breathe

Just trying to hold on to everything that is spinning around me. I've got, maybe 2 or 3 weeks and then this whole experience will wrap up with bright bow. I get how people might become perpetual students because I so don't want this to end. The other side of it, though, is that it's time to move on, to make my plans for the future, to achieve some sort of life as an artist/writer/poet. No longer in training for that future but living in it.

it's done

I finished my thesis. That's right, Valley/Ridge is done. And it feels good. I have to hand in two copies tomorrow to be bound and kept in the library, where no one, and I mean no one, will ever read it. (It kind of helps to maintain a sense of proportion about these things--that way I won't freak out trying to make it perfect.)

I am so fantastic it hurts

Last night at the Works in Progress reading, I knocked 'em dead. I read seven poems while running a slide show of photographs that I've taken as part of the Valley/Ridge project. And at some point in the middle, I realized I wasn't nervous anymore, and the crowd was with me, and the photos and poems were working. It was a good feeling.

see my friend Sarah this Sunday

Sarah Trott, a totally fantastic poet, is going to be reading this Sunday at Mama Buzz Cafe.

Mama Buzz on April 9th at 7 PM

FEATHERS IN THE MOUTH OF A DOG
presented by Watchword Press and 1111
Music by Trio Mysterioso
Readings by Sam Tsitrin, Sarah Trott, et al

Telegraph @ 23rd / Oakland

the way Sarah is always interested in the way
things happen and words happen and lines happen
to break the surface of words and underneath
to find the way relationships can be constructed

how I agree to these things I'll never know

I'm currently trying to get about thirty things finished for next week and going out of my head with worry. There's the usual reading/film viewing/writing for classes. There's a proposal for my book arts final project (I was sorely tempted to do a chapbook but I'm going to be realistic and do a broadside series instead). There's organizing the release party for 580 Split (April 27th at the Elbo Room!) and writing up the press release. There's finalizing my thesis and getting it to Juliana for review. There's getting ready for my reading Tuesday night.

But the thing that's really hanging over my head and filling me with worry is: drafting a speech for commencement. It's a 3-minute thing to represent grad students at the event. As of last Thursday, no one had agreed to do it, and since I work in the Grad Studies office, I've been asked to come up with one.

What does one say in a graduation speech? And how can I present something that doesn't compromise me intellectually or artistically, while still fitting into the societal expectations of a graduation speech?