I have a second poem up at 42opus (last one). Click here to read “If Given the Chance.” Thanks to Brian Leary and the rest of the editors and readers!
What I’m Reading: The Missouri Review 32.1
This morning it struck me that this academic life really is a blessing. All this week, except yesterday when it rained, I’ve started out by reading for several hours on the deck. The sun rises over the house, so I’m mostly in shadow, except for a swath of summer light on the very far side. As far as I know, there’s nothing to stop me from this routine for the next two months, and I am glad for it.
Today, I switched from books to journals and picked up the most recent issue of The Missouri Review. It must have arrived several weeks ago, but a testament to my distraction is that I totally missed the name of friend and fellow U of A MFA alum, Adam Prince, on the cover. In grad school, I was a huge fan of Adam’s stories, “borrowing” the fiction worksheet to see what he’d come up with next. Today, I read his story “Big Wheels for Adults” with great expectations and I wasn’t disappointed. His skill at drawing characters is amazing. I highly recommend!
I’ve long admired this journal, and when I think of a new issue, the word “meaty” comes to mind. I know that I’m in for a fulfilling read. There’s no fluff here and rarely a story, essay, or poem that misses the mark. After reading Adam’s story, I went back to the poetry (usually my first stop). I felt a kinship with Lisa Williams’ ocean poems, although I’m a land-locked poet. Frannie Lindsay’s elegies for her sister were filled with those details that become super-real in death. And Christina Hutchins offered up longer poems with a depth to them that I envy. As for essays, Deborah Thompson’s “What’s the Matter with Houdini?” held me rapt and sharing in her grief.
New Poem on 42opus
I have a new poem up at 42opus. Check it out here. Appropriately, it’s titled “June Meditations.
Enjoy!
What I’m Reading: Pathogenesis
I picked up Pathogenesis by Peggy Munson at AWP at the Switchback Books table. I wasn’t familiar with either the poet or the press, but I’m glad I stopped when the little square of a book caught my eye. (The book measures 6″ x 6″ and feels great in the hand.)
The core of the book emerges from Munson’s life experiences suffering from Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), a disease I must admit I was unfamiliar with until I read the book. The book is grounded in the poet’s body, a body in pain, a body in constant battle. This could easily have become they type of book that keeps me reading just by the sheer unusualness of the subject matter, and yet the poems rise above the subject matter into art.
Munson’s ear is finely tuned. She makes great leaps with word choice and syntax. The poems almost spring from the page there is so much energy entrapped within. The book ends with the title poem, a long sequence of ten sections. Here are some favorite lines.
From “Pathogenesis” Section II:
“I imagine the desert landscape: nuclear waste sold to Indian reservations,
bomb tests, thievery of the vastness. And think: whose daughter imploded here,
which star metastasized as she wished upon her body, hand flat on chest?”
From “Pathogenesis” Section VI:
“…. Still, the wolf incisors put the red in fairy tales, and blood spills / over childhood myths of fairness.”
From “Pathogenesis” Section IX:
“I have grown as permeable as a night of rotting irises, // my blood-brain barrier a colander for all the poisoned green.”
What I’m Reading: Lucky Wreck
It happened the way I’m sure publishers hope it will happen. I went to a panel at AWP and heard Ada Limón read from her forthcoming book Sharks in the Rivers (Milkweed, 2010). During the reading, I fell a little bit in love with her, the way readings can make that happen. Later, wandering the book fair, I found her name on a book and bought it. Lucky Wreck, which won the 2005 Autumn House Poetry Prize, has been on the top of the stack since I got back and now, blessed be to summer, I have time to read.
One of the things I admire about this book is Limón’s straight-forward voice, no punches pulled but still with a lyricism that draws me in. There are the usual wide-ranging human themes and little moments of hard-earned wisdom offered up as just that…take them for what they are worth, take them or not.
Of course, being from a prairie state, which means being from a place defined by wind, how could I not love a book whose first line is “We solved the problem of the wind” (from “First Lunch with Relative Stranger Mister You”)?
Section Three, “The Spider Web” is an amazing crown of sonnets that just blew me away. The ability to sustain the formal elements and link the seven sonnets so intricately is mirrored in the extended metaphor of a spider working a web throughout. Some lines that stuck with me:
from sonnet 2
“As a child I remember knowing how to float
When sober was the wind and my body, the boat.”
from sonnet 3
“It’s not God, I tell you. It’s my mother,
Though there is little difference between the two.
I’m convinced that together they’re planning a coup.”
from sonnet 7
“If I had my choice, I’d have a boat of my own,
The sails would be my skin, the bow my bones.”
Driven
The return to the world of writing begins. Thanks to a good writing friend who agreed to exchange some prompts/assignments with me on Sunday, ideas, images, and words started coalescing in my brain. This morning I was driven from bed a half hour early as the next few lines to something I’d started the night before sprang into my head.
Then, a long day involving lots of errands and then sanding and priming (interior) to prepare for more painting tomorrow. Now, my body is tired, but once again, without willing it, my brain had been mulling over the new poem and I had to sit down and work on it some more.
After a long period of not writing, it is reassuring to feel the wheels turning once more.
More Good News
Last night I received another “good news” email, this time from Copper Nickel. Jake Adam York and Anisetta Valdez, poetry editors, wrote to accept all four of the poems I had submitted. Previous readers will know that I greatly admire this journal and the people who work on it, so it was truly humbling to find out that they had taken the entire submission.
By some wonderful twist of fate, my last three acceptances have been for entire submission packets (or what was left after withdrawing a poem). Typically, I have placed one poem at a time, and when someone has taken two, I’ve been through the roof. Two years ago, Crab Orchard took three and I nearly floated away from delight. Now, after a particularly rough spring, filled with doubting, to receive this bounty of confidence boosting news is such a gift. Many thanks to all the tireless editors and readers at all the journals out there who provide that vital link between writer and audience.
Good News While Traveling
While I was out of town this weekend, I received a “good news” email from J. P. Dancing Bear of the American Poetry Journal. He took three poems for a future issue! One of these poems has been around the block a few times and underwent a serious revision before this last round of submissions. I’ve always believed in the poem, but it took a seriously long time (two years) to find its true form. It really is gratifying to see the work pay off.
Many thanks to J. P. Dancing Bear and the other fine people over at APJ!
Happily, happily, I’m running low on poems that are submission ready and I’m eager to get to work on the new drift of drafts.
Poetry Timeout
Yes, this blog is meant for Poetry, but sometimes Baseball interrupts.
It happens every year. At some point, the ivy at Wrigley greens into full-blown Spring and I miss it. Ryan Theriot just hit a double off the wall and I did my yearly double-take. When did that happen? Just proves how mind-consuming the end of the semester becomes.
On a happy note, I turned in my last set of grades at 11:00 this morning. After some family business this weekend, I’m back on track with my writing time. I can feel the poems building.
Until then…
Budy poem on Verse Daily
Check out Andrea Hollander Budy’s poem on today’s Verse Daily. I love the first line: “Her voice has too much jewelry in it.”
Enjoy!