Tuesday (Perfect those Poems. It’s Submission Time…) Musings

And so it begins. The fall semester is in full swing and because I have yet to be completely buried by grading, I’m getting round one of the fall poetry submissions underway. This morning I updated my handy little spread sheet. Yes, it is color coded. Yes, I am slightly anal retentive. Yes, I have an irrational fear of accidentally offending some poetry editor somewhere if I do not keep vigil over my submissions. Yes, I know that despite all this prep, I will be politely rejected. A lot.

Fun, isn’t it?

There are a handful of places that encouraged me to send to them again, so I started with those then moved on to recommendations from fellow poets and mentors. The first round includes 22 journals, only three of which use electronic submission manager type software. I know that electronic journals are growing in popularity, but it appears that snail mail is holding on strong. I’m partial to it myself. I have no rational reason for feeling that way though.

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:

Thursday Musings

This is my last day of classes for the week. Unfortunately, it is a long day. Two classes this morning, office hours this afternoon, and then back to school @ 7 for my creative writing course.
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I wrote a poem this morning about a single mother. I know this comes directly from teaching and I know I’ll have to revise this poem many times to get it right. I feel like it is a subject that requires special care and consideration, because it can become trite so quickly. I’m hoping it develops into something…

I finished the last issue of Poetry just in time to receive my next issue. I liked a lot of the poetry in the beginning section. This is one of my favorites.

Blowing the Fluff Away

The sprig of unknown bloom you sent last fall

spent the long winter drying on my wall,

mounted on black. But it had turned to fluff

some months ago. Tonight I took it down

because I thought that I had had enough

of staring at it. Brittle, dry and brown,

it seemed to speak too plainly of a waste

of friendship, forced to flower, culled in haste.

So, after months of fearing to walk past

in case the stir should scatter it to bits,

I took it out to scatter it at last

with my own breath, and so to call us quits.

—Fooled! for the fluff was nothing but a sheath,

with tiny, perfect flowers underneath.

Robyn Sarah

Thursday Musings

Monet’s Waterlilies
(for Bill and Sonja)

Today as the news from Selma and Saigon
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene great picture that I love.
Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.

O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.

Robert Hayden
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Tuesday (Severe Weather) Musings

The weather all day has been one big rumble. There is a weather front coming through and the lightening and thunder are unreal. I’ve been writing all day with the window open looking out at the sky.

The Academy of American Poets has compiled a list of poems in honor of Shark Week on the Discovery channel. I love Shark Week, and I love that the academy is branching out into other areas.

Described by poets as “death-scenting,” with “lipless jaws” and “eyes that stare at nothing, like the dead,” sharks have long served as a cultural symbol of mortality and looming danger. Despite the fact that sharks kill fewer than 20 people a year, their reputation as the ocean’s deadliest predator continues to inspire fear and fascination throughout the world.

Wednesday Musings

How Doth the Little Crocodile

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
One every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly he spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

Lewis Carroll
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I’ve thought of another poem sparked from an article I read in The New Yorker called At the Train Bridge by Calvin Trillin. The part that stayed with me was the quote that ended the piece, “The beauty of that place has been cursed by my actions. My memorial is made out of iron and concrete.”

Tuesday (Poetry, The Pope, and Photographs) Musings

Today I went to Starbucks and worked on my poetry. It felt great. I’ve decided that I’ve got to start managing my time better. This summer was dreadful in terms of writing and it is my fault. Beginning this week, I’m turning over a new leaf. I know all this comes with graduating from MFA and no longer having a structured writing/reading schedule. I’ve got to do it myself.

In lieu of my renewed commitment, I read the June issue of Poetry this morning. Out of the entire issue, I found two poems I liked and they were both by the Greek poet A.E. Stallings.

Tulips

The tulips make me want to paint,

Something about the way they drop

Their petals on the tabletop

And do not wilt so much as faint,

Something about their burnt-out hearts,

Something about their pallid stems

Wearing decay like diadems,

Parading ﬁnishes like starts,

Something about the way they twist

As if to catch the last applause,

And drink the moment through long straws,

And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.

The way they’re somehow getting clearer,

The tulips make me want to see—

The tulips make the other me

(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,

The one who can’t tell left from right),
Glance now over the wrong shoulder
To watch them get a little older
And give themselves up to the light.

A Mother’s Loathing of Balloons

I hate you,

How the children plead

At ﬁrst sight—

I want, I need,

I hate how nearly

Always I

At ﬁrst say no,

And then comply.

(Soon, soon

They will grow bored

Clutching your

Umbilical cord)—

Over the moon,

Lighter-than-air,

Should you come home,

They’d cease to care—

Who tugs you through

The front door

On a leash, won’t want you

Anymore

And will forget you

On the ceiling—

Admittedly,

A giddy feeling—

Later to ﬁnd you,

Puckered, small,

Crouching low

Against the wall.

O thin-of-skin

And ﬁt to burst,

You break for her

Who wants you worst.

Your forebear was

The sack of the winds,

The boon that gives

And then rescinds,

Containing nothing

But the force

That blows everyone

Off course.

Once possessed,

Your one chore done,

You ﬂoat like happiness

To the sun,

Untethered afternoon,

Unkind,

Marooning all

You’ve left behind:

Their tinfoil tears,

Their plastic cries,

Their wheedling

And moot goodbyes,

You shrug them off—

You do not heed—

O loose bloom

With no root

No seed.

This second one is especially brilliant. I love that line “they will grow bored/clutching your/umbilical cord.” However, the rest of the issue I found lacking. There was one poem in particular that got on my nerves a bit. It was “Agape” by Timothy Murray. To be fair, the poem wasn’t what bugged me. I liked the poem well enough, although not as much as Stalling’s poems. It was the note at the end of the poem that bothered me. First, the note was about as long as the poem. Second, this poem apparently came to the author in a dream from which he awoke and typed it into the form we see in Poetry. Forgive me for being the cynic, but what? Also, what Pope John Paul said to the author, Te Dominus amat (God loves you), seems lacking. To be perfectly frank, the note at the bottom of the poem seems to be more interesting than the poem itself.
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I took my camera and went for a walk in Broad Ripple today. Here are some photos from that walk._____________________________________________________________________

Thursday (gray and rainy=good grading weather) Musings

I don’t mind rainy days. I find them relaxing and let’s face it, if I have to be stuck in my office (which has no windows) grading end of the semester essays, I’d rather it be gloomy outdoors.
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Those Who Love

Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deidre, Iseult, Heloise,
In fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile, inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride,
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.

Sara Teasdale

Monday (last week) Musings

This weekend was marked by a massage party, house hunting, and Harry Potter. The first sounds illicit but it wasn’t. A friend of mine organized brunch a three masseuses to come to her home and offer their services. It was a great way to begin my day.

House hunting was more productive this trip out and RJ took some video on his flip. I will be posting some of the video later tonight when I get home. We saw some great places and I’m feeling optimistic about the entire process.

Harry Potter was fun, as always. I’m glad we did not venture to the midnight showing this time. I like enthusiasm but I also like quiet, dark theaters. Watching the Half Blood Prince did prompt me to go home and pick up The Deathly Hallows which swallowed up most of my Sunday. But hey, it was raining.

In literary news:

“It was, of course, a miserable childhood: The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

In other news:

As of the end of the 2008 fiscal year, 753 farmers’ markets nationwide had accepted food stamp benefits, a 34 percent increase over the previous year, according to the federal Agriculture Department. Sales to customers using food stamps at the markets totaled $2.7 million in the 2008 fiscal year, the most recent period for which records are available.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong taking those historic first steps on the surface of the moon. On my way to school this morning, I was listening to an interview with Buzz Aldrin on NPR. He was talking about mostly the personal demons he faced after his trip to the moon, and the commentator said something that stuck with me, “So it was easier to map out complex missions into space then to map out one human life?”

I think there could be a poem there…
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Tuesday (one week and counting…) Musings

Did I mention I’ve been a terrible failure at blogging this summer? The summer semester has kept me running at a steady clip and on top of that, we’ve decided to start looking for a house. We went out on our first “hunt” last weekend and despite the torrential downpours and a few broken lock boxes, the entire experience proved to be fascinating. I hope as we move into fall I’ll have regular updates.

No, I have not forgotten about poetry. Even though I have yet to sit down and draft several poems that are swirling around in my head, I am comforted by the fact that they’re there, if only in scribbled journal note form. As soon as the semester ends (next week) and I get through the grading (next week) I plan to get several poems on paper.

The rejection letters have begun to roll in. I received three over the past few weeks. Hand written note from one and form letter from the other two.

Here are a whole bunch of poems/quotes I’ve been accumulating over the past month.

She Walks in Beauty, Stanza I

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless slimes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

Lord Byron

“Poetry didn’t find me, in the cradle or anywhere near it: I found it. I realized at some point–very late, it’s always seemed–that I needed it, that it served a function for me–or someday would–however unclear that function may have been first. I seemed to have started writing poetry before I read any.” ~ C.K. Williams

Geometry

I prove theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hove near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.

As the walls clear themselves of everything
but the transparency, the scent of carnations
leaves with them. I am out in the open

and above the windows have hinged butterflies,
sunlight glinting where they’ve intersected.
They are going to some point true and unproven.

Rita Dove

Sleeping in the Ceiling

It is so peaceful on the ceiling!
It is the Place de la Concorde.
The little crazy chandelier
is off, the fountain is in the dark.
Not a soul in the park.

Below, where the wallpaper is peeling, the Jardin de Plantes has locked its gates.
Those photographs are animals.
The mighty flowers and foliage rustle;
under the leaves the insects tunnel.

We must go under the wallpaper
to meet the insect-gladiator,
to battle with a net and trident,
and leave the fountain and the square.
But oh, that we could sleep up there…

Elizabeth Bishop

From “Silence”

There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
There is the silence of those who have failed;
And the vast silence that covers
Broken nations and vanquished leaders.
There is the silence of Lincoln,
Thinking of the poverty of his youth.
And the silence of Napoleon
After Waterloo.
And the silence of Jeanne d’Arc
Saying amid the flames, “Blessed Jesus”–
Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope.
And there is the silence of age,
Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it.
In words intelligible to those who have not lived
The great range of life.

Edgar Lee Masters

A Wedding Poem

Bright faces surround the woman in white,
the man in black, the sweetness of their attention
to each other a shine rising high toward the high ceiling.
The men watch the groom, and the women
the bride, as they speak their candle lit vows,
as if there were something in it for us personally.

Worn by the distances we the already-married
have traveled down the road on which these two
are setting out, we leave the dust of the journey
outside the door of this house where tonight no word
is casual, no posture undignified, and each
becomes again handsome in them, beautiful in them.

Thomas R. Smith

I just noticed while I was typing these out that many contain the word ceiling. Interesting.
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Community colleges are deeply unsexy. This fact tends to make even the biggest advocates of these two-year schools — which educate nearly half of U.S. undergraduates — sound defensive, almost a tad whiny. “We don’t have the bands. We don’t have the football teams that everybody wants to boost,” says Stephen Kinslow, president of Texas’ Austin Community College (ACC). “Most people don’t understand community colleges very well at all.” And by “most people,” he means the graduates of fancy four-year schools who get elected and set budget priorities.