I wanted to peek under Craig's twisted hospital gown, to get one look at the infamous cock which, David had once told me, Craig had been able to insert inside himself.

It was only a few months before John was bedridden at home. The last time we visited, the shades were closed and his room felt unbearably hot. A nurse swabbed his forehead with a cold cloth, murmured he won't open his eyes, and left the room. John's usually straight-banged black hair was gone, and I couldn't understand why he looked almost bald, how his hair could be reduced to this gray wispy fuzz. Sweet Pea, his little dachsund, was curled at the foot of the bed. The phone rang in another room, and we could hear Ann, John's former wife, leaving a lengthy message. David, whose shock was palpable, and whose inability to express emotion was one of the deep wounds in our own relationship, took John's hand. I will always remember the great effort it took him to speak: I love you and I will always treasure our friendship. He then stepped past me, leaving me alone in the room with John.

So much to say. Such guilt for not checking in more often. I could have read to him, I kept thinking. I stared at the bony, sunken face. I said nothing. After a few minutes of intense silence, I walked out.

On the drive to Montrose--the university was just a block from where David and I had first lived (on Yupon Street), David broke the silence: "I never realized that John wore a toupee."

He didn't! I exploded with fury, stunning us both into renewed silence: David appalled at my tone of rage, and I ashamed that I had known so little about a man who could have been one of my truest mentors.

Spring greens

Just went up to the attic to retrieve some small pots of seedlings I have going under lights: leaf lettuce, mesclun mix, arugula (mmm, my favorite). Moving these to the bathroom sill (very sunny) so I can start more under lights. Trying to wait a bit on the basil seeds: they take so long to get really going that I always jump the gun in January or February. Though now might be about right. Hmmm.

The mint is coming up in the herb bed, as is the comfrey. A few nice feathery spears of bronze fennel. And two clumps of lemon balm, which always looks so washed-out and creepily yellow when it first starts up.

[PHOTOS: mesclun & arugula in yogurt cups]

In the garden

Another beautiful warm day. Randy is quilting the final sections--the outer border--of the new quilt, and so we took a ride to Mifflinburg to buy seven yards of red bias tape for the binding. I can make the binding myself--and have, when I only need a couple yards or an especially narrow width--but it's very inexpensive, and we welcome any excuse to browse through Verna's shop.

Back home, I decided to tackle the shade garden, and toted my tools--clippers (for the rampant ivy), edger blade, small hand rake, and all-important foam kneeling pad--to the back yard. Sadie hopped up onto "her" chair and curled up in the sun. A rowdy cadre of goldfinches chipped and fussed in the trees--they're not used to seeing us in the yard and have mostly had it to themselves all winter. It's delightful to see their bright yellow flashing in the trees, and their silly roller-coaster style of flying--tight arc up, then plummet, then arc up again.

Coming up in the shade garden:

• tiny wood ferns (dug from behind my parents' house in Cincinnati), just uncurling, tight & delicate
• clump of green nubbins: an early hosta
• thin maroon strap-like leaves of springbeauties: these I started from seed gathered two years ago in June, painstakingly catching one tiny seed at a time from pods that had already turned yellow and popped open, most of them already empty of seeds. I scattered them immediately in a bare spot in the shade garden--I moved a flat stone--and last spring, less than a year from scattering the seed, I had four blloming plants. Hoping for more this year. Hoping they'll establish a nice little colony under the Japanese maple.
• fuzzy ferny clumps of wild yarrow
• drifts of an odd, floppy-leaved, species tulip. Our first year here, we found one blooming and took extra care after that to not disturb them. Last year there were maybe half a dozen flowers: small, bright yellow. Hoping for more (and more).
• lots of the Barlow columbines I started last spring from seeds. I'm particularly looking forward to these, as they should be mixed colors. We had one dark purple Barlow in the garden when we moved here, and Billy & Jackie, our neighbors, had a lighter-purple one. So we traded seeds. And I bought mixed seeds and gave Jackie several small plants last summer. Very excited to see how it all turns out. (NOTE: I told Randy he is lucky to have a flower that bears his namesake, and agreed, then reminded me there's a Barlow pocketknife too. All I have--all I know about anyway--is a coffee from the Gevalia line, "Cafe Mohring.")

Many of the ferns and hostas aren't up yet, so I had to tread carefully. Filled two large trash cans with leaves and pine needles and ivy. We'll take it all to the park to be composted this week.

Time to shower off the grime.

Susquehanna

Monday was a beautiful spring day, and we walked over to Soldiers Park on the river. The borough clear-cut all the trees and shrubs from the river bank, which is disconcerting because I don't know what they're doing to replant and hold the soil. For a while now it's been shockingly scarred and bare.

But the river is lovely as always, and there is a bit of a trail down beneath the old railroad bridge. Randy and I took turns with the camera.

Gregory Djanikian

It was a pleasure to hear Greg read on Tuesday night. I hadn't really kept up with his work since Falling Into America. Jeanne Walker says his new book is going to be awesome.

Stacey Waite

Here's Stacey reading on Tuesday night. Gerald Stern couldn't make it--though he was digitally present in a video reading, as was Terrance Hayes--but Stacey gave a wonderful reading.

Rear Window

Here's a photo I took from my hotel room in State College on Tuesday night. It was late; the streets were pretty much empty, and I was drawn to the television images in an apartment a block away. Couldn't quite make out what was going on, but I think the pic came out really well. I took a whole series of these and now I'm itching to do more.

Public Poetry Project

On Tuesday, I'll be heading over to Penn State to attend a reading & the release of the Public Poetry Project's new series of broadsides. This year, judges Lynn Emanuel, Jeanne Walker & I selected poems by Gerald Stern, Terrance Hayes, Gregory Djanikian, and Stacey Waite. I'm especially proud that we continue to expand the range of voices represented in this great series. You can order broadsides from the web site.

If you happen to be in State College on Tuesday night, please come to the reading & say hello. It takes place at 7 PM in Foster Auditorium in the Pattee Library.

You can also check out the video of me reading at this event last year!

Hanging with the Digerati

My copy of Steve Mueske's Digerati anthology arrived a week or so ago; I've just started reading it. Want to say first off that this is a handsome book! Great cover, nice paper, nice large font. It would have been great to have author names/titles in the header or footer, but on the other hand it's fun to just open the book randomly and read without knowing whose poem I'm checking out. (There is a table of contents, of course, so it's easy to figure this out.)

Happy to see Nancy, Paul, Eduardo represented here. I'm not on a first-name basis with anyone else, but I'm looking forward to reading everyone's work.

Buy it here!

Quilt progress

Randy is making good progress on the new quilt.

Passiflora

About a month ago, on one of those unbelievably warm, fake-you-out-that-Spring's-about-to-arrive February days, I asked Randy if we could stop over at the Kountry Kupboard. The KK is one of those Old Folks Buffets: soft, overcooked veggies, kitschy PA "Dutch" decor, busloads of octogenarians shuffling in to dine and then browse through the gift shop and--and--the greenhouse.

I love the greenhouse. I love any greenhouse, at any time of the year. For one summer in my youth, I worked in the greenhouses at King's Island (a theme park) in Cincinnati. Before we sold our house in Houston, I told Randy that the only way I'd ever move north again was if our place had a greenhouse. We don't have one. But the President's house, right next to the Poetry Center, has one, a modest walk-in greenhouse attached to the side of their Victorian home, and through five years and two university presidents, not once--not once--have I seen a single plant growing in their greenhouse. I have to squelch the urge to throw on some coveralls, knock on their front door, and say "Kids, let's make a deal."

On this particular day, lots of orchids were blooming on the back bench: oncidiums, phalaenopsis, lots of hybrids of hybrids--plants I'd never heard of (Randy was the orchid grower in our garden back in Houston). But the one thing I wanted to take home was a small-leafed passion vine. They had a dozen or so, some in bud, in little 4-inch pots. Sure, R said, then about gagged when it rang up at nine bucks. I brought it home, repotted it in a glazed bowl, and strung it up in the bathroom window with some heavy fishing twine. I've been checking vigilantly for spider mites--which defoliated the impatiens cuttings on the dining room sill--and watching the first bud slowly grow to the size of a swollen thumb. And today it finally opened.

Ding Dong

A delightful lunch yesterday with Deirdre, Steve, and (surprise) Erica, who's in town on her break. Great food, delightful conversation, an experience I don't get often (most of my "people time" is spent in the classroom--after that, I just want to crawl back into my cave to recharge).

Erica is a hoot: even though she's (currently) living in St. Louis, she knows more gossip and stories about what's going on here in central PA than anyone I know. Hence, the "whizzinator" tale, which she swears happened locally just last week or so:

Guy walks into a convenience store and asks the clerk to please nuke something for him in the microwave. (This is one of those places where you can buy packaged sandwiches and heat them up.) She obliges, but when the microwave beeps and she turns to remove what she presumes to be a meal, she realizes it's a penis.

I can only imagine the gasping and shrieking, the dropping (flinging) of the object. Did the guy stay or did he flee? Did he try to stammer an explanation? If he had, would she have listened? Would you?

Story makes the local news. (I wish I'd seen that newscast: "PENIS Found in Microwave"--like a headline straight out of the tabloids.)

And again on the late edition. But by now, there's more information: no one is running around with a missing penis. It turns out that there's a drug testing facility right next door to this Speedy Mart. And it turns out that there's this gadget called the "Whizzinator" (I'm not sure of the spelling; I haven't Googled this): an artificial penis containing a fluid receptacle. Right: you fill this fake dong with someone else's pee, stuff it in your boxers, waltz into your drug test, whip out your faux manhood and let 'er rip.

There's a catch: apparently, the urine has to be warmed (in order to flow freely through the counterfeit urethra?) (because cold piss is a dead giveaway to the technician, more likely).

So there you have it: guy comes in for his drug test, makes a pit stop at the Gas -N- Go next door, calmly asks the clerk to pop his fake whizzer into the microwave so he can be all ready to pull a switcheroo at the lab.

I told the story to Randy when I got home, and he says "Oh yeah, the Whizzinator. Tom Sizemore."

"Huh?"

"Tom Sizemore. The actor. Remember? He was brought up on drug charges and then they caught him faking his own urine test. He used one of those things."

Okay, so R knew all about it--if not about our local incident, then at least about the gadget itself. Still, some crucial questions linger in my queer mind: is this a one-size-fits-all fake weiner? Does it come in various flesh tones to match the wearer?

Can you wear it to the beach? Is it a one-use item or can you sterilize it in the dishwasher and use it every month (or however often one goes in for drug testing)?

Is it cut or uncut?

Oh. And isn't Tom SIZEMORE missing a totally hot marketing opportunity here? To cast a model bearing his name (and likeness)?

**Mary Richards simper**

More good news

Checking my e-mail late Wednesday night, I found an invitation to teach a summer comp course. I've taught composition only three times, and though every course feels to some degree like a work in progress, comp is where that sensation is truly heightened: a crucible of ideas and methods, of trying one approach, tossing it aside, trying another.

Last week, before everyone left for AWP, my friend Betsy asked if I had a short fiction exercise she might use in her class that day. I have a whole "bag of tricks" for fiction and poetry writing. We talked about a few ideas and B said she was going to try one--I haven't seen her since AWP but then again, I've been staying home this past week. Anyway, my point is that I don't yet have a bag of tricks for teaching composition: it still feels like an uphill journey.

And a nice challenge. I've taught creative writing in summer sessions, but not since 2003.

So: this is an open call to anyone who's taught summer comp and is willing to share a few ideas, textbook recommendations, essay exercises, even a rough syllabus. I'm going to spend next week getting my head around this class, and I'd love your input.

[photo: unidentified tree along Dale Engle Walker Trail, Monday afternoon]