Stuff online

A long poem of mine can be found at Guernica Magazine.

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For those of you who are interested in my recent radio bit, I've been told the show won't air in Bellingham until Friday and that the podcast will likely be available around the same time. If you're really curious, you can check back with the Chuckanut Radio Hour's Website.

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I've been a busy bee indeed. Parenting, reading, writing, building garages . . .

I'm only three weeks into my summer and already I feel it sleeping away from all these projects.

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I need to buckle down and finish reading stuff. Not enough hours in the day, people. What I wouldn't do for a 25th or 26th hour. To think of all the things I'd get done.

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Nothing beats a good cover. Try this:



And compare it to the original:

On the Air

Tonight, I'll be reading a poem for the Chuckanut Radio Hour. If you're in Bellingham, WA, you can tune in to FM 102.3.

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Spent about three hours yesterday revising approximately 28 pages of a sequence for a chapbook entry. Fiddling with margins is tiring. The MS Word defaults drive me crazy. I keep turning them off, but somehow they magically get turned on again and again.

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I've been renovating my parents' garage. They were in dire need of storage and for the past couple of days I've been installing cabinets, building shelving, and putting down a work bench counter top.

I love power tools.

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I've been slow with the 32 books for the summer challenge. I blame The Wire.

It's my new addiction. I'm going to try to finish the novel I'm reading this week, before I head to The Kundiman Retreat.

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These days I feel like I'm mostly done with my third book. Such thinking has afforded me the luxury of thinking about other projects. As I mentioned earlier, I did some touch-ups on a chapbook which I think I can convert into a manuscript with a few more poems and pieces that work as counterpoints to the chapbook's main obsession.

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Wow. The quarry is blowing up parts of the mountain. I felt a really big explosion just now, after the whine of machinery.

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Current Spins:

The Innocence Mission. Calm. Summery.

Writers Group Stuff Day 6

Write a poem that somehow incorporates the idea of the DOCUMENTARY.
You could use a shaky, hand-held camera as your point of view, or you
might employ an element of documentary poetics in the piece (or
attempt some kind of hybrid thereof). Try to include the following, if
possible:

1. A quote, either real or invented.

2. A moment of unexpected humor or comic relief.

3. An object found in a place where that object is not typically
found.

4. At least one proper noun.

You might also try using the word "documentary" in the title, and then
writing a poem that doesn't announce itself as connected to a
documentary of any sort, but somehow distills the idea.

Extra credit: after your poem, share the name of your favorite
documentary or documentary-ish film.

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God, this was hard. Being funny is hard. Sort of lost the film idea of the POV.

Favorite documentary film--Trekkies.

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Poof!

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If you follow me on Facebook, you'll know that I'm addicted to The Wire. After much praise about the show, Meredith and I decided to see what all the hype was about. Oh my goodness, we devoured Season 1.

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Favorite characters--Freamon, Bubbles, and Omar.

Where the hell did they get these fantastic actors for this show?

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Prefuse 73.

Writing Group Stuff Day 5

The Prompt:

Write a poem that incorporates a city or town in the state you grew up
in, but make it a city you've never been to before.

Include a reference to either religious iconography or a national
monument.

Finally, use your favorite brand name laundry detergent.
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I cheated with the monument and the detergent. I sort of referred to 'em, but didn't give any names.

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The Poem:

Poof!

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I have to say that I'm not surprised about Michael Jackson's death, really. After all his surgical procedures, I imagined that he was on a number of addictive pain killers. The EMT in me saw the tell tale signs, just by watching him move around in public. Still, it's definitely a tragedy. There were quite a number of tragedies with celebrities this week--Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and now Michael Jackson. Rough week.

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MJ.

2 of 32

2 of 32, originally uploaded by odelapaz.

I'm still reading Almanac of the Dead, but I'm also reading Joel Brouwer's Exactly What Happened.

Almost done with the Silko and I'm about half way through Brouwer. My summer is long, so I think I can still meet my goal! 32 books for a summer!

Writing Group Day 4

Prompt:

Write a poem entitled:
Fragments Addressing ________________

You (obviously) can put anything in the blank, and use the title as a
call to form, or not.

Here's the other thing you have to do:
Use Google Image search and plug in whatever word (or words) you
inserted into the blank. Pick the 5th image that comes up and
incorporate it into your poem somehow. (For extra fun, feel free to
include a link to your image in your post.)

****************

Poof!
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Yeah, they're fragments. I think I'm going to blow this up. Here's the picture:

Na Pali Coast.

Why I chose this topic is beyond me. I had a National Geographic on my desk and figured I'd "topic-dive" for this prompt.

The hour time limit was actually a welcomed thing. This was a hard one for me.

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Currently editing a chapbook. . . my "Dear Empire" pieces are getting reworked into something.

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Super XX Man.

Writing Group Stuff Day 3

Here's the prompt:

Compound and portmanteau words.
Such as watermelon, suitcase, lipstick, icebox, tree lawn, honeydew,
hairdresser, overcoat, typewriter, whale road, mantelpiece, T.V. tray,
pigtail, ladyfinger, copperhead, newsprint, etc. For some reason, I’m
finding this interesting lately. I’m not sure if it’s the putting
together of two things or their exact relationship or the metaphoric-
ness or the echo of kennings??? Use at least 8 compound words in a
poem. They can be either the compound word itself or the compound
taken apart into the two separate words. Quick source:
http://www.janbrett.com/piggybacks/compound.htm


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POOF!

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This was fun and I could've kept going but I've got other projects on my plate for today. I'm pretty sure I'll come back to this poem.

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Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. I am seriously thinking about getting a ukelele and here's a master for you.

Writing Group Stuff Day 2

OMG. Why did I try a pantoum? I did adhere to the one-hour writing quota, but I fear I didn't have as much time to revise as I'd like. And I kept screwing up the pattern so I kept having to go back and redo things.

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Look at the Junk Drawers by Paho Mann. Assemble your own junk drawer
and create a poem influenced by its contents.

www.pahomann.com.

This is a prompt directly taken from my friend Papatya Bucak.

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Poof!

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Lisa Hannigan with a very cool hat.