521: some poetry things

I wanted to make a detailed post on each, but October has given way to November and soon we'll be in December and everything will have slipped past.

DA Powell was a visiting writer on campus; he met with students for manuscript conferences, was interviewed by our literary magazine, ran our thesis seminar (this was the first session we were without Ray Gonzalez, who is on leave for the rest of the semester--wishing him a swift recovery), had a reading. He went out to dinner with some of our friends in the program too, and if Tuesdays weren't my marathon days, and my pregnancy hadn't/hasn't been slowing me down, I would have gone too.

As such, I took frantic and detailed notes when he spoke to us in thesis seminar, and I meant to type them all up here, but with the double-wrist brace and my building behind-ness at school, I won't. So many good things: about submitting manuscripts, ordering manuscripts, existing within the poetic world post-first book. We dreamed a little that afternoon, though admittedly, one of our peers has her own beautiful first book, and we know she'll have an excellent second as well.


October is also the Twin Cities Book Festival, and Jean Valentine was one of the visiting speakers. I fell in love with her that morning--she's incredibly charming and sweet and patient. Meryl and I wandered around the book festival, filling up on letterpress chapbooks, dollar-books at the used book sale, buttons and fliers for upcoming readings and releases.


After we went to the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, where they were holding demonstrations on the various presses. Meryl was just starting her mentorship and is now in the thick of it, learning all kinds of wonderful things about Vandercooks and impressions and all else, leaving me quite in the dust. I have great plans to catch up post-baby, however. :)

We had a late lunch with Kristin Naca too, a fantastic poet we met at Bread Loaf.


And in October, there was lunch with the poetry collective...


And another fabulous session of Alchemy: Yoga + Poetry. We drew with pastels and came up with a word to keep with us through our practice and generally felt content and full of happiness. My cup runneth over.


Oh, and Nicole Krauss came to visit campus before attending a fancy reading series, and we discovered she was a poet before she became a novelist, which might explain why I love her work so much.

October was a beautiful month, poetry-wise. And the colors and the company and so much else.

This month has been quieter, and with six weeks and one day left until the guess date arrives, I've become better at hibernating and silence. It's certainly not a time in my life to overwhelm; we have plenty at home to shift about, including returning our living and dining room to working order after Ryan's parents kindly helped paint a fresh coat of "antique lace" on the walls and ceilings, becoming charmingly paint-flecked and back-ached.

So blessed.

516

Sometimes events converge: my book is due 12/15; my baby 1/6.

This week: edits of the proofs, so many other little details related to the chapbook, as well as a new draft of my thesis. And commenting on student poems. For tomorrow.

One of my duties was to scan and send photographs of my grandfather, in case the publisher wants to insert a few on the extra blank pages in the back. I made a little set pertaining to the chapbook, cleverly titled The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake, which is mostly photos of him, but some of the book, some that illustrate a few of the poems themselves, such as these dahlia bulbs and my grandmother at her sink, both from poems that appear in this anthology, and the silty feet from "Uniform Urn."


Here's the front and back of the book my sister designed and executed, or one variation thereof. I'm really floored with how talented she is; I think, if you need any graphic design work done, you should send her a little note, or send me one, and I'll pass it along. (She doesn't have a portfolio up online just now, but I'm sure she will some day soon, and for now, you can glance through her flickr page. You can see other amazing things she's done, like this save the date for her wedding next summer, which is two days from our wedding anniversary, so sweet).

513: with new book, comes new webpage

The above image is what my webpage looked like, the not oft-updated space that listed a few humble poems, was built from scratch, whatnot.

There's not so much new to tell, a few extra poems, a chapbook. We used a template, and Ryan sat down and banged out a new set of pages for me this weekend, and I do love it so.

We'll likely already update it some time after this weekend; I have a few more blurbs for the chapbook coming and I'd like to add links to Alchemy: Poetry and Yoga as well as Hedgebrook, a place I one day hopehopehope to have a residency.

And the below image. A new welcome.

511: revisiting a prior post (news)

I finally was able to re-publish 500. The announcement is up: My humble chapbook, The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake, won the Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press Poetry Award, which means it will be published. In about two months, in fact, if all goes well.


The above is the cover my sister designed.

My ISBN is 978-0-9788931-7-0.

The publisher's website is here, where you will eventually be able to order copies online. I'll also have my own set to sell at readings and through local bookstores and whatnot.

Edits are coming along, blurbs are being written, and I'm thinking about author photos and short bios. Thinking about these things and impending due dates and the thumps of the minnow and writing a thesis and keeping up with grading and getting a full night's sleep. It's a fantastically busy time. I feel calm and quiet and good.

500

What lovely news for a 500th post: this morning I received a phone call, letting me know my chapbook manuscript, The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake, won the Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press Poetry Award (which comes with a cash prize!). My brain is, of course, abuzz, with this news, with my lack of sleep, with my first day of teaching, with five months of incubating the baby, with the I'm getting a chapbook published celebration in my head. This afternoon, I turn in a first draft of my full-length manuscript. I feel as if I'm on a trajectory I only imagined when I was younger, as if I'm doing all those things to make myself A Poet, and I've stepped out of myself, a little trembly and enthralled.

498: random bits

:: My recurring nightmare this week: I am a ways from campus, usually somewhere on the commute, and I'm already late to thesis seminar; I have not printed out copies of my thesis for the first day. I look at my watch again and again, frustrated and helpless.

:: I've been having a Robert Bly marathon, preparing for a packet, beginning my project of introducing a new local poet to my students each Thursday. I finished my syllabus too, and because I am the sort who likes to plan out the scheduled readings, it took a little while. I'm using two books-on-poetry: The Discovery of Poetry by Frances Mayes and Not Feathers Yet: A Beginner's Guide to the Poetic Life by Lola Haskins, which meant I had to synthesize the topics. And make sure we had enough workshop time. And in-class writing time. And time to read full-length books. And student presentations. I don't, by any means, miss teaching high school, but sometimes, when I look at that five-day-a-week contact with students, I feel envious, that luxury of time. There's so much I had to let go of in the want of balance.

:: Minnow moves so much now. Little tail flips and flickers. I cannot wait to nuzzle her.

:: We are a healing household just now. Penelope's front paw limp is fading, though it's mostly because we've had to keep her home when Zephyr romps the bluffs. Ryan will bring her upstairs to nap in bed with me as compensation. Zeph continues to be oblivious to the hole in his throat; Ryan has peered into the maw and claims no-hole. I hide his plastic-coated pills in gobs of peanut butter, and I have not yet lost a finger. My left hand tingles less, but I am reading thinner books. My burn has a bandage on it now, slathered in aloe, so I cannot know the color, if it is still ripe or not. Ryan is robust, though he is about to mow the lawn, and after I spent some time out there in the garden, I warned him of torrential mosquitoes. We shall see if he gets one in the part in his hair as I did--top and front and itchy--and three on the elbow. I am delicious and stumbly.

:: I dropped my poetry workshop in want of sanity for the fall semester. I didn't need it to fill any slot on my "tan form," though I wanted to work with Joanna Rawson before thesis credits in the spring. Instead, I have prenatal classes at the hospital and prenatal yoga classes with Emily. Now I'm only a grad student and a half; I still have an overload of credits. Manageable. Needed. Spring is going to be easier, save the whole baby-thing.

:: I'm so excited for this book to come out. (Congrats, Stephanie!!)

:: My chapbook received an honorable mention at Accents Publishing. Another editor emailed me telling me the chapbook was close. That's two runner-up type nods and two notes saying it was close. My quiet wishes in my head involve it finding an acceptance by the end of 2010. That sand in the hourglass is fast running out.

:: I'm amazed at how quickly the calendar is filling up. I'm most looking forward to Colleen's alchemy: poetry + yoga event. Also the Healey and Conoley reading, but still, mostly Colleen's event. Last autumn, we went to see Kate Greenstreet and Norma Cole read at Micawber's and it was amazing. It helped that I had fabulous company, and autumn was in the air with the best sort of energy and potential.

:: Autumn is most often my favorite season, mainly because I love going back to school so much, and the summer has done its job recharging me. I love wool sweaters and fall leaves and chowder soups and baked bread. It's all rooted in seasons for me; I think this is a turn the manuscript might take in revision, finding its way into a stronger sense of the full year.

466: I've fallen behind

I've fallen behind in the most desperate of ways--please don't, but if you must--picture me, wallowing in that dumb beauty of summer, on the other side, while I attempt to hold in the last meal. And now, I want to share a few things from May that I've missed along the way (June is so close!).


A few photos of the hybrid-monster Amanda drew and brought into class, myriad quotes on poetics along the body. The hybrid-monster is non-threatening and can be viewed from various angles. When I become less of a lump, I plan to cut out the hybrid-monster and make a few from fabric.


My friend Colleen had a gorgeous reading at the Rogue Buddha Gallery. It was my first trip there, and I fell in love with some of the artwork. I look forward to July first's reading, which features another of my beloved poet-friends, Amanda.

The semester ended quietly and smoothly, with full distraction. What I remember most: the last week of classes, knowing, turning in grades early but still having an essay to complete, and mostly, Meryl's defense and the lunch after at Seward Cafe, how charming she looked, how poised, how absolutely smooth it all went. I'm both proud and pleased and look forward to seeing her thesis transform into an actual book; I have faith that we will see it in bookstores in the not-so-distant future.

In the meantime, M and I have been trading poems every day, just to keep ourselves in practice, which means my thesis might actually have a first draft by the end of summer, shock of all shocks. I missed today's writing date due to a ridiculous night of discomfort, but I have faith my body will give me more freedom eventually.

For now, I read as much as I can, I write, I look fiercely forward to BreadLoaf, a gift of an experience, a perfect way to end, for now. I won't stop going to conferences and applying to retreats, but I know it will be many years before I can do that again, and if I can go with one of my best friends, then that's all the more reason to be grateful.

461: mdb retirement

On April 23rd, we gathered together at the Weisman Art Museum on campus to celebrate the thirty-nine year teaching career of poet Michael Dennis Browne. As an undergraduate, I loved all genres equally, even did my thesis in non-fiction, but in those last few years, I was lucky enough to apply and be accepted into a few of his graduate workshops and seminars. I fell in love with poetry under the tutelage of MDB; we can fully blame him for my non-lucrative choice, my deep passion.

April 23rd, which happens to be Shakespeare's birthday, was also declared Michael Dennis Browne Day in the city of Minneapolis.

Among those pictured above: Ray Gonzalez, Patricia Hampl, Louis Jenkins, Robert Bly, along with many other former students as well as a full choir singing songs MDB wrote the lyrics for and some acoustic music in celebration. The three in the middle are his children: Nellie, Mary, and Peter, reading a letter from MDB's brother in England, Peter reading the poem "A Blessing."

Congratulations, Michael. We've been blessed to have you.

451: artwords

Brian Gebhart, first place: "Offering"

Brian Laidlaw, second place: "The Mountaineer Encounters a Coast."

me, third place: "In Geography" (which is going to get a good, scrubbing edit soon)

Alex Grant: "I Have Seen the Plight of the Dinner Bird"

An extra-special, very big thank you goes out to three of my favorite girl friends, who took time out of their chaotic days to do a little cheering. It means so much. ♥