The Blimp Photo Doesn't Go With the Post, I'm Just Thinking About Blimps Today

In an attempt to back-up all my Word files before my computer dies--a death that's slowly taking place beneath my fingertips--I started reading some old manuscripts I had started with poems I had forgotten about.

I look back at how I used to write and it was much more playful. I wrote poems about Ritz crackers and Jack Kerouac on Mt. Rushmore and really, I didn't seem to care what the subject was, I was only writing to fool around a bit.

Of course there are poems in these files that are quite unfinished (even though I thought they were done) and poems I reread trying to figure out what I was talking about. But I'm finding that there's a good number of them I still like and it seems they just got placed in the Goodwill box when I made room for new works. (The lamp wasn't broken, it just didn't fit in the living room anymore.) And so goes the life of my poems, placed in a box.

I have take 2 or 3 of these poems and added them to my current manuscript (a deed I'm not sure I will be happy about 2 months from now), but for a few days, I'm going to let them hang out with the new stuff, see if they can blend in with the new stuff, the stuff that in a few years I'll have placed in another box to make room for the next batch of new poems, the beauties I will want to share with the world--how we love our new babies the most.

Happy 95th Birthday, Nana & Anne Sexton to Page 101

My nana turns 95 today! Doesn't she look great?! My mum (the other lady in the photo) comes in at a young 72. My husband calls them "hearty French stock." I can only hope I'll look as good.

Happy Birthday, Nana!

___________
The Anne Report:

I'm a hundred pages into the Anne Sexton biography and the situation, her life, her history, is extreme & complex. A good friend of mine said a student in her class recently gave an oral presentation on Sexton. The student stood in front of the class and said, "Anne Sexton was crazy & hated her kids." Oh it life was only that black and white. No. It's not that simple. It's a gray area. From what I understand, Sexton seemed to be suffering from a bi-polar disorder along with post-partum depression. She had a terrible chemical imbalance. She wasn't crazy, she was in a manic state and needed medication.

I think we need to remember the time this took place. It started in the 50's and she ultimately killed herself (after numerous suicide attempts) in 1974. There wasn't as much help available for women as there is now. Yes, there was abuse that took place in regards to her daughters and things I have no tolerance for, but I find myself also seeing her as the abused child and the circle of abuse continuing because she never learned how to stop it or love herself.

How easy it is to say she was crazy, hated her kids, and "she wasn’t a poet, she was a housewife who used poetry as therapy." Wouldn’t it be simple if all our lives could fit into one sentence? It’s much to complex. Sexton was doing what many mothers today are trying to do—myself included—not lose herself. I can’t praise her for how she handled the situation, she is the exact opposite of me in so many ways and did things that I personally could never do, but I can see beyond the labels—crazy, abuser, sex-starved, adulteress, lunatic—and see her as someone who wanted desperately wanted to have a purpose and poetry gave that to her. It probably helped her keep her alive for as long as it did.

Third Time's A Charm: The Making of a Chapbook

This is the response I wrote for the Floating Bridge Press blog, the kind folks who published my first chapbook, Geography--


Many times when we see a book in print, we don’t think about how long it took to write that book or how many times it was submitted before it was accepted. Many times we just see the success—a book that’s made it to publication—and we return to our own writing and submitting feeling discouraged because we’ve sent our manuscripts out a couple times and no one has published it…

My chapbook Geography was not accepted by Floating Bridge Press the first time I submitted it, but the third time—five years after I wrote the first poem in 1998. In between the first poem and the acceptance, Geography went through many versions. Mostly, time and revision are what helped change my okay chapbook to a much stronger one.

The first time I submitted my chapbook to Floating Bridge Press, I was excited—too excited. The chapbook wasn’t complete, but I was the mother of new poems and off my children went without their raincoats or galoshes. Two poems were selected for the Washington State Poets Anthology,Pontoon, but the chapbook was not a finalist. I was thrilled to be part of Pontoon, but realized there was more work to be done.

The next year, I had improved the chapbook greatly through lengthy revisions. It had come a long way—the children were dressed for the weather—but still it wasn’t ready to be published. I submitted it anyway knowing it was a stronger manuscript than the year before—that year it was not only rejected, but none of my poems were accepted for Pontoon. I was discouraged, especially because I knew it had improved. Still, I felt in my heart it was a good manuscript and I wasn’t ready to abandon it yet.

In 2000, I had received Artist Trust GAP grant for some of the individual poems included in the chapbook, which gave me hope to keep trying. I enrolled in a chapbook class with Ann Spiers where we looked at various chapbooks, discussed the history of chapbooks, and talked about what a chapbook was. We discussed how a chapbook focused on a very specific theme or story and she reminded us to only use poems in the chapbook that stick with that theme.

I felt I was beginning to understand my chapbook more. I could see what poems weren’t strong enough to be included in it. I knew what I had to remove from my manuscript, but still, the chapbook didn’t feel complete and I wasn’t sure what I needed to do to improve it. Ann said something during the class that changed the way I viewed the making of my chapbook, she said, “Look at your chapbook and figure out what poems need to be written.”

It was the advice I needed. Instead of always taking away from my chapbook, starting with thirty poems and pulling out the weakest poems until I ended up with a number between eighteen and twenty-four pages, Ann had suggested the opposite. I was to look at my poems—my strongest poems—and decide what poems needed to be written to make the chapbook complete. For me, this was the suggestion I needed to hear. I realized that I needed to decide what poems were missing from the story I was trying to tell and to write them.

In early 2003, I was awarded a residency at Soapstone Writers Retreat in Oregon, where I focused solely on my chapbook for a week. I remember in the middle of a rainforest reading each poem again and again until I knew if it was right for the chapbook. I walked in the forest and in my mind went through every poem in the chapbook. When I returned home, I submitted my chapbook into the 2003 competition telling myself I’d give it try one last try. (Note: Knowing what I know now, I realize most poets submit their manuscripts many more times than just three before it’s accepted, so this was a bit of naiveté on my part.)

On a quiet afternoon, a Thursday I believe, I received a call from one of the editors at Floating Bridge Press telling me that my chapbook had been selected for publication. Five years after writing the first poem in the series, I would see a finished product. I was thrilled, thankful, and a little overwhelmed!

If I have any advice for other poets working on a chapbook, my mind returns to my class with Ann Spiers:

1) Focus on a strict theme or telling a story
2) Look at your chapbook and instead of taking poems out to make it stronger, start with your strongest poems and write the ones that are missing.
3) Write, Revise, Repeat.


Let the story or theme emerge in your chapbook then focus on it completely. Decide what needs to be written and when it comes to poems you’re not sure are strong enough I follow this advice—when in doubt, leave it out.

Good luck and good writing.

WordPlay - The Documentary

Make roomIl Postino, Frida, Amelie & even yes, An Inconvenient Truth, a new favorite movie has moved into my life-- WordPlay, a fascinating movie about the crossword puzzle and the people who create and solve them.

As someone who has always loved crossword puzzles, word games, and word play, all my favorite things were wrapped up in a wonderful DVD about other people who have this same particular obsession with words.

Two small things in the movie that I was quite amused with were--

When a crossword puzzle creator drives by DUNKIN DONUTS and says, "You know, if you move the D to the end of DUNKIN you have 'UNKIND' DONUTS."

Another favorite part was actually in the bonus section where they are talking with a woman who creates crossword puzzles and how she likes to make people laugh. So she decided to do a themed crossword puzzle for the New York Times on "Wardrobe Malfunction," after the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake fiasco Superbowl show. One of her clues to that puzzle was "Wardrobe Malfunction in the office." Answer: Slacks off at work. I loved that!

One of the new hot shots at the crossword championships was a 20 year old fraternity boy named Tyler who was fantastic. The documentary followed him along with other competitors, some who have previously won, some who have been in the finals but each time placed third.

If you love words, puzzles, or both, you need to watch this movie. It was an intriguing look into the crossword puzzle and the people whose lives are filled by it.

Ordering the Storm: How To Put Together a Book of Poems, edited by Susan Grimm

It seems as young poets, we are searching for the secret decoder ring or the secret handshake that will allow us to have our books noticed and published in the world of poetry contests. Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems offers essays from eleven poets with advice on how to order a poetry manuscript. The books is an interesting hodgepodge of advice where one poet suggests placing all your poems on the floor and seeing what kind of theme emerges for a book (a suggestion that returns essay after essay) and another essay contradicting that idea. Ah yes, advice from poets! How different we are.

As someone who is currently ordering my second collection of poems, I find myself underlining large parts of certain poets’ essays and none in others. One of the best essays is by Liz Rosenberg. What makes Rosenberg’s essay stand out is that she speaks honestly and has faith in the poet’s own intuition. She writes, “Beyond the aspect of creating a journey, I have very little system for putting together a book. It is an intuitive process (17).” Later she adds, “Like most young writers, I spent years asking others for their opinions, and learning how little is to be gained by it. No one else can teach you how to be more of yourself” (19). Still, even with her belief that poets should look inward, Rosenberg does offer suggestions for creating a full-length collection of poems. She prefers sections because she feels it give her “permission to tell many stories.” She believes, “You sacrifice individual poems for the sake of the book as a whole. You find your tics. Your tricks” (18).

Rosenberg’s suggestions seem close to my own feelings. While I believe mentors and friends can offer ideas or suggestions while putting a book of poems together, as poets we need to rely on our own inner vision, even if it seems misaligned with what others feel. As Albert Goldbarth once told me, “Art is not a Tupperware party.” We each have our quirks and own unique ideas about things and we need to trust those feelings inside of us.

The organization of poems is highlighted more in this book than ideas on how to title your manuscript, however Beckian Fritz Goldberg touches on this subject briefly. I wish more poets had explored this subject as naming my own manuscript has always been much more difficult for me than trying to name someone else’s collection. Mostly, I feel too close to what I’ve created. Just as it was extremely difficult for me to come up with a name for my daughter, it’s just as difficult for me to name a collection of poems. But Goldberg offers this on the subject: “Taking the time to select a title for the book that conveys some metaphoric property or governing tone is an integral part of structuring a volume of poems. . .It’s difficult to construct a book around a vague or generic title even if it’s cloaked with meaning for the author (49).” She also suggests not having one word titles, a suggestion I find too broad to make given the many poetry manuscripts in the world.

This brings me to the issue and praise I have for the book—it’s impossible to give good poetry advice for everyone, yet these are some rules that mostly apply, such as avoid vague or generic titles and to group poems together with similar themes. However, there are some ideas that may not work for all such as “a book of poems should have a dramatic arc” and stay away from one-word titles. Ordering The Storm reminds me how personal and subjective poetry is. I am reminded that what we each create comes from a difference place based on our own unique experiences. As I read this book, I find ideas that work for me and ideas I feel resistant to—and both can allow me explore my own ideas for what I feel creates a strong poetry collection.

DONE!

My critical paper has officially accepted

by the MFA director! Let's celebrate!

Music & Humor

Musical thoughts--

Last night I had a dream that I was back in orchestra class, but it was for my MFA program. I went to find my violin and it was missing. Then I remembered that it was damaged by wetness in our garage. I kept opening flutes.

My violin was damaged in my garage and it saddens me a bit as my daughter has been talking about wanting to play the violin and I would have loved to pass down my violin to her.

Critical Paper/Hot Potato--

I've made all the corrections on my critical paper and have sent it back to the director of our MFA program and am hoping that the potato stays in his hands. The paper is called Including Laughter: Contemporary Women Poets Who Use Humor in their Work. It focuses on Dorothy Barresi, Nin Andrews, Denise Duhamel, Lucille Clifton, and a brief focus on Heather McHugh.

Basically, the paper discusses how women poets use humor different than male poets and the different techniques of humor such as exaggeration, repetition, satire.

Though it was an enjoyable topic for me and something I chose because when I couldn't decide on a topic, an editor told me-- "Why don't you write about what you do in your work--use humor to tackle difficult subjects." What was so interesting to me about this statement is that I hadn't really thought about that with my own work. But yes, that's exactly what I do, with life and in my poems.

Humor has always been a defensive mechanism for me. I always wonder if it was something learned or I was born with. I tend to think it was learned as my family was always quick to laugh at the grim, the serious, the things you "shouldn't" laugh at. Even when my nana, who turns 95 this Tuesday stumbles, we giggle--as does she mind you. We think we are compassionate people, but don't ever get hit in the face with a football in front of us as we're more likely to be overcome with laughter than to check if your nose is broken.

Using humor in a poem allows the threat to be taken away, it is an invitation, a reminder that if we can laugh at our fears, our demons, our anxieties, they cannot so easily destroy us.

My favorite commercial

"I'm locked in the wrong house."

From Anne Sexton's For the Year of the Insane.

Better

I'm feeling better today. Sleep is just the perfect pill. I stayed up and worked on my paper until midnight. I'm going to look at it again with coffee eyes to make sure I didn't miss anything. Then I will send it back like the hot potato that it is.

I realize critical writing is my anti-muse. It does not inspire me, but in fact, drains me. It is the gift that keeps on taking, the dream where the vacuum sucks you into the bag and there you are with lint and dust bunnies and your brain has been sacrificed to science. Sadly, the scientists can only see how you were consumed with the spacing after periods. They don't know you were poet, they only know you were alive.

And with that happy thought, I shall return to my paper. As I said, when it's been accepted and approved for my graduation requirements, you will know.

My mum handed me a pink box this morning with a chocolate eclair from a local bakery. In five years, this paper will mean nothing to me, but the eclair offers memories to last a lifetime.

Every Party Needs a Pooper...

I'm hosting my own pity party tonight.

There is nothing major to feel sad about except punctuation and too many spaces between periods. Yes, we live on a planet bursting with life, waxwings, manatees, meteors flash above us, comets pass by, children are born in taxicabs, minor miracles take place daily, and tonight, I count the spaces between periods and where the next sentence begins. Not one, not three, but two spaces.

I'm buying a bumpersticker that says, "I spent $22,000 on graduate school and all I got was this lousy MLA handbook."

When my critical paper has been officially accepted, you will know it.

Signed,
the one in the pink bunny suit

Thoughts on Winning-- Or Cheering Up Your Inner Sulky Girl

A Good Thing--Calming my Inner Martha:

So, it's Monday. I have a huge project I'm ignoring--yes, it's a home project. Hardwood floors in our bedroom. It involves me admitting I own too many clothes and finding a home for them before the clever man with his nailgun and large box of wood comes to my bedroom --wasn't Eduardo in search of double entendres, well, there you go.

Poetry News--
I have 3 poems in the current issue of Prairie Schooner, which I'm thrilled about.

I also learned that my poem was an honorable mention for the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Prize.

The Whisper Club--
Can I tell you a secret though-- when I learned it was an honorable mention, I actually felt a little disappointed that I didn't place. NAR is probably in the top 5 of my favorite journals and I was feeling "slightly disappointed"-- what's with that? Later, when I rec'd the actual results and learned that there were 429 entrants and 1914 poems, I felt good.

I was a little bothered at myself for feeling that way, for not being appreciative for honorable mention in the first place or seeing that it was much more competitive than I thought and that making me feel better. I'm so annoyingly human sometimes. It's as if I'm in 5th grade and beating the popular kid for student council makes me feel better than beating Stinky Dan.

Marvin Bell said in his 32 Statements about poetry that "Viewed in perspective, Parnassus is a very short mountain."

I remember when I began writing poetry how magical everything was. I celebrated ever acceptance, appreciated every poetic nod, no matter how brief. I cried once when I was rejected for the 3rd time for the Seattle bus poem people. When I was accepted the next year, I celebrated. The year after that, I was accepted again and the taste was sweet, but not Borracchini's sugar frosting sweet, just sweet. I didn't celebrate. I was less concerned if I missed the reading.

At my old job, my boss had to break into the computer using ex-employee's name and password. She guessed and guessed and couldn't get in. Finally, she thought about him and typed in the word, "jaded." The accounts opened up and we were in.

I'm not ready to take over someone's password for my life.

I've heard many poets talk about the "let-down" after publishing a book. Is this just our humanness? We work and work for something and when we achieve it the sweetness of the moment doesn't last as long as we like? Or doesn't live up to our expectations?

Did your mom ever tell you to "expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed?" My mum did.

I was the gloomy girl with the rainstorm and the broken umbrella. But I'm not ready to believe that you can't make love in a rainstorm, that a broken umbrella is just the gift that allows you to travel lightly. I'm not ready to become the poet sitting on the bench with a pocket of seed cursing the beautiful birds.

Who Is This Child? And What Will He Be Next? By Suzanne Paola

Wonderful article by poet & mother Suzanne Paola in the New York Times. Click above for the link.


MY son, at age 8½, changed his name to Penguin S’Ice, and he has kept that name for almost a year now, un-bratty in his corrections, but adamant.

The “S” stands for ... I don’t know. The apostrophe is equally vague but definite. When he is asked what his name is — as kids are a half-dozen times a day — he says, “Penguin” or “Penguin S’ Ice” with a trace of discomfort but no explanation.

Congratulations, Jeannine!

In case you didn't hear, Jeannine Hall Gailey has graduated with her MFA from Pacific University!

A terrific poet with or without a diploma...

Here's a poem from the graduate--

Wonder Woman Dreams of the Amazon


I miss the tropes of Paradise - green vines
roped around wrists, jasmine coronets,
the improbable misty clothing of my tribe.

I dream of the land of my birth. They named
me after their patron Goddess.
I was to be a warrior for their kind.

I miss my mother, Hippolyta.
In my dreams she wraps me tightly
again in the American flag,

warning me, “Cling to your bracelets,
your magic lasso. Don't be a fool for men.”
She's always lecturing me, telling me

not to leave her. Sometimes she changes
into a doe, and I see my father
shooting her, her blood. Sometimes,

in these dreams, it is me who shoots her.
My daily transformation
from prim kitten-bowed suit to bustier

with red-white-and-blue stars
is less complicated. The invisible jet
makes for clean escapes.

The animals are my spies and allies;
inexplicably, snow-feathered doves
appear in my hands. I capture Nazis

and Martians with boomerang grace.
When I turn and turn, the music plays louder,
the glow around me burns white-hot,

I become everything I was born to be,
the dreams of the mother,
the threat of the father.



(Published in American Poetry Journal, Spring 2005 and featured on
Verse Daily, March 1, 2005. Also included in the Pudding House chapbook,
Female Comic Book Superheroes, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2005.)


Order your copy of Becoming the Villainess here!


Congrats, J9!

Swing Past the Chaise... or The Art of Disappearing

I've been listening to The Swing Years and Beyond on NPR. I do this every Saturday night from 7- midnight. I love to clean to NPR. I clean the kitchen in the morning to This American Life. I sweep and mop the living room to the Swing Years and Beyond.

My dad was older than most of the other dads on my street when growing up. He had been in WWII and loved Glenn Miller. I grew up listening to that music and at night when I listen to it, I imagine myself in another year, another life. I disappear into my mind when this music is on. It's like going on vacation each week.

I also have a very old tube radio that I like to listen to for the same reason. The music doesn't sound like it does when it comes booming out of a stereo, instead it's a little cave-like with a slight hum and buzz of static of 1954. Late at night, I get a French station from Canada as well as a Spanish station that I love. I love to have it on while reading a book of poetry. Sometimes I make myself a piece of cinnamon toast and a pot of peppermint tea. I can see the ferry lights, the lights of other houses of people who are still awake. I feel a thousand miles away immediately.


How do you take a vacation in your own home?

* * * * *


I've been telling people I've purchased a settee, but what I've purchased a brick red chaise. It's cozy. It begs for books, it wants its own reader.

This is vacation furniture, a new place for me to sit and disappear in a book.

Manuscript #2-- The Revising...

Every morning I wake up and read through my second manuscript of poems. I start at page one and read each line. I look at how the poems bump up against each other. I look how I travel from one poem to the next. I examine the images that move throughout the collections and how they move from poem to poem.

This is how I do the final revision. Earlier, I added poems to the manuscript. Each day, I find these weaker poems being removed. Ten days ago, the manuscript was 65 pages, now it's down to 55. Tomorrow, who knows, 54?

Tomorrow like yesterday, I will wake up and read the entire manuscript again-- with new eyes. I will keep doing this until I have four or five days in a row where I do not make changes. Once I stop making changes, I will know it is done. Right now, I feel it's done, but I have a feeling tomorrow, I'll be taking out a poem I recently put back in. Four days of no changes. I hope for it. I feel very close.

Looks like a poet to me...

Anne Sexton

Time is on my side...and Poetry Department of America

Time after Time--

Good morning. Here were are on the 19th day of 2007. 2007, that seems unreal. We're wandering into our first decade of 2000 and I'm becoming one of those old women who say, "Can you believe how quickly time passes."

I have my 20th high school reunion this year. I remember when I thought people who went to their 20th reunion were ancient. I heard a writer say that all the things we dislike about our bodies in our 30's we will be nostalgic for in our 40's. I am 38 years old and 9 days. Last year, I told someone I was 37 1/2. Remember how exciting it was to be a half.

Okay, enough about that. Let's talk poetry--

Bookbaby--What are you reading? Me? I'm reading Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee, which I'll be writing about soon. I must say, if you interview a poet, please ask good questions and if they say something interesting, don't stick to your plan, explore more.

There is one interviewer who asks a question and LYL gives this incredible answer and there could have been about 10 follow-up questions to it, he really opened up, but the interviewer doesn't continue and in fact says, "Well, now to change the subject..." Change the subject?!! No, continue on with interesting topic--even if it's not in your interview notes. Sheesh. Ob li di, ob la da...life goes on.

I'll go into details of that further, but my book is upstairs on my nightstand and I'm in my office...

How to be a Poet--
I'm also starting the Anne Sexton biography next week along with her complete poems. You know, I've never really *read* Anne Sexton. I mean I've read the poems you need to read to be an English major, but not much else. I've had two poets --Sharon B. & Albert G.) who both really steered me away from her. Read Plath, said one.

There are some professors in academia who do not believe she is a "real" poet. I've heard "she's just a housewife who used poetry as therapy." Do you know who that statement kills the blood flow of my inner housewife? Do you know Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson did not have a MFA and yet, they had the nerve to write poetry? I know I'm a grad student in an MFA program, but I honestly believe an MFA is NOT needed to be a poet. If you *want* to be a poet, a good, strong, wonderful poet, you can be--without the MFA.

Anyway, off soapbox now. Just nothing makes my blood boil more than someone believing that you need to go to college to be a poet. No, you need to read poetry. You need to read everything. You need to read and read and live and live. That's what makes a poet. Not a piece of paper.

Word of the Day: Compassion

Suede Books & Until It Becomes Yours

A poet friend of mine dropped me an email as she liked the typo in my blog the other day. Instead of "suede boots" I typed "suede books." I was quite amused. If I ever open a bookstore (or start a press), I've got my name.

I'm just back from a walk and I've decided on my manuscript title. I'm not posting it but if you're interested, drop me an email. The manuscript is in alphabetical order and deals with the issues of trying to write about subjects that are important, but to have language and words get in the way. Funny for an English major to say, but sometimes I feel I have to make up my own words to find the right words.

It's similar to trying to talk with God, who has the words? How do you speak in a spiritual sense? Language is a tool, but it's also a buffer. It keeps separated from the true feeling of something. If you're reading about something or speaking about it, you're not experiencing it.

For me, someone who is never quite sure of her feelings, poems allow me to explore what is happening, how I see something. I've always been intrigued by people who know how they are feeling, I don't. I may feel a certain way, but I can't put a title to it--like anger, grief, or bitterness--but what I can do is connect it with an actual thing like a padlock, stillbirth, pincers.

I think this is why I write. I can't tell you how I'm feeling, but I can show you. And I never feel one way about something--I live it the world of gray, the fog moving across an island, one day I may visit there, the next I'm on a hillside. I see all sides of the moon and if I can't see it, then I imagine it the craters. I would much rather answer you in a letter as it allows me the time to understand what I'm thinking. The act of writing is so much easier for me than speaking. And I think I pull myself back from the world because the intensity of my "feelings" can be too great. I spend too much time rethinking what I said and how it came out. I think this is why I love the poem, because it doesn't become yours until it's done, it's perfect, until I understand what I am trying to say.

What I'm Thinking About This Morning

Note: this is without the line spacing which moves in and out like waves.

The General Song Of Humanity
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

On the coast of Chile where Neruda lived
it's well known that
seabirds often steal
letters out of mailboxes
which they would like to scan
for various reasons
Shall I enumerate the reasons?
they are quite clear
even given the silence of birds on the subject
(except when they speak of it
among themselves
between cries)

First of all
they steal the letters because
they sense that the General Song
of the words of everyone
hidden in these letters
must certainly bear the keys
to the heart itself of humanity
which the birds themselves
have never been able to fathom
(in fact entertaining much doubt
that there actually are
hearts in humans)
And then these birds have a further feeling
that their own general song
might somehow be enriched
by these strange cries of humans
(What a weird bird-brain idea
that out twitterings might enlighten them)

But when they stole away
with neruda's own letters
out of his mailbox at Isla Negra
they were in fact stealing back their own Canto General
which he had originally gathered
from them
with their omniveriious & ecstaic
sweeping vision

But now that Neruda is dead
no more such letters are written
and they must play it by ear again-
the high great song
in the heart of our blood & silence


Cuernavaca, October 26,'75

AFTER!

Okay, I was able to download these this morning. I swear, I'm not sure how many more miles I have left on this computer. It's been a little slaphappy lately.

Here's the new bathroom-- note the tiles and counter. Ignore the dusty rose blinds. They will be replaced with antique white blinds however I purchased the wrong size and need to return them.


Not counting the new towels & cushy floor mat,
here's the breakdown--

Tiles: $60
Countertop $11
New shower curtain $15
New knobs for shower curtain and new bar across: $14
Paint & brush: $14

Total: $114





And now back to your regular poetry show already in progress...

To A. S-C:

I can only get the before pictures. You'll have to visit to see the after. You can kind of see the pink (aka "dusty rose") countertops.

From Post Secret

This made me laugh tonight...

Out In Left Field...

I received two rejections on Friday. Those of you who know me know that this is how rejections work in my life, they come in twos. So when I opened my mailbox, my TGIF mailbox, I received rejections from Virginia Qtrly Review and Field. Nothing surprising or life-changing here. I'm used to rejections, obviously, I'm a writer. But when I receive SASEs in the mail, I tend to rip them open quickly--for the good or bad news--then deal with them later (mark down on my spreadsheet what was rejected, etc. etc.)

So tonight when I pulled out these rejections, I noticed Field had mailed me back my original poems. Being the treehugger I am, I thought that I could reuse these, they looked pretty good. However, as I thumbed through the poems I noticed that the last poem I sent them was not a poem. Not a poem? you ask. That's right, along with my poems I also mailed them a little chart I had made for myself in December to track our VISA purchases.

Yes, I sent them 4 poems and a chart that said, "VISA Purchases Month: December: Date, Item, & Amt." I could only start laughing when I saw it. Oh, the ache of embarrassment. Hi, I want you publish my poems along with my Christmas shopping chart so I don't overspend with my VISA. Can you tell I'm a Capricorn?

What surprises me most is that they didn't write anything on it. Not even a bad joke like "Buy organizing file" or "Candy for Editors." But instead, they just returned it, along with my poems, & of course, the rejection. I'm sure they are like the FBI and have started a file on me, a file that begins: "Don't call us, we'll call you."

Um, I don't think I'll be submitting to them for a while, long enough for them to forget my name...

MLK Day: Starring MLK Jr. as "The Matchmaker"

My daughter came home from school having learned about Martin Luther King Jr. The class had made Happy Birthday drawings and each had made a small booklet about his accomplishments. When I asked my daughter who MLK Jr. was she said, "He was a nice man." When I asked why we celebrate his birthday she said, "Because he brought black and white people together. Like you and daddy." My husband, who is Filipino, said, "Sweetie, I'm not black." Her reply, "Well, you're brownish."

Good enough.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Remember...

“I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today’s motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will be proclaimed the rule of the land. “And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.” I still believe that We Shall overcome!

“This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.”

(Excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, December 10, 1964.)

Gratitude Journal - The Finer Things

I haven't done one of these in a while. If I wanted to be funny, I could say "since last year..." but I won't.

I think today I'll focus on the things in life that I'm thankful for because they make me feel rich--

1) Fresh tortillas put in a bag for me by the woman who made them
2) Non-pareils
3) Organic chocolate bars with lavender or chili peppers
4) A vase of tulips in winter
5) A small bottle of Perrier with a lemon twist on my desk
6) My atomic clock that shines the time on the ceiling
7) My new tall red coffee mug
8) A warm house
9) A hot shower
10) Time -- to play board games or just to sit by the fire and read.

Nancy Pagh on Poetry Daily today!

This is a wonderful book, which I highly recommend. A poem from NO SWEETER FAT by Nancy Pagh--


I Believe I Could Kneel


I believe I could kneel
in so many quiet places
where the pale sponge of moss
would surely reach above
my hips as I sank down and down
as the deer must in their beds
kneeling once, then once again
to lower themselves front and back
before closing their glistening eyes.

I think I am the kind of person
down on one knee and shifting my weight
my whole life long
but capable of sinking far, and deep,
to the bottom of something
that might replace the religion I discarded
or make me really live in this body
or waste my life.

I would like to live my way into being
someone who stands back up
and runs toward that holy forest.


Nancy Pagh
No Sweeter Fat
Autumn House Press

New Year, New House, New Manuscript...

There is something about a new year that makes me want to redecorated or remodel. There's a cozy element, it's 28 degrees out and I'm tucked inside. Or maybe it's my last year in school and I'm looking for new and useful ways to procrastinate, I'm not sure, but just as I remodeled my living room last year, this year, I'm redoing the bedroom and the downstairs bath.

Tonight, I started retiling the bathroom floor and will probably paint one wall a warm taupe color. This will be news to my husband. I've repainting this bathroom before to his surprise. But I didn't go dark enough. I don't want it to look like the bat cave, but I want it to have that warm feeling, especially now that I've added warmer darker tile floors.

What does this have to do with writing or poetry? You know, not much except I find I do some very good thinking while I'm cleaning or remodeling. Better thinking than I do when I'm staring into the computer screen. It's easier to get distracted, find yourself googling "lunar eclipse" instead of writing a poem. When I am doing work, my mind goes in and out of poems, it retitles my manuscript, it organizes my work.

Sometimes just the act of sitting at my desk can stall me. Oh so many *other* things to do. Oh where to begin...

I am currently deciding if my manuscript *should* be reordered. Right now, it's in alphabetical order. When I started the manuscript, this was intentional, I wanted a clean order A - Z. Now I worry that this has become more habit than necessity. So I've started MSS #2, the unalphabetized version.

Right now, I'm leaning towards mss #1, alphabetized, but I'm not sold on it (I know, "sold" the language of commerce.) I think a little more remodeling, redecorating, and cleaning and I will know the answers to this question--to alphabetize or to now alphabetize...

There is a point when I am too close to my manuscript, that is this point. It's as if I'm getting dressed by standing two inches away from the mirror. I cannot tell if my shoes match my skirt, I don't know which earrings to choose, I can't see the whole image, just bits and pieces of things. Right now, this is how I feel about my manuscript. I have my face against the paper and I am screaming, no, I'm smiling, I'm tossing the poems in the air and seeing where they fall.

Can you say thank God it's 2007?

Just thought I'd share...

27 Things You May or May Not Know About Me....

1) I own and use a vintage beehive blender from the 50's. It's one of my favorite things and I paid $15 it.

2) I know how to twirl an American Military saber and have one engraved with my name on it.

3) We have not used our dishwasher since July and it's not broken.

4) If I were not a poet, mother, wife, daughter, or friend, I would spend all day watching HGTV.

5) When I was younger people would tell me that I looked like Kelly McGillis from Top Gun. Now no one tells me I look like anyone famous.

6) I believe in magic, miracles, and synchronicity.

7) Every January three friends come over to my house and we eat, drink wine, then spend the next 6 hours cutting out images from magazines and creating a yearly poster that represents what we want to do in the next year and where we want to go or be in our lives.

Looking back at the posters in the next year we sometimes find some odd and synchronistic similarities to our lives. For example, on my poster from last year I included a woman holding a rose and both of her eyes are covered.

8) I am a night owl. And when I do sleep, I wake up at 1:10 a.m. most nights. So on many nights, I chose to go to bed after 1:10.

9) There was a stranger reading the newspaper on the Tube in London in 1996 and I still remember his argyle socks.

10) Dave Matthews and I have the same birthday (January 9th) though we are one year apart (he's a year older). Poet Jeff Bahr and Richard Nixon also share the day with us.

11) I have a betta fish named Neruda on my desk and I talk to him.

12) Leonardo Likes Gulls is an anagram for my real name because I didn't like that people in my past could pull up my life on Google.

13) I have two blogs because I don't like to go to people's websites and see cobwebs. Book of Kells is the edited version of what I've said here.

14) If you were meet in the winter, most likely I'd be wearing suede books with faux fur on the inside.

15) I'm 5' 7" but my driver's license says I'm 5"8" because when I asked the gentleman to change my weight to 125 lbs. he said, "3 pounds doesn't matter." So I told him I was an inch taller (apparently in the world of males, it's all about inches.)

16) I don't weight 125.

17) If I could go three places right now I would go to Puerto Vallarta, Cuba, or Spain.

18) We have a friendly ghost in our house that opens our drawers.

19) Though I say I'm not romantic, sentimental, emotional, I'm as soft as butter.

20) I'd rather have fresh flowers than a Ming vase.

21) I still listen to Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, The Beatles, and Pearl Jam.

22) On my girl's softball team, my number was 8 and played second base.

23) I've broken my nose twice and never had it fixed. Oh and if you bring up broken noses to me, I'll make you feel the bump in my nose just to prove it.

24) I try my best to live honestly and to do the least amount of harm possible.

25) My least favorite foods are ice cream, potato chips, bread pudding, and cheesecake.

26) If I had my own theme song it would be Upside Down by Jack Johnson.

27) I believe we control more than we think we do.

Surviving (and thriving) on $12,000 a year

These types of articles inspire me.

From MSN.com

I've made my choices, and they include no more husband, a college education and huge changes in the way I spend money.
By Donna Freedman

I'll be living on just over $1,000 a month this year. That doesn't sound like much -- and it isn't -- yet I plan not just to live on it, but to build a savings account.

My 2007 "income," the money I can actually count on, will be $12,084. I know this because it consists of alimony and a portion of a school grant. (I went back to college last year; the grant covers tuition and books with a little left over.) I already know my big-ticket annual costs, too: rent of $6,300 and $1,200 for car insurance. Subtract these from my income and I'm left with $382 a month for food, utilities, clothes, medical deductibles and co-pays, gasoline, renter's and life insurance and any help I give my daughter, who lives on even less than I do.

Make no mistake: I'm poor by choice, because I needed to change my life. I chose to leave my marriage, and I chose to become a student. I can live this way because I know it won't be forever. I'll have my degree in two more years, and I'll go back to work.

I survive on economies large and small. I bring my laundry to baby-sitting jobs (yes, I ask permission). I brown-bag my lunch every single day. I combine coupons and rebates to get items for free (I haven't paid for toothpaste, shampoo or other toiletries for years). I drink water, not soda.

But in order to thrive, you have to hustle, too, always looking for ways to save a dime or to make one. I exchange spent ink cartridges for reams of printer paper at Office Max. Whenever I see a candy dish, I put a piece in my coat pocket; if my energy flags midday, those toffees and peppermints keep me from buying snacks. After I won a basket of specialty coffees at a college event, I immediately sold it on Craigslist.org; I sold a "free after rebate" phone that way, too.

If you've never been really broke, all these desperate little economies might seem silly. You're probably thinking, "Why not have a soda? It's only a dollar." Because I've got just 382 of those dollars each month, that's why, and those dollars have other places to go. The COBRA insurance runs out in May and I'll need to get student insurance, at $389 per quarter. The car needs a 60,000-mile checkup. My share of a dental crown is going to be $486; I will ask for a discount if I pay in cash.

Jill of all trades
Last year I survived on a number of here-and-there gigs: freelance writing, work-study, baby-sitting, mystery shopping, resident manager (read: janitor and handyma'am) of my apartment building, paid medical research and writing for the community-college newspaper. (I was the oldest living cub reporter.)

There was little downtime; when I wasn't working I was studying, doing homework or writing papers. And I was perpetually weary and frequently ill all year long. Fact of life: A 48-year-old college student simply doesn't have the energy of an 18-year-old college student.

This year I'm dumping most of the part-time gigs. I'll still freelance and baby-sit, but very selectively. My new school means tough classes, a long bus commute and lots of reading and studying. More to the point, it's a great opportunity, and I'd like to take full advantage. So I'm choosing to work less in 2007, focusing instead on getting healthy and getting my education.

That means careful money management and a fair amount of sacrifice. I'm willing to do both. As a freelance writer and recent divorcee, I'm accustomed to lean living. Here are some of the mantras that have kept me going thus far:

It's not what I have, but how much of it I can keep. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, every dollar I don't spend is a dollar I have earned. So when I think I need something, I ask, "Can I do without this?" Often I find I can. If I can't, then my next question is . . .

How can I get it free, or almost free? The obvious answers are sites like Craigslist.org and thrift shops, especially ones like Value Village that offer coupons and half-off sales. My 99-cent clock-radio wakes me up every morning just as efficiently as a high-tech alarm from The Sharper Image. Rummage sales are swell, too; my church has an annual sale called "Superfluity" (I love that name) at which I bought my desk for $4 and a small chest of drawers for $1. I also buy Christmas and birthday gifts at Superfluity and an annual "500-family" rummage sale. No one has to know that that hardback bestseller under the tree cost you only 50 cents.

Enough is as good as a feast. I love to eat. I don't love paying for it. Because I don't have a "regular" job of at least 20 hours a week, I don't qualify for food stamps. So I shop very, very carefully, and I go to the food bank. Most weeks I can count on potatoes, apples, bread and a can or two of vegetables. Some lucky weeks I get milk, orange juice, pasta, tomatoes, rice or a small package of meat. I cook a lot of beans and stews, and I'm adequately fed -- maybe not as richly or as conveniently as I'd like, but well enough to keep me going.

Every day is casual Friday! When my jeans are in tatters I buy a "new" pair at Value Village (one pair cost me just $1.63, and it was new -- still had the department-store tags on it). I spend $15 or less on running shoes from clearance tables. I've bought a couple of thrift-store tops, but mostly get by with shirts I've had for ages. (Hint: The clothes dryer takes years off the life of your duds. Get a drying rack.) Some days I wish I looked nicer. Most days it doesn't bother me, and I doubt it'll bother anyone else, since students at my school have been known to wear flannel PJs to class. Bonus: When you dress the way I do, panhandlers hardly ever ask you for money.

Announce my intentions. Time and again I have found that when I need something I should "put it out in the universe," which is also known as "prayer." One night last fall, squinting over my homework, I realized I needed more light in the apartment. A day later, a halogen floor lamp landed in the Dumpster outside my window. Recently my umbrella got cranky about opening. The next week I was given a high-quality bumbershoot as a thank-you gift for helping with a campus blood drive. Coincidences? Maybe.

$20 to feel rich
I've decided to increase my monthly church tithe to $20. Sure, I could use that extra $240 a year. It just about equals the university registration fee, or the money I promised my daughter toward the price of her wedding dress. It also represents almost half of the car insurance premium heading my way in April.

But giving that money away makes me feel rich. No matter how straitened my circumstances, I can be a part of services the church provides for the homeless, the impoverished elderly and those living with AIDS. In other words, tithing reminds me that there are lots of people worse off than me, people who'd love to have my so-called "problems."

That's not to say that I wouldn't like to have more cash. It would allow me to help my daughter, to secure my future, to buy more roasts and fewer pinto beans. But I figure I won the cosmic lottery just by being born in America, a country where I can not only work on a college degree at age 48, but also find scholarships and education grants to help me pay for it. I have a roof over my head, food every day, family and friends, and occasionally even a $10 student ticket to the Seattle Symphony. Some days I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

If I really am lucky, then I'll make it through 2007 with a positive bank balance. Check back with me next December and I'll let you know how I did.

Actually, It's Happy *38th* Journey

Happy Birthday to Me
& Jeff Bahr

Other people born on January 9th--

Dave Matthews
Joan Baez
Bob Denver (Gilligan)
Richard Nixon (also Gilligan)
Crystal Gayle
Pope Gregory XV
Simone de Beauvoir

Petition to Stop Global Warming

Just thought the timing on this was too good--

MoveOn.org is sponsoring a petition for Congress. MoveOn.org writes:

The amazing response to An Inconvenient Truth shows how many Americans are concerned about about global warming. This could be the tipping point moment for the climate crisis. Congress must act to solve the climate crisis now.


You can sign it HERE

It takes 30 seconds to do, if that.

An Inconvenient Truth DVD - Futurama clip

"A street wise pimp with a hybrid street mobile..."

Don't Call it "Climate Change," call it "Global Warming"

Though I kept slipping and calling the movie "An Indecent Proposal," which would be something *completely* different, I finally watched An Inconvenient Truth last night and it feels life changing.

I'm hoping it's not life-changing as 9-11 was for about 2 months, or being so excited about your new year's resolutions that you join a gym only to stop going after two weeks. I'm hoping this movie will create larger changes in everyone's behavior. Truly, the movie was incredible in that it was interesting, entertaining, and had useful and important information to get out.

Before I watched it I had thought--yes, yes, I get it, Antarctica is melting, we're getting warmer, more storms... But it's so much more than that. As the mother, I realize how what's happening right now isn't going to effect me as much as my daughter. And if she has children (my grandchildren), well, I can't even imagine their world based on where we are headed today.

My husband and I (both Democrats) kept thinking (as if there's a bigger picture here with fate playing a larger part), maybe this is why Al Gore wasn't elected, maybe this is what he needed to do to help the world. My husband, a political science major in college, has always said that the President can do little while in office with the exception of wars...

I'm not sure, but I was just happy to see Al again. Though they played tape from the 2000 election and mentioned Florida--you know the story--and gores losing hurt all over again.

You can go to www.ClimateCrisis.net to learn what you can do to help the situation.

We found a great link there for comparing cars. It's shocking to see in visuals how many barrels of gas one of our cars eats up...that car may be going soon, but don't tell it, it thinks its in for the long ride.

Also, on the Climate Crisis site, there are also little things you can do to help change things such as unplug cell phone chargers when they aren't charging the phone, eat less red meat, turn your temperature down two degrees in the winter and up two degrees in the summer if you have air-conditioning. Simple stuff.

I'm looking at the footprint our family is leaving on earth and trying to make sure we wake softly.

If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend it. I thought it was a movie that I *should* see, but didn't have to because I understood the situation. All I can say is that I had no idea.

And Al Gore wins my Personal Hero award--and I hope he decides to run in 2008.

MEDITATIONS AT LAGUNITAS

Good discussion and comments about this poem.

Here it is in full. It's a beautiful poem, yet there's that place where I get caught up in the details, on the word "violent."

MEDITATIONS AT LAGUNITAS

All the new thinking is about loss.
In this it resembles all the old thinking.
The idea, for example, that each particular erases
the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown-
faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk
of that black birch is, by his presence,
some tragic falling off from a first world
of undivided light. Or the other notion that,
because there is in this world no one thing
to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,
a word is elegy to what it signifies.
We talked about it late last night and in the voice
of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone
almost querulous. After a while I understood that,
talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,
pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman
I made love to and I remembered how, holding
her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,
I felt a violent wonder at her presence
like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river
with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,
muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish
called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.
Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.
But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,
the thing her father said that hurt her, what
she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous
as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.


--Robert Hass

Poets & Writers Submission Deadline Calendar

Click on the above title to see the grants and awards available for writers January-March 2007.

In Praise of Bits and Pieces

Intro to Blogging--
I'm not sure what I'm going to blog about today, so perhaps, this is a warning to read at your own risk or your own boredom. This blog is called "First Draft" for a reason, if you want the too-the-point poetry stuff, visit Book of Kells, which is poetry only. Not my life, not the details of my small town, "Just the facts." Or what I view as the facts.

Small town life--
We are buying a generator. Yes, though I feel it's not necessary, me husband wants a new toy. Actually, when we moved to this small town, we lost power about once a year, now, we lose power when someone sneezes. Yes, it's that frequent.

For our last power outage, which was 24 hours (nothing compared to what others in the NW has to endure--my mum was out for 4 days, other friends were out for a week), we purchased extra batteries, threw out a freeze full of food. I had to buy ice to keep my cat's insulin cold. We purchased food we could eat that wouldn't go bad, etc. etc. When the total price was in, my husband said, "That's 1/6 of what a generator costs." He was right. So, if we lose power six more times, I'll consider us even.


What I do when I worry--
Right now I'm trying to live my life without worrying about a little health concern that I can't do anything about that may be standing in the back of the room and waving at me, or it could just be a wall where I've turned the shadows into monsters. I won't know for awhile, so I'm just having to wait and see how this all plays out.

Because I've never been good at waiting, I keep myself occupied by...redecorating. No, not writing. Writing is what I force myself to do during worried times because then my anxiety can be put to good use-- creatively. Home improvement offers me the same feeling.

So, in the next two months I will installing a new light fixture in our dining room and moving our dining room's light to the hallway. I will be having hardwood floors installed in our bedroom and possibly painting the downstairs. If it were summer, I'd be out in the garden, but it's not, it's wet and cold, so I'll be indoors, remodeling, redecorating, and trying to keep my mind off the bad stuff and focused on the good and healthy. (Sort of like "Good & Plenty").

Because I'm a poet I feel I need to add something poetry related here---
I just finished Robert Hass's book Praise. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but have you ever read a book and thought, "If I were of the opposite sex, I'd like this more." I had that feeling when reading Hass's work. I kept thinking, "If I were a man, this would be da bomb." (Okay, that was me trying to talk like a man and it was way off, I know.)

How can I explain this. In this book, Hass keeps bringing up three topics--paintings, berries, and sex. As a friend said, "It's as if he wants to be touchy-feely man, but isn't." Though there were certain poems I found lovely, like 'Songs to Survive the Summer," there were others that made me feel as if the person I thought was my friend was a actually a stalker. There's a creepy factor in these poems and I think it's unintentionally and I think if you're a man you may not see it, but as a woman reading these poems, I felt uneasy at times.

Maybe it's a line like this, which is from one of my favorite poems, "There was a woman/I made love to and I remembered how, holding/her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,/I felt a violent wonder at her presence..." Though Hass is not saying he is feeling violence towards her, there is the feeling of dominance here--she is of small shoulders, he is making love to her instead of "who I made love with." He says "made love to" instead of "made love with," it's a small detail, but put together "small shoulders" and the word "violent," it creates a different tone for the poem.

And I'm not saying it shouldn't be there as I don't think poems should be all rainbows and daisies, but as a woman reader, reading similar feelings like this throughout his book, it affects me. It puts me in the place of "the one who is overcome," the dominated.

And yet, throughout the book, I can see Hass's tenderness.

But ultimately, I think this is a man's book to read. As much as there are poems in here that move me and make me want to return, there is also the feeling of the neighbor that lived across the street from me who would watch us through his window at night. Behind the window, two fingers bend the blinds, enough for eyes to peer out across the suburban night sky.

Snapshots of Christmas

Polly Pocket vs. T-Rex


What I like about my family--
We are all very clean.

The oldest person in this photo is 94 and the youngest is sleeping in the background at 3 months.

This post could put you to sleep...

This was from someone else's blog and I thought I'd post my answers here, so I would have them. Maybe you'll find them interesting or better, click on a link and visit Jeannine or Peter as they probably have something more interesting to say...

Goals, Dreams, and Resolutions 2007


1. Take a few minutes to reflect on the previous year. What are you happy with?

How much I've written and what I've accomplished in school. Definitely the Making of Peace broadside series. That was a lot of work, but one of the most fulfulling things I've done.

I've had some good publications and feedback this year (SE Review, Rhino, Meridian, Poet Lore, Image, PMS Redaction, Pebble Lake Review, Natural Bridge, 32 Poems, a few anthologies.)

I enjoyed being part of the Skagit Poetry Festival this year and the other poetry events I took part in.

I feel I've been dedicated with my writing and tried new genres and submitting in new genres. I'm happy with myself for not chickening out on trying new things.


2. What are you unhappy with?

For me, this always comes back to balance and my attitude with the rest of the world when I'm writing. It is so hard for me to be a writer and anything else. I think I'm a good multi-tasker, but I'm not. I tend to think this is something that will fix itself when I'm out of school because I don't remember this being an issue in the past. Right now, I'm always so focused on the next *deadline* I feel I am constantly living in the future, always asking "what's next? what's next?" It's a hectic way to live.

I waste too much time with email. I'm like Pavlov's dog, I salivate when I hear that "ding!"


3. What unexpected joys did you discover during the year?

The many people who contacted me about the Making of Peace broadside projects and who enjoyed the series. Learning I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Just hanging out in La Conner with other poets.

The joy of falling asleep in a dorm room in the middle of the day and waking to someone playing guitar.


4. What were some of the unexpected obstacles that came up, and how did you deal with them? Looking back, would you have done anything differently?

I'm sure there were obstacles, but I can't think of any. Mostly, last year felt magical as when I needed money to print the broadsides, I was awarded a Puffin grant that paid for it. Five of my good friends had their first or second books published.

I tend not to think in "obstacles." I don't envision them when starting a project and so when they come up, I probably don't even recognize them as "obstacles."


5. What expectations did you find you needed to let go of?

That I needed to maintain a "perfect balance." Sometimes I was writing a lot and doing a lot of school work and other things in my life took a backseat to my poetry. Sometimes, other events in life took me away from my writing for longer than I would have liked or planned. I think I realized this year is that I don't always have to have a perfect balance and when things feel too out of whack, adjust them.


6. Looking ahead, how do you want to structure next year to support your writing?

Definitely stick to my daily writing time and routine without distraction. To see my writing life as my job.



7. How does the rest of your life support your writing?

My employment is odd little teaching gigs and working with individual poets, so I don't have a "real job" to take me away from my daily work.

My family is unbelievable supportive as are my cats.


8. How can you change/compromise on the non-supportive elements?

I need to do more in my life. I realize that though we traveled thsi year, hardly any new writing came from it. I tend to write about the two greatest things in my life-- writing and family. I need to stretch myself more, have some new adventures this year.


9. What new aspect of the writing life do you want to try next year?

Hmm, interesting question as it assumes the writing life is something like an accessory you carry with you or maybe a new food that you try. Maybe I'll start wearing berets and an a badge that says "Author of..."

I guess if I want to try something new in the writing life, it would be to publish a children's book. I have one that received good feedback, but ultimately a no. I need to push forward on things that could fall to the back burner.


10. Where do you need to be more disciplined?

In genres other than poetry. In the morning when I'm "warming up."



11. Where do you need to ease up on yourself?

In trying to be the "perfect" _____________ (fill in the blank)


12. List your goals for the coming year.

Have second poetry book accepted
Have children's book accepted
Graduate
Come up with an "after graduation" plan
Enjoy the moment



13. List three positive, active steps to take on each goal to get it going.

Oh geez, if I knew this was coming up I would have only listed one goal.
Okay...

1) submit
2) submit
3) finish crit paper and thesis
4) live life
5) have a glass of wine



14. List your dreams for the coming year.

Ick. I don't want to do this. Right now, I feel as if I've fallen into the Dr. Phil show.

Let's just say I'm open to some wonderful surprises this year. My dream is to be completely satisfied and astounded in the most wonderful way by what happens in my writing life.


15. List three positive, active steps to transform each dream into a goal.

1) belief
2) trust
3) faith




16. List your resolutions for the coming year.

1) Publish Second Book of Poems
2) Continue to work on (and submit) children's book
3) Follow intuition
4) Continue to write daily

17. List three positive, active steps to help you stick to them

1) Write
2) Submit
3) Show up to life.

Lake Superior State University 2007 List of Banished Words

BOASTS -- See classified advertisements for houses, says Morris Conklin of Lisboa, Portugal, as in "master bedroom boasts his-and-her fireplaces -- never 'bathroom apologizes for cracked linoleum,' or 'kitchen laments pathetic placement of electrical outlets.'"

COMBINED CELEBRITY NAMES -- Celebrity duos of yore -- BogCall (Bogart and Bacall), Lardy (Laurel and Hardy), and CheeChong (Cheech and Chong) -- just got lucky.

"It's bad enough that celebrities have to be the top news stories. Now we've given them obnoxious names such as 'Bragelina,' 'TomKat' and 'Bennifer.'" -- M. Foster, Port Huron, Michigan.

"It's so annoying, idiotic and so lame and pathetic that it's 'lamethetic.'" -- Ed of Centreville, Virginia.


GITMO -- The US military's shorthand for a base in Cuba drives a wedge wider than a split infinitive.

"When did the notorious Guantanamo Bay Naval Base change to 'Gitmo,' a word that conjures up an image of a fluffy and sweet character from a Japanese anime show?" -- Marcus W., St. Louis, Missouri.

___________
Click on the post's title to read the full list.