Rejection

Rejection strikes again! Friday I got a rejection paper wad from a Journal that shall remain nameless. When I say paper wad, this was a strip of uneven cut paper barely 3/4 inch wide and containing only one line. With that, three more poems bite the dust.

Last night I did a reading and book signing at the Perfect Cup in northland. This was just one of several book signings that are set up over the next few weeks for Under The Tellingtree Anthology which I have two poems and a short prose piece in.

I'll post a schedule of the remaining readings tomorrow.




Poetry

Friday Gibberish

Some serious ad money paid for a blog - $25,000 a month... that would trump a lot of writing grants.

Yes, for what it is worth, it is true. If you google "slut"- Christine Hamm's name will come up. But so will a lot of others. You need to work harder to get you name further up the list Christine. Write!!! You do it so well.

I hope you all have been reading about Ivy's triple-loop rollercoaster ride. It has been worth the read!


Poetry

Earnie Graham's Surveillance Project Cut Short

InCom Corp, the Sutter, California based technology company that co-oped with Earnie Graham and the Brittan Elementary School in Sutter has pulled out of it's experimental "student tracking" project with the school.

The project widely reported in the media and here at Stick Poet has come under heavy criticism from parents and civil libertarians who felt the use of electronic equipment to monitor students movements was a bad precedence to start in a public school.

InCom cited the intense media attention its experiment generated attracted as a reason for the termination of the program in Brittan. According to an AP wire story, Paul Nicholas Boylan, lawyer for the school district said, "They can go someplace where they wouldn't have any risk of vandalism. Here, they have to worry about a community where at least a few are dead-set against anybody being able to benefit from this." I'm not sure what school district that would be, I think he as much are Earnie Graham has greatly misjudged public sentiment on this issue.
As for InCom, I think they have the wrong approach to their market for surveillance.

I'm Thinking I Need A Want List

I see Denise Duhamel has a new book out. I am anxious to read it. Problem is I have an ever growing list of poetry books to read and presumably acquire since the libraries limit greatly the poetry books they acquire. I mean there is Eileen's brick I still have to get. Sharon Olds has a book out I want. You get the picture.

Backing Up To Sunday

Sunday was a mixed bag of goods.

A number of us gathered at a private launch party for Under the TellingTree: An Anthology of Voice and Verse. Well attended party and book signing. I'll post some pictures in a day or so.

The downside of the day was an e-mail rejection letter of three poems I had sent off. Not like that has never happened before.

Herald.com | 02/13/2005 | 'How do I love thee?' With lovely poems, of course

Herald.com 02/13/2005 'How do I love thee?' With lovely poems, of course

I was trying to think what I could blog about that fit the Valentines theme when as luck would have it, I came upon this piece in the Miami Herald.

There are a few notable examples of poetic couples and since poetry so often goes to the core of emotional feeling, it seems Valentines Day is an appropriate time to mentions some of these noteworthy couples.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning & Robert Browning.

Jane Kenyon & Donald Hall

Tess Gallagher & Raymond Carver

Brenda Hillman & Robert Hass

Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes


MARGARIA FICHTNER in this Miami Herald piece takes a look at a contemporary couple, Denise Duhamel and Nick Carbo. I've been a fan of Duhamel's and only more recently discovered Carbo and realized their husband wife connection. Fichtner is able to do the subject of a poetic married love far more justice then I could in today's blog, so I will simply recommend you fallow the link and enjoy the read.

And on that I close wishing all you poets and non-poets a happy Valentines Day.

Including The love of my life - who is not a poet of words but one of beaded artistry.
Happy Valentines Day Sweetie!

Bingo

Yesterday I was able to pick up a number of poetry books at a discount store going out of business. They were dirt cheap! I think I got like 12 books. The were $1 each.

Robert Pinsky's The Want Bone

Nikki Giovanni's The Women and the Men

Ted Hughes' Wolf Watching

Diane Ackerman's Origami Bridges

Louise Gluck's The Seven Ages

A really interesting hard back book Anne Sexton - The Last Summer
(This is a photo shoot book by photographer Arthur Furst with some copies of letters and manuscripts. It also has an introduction by Linda Gray Sexton - a daughter)

There were some other items... non poetry and an interesting book A Company of Readers - uncollected writings of W.H. Auden, Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling.

It feels a wee bit like Christmas. :)

Poetry

Submissions

Sent out a packet of six submissions last night. It always feels good when I have just sent work out. Suppose it is like completing a circle or something. It's like letting them go and moving on. To be honest, they are not all new poems. Of the six only half have never been submitted anyplace before.

I'm very glad that it's Friday. I really need for the weekend to be here. Like yesterday.

It is starting to sink in that baseball is nearing. Most pitchers and catchers will report to camps the first of the week. Opening days is always such an exhilarating experience. I love the resurgent rush of adrenalin that comes with the beginning of each season. It's a high that is perfectly legal and won't harm you. Unless of course you are a Cubs fan, and then the quick downward spiral could be lethal. ;)

Update On Brittan School Story

This information from Boston Harold. com

The InCom Corp. is a company co-founded by the parent of a former Brittan School student and some parents are suspicious about the financial relationship between the school and the company. InCom plans to promote it at a national convention of school administrators next month.

InCom has apparently paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experimental use of it's product and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town's high school. Brittan's technology aide also works part-time for InCom.

ABC News: Parents Protest Student Computer ID Tags

ABC News: Parents Protest Student Computer ID Tags

Gee, this is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start.

Jan. 18th, Brittan Elementary School (Sutter, California) superintendent Earnie Graham introduced a student identification tag complete with a radio frequency and scanner. The devise uses the same technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory.

The associated press reports that the system was imposed, without parental input, by the school as a way to simplify attendance-taking and potentially reduce vandalism and improve student safety.

Each student is issued an identification card that they are required to wear around their necks. The cards have their name, picture and grade on them. A wireless transmitter on the badges beams their ID number to a teacher's handheld computer when they pass under an antenna posted above a door.

Not surprisingly, this little devise is not setting well with everyone. A Seattle Post-Intellegencer story dated today's date indicated that Grahan has acknowledged getting angry calls and notes from parents. His reply, "Sometimes when you are on the cutting edge, you get caught."

Cutting edge? The technology may be cutting edge, the concept of using the devise to monitor students is intrusive and reminiscent of McCarthyism.

Mr. Grahan was quoted as saying that it is within his power to set rules that promote a positive school environment and he thinks these badges will improve things.

It is hard to see how using a personal monitoring devise is supposed to promote a positive environment. It certainly is not going to send a message of trust and respect for the individual student.

This is such an outrageous attack on personal rights that I think an Earnie Graham award should be in order. An Award named for him for such creative efforts at Infringement of Personal Liberties.

Stick Poet will keep it's readers posted on any further developments in this story.

Hump Day Notes

Wednesday is here.... Just finished working on Tiananmen Mother during my lunch hour. I have a new draft that I will try out tonight at a reading at Boarders Books. This is a fine tuning and I think I am happy with it now. Perhaps not totally finished. I'll see how I feel after the reading tonight.

This will be a whole new venue for me so I can bring out some older stuff too. Yeah!

I have decided that for longhand writing it is hard to beat a uni-ball Vision Elite. The words just seem to slide out of it like they are greased. *



*evidently the brain must also be engaged.

A breakthrough

I was back at it yesterday. Hammering away at this poem that has been in the making now for over a week. Almost to my amazement, I seemed to have a breakthrough. I worked on it in the morning and stopped just after noon. I had a 3 pm writers group ~ and shortly after lunch I decided to try to retool it a bit more and take it with me. I was glad I did.

Really good feedback from the group has given me both the feeling that I am near where I want to be on this and at the same time exactly where I need to work on it. I decided to do nothing more on it last night, rather to let it rest. I'll likely take it up again tonight with my notes from yesterday. I'd like to get this to a final draft by Wednesday night's reading at Boarders Books.

An excerpt of the poem Tiananmen Mother follows:

The Beijing breeze whispers/ mournful strophes./ Tears like the mountain rains/

follow slopes// to tributaries until they become one /with the rippling waters of the Yangtze.//

Frustration Abounds

I have spent hours today on a poem that I started a week ago and it is just past 9pm and I'm calling it quits on this one for tonight. I'm shutting down the computer- going upstairs and I will read some poetry for a while. I have to get away from this piece.... It simply is not happening tonight.

Frustration sucks!

Are you aware the official "Stick Poet Writing Journal" is available at the Stick Poet Shop?

This and many other Stick Poet items available here

Poets Crash - News at 10:00

There is a collision that has occurred and I am attempting to identify the casualties.
I don’t see a lot of blood… yet.

Early indications are that it was a head on crash. One vehicle was a hyped up model driven by a poet obviously in a hurry to get submissions out. The other was a family sedan, driven by a poet and companion that was setting on his shoulder distracting him with all kinds of criticism and urging him to take it easy. It appears all survived the wreck, even the critic.

The police were having a difficult enough time sorting out who was at fault. The party with the critic was overheard expressing that he didn’t know if he’d ever get behind the wheel again.

I wonder how this will all be resolved. Who will be cited? Anyone? Will they get lawyers and fight it out in court? Did the first poet miss a submission deadline? Will the second poet every get behind the wheel again?

Alas, my head is spinning.

A Writing Retreat?

Looking for a place to get away to and write? Someplace with a touch of writing history? A site that inspired works of a poet laureate? Got 145,000 pounds burning your pockets? At current conversion rate, that would be only $272,904.28 in American dollars - (minimum bid)

Check out:

1 Aspinall Street, Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

The property contains:

• a large 3 bedroom stone-built home.
• newly decorated throughout
• central heating
• excellent storage space
• a master bedroom & suite bathroom
• large bright loft with exposed beams
• a courtyard to the rear and a village green to the front
• shops, schools and a mainline railway station are about 0.2 miles away
• birth home of Ted Hughes
• seven of his poems were set in the house itself and at least 28 others in the immediate area
• it is about three miles from Heptonstall - the village where Heghes' wife Sylvia Plath was buried

More information on the property - pictures, etc. here

Weekend Writing

Yesterday I stumbled along working on two poems. By evening I had my fill of both. Put them away, my mind away.... Today is another day. One poem has taken shape nicely. The other remains on the back burner- warm in my thoughts but no real action on it yet.

Perhaps I will take it out and play with it a while later. Perhaps not.

Marilyn Kallet

Robert Stewart, editor of New Letters introduced Marilyn Kallet Thursday night as a writer who's poems "wake you up" a quality that he stresses all poems should do.

Kallet, who has been the director of the creative writing program at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, is also the author of a dozen or so poetry books. She was in Kansas City as one of the featured readers at this years Midwest Poet series.

Marilyn Kallet was a lot of things I did not expect, but she was not disappointing. I expected what I suppose was a southern lady. She was born in Montgomery, Alabama. While there was evidence of southern roots, Ms. Kallet is indeed a well traveled woman who's poetic work is not limited by her southern experience.

Her readings were much more akin to performance. Working without text, but not overtly dramatic. There was a comfortable level to her recitations. She is soft spoken, pleasurably so and fortunately the sound system and acoustics were good.

I was not particularly aware of Kallet's Jewish heritage prior to the event and somewhat surprised by the influence it has on her work. She presented a number of holocaust related works which were quite appropriate with the date (anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz)
but what I found most enjoyable about her was the ability she possesses to mix extremely serious poetic commentary with wit and humor. I too often write to those extremes and I like that quality in other poets.

Her reading was really quite unlike others I have experienced. She was so good with her delivery I did indeed feel a disconnect from the poetry itself. Not really from her or her presentation but certainly from the written word.

I intend to review here her book, How To Get Heat Without Fire after I have finished reading it three times. Perhaps then I will feel the total connection with her word.

Poetic License

Tonight, I will be the poet consumer....

I'm going to hear Marilyn Kallet tonight at Rockhurst College. I'm pretty excited about it. There was a really nice piece in the Kansas City Star - art/literary section this past Sunday about her. Plus, I have it on good authority from a friend of Jilly's that she is worth hearing.

Information on Marilyn Kallet