Proximity

So very close to Christmas Break. For those of you playing at home, that means a month and a half free from teaching and student-ing. I cannot stress enough how glorious this will be. I bought a puzzle that I plan on spreading across my coffee table (replacing the student workshop packets that usually occupy that space). Get ready folks, it's almost sweatpants season.

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Currently reading:
"Salvation Blues" by Rodney Jones
"Man Suit" by Zachary Schomburg
"About Grace" by Anthony Doerr

Listening to:
"Stripping Cane" by Jeffrey Foucault

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I'm thinking of this upcoming break as a chance to write lots of new poems. That said, I'm currently trying to plow through drafts of what were "new poems" at the beginning of the semester. I'm pretty comfortable with most of these (at least comfortable enough to send them out in packets last week), but there's one that I've been struggling with. Theoretically, it's the title poem of my thesis (After the Ark ), and it very well may be the longest poem in there. At least it's long for me (translation, 2 pages of fragmented couplets). But there's a very interesting conversation going on over on Oliver de la Paz's blog regarding long poems and how they can serve as "anchors" in a collection. So with that conversation in mind, I've been trying to push this poem as far as it can go, doing what Richard Dillard calls "writing past endings." That may be my problem, I keep arriving at lines and having to resist the impulse to put a period on things. Then I can't help but feel as though the poem is stalling on "restart."

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I bought my dad an ice cream maker for christmas. My brother, a beard trimmer. I am very happy with my choice of gifts. Hopefully they are, too.

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Friendly rejection from Appalachian Heritage today. "We really liked these. Please send more." is really beginning to lose its charm.

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Shelley taught me how to make calzones yesterday.

UNC-Michigan State

Big game tonight. They're playing in Detroit, where the final four will be played. These boys should get used to shooting on those rims...


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Finished up my Stadler app. It's going in the mail tomorrow morning. As uncertain about this one as I am all the others.


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Shelley graduates at a Doctor of Physical Therapy on Sunday! This means I'm heading to North Carolina tomorrow afternoon and will be spending the weekend there. First time her parents (consverative catholics) meet my dad (liberal protestant)...should be interesting. I'm going to try and keep the conversation centered on sports. But this means, no blogging this weekend.

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Listening to: Mick Boogie & Talib Kweli "MCEO Mixtape"
Reading: the story "Winners on the Pass Line" by Dagoberto Gilb (if you haven't read this story, you should)

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GO HEELS. That is all.

More Consistent

I've decided to blog on a daily basis. Watch the sentence devolve before your very eyes. (What does that phrase mean? I'm going to start applying it to other parts of the anatomy. I'll freeze my very nuts off, my very mind will be blank, and my very palms will be sweaty.)

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Saw the Guy Ritchie movie "Revolver" the other night. The tagline on imdb is: "Your mind will not accept a game this big." Well, they're right. It didn't. It won't, ever. This movie sucked, and I'm talking like Spiderman 3 sucked. Not the kind of sucking where you're bored, but the kind where you're mad.

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In another week and a half I can read books that I want to read instead of books that I have to read. This makes me so happy. On the top of my list: James Galvin's "Fencing the Sky"; Mark Doty's New and Selected (that just one the National Book Award); and I'm going to re-read Jack Gilbert's "The Great Fires." Also, I'm determined at least one book of civil war history. Any recommendations?

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The first sentence of my statement of plans for the Stegner fellowship:

"I discovered poetry after writing and recording many albums worth of bad rap music."

Clearly, I thought that one through.

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Purdue plays Dook tonight as part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, While I should root for the Conference, I think the ACC has it pretty much locked up, so: Go Boilermakers!

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And now, a photo of a small man holding a big fish, taken by me in Moose River, Alaska

December??

Hard to believe it's already December. It was cold and rainy this morning and I told my class that we may get a real winter. Now it's 55 and sunny out and I'm reloading my shuffle to go for a run. Virginia winters are magical. At least compared to Ithaca winters.

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The December round of fellowship apps are in the mail (Stegner, Provincetown, Exeter, and Stadler Center at Bucknell). It's funny how these things work. You look at the apps and spend all this time scrutinizing and hoping and fantasizing about how amazing actually getting one would be, but then you remember the competition. I don't even think I have the best chance in my program at getting one of these. I also realized that no matter how "successful" one is in terms of publishing and the like, we'll never stop applying for things, whether it's fellowships, grants, residencies, writing conferences, or even those sneaky applications disguised by that word "submission."

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Lots of poems in the mail. Some friendly rejections. Still waiting for the first nibble of the new semester.

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I've realized I don't know how to go grocery shopping. I just keep buying the same ingredients to the only two things I know how to make (Parmesan Crusted Pork-Chops and Coconut Shrimp) and Pasta. So I eat one fancy meal every week along with five nights of pasta and red sauce (Alfredo if I'm feeling crazy). It's really sad.

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Listening to: Ben Folds "Rockin' the Suburbs"
Reading: Brendan Galvin's "Whirl is King" (reviewing it for the Critic)

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Best New Poets 2008 is very much out, and very much selling copies. Did a reading with 6 of the other poets in the book at the Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, VA. It was amazing to see the diversity of the voices in the collection. Really incredible to be included in the same pages as these folks. Talk about humbling.

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UNC plays Michigan State on Wednesday. Are you ready?

Where I'm At

Okay. So it seems the blog has devolved into simple updates. I'm cool with that, for now, as the end of the semester looms on the calendar, and the end of the MFA looms still larger.

Election: Obama! It's a beautiful thing to have a writer in the White House. Am I the only one who is anxious to see what sort of puppy the Obama's get? I think it says a lot about a President--some of my earliest notions of a President are shaped by the black-and-white photos of FDR with his scottie Fala. I know there are many more consequential decisions--like overturning Prop 8 and getting us back on track economically--but still I wonder.

Thesis: For now, I have a title: After the Ark, and a skeleton of sections. I do worry about filling things out with poems I really like, rather than simply poems I tolerate. But this takes a backseat right now to...

Fellowship Applications: The final list of where I'm going to apply is set, including: the George Bennett Fellowship at Exeter Academy, the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, the Milton Center Fellowship in Seattle, the Olive B. O'Connor fellowship at Colgate, the Stadler Fellowship at Bucknell, the Stegner at Stanford, and the Poetry Fellowships at the University of Wisconsin. Yes, the odds of actually getting one of these are very slim. Yes, I'm planning on not getting accepted anywere. Yes, it almost feels like throwing away money. No, I'm not done picking which poems I'm going to send, but I do have recommendation letters (I've been giving them copies of BNP 2008 as thank you gifts, it makes me feel very awkward).

Wedding Planning: At this point both Shelley and I are so bogged down in other places (She's finishing her last residency, will be a doctor of physical therapy in two weeks!!) that it's easy to let this stuff slip. But fortunately we got most of the big things (band, venue, photographer, minister, etc.) out of the way early. The next round of things probably involves invitations and figuring out just what, if anything, I'll be wearing that evening.

Rejection junction: Since we last spoke I've developed a much more prestigious stack, including nice notes from Shenandoah, Cream City Review, and Crab Orchard Review. But this is the longest streak of all-rejection I've had since I started sending out last year about this time. I guess it's to be expected as I'm trying out more reputable and thus, lower-odds, places. I'm trying to stick by my policy of always having something in the mail, if only to preserve my optimism.

Reading:
The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr. Amazing. I mentioned to someone how much I enjoyed Rick Bass' first collection of stories, The Watch, and he told me that he thought I'd enjoy Doerr. It really is an incredible book. These are stories in the most traditional sense of the word. It's really refreshing in a world of flash fiction (nothing against it when it's done well, but more often than not I simply read these as emaciated scenes or wannabe Russell Edson's) to find meaty stories to knock me over.

One Body by Margaret Gibson. I read this collection before introducing her at Hollins, and it really won me over immediately. First off, the poetry is stunning, dwelling in realms I'm quite familiar with (mourning the loss of a parent through the always insufficient institutions of the churches we've been shuttled into), she's a Hollins grad (her, Annie Dillard, and Lee Smith, were all students at the same time), and LSU simply makes beautiful books. But now I'm rushing because the dog is barking. I really do have more intelligent things to say...I promise.

That's all for now. College basketball season will save us all....

Election Day

I'm fairly sure no one reads this...but I thought I'd put it out in as many places as possible.

VOTE.

I'm not teaching on Tuesday, but if I were, I'd cancel my class. This is too important.

PS--I'm sitting on what might be some great news in regards to post-mfa, but can't quite say anything about it until it becomes a bit more real. Stay tuned.

Fall Update

Above is a picture of the George Washington National Forest taken this past weekend on our backpacking trip. It was an amazing two days of hiking, covering just over twenty miles. That's the good news, the bad news is this was one of my only free weekends this semester and rather than find some productive writing time, I took off into the woods. I maintain it was worth it.

I've discovered that teaching drastically affects writing time. I'm not sure what I expected, but since the semester started (6 weeks ago), I've only written five poems. Count'em. Between preparing fellowship applications, reading student poem packets, and sending out submissions, I just haven't found the time I need. It certainly makes me glad I was so productive this summer, but it does make me worry. My naive and optimistic hopes extend in every direction: it will be easier to teach the class in the spring since I'll already have done it once and I'll have more free-time, I'll travel less and be home more, revisions won't take as long as I think they will, my thesis will attain some semblance of an arc before it's all said and done, etc. etc. etc.

But enough with the whining. On the submission front, I've gone through with my overly-ambitious fall cycle, and have heard back with nothing but rejection. I was encouraged by some friendly notes, evidently a poem made the final round at The Southeast Review, I was a finalist in the River Styx contest, and received kind notes from Tar River Poetry and Columbia Poetry Review. Beyond that, it's been thin-envelopes stuffed with blank rejection slips. But I suppose that's the way the game goes. At least some poems are still in the wind that I can hope the best for.

In other news: My poem "Laundromat" will appear in the Autumn/Winter 2008 issue of Poet Lore, due out in mid-October (translation: soon or now). Also, Best New Poets 2008 has been proofed and sent off to printers, expected to be released in early November. Pre-order your copy now!

It's about time for the sidewalks get crunchy.