Weather

Quiet day at home. Gray and rainy, which I don't mind, and then the wind picked up this afternoon and we got a little snow. Feels like January again. I admit that the warm sunny days earlier this week felt a little--well, unnatural. January is for browsing through the garden catalogs and dreaming about growing six kinds of heirloom tomatoes. Sadie's been tracking in mud, and that shouldn't happen until March.

Sadie's such a good cuddler. I've had a headache all day. When I lie down, she finds me, lays her head on the edge of the mattress and sighs, waiting to be invited up. I stroke her soft ears and whisper poems: she seems unsettled by Robert Frost.

I took this photo last year on January 9th. Just resized it. Wish my initials were "EL." Maybe I'll go back soon and try to find one.

Re-reading Richard McCann's beautiful poem (& chapbook) "Nights of 1990:"

When the hospital therapist asked me what was the matter
I told him my heart had broken. He placed his hands upon my chest.
He said, "Now I'm going to press down harder."

Lavender Languages

The annual Lavender Languages Conference will be held at American University from February 10-12. Anyone planning to go?

Like pouting robots

From my lunch walk the other day, the photo at right is of two ginormous vents on the roof of the Carnegie building. I shared an office last semester in Carnegie. One of the oldest buildings on campus, it served for a time as the library. Old brick, old exposed pipes, loud knocking radiators, water damage whenever it rains, no elevator: I loved that office. These vents, or ducts, or cooling units--whatever--look so incongruous on the roof of such an old building. Like two aliens having an argument about how to climb down. Like snitting robots. Giant mailboxes set free to conquer.

A line from Lisa Lewis's poem "Genesis" (I'm re-reading her book The Unbeliever):

"As if some unseen machine had him by the hips."

Whiteness

Gail Griffin is on campus to lead a 2-day workshop on "uncovering whiteness" (in reading, writing, teaching); I'm looking forward to this. Should be some great discussions. (Not teaching this spring, but hope springs eternal each fall.)

Photo at left: close-up of Prof. Roberts (a plaque thereof), the dude this old building was named after. I love these old plaques: head-on, they look fine, but viewed from one side (or the other) close up, the noses get really wonky and out of perspective. There's a reason for this I'm sure (i.e., we're not supposed to view them other than head-on) (but I like the side view). I'll try to get a good wonky pic & post it soon.

Totally unrelated: I'm starting up some collaborative poems with two or three folks I haven't worked with before. Really, really looking forward to seeing where this goes!

Bedtime for Ronzo . . .

Look Up

Today on my lunch hour I walked around campus with the digital cam. I'm not so good at photographing people, but I do look for patterns: dew, shadows, that sort of thing. Here's a stairwell in Roberts Hall, where I'm working right now:

Pugilistic dreams

I've been fighting a lot in my dreams, but can't remember with whom. Also getting lost, often in Mexico City, or what feels like Mexico City, which is the only foreign capital I've ever visited (Frankfort, Kentucky doesn't count) (oh, come and get me, I haaaaaate Kentucky, it smells like an ashtray). Also, David is showing up a lot, though he's been dead ten years--

Duh.

January 14th. Okay, I get that part.

But the museums like open parking garages, and David buying antique Coca-Cola metalware, and losing the car in some hilly neighborhood, and the heartbreakingly beautiful Mexican lad who bandaged Sadie's paw (how did my dog get into this dream?), and David saying it's fine to go with that boy? I keep fighting awake like I've been drowning. It's not restful. It's only two in the afternoon on Tuesday and I'm whipped. I must, must, get to bed early tonight.

Randy got a splitter for his portable CD player; he falls asleep listening to Tibetan chants and such. I may take him up on his offer to share. I need to find less chaos in my dreams.

Trusses & beams

[Two photos today, taken in January of last year, of bridges in Bloomsburg.]

What do you do--besides read--when you're not writing? To nurture that awareness, that spark? If "poet" means a particular way of being in the world (I believe it does), then couldn't just about any activity be undertaken in the same conscious, receptive manner that typifies the "zone" I feel I'm in when a poem is coming to me? Walking to work, certainly--so much to notice, so many rhythms. But chopping carrots? Cleaning out the litter box?

Is it enough to practice mindfulness, to make it an increasing part of daily life? Or does being a poet require output: the product defines the maker?

Buffing Sestinas

Eduardo posted a link to Jason Schneiderman's snappy Buffy Sestina the other day. This got me to thinking about sestinas again--specifically, how I generally prefer to write a sestina that pushes back against the form. Example: I wrote a "truncated" sestina with a six-syllable line, and then "bumped up" every other line so the poem was set in 3-line stanzas. This is a pretty fun way of disguising the form, since half the repeated end words are "buried" mid-line; the resulting pattern of end words isn't immediately apparent, either. You end up with seven stanzas of three lines each. Mathematically, it goes like this:

1-2/ 3-4/ 5-6 //
6-1/ 5-2/ 4-3 //
3-6/ 4-1/ 2-5 //
5-3/ 2-6/ 1-4 //
4-5/ 1-3/ 6-2 //
2-4/ 6-5/ 3-1 //
2-5/ 4-3/ 6-1 [envoi]

So I'm wondering: how do other poets approach the sestina form? Does anyone else have a specific way of tweaking it to produce something atypical?

Chickens

The new Florida Review is out. My poem "Thievery" is in it. I'm very pleased.

All my little chickens have roosted for the long night.

Translation: I have no poems out. I haven't written any new ones since June.

Defense: I've been thinking about quilts. And quilting. I've been quilting, and also thinking about quilts.

Self-encouragement: Making quilts is just another way of making poems.

Self-doubt: I lack maybe three poems to finish my new manuscript. I think I know what poems they are (rather, I sense them in the room and can almost imagine their becoming). What if I can't write them?

Unrelated lingering image: For the past couple of weeks, in a low-lying cornfield just outside town, we've spotted several wild turkeys. At first they were easy to spot against the snow, eight or nine humped figures shaped like dark Amish bonnets, and I thought: crones. Now the snow's all melted--the fields are so muddy, it might as well be March--and they're harder to spot. But Randy saw them yesterday in the same field. Old ones. Almost a coven.

Return to the issue at hand: I'm okay with not writing poems for now. Ideas and phrases are bumping around in my head. Last month, for instance, I read Chris Forhan's poem "Dream: Obedience" in the summer Laurel Review and had to jot down this line:

Some boys won't go willingly. I will.

I think it wants to be a villanelle.

Walking home yesterday

Five things presumably left/lost in the snow which are now (that the snow has melted) visible:

• chapstick
• tube sock
• yellow pencil
• cracked cafeteria tray adorned with the letter "J" in duct tape
• spork

Also, walking past a maple tree, I noticed a squirrel's bushy ass hanging out of a hollow spot, about eye level, and wondered (idly) whether anyone had ever hidden anything inside the tree. It's on campus, beside a fairly well-traveled path. Surely I'm not the only one to ever consider this.

Would the squirrels allow foreign objects? Would any non-food item be rejected as taking up critical space reserved for sustenance? Do squirrels really store nuts and acorns in tree hollows, or simply line them with nesting material? What might I hide in a tree, knowing I could probably not retrieve it?

• pennies (version of a "wishing well")
• anonymous confession of a crime I've considered but never enacted
• poem drafts: the tree would slowly digest them and offer revisions in March
• a spare cell phone: I could hide uphill at night and dial it as people walked past & drive them batty as they attempted to find it

November photos

Yeah, I'm late posting these, but ran across them today on the PC: some local photos I took while we were out for a drive in the country on November 11. Enjoy.

Hiatus

Since Randy and I don't "do" christmas, my online absence has little to do with the "holidays" (except that they translate into time off, which I relish). I've been lazing. Lazing and grazing. Today is the first day in two weeks that I haven't eaten a slice of pie. Apples are refreshingly yummy again.

Speaking of apples, Randy picked up a bag of "Arkansas Blacks" at the Farmer's Market on Wednesday: what a beautiful apple! Dark mahogany burnish, small size--they looked so beautiful in a bowl that I wanted to (and plan to) photograph them. The vendor told R that this is an old, heirloom variety with a rather tart flavor. R sliced one today and the flavor was good, though the texture was a bit of a letdown: I like an extra-crisp apple (all-time fave is Honey Crisp). But I'm thinking of baking them into something (yeah, still craving pie).

Randy worked on a photo I took last week with the digital cam. My old Canon (an awesome camera) started having trouble again this summer (the shutter sticks)--I'd had it cleaned and repaired about 2 years ago over in Bloomsburg, at this old-timey shop, the kind you can't believe exist any more. Lately--for the past year or more--I've had no time for the campus darkroom (I used to go as part of the photo club). Anyway, I've gotten more comfortable with borrowing the digital cam, even though R knows a lot more than I do about how to use it.

So last week I took a series of photos, and a couple of days ago Randy came downstairs with an 8x10: he'd fiddled with the contrast (and opacity) and made what I think is a super photo. Let me know what you think. (And thanks again, hon.)

Is this for real?

My friend K (not Kayteau) sent me this link today. I am speechless.

His name is Earl and he's my next-door neighbor

Since I've heard naught from the Island this afternoon, I took some time to catch up with Earl Pickens and his blog. You've got to read it; Earl's a hoot. Moreover, he's a real nice guy, a talented musician, and a super dad. Oh, yeah: he's our next-door neighbor.

I'm hitching my blog-star to Earl's coattails. Just for today. Yeehaw.

Nice line

In Fresh Men, a queer fiction anthology selected by Edmund White, here's a great line from the opening story, Vestal McIntyre's "ONJ.com":

"The line between his ironic and real personae must have been worn away years ago from frequent crossings."

I love that. I read the story on my lunch break, then looked up to see that our wintry mix had arrived. Most of the writing center staff have fled--one reported back that the roads are treacherous--but I was planning to walk home this afternoon anyway. Typing now on a borrowed computer, which won't allow me access to e-mails and files I really need, which sucks because I am *supposed* to be grading short stories right now. Grrrr.

About the computer: this semester I worked on a "loaner" laptop. Loaner equipment has to be turned in by Monday--in the middle of grading week--so, with Randy's approval, I ordered a new laptop. Took them both over to the tech desk today for a data transfusion, or whatever they call it on the Island. (The problem with ISR is what I call the Island/Mainland paradigm: everyone there speaks the same language, but when one of us tech-deficient-but-earnestly-trying dummies paddles over, there's no translator available.) So I'm waiting. And it's snowing hard. And though they said they'd try to have it ready by five, and though I tried to underscore my urgent need for computer access to my students' final portfolios (I have them turn in all their work online), it's really, really snowing hard. Final exams are over and students are leaving for winter break. Is there anyone left at ISR to even look at my laptop? Should I phone? Will that annoy them? Will they purposefully "lose" some of my data out of spite because I've annoyed them? Are they snickering even now, because they know I'm too deficient to even notice its loss for weeks or even months?

On the mainland, we worry that the islanders don't take us seriously. We know it. We feel absurd, like overcautious hand-wringing ministers trying to advocate celibacy to owl-eyed gang members, young men who nod, yeah yeah, speed-typing codes and whisking our precious laptops into the tech labyrinth where Things Get Done. I stand at the counter as the computer technician affixes a case number label to my brand-new Dell. I haven't even had the chance to play with it yet. I feel like a Muggle who's stumbled onto Hogwarts. I have to trust that everything will work out, and on time.

The Beauty of Men

So I've been reading Andrew Holleran's The Beauty of Men, episodically, twenty or thirty pages at a time, mainly late at night before I fall asleep, with continued admiration for his prose style but a rising gorge against his protagonist: I simply loathe the portrayal of contemporary gay men as long-suffering, doomed queens. Am I the only queer who wants to run a few of these characters through a slapping booth? Do we need to perpetuate the message that gay men are virtually invisible after forty, that they have no possible chance at love? I haven't read (nor do I want to read) any reviews or criticism of the novel, and I'm probably too late to join that discussion--which I'm sure is out there--but mainly I'm just, well, appalled. Forty pages from the end of this novel, I'm losing hope of a redeeming moment for this self-loathing whiner.

There, I said it.

Calling all undergrad poets!

January 3 is the postmark deadline for applications to this year's Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets (the "June Seminar"). Fellows live on campus from June 1-22, and are provided free meals and housing. This is such a great opportunity for young poets to spend some focused time with talented peers and accomplished mentors. Past June Fellows include Kevin Young, Mark Wunderlich, Ilya Kaminsky, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Deirdre O'Connor, Stacey Waite, and Mary Szybist. I taught for four years in the program (and was a June Fellow myself years ago) and can't speak highly enough about it. Visiting faculty this year: Terrance Hayes and Michael Waters. Please urge your most promising students & friends to apply!

Rhythm disturbance

So on Tuesday my dad got implanted with his new device: a combo pacemaker/defibrillator unit with two lead wires threaded directly into his heart. A new machine to keep the old machine chugging along. A necessary accessory. A purchase (more time).

Mom, meanwhile, has fractured her foot (in three places) (with no idea how). Well, the general cause is osteoporosis--which sucks--but she doesn't recall jouncing around on a pogo stick or kicking the wall or dropping a casserole on the foot; it just broke. Scary.

Last week, in my sister's e-mail describing Dad's upcoming procedure, she explained that the unit is designed to detect and regulate a "rhythm disturbance." I'm rankled at how medical (and other) terminologies (d)evolve into bland niceties that distance us from our experiences (you're having an "event," they say to the person experiencing a stroke). Still I couldn't help relishing the term: rhythm disturbance. Such associations. I offer it to you, dear reader. Write me a poem. Send something back.

Mary Szybist in town

Poet Mary Szybist will be on campus for a couple of days this week: we had scheduled a visit to my intro creative writing class, but because my class meets at noon, we were able to book a larger space for a Writers at Work talk up at the Writing Center (my class will attend but there will be room for others, too). Mary is also giving a public reading on Tuesday night at Bucknell Hall.

I've been re-reading Mary's book, Granted, and I'm struck again by her poems' inventive engagement with their subjects, and with their structural suspension (I don't know what else to call it): she uses the colon and dash to create connections and extend possibilities. I'm not sure I even have the capacity any more to write critically about so much of the poetry I genuinely like (I'm not sure it's wise to make this confession, but really, my brain feels tired lately), but reading this book makes me want to go back to my desk and try writing something new.

World AIDS Day: searching for poems

Randy, who faithfully reads my blog (dear man), has pointed out that I haven't been posting lately. Things are busy-busy around here, and the November Madness of--well, everything, it seems--takes its toll. I thought it couldn't hurt to ask for a little help with one of my projects:

I'm helping to organize a reading on December 1 to commemorate World AIDS Day. Two years ago, we did this during the noon hour in conjunction with a display of panels from the NAMES Project, and it went really well: lots of folks came through the campus gallery on their lunch breaks to look at the quilt panels, and stayed for the reading. Next year, we're bringing the quilt panels back. But this year, we are trying to present a reading that showcases a multiplicity of voices: some of the multicultural student groups have volunteered to read poems or prose excerpts, and we're doing our best to find material that represents a range of voices.

Here's where I need some help: does anyone out there have any recommendations of where to find some decent-quality writing that presents a multicultural perspective on AIDS and HIV? I thought I was pretty familiar with the literature (duh) and I've been writing about the subject myself for a good long time, but finding poems that voice, for example, the HIV experience of women is proving difficult: what I continue to find are poems by women about gay (white) men. Any help is appreciated; I will track down any leads that you can suggest.

Thanks--