Help me, Corey...

Okay. I generally read Cahiers de Corey with awe and nervousness, because his is the sort of voice that attracts me, but also places the BIG chip on my shoulder. Little Miss University of TN at Chattanooga has not read SO many things.


And indeed, I'll go dig in the Stevens tonight, if you'll tell me where to dig. Because this is of interest to me. But these 3 values are problematic or confusing. I'm curious... how do you apply this line of thought...


Abstraction, Change, and Pleasure as 3 distinct/discreet values? So the pleasure is a pleasure NOT based on Abstraction or Change? And how do we divide these principles out? What kind of pleasure?


I hate wit. I enjoy wit, but it's like a cheap fuck for me. Or rather, a flirtation. I can't count on wit. As much as earnest-speak (read, sentimentality) seems cheap, I prefer it to wit alone. Of course, neither does much alone. I think we all agree to that.

I challenged Eduardo!!!

Eduardo posted his Table of Contents, and now I'm posting mine. Then we'll each write a poem using the titles from the other person's Table. Anyone else want in?


The Myth of the Simple Machines


Chapter 1/Simple Machines (Bare Bones)
The Field Has a Girl
The Simple Machines
The Girl Learns Forfeit
Paper Dolls
Well: the Girl Who Falls
Then Up— Shaken Morning
Organizing the Stairs
What the Dock Saw
The Answer to the Puzzle
Gravity of Halfway
Happily Ever After
The Girl Speaks, Defines Her Terms
Chapter 2/ Casings (What Appears)
Posture Matters
Routine: My Father
About Keith’s Mother
Almost Advent
I Covet Everything I Own
Like Water Swallows
Labor: the last push-mower in town
The Beast in the Cornfield
Work
In the Attic
White Heat
New York Poem
Technology
Chapter 3/ Technologies (In Process)
Logos
Ars Poetica: The Follies
Weak Little Creatures
Blood
The Book of Falling
Sturdy Little Places
In the Kitchen
Triptych of Useful Rules (Pictures)
Triptych of Useful Rules (Words)
Triptych of Useful Rules (Conclusions)
Chapter 4/ Machines at Rest (Their Dreams)
Half-sleep Segue (Just Before Rest)
Night 1 (The Wave)
Night 2 (The Jade Plant)
Night 3 (The Tide Pool)
Night 4 (The Train)
Night 5 (The Bake Sale)

In case you don't know...

We have been having an ice storm in Georgia. It knocked out my power...


So all day today (except when I met the lovely Laura Carter in EAV for brunch) I was huddled in layers of coat and sweater, trying to read in the semi-dark. Turning pages is hard in mittens. Brrrr.


But... Now! Suddenly! With a whir and a blink! Lights, camera, action.


So I'm paying this winter weather back for my frigid dark day by turning on all the lights in the house, cranking the heat, and dragging the TV in front of the bathtub, where I plan to spend my entire evening submerged in bubbles and FOX television.


MMMMMMMM......

Just Like Brooklyn...

I'm from Baltimore, MD... Charm City. I'm from it and of it, and I perpetually feel that I'll get back to Baltimore, just as soon as I can talk my husband into the plan. I love Atlanta, as I loved Iowa and Chattanooga... but there's that whole "home" thing. And I think I'll never feel settled until I'm home. Maybe it's a pipedream, but it's MY pipedream, my Baltimore.


I was a baby on Read St. A kid in Pimlico, Govans, and then Woodbury. Now Mom is out in Catonsville, where I went to high school (which is almost Baltimore), and Dad lives in Lauraville, near Herring Run Park. He ran for Sherriff. He drove a cab. My mom has worked for the schools forever. Baltimore is home.


In my dreams, I move home and buy the house I grew up in, at 4811 Crowson Ave. I send my kids to Roland Park Public, PS #233, where I went. Though it's more likely I'd end up in Hampden or somewhere more downtownish, like the other folks I know who're still "home." My dad teases my that they're all "so hep." They are, some of them.


Why am I dreaming about home today, iced into my wonderful place in Georgia? Because Atlanta Magazine informed me yesterday that the second best city for "singles" is Baltimore/D.C. Which I find upsetting for two reasons.


1. Baltimore and D.C. are NOT one city!!!!!! No matter how many yuppies work inside the District and buy houses in Canton or Federal Hill. Baltimore is not a suburb of DC and when the world ends, the wrath of God will descend on anyone who ever suggested a marketing campaign advertising such an idea.


2. This means the price of houses will skyrocket and when I finally talk my husband into moving "home" I won't be able to afford it. Right now I could get the rowhouse across from my dad's place for 60K. Want to bet on what that same brick slab will cost in 10 years if this keeps up?


Just like Brooklyn.


I used to dream of winning the lottery and moving "home" to buy an entire square block of rowhouses, create an arts community... because there were so many neighborhoods that were so cheap. My dad's old neighborhood in Woodbury, near TV Hill and Druid Hill park would have been perfect. Now what?


Sigh.


In Atlanta everything is a "loft." Everything is aloft.

Booby me this...

How can I NOT add Gabriel Gudding to the blogroll...


when he is just so adept with boobies (check out the new LIT).

Gum-ball, anyone???

I want one of these!!!


Now I just have to start a business, so I have somewhere to put it...


(link courtesy of DUMBFOUNDRY)

Pictures of the once-loved...

It is a bad idea to look at pictures of the once-loved. Either it makes you sad with longing for them, or it makes you sad with longing for the "you" you were with them. The youth or the music or the thinness of your younger you.


Or it isn't sad at all, which makes you sad... to realize that feelings so crimson have faded to memories so taupe. Or it makes you sad to realize that the person you loved what not what you loved, that you were all you loved, with your young body and your long hair... or that the person was not such a grand example of a person, and you were so easily fooled by a fall of hair or a dance step or a smooth length of skin. Theirs, arbitrarily. Sad. Sad. Sad.


Or all of the above.


Or you like to be sad and so you look at such pictures to test yourself, to see if it still hurts, to feel the sad, the same way you surf the oldies station looking for songs that conjure up those same wounds, or you sniff cologne you never liked when you pass by the bottle at the department store... to bring it all back as scents will do. To stir up the sad. Like Leonard Cohen. Like old sheets. Because you're alive. You're still alive.


It doesn't mean anything. But it means something.

Laura Carter, where are you????

I waited at the Brewhouse... but no Laura arrived...


Instead, I spent an hour with a dim man, a fired socialist social worker, and a Turkish racist pornagrapher...


Quotes from the night:


"I believe in serendipity."


"Atlanta would be okay if it weren't for the blacks."


"We're looking for new talent."


You can call him Coors Light Dave, or Dave Coors Light. He answers to both."


It was an interesting evening, to say the least...

NOW, NOW, NOW is the time...

Today. Right now.


If you (or someone you know) are a fabulous writer and also a half/Jew of some sort...


And you have an essay somewhere in a box or brain, email me NOW and let me know...


I need a chapter. A brilliant chapter NOW!


Seriously, yo.

Some treason...

Actually, no treason. But I'm tipsy/punny. Actually, not punny, more referential/wordmaking. Actually... why the hell am I thinking about Ashbery?


Actually... some thoughts.


Thisbe Nissen is to blame for "A Chance Meeting." Yay! that it was one of my favorites what sent it. Poo that it was no stranger inspired by the "call for presents." Poo on you!


Why is "poo" to pee, but poop is not to peep.


Peep on you.


Why have you not linked to NoGaPo (unless you are Michael Schivo, in which case I thank you. No peep on you)?


G.C. is reading here in two days!


My cat was clinging to my neck. Now my neck has started slipping.


I have let some secrets slip a little. They are hanging halfway out of the secret box. But still, I can't tell you. Unless you see them.

A Chance Meeting...

"Not greatest, thou-- not first, not last-- but near."
(Hart Crane)


A few weeks ago, I turned 31, and without thinking I posted a "call for presents" on this site.


I expected (almost) nothing...


But oddly, a package arrived, with no card. Just a package addressed to me, Laurel "Birthday Girl" Snyder.


Inside was a book called "A Chance Meeting."


I just started to read it tonight, and it's all about the intertwined nature of writerly lives, about the ships passing in the night... the six degrees of Henry James, Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, Norman Mailer, etc.


WAY cool, and THANK YOU to whomever sent it...


But it gets me to thinking about the intertwindedness of my iown nterlife, my blogoshpere, and my "real" world too.


And beyond that, it gets me to thinking about my absolute need... to pass occasional ships in the night, ships that resemble my own hull. My own late-at-night, early-thirties, kid's-book-reading, word-play ship-self.


Thank you for being a ship, whomever you are. And to all of you who can't keep your clothes looking nice, who drink too much wine and wear slips and listen too closely to lyrics and correct ad copy when you read magazines... who think about going back for another degree and make soup and cut your hair on impulse...

Secrets can be boring too...

I have some secrets, things I cannot post. I fear that this will drive you mad with curiousity, but it cannot be helped. None of these secrets involve me landing a book deal or teaching gig... so you don't need to be jealous or anything. The secrets are boring, but private, like an old person's genitals...


Did I say that?


In other news, I have decided that I'm going to Vancouver, come hell or high water. Or the fruition of certain secrets. See you there?


Also, things are happening at the feeder. I'm beginning to understand why people write bad poems about ambiguous birds. There are good ones and bad ones. Birds, that is. They are interesting. As is Snuffles the rat.


Also, Jim Behrle is a BIG LOVE!


Now go leave a comment at NoGaPo!!!

Please Circulate...

This Link!!!


Everybody knows Hotlanta is where the Hip Hops, but few folks realize it's also where the iambs jam...


So please post!


Please let the world know that Atlanta is ready for writers!


Are writers ready for Atlanta?

Power of Pride Bumperstickers....

Anthony has made these darling stickers, to accompany the power of pride...


My favorite sin is sloth. What's your'n?


BUT ONE TODAY!

Bird-blog Report...

Today at the feeder, two woodpeckers, one Pileated and one Downy...



One Tennessee Warbler.



One Mourning Dove.


A Pair of Cardinals.



One Robin (it's always Spring in Georgia).



One Nuthatch.


And one big fat sewer rat named Snuffles, who seems to live under our house in the crawlspace. EW!

The 50 Most Loathsome People...

As with most of the really funny stuff I steal, I stole this from ANTHONY...


You must must must CLICK ON THIS LINK!!!!!!!


You'll pee yerself, it's so funny. One example:


25. Dr. Phil


Crimes: Not a doctor. Not wise. Offers troubled souls nothing but the sweet feeling of surrendering control. Only reason for prominence is that Oprah just couldn’t support her show by herself anymore. Offers troubled simpletons meaningless slogans that resonate for a maximum of five days before they realize they already knew that shit and they still can’t stop whatever compulsive behavior got them onto his show in the first place. Is almost certainly regularly involved in some unspeakable depravity that he can’t stop and which caused him to fabricate his public persona in a frantic attempt to convince us he’s normal.


Smoking Gun: Both presidential candidates were forced to submit to his pedantic bullshit in some bizarre new soft focus emasculation ritual to get slack-jawed housewives to vote for them.


Punishment: A lifetime of guest spots on Springer.

The dream that blogged a dream...

How's this for friggin weird... Shanna dreamed about a poem inserted into fruit, and blogged it. And in a weird amalgamation of that dream and a bowl of cajun boiled peanuts I ate last night at the Earl, I dreamed the sequel to Shanna's dream.


I dreamed there was a whole line of "Puzzle food" at the gourmet grocery store... food that requires work to eat... an extension of pistachios and artichokes.


Like, the best chocolate in the world, but inside a rubix cube, so that you have to earn it. Or a smear of peanut butter contained inside a crossword puzzle, that opens when completed, to feed your watering mouth...


In other news, welcome Jilly and Michael to the blogroll!!!!

There are like 87 birds...

Right outside my window!


When my mother-in-law asked what I wanted for Xmas, I couldn't think of anything, so I said I wanted a bird feeder. I got two! Which inspired me to fill them and hang them next to the old birfeeder that came with the house. Then my husband gave me a bird book.


So right now, outside my window, there is a woodpecker, a pair of cardinals, a pair of blue jays, a pair of doves, and a ton of little greyishbrownish birds.


Oh! Now the blue jays ran off the cardinals...


Anyway. I'm hung over a little bit, after too many fun drinks at the fun reading we gave last night, the FIRST official reading in the "Duck and Herring Co. Series" which rocked!!!


So you heard it hear first! Atlanta now has a superfun smoky-bar reading series. Come read! Tell all your friends! East Atlanta is where the poetry happens....

Someone is thinking today...

Over at PORNFELD!


I'm thinking too, about community and the importance of community... which means (always) a certain amount of ingroup/outgroup dynamic. Much as it sounds awful. That dynamic is part of what brings people together.


I'm in a weird place right now with it. Because I'm lonely, terribly lonely for writers, for people who make my life make sense... who want to have the conversations I want, people who read...


So, if I'm honest about it, I have to admit that I would happily hang out with anyone who wanted to drink coffee and talk poems, be they Slammers, Billy Collins, or Ron Silliman.


But if I'm being honest (whether I like it or not) I also have to admit that I'd probably be equally likely to sit and snicker about Slammers, Billy Collins, ar Ron Silliman, over coffee or cocktails. If I could find someone to snicker with.


Because I like to talk, and know writers, and all things are eventually snicker-able. I'm not saying I'd lie, or that I wouldn't defend my heroes and friends, but I probably would participate in conversations I wouldn't want on record. About people I could likely find common ground with.


Because we're writers, and people. We learn from these things, forge relationships on criticism, but also apology.


It's a bonding thing. It's what we do.

Is this a...

Bouts Rime???



Bouts Rime: Oh, June


I meant to live the easy month of June
but lost him there inside the clock and stress.
He took his dogwoods, swallowed up his moon
and- hoarding fireflies- left me to obsess.


When the grass woke, she swore and called "You snake!
You evil June, to slip away!" But moot
without the June, the grass she died to cake
to brown and rootless, dirt and filth, no beaut.


A loss. A lack of color greening. Garbo—
turned old or sad, or sorrowful. To play
a gorgous woman takes a man or hobo
to lurk and watch, all night or June or day.


My June misplaced my lovely—and these rhinestone
words can't fill the loss. Spangled. Cologne

MUUUUUCH better...

Yes indeed, happy birds are twittering about my head again.


Why?


1. Got my copies of LIT. It's awesome!


2. Spent an hour visiting with Tom Lux, who wants me to help out with the Poetry Reading Series at Georgia Tech!


3. Jennifer Traig is intrigued and wants to do the HALF/LIFE book!


4. I'm just better. No reason.

My two cents...

I AM A CRANKY CRANKHEAD TODAY.


Ugh. I'm irritating myself but each time I try to leve the room, get away from myself, there I am!

Always a friggin bridesmaid...

Rejection of the Day, for my kid's novel (which now has a maybe-home... but still)...


Dear Ms. Snyder,


Thank you for sending "Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains" for my consideration. I am sorry for holding the manuscript for so long. I liked it and was hoping to include it in a series of fairy tale novels. However, that project has never come to fruition; so unfortunately I have to say that your manuscript is not right for our list at this time....


So close! Always so close!!!! Always a finalist. Never a book.

Jewish-Catholic Jewess-writer seeks same...

I must find Jennifer Traig! So I emailed Vendela Vida, whose email address I stole, in hopes that Miss Vida or Mr. Eggers might supply me with the contact info for Miss Scrupulosity...


But if you know her, will you drop me a line? Please?


DRAT! Now I really want to go to Vancouver for AWP...

Too much NPR?

NEVER!!!!!


Anyone catch Jennifer Traig on Fresh Air tonight? Amazing...


Not only is she Jewishy (half indeed), but...


I'd never even heard of SCRUPULOSITY... religious OCD.


The individual may constantly worry that he or she might say or do something blasphemous. He may fear that he has committed sin, forgotten it and then neglected to repent for the sin. He may spend long hours searching his mind to try to ferret out evidence of un-confessed sins. He is unable to feel forgiven. Specific obsessions and compulsions vary according to the individual’s religion. An Orthodox Jew might worry that he did not perform a particular ritual correctly. He might obsess about this for hours. A Roman Catholic might go to confession several times a day. Another individual could believe that anything he does might be sinful. This individual might become so paralyzed with doubt, that he or she becomes afraid to do or say anything at all.


Religious faith and religious education are not generally the causes of Scrupulosity. Actually, Scrupulosity is a form of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. (OCD) OCD appears to be a biologically based disorder with severe psychological consequences. The disorder occurs in 2-3% of the population (5-7 million sufferers in the U.S.). About 10% of the first-degree relatives of affected persons also have OCD.


Wow. Wow wow wow.


As someone with epilepsy, I've often had to explain to people that my condition isn't poetic or mystical, that it's painful and disruptive. That the knowledge it's with me for life has been a crippling thing in my past, and lives inside me always... Yet there's always some JimMorrison or Kafka-loving fool interested in convincing me that it's cool to have seizures...


I can't even imagine what it must be like to be a writer with Scrupulosity...

Executions in the U.S and my birthday....

Last night on NPR, Sister Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking...


Did you know that 80% of the executions in the U.S. are committed by the 10 states to practice slavery the longest???


If these things interest you, go visit Infozo (blogroll)...


Killing people sucks in general, but killing them with state sanction sucks worst of all.


In other news, I'm now 31. Drank Tequila, but not too much. Had a lovely visit with Papa Snyder. Sent out the dumb book again (AKA made a donation to the small press economy in America). Ate breakfast at the Flying Biscuit.


I continue to despair over my agent's lack of contact, but things are good all in all.


Oh yeah, and my hubband gave me the best present!!! Binoculars of my very very own own.


So now I'm off to find me a painted bunting (see above). Yip!

Buy Me A Present!!!

Because today is not only my birthday, it's also my first wedding anniversary.


See, when we decided to elope last year, I said I didn't want to be 30 and single. Hence the double-date.


I'm 31 today, and in my "prime". Snark.


My daddy is visiting and all is well in the worrld.

I bet you've always wondered...

What a Hillel conference looks like.





That's me, Polli, Joel, and Whitney...


Jess, where are you? Oh wait! I remember...


Smirk.

Which exremity of the world are you?

No, really I am...


You?


(Thanks Tony)

And Louise, she's all right, she's just near...

Someone who gets it, someone I don't know, a lady of the finest sort...


Responded to an earlier post.


I suggest you MEET HER!

Mis Vieja...

So, everyone was getting these cool portraits, which caused me to discover the ARTIST!


What a neato gal... so I'm off to take her poetry challenge!!


Join me?

The Duck and Herring Co...

New Reading Series in the ATL! Come and drink...


The Duck & Herring Co.
Est. 2004 - Atlanta


**


The Duck & Herring Co. Proudly Presents
In Its Ongoing EffortsTo Entertain & Enlighten
THE HITS, VOL. 1
Readings Of Stories That Involve Music
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Time: 10 p.m.
Location: Gravity Pub in East Atlanta


**


If only Jaff Sharlet, Tom Hopkins, and Dan Nester could be there...

Worth the wait?

I'm reading in April in New York, at the incredible Pete's Big Salmon


So nice for my soul, to begin the semester knowing I have a NY trip in my not-too-distant-future...


And also, thank you to those of you who emailed me in response to my last post. One thing I am VERY thankful for, as a fence-sitting writer without a neighborhood of writers, is this amazing online community of phenomenal poets.


Wish I could be at AWP, buy each of you a drink!

January: National Identity-search month...

I deem it to be anyway.


I'm thinking a ton about ideantity, and Eduardo is helping me...


See, when I finished my MFA, after wandering about for a few years, I landed in my Hillel job.


In many ways, it's an incredible boon. I have stability, security, a liveable salary, dental. AND I get to work in a field that matters to me, I have a role in which I feel valued.


But the down side is that it isn't MY thing. It's a meaningful field, but not MY field. And because it matters to me, I can't bring myself to skimp on it as I would a crappy corporate job. So I feel pretty constantly split. Like I have to "choose."


Which is familar for me, Miss JewishyIrishy, the forever fence-sitter.

.
I remember one night at the Foxhead,a fter too much to drink, Salvatore Scibona yelled at me that I couldn't have it all. I yelled back, "Why not?"


But here I am, sitting on the fence, with a nice view but a poor seat.


Why does this come up now? Because Mr. Correl, in his infinite wisdom, asked for a page from our notebooks, in this very specific season of resolution(s).


And mine is almost empty.


Sixty hour weeks in Hillel-o-land don't leave many brain cells for scribbling, or even for noticing the world.


And yet, I still feel far more a writer than I'll ever feel a career-gal, no matter how useful/imporatant the career. I'm a writer and that's what I am.


If you put "Jew" at one end of a chalk-line and "Poet" at the other, and asked me to stand on the line in "MY" place...


I'd be almost on top of "Poet."


But my day-runner and my scribble-book don't indicate such. Nor my nightly reading. Nor my summer plans.


And even worse, my bosss said to me today, by coincidence, "You know, all your outside projects are cool, but they won't be so easy as you climb further up the ladder."


He's right. Which makes me wonder what to do...


I love my job, and I don't want to adjunct at 17 community colleges, or wait tables. But if that's what it takes to have writer-time?


I just don't know.


The funny thing is, I often wonder what this blog is for... whether it's about my religious life or my writing life.


It can't be both?


And you? If you had to stand on a chalk line... are you standing closer to "Writer" or to "Black?" Or to "Gay?" Or to "Woman?" Or to "Wife?" Or to "Mother?"


Who are you?

Eduardo's good idea...

I think it's a grand notion to post pages of our scribbles... Later, when I'm at home, I'll scan in a page. In the meantime, I'm posting my "junk file" from my desktop.


No laughing.


The centipede feet get tangled. All of them.


Methusaleeh is only old and all that goes with it—face like a spider web and hands like claws. Jezebel only showing her hip, licking her mouth raw. Icarus only ever flying/falling too close.


There’s a difference between last and stay


He’s unwieldy, that rolltop desk. He belongs in a bad movie,
with a false drawer and a hidden will.


Imogene. Imagine.

New word for the day...

Parentheretical

Resolutions begin...

For lunch today, salad and a cup of minestrone.


Then I picked up my new foster cat. His name? Kissifur. Like, Kissy-fur,,, Sad but true.


Now I'm off to swim. At the gym. Not so grim.

Poem

Good Morning


I didn’t set the alarm, but then it went off.
Loud, and lucky me—so the dogs began


Howling into the morning that wasn’t yet.
The dogs are good at predictions.


Everything is a chain reaction. The dogs
Wake up the birds, who wake up the coffeemaker.


Everyone has a job to do, so it was a day.
Yawn and shower as a siren passed. Some toast.


Only then the sun, a small sun.
Only then there was a body in my body.


The dogs have been turning up everywhere
this year. Live in the hedges.


With their bellies and their legs. Peeking
hungry, behind mailboxes, gimpy.


I love the dogs, but sometimes—
There are just so many of them!


Dog One and Dog Two can’t get along.
Dog Three is sad, and Dog Four forgets


Things more and more each day.
It’s difficult for the rest of us. It is.


Dog Five left us and we worry.
And poor Six won’t come close enough


To learn his name. We don’t know why.
We don’t know why . It has something


to do with routine, or maybe predictions.
He knows something, Six does.


It isn’t good , but he needs it. His
Alarm. I’ll fill his bowl by the hedge.

Seriously...

I'm thinking about poetry, and what a waste it is to write things... if those things aren't really what YOU want to say...


And so tomorrow, I'm loading up on coffee, and ripping my old manuscript a new asshole.


I keep thinking about why it's always a Bridesmaid, never a Bride... about why everyone seems to like the new poems more...


And I think I haven't been honest.


So tomorrow I'm going to wrest with it, run with it, cut-n-paste it down... to me... to what (I hope) I mean to say...


Wish me luck, and expect tears.

Sucky Sucky Democrats Lindsay Lohan in Playboy

A year is over, and I'm pretty happy with it. So I should really take a minute to thank 2004 for my marriage, my move, my job, my writing, my health, all the good stuff that happened to me over the course of the last 12 months.


Also, I should appreciate the 2004-ness of my blog-life. I'd like to thank 2004 for introducing me to all of you... Shanna and Tony and Josh and Laura and Rebecca and Katey... and for returning some of you to me... Ted and Eduardo and Matt and Sabrina and Antoine...


It's been a good year, and 2005 is waiting in the wings, ready to kick total ass.


For 2005, I'm hoping for more writing and more stability, maybe a book or a baby (much the same thing) and a few resolutions:


1. Daily activity! (Yes, I'm going to "work out" but also to walk the dog more and farther)


2. No taking in strays, but rather, involvement with an organized foster-program, so that my empathy doesn't affect the lives of my friends and family nearly so much.


3. Nightly writing. Same bat time. Same bat place.


4. Setting boundaries at work.