49º and gloomy

Yes, I forgot to include the weather this week. School must have zapped me. In any case, here are a few links that I found worthy of my time.

~~~~~

Find out why Hemingway, Churchill, and Golding fail the A-level computerized English exams.

~~~~~

Steven D. Schroeder, blogging at Sturgeon’s Law, has an amusing post on his journey to becoming a writer. Makes me want to write my version.

~~~~~

In the same vein as the above, Josh Robbins, blogging at Little Epic Against Oblivion, provides a view into his normal writing day. Another one I want to write my version of sometime soon.

Enjoy!

Woo Hoo, my new routine of not reading the blogs first, but just getting to the writing seems to be paying off. (I’m sure this seems like a “Duh!” kind of statement, but hey we all take different paths on our journey, right?) I did read some poetry to transition and settle into a world of words. I’m happy to report that I was successful in generating something new today. It looks like the draft of a poem and seems sturdy, but only time will tell. It’s titled “Pilgrimage.” I did use some old notes on one of my inspiration cards to get started. My first few lines turned out to be just prose broken up into lines…eeek! Then, I loosened up and rearranged things and found my footing and my voice. The process of this poem was very choppy. I’d draft another stanza and see where it led me, but then I realized a lot of the lines needed to be reordered for sound and sense. I’ve just been talking to my students, both in creative writing and in composition, about shitty first drafts, a phrase I borrow from Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. It was good for me to remember it myself today!

Now, let me confess, Dear Readers, that I’ve been haunted by a blog post I read yesterday. Rebecca Loudon has a great blog, Radish King, and a few days ago, she posted on using writing prompts. Here’s her initial post, but the good stuff is in the comments. “Don’t use writing prompts. Come up with your own damned stuff.” If you follow my postings about my draft process, you can probably see why I’m haunted. I often use prompts of some kind, often word gathering or some kind of leaping off from something I’ve read or images I’ve studied. Perhaps this is not the kind of prompt Loudon means, but in any case, why am I so bothered? If it works for me, why should I care what others think about my process?

Loudon asserts in the comments section that “So much modern poetry lacks imagination.” I hope and mostly believe that I do access my imaginative powers once I get into the depth of the poem. This is one of the areas I worry about in my own work. I want desperately to make imaginative leaps. I want my images to be original and worth the reader’s effort. Does it make me or my poems weaker because they often begin with a direction? Isn’t writing with a form in mind writing from a kind of prompt?

Reading Loudon’s post occurred on the heals of having a former student contact me to find out where she could find prompts like the ones we’d used in a creative writing class. I had just finished sending her a list of books, a link to a blog post with some prompts, and directions for six of my favorite prompts that I use often. After reading Loudon’s post, I had one of those teacher moments where you question whether you’ve led the student astray or towards success.

What do you think, Dear Readers? To prompt or not to prompt?

Last week, I received a friend request from another poet on Facebook. Along with that request was a message in which the poet explained how he had found me via reading yet another poet’s blog. The blog post had mentioned Blood Almanac and contained a link to some sample poems. This led to the friend request on FB. Once I accepted the request, the poet asked if I’d be interested in a book swap, which I was, and also mentioned that he works on the journal Terrain.org and was wondering if I had anything I might like to submit.

I had heard the name of the journal a few times, but I hadn’t yet investigated it. After the above exchange, I did, and I was glad I did. It’s a wonderful online journal, combining the arts, architecture, and the environment. As explained in the guidelines: Each of Terrain.org’s issues is based on a predominant theme that relates to the built and natural environments. Contributions are oriented toward that theme, though the connection does not have to be obvious. Lots of fascinating stuff to read and listen to on the site.

I have long been uneasy with themed issues, never quite sure how my work might fit and never very good at writing to an assigned theme; however, I did find a few poems I thought worked with the current theme and sent them off to my new FB friend, knowing that there was no guarantee of acceptance. Yesterday, I received the good news that two of the poems will appear in the next issue of Terrain.org. Once they appear, in March 2010, readers will also be able to listen to me read the poems, which is one of my favorite things about online journals.

So, this is online social networking at its best. By creating this blog and finally settling into a rhythm with my posts, I have gained new readers and new friends. One of those readers posted about my book on her blog and that led to the new Facebook friend. Frankly, given my geographic location and lack of funds to travel often (aside from one big blowout at AWP each year), I would not have been able to establish these connections, at least not as quickly or as many, in the “real” world of networking. Today, I’m thankful I live in the age of the internet and I’m thankful for the community I’m joining online.

60º and overcast, but not gloomy

Whew! That time thing is a slippery beast. It’s a long weekend, and I still feel a little bit behind. Much has been accomplished in the last 3 days, some of it for fun (read, visiting some good friends and finally seeing Avatar, in 3D at an IMAX nonetheless…amazing!) and some of it for necessity (read, re-caulking a part of the shower window). Today was my first day of the long weekend to devote to poetry and I spent the morning revising In a World Made of Such Weather as This, AGAIN.

In the last revision, the manuscript lost a bit of weight and got quite skinny. This time I added back in some of the poems I had dropped, but I also added back in a handful of poems I’ve been working on since late summer/fall that still fit the theme. It’s back up to being “healthy” at 64 pages/59 poems. Now, of course, I’m worrying that I wasn’t being critical enough. Sigh. In any case, I have two packets ready to mail tomorrow, and I was able to submit electronically to one publisher. That is slick. I hope more publishers go the way of the standard online submission manager. Such a savings on paper, ink, and postage, not to mention TIME.

I’ve been meaning to post here about Beth Bachmann’s book Temper, and I do promise that post, Dear Readers. To tide you over, check out Charlotte Pence’s close reading of one poem from the book.

I’ve got a zillion books I want to read and several hours worth of school work to finish before tomorrow. Guess which is going to win? (Darn that Midwestern work ethic of mine!)

New issue of diode available online now!

Featuring:

Shurooq Amin
Rae Armantrout
Cynthia Arrieu-King
Andrea Cohen
Adam Fieled
Arpine Konyalian Grenier
Mihail Gălăţanu, trans. Adam J. Sorkin
and Petru Iamandi
Lesley Jenike
Christine Klocek-Lim
Rustin Larson
Jeffrey Ethan Lee
Bobbi Lurie
Rob MacDonald
Erika Meitner
Simon Perchik
Catherine Pierce
Nate Pritts
Doug Ramspeck
Susan Rich
Steven D. Schroeder
Ravi Shankar
Franz Wright

http://diodepoetry.com/

53º with a faint layer of clouds, but a sufficient amount of sun

Well, I did manage to sift through the blog list. I’m getting better at moving on if something isn’t grabbing my attention. I know it sounds weird, but being the type of person I am, I tended to try to read everything all the time. Slowly, I’m building my own filter and allowing myself to “mark all as read” and move on to the next blog. I have on my list blogs written by both individuals and by groups/organizations, and so far, I’m more attracted to the individuals. Hmm.

In any case, here’s the catch of the day. I found a link to a journal new to me: la fovea. Once I clicked, I realized that this wasn’t like any other journal I’d seen before. I don’t think I can explain it any better than the editors do:
•Each nerve editor (found on the main page www.lafovea.org) is in charge of a nerve. The nerves are made up of poets who are invited to submit to La Fovea. Click on the editors name to see all the poets and poems in his or her nerve.
•The nerve editor asks a poet to submit two poems. After that poet has had his or her poems published on La Fovea, he or she will ask another poet to submit poems.
•If the last poet on the nerve does not find a poet to submit poems for whatever reason, the nerve is called “dead.” It’s okay to have a “dead nerve.” The important thing is for the nerve editor to notice that a nerve has died and begin a new nerve from their first page of poems.
•If a poet wants to submit to La Fovea but has not been invited, he or she may submit to La Fovea and choose the editor whom the poet believes most matches his or her family of aesthetic style. The editor of the nerve may choose to send these poems to the current nerve editor and ask if he or she wishes to publish the poet’s work. If the poet does not wish to publish the work, then the work will be returned to the submitter.

Navigating this journal is a great example of what online publishing has to offer.

34º and high, thin clouds dissolving

This has been the first full week back to school with classes in session, and Wednesday my writing time left me disappointed. Today, I knew I needed to get some words on paper to keep to my draft a week goal, and I realized that I needed to change my routine. I’m following so many blogs now, that reading them on Wednesday (after missing on Tuesday b/c of class) took up too much of my concentration, I think. So, I changed it up and ignored Google Reader this morning (having missed Thursday b/c of classes as well). For those of you who like my links, I may post something more later today or on Saturday, but I feel a need to shift priorities of time.

So, I started reading from some books on my desk and then a line emerged, followed by another. I set the book aside (Cloisters by Kristin Bock), and turned in earnest to my journal. I drafted out a dozen lines there and then when things began coalescing, I turned to the computer and printer. Dear Reader, let me admit that the first attempt today was an ugly mess of forced lines. I grew disgusted. I picked up Bock’s book again, one I admire for its concision and its leaps. After reading a handful of poems…aha!…I saw what needed to happen and went back to my draft. I know believe it is something with some sticking power.

The title is “What Beaufort’s Distant Daughters Know about the Wind.” I’ve long wanted to write about Beaufort’s wind scale, and if you are familiar with my work, you know that wind is an important player. The forces that converged were these…the past week has seen two disasters: one international (Haiti) and one personal (a sad event for a friend). My heart has been heavy, not to be overly sentimental, and the lines that first emerged today were an expression of that heaviness and involved the wind, and then I remembered the Beaufort scale and started drawing on some of the language there as well. Only time will tell if the draft will survive, but I go now, back to reading with a slight lessening to the heaviness within.

22º and clear skies, enough sun to turn off the table lamp

As yesterday’s post announced, Linebreak currently features a poem by George David Clark, “A Crossing,” and I am the voice for this week’s recording. Recording someone else’s work was an eye-opening (or maybe ear-opening) experience. I was anxious about doing the poem and the poet justice. Perhaps adding a bit to this was the fact that I knew the poet personally (although the folks at Linebreak didn’t know of this connection). If I screwed it up, I’d feel awful when GDC and I next met.

When I received the poem, I had about five days to get the recording done. I spent the first two days reading and re-reading the poem aloud whenever I passed by my desk. This turned into a close examination of the line breaks (as the title of the journal suggests) and to the meaning and sound of individual words. Rather than this being a work of my own with which I was intimate, now I had to decide where to place emphasis, where to pause slightly, fully, or not at all. I had to take my cues from the author. I must say that I always encourage my students to read aloud, and I do as well, but this kind of rehearsal with the goal of a recording prompted an even deeper reading on my part. On day three I sat down at the computer to record (I use Audacity…thanks, Sean!) I think I ended up with 6 failed takes before I was satisfied with my recitation, but by and large, I’m still happy with the result. I learned a lot from this exercise and am thankful to the editors and the poet for the opportunity. If you’d like to try it, just email the editors and ask for your shot. I highly recommend it!

39º and clear skies, much sun

A quick Tuesday appearance to encourage you all to click over to Linebreak this week. George David Clark, of “Jellyfish” fame, has a new poem up today, “A Crossing,” read by yours truly.

Enjoy!