A Scattering of Flashcards

After deciding against it, I've changed my mind about applying to Ph.D. programs in the fall. I was discouraged, initially, to learn that one of the programs I hoped to apply to (the same school where Brandon will be attending) wants a 95 percentile on the GRE, which felt very much beyond my reach. I did very average the last time I took the GRE. I don't test well at all, and despite being a poet, my vocabulary is pretty conventional. Like Frost, I prefer the common language, the every man's speech. 

But I was elated to discover that the GRE has been revamped, and starting this fall, will no longer (among other things) have analogies and other out-of-context vocabulary, which will help substantially. So I've been spending the last few weeks studying vocab. I've got various stacks of flashcards littering my room. I also re-read D.A. Powell's Cocktails, which is one of my favorites. Here's a sample of the list of words I made from its final section:  Pyx. Dhisced. Tonsure. Cowls. Spurtle. Anaphylaxis. Exuviae. Heparin. Sigmoidoscope. Intubation. Viaticum. Orval. Exsiccated. Berm. Mammillated. Carbuncled. Byssus. The list goes on and on, and even though not all these words are ETS GRE - type words, it's been fun to push myself in that way.


I've been so comfortable using such pedestrian language in my poems, and reading a book as great as Cocktails presents me with the challenge of using these more dazzling, specific words. Additionally, I've started a six month challenge to read a book from an international poet a week. I've read so little of the poetry canon, and most of what I've read has been published in American post-1980. I've read the anthologized work of earlier poets, and all of Whitman, and a scattering of modernists, but when it comes to international poets, I fall flat after Lorca and Neruda. Week One,  I read Mahmoud Darwish's Eleven Plants, translated by Fady Joudah (whose Earth in the Attic I loved). Initially, I struggled with how little narrative elements there were (no characters, no setting), but I grew to love it. I'm too drawn to the narrative sphere of poetry. Sometimes I need to let poetry be poetry, to make strange leaps, to make more sonic sense than linear and comprehensive sense, to deal more with the heart than the head. Here's a great sample from the third section of Darwish's poem "The 'Red Indian's' Penultimate Speech to the White Man" that does just that:

                                                         ...You will lack the lily of longing, you will lack, white ones, a memory that tames the horses of madness and a heart that scratches the rock to burnish itself on the violin's calling....you will lack the confusion of the gun: if murder is imperative, then do not kill the animals that have befriended us, and do not kiss our yesterday you will lack a truce with our ghosts in the barren winter nights and you will lack a dim sun, a gibbous moon, for the crime to appear less festive on the movie screen, so take your time to kill God"

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The restaurant out of which I catered for burned down this past week, and so once again I'm unemployed. I have a tutoring gig lined up for August, and since I'm headed to Maine and Georgia for most of July, I think I will enjoy the time to learn new words, read new poets, and write better poems.

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In other news, I had a birthday, which I celebrated with good people, champagne, and shortcake. Last night, I went on a sunset bike ride (on my new peugeot!) around the shore of Lake Mendota, and onto a peninsula which is a breeding ground for lightning bugs. This week, many of my housemates leave, and the cats continue to bring them parting gifts of rabbit hearts, livers, and heads.

Summer of Weddings

I'm sure I've been to more weddings in the past month than I have in my entire life. I started a gig catering weddings out of a nearby restaurant. The  pay's good, and I really like spying on all these weddings. That's what it feels like, too, spying. I get the same thrill as one gets out of driving by houses at night and seeing how stranger's laid out their kitchens.

It looks like the only weekends where I won't be catering are the weekends where I'll be attending weddings. Going to so many weddings has transformed me into a middle-schooler who can only think about what I'd want my wedding to look like. Cupcakes instead of wedding cake. Whitman instead of the Bible. But oh wait. I can't get married. Maybe I'll have an Alice in Wonderland "Un-birthday" theme, except it'll be an "Un-married" party, and we'll serve unwedding cake.

It's looking more and more like New York will pass gay marriage in the coming weeks, which will be good--if nothing else--as a morale booster in gay politics. It seems that ever since we lost the gay marriage battle in Maine in 2009, it's been one disappointment after another across the country.

During the month of June, Beloit Poetry Journal is hosting a symposium and discussion on gay poetry and aesthetics on their blog. I've been trying to formulate some thoughts on this, as it's something I think about a lot, but I haven't been able to articulate much yet. Mostly because what I have to say seems either overtly apparent, or concerns my own personal experience, in which case this blog would be better suited. Or my diary, for that matter.

Books by Friends

In the last few weeks, two friends of mine recently had their books published, and my god, these books are gorgeous: both the poems themselves and the production of the book. I highly highly recommend these.

Northerners, winner of the Green Rose Prize, by Seth Abramson, New Issues Press

The Lifting Dress, winner of a National Poetry Series award, by Lauren Berry, Penguin Books.

As always, I'm lucky to know such talent.

A Bit of a Rant

Since ending my last job, I've been working a lot on generating new material, which has been going fine. Good news is that I've been writing drafts of new poems nearly every day. But these poems are lifeless. It's a strange experience to spend all this time writing and know that at the end of several hours of work, these poems will never go anywhere except into a folder. I know it's good; I know it's all an exercise and that I'll probably collapse several of these 'meh' poems into better ones in the future; that like any art, it's practice, but it also sucks. It's been months since I've hit one out of the park.

Joint Finance Committee (JFC) hearings have been going on at the Capitol this past week, and in response, progressives have erected a tent city called "Walkerville" around the Capitol. So far, the JFC has made decisions such as ending the early release program for nonviolent offenders (which will end up costing the state more) and cutting back meals for prisoners from 3 to 2 a day (which also won't save money when they become malnourished). Decisions of this ilk are becoming commonplace here in Wisconsin, and it's becoming increasingly difficult not to be desensitized by all of this because everyday seems to bring more and more and more depressing and soul-crushing news. All the work I did for canvasing was for (almost) nothing, and realistically the best we can hope for is to can some of these politicians, elect better ones, and maybe some of these things will be untangled, but that will take years. And this bill is so infuriating. I like to see the complications in such hotly contested issues, but this isn't complicated. It's evil, and it has an agenda. The idea that by giving tax cuts to big corporations such as Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart will in turn offer more minimal-wage, no heath-care job openings, but in order to this, we've got to fire 5,000 teachers (and even more state workers) so that they can get a job at Wal-Mart, which will drastically lower the quality of public education in Wisconsin, so that our students can also work at Wal-Mart.

I worked at Wal-Mart for a brief stint (very brief, as in less than 3 weeks), and before I started, I had to sign a waiver that if I was hurt on the job, I would not hold Wal-Mart accountable legally. Near the end of my time there, I did get hurt on the job. I smashed my thumb into a sliding meat case, breaking open  my thumbnail, so that blood filled the thumb of my latex glove. I thought I was going to pass out, so I stumbled out into the backroom and  held my head between my legs. My supervisor came over, grabbed my swipe card from my pocket, punched me out, and then asked me if I was okay. Because this was store policy. Because Wal-Mart could later argue that I didn't get hurt on the clock. And this is how our fired educators will be treated.

I'm so angry I'm numb.

Quick Updates

• I graduated! I am now a Master of Fine Arts. Which is more impressive than being a Master of Ordinary Arts, let me tell you.

• My parents came up for a visit. After trying to entertain them with all the wonders Madison has to offer, it turned out all they wanted to do was go to the public garden. So that's what we did. Every day.

• I got a job with Advancing Wisconsin, canvasing all over this great state and talking to folks about the Governor Walker's Budget Bill and all its evils. I've really loved doing it, but it's nearly 60 hours a week and most aspects of my life have been on hold until this campaign is over, which is this Friday. But I've still been able to write some, which is comforting to me.

• As of Friday, I'll be unemployed all over again. This three week campaign did give me a boost, so some of the pressure is off. I just need to find a way to get me through September. As much as unemployment causes me slight panic (to someone who's already predisposed to panic), I'm looking forward to catching up on some phone calls, reading more, writing more, and cooking again as opposed to stuffing burritos in my mouth while falling asleep.

• I did have a day off yesterday, which was really nice. Made brats (albeit vegan) on a charcoal grill, went dancing, rode my bike halfway round the lake, ate strawberry shortcake, watched Kill Bill, picnic'd, napped more than once, etc.

• New reviews up at Devil's Lake!

• Brandon and I celebrated our 18 month anniversary with lilacs, our favorite local wine, and ume plum maki rolls.

• It looks like rain today. You'd think that would mean Wisconsinites would be more sympathetic to my walking around outside, but instead it means they'll only speak to me through their screened-in windows while their gutters drench me and my postcards even further.

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)

Beltane Cleansing

Last night, my household celebrated Beltane, the pagan holiday that celebrates the first of May and includes a cleansing ritual, fire, wine, and human sacrifices. With no spare humans to sacrifice, one of my housemates decided to burn drafts of her thesis and I decided to burn all my rejection letters.

I don't know why I kept onto my rejection letters for so long, but ever since I started getting them, I've saved them. I suppose that I was attempting to humble myself, or keep a log of nice notes, or have some physical record of failure, but mostly, I kept them because I always have. Now that most of my rejection letters come via e-mail, the pile has lost most of its sentimentality. So at this point, I just wanted to get rid of the damn things. The Beltane fire offered a rather dramatic way to do it. The drama was only heightened by a fire dancer who came over and did her thing, which looked a lot like magic.

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The semester is nearly over, and so is my MFA. I turn in my thesis this week, and after not touching it for the last month or so, now I have all these ideas as to how to change it. I came to the conclusion that many of the new poems may actually still belong in the first manuscript, so now I want to break it open, add the new ones, take out some others, and reorder it all again for something like the 12th time.

National Poetry Month has come to a close, and the first half of the month was much more productive than the second half. All said and done, I missed eight days, but it's more optimistic to say I got 22 poems out of it,  which is great, even if most of them are pretty early drafts.

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I really love the way Theodore Roethke's poem "The Lost Son" opens:

1. The Flight

At Woodlawn I heard the dead cry:
I was lulled by the slamming of iron,
A slow drip over stones,
Toads brooding wells.
All the leaves stuck out their tongues;
I shook the softening chalk of my bones,
Saying,
Snail, snail, glister me forward,
Bird, soft-sigh me home,
Worm, be with me.
This is my hard time.