Sunday

Back from Easter with family. Now getting ready to leave for AWP on Wednesday morning. Early! 6:30 am. Gah. But I'm excited.

45

Crazyhorse at 45: A Contributors' Reading
Thursday, March 31, 2005
4:30-6:15pm at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver
Room Georgia A

Panelists:
Steven Schwartz
Leon Stokesbury
T.M. McNally
Rodger Kamenetz
Dorothy Barresi
James McCorkle

Readers confirmed:
John Vanderslice
Lance Larsen
Wayne Miller
Susan Hutton
Chris Dumbrowski
Rick Bursky
Ryan Meany
Peter Cooley
Keeley Bowers
Michael Dumanis
Deborah Lott
Nance Van Winckel
Dinty Moore
John Gallaher
Richard Wollman
Paul Guest
Sydney Lea
Adam Schuitema

On campus today

Directly across from each other:

a huge, grisly diorama of abortion photos

vs.

a large gathering of students around a hip-hop dj, spinning records, while a footlong Subway sandwich eating contest is going on.

Umm....?

I mean it

Ok, y'all: it's exactly one week until I leave for AWP. Let's get down to the bidness of making some plans. If you're going to be there and would like to hang out, let me know. Post here, send me an email, etc. I'm fairly conspicuous, easy to spot, but you may not be. So let's get it together.

Off

Manuscript #2 is beaming its digitized way towards Four Way Books.

Go forth, little word file.

Buy Lucia Perillo's new book

Luck is Luck

Crazy love

The Terry Schiavo case is making me crazy. Watch out for codewords like "human rights," which is a kind of direct beam to pro-life constituencies. Watch for breathtakingly false logic, such as this response from the President: "it is wise to always err on the side of life." Actually, no, it's wise to err on the side of the law. A quaint concept, I know, but all the same, it's all we've got to work with. Her situation is sad, pitiful, and I wish it were not so, but it's been 15 years. The feeble hopes of her parents are, of course, understandable; I hope never to be in their position. But life sucks, sometimes; it's often unfair. No magic therapy will bring their daughter back to them.

The most troubling aspect of this fiasco is the stunning actions of a Congress wildly, arrogantly out of control. The claim that this legislative commando-ism does not set precedent is ridiculous. Apparently, Congress knows better than 7 years worth of ajudication by the state of Florida; apparently, the refusal of the Supreme Court to act in this case was poorly thought-out. Apparently, I've a bridge to sell you.

This sort of thing takes place all the time. Where was Congress then? I'm guessing the absence of the camera's guiding light left them lost along the way.

so i bought some postcards

and another

The Ever Lovin' Stick

So Willson over at Disruptive Juxtaposition has passed me the stick. I wondered if anyone would. Thanks, man. I'll try my best.

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? One of Matty Stepanek's books. And, yes, I'm going to hell for saying that. I know.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Not that I can remember. Not in a book, really. Maybe Willow from Buffy.

The last book you bought is: No Planets Strike, by Josh Bell.

The last book you read: The Obvious, by Bradley Paul.

What are you currently reading? Currently, I'm in between. But I've plans to read Victoria Chang's book, Josh's book, and a few others.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:


1. The Bible

2. James Wright's collected poems.

3. The Dream Songs

4. The complete Walt Whitman

5. The complete John Donne

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

Whoever I can find that hasn't received it yet.

If the sky can crack, there must be some way back

High on a U2 b-side, "Electrical Storm." Should have replaced one of the middling tunes on their latest. As Bono dives into his pool-like vault of money, ala Scrooge McDuck.

***

This makes me so very happy:

http://incrediblehulk.blogspot.com/

***

My birthday was pretty pathetic. No, it was ok. Had dinner with my mom and my friend Mark, who called just as we were going, so he joined in. Afterwards, he carried an old recliner into my apartment for me and we hung out, flipping the channel. Mostly, we watched a COPS marathon. No, wait, it was pathetic.

***

Meacham is this week. Busy, busy. But it'll be great to see Rodney. I hurt his feelings last year in Chicago: he was feeling hungover, morose over the amount of alcohol he had imbibed, and I good-naturedly said he needed to get himself to church. We're both from the south, Alabama and Georgia, and we both know that cultural impetus. And it must have cut through to the days when he was raised up in that. "That's pretty fucking cold, man," he said. Finally, I went up to him and said, "C'mere, you, give me a hug," and, as old ladies down here might say, loved on him.

Rodney Jones, give him a hug when you see him.

Yes we're going to a garden party

Today is my 31st birthday. My goodness. Time flies when you're grading annotated bibliographies. Wait, I didn't mean that. Time just flies.

So, everybody: cake and ice cream at my place. You supply the cake and ice cream, I'll supply the place. And the me.

Circle

Order Victoria Chang's Circle:

Circle

Ah, spring break

Even though it's been too cool or too wet, having this time off is fantastic. I'm catching up on reading, movies, and otherwise not working. And I'm very pleased to do so. I wish it were warmer, though.

Next week, my birthday.....

sample

ELEGY IN A MIRROR

Whether crushed beneath a cartoon piano,

its eclipse blossoming around you

like dusk, or, hurtling, hurled

from the hull of a speeding boat

on to the igneous shore

of the afterlife, brother Charon’s open palm

outstretched, you won’t die

the odd deaths you’ve imagined.

The banana peel won’t compose

a single elegy once you’ve

slipped. The ashes will comport

themselves poorly: what

will they retain of what you once were?

The white scar beneath

your lip, that your best lover

once lavished, that you bore

like an affliction, even so,

will become anonymous as the emptied

sky. Though you dream

each hulking sunflower

will mourn your hands,

and the golden bobs of each swollen fish

you rescued from the mall

will swear off the odor

of their food, and though

you wish for your favorite flavor

of ice cream to enter

into history with you—

none of this will happen.

In the elbow of the shallow river,

your name won’t be

said against the skin of a lover’s neck.

On postcards mailed back

to a fading home, Paris

will not seem sullen, sad without you.

And so what? Today

your hair was brushed

by a branch you didn’t duck

beneath: spring limbo,

your spine aching

at last to bend, to curve, to comma.

And today you were

offered chocolate

by a girl who began to forget

even as you turned

that you lived, that you once said yes.

Well, crap.

Joan Houlihan has won The Green Rose Prize for her manuscript Cincture. Which is cool. Many sincere congratulations to Joan. New Issues is a great press and they'll do a fine job with her book.

But, damn it all, my manuscript was in that pile with hers. Over the last two years, its pulled in several finalist spots in great competitions: the Brittingham; the Beatrice Hawley; the Levis Prize; and so on and so forth. Very gratifying each time.

But, but, but....

Nothing to do but keep at it.

***

Some good news: Passages North took two poems today, "Hunger" and "The Numbers Are Not In."

***

And more: baseball is back. Despite its current tarnish, I can't help but be encouraged. I watched a bit of a Yankees spring training game today while writing, revising, working on my manuscript.

I'm beginning to feel like an actual poet again.

new

HISTORY

Manners forbid, or should forbid,

that I write about secret

pleasures, the end of the day and alone, you

in a dark home, lamps and wine

burning together. If there is music,

it thrums like wires in a wall,

and if there is no music, the distant cars hum

a traveling song. And this

is the moment to which my mind

sings: you putting aside the phone

and your hands performing

the perfunctory unclasping of your plain bra.

In that breath, the day’s true

end and in that end, the night

opening up like an orchid’s moon-rapt face.

And wherever you settle

like this darkness

or these night-inked clouds—

on a swaybacked couch,

on a broken-slatted bed,

wherever you rest

there is a naked ease. Even

in the water of your ancient

tub, lead walled, claw-footed,

like the one launched a mile

outside Pompeii’s walls

on that last day, even

in that body of water your body

resists history, resists a final telling.

Forgive me each word.

All that was yours, I imagined was mine.