long weekend

I have been the flakiest blogger for the past week. But I've had a lot going on (sort of). And let's be realistic: the only person reading this (besides me) is Adam, and he's been with me the last few days.

We went up to visit Forest Ranch, have a quiet visit with my parents, relax in the wilderness. It didn't quite work out like that, since we found out our dog (the family dachshund), had terminal cancer. Libby was so sick, we were all pretty distraught, and she died Monday morning. I feel like I've been crying for days now. Adam was wonderfully supportive through it all, but I don't think he got the vacation he was hoping for.

Of course, Adam's had troubles of his own. The new car was finally released from the shop on Friday, and we drove it up to my parents' house, where the windshield got cracked. As far the car goes, evil spirits are not out of the realm of possibility, if you ask me.

doctor who?

I've decided to take up knitting (because I like hats and scarves and sweaters, and I like being crafty). I've just barely started, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. So Adam has asked for a scarf lilke the one worn by Dr. Who in the eponymous show on the BBC. At least I think that's what it is. I've never seen the show, and I have no idea what a Dr. Who scarf is. Enter the Internet. I now have the "official" BBC pattern for the scarf. And I've seen pictures of scarves online. But I'm still not quite sure how this thing is going to work.

a little squeamish about dismemberment

We saw Sin City at the Parkway last night. The violence was brutalizing and overwhelming. I've actually needed a little time to get used to it (turns out dismemberment makes me very uncomfortable) before I could start recognizing the artistry involved in the movie. The look of it, the strange black and white digital dimensionality of it is very different and new. I just didn't think the movie was as funny as other people seemed to. Did I mention it was really violent?

last day of teaching

I knew I might have an emptier class at the library today because a couple of my regular students told me they wouldn't be here this week. But I was still surprised by how empty it was. I had one student today, new in the area and planning to attend UC Berkeley in the fall. It was a different experience for me, and I felt less like a teacher and more like an older sister. Still, I pushed on with my original lesson plan, even though I might have tailored the lesson to the student's wants or needs (that would have been easier if I knew the student, I think).

I feel like I should say something revelatory after teaching in a local library for three months, but I got nothing.

the unluckiest man I know

Poor Adam. He really can't get a break. His new car, the one he bought on Wednesday, broke down this morning. And even though he bought a warranty on the car, he's pretty sure it's the clutch: one of the few things not covered.

I suspect he is not one of Fortune's favorites.

Selling Poetry

I've been thinking about the market for poetry; Gary Sullivan's recent post at Elsewhere on the subject made some interesting points:

People aren't supposed to want your book of poetry. And you're definitely not supposed to be seen trying to sell it, which is considered coarse or undignified. Somehow, by some miracle, it's supposed to fall out of the sky into their lap and by some other miracle they're supposed to actually read it, and the act of doing so is supposed to change the way they see and think about things. Usually, unfettered capitalism, but also about gender, race class, and/or the environment. Somehow, putting down your book, your reader has been transformed into a more intelligent, sympathetic, ethical person. Poetry, in other words, as a kind of cultural/psychic medicine. Which is not sold to you, but which somehow--busy Martians?--gets into your hands.

I think Sullivan's tone implies that he feels not selling poetry is rather disingenous. And it does seem that if you're creating a product, you ought to be prepared to sell it (though poets who are uncomfortable with unfettered capitalism are probably uncomfortable with selling books and trying to get money in return for their anticapitalist poetry). Selling books of poetry does seem easier said than done.

Of course, I'm a poet. I'm terrified of selling things. If I wasn't, I'd be in sales.

fast cars

Adam bought a car yesterday (a 2000 Audi TT, in silver).

He's probably still giddy.

done with Dictee

OK, so I'm not really done with Dictee, but have finished reading it. I found the ending to be very sad and somewhat wistful, with the girl at the well (Persephone?) and the child looking out the window. I think, maybe, some of the sadness comes from knowing Cha's fate.

Hoa was telling me at her graduation party last Saturday that she created a mixed genre piece about Cha that sounded very cool (if also creepy and a bit sad, too). When she was in New York recently, Hoa went to the block where Cha was raped and murdered in 1982, and took a photograph every step of the way along the block. She then had slides made, as well as made two recordings, one of Hoa reading Cha's poem "Aller," which begins: "Discard. Every memory. Of. / Even before they could." The other recording was just the sound of her breathing. She then played all three simultaneously.

I think it's an interesting project/performance piece, and I'd like to see Hoa doing it. She says she plans to take better photos for a future version of the work. I'd also be interested to know how she sees this fitting into a larger critique/understanding of Cha's work. One thing to remember, Cha was primarily known as a filmmaker and performance artist during her lifetime. Dictee was published within days of her death, and she only became known as an experimental poet posthumously.

eye update -- still twitching

The thing about being robbed is, it lasts a lot longer than you might think. Now, several days later, I still remember things I ought to still have, but don't. Every time I drive somewhere, I keep reaching over to turn the music up, but there's nothing to grab. The vulnerability still gets to me.

I walked down to Piedmont Ave. today, and on the way I saw a bunch of flyers taped to trees and power poles. Apparently, there's been a burglar working overtime in the neighborhood. He broke into a garage and stole from two cars after midnight on the 11th, and there's a grainy photo of his face caught on the security camera. I have no idea if that burglar is the same guy who broke into my car on Friday the 13th.

late Monday night

A quick post before I go to bed. Today was yet another long day with many chores and errands (fold laundry, finish grocery shopping, cook dinner, make pudding for Adam's lunch...) Also, I had an interview with the grad studies office. I think it went well, and I'm very hopeful, although they do have another candidate, so... I guess it could go either way.

I'm so stressed my right eye has been twitching since last night.

a weekend of ups and downs

So, bad news first: my car was broken into Friday a.m. Thieves took my stereo (broken), gym bag, and earthquake survival bag. Crappy. The good news: I have an interview on Monday with Grad Studies. I hope it goes well; Scottie said she'd put in a good word for me with the grad admissions people.

-----

So the semester is over, graduation is done. I went to Hoa's graduation party last night at Rooz. She had a band (Ben Storm) playing some acoustic rock, snacks, and an interesting mix of friends and family. After the party broke up, we went to a bar downtown (Van Kleef), where they had a band playing Arabic music and a belly dancer. The dancer was OK, nothing great, dancing Cabaret style (very sexy, less "tribal"). She was talented, but there was something missing from her performance.

poetry & struggle

I went to the "Poetry and Struggle" reading last night at the AK Press warehouse in West Oakland. It was a really good reading. Headliner Mark Nowak read from his book Shut Up, Shut Down. Also reading were David Buuck (editor of Tripwire), Dana Teen Lomax, Matthew Shenoda, and Dennis Somera (Mills MFA ’06).

Dennis had gotten cleaned up after the planting yesterday, and brought his parents to the reading. He gave a good performance, and riffed off his Filipino-American heritage, doing some bilingual puns (which his parents seemed to enjoy). There was quite the Mills poetry crowd at the reading; it was like "Activating the Local: The Reunion."

----

Also last night (because I am quite the busy girl), I met up with some once and future editors of 580 Split for happy hour at the Alley. We mostly chatted, and I can’t say I really learned all that much about the process. Luckily, I’m not editor-in-chief, so it will really be Michelle’s problem to work things out. Then after the reading, I met up with Adam and some friends at a bar in Alameda(!) for drinks and live music. Hanging out in Alameda is like visiting another state. It’s so close and yet so different there.

TA?

So the grad studies teaching assistantship is more than a rumor but less than a fact (at least at this point). I got an email letting me know I'm being considered for the assistantship (along with other applicants from other programs). Lately I've been feeling like the only 2nd year who didn't get at least a partial assistantship for next year, which made me feel all shades of blue. (Especially when I compare my competence and abilities to those who did get chosen. But that way madness lies...) Anyway, here's the important part of the email:

Basically, he has a full TAship available for next year that would require 15 hours of work a week and I suggested your name as a possibility.
The work would be administrative support for the grad studies staff and while I don't know everything it entails I imagine there'd be some filing, data entry, etc. You'd be handling student applications and files, so discretion is also really important.

I figure my chances of getting it are supersmall, but it doesn't hurt to try.

gardening in Oakland and other quixotic causes

I joined up with some other students in my Activating the Local class to plant plants on triangular park space in Oakland. I'm still a bit skeptical about the longterm success of the project, but we had fun and raised interest in the neighborhood. I was very late, and I had a lot of trouble finding it, but it turns out it's right behind Lois the Pie Queen. They planted tomatoes and lettuce and parsley before I got there. I helped plant some flower seeds (California poppies, asters and the like).

As far as final projects go, I can't help but compare the planting with my website. Artistically, aesthetically the website wins out. But if people in the neighborhood actually eat the tomatoes (which I'm not really expecting to happen) then the planting project will probably have a bigger impact.

you love me, you really love me

I got the sweetest email from Juliana Spahr today saying she really liked the Valley Ridge poem/art project/website thingie. She used words like "stunning" and "amazing".

I'm feeling stunned and amazed by the praise. Her opinion really matters to me, and I'm so glad she enjoyed the project.

----

Also, there's an odd little rumor that someone is considering offering me an assistantship in the grad studies office. It might be nothing, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

this day all ants must die

There was another skirmish in our ongoing war against the ants. The past month has been fairly light as far as activity goes, and we'd hoped they were gone. Last night, they found another hole in the kitchen wall and made a dash for the sink. There were easily a hundred on the wall and cutting board before we noticed. Sprayed the wall next to the sink (again) with the orange-peel poison, and they haven't been seen today. Yet. Although we've won every battle so far, in a war of attrition like this, they certainly have the advantage of superior numbers.

the poem site is up!

The Valley Ridge website is up, and available for viewing here. I can't say it's quite finished, there are still a few change, but it is live.

It's my first experience working online as a poetic environment, and, although it isn't great, it is a good first attempt. And I learned a lot about making websites in the process.

Mark Nowak, Thursday night

Mark your calendars, because Mark Nowak, author of Shut Up, Shut Down, is going to be giving a reading in Oakland this week. And Dennis (Mills MFA '05) is also reading at the event:

Poetry and Struggle at AK Press!
Thursday May 12th
7pm
AK Press warehouse, 674-A 23rd St, Oakland

On the occasion of Mark Nowak's upcoming visit to the Bay Area, AK Press is sponsoring a reading and discussion on the theme of "Poetry and Struggle." Mark will read from his new book /Shut Up Shut Down/ and will be joined by four local poets: David Buuck, Dana Teen Lomax, Matthew Shenoda, and Dennis M. Somera.

learning how to be submissive

I've spent today reading and researching and generally exploring the whole subject of where I might send my work for possible publication. This gets very depressing, as I have one of two reactions when reading a journal's work: 1) Wow, this is really crappy. I don't want my work appearing alongside poetry this bad. 2) Wow, this is really great. There's no way they'd pick me.

Remember: never join a club that would have you as a member.

So it's a painful process, and I realize why it's so much easier just to do my own thing, put up my own website, self-publish a little chapbook.

rainy days and sundays

I'm not a big fan of Sundays, they're the day we get chores done around the apartment, grocery shopping, laundry, etc. Rainy Sundays are the worst. Adam has decided he needs to clean and overhaul his office area, and although it will be nice once he's done, in the middle of the clean-up things are definitely worse than when he began. It really will look good when he finishes, but right now there are piles of computer books and papers and things all over the living room. He's been a real honey today, though, taking time out from cleaning to help me with my website. It's getting close to completion and I'm really excited by the project.

I think the non-linearity of a hypertext situation is really interesting (not that this is a news flash -- artists have been doing lots of cool things in the format for more than a decade). It is my first major experience with non-linearity, though. It brings up two main fears: 1) poems will get skipped and never read, and 2) readers will be frustrated if they end up on the same poem for the third time. I guess you just can't predict what will happen, and there's no guarantee readers of a more traditional manuscript won't skip around, re-read or get frustrated, so...

Erato - Love Poetry

I taught a poetry-writing class at a local library again today. At first, I thought no one would show for the class (a few students did trickle in at the 20 minute mark), so I jotted down a few notes about Dictee:

I found the "Erato Love Poetry" section extremely powerful, and I admired the way it operates as a sort of split screen, with two (or more) interwoven narratives, one on the left page and one on the right. It forces the reader to navigate the pages in an unusual way, moving down, not across. So many types of love are explored -- husband and wife (or lack thereof), mother and chile, love for God (nun as bride of Jesus).

In particular, I'm starting to notice the various treatments of the mother-daughter relationship -- Cha and her own mother, Demeter and Persephone.

---

I was very pleased with my work as a would-be translator last night. (I had decided I didn't like a particular translation of Pablo Neruda's "Puedo escribir los versos..." and, with my high school Spanish and an assist from BabelFish, I produced a translation more to my liking. It feels more faithful to the original text, more accurate to its rhythms.)

Anyway, I found myself doing the same thing as I read Dictee, comparing the French and English, noticing places where Cha deviated in phrasing or (especially) line breaks. Wondering why she did so. No, I haven't learned French overnight, but it is possible to compare two texts and notice different line-breaks, and French and English share so many words (we have William I and the Norman conquerors to thank) that it is really possible to compare the texts even without being able to read French.

A Loretta by Any Other Name

I just finished reading Adam’s copy of Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (I know, I know, I’m supposed to be reading Dictee, and I am reading it, but it requires time to absorb what I’ve been reading and I’ll try to post about it later today) and I think Andrew Leonard’s critique in Salon perhaps doesn’t take into account what economists really are like when he complains that the book doesn't offer any solutions to the problems it presents. Perhaps that has something to do with economists' belief that morality is the way we want the world to be, and economics is the way the world actually is, which seems to line up with Adam's comments that economists are moral relativists and that people are more likely to cheat after taking an economics course.

But what really interested me in Freakonomics (because it really is ALL about ME) is how incredibly uncommon the name Loretta is. Levitt and Roland G. Fryer Jr. have sifted through mounds and mounds of baby-name data to track what names are most popular, which names are most common among blacks and whites and across a variety of income levels. From reviewing the data at Social Security’s baby names database, I have discovered that Loretta is very, very uncommon now, although it was once of middling popularity. The name seems to have peaked in the 1940s or so, which confirms the feeling I have had all my life that it was sort of an old-lady-ish name. Famous Lorettas include: Loretta Young (actress), Loretta Lynn (country-western singer), Loretta Swit (actress), Loretta Sanchez (congresswoman), and Loretta Claiborne (special Olympics athlete). Loretta is also the name of an Indianapolis rock band. Go figure.

How did I end up with such an unfashionable name? My father wanted to name me after his mother, Wilma Loretta, and my mother agreed because she grew up watching the Loretta Young Show.

beer and computers

Adam got a raise and was feeling like celebrating last night, so we went out for pizza and beer, and brought our laptops with us. I'm not sure it gets geekier than that. Which means he had a good time and I got help working on my website. I was just really excited to be able to preserve a lot of the original poems' elements. It's almost like I specifically wrote them for this purpose. Not exactly true, but I did seem them as a very horizontal sort of project.

Today will be taken up in putting together a lesson plan for the poetry-writing class I teach bi-weekly. I really have no idea what I'll be bringing in tomorrow. Maybe something on using powerful descriptive language, or a lot of quick writing exercises. There are definitely days when I find teaching to be very discouraging, but the last couple classes have gone surprisingly well. I just hope I can keep it up for the last two sessions.

conjunctions

Conjunctions posts new poetry every so often here. I especially enjoyed Ted Mathys's "The Figure Considers Fossils."

More babies!

I just got a phone call from Scottie with the news that Rach is having a baby. I think that's a pretty good excuse for not going to a tropical island with the rest of the gang. Now I'm really excited about the class reunion.

Since Helen had Damon six weeks ago, I've become much more adept with other people's babies.

Valley/Ridge timeline

So I've been working on this "Valley/Ridge" poem for a while now (originally it was the Rice/Beef project, but I've focused it onto Butte County agricultural production) and I think I'm getting close to where I want it to be. I handed in a version for my workshop final project on Monday and I think it's actually pretty good.

And now today on my way home from the gym I had a really good idea for the website layout, and how to integrate the map and the timeline. I'd originally seen it just as a map project, and I had thought the map would be on the home page. But now I'm thinking about having the map and the timeline as two separate directions to go from a Butte County homepage. I know this sounds really esoteric now, but when the site is up (next week, I hope) it will make more sense.

580 Split

Just got the semi-official news that I've been named Poetry Editor of 580 Split, Mills' literary journal of experimental poetry and prose. This comes after the unofficial news (at dinner Monday night) but before the official news (which should be announced tomorrow or the next day).

I'd like to think I was chosen because I'm really excited about working on the journal and I'd be a really excellent poetry editor, but I'm afraid I was chosen because I was the only one who wanted to take the job. I just have to keep reminding myself that that doesn't mean the other things aren't true.

Anyway, 580 Split is published once a year and is a collection of experimental and avant-garde creative writing. What this means in practice is that the poetry tends toward the prose block and eschews confessional narratives. The work of current Mills students is not included, but former students are eligible (and often submit some of the most exciting and different work).

Dictee

It sort of surprises me that I can get this far in grad school without reading Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee. I know I should have read it last fall, but I had to go to Maine and I missed the class we'd discuss it so I just never got around to reading it. I have a sneaking suspicion it'll be on the list for Walter's Craft class, so I might as well get to it now.

At this point (OK, I've barely started it), I'm starting to see how it begins to trace these various histories and lives, and how the parallels will start to become more apparent. I'm worried my inability to speak French will hamper my understanding. I'm afraid I've been just skipping over the parts in French and hoping I'm not missing anything. Not the best way to read, I know.

The First Post

I just had my last class of the semester yesterday, and the summer is stretching out ahead of me. I guess that means it's time for a summer reading program. I'm doing this blog so I can keep track of what I'm reading, what I'm thinking, to sort of process all that's going on.
OK, so it's lame. I know.