Our front walk, wet leaves.

This morning, I’m catching up on recording my recent rejections before I launch into a full-scale grade-a-thon.  (No classes today as the annual conference of Arkansas two-year colleges wraps up.  I opted out of the conference to prepare advising material at the office yesterday and to grade today.)

A word about rejections.  I think I’ve lived with them long enough to see the upside.  The upside is that I go back to the poems with new critical eyes if the poems get rejected over and over again.  Coincidentally, both rejections I’m recording this morning are for the same group of poems, which have been rejected a few times already.  This tells me that either the poems need more work individually or they aren’t working as a group.  Most likely, it’s a little of both. 

The first rejection is a little painful because I’ve worked with this journal closely in the past and feel like I have at least something of a relationship with the editors.  However, I received the standard form rejection with no personalization at all.  I know that editors are busy people who are underpaid and under-appreciated for what they do.  And yet, I was taught that it was important to establish a relationship with editors and so I try by reminding them of our past relationships when I submit or sending them emails when I like an issue or a poem in an issue above and beyond the rest.  It’s disheartening to then receive the standard reply.  Nonetheless, I will send again in the future with hope in my heart and a certain thickness to my skin.

The other rejection is the kind I love to get.  It’s quite specific that the poems don’t work for the journal, but the editors want to see more.  The editor who wrote the note even went so far as to say “feel free to disregard the closing date of our reading period.”  I’m never sure what to do when an editor says to send more work and usually err on the side of caution by waiting until the next reading period.  I know that I’ve lost some opportunities because of this caution.  (Once again, I was taught that it is best not to anger an editor by sending outside the reading period or sending too often, much like walking softly around a sleeping bear and offering the honey at the right time.)  Therefore, I was happy to see this specific information.  I will definitely search for something to send them soon.

All of this reminds me that I’m woefully behind on sending out poems.  I’m so happy that I got my August submissions out (and have gotten a few acceptances!); otherwise, I’d be high and dry right now.  Perhaps our rainy day today will auger good things for future growth via submissions and acceptances.

A golden pheasant from our trip to the St. Louis Zoo

A chilling beginning.  You must read this poem ASAP.

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Forming a natural connection to this is Robert Peake’s post “Why They Are Called the Humanities,” which offers a wonderful defense of this much attacked discipline in academia.  I love that Peake sees beyond the normal, surface-level arguments for the humanities and digs a bit deeper.  I agree and plan to spread the news more loudly when we come under the gun budget-wise at my school.

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And then, I read Nancy Devine’s thoughts about Tim O’Brien’s visit to her school and how he reminded her of why writing is important.  While you can’t see me, Dear Reader, rest assured that I am a bit green-tinged with jealousy about this visit, O’Brien being one of my touchstone writers, one who has been with me during my entire journey.

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Finally, I offer a wonderful piece from Jake Adam York about the publication of his new book, Persons Unknown, with thanks to Ruth Ellen Kocher for posting it on her blog, About a Word.  Jake is one of my new touchstones, a poet I admire desperately (well, maybe ‘desperately’ is a bit strong, Dear Readers, but I do admire him as a poet and as a person…all depth and heart.)

So, it’s Monday and we are off to the races with a new week of meetings, stacks of papers to grade, advising panels to organize and present on campus, and of course, class days with students, which always offer the possibility of success.

Again, no draft today because of my traveling earlier in the week; however, I’m so fortunate to be able to report that the entire trip was a huge success from beginning to end.  Huge gratitude goes out to Stephanie Kartalopoulos, who hosted me, and my cousin (and wonderful poet) Marta Ferguson, with whom I was able to reconnect a bit.  The city of Columbia is near and dear to my heart after living there for a year in the late 90’s, and I was so happy to discover that little had changed around the Mizzou campus and 9th street.

My last post recapped my time with Steph’s Intro to Poetry class, and today I want to fill you all in on the wonderful Hearing Voices Reading Series put on by the Orr Street Studios in Columbia.  Big thanks go out to Allison Smythe, Karen, and Nellie, for organizing the series (apologies for not writing down your last names K & N!).  The reading series takes place in an artists’ collective, which means I was surrounded by not only beautiful people as I read, but also beautiful works of art.

Several hours before the reading I received another surprise.  Emili Carlson, a friend of Steph’s and a grad student at Mizzou in architectural studies, emailed and asked if she could do a photo shoot of the reading for a photojournalism class she is taking as an elective.  The photos here are from that shoot.  Very cool.  (Many thanks, Emili!)

The reading itself was wonderful.  A great audience was on hand with a mix of Columbia folks and Mizzou folks.  I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Cornelius Eady and Aliki Barnstone, both on the faculty of Mizzou’s PhD in Creative Writing program.   For the reading, I covered quite a few poems from Blood Almanac and then read a few of the newer poems from the new book.  All seemed well received.  Hearing Voices provides a Q&A time after the writer finishes reading, and just like in Steph’s class, the questions showed a sincere engagement with my work and a real desire to know more about me and the poems.  It’s amazingly flattering to know that these poems that were written in solitude have a life of their own out in the world, and I’m still riding high on that energy.

After the reading, Steph had a few people over for some wine & cheese and poetry talk.  All good fun and the making of many memories to carry me through the second half of the semester!

A butterfly from SE Asia that Mom and I saw at the St. Louis Zoo…damaged but still beautiful.

Hello, Dear Readers, today I’m blogging from the road as I’m smack dab in the middle of my Big Missouri Trip and smack dab in the middle of Missouri.  This morning, I made my way from St. Louis west on I-70 a couple of hours to Columbia, MO, home of the Mizzou Tigers, Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, The Missouri Review, cousin-poet Marta Ferguson, and friend-poet Stephanie Kartalopoulos.  As I mentioned last week, Steph adopted Blood Almanac and today I was lucky enough to talk to her fantastic Intro to Poetry students about the book.

First, a huge shout out of admiration to Steph and her students.  The students had read the book with care and asked insightful questions that lead to great discussions.  I changed up my routine a bit this time and opened with a brief bio, then read one poem and asked if anyone had any questions or comments.  One student did and we had a great conversation about “the line” and how the style of the poem results from the content of the poem (for me).  I picked another poem to read and again we had a brief discussion prompted by student responses.  Then, I let them pick the poems they wanted to hear and talk about.  Those fifty minutes flew by in the most delightful way.  One student even asked me to read a poem that isn’t in the book but that he’d found online because he was interested in my work.  (I’m blushing here as I sit on Steph’s couch, admiring her cats, in Columbia, MO, one of my all-time favorite college towns!)

I will definitely use this back and forth approach if and when I’m asked to talk with other students who have already been assigned my work.

It’s super fun being back in a town where I once lived (one year in the late 90’s) and seeing what has and hasn’t changed.  It’s also super fun to be able to spend some time with a friend from the internet in her “real world” environs.

Tomorrow night: 7:00 Orr Street Studios.  I’ll be reading.  Y’all come!

I am woefully behind on my blog reading.  However, I want to take this chance to say congratulations to fellow poet-blogger Kristin Berkey-Abbott.  Finishing Line Press has just picked up her latest chapbook, I Stand Here Shredding Documents.  I cannot wait to read this book.  For now, why don’t y’all pop over to Kristin’s blog and join me in congratulating her for the great news.

And now, you may wonder what’s up with my Friday draft.  Alas, it’s not to be, so I’m doubly thankful that I drafted on Wednesday this week!  I’ve been rushing about town running errands and rushing around the house doing chores in order to prepare for my big Missouri Trip!  As I said about a week ago, Stephanie Kartalopoulos was kind enough to adopt Blood Almanac for her Intro to Poetry class and then to invite me to guest lecture for the same class.  She also worked her networking magic and got me on the lineup for the Orr Street Studios’ Hearing Voices Reading Series for Tuesday night, October 12th.  Anyone close to Columbia, this is where I’ll be on Tuesday at 7 p.m.  (The website hasn’t been updated, but I promise I’ll be there.) 

To double my fun, I’m meeting my mom in St. Louis for a girls’ weekend and then I’ll get to see my cousin, the poet Marta Ferguson, while I’m in Columbia.  Woo Hoo.

And just as a reality check for any non-teaching folk out there, I’ll also be taking along my laptop, so I can run my online classes from the road, as well as papers and midterms that need to be graded and material for classes that need to be prepped and ready to go when I return.  I’m guessing this means teachers are wicked people, b/c the old adage says, “There’s no rest for the wicked!” (Is it December yet?)

Libby reminds me to slow down and nap!

In all seriousness, I love my job, I love my writing time, I love all the wonderful & supportive friends and family surrounding me (especially C.), and I love my life, as busy as it may be at the time.

No, it isn’t Friday, Dear Readers, but I was called to draft today.  I’d felt the pressure building over the last two weeks of non-drafting.  Poor C., I get a bit uneven when I fail to work on my own poetry and sometimes am not the most pleasant person.  Granted all the things that have prevented me from writing have been wonderful and poetry-related, so there is little to complain of.  Still last night I told myself that today would be a drafting day, and after I woke and was working through my morning routine I reminded myself of such.  I thought of my draft from about a month ago, “Fairy Tale for Drowned Girls,” which was at first “Midwestern Fairy Tale for Drowned Girls.”  I really enjoyed thinking about the cautionary tales that might be specific to my favored geography.  And fairy tales, in most of their original forms, are really cautionary tales in disguise.  So, today I wanted to focus on a girl freezing to death in the winter.

Today’s draft is, therefore, called “Fairy Tale for Frozen Girls,” and thanks to a work exchange with the wonderful poet, Charlotte Pence, I knew exactly how I wanted to start it: by repeating the first line of “Drowned Girls.”  Both poems begin with this line: “Once, a girl refused to mind… .”  Obviously, in the first poem the wild girl drowns and in the second poem she freezes to death in a blizzard.  What I hope I’m exploring is that Midwestern sensibility that calls us all to stay in line, to be a part of the continuous whole…but to also give credit to those outliers who break the code.  In other words, while the surface of the poems may seem to enforce the “rules,” I hope the reader will see that there is admiration for the girls who will not mind as well.  That tension interests me.

Because I was building on something I’d already begun, I didn’t use any of my prompts.  However, I’d thought of a line I wanted to use and jotted it down while I was still getting dressed, getting breakfast, etc.  It turned out that during the first draft I forced that line into the poem and that one line led me down a path of clunkiness and non-poetic lines.  What I was doing was really drafting in prose.  I cut the line and about 5 subsequent lines and then pared the rest down, focusing on image and sound.  After about a half hour of tinkering and printing, I realized that my original line fit perfectly (at least for now) at the end of the poem and allowed the poem to remain a poem and not a story lineated as a poem.

I hope some of that made sense.  In any case, here is a picture of my desk during the drafting time.  My journal is buried there with the handwritten scrawl of the beginning idea.  Yes, I print a lot of drafts, but always on the back of an already-used sheet of paper.  Later as I whittle down the drafts, I toss the throw-aways in a bag that I will later take to school and dump in the paper recycling bin.  I must atone for my sins against the trees, I know! 

Good drafting days to all of you, Dear Readers.

We are knee-deep in the semester and I struggle these days to maintain the balance of poetry and teaching.  Case in point, I spent about seven hours this weekend grading world literature papers, and thanks to the hours at the computer and a cat that insists on sleeping on my pillow and shoving my head off it, I have a painful kink in my shoulder/neck to show for it.

The news for the week is this:
1.  Blessings to all the editors and literary journal staffers out there.  I had a poem accepted by George Looney, the editor at Lake Effect, a journal out of Penn State Erie.  This is one case study where I can say exactly how this magic happened.  It all began at AWP several years ago, when towards the end of the conference, the student staff members of the journal stood in the aisle of the book fair and pressed copies into any hands that reached for them.  After reading my sample copy, I sent off a few poems.  I received a kind note from George Looney asking me to send again.  I did and those poems were rejected as well.  However, the third time being the charm…this most recent submission resulted in one poem finding a home.  However, the story doesn’t end there.  George emailed to ask if I would consider two changes, one minor adjustment to the last two lines and one major change involving a new title altogether.  Funnily enough, the change the staff members suggested for the ending was something I’d already been considering.  I’d gone back and forth on both versions for weeks and finally just sent the poem off.  Turns out I should have gone with the other version, but thankfully, the folks at Lake Effect saw the possibility of the change and were willing to work it out.  As for the title, I hadn’t ever considered revising it; however, George & his staff members made a valid argument for their suggestion and I was more than willing to go with it.  (I’ve only recently discovered that some poets aren’t so ready to make revisions at this stage…what say you, Dear Reader?  If an editor wants to use a poem but only with certain changes, are you usually willing to work it through?)

2.  Still recovering, in a good way, from our joyful visit with Jon Tribble and Allison Joseph.  Still thinking through a lot of what they had to say about publishing and poetry.  Again, all due thanks to these two superheroes of the poetry world.

3.  I’ll be preparing for a big weekend/week.  On Saturday, I’m going to meet my mom in St. Louis for a mother/daughter weekend, which will be followed by a trip to Columbia, MO on Monday – Tuesday.  (Sadly, C. must stay behind to care for the cats and go to work.)   The great Stephanie Kartalopoulos adopted Blood Almanac for her Creative Writing class and I’m going to speak with them on Monday.  Then, on Tuesday, I’ll be appearing at the Hearing Voices reading series at the Orr Street Studios.  Having lived in Columbia for a year back in the late 90’s, I’m thrilled to be going back to one of my favorite college towns.  Hello, U of MO Columbia!  Hello, Shakespeare’s Pizza!  Hello, cousin & fellow poet Marta Ferguson!  Hello, Steph!

4. In the midst of all of this, it is time for Midterms, and I’m busy helping our division’s advising committee provide information for spring registration.  Oh, and there are always papers to grade and classes to prep.  Let’s be real about that!

So, it will be a busy week again.  Have missed drafting for two weeks, but there’s a lot of buzz in my brain thanks to Allison & Jon.  Something new is coming…I can feel it.

Finally, many thanks are due to friends Chris & Rebecca, local bee wranglers, who gave me a jar of honey on Thursday.  With the weather inching toward cooler, the time for hot tea seems upon us.  The honey is sweet & light & tastes of central Arkansas.  Just what a tired girl needs on a Monday morning!

59º ~ beautiful sun that finally feels like an autumn sun, all slantwise and golden rather than a direct and blazing beam, the breezes have returned as well, although we still lack the relief of rain

Jon Tribble & Allison Joseph

Busy times here at the desk of the Kangaroo.  Yesterday was a second, welcome rain of poetry, (the first having been written about here), a campus visit by Jon Tribble and Allison Joseph.  In the morning, Jon and Allison represented Crab Orchard Review during “A Forum on Editorial Roles” for Banned Books Week.  While the conversation turned mostly to issues of challenges and banned books, we did have the benefit of Jon & Allison’s 15 years of experience as editors of COR.  Next time, we will plan a longer session as the students were filled with questions.  I’m so proud to say that we filled the room with 40 audience members made up of faculty, staff, and students from Pulaski Tech, UCA, and UALR.  We are proving that there is an interest in creative writing in central Arkansas in both traditional and non-traditional students alike.

A few of us were lucky enough to have lunch with Allison & Jon at Starving Artist Cafe in North Little Rock, AR.  If you’re in the area, I highly recommend this restaurant, which is owned in part by Paula Martin Morell, a local writer and editor who records her public radio program there, Tales from the South.  During lunch, several former students received great words of wisdom from J & A about MFA/PhD programs, applications, and the general literary scene in America.  All of us learned more about the behind-the-scenes action of running a book series.  One of the most important things that stuck out to me was from Jon talking about reading submissions for the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry competitions.  He said that often when a book makes the semi-finalist rounds but not the finals it is because there is a lot of promise there but the book isn’t quite ready.  This is important b/c the publisher has no idea what kind of person the writer is and how he/she will respond to the working relationship between editor/writer.  Therefore, the book needs to be FINISHED and ready to go from the start, as there is not the building of relationships as there is when a book is signed outside of a competition setting.  Also, if a book makes the finals, then it is READY and if it doesn’t win that round, it is 70% likely to find a home (at least that is the general statistic for books that go through the COR competition and make it to the finals).  In other words…finalist status is a GREAT step.  The eventual selection is just a matter of taste for the judge, so it becomes very subjective there.

After lunch, we let Jon and Allison off the hook for a bit and they explored Little Rock/North Little Rock.  Both have connections here, as Jon grew up here.  After completing their graduate degrees, they returned and Allison taught at UALR for a few years while Jon split his teaching between UALR and PTC.  Old home week, indeed.

My favorite!

Finally, the day culminated in Allison’s most wonderful & amazing reading from her new book, My Father’s Kites, out this year from the wonderful & amazing, Steel Toe Books.  We had approx. 125 students, faculty, and staff, as well as people from the community at large in attendance.  (I’ve learned that when putting together an event like this, one of the biggest fears is that 4 people will show up.  Swhew.  I started to relax a bit when I saw those seats filling.)  Thanks to all who attended and helped out in ways large and small.  Much praise is due to Allison for her charm and her words.  She delighted us all!  If you ever get the chance to host or attend a reading with Allison, go for it.  Her reading style is clean, clear, and most of all ENERGETIC.  At one point she sang.  As she read, her body movements became a part of the poems, but not in any distracting way.  She is the epitome of grace.  As evidence, I offer the fact that there was a line of over a dozen people waiting to buy My Father’s Kites and get Allison’s autograph.  And many of these were community college students, for whom book buying is a luxury.

Finally, I was so proud of our students who engaged with the reading and asked thoughtful questions during the Q & A, again proving that literary events like this are welcomed and necessary on our campus. 

As we say, in our geeky way, around the halls:  Go TEAM ENGLISH!

Well, Dear Readers, Central Arkansas is receiving one kind of rain: poetry rain!  It’s the week of the two Allison/Alison’s.  Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a poetry reading at our public library’s main branch by Alison Hawthorne Deming.  Tomorrow night, the pleasure continues with a reading by my good friend Allison Joseph (who will also appear earlier in the day with hubby Jon Tribble to talk about Crab Orchard Review).  Yay! 

This week, I am poetry blessed!

Thanks to another good poetry friend, Hope Coulter, who teaches at Hendrix College, I’m well informed about the literary goings-on around town.  Each semester, Hope collates a literary calendar that spans Little Rock, North Little Rock, and Conway, and includes events at the local colleges, libraries, and other artistic venues.  It was through this calendar that I became aware of Deming’s appearance at the library.  Deming appeared as part of a national Poets House series: “The Language of Conservation.”  Here’s the first bit from their website:

This program began at the Central Park Zoo in NYC, and the Little Rock Zoo was one of five lucky zoos, along with Jacksonville, Milwaukee, New Orleans, and Brookfield, IL, that were selected to participate when the program went national.  A leading poet was assigned to each zoo, and he/she curated a poetry installation.  (Joseph Bruchac curated the LR Zoo’s installation, but I wasn’t able to go and hear him read when he was here last spring.)

Since our zoo was chosen, we also get the gift of poets appearing at our public library over the next year. Yay to Poets House and Yay to Libraries & Zoos working together!

But, to the heart of the matter: Deming’s reading was wonderful.  I’d only read her work in journals (in fact, we’re both Terrain.org poets), and I knew her to be a poet of place and mythology…two of my favorites!  I hadn’t realized her love of science, which she elaborated on last night.  Deming has traveled extensively and interacted with conservationists, biologists, and other scientists, and all of this goes into her poetry. 

In terms of being an audience member, I knew I was in good hands from the get-go.  Deming is self-assured, has a great reading voice, and interjects humor in an easy and natural way.  Her first poem was the title poem from her first book, Science and Other Poems, which won the Walt Whitman Award in 1993.  She followed this up with a few poems from each of her next two books, before ending with a larger number of poems from her most recent book, Rope, which I bought, of course, and will review here at some later date.  I especially liked “The Black Water,” a poem from one of the older books with a nod to Elizabeth Bishop’s “Florida,” which was inspired by a kayak trip Deming took on a Florida river during one of her many travels around the world.  I appreciate it when writer’s go back to older books, as it gives the reading an air of history, and for an audience member, like me, who is coming to the poet relatively fresh, it gives a greater balance to the work.  It was great to be able to hear Deming’s journey as a poet in just that handful of poems. 

Since I have the book, I’ll leave you with the title poem.

Rope
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Penguin, 2009

Today, I’ve spent the morning drafting a guest blog post for Her Circle Ezine, which is due to one of the editors there in a couple of weeks.  If you haven’t checked out this site, I encourage you to do so, be you male or female.  Here’s the first bit from their About page: