Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Per Traci's request, a new feature: puppy picture of the week. Boone's initial reaction to snow: not impressed.

Closer than You Think

I'm in the middle of giving my first batch of students their semester exam. We're in block scheduling until Saturday and I'm currently fretting over whether or not my exam is long enough. They're supposed to be 90 minutes long, but I wasn't sure if that was 90 minutes for the average student, or if I should make sure the slowest student could finish in 90 minutes. Anyway, not looking forward to grading these bad boys, but very much looking forward to Saturday afternoon, Christmas parties, and flurries of snow/shenanigans.


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I liked this poem. But the ending made me raise my cynic eyebrow...
(see profile picture)

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Received an early Christmas gift last week. Passages North accepted the title poem of my manuscript ('After the Ark') and Crab Orchard Review took three sonnets from a sequence. Jazzed on both counts. Both places I've been rejected before, for whatever that's worth...


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As far as titles go--I worry about mine. Mayhaps because a certain poet-blogger whose opinion I respect denounced it before even seeing the manuscript (which makes me think, perhaps the title is just that bad). But a question for those of y'all who've had longer relationships with manuscripts: at what point do you consider changing the title? Did you actively try and think of other titles or did it just occur to you after much wrestling? I've been thinking recently that perhaps After the Ark shouldn't be After the Ark, which, to me, is a bit of an existential crisis...


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Killer first line of the moment will have to be delayed this week. I'm at school and poetry-bookless. Though I have been reading Sandra Alcosser's Except by Nature, which surely has several killer first lines.


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Because for us academic types, it is this serious:

A Good Book

Finished Oscar Wao last night. Ran through the gamut of emotions I experience when near the end any book I really enjoy: the exhilaration of being on the precipice, of following a thread to its frayed end; the sadness of letting characters (read: people) go; the inescapable satisfaction of setting aside the book-mark, closing the book and putting it on the nightstand, turning the light and laying there in the dark with those characters still thrumming in your head.

With this book there was something else, and it may just be where I am right now (here comes the self-indulgence, the self-centeredness I'm so prone to on this space), but I desperately wanted to weep for Oscar, for Lola, for Beli. You could argue there's some light in Diaz's ending, there's certainly beauty (!), but there's also (for me) a sense of overwhelming sadness. I could feel it--I was ready to burst, to have the dog tilt his head at me for crying at the plights of fictional characters, but then I'd really be crying for myself (again: me, me, me): the rollercoaster of losing a parent young, the way a love can end without resolution, can haunt: all this baggage tattooed with self-pity.

I've heard people say that good books bring us closer to ourselves. And they may. They can also draw us back, turn us into satellites orbitting our own clusterfuck of misplaced emotion and ill-spent angst. So I was ready to sob: pillow poised in hand, incense smoking through the room, the silence on blast, running back through mom's chemo, the end of my engagement last spring. And I waited. The dog got up, circled, resettled. The incense burned out. I picked up the book, re-read the last 10 pages. Nothing.

Talk about anti-climax.

So I turned on the TV, hoping to see the score of the Texas-Nebraska game. And the Blues Brothers was on. They were singing "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love." Just Dan Akroyd and John Belushi having some silly fun while John Candy nods his head. And god-dammit if I didn't cry like a baby. It took a confluence of Domincan tragedy and Chicago shenanigans, but hell if the world didn't reach out and wrench me around again. And after, the world has grown a little wider, and I'm reminded of what I already knew: everybody, you me and Oscar, needs somebody to love. (You, you, you.)

"So this is what everybody's always talking about! Diablo! If only I'd known. The beauty! The beauty!"

-from Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"


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Decemberly Morsels

Fantistic Mr. Fox may be the best movie I've seen all year. This may or may not have to do with the fact that I saw it while home on break after a solid day of wine drinking with the family, but nonetheless: I can't recommend it too highly.

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Carolina survived Michigan State--but let's be honest, they're not going to shoot 65% from the field every night. I'm bracing myself for a long winter as these young guards start to grow up. Another big game on Saturday: at Kentucky...

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The new issue of Blackbird is up and kicking. Some great work in there, from what I've perused thus far. Nice to see some good friends on there (Lisa Fay Coutley! Airin Miller!).


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Killer opening line of the moment:

"Let no air ever come between you. No clean sheet. No lamplight"

from Catie Rosemurgy's "God, As Quoted by Two Adulterers"
(My Favorite Apocalypse, Graywolf Press, 2001)


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Wow. Just, wow.

Turkey Words

Giblets. Wattle. Snood. Gobble. Pin Feathers. Poult. Sandwich.


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This is way late, but I won the caption contest over at Avoiding the Muse! Thanks to all who cast votes, and to C.Dale for holding such a cool contest. Thanks to Eduardo, too, for kicking ass throughout. Now, on to the next level of captioning...

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Back-alley crossword dust-up. I never knew. (Only follow if you, like me, are a crossword junkie).

(via Slate)

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Finally reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I know I'm way late to the party, but good God, I dig. A question on the footnotes: I read them, enjoy them, but did anyone read the book and skip them? Not quite sure how much weight I should put on them... Anyway, a glimpse:

"Life was not always pleasant. Plenty of acts of violence, plenty of beatdowns and knifings. He himself survived any number of gank-attempts, and after each shoot-out, after each drive-by, he always combed his hair and straightened his tie, a dandy's reflex. He was a true gangster, gully to the bone, lived the life all those phony rap acts can only rhyme about"

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Killer first line of the moment:

"And this, then, is the wonder of evolution:"

from Mary-Lou Brockett-Devine's "Crabs"
(RATTLE 32, Winter 2009)

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Because there's never a bad time...

Retching on Sideroads

Boone is less of a puppy and more of a dog these days. Have started bringing him along on my 3-5 mile runs (don't think he's yet ready for the long stuff). He does alright, though he bristles at the short leash and occasionally throws up half-chewed pencaps on the road shoulder...


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I found out that the Brooklyn Review is nominating my poem from their latest edition for a Pushcart Prize. A very cool honor to be nominated, especially considering all the other rockin' poems in that issue (which you can read online). This is my first nomination.

Have poems in the latest issues of Tar River Poetry, Third Coast, and RATTLE (links to TOCs). From what I've read so far, I'm lucky to be in all of them. There are some really great poems all around. Humbling, it is. Also--have two new poems appearing at La Fovea. Many thanks to Lisa Fay Coutley for inviting me to send. Yet another poetry bad-ass I met at Sewanee.

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But enough about me, how are you? Submitting to magazines? (I've been slacking) Applying to fellowships? (I am) Writing and reading poems? (just the latter for me right now) Ready for Thanksgiving? (Good God, Yes. Bring on the sweet potatoes with mini-marshmallows).


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Killer opening line of the moment:

"He carved the bowl for her, a hull so small"

from Jehanne Dubrow's "Bowl, in the Shape of a Bristol Boat"
(Third Coast, Fall 2009)


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College basketball has officially started. UNC rants and raving to recommence immediately. Glad to see we signed Harrison Barnes, even if he does seem like a cornball.


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Caption Contest is getting hot and heavy. Home-stretch. Peruse! Evaluate! Vote!


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Good Ole' Wrench-Face

I need to buy batteries for my camera so I can post some current pictures of Boone. He's becoming a monster (albeit, of the very cute and pleadingly-eyed variety). Up to almost 40 lbs. at around 5 months.


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This inexplicable run of acceptances has continued. Potomac Review took a poem from my manuscript, and Sou'wester took three. That makes 8 poems taken by five journals in the span of a month. I've never experienced anything like this and would hazard to guess I won't again. I'm so used to rejection slips that I'm not quite sure how to take this...but doing my best to enjoy the ride. Looking forward to Spring and seeing all of these poems appear. Random question, how do you decide which previous pubs to include in your bio? Is there any proven rationale to this? (a relatively worthless query, I admit)


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Caption Contest round 3 has gone live! The judges seem to pick up what I'm putting down, though the voters are not with me as of yet. View and vote for your fave!


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Killer first line of the moment:

"I didn't know I WAS until the next day's news"

from Kevin Boyle's "Masturbating on Ash Wednesday"
(A Home for Wayward Girls, New Issues, 2005)


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Wrenches. Faces. Homes.