Guns and Swears and Vermont

So I applied to Bread Loaf for the first time. I didn't think my credentials were up to snuff for the straight-up scholarship, so I applied for one of the waiterships. I can't afford to go without some sort of moneys and don't mind slangin' some plates. Plus, friend and former professor Aaron Baker told me there would be bonfires. The prospect of a week-and-a-half in a Vermont valley filled with writer-types gathered around a fire sure has me smiling. But I'm counting chickens that haven't yet hatched. For now, I wait and patiently hope.

Any other folks out there in the blogosphere thinking about a conference this Summer? (I would love to go back to Sewanee, but can't afford that one either and I've already been a scholar there once...).

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Speaking of writerly to-dos: I finally found out I got time off from teaching to attend AWP in Denver. I'm excited to attend (this will be my first one...), half to see what it's all about, half to see some great old friends in the city. I'll be staying with them: will I be missing anything by not staying in the conference hotel? Anything I should make sure to bring? (flashlight? latex gloves? white noise machine? life-size cut-out of a picture of myself giving a thumbs up?)


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Killer first line of the moment:

"I am worn out with dreams;"

from W.B. Yeats' "Men Improve with the Years"
(The Wild Swans at Coole, 1917)


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I wrote this poem the other day. It's about an experience I had a few weeks ago shooting a .357 with our art-teacher. I probably just ruined the poem for you. Posting it underneath a Yeats' line probably didn't help either. Not sure how I feel about the poem, though I'm happy that it seems to be a departure (also, it's my first poem with a swear). Why I'm posting it here? No idea. Anyway--to disappear shortly:

*plish*


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Congrats (again!) Lisa Fay!


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Oh yeah. We got 13 inches of snow here. Boone likes it. (Excuse the fuzziness, the picture was taken through the screen door).

January Surge

Drafted a new poem today. My second this month, hereby obliterating my productivity-rate of the last several months. It's such an amazing feeling to get in that zone. C.Dale speaks much more eloquently about this at his blog, but it reminds me how much I need this, how everything seems to pale in comparison to the act of writing the poem once it finally starts to emerge. Hell, I skipped American Idol to keep drafting! (truth be told: it's being DVR-ed). Mayhaps said draft will blip on-and-off this very blog sometime soon...

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Big-time congrats to Gary! It's never too early to pre-order! (In this case, it actually is, but mentally you should certainly add this to your pre-order list...)

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Killer first line of the moment:

"Like a far-off scream, like a mannequin leaning back-seat"

from Major Jackson's "Maddeningly Elusive, Yet Endlessly Tempting"

(Hoops, W.W. Norton, 2006)

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The bandleader, a surly cellist, refused to make eye contact with anyone and hissed at a young girl who tried to clap along. As the music sputtered to a flaccid conclusion, thick jets of foam were dumped on the audience from hidden ceiling ducts. As people wiped the stinging lather from their eyes, Mr. O'Brien jumped out from behind a curtain and cheerfully quipped, "Ha, ha, you're all foamy!"

-An Op-Ed from 1993 written by none other than Conan O'Brien, regarding his debut as the host of the Late Night Show. By the by, I loved his last show: both funny and tender-hearted. If you missed it, read about it/watch bits here.

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Not because it's significant, but because it's a good song.

Feeling Nostalgic

Puppy/dog picture-of-the-week. It's pretty much Boone's bed now...

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Golden Globes tonight. I'll probably watch as it's Sunday night and HBO is showing re-runs. So, this begs the question: who do you like? I've only got a few that I'm rooting for: I desperately want Fantastic Mr. Fox to win the best animated (watch out, Pixar...) as that was my favorite movie of the last year, I'd also like to see The Hangover win best comedy, and Neil Patrick Harris for best supporting actor in a comedy series. Beyond that, not many horses in this race. I've only seen 3 of the 5 nominated for best motion picture, but of those I guess I enjoyed Avatar the most, though I'm not sure if it's the stuff of 'best picture.' Anyway...


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Killer first line of the moment:

"Twenty men stand watching the muckers."

from Carl Sandburg's "Muckers"
(Selected Poems, Harcourt Brace, 1996)


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Start my P90X program tomorrow. It'll be strange as for the past 3 years I've been running 20+ miles a week with not much focus on building muscle. Should be interesting to switch gears like this...


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As far as the Tonight Show debate goes, I'm a soldier in the Conan O'Brien army, but Jimmy Fallon won major points with this...

Number 100

This is my hundreth post in this space, something which is a bit surprising to me. I started this in August of '07 as an unpublished wanna-be-poet entering the MFA program at Hollins. I think the blog has evolved on some levels: more music, more links, more gimmicks (don't worry, next week we'll have a picture of the puppy); though, I still consider myself a wanna-be-poet and I still think of this space as a forum in which I can attempt to work-out my uncertainties, both as they relate to PoBiz and to life in general. It's also a nice way to keep track of what's happened over the past 2 and a half years--it's strange to see the posts I came up with in the midst of life-changing events. Anyway--many thanks to anyone and everyone who takes the time to peruse this space. It's fun for me to make these posts and I hope they haven't been a complete waste of time for anyone reading them.


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Where there is suffering, which is to say, where there is human life, there is art. But art doesn’t merely mirror the bad things that happen to us. It shapes what happens into meaning. And there is always great joy and pleasure, even happiness, in the fundamental human act of shaping. It’s not, as Plato believed, that some part of the soul desires to weep for itself; it’s rather that the soul possesses a stubborn need for pleasure; it urgently desires to convert weeping into laughter, the sorrow of subject matter into the joy of form. It is a uniquely human instinct—to bring the greatest degree of childlike exuberant playfulness to bear upon the harshest and most difficult realities, answering the tragic gravity of life with the comedic grace of imaginative transformation, shaping life into a vitally clarifying or comprehending image of itself.

--Alan Shapiro in VQR

Stumbled upon this essay the other day, found it achingly beautiful and, more importantly, true.


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Killer first line of the moment:

"Thirty-one days of October the opalescent monsoons"

from Sandra Alcosser's "He Paints the Kingdom of Decay: His Goddess Escapes"
(Except by Nature, Graywolf Press, 1998)

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Wrote a new poem today. First one in months. Pleased with it, though it probably needs to go through a wringer or two before I try and find a place for it in the manuscript. Speaking of, I made a few deletions and re-arrangements over our Christmas break that I feel have really strengthened the collection. I recognized some things I hadn't seen before. Progress, slow and steady, yes.


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A taste of my New Year's Eve experience in Denver:



If you're interested, find the whole show (fo' free) here. Some great covers during the show: Grateful Dead's "Reuben and Cherise," Talking Head's "Girlfriend is Better," Robert Randolph's "Good Times."