This & That

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This morning, twenty to seven, there was a huge crack of thunder which woke me up, and somehow the first thing my mind started thinking about was Neil Sedaka’s “Laughter in the Rain.“  Chris and I sometimes joke about Neil Sedaka/ Paul Anka because in our minds, they are the same person (a.k.a. Neil Sedanka).  But I confess a little affection for “Laughter in the Rain” because it is sweet, and with all this rain we’re having lately, it seems appropriate, especially because everyone else is so cranky that it keeps raining, and Chris and I just love it.  We talk about moving to Oregon where it rains 200+ days a year, but I could never live that far away from my Mom.

Today I have great plans of doing some painting.  The one problem with the rain is that since the air is so dampy, it may make the paint dry unevenly, and with acrylics, that’s a critical issue because the last thing I want to do is to use some paint that’s started to turn plastic before I need it to–suddenly, paint you think is smooth and blendable on the canvas has an unexpected, unwanted rubbery texture that messes things up.  The solution to that, though, is to put less paint on on my palette, so that if it winds up being a while before I think to use a specific color, and it’s already started to turn plasticy, it won’t be a big waste.

Speaking of paintings, I’ve got several that I need to glaze, but the weather has just not been cooperating for the last several weeks–you can’t spray gloss on pictures if the air is humid, either–there is a chance the gloss will cloud or dry unevenly/ bubble.  What we need are several bright, clear, low-humidity days.  (Although, I’d rather it rain; there’s no hurry to glaze.)

I’ll write more later on after I’ve accomplished something. 😉

Book Juggling

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In the background, Chris is listening to something that sounds suspiciously pop-ish, despite denouncing the genre most vociferously on many, many occasions.  Sometimes the music he listens to can be what he calls “down tempo” and sometimes it’s dance.   In any event, it’s never good. 😛

All of this is by way of saying, I was trying to do a little reading out here in the sunroom, which is my favorite room in the house.  Of course, being 9 at night, it’s not sunny at all, but that’s beside the point.  I’m reading Robin Kemp’s This Pagan Heaven, and I confess an affection for the book because she is from New Orleans, and several of the poems are New Orleans-y.  

I just finished reading “Pelican Sonnet,” and laughed out loud when I saw the epigraph:

Who the hell writes a sonnet about a pelican?

The answer, of course, to that question is ” someone from Louisiana.” Pelicans are not just our State Bird; they symbolize Louisiana in a really fundamental and profound way–when you see them in the swamps (even in Northwest Louisiana where I’m from), sitting on old cypress stumps, it’s as iconic an image for my home state as you can get (you know, without being a racist bigot waving the Stars and Bars).  Pelicans make me happy–there’s something unspoiled and old about them–maybe it’s their eyes, which always seem sad.  

But about  Robin’s poem specifically, the first several lines are hard, rhythmically, lots of staccato sounds and hard stresses:

a sky-hung V of brown with kite-webbed feet,

curved grave of neck, slick crest of gold-crown, neat

white mask, fish-crooking  beak, stretched-flesh-fold pouch. . .

which surprise me, because I would expect that kind of soundscape to be in a more jazzy, improvisational piece, not a very traditional sonnet about an animal and personal experience.  But I like the poem a lot, particularly because when the speaker begins speaking about her personal experience, the words speed up, and the rhythm is much different.  Here are the last three lines:

plotting their courses back to bayous cursed

with petrochemicals.  They did not fail:

behold the blessing of each brown wing’s sail.

I love, love, love that last line.

Anyway, I had to stop reading the poems because I agree with my blog-friend Benjamin Dodd who argues that reading poetry in the evening requires too much energy and engagement–which makes falling asleep hard.  If you want to read an excellent review of Robin’s book, check out Collin Kelley’s September 7th blog post.

The other books I’m reading concurrently include Warren St. John’s Outcast United,  Sherry Wolf’s Sexuality and Socialism:  History, Politics, and the Theory of LGBT Liberation, and–speaking of Collin Kelley–his new novel Conquering Venus.   I’m reading St. John’s book for my Freshman Seminar class; he’s coming to campus next week, and I plan to go hear him speak.  I like that book because it’s about immigrant issues here in Georgia, and he really focuses on what a horrible time refugees have, and your heart just breaks–the book is easy to read, but it’s also quite compelling.  

Wolf’s book is interesting, but I don’t feel like I need to say much about it because it’s pretty much “preaching to the choir” material.

Collin’s book is excellent to read before bed because I can lose myself in the characters and their stories–I can laugh at how abrupt and sarcastic Diane is; I can love Irène for being so mysterious; and I can feel CONSTANT SYMPATHY for poor Martin because of his doomed love affair with Peter the Prick and his ill-advised attraction to David the Dumbass.  (And yes, Bob, I did VERY MUCH need to use capitals there.)

But I also know, that when I close the cover and set the book on my bedside table (and watch it invariably fall off because I’ve piled it precariously on top of a plethora of crap), I can fall asleep, and sleep peacefully, because my mind isn’t chewing over the language and images evoked, like it does when I read poetry.

I haven’t juggled multiple books at once since grad school, probably. When I was studying for my comprehensive exams, I was probably reading 4 and 5 books at the same time, which, if you’re a bibliophile, seems a sacrilege, as books ought to be savored and read singly, so that you live with them in your mind.   In general, I believe reading more than one at a time is a kind of philandering.  But I find I rather like reading all these different books at once; the variety is engaging, and the different books are useful to suit different moods.

Anyway, it’s  about time for my nightly dose of Martin’s unending pain; I must read a few pages of Conquering Venus, and call it a night.

Decatur Book Fest Recap

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I was going to write about the amazing reading at Java Monkey during the Decatur Book Festival–everyone’s, not just mine, heheh :-)–but then somehow I got distracted and the week got away from me.

And now it’s 9 days later, and everyone else has written about it in their blogs–and let’s be honest here, we’re all reading the same blogs, so I don’t know if it’s worth going into, but for the benefit of those who didn’t attend, and don’t read the same blogs I do, let me hit some highlights.

First of all, let me just say, Christine Swint is a born reader of poetry.   She mentioned that the DBF was her first-ever public reading, but I simply refuse to believe it.  She was so good–perfect pitch and delivery, her words smooth and even, and of course, wonderful.   It was a pleasure to hear her, and to be exposed to more of her poetry, which I am only a little familiar with.  I predict great things for her!  And I look forward to attending more of her readings, because I know there will be many, many.

Bob Wood was next.   He read poems from his Gorizia Notebook, and his explanations about the poems were as delightful as the poems themselves.  I was especially fond of his discussion surrounding “Night Train from Venice,” where he discussed how fascistic the train conductors are–who, as he describes in the poem, embody the “ghost of Mussolini.”

Blake Leland‘s poems were all bug-related.  He has what Bob calls the “voice of God,” and it’s true (if God were male, but everyone knows I believe in Goddess)–a basso profondo voice that makes every word resonate with import.  He read this one poem called “The Cicadas” which was a definite crowd-pleaser because it has a kind of James Brown-esque motif that punctuates the poem.  The audience loved it.  Even clapped mid-way (because it seemed as if the poem were over), but then when Blake actually finished it, it got a huge round of applause.

I was next–I read relatively recent poems, including several from the APPF.  Here’s the set list (although not in order, and not necessarily all of them, as I can’t find the pages where I had them written down):

  • Of a Diferent Color
  • You Never Listen
  • Horse Sense
  • St. Sebastian
  • St. Sebastian II
  • Ex Somnium
  • Breakup
  • Dystopic Love Poem
  • Besame Mucho

Several people came up to me afterward to talk about those Sebastian poems–among the comments I got was that they were “sly,” “sexy,” and “really cool.”  This amused me, and I was pleased.

I’ve been thinking of maybe doing a third St. Sebastian poem–one of the poems I need to write in the near future is a persona poem, which is not a form I’ve done in a while, so maybe I could write as him.  (Why do I need to write a persona poem, you may ask?  Because I will be attending the 3rd Annual Chattahoochee Valley Writer’s Conference, and that was Nick Norwood’s–who has 12 Hotness chilis on Rate My Professor–assignment.) 

I only read 11 minutes, according to Chris.  I guess I’m a poor judge of time, but I will say, I’m a firm believer in the “leave ’em wanting more” school of thought.  Better to end early than to bore people.

After me came Julie Bloemeke, who, like Christine, I hadn’t met in person before.  She read poems about derelict houses which were very interesting to me because I actually have a fondness for derelict buildings in general.  (I have often thought, if I had a lick of photographic talent, that I would like to shoot all the abandoned barns around Louisiana and make a book.)  I’m curious to hear more of her work–I should look online for it.

Karen Head read from Sassing, of course, and is always entertaining–quite the Southern raconteuse, but I confess to wishing she had read something newer.  And I know that she feels compelled to read “May Day Sermon,” which is a fine poem–don’t get me wrong, but I guess I’ve heard it so many times I just wish she’d give some of her other really solid, good poems a reading too.  She told me that she wasn’t planning on reading it, but I guess when your fans demand it… Not that I would understand these things, fanless as I am…

Finally Collin Kelley read the Preface to his novel, Conquering Venus (which I am currently reading, and am slightly in love with Irène Laureaux).  Listening to him read was amazing because you could swoon in the lyric quality of the words.  It was a pleasure hearing him, and I will have to make an effort to attend one of his readings so that I can hear him.  What is it about fiction always being more enjoyable when it is read to you?

There were others at the Java Monkey Stage I wish I had gone to hear–Kodac Harrison, Cleo Creech, Memye Curtis Tucker, Megan Volpert, Rupert Fike (who sent me one of my favorite APPF poems that I received), Robin Kemp (who signed her book This Pagan Heaven for me, but I haven’t read it yet, despite Collin’s superior review in his blog–I need to read it soon, by the way), and Ginger Murchison… Though several of them I’ve heard before, it would have been nice to hear them again.  Next year, I promise that I’ll spend more time at the DBF.  It’s just usually so hot, and parking is an issue, and I’m a crabby old curmudgeon, that 4 hours, plus a MARTA trip, is about my limit.

In other news, oh, never mind.  That can wait for another post.

Rejected, But Not Dejected (Fortunately)

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I got a very nice rejection for my chapbook Bayous and Barstools today.  Funny, I was just looking in my box of  3×5 cards (a very primitive submission tracking system, I admit), and wondering “I wonder when I’ll hear from Kulupi Press?”  

Of all the contests I’ve sent that chapbook, I really felt I would have a good chance with Kulupi–they wanted poems about place, and that chapbook is full of my Southern poems which just reek of spirit of place.  It’s unfortunate for me that they chose another winner and finalists, but Arthur Dawson, the publisher did hand-write:

Especially enjoyed “Nouveau Décor,” “Melon Stand [South of Many],” and title poem.  Great portraits of people!

I always feel the sting a little less when the editor (or in this case, publisher) bothers to write a little something positive, as I’m sure we all do.  At least it lets you feel like someone actually did read it–it didn’t just get a quick glance and get dumped on the reject pile.

Well, it’s still out at several other places, so hopefully I might hear good news in the near future.

In other news, I’m reading at the Decatur Book Festival, Java Monkey Stage, at 2:30 on Sunday.  I am in good company:  Christine Swint reads at 2, Bob Wood at 2:15, Blake Leland at 2:45, Julie Bloemeke at 3, Karen Head at 3:45, and Collin Kelley at 4.  Of course there are many, many more wonderful readers who will be there at the Java Monkey stage (as well as a all the other stages!) which goes non-stop both Saturday and Sunday, so if you have a few hours to kill, and want to hear some great readers, you should come on out.

I know I am especially looking forward to meeting Christine and Julie, both of whom participated in Karen’s Plinth poem with me, and neither of whom I’ve met before.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the APPF… let’s just say, I know it’s September, and leave it at that. 😛

Basho Frog Haiku Parody

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So, another area of my lack-of-knowledge is Asian poetry.  Bob Wood mentioned in his comment to the last post that another parody of  Basho’s frog in pond poem “won’t hurt anyone,” so here it is:

Frog jumps on old rug/ Cat sniffs, licks lips; frog tremors/ sound of Jenny’s gulp.

The sad thing is, that’s not even a good parody.   Bob’s comment didn’t specify it had to be a good one, but parodies need to be good.  Oh well.

In other news I have little bits of several poems.  I’m not giving up on the postcards, but I’ve been a little distracted.  I thought once registration was over, I’d be focused, but not so much.

(Oh, and in case you didn’t read the last post, the cats didn’t get the frog, if you were worried.)

Got Poem? Not Really

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You know that old saw that the path to Hell is paved with good intentions?  That’s actually a mistake.  There is no path to Hell, only a lot of detours and wrong turns.  Which is what I was doing today.

I painted today.  Badly, but I painted.  I’m rusty.  On one 5″x5″ tile that I painted, I didn’t like what happened with the blue, so I caked on pthalo blue over it, and then I sort of went crazy and put more and more paint on it and what it turned into is weird.  Not like the stuff I used to paint at all, which was deliberate and meticulous strokes.  This was like that art that you see in coffee houses that’s really bad and not art, and yet you like it anyway.  (Or not.)  Another tile I painted a sort of gloppy red cat–again way more paint than I needed.

Chris said, “You use a lot of texture in your painting, I’ve noticed.”

Translated that means, “What the hell?”

Now they have to dry since they both have so much paint on them.  But they’re not for me.  Back in March, I did this thing on Facebook where I promised the first 5 people to respond to my Note would get something handmade by me, with the caveat that they would have to wait until after our wedding.  Now, I’m delivering the goods.

When these 2 tiles dry, I’ll see if I can’t take a picture of them and post them here for you to see.  (Of course, you might regret that.)  Maybe next weekend, I can work on the others.

All of this is by way of saying, I didn’t get any poetry done.  But I do consider the day successful, despite the detours, because I accomplished:

  1. 5 loads of laundry
  2. 2 “paintings”
  3. 1 Target run, for cat-related items, including Fancy Feast and litter.
  4. 3 articles in Poets & Writers read

Ok, and on a completely random note, 2 seconds ago the cats were just acting weird, and all of the sudden there was what looked to be a black thing on the floor.  I thought it was a roach (eww!!!), but then it HOPPED!  It was a little frog!  In our house!  So Chris tried to get it but it hopped into the kitchen.  And then it tried climbling up the cupboard!  And then Chris caught it and put it outside.

How in the hell did a little frog get in our 2nd floor apartment??????? 

Now Jenny is looking around for the frog.  I think she’s pissed she couldn’t eat it.

I’m sorry, from now on, my house is a frog-free zone.  I can’t be having little frogs hanging out.  That’s just not sanitary.

But maybe I could write a little frog poem.

Art, Poems, and Art-Poems

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On Saturdays, I really need to get out of the house for a few hours, otherwise I begin to root to the couch, and get all depressive.  So today my husband Chris and I went to lunch at Desi Spice, one of our favorite haunts, and then we went to a shopping center in Buckhead that has a Kroger Fresh Fare, which is like the Whole Foods of Krogerdom (although we spit on WF’s anti-union, anti-worker policies).  A World Market and a Binder’s art supplies store are there as well.

We looked at art supplies first and were blown away.  The whole store is underground (basically, under a good chunk of the shopping center) and Chris and I went hogwild.  I’ve been wanting to paint some kind of blue-heavy painting or beach scene for the guest bedroom (which is the only place in this house that isn’t decorated in red), so I needed some supplies anyway.

And since about 85% of my worldly possessions, including all my art supplies, are still in a storage unit in Lincoln, Nebraska, I “had” to buy new.  I bought acrylics and canvasses; Chris bought some lovely colored pencils.  (We went to Michael’s to buy brushes because I knew there would be some inexpensive ones there–as much as I love sable brushes, I just couldn’t justify dropping $150 in brushes alone, although I did see some real beauties at Binder’s.)

Tomorrow I will do some painting, maybe some studies for the large canvas I bought.  As soon as we got home, I had visions of mixing paints and “getting all creative,” but alas, my duty was to poetry.

Which is ok, because I did get some work accomplished.  Day 17 is written, and considering it’s only 5 days past due and I should be deeply ashamed of my tardiness, I’m rather impressed with it.  The postcard is of Bertel Thorvaldsen’s statue Il Pastorello (why is the title of a Danish picture in Italian?), which is known everywhere else except on the back of the postcard as Shepherd with a Dog (1817).  So I entitled it “Pastoral” (that was a stretch, huh?) and it’s basically about the boy waiting on the tree stump to be relieved of his shepherding duties for the night.  It’s not great art, but I like it–maybe because of its simplicity.

My Day 18 poem, only three-quarters written, is based on German photographer Herbert List’s 1937 work, Greece.  I’ve been putting off writing about it until today, even though I kept coming back to it.  I mean, it was interesting to me, as b&w photography always is, but I couldn’t find a “way in,” if you know what I mean.

 It’s just a bare-chested guy with some phallic columns behind him.  What kept drawing me to the photo, however, was how disproportionately large the man in the foreground appears, compared to the columns.  That was what intrigued me more than anything–that the perspective was weird.  Not that (as usual) I have any language to talk about art, but the picture is visually striking because the man is so large.  I think the reason the poem isn’t quite done is that I’m still not sure what I want to say about it–I’m coming up against that age-old test of whether or not a poem is worthwhle, the “so what” question.  It seems dumb to write a poem about a man being big.  Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to come up with a pithy-yet-deep couple of last lines that makes the poem work.

In other news, I received word from Slapering Hol Press that I was not their 2009 chapbook winner.  But hey, as a contestant, I can buy the winning chapbook for the incredibly reduced price of $2 off!   Whoopdee do.  Can they afford it?  I like the chapbook contests that actually give you a copy of the winner for free.  It’s a nice consolation prize.

Oh, well, off to bed.

Hmm… How to Take This?

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Today, I saw in my inbox I had received a response to a poetry submission I sent off maybe 3 or so months ago.  This is what they said:

Thank you for your interest in and submission to [Journal Name].  We are currently reading submissions and will make our final selections by the end of September.  Please feel free to contact us if you have not received a reply to your submission by October 1st.

I  guess  it’s nice and all to  receive this, if I was wondering what was taking so long. . .  but now it’s given me false hope.  I think I’d rather they just have said, “Dear JC, um. . . no,” as opposed to this in-between fandango.  

Editors, kindly note:  Either a yes, or no, please.  Or,  if you must “thank” me for the submission, send it as an auto-reply just as soon as I sent the poems to you.  Don’t prolong the agony, and wait till 3 months have already passed to tell me you received the submission and wil be making a decision soon.  I’ve pretty much already decided it’s a lost cause. 

Talk about procrastination!

Guilty :-(

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Bless me Father, for I have sinned.  It has been 5 days since I wrote a poetry postcard.  (And about 6 years since I went to Confession, while I’m at it.)

So I haven’t been writing in my blog because I feel like all I have to say is that I’m so busy with registration that I haven’t been up to writing my poetry postcards.  This is somewhat true–I have been crazy berserky busy and not feeling the whole writing thing.  And indeed, when I get home, I’ve just been playing Tetris to decompress.  Which is not the best use of my time, but there it is.

So mea culpa:  I am indeed 5 days behind which makes me very, very naughty.  Now I could point out that I have only received 10 postcards myself, so really, having sent out 16 full poems, and not “epigrams, quatrains, and American sentences” to quote Christine Swint, I’m doing better than some people.  But that’s just diversion from the truth.   Frankly, I should be flogged for disappointing all those people who are probably tweeting about what a terrible person I am.

Anyway, when I last left off, I was talking about the poem, “L’Artiste Dégénéré,” about the Egon Schiele picture, and I said that I only had one more line.  That didn’t wind up being true.  I rewrote the last couplet, and I have to say, I love this poem.  It’s not perfect, but somehow, to me, it captures the spirit of the painting.   It’s only 12 lines long but they’re really good lines.  I almost feel like I was embodying the spirit of Bob Wood when I wrote it–which is not easy to do.

For Day 15, I wrote “Prelude,” based on François-Xavier Fabre’s 1790 painting called The Death of Abel.  As all of these ekphrastic poems that I’m writing seem to be, it’s a direct address, in this case to Abel, about taking that fateful walk with Cain, which I imagine happens in a wheat field.  Now, I have no idea if Cain cultivated wheat, but considering domesticated wheat started in Turkey, and there’s speculation that Eden was in Turkey,  I thought, why not?  I don’t have great love for this poem, but it’s not terrible.  Probably with some good revision it could be decent.

The poem I wrote for the 16th was “The Moon Titan Falls in Love” (although I’m still hemming and hawing about the name. . .  I also kind of like “Nocturne” for a title), based on The Sleep of Endymion, by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Troisnon (1793).  (I was very disappointed to discover that despite the first name being “Anne,” the artist is male.)  And so the poem is about the myth, that the Moon Titan Selene fell in love with Endymion and didn’t ever want his beauty to fade, so she asked Zeus to let him sleep immortally.  That wouldn’t be my first choice to ask as a gift from the gods, but at least they had the Menae for children.  The last two lines of the poem read awkwardly, though.  Not sure if it’s a matter of syntax or if it’s a grammar issue.   That will have to be worked on, at some point.

My hope is to write at least 3 poems this weekend–maybe even 4–so that I will only be 2 days behind.  Two is acceptable.  Five is pathetic.

Anyway. . . hope everyone is doing well, and writing, writing, writing!  I will get cracking on my own writing this weekend.

The Procrastinatrix

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That would be me.

I have been crazy-busy at work the last several days with registration and panicky students who send 8 e-mails when 1 or 2 would suffice–so crazy, in fact, that when I came home yesterday I made friends with Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

Those of you who know me know I’m not much of a drinker.  And those of you who know booze know MHL isn’t much of a booze.   But I’m a lightweight (from a drinking perspective, at any rate), so after 3 I pretty much just went to bed.

All of this is by way of saying my Daily Poetry Postcards have been non-existent since the 11th, and I feel really bad about putting them off.  Even the motivation of not wanting to disappoint the people to whom they were to be sent couldn’t outweigh the fact that this past week is the week before school, and writing poems was low, low, low item on the totem pole.  

Worse, I mislaid the Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin postcard, so I didn’t even get that in the mail on the 10th.  So technically, I’m 5 days behind.  There are 5 people (6 really, if you count the Day 10 person) who probably cried for hours and hours when they opened their mailbox and found no poem from me.  I mean, they’re probably suicidal.  

However, today I was somewhat productive in making up for my procrastinating misdeeds, and wrote two poems.  One was on Michelangelo’s David (1504) (please don’t tell me I have to link to that–if you don’t know what that looks like, you’re even more  ignorant of art than I am, and there’s no hope for you EVER)–although to be fair, the poem is about the entire statue, and not just the crotch shot which the postcard depicts.  The other was about Two Girls Embracing (1915), by Egon Schiele, an Austrian artist accused of being lewd and pornographic and degenerate.  Here is a quote from Jonathan Jones’ article that discusses his work (from the April 19, 2003 issue of the Guardian):

His work has a specific presence, aggressive, unignorable, practical. They are pornographic. They insist that the erotic is as great and heroic a subject as wars or religion. And they question whether art has to confine itself to representing life second-hand. That’s what is extraordinary about Schiele’s art: it does not comment on life, it takes part in life. It is not like pornography. It is pornography. It is also high and serious art, a doubleness that may only have been possible in Vienna on the eve of the first world war.

Initially, I wasn’t fond of this picture–not because it was pornographic. Actually, I didn’t even think of it as porn until all the articles I read about Schiele kept labeling his work as porn.  Actually I still don’t think of it as porn.  (Some of the other paintings I’ve seen, maybe, like Nude with Green Stockings. . . which disturbs me more because of the missing foot than anything else.)

But I didn’t like this picture because I don’t understand the fire-dress-drape-blanket thing that the sub girl is wearing.  At first I thought she was wrapped in an afghan.  But then I saw the red garter attached to her stocking.  I still don’t know what she wearing, but I don’t mind it, so much, because the painting has grown on me.  

I think I like the pissed-off look the top girl is wearing, as if she’s wondering how much longer she has to hold this embrace, which, it must be said, doesn’t look particularly comfortable.  Some might argue that the heavy-lidded eye suggests passion, but I think it’s just the same look that every Victoria Secret model has, that sort of “F-you” look that they cultivate thinking it looks sexy.  (By the way, it doesn’t.)

Unfortunately, that poem about the Schiele picture is incomplete.  It needs one more line that no amount of tinkering tonight seems to be able to accomplish.  So I am putting that line off until tomorrow, and I don’t feel too upset about that.

Unfortunately, tomorrow I will again be three days behind, so my goal is to write 2 poems (in other words, a Day 14 and a Day 15 poem), maybe start a Day 16 poem, and somehow manage to finish that albatrossy syllabus which has been hanging around my neck for days.

And if I get all that done, I might have to drink another MHL.  We shall see.