End of August

We stayed up late, toggling between CNN and the Weather Channel (which I could watch every day just to see Carl Parker, how yummy he was back in Houston and how much yummier now) (but I digress), feeling increasingly, sinkingly awful about Katrina and her bead on New Orleans. . . I think Randy got up during the night to check the news. I slept poorly: dreamed of embarrasing classroom scenarios (you know the sort, kind of like forgetting-your-high-school-locker-combination dreams, only these are teaching dreams, in which a 19-year-old student asks a question about Ezra Pound and you suddenly can't recall a single effing thing that Pound wrote, or you're talking about a short story they've all been assigned to read and suddenly you realize that was your 1:00 class not your 3:00, or, or. . .) and the weather, none of which I clearly remember, my god what an endless sentence I've painted myself into, let's kill it HERE.

Woke with anxiety, which never really abated, even though it looked as if K was going to scrape N.O. instead of a full-on blast, but then there's the flooding to worry about, and Randy has family just north of Lake Ponchartrain (which I'm sure I've misspelled) and still (this evening) no one has gotten through to them.

But classes went well, spent today in the library for Blackboard orientation so they can turn in all their work online (I'm the worst paper-hoarder), and in my 3:00 I had time to do some other stuff afterward and to read a poem (today I chose Chris Forhan's "Bits & Pieces," from Forgive Us Our Happiness).

Caught up a bit at the end of the day with my friend Deirdre, who is back from Vermont (where I would love to go once more) with a fistful of new poems, hooray, and we're going to try to schedule an hour somewhere to trade poems and give time to our writing. (Back in Houston, the fortune cookie paper I saved, the scary one, said: Work expands to fill the time available.)

Phone call from my sis this evening, just after I walked home from campus: my dad's in the hospital. To be honest, I'm afraid to say anything about anything, lest the fates be tempted to respond with an "oh, yeah? Watch THIS." Just a gut-punch of a day. It took a couple of hours for the fear to catch up to me; my first response in situations like this is to turn cold and objective, a what-needs-to-be-done-next mode which is really pointless when you're 500 miles away.

I generally have no problem with being (somehow) 45, but I can't fucking believe how my parents are aging.

These chilling rehearsals.

Foundlings

I need to get to bed . . . have to be up early to meet my Foundlings (students enrolled in my foundation seminar). There are still a few days before classes begin (W) and I haven't completely nailed down my syllabi (still waffling over the final project to assign my intro class), though both are pretty close.

When Jeff Hardin visited campus last fall, I was inspired by several of our conversations about teaching. One idea I resolved to "steal": he reads a poem at the beginning of every class. How great is that?! For weeks I've been sticking post-its in my books, marking poems I want to read to my students. No discussion, no analysis, just give me two minutes of your attention. Just listen to this.

Sent my blurb off to Amanda Auchter today (for her forthcoming chapbook, Light Under Skin) (buy it!). This is only the third time I've been asked to blurb a collection; the first time I was sooo busy and (bad Ron) didn't get back to the guy (sorry). I haven't seen the ms. for #2 yet. Amanda's poems are good. I'm glad she asked me.

Also mailed my signed contract today to Phil Memmer at Two Rivers Review. My chap is going to be published in one volume with two other manuscripts, by Michael McPhee and Lynne Knight. This is a great idea. More on that soon.

Last note before signing out: yesterday I ran across an announcement for Juliet Patterson's first book, The Truant Lover. This is such a good manuscript, and I'm thrilled to hear that it's going to be published. Check it out at Nightboat Books. And congrats, Juliet--you deserve it.

Scratchings

Went out to the back yard (we have no front yard, so why do I call it the back yard?) with Randy to watch for meteors at two-ish this morning. Saw one. He'd seen four or five earlier, all at once. My eyes are tired this late, and the new bifocals limit my distance vision. Enjoyed the chirring of so many crickets, though, and the cool breeze. Two weeks till classes begin, and I want to melt in the hammock and watch clouds float by.

I love my new office, it's so quiet, and have resisted filling it with books (since I'm only there for a semester). Something large flew past the window the other evening (just past six, I was packing up to walk home) and though I didn't get a good look at it, I am hoping it was an owl. The window (second floor) looks out into huge old oaks with dark hollows in their limb scars. After four years with basement offices, it's like writing in the trees.

What I'm reading this week

Debora Greger's God.

Burfday

Went well, very low key, what a contrast to the Leo Party we used to throw for ourselves back in Houston, which now I can't imagine managing at all. Randy took me out to eat and to buy some new "school clothes," and he's right, my khakis are getting threadbare.

Surprise card from Kayteau--thanks, girl!--which makes me realize we never made it back down to DC for a visit. Fall is stacking up to be pretty busy; I'm still adding content to my courses and deciding which stories to teach. Not much scheduled yet for spring, though I remain optimistic that something will work out this time around. Of course I want to go to AWP in spring, because it's in Austin, and we haven't been back to Texas since we moved what, five years ago? (Not that we miss Texas, Texas is too messed up to really love, though parts leave one nostalgic, particularly Austin.)

Making my now-that-my-life is-statistically-half-over-what-do-I-want-from-the-rest-of-it? list. Okay, haven't put anything on the list yet; just the heading was enough to ponder for a while. (In the middle of my life, I find myself lost in a dark mood.)

My pal Deirdre is in Vermont for the month, which is great, and I hope she's writing lots of new poems. I was inspired by Jeff Hardin to think about reading a poem at the beginning of every class meeting, and in the course of rounding up some poems (on the chance that my students will want to read some of them) I've been sending a "daily poem" to Deirdre.

Heads up to Stacey Waite, wherever you are: we need to talk, hon. Please e-mail me.

Nels: I am thinking about the nebulous proposal I made. This would be so much better if we were talking about it over coffee. But I'll get back to you this week.

I believe I've meandered enough from my subject line for today.

Tracking down chaps

Tried to order my friend Jeff Hardin's chapbook, Deep in the Shallows, to teach in my intro CW course this fall. They're sold out. I'm glad I have a copy, and that we got one for the Stadler Center's library. GreenTower Press did a fine job on this book (it's even hand-sewn) and I wish they could find the moolah to run a second printing.

Ended up ordering Jeff's second chap, The Slow Hill Out, though Pudding Press (which cranks out a helluva lot of chapbooks--too many, IMHO) says it will take "several weeks" to get them.

And another chap, Sophie Wadsworth's Letters from Siberia, is proving difficult to order in quantity (I only need fifteen copies): Comstock Review Press offers limited payment options, so I don't know yet if I'm gonna get this one.

Other presses make ordering a breeze: Kent State even provides me with desk copies when I ask for them. But really small presses, too, seem to manage their book orders well: Ander Monson's New Michigan Press (I'm teaching Michael Sowder's A Calendar of Crows again; it's a great "starter book" for my intro class), for example. And last year I ordered Betsy Sholl's wonderful Coastal Bop from Oyster River Press and had no problems; I'm using it again this year.

Hey, folks: take a good look at how the other guys are doing this. Poets want our books to sell with as little hassle as possible.

Potter!

I was whining last night that everyone, everywhere, is prolly already on page 500 of the new Harry Potter book. Randy sighed, opened a cupboard and handed me mine--two weeks early, happy birthday, you nitwit.

Got to page 105 before falling asleep. Don't tell me!

Is it ego-surfing if someone else does it for you?

My friend Deirdre congratulated me the other day on my chapbook news. I was puzzled: hadn't really told but two or three folks. "I read it on your blog, dear." Oh: cool beans! People read this thing!

Which leads me to the topic of ego-surfing: I hardly do it. I hardly have to, b/c Randy is usually way ahead of me: "Hey, do you know so-and-so? She did a review of your book." "Hey, did you know Scott Hightower has you on his recommended list on Amazon?"

Sweet Randy. He's my people. He's an army of one.

Needle & off-white thread

Finished a quilt last weekend--very satisfying--and went directly from that one to the four-patch I pieced this past winter. I had stopped quilting on the four-patch around March to start the new quilt (it's a gift). Good to get back to it. I'm further along than I remembered. Rain expected every day this week (it's raining now); good to stay in and quilt and watch baseball on TV (go Red Sox!); I'm not getting much reading done at this point except for class preps, but will make an exception of course for the new Harry Potter book (all I really want for my birthday).

Adjunct Love/Hate

Got a call yesterday from our Associate Dean, offering me an extra fall course. I said yes, automatically, immediately, because this was not the time nor place to negotiate or even discuss how this puts me up to full-time in terms of my work and time commitment, and how little I'll be paid. Not to mention my zero benefits.

Sigh.

I just heard about a full-time job in the social services sector, something I could easily imagine doing. Something I think I could be good at. But it's not teaching. And I love teaching, especially here at BU.

I'm not the only one, and I know it. I heard today that the department scrambled to grab four adjuncts. It used to happen in the Spanish dept every semester in Houston; I worked in the office there and made some of those "would you like to teach this section starting on Monday?" calls, and truly didn't get the level of frustration our adjuncts felt. I get it now. I get it. All I want to know is: how can we somehow move from exploitation to equity?

Chapbook News

Just off the phone tonight with Phil Memmer, who let me know that my manuscript "Touch Me Not" has won the Two Rivers Review Poetry Chapbook Prize. I'm very happy: these are some of the poems that will (eventually) comprise my next (hopefully) full-length book ("The Boy Who Reads in the Trees"). And I'm delighted to follow on the heels of last year's winning chap, written by my friend Scott Withiam. (Yo, Scott! We're on the same page!)

Going out for celebratory ice cream. . .

Indiana Review arrives

The new Indiana Review is here: the collaboration/collage issue. Some of the usual suspects, a few whom I adore. Some nice surprises, too. And a little poem that I co-wrote with Katie Hays, a former student and dear friend and collaborator, who claims not to be a poet (she's an awesome fiction writer), though I know better.

It's an odd bounce, to see a poem finally in print, even though one knows it's coming out, expects it (or sometimes forgets all about it): the poem on the page always lags behind, somewhere in the vee-wake of our moving forward, writing (or fretting about writing) the next thing. Maybe we're facing that wake and see its little face bobbing in the water. Maybe we're too busy facing forward and don't pay enough attention. I'm building this lameass metaphor but it feels appropriate nonetheless. It is a little bounce. It doesn't last. We always want the next thing.

Tonight, anyway, I'm happy that our poem's in IR. And I'm delighted to still be collaborating with Katie (umm, that sonnet we're doing? It's your turn).

Cleaning House

Bleh. How much e-mail collects on my office computer! I've been setting up mail filters to auto-dump stuff I don't need to see. But still, it's daunting. All this because I'll be changing offices soon. Let's not even talk about the boxes of paper, which I swear I am not carting home until everything can fit into one box: one single box and no more. The attic is not an option.

The home computer crashed. Sent a couple of odd error messages the day before, which I now recognize as its bleeping attempt to warn us of the impending flatline. I said to Randy, rather idly, "We should back up our files" (all the while wondering if I even knew how to move stuff to a CD or DVD) . . . The campus tech desk took the tower and said they'd try to retrieve our data & reinstall our OS. Will see. I've never even used "OS" so casually in a sentence before. And I still don't know how to back up my data onto a CD.

Skating along the thin ice of cyberspace.

What I'm reading now, again, with continued admiration: Brian's book is simply terrific.

Hanging with the June Poets

The June Seminar is in full swing, and I'm happy to be working with another batch of talented young poets. It's pure delight to spend time with Mary Ruefle, our visiting poet: I haven't seen her since grad school. Her work still stuns me...

Publishing Triangle Awards

Well, it was great to drive to New York and attend the Publishing Triangle Awards. My book was a finalist in the gay men's poetry category (the award has just been named for Thom Gunn, which is sweet), right beside books by D.A. Powell and Carl Phillips (who won, of course). Sweet, too, to see Maureen Seaton win for Venus Examines Her Breast. And I fell out of my chair when Edward Field started his speech as Eve Harrington (from "All About Eve"--if you had to ask, go rent the movie right now).

Wish I could have stayed for days. I heart New York.

They Move Like Spirits

Deer in the woods behind Mom & Dad's house. How many do you see?

Close Up

Mom feeds them in the driveway. They have their own bowls. If they'd hold still, they'd probably have their own blankets and earmuffs too.

Orchard

On my way back from Penn State, I stopped alongside this apple orchard. We always notice it when driving through the mountains, but rarely have a chance to stop.

Off to Penn State. . .

Where I'm delighted to be reading tomorrow night with Lynn Emanuel, Judith Vollmer, and Jeanne Murray Walker at the fourth annual Public Poetry Project Reading. Posters/broadsides for everyone. PSU is only an hour away, and I've never been to the campus, though we did drive over for excellent sushi last year (in central PA, one drives for good food . . .)