What clicks with me about Springtime

I made a Quick Trip run this morning for a diet coke.  I noticed all over the walk and even on top of the car all these little fragments that fall off the tree when the new growth begins each spring. On the lawn too I could see new blades of grass rising up from the ground and giving a shout out in praise of spring.

For those who live in areas that do not experience the changes in season I believe you miss something monumental. If there were not a demarcation between winter and spring, between fall and winter, even the changes that are perhaps more subtle between spring and summer I feel my year would seem endlessly depressing.

Spring is such a period of rejuvenation to me. A rebirth, a second chance, a new beginning. I apologize to those who do not appreciate the sports metaphor but it's like opening day in baseball. Everything seems fresh and it makes no difference where your team finished last, everything is  stars over.

Technorati Tags: springtime,seasons

Journal Bits & More

March 12 - [noted part of a line from a Boston Legal episode that I have a feeling will find its way into a poem at some later date] "its always orange for breakfast and apple for lunch"

March 12 - comfort is is an approximation/which has not arrived

March 13 - you have weathered the streets/know the names of its inhabitants/and carry a Godlike name

March 13 - The word is/side effects/are rare/and musical/most of the time /hardly irritable

March 16 - It's uncomfortably warm in the house tonight. For the longest time I was here alone tonight and the house felt closed in....

March 18 - From across the hall comes an airborne thought/I shall pocket it in hopes of making it my own

March 19- Two tea bags/bold is not exactly/a distinguishing landmark

On another note, I have a blog to recommend. Brian Brodeur's How a Poem Happens is an engrossing look into the creative process various poets subscribed to in the creation of specific poems. The most recent being Sandra Beasley author of Theories of Falling. Other poets featured Dorianne Laux, Stephen Dunn, Daisy Fried, and Dan Albergotti to name a few.  If you haven't been there, check it out!

I'm on a roll, sent out two batches of poems this past week to venues that I've not submitted to before. Fingers crossed!

Technorati Tags: journal bits,poetry,How a poem Happens,Sandra Beasley,Dan Albergotti,Stephen Dunn,Daisy Fried,Dorianne Laux Brian Brodeur

Aimee Nezhukumatathil in KC

 I'm excitedly awaiting the KC visit of Aimee who will read from her book At the Drive-In Volcano.  She's part of a ethnic poetry series that earlier brought Victoria Chang to KC.  These are two poets that I've followed via the Internet (good Lord, sounds like I'm a stalker) for a while now so getting to see them both read in person is a treat.

Park University and the Missouri Arts Council have made this series possible so they deserve some credit for promoting these poets here locally.

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The liberation of words...

Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.  ~ Eli Khamaroy

Someone asked me if this was a good thing.... liberating words from rigid definition. What do you think? Any words out there you think need to be liberated?

 

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Beware the Ides of March

I feel there is a poem here. Oh, I forgot Shakespeare already did.

May your day safe and joyous!

No Clowning Around

So Saturday has arrived. Big sigh. Even though is was a short work week for me it seemed long.

Since I've been back, I've received a rejection letter. I've completed a journal and started yet another. I'm filling them up at a rate of about 1 every three months. I've received my copy of Mortal from Ivy, which I have enjoyed and will have more to say about in a later blog post. And this morning I've been sending out more work.

I'm trying to decide if I want to the the Annual Poetry Month broad side I've done for the past two years. I've got a couple poems in mind and I've had positive response from people the past two years, but these are different economic conditions and I'm awaiting a price figure from a different printer. If I'm going to do it, I really need to decide in the next 48 hours.

The picture above is to top of a beaded vase my wife did with a bouquet of clown noses in it. It was pretty cute.Below is another view if the lower part of the vase.

  It's not the sharpest picture (from camera phone with poor lighting) but you get the idea. Just thinking of the concept was creatively genius much less the execution of the idea itself. I'm not sure how she can do these things with no pattern to guide her.

Anyway, I'll tie this into my post today by saying that this year there will be no clowning around. I submissions last year were down from the previous year. I'm writing more, I just need to work harder on rewriting material and keep sending the stuff out that is publishable but has come back. Some of it just needs to find the right home.

Technorati Tags: C.J. Wells bead art,life as a poet,Mortal by Ivy Alvarez,Poetry Month

File Management for Writing

This is a great resource for creating a file management system for your working drafts. Not only is it an excellent organizational tool, but a way to simplify working on rewrites and keeping track of drafts.

Joannie Stangeland takes us through the process in this short video. All you need is Microsoft OneNote.

I had toyed with it a little before viewing this video. Now I have an even better appreciation for what it can do. Click here to view video.

Technorati Tags: Joannie Stangeland ,OneNotes,managing your writing,writing poetry

Sunday Evening - catching up on the week

Mood: exhausted

It's been a quiet evening and we stayed in, ate fried ravioli and played baseball on Playstation. Three games. I took the first two and Meghan beat me the last one. She played a really good first game and I came back in the bottom of the ninth to beat her by a run. The second came was a blowout and the third she won by a single run. I'm a tough competitor so while I won two of the three, she is getting better because two of those games were really competitive.

Things I have marveled at during this visit:

• Cathy Ann's grapefruit tree in her backyard. The fruit is awesomely sweet.
• Percy's size. (Percy is Meghan's dog) He's really grown since I last saw him.
• A life size Zen Garden on ASU campus. I didn't know there were anything but miniatures.
• How young many of the Giants players at Spring Training look this season.
• How nice the dog parks are here.
• How much I continue to hate daylight savings time in spite of the fact they don't have it here. In reality I lose that hour when I get back home just the same.
• People still drive like bats out of hell here.

We'll take in another Giants game tomorrow at Scottsdale. Sadly it will be the last time I see the team in person for a while.

Also planning to go to the Melting Pot after the game for dinner.

I've been able to get some writing in this week, and this morning did some sketching.

Some Journal bits from this week:

March 1

• What color ink do I spill upon/the pages that tell nothing/that scream the silence/to no end
• It's impossible to fold idle chat./I've tried to four square it and shove it/in my shirt pocket.

March 2

• sleep, the manna of horizontal incline/the presence of an absence of mind

March 5

• Quote "Every poetic image asks why there is something rather than nothing, as it renews our astonishment that things exist," - Charles Simic
• (thought) every war has veterans what about veterans of peace? We never give attention to those who dedicate themselves to the idea of peace becoming a reality. Note to self - this could be a future poem topic.
• a Kleenex box on the end table/extends it's hand

March 8

• Quote "It's the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silence around things." ~Mallarme

Technorati Tags: Vacation,journal bits,Things I have marveled at

From my journal tonight...

My pillow is a bed for tender thoughts. Speaking of which, it's way past my bed time.

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Theory ( draft)

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Theory

He’s a maniacal man of means

with no notion for nurturing.

Neither can he be summed up so easily

as to say that he fits into any fast track

prefabrication that is so often assigned

to many of his peers.

He cheers for one person

only, it is not clear who that person is.

There are factions that spend their spare time

in hasty debate over whom.

One theory is a brother

no one can recall ever meeting.

Some point to a woman of mystery

who has been woven in and out of his life

at various points.

There are good arguments made for each

in their own time. I however hold on

to my own theory—

He is his own best cheerleader.

Writer House on ASU Campus

 Spent some time yesterday at the Virginia Piper Writer House on the ASU Campus. What a tranquil setting.

The evening we were back on campus for the ASU / Holy Cross baseball game.   

ASU struck first with a run in the third and broke it open in the 5th with 4 more runs to make it 5-0.

ASU pitcher Mike Leach pitched 7 innings giving up only one hit and no runs. Brule Klye came in to relieve him in the 8th and gave up two hits but no runs and the ASU offense rolled on to a 15-0 win.

Besides the pitching, outstanding performances were turned in at 2B by Zack MacPhee who shined with his glove and Jordan Swagerty who homered in the 8th.

Today, Meghan and I catch the San Francisco Giants against the Angels in Tempe. Go Giants!

Technorati Tags: vacation,ASU,Writer House,Devil Rays Baseball,San Francisco Giants

 

 

I crashed and burned

After an uneventful flight last night (the best kind) I arrived in Phoenix and was met by my daughter Meghan, with dog in tow. Said dog has grown into a Moose since I last saw him.

We stopped at Jack-In-The-Box on the way in and had tacos. A treat since I love their tacos and only am able to get them when out here or St. Louis or in the Bay area.

This morning I was on ASU campus in the library working for a while. we came home for lunch and it was like I hit a brick wall. The only things I can attribute it to are the fact that I worked my ass off the past week to 10 days in the office, and just crashed from that this morning, and or, lack of diet coke. Probably both.

On campus there were two things amusing to me, (remember it takes little to amuse me) the home made chalk sign on the sidewalk with arrow point the way to the Vagina Monologues  and the other was where my daughter took to this place encircled by some administrative offices were there was this "secret garden". Back tracing our steps to the entrance, someone had painted on the sidewalk, Secret Garden but then had painted arrows pointing away from it. Hum, maybe the directions for the Vagina Monologues were wrong also.

Anyway, I scrapped plans to go back to the library to work this afternoon and crashed on the oh so comfortable bed. I'm up and feeling better now, but I still need that diet coke!

Technorati Tags: Vacation,ASU

 

Waiting game

 On the ground at KCI - not long till take off. The day has been a busy one in spite of being away from the office. 

I'm told our flight is maybe a third empty for seating options should be many.

I saw on the screen here that it's like 83 in Phoenix this afternoon, It's in the 40's here.

Received a text message from Meghan asking of Jack-In-The- Box was ok for dinner. I love their monster tacos and we haven't had any location in the KC area for man years now. They have one or two in St Louis, so I always make a pit stop there as well as when I'm in San Francisco where they are prolific. At least last time I was there.

We'll likely be boarding soon so I'm out of here for now...

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Leaving on a Jet Plane

The last minute collection of the various necessitates for my trip are underway and then I'm off.  Excited about seeing my two daughters, taking in the Giants Spring Training, watching the ASU Sun Devils play baseball, etc.

And writing. I do expect to get some writing done. I don't mean just blogging, though this blog will not be silent while I'm gone. Perhaps it will be even more active then it has been the past couple of weeks.  I actually been busy and not posting as much as I would normally do.

It's getting close to noon and I need to go through my final list of TTD.

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Fresh Cut Grass and Poetry

I'm convinced that every boy, in his heart, would rather steal second base than an automobile. ~Tom Clark

Spring Training games started on Wednesday and my beloved San Francisco Giants won their first game 10-7. I can smell the poetry and the fresh cut grass now.

Next week I head to Arizona to visit tow of my daughters and take in some Giants Spring Training games. I'm excited even if I am anxious about being away from the office for a week. It is rare that I take this much time off. Okay, more like extremely rare.

Besides Giants baseball, we'll catch an ASU baseball game. In spite of all this baseball excitement, I am equally excited about seeing my kids (who aren't really kids anymore) and I'll likely let that excitement spill over into my blogging while I'm gone. I guess you can all consider that fair warning.

Just a thought...

To live is so startling

it leaves little time for

anything else.  ~Emily Dickinson

 

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Who Knows the Great Poets of Today?

David Orr writing in the Feb 22 N.Y. Times piece titled "The Great(ness) Game" asks what we do when John Ashbery and his generation are gone?

The assumption made in the article is that there are no great poets living, outside of that generation and I don't know myself if there are or there aren't. This is precisely because I'm not privy to what constitutes greatness in a poet. Orr himself acknowledges the illusiveness of such a definitive yardstick. What is a great ice cream flavor? We all have opinions but can I sell Black Walnut to the public at large a the great ice cream Flavor?

We can look at an Emily Dickinson and perhaps agree on a designation of greatness, but how long did it take for that to become common knowledge. She was dead before it was ever widely accepted, and by quite a few years I believe. So really, we could have great poets among us and not yet be aware of the fact.

Orr asks if great poets are one and the same as "major" poets? What do you think on that point? I'm inclined to think you have to be a major poet to be a great one, but the reverse. Still that isn't releasing the secret ingredient in the recipe.

Digging deeper still, Orr looks at a 1983 essay by Donald Hall in which Hall said it seemed to him that contemporary American poetry was afflicted by modesty of ambition. Going further, the test according to Hall is to write words that live on. To aspire to be as good as Dante.

Donald Hall is among the living poets whose work I respect and with whom I connect with more often then not. Is he a great poet? I don't think all his work would meet the Dante test. So can a poet be great if hits that high mark on occasion or must he have to be consistent? Was Dante himself consistent?

Then I'm hung up on the lament that there isn't enough ambition going on. Are we really wanting hungry ambition from our poets. I know the monetary climate for poets certainly supports the hungry aspect, but ambition is such a sleazy word when it snuggles up next to an art. Maybe dedicated, focused, serious. Perhaps we are really splitting hairs.

David Orr's article is a critical look; not quite so much at the state of contemporary poetry as it is what we internally expect from poetry. What we are willing to settle for. No art is static an neither are its consumers.

Technorati Tags: great poets,Donald Hall,John Ashbery,Emily Dickinson,David Orr

Subliminal Mutterings - week 316

Subliminal Mutterings

[I've missed several weeks of this, sigh.  So spank me!]

You say.... I think:

Be mine :: valentine

Ecstatic :: hoppingly happy

Orderly :: quiet

Sebastian :: butler

Sore :: ouie

Don’t need :: unnecessary

Rockstar :: Springsteen

Tinfoil :: hat

Addiction :: habit

Where? :: there

 

Technorati Tags: subliminal mutterings,words

Journal bits for the past week

a few random items from my journal this week...

Feb 14 - At times like this Alice will sit at a small table/pouring Earl Grey as we sip from miniatures/and talk about what, I never recall.

Feb 15th -In talking with Meghan yesterday I can tell she is getting excited about my upcoming visit.

Feb 16 - Yesterdays rewrite of An American Whim  came after receiving critical comments (that I sought) from PB and AD. AD gave me the most critical (technical) view while PB spoke to things she liked about it. 

Books are scissor stacked/in piles, on end tables,/desktop, the thick of carpet/on the floor next to the easy chair

Feb 17- Where has this month gone to? Already a shortened month it appears to work against the benchmarks I've arbitrarily set...

Feb 18 - MR emails me, "you of all people have new stuff and old stuff." Feel like I've been busted.

The pretext for the afternoon / was as one sided as the face /of Mount Rushmore but not near/as stark....

It was not with the exchange/of currency or anything so mercantile/

Feb 19 - was so totally whipped out from work today...

Technorati Tags: journal bits,writing,life as a poet

 

Blue Moon Over Kansas City

A poet friend the other day was giving me feedback on one of my poetry drafts and in response to something I had written said, "You should read Wallace Stevens if you haven't lately. The crazy things that guy does with repetition and refrains." So, I went looking for a Wallace Stevens poem and read The Emperor of Ice-Cream which I found enjoyable. I then moved away from the poem and began to type. Keep in mind I often begin drafts in longhand. There were just two words that came to my mind and they were, "The pretext" and nothing more. Where they came from I couldn't say, but after typing them from the keyboard with just a momentary pause I began to type again and in relatively short order, maybe 20 minutes at the most I had a draft that I stopped working on. After moving away from the draft for some time, I went back and quite frankly felt that I could do nothing more to it. Not by addition or subtraction other than a change of title.

The number of times I've written something on the spot like this and could not improve on it are like never.  There is one occasion in which I came close to this, but still made some editing changes. It's not an occurrence that one has happen very often, if ever.

I may well wake in the morning and find room for improvement, but I don't expect it will likely change much. That's how good I feel about it. Better than some pieces I've worked on over a span of more than a year. It's moments like this that makes all the other eternal rewrites seem worth enduring through.

Thanks Amy for the advise. How the Emperor of Ice-Cream led me to the pretext and all that followed to write what I now call The Face of Mount Rushmore, I'll never figure out. They are nothing alike, but I'm sure that one lead to the other.

Technorati Tags: poetry,Wallace Stevens,The Emperor of Ice Cream,A poet's life,writing