Fragments

I've been revising a lot of poems from the October poem-a-day challenge and am starting to think about which ones to send out. It's been awhile since I've sat on this much new work. The other time was after I took Quan Barry's boot camp workshop. Looking back, those poems became the framework of the manuscript draft I've been sending out, so I'm hoping that this batch will prove to be the foundation of the next thing. After some revision, I like the new poems more than anything else I've written, and I think that's a positive trajectory.

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I've been sick all week. This coincided with the week of non-stop readings (I think there were a total of five this week) as well as twelve conferences in one day. Whatever I have is breaking but I feel so winded.

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Many thanks to the editors of New England Review and Colorado Review for taking a handful of poems. It was very humbling to get notes from C. Dale Young and Donald Revell, two poets I've admired for some time.

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Am preparing and sending out job and fellowship applications. Didn't I just do this? Not that long ago?

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Recall signature collecting begins in four days. Walker, start taking pictures of your office. You may want to remember what it was like to be the kingpin.

On Quitting & Pillow Cases

This past October, some poet friends (and friends of friends) and I have been partaking in a poem-a-day challenge. I just sent off my 31st poem! I've tried doing the April challenge a couple of times and I usually end up quitting just over the halfway point, so I'm glad I stuck with it. It was a good exercise, and although half of what I wrote was utter crap, the other half is pliable and something I can keep working with. Some of the better poems I wrote this past month were on the days I wanted to quit, and would've quit if I hadn't felt the responsibility to write something down, and that's a good lesson for me.

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Recently had some poems taken by the editors of Cream City Review and West Branch. Many thanks to them!

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Halloween is here, and it's one of my favorite holidays and it comes in one of my favorite months. I've always loved costume parties, and I've always geeked out by dressing  as superheroes. This year I wanted to go as Robin (as in Batman's sidekick), and I wanted to sew most of my costume myself. Here's a roundup of some superheroes I've been in the past, and this year's final product:

Batman, 2005. Made from heavy-duty trashbags and a mask found at Reny's

Superman, 2006. Made from clothes I already had

Robin, 2011. Made from compression cloth, spandex, pillow cases, dish washing gloves, and American Eagle underpants

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Brandon will be back in Madison in just over two weeks, and I couldn't be more excited.

Ducklings, Poems

Last Friday, I taught my students for the last time this semester. It was a bit difficult to gauge my rapport with this hatch of ducklings than it has been in previous semesters, but after I gave them their evaluations, they all thanked me in unison and clapped as I left the class room, and any bitterness I possibly had from this semester melted away. 

Two of my ducklings from the fall won awards for best freshman composition essays (2 out of the 3 awards given  for over 2,000 fresh comp students!). I was really proud of them and all their hard work and not surprised at all that they won. One of the ducklings told me that after taking my class she switched from Zoology to English. I told her I was sorry I ruined her life.

Furthermore, at the end of the year reading where our last fellows Rebecca Hazelton and Andrew Mortazavi read and the Institute gives out a bunch of awards, I received the Freshman Composition teaching award. It really meant a lot to me. I've really enjoyed teaching these last two years, and I feel really lucky that I'll be able to keep teaching next year. 

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As a final bit of good news, I have poems forthcoming in Third Coast, American Literary Review, and Natural Bridge. All good journals and all poems I hoped would find good homes.

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Currently, I'm reading Ada Limón's Sharks in the Rivers and am loving it. Here's a great poem from it:

Flood Coming

The pulled-apart world scatters
its bad news like brush fire,
the ink bleeds out the day's undoing
and here we are again: alive.

The tributary of this riverine dark
widens into the mind's brief break.
Let the floor come, the rowdy water
beasts are knocking now and now.

What's left of the woods is closing in.
Don't run. Open your mouth big
to the rising and hope to your god
your good heart knows how to swim.

(Sharks in the Rivers, Milkweed, 2010)