The stranger that lives...

The stranger that lives with you shall be to you like the native, and you shall love her as yourself...


(Leviticus 19:34)

See you Wednesday!!!

Okay, so I'll be arriving in Vancouver on Wed. afternoon, and will be situated often at the BOMB table (looooong story.... doing a favor for a friend). Hope to see you there!


In other news, I went to the UNDERGROUND this week for the first time. It's like a big mall in the basement of the city, with kiosks and bars and cheesey people walking around buying souvenir plstic cups full of frozen margaritas.... very very strange! Not likely to go back, but it was an experiemce worth having...


In still other news, we paid our taxes this week and learned about the marriage tax the hard way. Ouch! Bye-bye money...

Lifestyles...

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the choices we make, and the lifestyles we choose... or earn, as the case may be. A lot of the kids I work with walk out of their undergrad into six-figure jobs as engineers.


Pause for thought?


And these recent thought have led me to a decision-- that my next job will either be as a "starving artist" or a "moneybags".


See, working the kind of job I work, though it isn't a total sell-out, doesn't leave me the real room I need to write (which I might have if I had a teaching job), but it also doesn't take away any of the financial stress I have. Hence, I might as well be waiting tables and wearing paint-covered jeans and living a much less restrictive life.


So I'm thinking that somewhere down the line I'm either selling my soul to Ted Turner or quitting work altogether, returning to the days of selling plasma, living on ramen, and writing writing writing.


Any thoughts? Where are you on the money-bags-------starving artist spectrum?

A year ago this week...

I wrote (imagining today):


Hotlanta... is a happening joint, no? Anyone know anything about Atlanta? It's at the top of the list right now... as I've applied for a gig at Emory. Anyone know a nice/ cheap neighborhood? Don't tell me the traffic is awful, I know it already... Are there poets in Atlanta? Are there poets?


And now I answer my own question... Atlanta IS a happening joint. The traffic mattters far more than I could have known/understood. There are poets somewhere I suppose, but not in a way that makes sense to me...


Still, I'm glad we moved. I love my house and neighborhood, LOVE being in the south again. We will probably move elseward in a year or two, if Chris doesn't find a different job, close to home... but this is a good place to be.


In other news, last night I was humbled. I learned a lesson.


I have always been one to sneer at Spoken Word as a poetic form. I'm not a fan-of-the-slam either. But last night, at a Hillel program I hosted an event called Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad, and one of the performers was a spoken-word-poet named Vanessa Hidary, the Hebrew Mamita. The entire event was AMAZING, but the poetry segment was not something I expected to enjoy. I thought I'd be gritting my teeth a little.


I was wrong. It was powerful! People were almost crying at my table. Everyone was breathless. Vanessa totally outstripped the strippers that the crowd had come to see.


Now, I'll admit that this kind of poetry has a different set of goals, but it IS poetry after all... in its attention to sound and shape of language... its dependence on image narrative and rhyme.


I found myself thinking that my work could use a little more of that power, that lack of ironic distance, that willful intent to communicate and address issues...


Something to think about. And if NJGGB comes to ytour town, GO!!!!



They aint yo mama's Fiddler!

excuse my language...

but jim morrison is an absolute douchebag.

Am wondering if...

The Unruly Serpant is wanting to gloat about his sitemeter of late...


Well, Michael? How many hits you getting?


In other news, I was reading Victoria Rashke's site today...


It made me want to say this out loud:


We are thinking about Nashville. Not this year, but next...


It would be nice to eat some of this cooking. Meet Keifel and the boychik.

On the Unexpected...

I've been thinking lately about my Now & Later school of poetry... and also I've been contemplating the "mainstream" and the ol' narrative lyric. Because I spent a day very much in that camp, at the Meacham Conference, with Marvin Bell and Richard Jackson and Rodney Jones and Jack Myers and Tom Rabitt. And I enjoyed the readings very much, and loved the event.


But then I got to wondering why, though I tend to read this sort of poetry (e.g.James Wright), I lean toward new writers on the other side of the coin. Why do I LOVE Sabrina's work, or Matthea Harvey's poems, if I'm so "mainstream"?


And I looked down at the copy of Immortality I'm re-reading for the hundredth time, and thought about the unexpected. In logic, in history, in chronology.


I considered that I chose, in THE STICK game, to be both Letters to a Young Poet, and a James Thurber Fairy Tale.


The unexpected is NOT abstraction. It isn't when logic breaks down or gets encoded. It isn't when you can't understand. It is when you are surprised by an alternate logic, forced to re-understand the world. THIS is what I like that I find in all types of poetry. THIS is, for me, the Now & Later.


I've been imagining a series of paintings lately, paintings I would paint if I could paint. In the paintings there is a room, and on the walls of the room are trees, identical to the trees that can be seen at a particular angle through the door-jamb of the room. There is no door, just a rectangular space with a border of wood, through which the trees can be seen. Hanging next to the door is a mirror with exactly the same border as the door jamb, and the mirror reflects back the wall-trees from the other side of the room. From certain angles, it is clear that the mirror is a mirror. From some it isn't.


This is a world that makes sense, a self-contained logic. You could build it if you wanted, but it has an abstract or surreal quality too. Like La Petite Prince. Like Genesis. Like poetry.

More like it...

My ploy worked, and now I've been stuck!!! (Thank you David and AD)


Only now I find my answers are embarassing... and I'm bewildered by the fact that I tend to read poems in dribs and drabs, not cover-to-cover.... so does reading two poems from a book make it "the last book I read"? I don't think so. At any rate, here we go...


You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?


I guess I'll be something short but meaningful. Something worth saving, but that I'll enjoy memorizing/being... so I'll become Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet." Or maybe Thurber's "The Thirteen Clocks."


Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?


Too many to count... but the most memorable and most frequently: Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisted, as well a Charles Ryder from the same book. Depending on how masochistic I'm feeling.


The last book you bought is:


Oh lordy! Atlanta has no truly good bookstores and so I'm ashamed to admit how long it's been. Three of the last 4 books I've bought have been at the airport, and I wouldn't exactly call them "books". Sigh. The fourth was "Devil in the Details" by Jennifer Traig. Let's say that was the last book I bought. That or a used copy of "Empire Falls."


The last book you read:


God's Little Acre, by Erskine Caldwell. (Shiver)


What are you currently reading?


The Five Books of Moses, Robert Alter


Five books you would take to a deserted island:
(I think it depends how long I expect to survive...)

The Torah
The Dreamsongs, Berryman
The Discoverers, Boorstin
Collected Yeats
Collected O'Hara


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


Jilly Dybka... because she's a cool person I have yet to meet in the "real world."
Tom Hopkins... because he's a rock star, and I'm curious what he'll say.
Ali Stine... because she has a new blog and everyone shouldread it!

Unpopular...

Nobody passed me the stick...


In other news, I do not know how to record myself reading poems and burn it to an mp3. But i will send you a disk, Matt... just as soon as hubby digs out the microphone from the closet... I will send you a "greatest hits" poetry CD.


In still other news, Newt is back, rejected by his adoptive home. I might keep him.

Quickly, quickly...

Everything is quickly...


Seriously, I got back from DC and ran off to TN for a day of Meacham, and then came back to help throw together a Purim burlesque show.... Loooooooong story.


My point? I've been too busy to post. I miss it.


I have read nothing this week. I have written nothing this week. But I am in the home stretch to part-time-work-life and (let's hope) lots of writing.


Hope you had a good Irish-beer-day. Hope you are enjoying this amazing weather. Hope you will bear with me...

So much to say...

And no time to say it...


I spent two days at Hillel's Shusterman International Center, in a consultation with about 12 other people who are seriously involved in the issue of interfaith families.


It was pretty intense. Orthodox rabbis and Hillel donors and me. It was pretty intense... and amazing.


For two days we argued and explained and considered and cajoled in true Jewish form. Because this is a crossroads for the Jewish community, something we/they are being forced to face. Like Zionism. Like the Reform movement. Like the destruction of the Temple. This is something that threatens to change, reform, recreate Judaism as it understands itself.


The numbers are in... and numbers are powerful.


The hardest moment for me was when I realized something, as a Jew, an interfaithfull-of-it gal, and a Hillel worker. There were two issues at the table.


1. Saving Judaism (as it exists currently).


2. Serving an unserved population.


These issues are not mutually exclusive at all, but there was a moment when I realized that I'm not working on issue 1.... I'm all about issue 2. Because I have faith in Judaism. I don't need to save Judaism. I'm pretty sure Judaism will be okay, considering the odds we've had for 6000 years... and where we've ended up. I think G-d is taking care of issue number 1.


This was not the end of the conversation... not a time to make decisions. This was the beginning, and I'm proud of Hillel for not being afraid to initiate the dialogue.


I'm honored to be a part of it. I wish you caould have been there.

I'm off...

My rocker, and also OFF TO our nation's capitol. To represent the JewishyIrishy vote!!! I'll tell you more later, but it's way cool.


In other news... Chattanooga next weekend, for Meacham. To eat some poems, walk the Walnut Street Bridge, get all nostalgic over a Tubby's Burger...

AIM has new terms...

And you NEED to know about them...


Seriously, guys... as writers in the "new millenium" and all that noise... most of us have monkeyed with the idea of using the IM format/form/process in our poeticallistic endeavors...


But the new terms of AIM stipulate that AOL can eavesdrop on, and use your words... they can do whatever they want with them. And if you compile them, use them, publish them... it looks like they own that too!


Can you believe it? Read more HERE!!!

Change is in the air...

Because Margaret has arrived, in a wind from Iowa, to visit. She is enamored of all the aminals... Hello Margaret!!!

And leaving on another gust of wind? Newt, my baby boy... Good luck out there in the world, Newt!!!

Margaret and I plan to spend all weekend eating things she can't get in Iowa and watching Brideshead Revisited...

Things we can't blog about...

The things we REALLY want to blog about. Argh. Very frustrating. If you're a mind reader, tell me what TO DO...


Meanwhile...


Have you ever cooked something just so your house would smell good, as though a person actually lived there?


My husband is working INSANE hours and I have not cooked in forev. So tonight I grilled an onion too old to eat, just to cover up the smell of the lean pockets and desperation...


Now it smells like the mediterranean, like friends will soon be stopping by, like I'm opening a bottle of chianti classico.


Like grad school. Sigh.

Looooong daze...

And short nights. A lot to stew on.


Meanwhile... I'm going to DC next week for a consultation in interfaith philosophies. Way Cool.


And Margaret is coming here this weekend!!!


In other news I mulched the beds in the front yard and we bought a chainsaw. Good times.


I miss Emma.

Meet the pups...

Lately I have been oft-occupied with PUPPIES! They are driving me nuts, but are actually pretty effing adorable. They peep and poop all day long, but even the little puddles are like, "Oh! What a cute little puddle of peep!" The pups are what we call "East Atlanta Specials" which differentiates them from the more common regional breed, "the Choupherd."Here they are... Newt and Nora!





Nora was adopted on Saturday, by a little boy named Gary (and Gary's dad) for her 6th birthday. Bye bye Nora!!!!





Newt (named for a Lonesome Dove character, not Gingrich!) was not yet adopted, but we have an application in on him, and he may go home on Tuesday... Hi Newt!





In other news.... there have been some very odd developments!

Yo mama...

Poetry is like my mother...


Not always "fun" but there for me when I need her.


My mother is like poetry...


She doesn't always "make sense" but she's usually right.


Last night, Laurie Watel reminded me that "poetry speaks to death, to the things we fear." Which is something true, something that undercuts all the mainstream/ post avant/ language/ modernist issues a person can raise... poetry is what we do when we fight back/ talk back to the world... when we try to figure things out.


"What is poetry that does not save lives?" To battle!

Doing much better....

But last night was complicated...


We (Hillel) brought someone to campus last night to talk about Israel, someone whose politics couldn't be further from my own... someone far to the religious-right of Ariel Sharon... and while I DO believe that my job is to help and support the students in whatever they endeavor to do... that doesn't mean it's always easy. My solution was to keep myself so busy with setup and support that I didn't have time to actually meet our speaker or attend the event.


But ironically, in the room below the event I was "working" there was a poetry reading happening, which was full of the people I DO want to be hanging out with... including a friend of mine from Breadloaf and four students from Chattanooga (my undergrad writing school) who had driven down to hear Williams and Zagajewski.


At one point I found myself standing on a stair, looking at the two doors, all symbolic and shit. I had to pick a door. The lady or the tiger, no?


I snuck in quietly and sat down. And felt all at peace. I was okay with myself. I forgave myself.


You can say what you want about the mainstream, but a Polish poet trumps a military-man any day.


Iamb what iamb.

What "means the most"???

Peter, Anne, and the PINUPS have all been posting the ten poems that "mean the most"or something like that. I love how much crossover there is when a conversation like this gets started.


Because who wouldn't take the bible to a desert island if they could only grab 10 books? Deep down, we all have a lot in common. And when you only get 10 picks, hipster status (that impulse to want a CD in your collection that nobody else knows at all) tends to fall away...


Not surprisingly, these are poems I've known forever, and reread a lot, the "Bob Dylan" poems... the "meatloaf" poems... the poems that are embedded in me and my writing.


I'm thinking about them now, with regards to the Now & Later theory...


My ten poems:

In the Waiting Room, Bishop
Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy's Farm In Pine Island, Minnesota, Wright
Dreamsong 14, Berryman
I Know a Man, Creeley
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Eliot
The Chicken Without a Head, Simic
Song of a Wandering Aengus, Yeats
They Feed They Lion, Levine
For Grace, After a Party, O Hara
Ruth, What is Happiness?, Amichai

Poem which risks disappearance...

(by being written directly into a blogger field rather than writeen in word.doc and then copied into blogger... because sometimes you just need to right a poem. Right now. Write! Now!)


There are some things
in the world. Not about
it, or your head all cloudy.


There are some things
you just can't just slap
an old farmhouse onto.


Some things soup won't
wash away. Or a highway.
Some things are just there.


This is why I invented bed
and tomorrow and beer
battered onion rings.


Everything counts
sheep.Everything fights
a battle and loses.


You have to give up
at least once each day
to be a person.


If you don't close your
book you won't ever
brush your teeth.

Today and for a bit...

I'm sad today.


Why do there always have to be so many hurdles?

I dreamed an alphabet, a word...

Last night I had a dream. In the dream, I wrote a picture book, an ABC, but instead of...


A is for apple. B is for ball... C is for chair...


Each letter was an unusual word. One letter to a page with incredible pictures... I remember only the first five, because the fifth word WOKE ME!


A is for abscond... B is for badminton... C is for corral ... D is for dastardly... E is for eluarthy...


!!!


Eluarthy? Eluarthy? In the dream, I just KNEW that eluarthy is the word used to describe the process by which a large bird swoops around stealing things from jars with its talons...


I woke up and realized I'd made up the word. Went back to sleep and dreamed the last page of the book, a block of prose called CONTEXT, which was a story using all 26 words...


"During the badminton championships at Somerset, a dastardly fellow name Jeremy J absconded with all the miniatures poodles and papillons while the ladies weren't lookng. He coralled them into the loo. Meanwhile, above, in a feat of treacherous eluarthy, an eagle snatched the necklaces of those same unfortunates damsels..."


Or something like that. So then I couldn't sleep and got up to make tea and cinnamon toast.

What work is...

Katey's thinking... Has got me thinking...


I often get wrapped up in the "work" of writing, and the "idea" of the work. It's hard, sometimes, you know?


And then I get wrapped up in thinking about how content I'd be to stay at home, cooking stew and collaging old furniture.


Which isn't quite the same as Katey's issue, since design is an art too. But it's much like kid's writing for me. Writing a picture book feels fun!!! with three exclamation points, and poetry feels arduous somehow.


So why do I do it? Good question...


I answer with a pome of mine own, written a few years back, printed in Sebastian Matthews very fine journal, Rivendell:



WORK


I want to hurt you, all you easy places. I want you
to really bleed. Sunday Morning and the daylight
pushes through me, against me and through the happy
window. The paper falls heavy on the table, then
the newsprint itches my capable hands. Now,
the smell of coffee, and the cat pushing through it
to a very soft footstool. I'd like to quit this,
but I can't move myself, can't pick up my hatchet
and chop through this very soft day.


No person has the right to be happy. It isn't nice
to be a lover or a sister or a child of someone else.
Either you have breathable air and the ground feels flat
beneath your feet, or you live in my world,
in my little house, on my tiny street, in my small
town where the dishwater wrinkles my capable
hands like it should. Where the dandelions have to be
pulled by the roots again each year. Where
I push into my spiny life and my spiny life pushes back.