504

The first trimester was rough, like having a hangover without the rowdy night before. The second trimester was comparatively smooth, with regular morning-sickness bouts, but minus the nausea. (Ryan's convinced my mythic second-trimester ease lasted a week.) Now I am heading into the third trimester, and already my body is shifting into an uncomfortable mode, new stomach upsets, deeper imbalances in sleep (I will be introducing the neti pot into my evening routine), moods swinging in ways they haven't swung in years. I'm trying to keep the internal peace through breathing, meditation, fresh air, making. There are layers of tethers just now, and I'm simply attempting to unfurl (and keep the casualties to a minimum).

Currently:
:: Loving prenatal yoga. I'm going twice next week. My body is sore from last night, but in such a good way. I think I moved better this time--more smoothly, and accommodated when I knew my body couldn't manage. The only position I absolutely was paralyzed on was the bridge, and that's because there is some spot on my very-lower back that leaves me immobile on my back, one of the worst pains radiating as I slowly try to roll over. I will be gentle with myself until I can manage such contortions.
:: Milk remains my strongest pregnancy craving. Strawberry shakes too.
:: Knitting more than reading. I'm still so painfully slowly making my way through Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth and Gretel Ehrilich's This Cold Heaven. I'm savoring, truly.
:: Thrilled, thrilled that Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting has been re-released. I've been lusting after it since 2004, but because it was out-of-print, any copies to own were in the hundreds of dollars. Many others must have been lusting too. Some day I will be accomplished enough to work those cables.
:: Just watched Under the Same Moon. Those last few minutes are so good--the ideal ending, hitting the right emotional note.
:: Looking forward to the weekend. I love my teaching assignment, but I find myself suddenly ready to be finished with this MFA of mine. Part of it, I know, is that my journeys are so strongly overlapping, and my brain is partly wrapped up in the trajectory of impending parenthood. So much of my body is limping along too, which feeds that desire to remain away from weighty stress.

499

Last night was the program launch, where all the poets and non-fictioners and fictioners and professors get together, have a few drinks laced with vodka, leave ice rings on the tablecloth, eat celery and meatballs on sticks and talk about the year to come.

For us, of course, there was a little tremor of excitement in that this is it. Our final hurrah. Tomorrow afternoon, strange dreams notwithstanding, I will turn in the very first draft of my manuscript, and in April, I will turn in a draft I'd hope wouldn't be far from publishable.

The chapbook continues to receive good news, as if this early-September everyone's cogs are shifting. This time, an editor emailed me and asked if I'd be willing to tweak some poems in order to help it become a better contender for the prize. Indeed--I think any poet would be willing to consider those changes. The nature of the poet's relationship to his or her own work is strange--we can be defensive about specific word choice, we can be such stumbly puppy-types who would sacrifice our lambs entirely in the face of publication. One must tread carefully; one must also feel grateful that any editor would be willing to take the time to dust off a manuscript, to help it become a stronger book.

Tomorrow is the first day of classes; today I spent some time leaning over the warm photocopier, watching my syllabus slip through the machine, staple, staple, staple, staple... the poetry packet for the next class, little binder clips, straight and organized in my expanding folder. My thesis isn't quite so well lined up, but I have a four-hour gap between teaching and studenting, and though I have errands, I know how the time will fill. Collations and binder clips.

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.

456

This is the time of the school year when I do a little flutter kick, make a feeble attempt at keeping my head above water. In my high school swim team days, we used to paddle out to the deep end, hold our flat palms shoulder-height and kicked to keep afloat. This, my friends, is precisely how the last two weeks of the semester feel: today I picked up a heavy stack of research essays to grade and did a limping-along presentation on zuihitsu. Tomorrow I grade, I make phone calls for various medical procedures (I have an HSG in my future; Penelope needs to see a surgeon; Ryan even has a doctor's appointment I apparently will have to make), submit my chapbook to a few presses whose deadlines are fast approaching, consider a final paper, work on putting together a first rough draft of that vague thesis... And breathe in, and breathe out.

I signed up for autumn classes: thesis credits with Trish, thesis seminar, workshop, and a class in the Classical & Near Eastern Studies department on the classical epic in translation, which should fulfill my "related fields" requirement. It's certainly an overload, but my final semester would be incredibly smooth sailing. The coursework and teaching (intro to poetry) will be spread over the five days of the week, with only one extra-long campus day.

In honor of the zuihitsu, but in a more blog-conscious format:

On my bedside table: Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
Just finishing watching: Carnivale (season 2, disc 5)
Blooming in our yard: a single red tulip, the zestar apple tree, our two crabapple trees
Listening to on my commute: The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
Which makes me want to re-read: "Leda and the Swan" (see below)

455

I can't believe this, but there are only 2 1/2 weeks left in the semester, followed by my favorite week of the school year, thesis defense week. I love the freedom that hangs in the air--it's also exam week, but at this point, all of my own essays and collections of poems should be turned in, and grades will be complete. The air will be fresh, and I can sit back and watch as my colleagues in year three celebrate their accomplishments, two hour parcels of reading and discussing, the windows in Lind flung open, students sprawled across the mall's lawn, the voice of poetry floating in the sun.

The trees are exhausted with blossoms. If all the bunches on our apple tree became fruit, the tree would sink to its knees.

I've started a little life list to remind me of all the things I want to do before I conk off. I've only just started it, and it's good for me to let it all percolate, let me decide exactly what it is that I want to do with this one wild and precious life.

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. ♥

447: weekend, part v (the last, the marathon)

Day 1: stopping in Winona for a picnic, onigiri and edamame and fruit for lunch, watching lightning streak across the bluffs, creeping over the train tracks and walking along the Mississippi, discovering rail ties and picked-clean bones, flattening pennies on the tracks. Writing together in slender notebooks.



Day 2: National Wildlife Refuge, where we saw spotted buffleheads, deer, a turtle, swallows, river rats, and on. Trempealeau Hotel, where we ate walnut concoctions and listened to live music. At night, we played Scategories and now will giggle at the phrase "mocha puffs."


Day 3: The girls went on a hike at Parrot State Park, my stomach blurred and I remained behind, napping and reading a bad novel. However, this video makes me feel as if I were just there, with them.

The weekend itself was brilliant,