inspiration

I spent a few hours at Border’s this afternoon, and came away with a solid draft of a poem based on this fairy tale (hat tip to Deb LaVeglia for the idea!). Just before settling in to draft the poem, I had a brief chat with This Donna, who mentioned poetry postcards – and then I found these, created by none other than the awesome Autumn. Somewhere in the context of all these things today, I became slightly obsessed with the idea of letterpress, and later with screenprinting. I now want to make things that are not poems, and I’m not sure where to start.

Postcards feel like a direct violation of both Autumn’s and Donna’s plans, though they present a most immediately satisfying opportunity. But for some reason, what I really want to do is drink coasters. I don’t know if I’ll ever figure that out.

In the meantime, I’m looking at letterpress classes in NYC and screen printing classes in Philly. I have no idea when I’ll find the time for these things, as most of my spare time for the next twelve weeks is going to be dedicated to American Lit 2 and African History, for which I have 10-12 papers to write. But I am desperate to keep myself busy, as I have another 2 months of waiting before I can expect to hear anything on the Dean Young workshop, and another 6 months of daydreaming before the Ruth Lilly judges burst my bubble to tell me they’re NOT giving me $15,000.

It is hard to be excited about writing, to have my head be full of these amazing things, and to have to go to work every day. Of course, I need the paycheck (for lots of reasons), but I really do wish I could just take some time off – a few months, maybe – and relax, and make some art.

a few quick, wonderful things

I have a longer entry about my writing philosophy for the year in progress, but I wanted to get these two tidbits up:

1. My poem, “Martha Stewart Claims She Has been Struck by Lightning Three Times,” was selected for inclusion in Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web 2010 anthology! Many, many thanks to Adam at Apparatus for believing in such a strange little poem. And many more thanks to my strange but wonderful girlfriend, for giving me the headline.

2. This mashup is freaking hilarious.

friday goodness

It’s been a long time since I did a proper Friday Goodness. Don’t get too excited – you’re not getting a full-blown list of things today. Just one. But it’s hilarious.

So I follow Jill Filipovic of Feministe at Twitter, and she tweeted this today:

AMAZING. http://christwire.org/2009/10/the-golden-girls-how-one-tv-show-turned-a-generation-of-american-boys-into-homosexuals/

I immediately clicked on the link, because I just had to see it for myself. While the site was (very slowly) loading, I examined the header, which looked like this:

“Too good to be true,” I thought to myself. “I love these sites.” I prepared myself for the typical super-crazy onslaught of nonsense that fringe “Christian” groups spew.

After a few minutes, I realized the page didn’t load properly, so I clicked on the “Home” button to see what else I could find. I encountered the following headlines:

“Let Us Send Our Prisoners To Mexico”
“Haitians Use Voodoo Dolls to Terrorize Pat Robertson & Rush Limbaugh”
“From Crossdressers to Christ-Haters, The Very Worst of YouTube”

Expecting the worst, I clicked on one of the links and was greeted by the words: “My fellow White Christian Americans.” Whoa now. For realz?

It took me exactly three minutes to figure out the site was an incredibly well-done satire.  Clearly, most of the people who read the site don’t ever figure that out, as there are loads of comments from people readers who want to engage in debate (healthy or otherwise) about the contents. While it’s encouraging that there are plenty of people who recognize lunacy when they come across it, it’s somewhat disappointing that not quite as many people get the concept of “parody.”

So I googled “Christwire” to see what else was floating around out there, and came upon this link, at Outraged Richard. Oh, are you kidding? That is PHENOMENAL. I think he might be for real, too.

Happy Friday, folks!

my absolute favorite thing

about the Prop 8 trial:

David Boies: NO singularly accepted universal definition of marriage. Marriage constantly evolving.

David Blankenhorn: Yes sir. I wrote those words in my book.

David Boies: No further questions, your honor.

prop 8 trial

I just want to say that the Prop 8 Trial is providing some really incredible entertainment to break up the monotony of a workday.

You can check out Courage Campaign’s liveblogging efforts here. I’ll warn you: the blogging is extensive, and can be a little difficult to follow. But Rick Jacobs is providing wonderful daily summaries, and it’s the next best thing to being there, or seeing it live.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

poetry prompts

A huge part of the Getaway weekend in Cape May is the poetry prompts: first thing in the morning, all the poets gather in the Penthouse Ballroom to read and discuss a handful of poems selected by Peter Murphy, and then the prompts are distributed. Peter is a lot of things: a good teacher, a good poet, a good person all around. He’s absolutely sadistic when it comes to poetry prompts, though.

I’ve had a few people ask for the prompts from the weekend, so here they are, kids:

Saturday’s Prompt:

“Angels dancing on the head of a pin dissolve into nothingness at the bedside of a dying child.” (Waiter Rant)

“There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.” (Michel de Montaigne)

“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Assignment:
Get some dancing in a poem that touches death.
Requirements:
Use action verbs and concrete nouns to create a frenzy of chaos.
Include language from “Random Dance Terms.”*
Tell a secret, tell a lie, and never tell anyone which is which.
Variation:
Write a poem unrelated to dancing, but using language from “Random Dance Terms”* in a non-contextual way.
Challenge for the Delusional:
Make your poem sound or move like it’s dancing.

Illustrated by the following poems:
“American Smooth,” Rita Dove
“Tarantula, or the Dance of Death,” Anthony Hecht
“Gym Dance with the Doors Wide Open,” Jill Allyn Rosser
“Buddha with a Cell Phone,” David Romtvedt
“Dance the Orange,” Rainer Maria Rilke
“Danse Russe,” William Carlos Williams
“The Bald-Headed Doll,” Hal Sirowitz
“Wedding Pinata,” James Hoch
“The Edge,” Bob Hicok (apologies for the terrible formatting on that page)

*Random Dance Terms: Peter provided us with a whole sheet full of dance terms and definitions; if you’re looking for it, leave a comment below, and I’ll email a copy.

Sunday’s Prompt:

Assignment:
Write a poem celebrating something or someone unlikely to ever have been celebrated before.
Requirements:
Drop a clown into poem or and/or include language from “Clown Wisdom” (check out quotes from Rodney Dangerfield, Charlie Chapman, Soupy Sales)
Use repetition repeatedly without tiring the reader or yourself.
Tell a secret, tell a lie, and never tell anyone which is which.
Variation:
Address poem to a clown or politician
Challenge for the Delusional:
Make it funny!

Illustrated by (coming soon)

Monday’s Prompt:

Assignment:
Write a “Dear John” letter that is witty and fun.
Requirements:
Choose three postcards which attract you and one which disturbs or confuses you, and integrate some of these images into your poem.
(The poem should be postcard sized.)
Variation:
Write a love letter instead.
Challenge for the Delusional:
Steal writing from one or more of the postcards and use it in your poem.

Illustrated by the following poems:
“Dusk,” Amy Gerstler
“Kore,” Robert Creeley

Happy writing!

post-racial america ftw

So (thanks to Rachel Maddow for talking this up on her show tonight:

The All-American Basketball Association is a newly formed minor basketball league, meant for white people only. No, seriously, check it out.

I won’t get into the dissection of the league founder’s comments, because they’re appalling and horrible. I just want to say: it’s 2010, people. Get over yourselves.

confession

Today, on two separate occasions, I totally rocked out in my car. I’m talking full-blown-air-drums-singing-at-top-volume-dancing-behind-the-steering-wheel rocking out. Which, in itself, is fine. The confession part comes in when I tell you what I was rocking out to:

and this:

You may commence mocking me now, but I stand firm: Matthew Sweet kicked ass. Although I now think Billy Corgan is a hack.

cape may post-cap

So it was an intense weekend in Cape May at Peter Murphy’s Winter Getaway. I spent time in two 2.5-hour sessions of workshopping, started seriously thinking about plans for a full-length manuscript (it turns out I actually do have something of a theme going), and drafted four new poems, variously about a) a dead friend, b) hippos, c) a brain tumor and d) feral children. Yes, I said hippos. I spent some time with some of the Stockton crew (who we never get to see as much as we’d like to), as well as with people I only ever see at the Getaway, including my favorite Chicagoan, who is working on a great new series of poems inspired by Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird.

Donna also had a productive weekend, producing three new short fiction pieces which hold much promise. She reconnected with an old teacher and has a new energy about her, which is contagious.

I also started thinking seriously about applying for a scholarship to a week-long program in May, which, if I won, would give me the chance to work with Dean Young, whose work I love and who occasionally reminds me of Ric Ocasek (which I say fondly):

The weekend also offered me the distinct privilege of attending a reading given by Mark Doty and his partner Paul Lisicky. Though I left the reading before Doty started (migraine), I heard Paul read something brand-spanking-new, a memoir piece in honor of his friend Denise. It was beautiful and sad and wonderful, and there was a storm rising outside the hotel. Because Paul was reading before a bank of windows, we watched the lightning flash behind him as he read.

As productive and exciting as the weekend was, I was intensely pleased to come home to this:

ear follow up

The bead popped out on its own, no doctor necessary. Jacob won’t be doing that again.