reflections on being in my second year

So we're nearly a month into the semester, and I'm starting to get a feel for how things are going, and how I'm doing. The reading this week went really well (at least, that's what I've been told). I had a good time, didn't feel too nervous, and didn't obsess about my lisp (which always makes it worse). The 580 Split reading is going well, I've done a nice job of staying on top of things, lots of readers are participating, and I think we're getting better submissions than we did last year. Of course, I can tell that my opinions and tastes are different from some of the other readers -- there are some readers that I don't agree with at all, so it will be interesting to see how we resolve some stuff when we select work at the end of the semester.

And workshop has been... Well, it's been an experience. I can't say it's going great, because I'm not sure I'm getting much useful feedback. I had 15 minutes on Tuesday, and we spent most of the time discussing how to deal with a quotation (footnote? endnote? name the author? just the initials?) when I would have rather actually heard about how the poem itself was working or not working. I am trying to insulate myself with an attitude of "whatever, if they don't like it, they don't get it" but I'm not sure I can pull it off.

don't let me be lonely

I just read Claudia Rankine's Don't Let Me Be Lonely. Sarah said this just might be her current favorite book. It's pretty incredible: moving and lyric and thoughtful as it meditates on death, media, depression, family, pharmaceuticals, and current historic events. And it has the most fabulous extensive notes section at the end. Just brilliant.

I'll be introducing Rankine at her reading next week. It's part of Mills' Contemporary Writers Series: Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 5:30pm in the Mills Hall Living Room.

Poetry Reading at Mama Buzz

I'm doing a reading next week. Here are the details:

Come see former and current Mills poets read fabulous work, along with the musical dealchemy of KALX superstar Dynamite Schultz. Reading starts at 7. Details below:

Idiomat and Drycleaning: Poetries Various and Various Musics
Featuring Loretta Clodfelter, Dennis Somera, Jeremy Thompson, Dynamite Schultz

Tuesday, Sept 20, 7 to 9pm, free! at Mama Buzz Cafe 2318 Telegraph Ave. (near 23rd)

An idiom, like, the smallest idea that can make meaning but no sense. Not the "form of the thought", but the thought of the form. Ya know, like boxing (the sweet science). Three readings and one set of music which suffer greatly from the current state of language-oh, the humanity!

frying eggs

Although it looms large in my thoughts, I've found it difficult to write about New Orleans, the hurricane, the devastation, the governmental screwups except in the most oblique ways. It just hurt too much, and writing seemed useless.
Here's Andrei Codrescu (a Baton Rouge-based writer who's now got a lot of houseguests) in the New York Times Magazine:

"Even the greatest poets can't express tragedy in a way that is larger than their immediate circumstances.The best way to deal with it is to fry eggs for refugees."

a bit busy, but I did get around to the California Poem

I have been so crazy busy since the semester began, and taking a little trip to Maui didn't exactly help.

I am now knee-deep in the kind of reading I really should have done more of this summer. And I'm nearly done with Sikelianos' California Poem, which is even more fascinating than I expected. Now I know why people have been telling me for the past year: "You have to read the California Poem!"

For one thing, it's like the work I've been doing on Butte County writ large and covering the entire state. Definitely with a lean towards Southern California, though. It's a big state, and my focus on Northern California and on farming does set me apart. Stylistically there are differences, too.

I'm glad I didn't read it until 9 or 10 months into the Valley/Ridge project. Otherwise I might feel I was being too heavily influenced by her work. As it is, I can tell she has been thinking about a lot of the issues of localism and activism that have been weighing on me for the past year.