Sunday Musings

This week was spent mostly between work and home trying to get organized on both ends. Tomorrow is the first day of the spring semester and I expect it will be hectic, but the first week of classes is always a gradual ease into routine. This is also helped by the fact that we have a three day weekend right after the first week of school.

Winter hit Indy in full force this week. We had snow all week and while it wasn’t nearly the blast that the north east received, it coated out backyard with a couple of inches. Time to break out the boots.
This week I began a journey that I suspect most people begin after the holidays are over. I started back to the workouts and the cooking at home. All this week we ate at home including all weekend (except for the salads we had for dinner last night). Saturday morning I made breakfast wraps and butternut squash “hashbrowns.” It was pretty darn good.

I’m about 150 pages into Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and it is fascinating. It’s a lot denser than Animal, Vegetable, Miracle but talks about some of the same basic issues. I like the more in depth look that Pollan takes at the food industry and how it impacts Americans. If you care about what you eat and where it comes from, you should read this book.

A favorite passage from today’s reading came when Pollan interviewed Joe Salatin who owns Polyfa ce Farm in Virgina:

Me and the folks who buy my food are like the Indians –we just want to opt out. That’s all the Indians wanted–to keep their teepees, to give their kids herbs instead of patent medicines and leeches. They didn’t care if there was Washington, D.C., or a Custer or a USDA ; just leave us alone. But the Western mind can’t bear the opt-out option. We’re going to have to refight the Battle of Little Bighorn to preserve the right to opt out, or your grandchildren and mine will have no choice but to eat amalgamated, irradiated, genetically prostituted, barcoded, adulterated, fecal spam for the centralized processing conglomerate.

Sunday Musings

Yesterday was Greekfest at Holy Trinity Greek Church and it was awesome. I would also like to note that these pictures were taken with the camera on my Blackberry, which isn’t too bad considering it’s a phone.
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I received another positive rejection from Boulevard today, so I’ll be sending to them again when their reading period starts up in October. The goal is finish up submission packets Tuesday morning and get those in the mail for round one.

We also went to the library book sale this afternoon. It was excellent although I’d like to go Saturday next time, so it isn’t so picked over. I picked up a Best American Short Stories 2006 and Spoon River Anthology. I also picked up a horror collection (in honor of Halloween coming up.) I love B horror movies and zombies and all that good stuff, so that was my “fun” purchase.

Friday (If I Could Meet Miss. Bishop…) Musings

Those of you who keep up with daily publications better than I do already know that the July/August issue of Poetry included a “Poets We’ve Known” section at the end of the magazine. I really enjoyed reading about Robert Creely, John Ashberry, and Miroslav through the stories of their friends. My favorite of course was Katha Pollitt’s reminisces of Elizabeth Bishop. It is foolish for me to say this, but I’m going to anyway, I think we could have been friends. This little glance into Bishop’s life made me admire her even more, especially when Pollitt talks about her as teacher and compares her to Bernard Malamud, who was at Harvard at the same time:

“…he saw himself, I think, as I kind of talent scout from God. Maybe he was–but I had friends who took years to recover from one of his verdicts. Bishop had the opposite approach: she seemed to enjoy teaching, and was clearly amused by her students, a typical combination of the bow tied and tie-dyed–young fogies and hippies–but I don’t think it was a calling, part of her identity. She wasn’t concerned to make final judgments or peer into our depths.”

I like this because I feel much the same about my students. While I do think that teaching is a large part of my identity, I’m not really interested in judging my students. This could be because I teach a lot of introductory level courses, but destroying their will to write isn’t what I signed up for.

But Pollitt’s account also makes me envious and I agree when she calls herself foolish for not accepting Bishop’s invitation for a visit to New Haven. While many critics have accused Bishop’s poetry of being cold and detached at times, Pollitt’s story shows just how much she was willing to extend to her students. As Pollitt mentions in the opening, she was one of the few professors who took a class to her home.
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This is a neat article about incorporating flowers into cocktails. They’re very romantic and they look like something I could write a poem about. See pictures below:

Tuesday (Kohlrabi) Musings

This is why I love my CSA. Today’s goody box included carrots, scallions, cucumber, salad, beet greens, snow peas, cilantro, Kale, and something called Kohlrabi. I’d never heard of Kohlrabi before, but apparently it is German in descent and is related to cabbage, beets, and broccoli. It is best eaten raw on salads or as a sliced up into chips for a snack. I cut some up tonight to include in my salad for dinner. It has the texture of a water chestnut and has a nice crunch. In this picture, the Kohlrabi is the bulb looking vegetable on the left.

Wednesday (CSA) Musings

Our CSA started last week and I’m already in love with it. This week we got salad mix, swiss chard, carrots, snap peas, and cucumbers. I’m eating a salad right now made from all of the above and it is yummy. I’m really excited to see what goodies we get as the summer progresses.

I’m feeling less tired this week, so (fingers crossed) I figure I must finally be getting back into the swing of things. I’m looking forward to the weekend. We have a few fun things planned and Ashley may be coming to visit.

I received another “good” rejection email from Newport Review. They encouraged me to submit again, so I probably will. I still have quite a few poems out in the universe, so we’ll see.
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kitchenette building

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong
Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.”

But could dream send up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms

Even if we were willing to let it in,
Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,
Anticipate a message, let it begin?

We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,
We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.

Gwendolyn Brooks
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Thursday (Sweetness) Musings

I’ve been thinking a lot about sugar lately. I know these thoughts were prompted by my cooking class. Last Friday we had to go around the room and “name” what kind of snack we’d be. People were cookies, chips, and potatoes. What was I? Baked goods. Specifically? Cupcakes. I blame this partially on my genes. My dad has a think for Hostess cupcakes. Did you know one of those cupcakes equals 2 servings? Yikes.

Anyway. When I was making my power spheres, I used natural fruit juice as a sweetener. I was feeling all health conscious until I realized I’ve been using Splenda in my tea for about two years. Can we say chemicals? So I had to buy a big jar of honey to make my honey wheat bread this weekend, and I decided that I’d go back to it as a natural sweetener. What I find funny about this, is when I was kid my mom used to keep honey in the fridge for her tea. I liked to eat it raw. I mean I was a kid, but it makes me think that sometimes simple is best.

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“Poetry is a confrontation of the whole being with reality…It is the basic struggle of the soul, the mind, and the body to comprehend life; to bring order to chaos or to phenomena: and by will and insight to create communicable verbal forms for the pleasure of mankind.”
~Richard Eberhart
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On a recent evening, I had supper with a friend, a television executive. Like me, she was born in the era of World War II; like mine, her life was altered by feminism. “Tell me,” I asked, “what you remember about poetry and the women’s movement?” I saw memory cross her face, and then she said something remarkable: “The women’s movement was poetry.”
A version of this essay will appear as the introduction to Poems of the Women’s Movement, edited by Honor Moore, which will be published by The Library of America, April 2, 2009.
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The heart sinks to see so many poems crammed so tightly together, like downcast immigrants in steerage. One can easily miss a radiant poem amid the many lackluster ones. It takes tremendous effort to read these small magazines with openness and attention. Few people bother, generally not even the magazines’ contributors. The indifference to poetry in the mass media has created a monster of the opposite kind—journals that love poetry not wisely but too well.
I’m used to reading articles that attack the workshop and blame it for everything that is wrong with the state of contemporary American poetry. I feel the same way every time I read these comments: I’m over it.
I am a product of this school. I took my first creative writing workshop when I was in high school with a visiting writer. We had to write a brief essay to apply for the workshop and my friend Emily and I were pleased to be among the chosen few. We were put into pairs and asked to free write over several topics. After about ten minutes, our writing was collected and the author chose a few pieces to read from the group. She read everyone’s piece aloud except for the piece Emily and I wrote. I suspected at the time, and still do, that this author didn’t like our story because it was darker and not about horses or teenage love. In fact, Emily and I wrote a story about a young girl loosing her parents. However, this didn’t suit the author’s taste, so we were cut.
While I remember being upset at the time, I think this whole experience is a good representation of what the writing world is like. Basically, stop whining and suck it up. Are there tons of MFA programs out there? Yes. Are they churning out a lot of mediocre writing? Yes. Was there a lot of mediocre writing before MFA programs? You bet. Also, since when did any student take a poetry workshop and then say “Hey, I’m a poet!” I don’t know many. Maybe I’m encountering the wrong poets, but if students are coming out with this gross misconception, then the fault is the teaching not the workshop.
Workshop is a place to build community. It is a place to receive feedback. Workshops do not teach you how to write. Workshops do not make you writer. Also, if people like your poetry, what does that mean anyway? I read reviews in reputable journals like Poetry and these people praise a collection. Two weeks later, I’ll read another review in another journal completely panning the entire book. Guess what? It’s subjective. My first writing workshop experience is very similar to how I feel about submitting to journals. I’ll be thrilled if my work is accepted somewhere, but at the end of the day it is the hands of an editor. Their taste is what makes the journal, so if you fall in line with that on some level, good for you. If not, better luck next time.
All workshops do is give writers (on any level) a venue to receive constructive feedback. If you’re going into an MFA or PhD program thinking that upon completion you’re going to be the next biggest thing in poetry (and what is that anyway?), then you’ve got some things to think about. _____________________________________________________________________

Monday (Bread!) Musings

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with a muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let areoplans circle the moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policeman wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one:
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden
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I teach A Good Man is Hard to Find in my Creative Writing class, so I may check this biography out:

What makes “Flannery” so valuable is the degree of intimacy with which it captures O’Connor’s sensibility in that story. What creates a gap is Mr. Gooch’s use of the word “so.” There’s something in that “so” that he doesn’t fathom. There’s still a part of O’Connor that we can’t really know.

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I made bread this weekend in my new bread machine. It is whole wheat, and it is delicious. I think this bread making is going to be a regular occurrence from now on.

Tuesday (Snow. Again.) Musings

I think I’m over winter. The weather forecasted “snow showers” for today but when I left at 7:30 this morning, the snow was coming down at a steady clip. Needless to say, the morning commute was a mess. My students were all late (understandably) and one student informed me that they had closed three of the major interstates. The weather service issued a Severe Winter Weather Advisory and it is in effect until noon. I hope it stops snowing, because otherwise the evening commute is going to be very messy.
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I’ve discovered a market, Georgetown Market, that sells meat from local Indiana farms as well as cheese, eggs, and baked goods. I’ve decided to start dividing my grocery shopping between Georgetown and the Farmer’s Market. I really want to support local farmers and I think this is important. As an important side note, RJ and I had pork chops last night and they tasted wonderful.
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This article gives me hope:

In a hundred ways, we pretend that screen experiences are books —
PowerBooks, notebooks, e-books — but even a child knows the difference. Reading books is an operation with paper. Playing games on the Web is somethin g else entirely. I need to admit this to myself, too. I try to believe that reading online is reading-plus, with the text searchable, hyperlinked and accompanied by video, audio, photography and graphics. But maybe it’s just not reading at all. Just as screens aren’t books.

One of the ways I like to procrastinate is by browsing the NY Times Arts & Design section and looking at their slide shows. Here are a few of my favorite pieces:

“The Dessert,” 1940, by Pierre Bonnard

“Time of Change,” 1943, by Morris Graves

Delicious Lamb

Another recipe that’s worth a try if you like lamb:

Herbed Lamb Meatballs

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds lean ground lamb
1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs
1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled feta cheese
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon dried mint flakes
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400°.
Combine all ingredients except cooking spray in a large bowl, and stir well. Shape mixture into 30 (1 1/2-inch) meatballs. Place meatballs on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until meatballs are done.
Serving size is about 5 meatballs. This recipe yields about 30, but it depends on how big you like your meatballs.

Sunday (sprouts, potatoes, broccoli oh my!) Musings

The title of the post indicates what we bought at the farmer’s market this morning. Because our brussel sprout experiment was such a success, we went back for more. It’s fun picking out your own produce. I’ve also decided to start buying cage free/organic eggs with at the farmer’s market or the store.
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In my continuing love affair with Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I was amused to discover that Barbra Kingsolver is listed as the 74th most dangerous person in America. As my sister would say, wtf? Obviously, it is highly to dangerous to promote public awareness when it comes to our own food consumption. Kingsolver addresses her dangerousness in her book, which is how I found out about it. Intrigued I did what every good investigator does, I googled it.

Apparently the book was written by Bernard Goldberg, who seems to be a well respected journalist at CBS. His book, Bias, won some critical support but the customer reviews on Amazon for 110 People Who Are Screwing Up America, seem lackluster at most. It appears to me that Goldberg is criticizing trends that are screwing up America, which is all well and good but Kingsolver isn’t responsible for people misinterpreting her message or making the information a trend. To be frank, it seems like a throw away book to make money. Speaking of trends, books like this are very trendy. Maybe Bernie should look in the mirror.

I continue to love her book and while I agree that we’re not all going to live our lives the way she has chosen to live hers, there is nothing wrong with thinking about what food we put in our mouths and knowing where that food comes from.
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I’m still chipping away at last weeks New Yorker. There was segment in the Talk of the Town section entitled “Family Jewels” and it was about Bernie Madoff’s victims and how they’re all selling valuable family jewelry to CIRCA. CIRCA is a jewelry buying firm located in New York. The little snippet goes on to introduce Tracy Sherman, the company’s Palm Beach director, who had been going around to homes scoping out the jewels for sale. One of her quotes really got me. In regards to the people who are selling these jewels, Sherman advises “Be glad you had these things, and be glad you had great taste, so now you can sell it in order to continue.”

Whoa. Back up a second.

First of all, these are not mere trinkets. We’re talking about family heirloom pieces that can be worth upwards of $50,000. Second, the past tense disturbs me. Be glad you had great taste, because even if you sell this diamond pin from Cartier, you’re not ever going to be able to afford jewels like this again. Also, what does this word “continue” imply? But by far the more disturbing aspect of this little snippet is, what about the people who don’t have Cartier to sell?
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Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to gather at the Lincoln Memorial today for the “We Are One: Opening Inaugural Celebration.” Times reporters are at the event and will regularly update this post throughout the day.

I won’t lie. Bono gets on my nerves. I know this is shameful considering I am a child of the U2 generation. I like some of the music (older is better) and I embrace Bono fully as a musical icon. However, I can’t quite swallow Bono the diplomat/government activist. I have similar problems with Angelina Jolie going to Africa. What frustrates me about celebrities and political and cultural issues is that they make it trendy to care about the world, and that irritates me to no end. I was not impressed with Live Aid, mostly because Africa has been a place of concern for decades. It will continue to be a place of concern long after all the teenagers have abandoned their Live Aid t-shirts for Greenpeace or Habitat for Humanity or whatever Miley Cyrus happens to think is cool at the time.

I know people who are less jaded and judgmental will say that these celebs are just “wetting the interest” and then evenutally, these teens will become interested in these issues and want to help regardless if it’s Hilary Duff or Hilary Clinton speaking. While this could be the case with young adults (17-20), I’m skeptical about 16 and below. Their whole being is wrapped up in being fickle.
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I really liked this play when I read it in college, and I’d forgotten what a disturbed woman Hedda Gabler is.

Imagine a White House where the Oval Office faces an interactive media wall filled with live commentary from citizens and visitors. Or a White House that is raised and lowered according to poll results, with an unpopular president brought down to the level of disgruntled constituents. How about one that changes colors according to the Homeland Security Advisory System? Or that has been emptied of human content and made into a central server for United States democracy?