Cover #5

delaPazcvr5
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

This one's more or less the "photo negative" of cover 3 from a previous post.

Cover Dilemma Redux

delaPazcvr4
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Choice #4

Spidey Senses are Tingling . . .

Guess what opens in theaters at midnight tonight?

How I'm Feeling

clusterballoon
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

The mystery cold is still in my chest. I tried to describe to my students how I felt. I think this picture accurately summarizes my state. I feel like I'm floating.

I'm feeling restless, though. I normally go to the gym five days a week, but I'm subscribing to the "neck-up/ neck-down" theory of exercising if you have a cold. The deal is, if the cold's just sniffles and that sort of thing, you can exercise. If, however, you feel a deep chesty cold, you need to take a few days off.

As for the picture, apparently balloon-cluster flying is a sport now. That's a real dude . . . with real balloons.

Tease

Galley
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

This came yesterday . . .

May 1st

Nothing important to say.
It's the first day of May . . . and it looks like I've started . . . penning a couplet. Eek.

***

Confession: I went to a White Snake concert when I was younger. (It would've been an even bigger confession if it was "I went to a White Snake concert yesterday).

Springy

I have, somehow, caught a cold. It's really weird. I don't usually get sick around this time of year, and I usually don't get sick this frequently. My throat got that scratchy/tickly feeling 'round Thursday and it went on from there. Come Saturday evening, I've got a full blown chest congestion. I woke up this morning and I sounded like Barry White . . . or maybe Tom Waits.

***

That said, I stupidly mowed the lawn this morning, even though I felt like crap. Whenever I see a lawn that's wild with dandelions, I feel the urge to cut them back. Our lawn was covered! COVERED!!

***

More springy things. We're getting these tiny yellow birds to visit our feeders after a long season of sparrows, sparrows, and more sparrows. It's good to see a bit more variety. I haven't looked up the names for the birds yet. We've also got lots and lots of woodpeckers visiting our suet. Golden Flickers, Hairy Woodpeckers, etc., all come down to visit. For awhile, we had a Golden Flicker pecking our house until I made a mobile out of blank CD's which I strung from a beam near the pecking site.

Also, our Japanese Maple has now taken to leaf as have our apple trees.

What's more, sun. We've had a succession of sunny days which has been glorious. Only problem is it's been hard to do work and, as I've complained earlier, we've still got 5-6 weeks of school left over here.

***

AWP Panel proposals are due Tuesday. Get 'em in. Remember, you can only be on two panels and three proposals. I had forgotten that fact and had to back out of one.

I am addicted to magazines

So, I now subscribe to several periodicals: Rollingstone, Paste,The New Yorker, Poets & Writers . . . and I'm not counting the journals. Meredith gets Vanity Fair which I browse, and we jointly get Budget Travel, a gift from my parents. I can't keep up! I swear, Paste sends me a magazine a week! The cool thing about Paste, though, is that each issue includes a sampler CD. 11 issues, 11 CD's, $24 . . . that's not bad. Anyway, thought I'd let you in on my mania.

****

My English 460 Class: The Historic Collection, is shaping up with some good ideas. It's a multi-genre class, so I need a sample of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction . . . maybe even plays. I'll be teaching this class in the Fall which, as I stated earlier, I came up with on the spur of the moment when I was surrounded by four of my colleagues who wanted to know immediately what I was teaching next year (you know who you are if you're reading this).

Here's what I've got so far:

Poetry:
Nicole Cooley The Afflicted Girls
Davis McCoombs Ultima Thule
Claudia Rankine Plot
Martha Collins Blue Front

Fiction

Annie Proulx Accordian Crimes
Bharati Mukherji Holder of the World
Julian Barnes Flaubert's Parrot

Anyway, I know there's lots of historical novels, but are there specifically collections of short stories that use a historical point as a unifying device? How about a book of sustained short essays about a historical event?

****

As I mentioned earlier, I'll be heading down to Whidbey Island to read for Burning Word. Fellow bloggers Peter and Shin Yu will be there.

I'll be here:

Paul Gillie Stage, Main Barn
Session 1: 10:00 am - 11:10 am

Help.

tree-goat-1
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

I just finished week 4 of the quarter . . . and I'm already beat. I sort of feel like . . . like a goat in a tree . . .

Four Adirondack Chairs

. . . were in our carport yesterday. I assembled all of 'em last night while watching NBA Playoff basketball. They were made out of cedar, so the whole living room smelled like cedar trees. There's something special about an Adirondack chair--they make me want to sit and do nothing for hours on end.

***

It's the end of the fourth week of the quarter . . . six more weeks to go. Oh. My. God.

***

I've been reading a bunch of poems lately, like Paige's book. I'm also reading Julianna's new book.

***

I had to blurt out what I'll be teaching for next year. Off the top of my head: "The Historical Collection." So . . . help. Got any poetry/short story/ non-fiction pieces that deal with a historical event? I've got Nicole Cooley's The Afflicted Girls in mind. Got any others? Anyway, this sort of syncs up with my own current poetry project.

***

My students hate writing in iambic pentameter.

Cue: Ghoulish chortle.

I love Patches

Mowing the Lawn to Poetry

I received my iPod filled with poems From the Fishouse. A few statements:


1) There needs to be a volume control on two-cycle engines.

2) Contemporary poetry is alive, well, and kicking ass.


***

Saturday, I made my way down to Seattle to see a few of the Cave Canem poets read at the Seattle Poetry Festival. The wonderful Lauri Conner, Gloria Burgess, Camille Dungy, and Adrian Matejka were in the house.

They gave a splendid reading and after, Lauri was kind enough to invite us over to here wonderful house. I did take pictures, but they didn't come out very well.

Also alas, I couldn't be two places at once, so I had to choose between Bruce Beasley and Suzanne Paola, my WWU colleagues, and the CC poets. Bruce, Suzanne, if you're reading this, I'm sorry!

Also alas alas, I missed hearing Peter and Jeannine.

***

Heading over to Whidbey Island on the 28th to read at the Burning Word poetry festival:

Paul Gillie Stage, Main Barn
Session 1: 10:00 am - 11:10 am
Karen Bonaudi, MC
Toni Bajado
Bruce Beasley
A Pair of Pearls from Portland:
Cindy Williams Gutierrez
Willa Schneberg
Oliver de la Paz

Yeah, I know. Pretty damn early.

Kazim Ali is Dangerous

Here's a forwarded e-mail note from Kazim:

Hi all,

Please read the below and forward widely to whomever
you think should read:


Poetry is Dangerous
by Kazim Ali


On April 19, after a day of teaching classes at
Shippensburg University, I went out to my car and
grabbed a box of old poetry manuscripts from the front
seat of my little white beetle and carried it across
the street and put it next to the trashcan outside
Wright Hall. The poems were from poetry contests I had
been judging and the box was heavy. I had previously
left my recycling boxes there and they were always
picked up and taken away by the trash department.

A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my
car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car
which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires
strange looks. I later discovered that I, in my dark
skin, am sometimes not even a person to the people who
look at me. Instead, in spite of my peacefulness, my
committed opposition to all aggression and war, I am a
threat by my very existence, a threat just living in
the world as a Muslim body.

Upon my departure, he called the local police
department and told them a man of Middle Eastern
descent driving a heavily decaled white beetle with
out of state plates and no campus parking sticker had
just placed a box next to the trash can. My car has
NY plates, but he got the rest of it wrong. I have two
stickers on my car. One is my highly visible faculty
parking sticker and the other, which I just don’t have
the heart to take off these days, says “Kerry/Edwards:
For a Stronger America.”

Because of my recycling the bomb squad came, the state
police came. Because of my recycling buildings were
evacuated, classes were canceled, campus was closed.
No. Not because of my recycling. Because of my dark
body. No. Not because of my dark body. Because of his
fear. Because of the way he saw me. Because of the
culture of fear, mistrust, hatred, and suspicion that
is carefully cultivated in the media, by the
government, by people who claim to want to keep us
‘safe.’

These are the days of orange alert, school lock-downs,
and endless war. We are preparing for it, training for
it, looking for it, and so of course, in the most
innocuous of places—a professor wanting to hurry home,
hefting his box of discarded poetry—we find it.

That man in the parking lot didn’t even see me. He saw
my darkness. He saw my Middle Eastern descent. Ironic
because though my grandfathers came from Egypt, I am
Indian, a South Asian, and could never be mistaken for
a Middle Eastern man by anyone who’d ever met one.

One of my colleagues was in the gathering crowd,
trying to figure out what had happened. She heard my
description—a Middle Eastern man driving a white
beetle with out of state plates—and knew immediately
they were talking about me and realized that the box
must have been manuscripts I was discarding. She
approached them and told them I was a professor on the
faculty there. Immediately the campus police officer
said, “What country is he from?”

“What country is he from?!” she yelled, indignant.

“Ma’am, you are associated with the suspect. You need
to step away and lower your voice,” he told her.

At some length several of my faculty colleagues were
able to get through to the police and get me on a cell
phone where I explained to the university president
and then to the state police that the box contained
old poetry manuscripts that needed to be recycled. The
police officer told me that in the current climate I
needed to be more careful about how I behaved. “When I
recycle?” I asked.

The university president appreciated my distress about
the situation but denied that the call had anything to
do with my race or ethnic background. The spokesperson
of the university called it an “honest mistake,” not
referring to the young man from ROTC giving in to his
worst instincts and calling the police but referring
to me who made the mistake of being dark-skinned and
putting my recycling next to the trashcan.

The university’s bizarrely minimal statement lets
everyone know that the “suspicious package” beside the
trashcan ended up being, indeed, trash. It goes on to
say, “We appreciate your cooperation during the
incident and remind everyone that safety is a joint
effort by all members of the campus community.”

What does that community mean to me, a person who has
to walk by the ROTC offices every day on my way to my
own office just down the hall—who was watched, noted,
and reported, all in a day’s work? Today we gave in
willingly and whole-heartedly to a culture of fear and
blaming and profiling. It is deemed perfectly
appropriate behavior to spy on one another and police
one another and report on one another. Such behaviors
exist most strongly in closed and undemocratic and
fascist societies.

The university report does not mention the root cause
of the alarm. That package became “suspicious” because
of who was holding it, who put it down, who drove
away. Me.

It was poetry, I kept insisting to the state policeman
who was questioning me on the phone. It was poetry I
was putting out to be recycled.

My body exists politically in a way I can not prevent.
For a moment today, without even knowing it, driving
away from campus in my little beetle, exhausted after
a day of teaching, listening to Justin Timberlake on
the radio, I ceased to be a person when a man I had
never met looked straight through me and saw the
violence in his own heart.

Back from SF

I'm back from San Francisco where I had a wonderful time at USF. It was so good to see Barbara Jane and Oscar there.

I also met fellow participants Paige Ackerson-Kiely, Daniel Alarcon, Ann Joslin Williams, and my old friend Michael Meija.

It was a great conference. I didn't get a chance to sniff around San Francisco, but Paige, Mike, and myself wandered around Haight and Ashbury a bit.

Later, we met up with Meredith's sister and her partner.

All told, it was a good but extremely brief visit. I need to go back sometime in the summer and have a real vacation.

***

I'm still recovering from the sorrow of losing a friend and the madness of the news from Blacksburg. The world's a strange place.

***

Thelonious Sphere Monk is looping in iTunes.

Pulitzer Prizes

This was sent courtesy of Joseph Legaspi:



PULITZER PRIZES 2007

Columbia University today announced the 2007 Pulitzer Prizes,
awarded on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board

JOURNALISM

Public Service --
The Wall Street Journal

Breaking News Reporting --
Staff of The Oregonian, Portland

Investigative Reporting --
Brett Blackledge of The Birmingham (Ala.) News

Explanatory Reporting --
Kenneth R. Weiss, Usha Lee McFarling and Rick Loomis of the Los Angeles Times

Local Reporting --
Debbie Cenziper of The Miami Herald

National Reporting --
Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe

International Reporting --
The Wall Street Journal Staff

Feature Writing --
Andrea Elliott of The New York Times

Commentary --
Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Criticism --
Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly

Editorial Writing --
Editorial Board of the New York Daily News

Editorial Cartooning --
Walt Handelsman of Newsday, Long Island, N.Y.

Breaking News Photography --
Oded Balilty of The Associated Press

Feature Photography --
Renée C. Byer of The Sacramento Bee

LETTERS AND DRAMA

Fiction --
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf)

Drama --
Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire

History --
The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (Alfred A. Knopf)

Biography --
The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate (Doubleday)

Poetry --
Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (Houghton Mifflin)

General Nonfiction --
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright (Alfred A. Knopf)

MUSIC
Sound Grammar by Ornette Coleman, recording released September 12, 2006.

SPECIAL CITATIONS

Ray Bradbury and John Coltrane

Phebus Etienne: 1966-2007

PhebusEtienne
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

It is with a heavy heart that I tell you, friends, about the passing of a beautiful person. I met Phebus in New York through our friend Joseph Legaspi. It was clear that she was all aura. All sparrow. If her name were a place, the sun at every hour in this country, would beam just so, and the bodies touched by those beams would shimmer.

She passed away at home on March 31, 2007, at the young age of 41 due to a heart attack.

Funeral Arrangements

Wake: Andrew Torregrossa & Sons (funeral home)
2265 Flatbush Avenue (between Filmore & Avenue "R")
Brooklyn , NY 11234
Friday , April 13th, 4pm thru 9pm
718-253-5900

Mass: St. Gregory's Catholic Church
St. Johns Place & Brooklyn Ave.
Brooklyn, New York
Saturday April 14th, 9:15 am
718-773-0100

Internment:Rosedale & Rosehill Cemetary, 355 East Linden Avenue, Linden, NJ 07036, 908.862.4990.

Visit January, Tayari, Tara, Amanda, John, Mendi, and Reggie for more about Phebus.

I leave for you the title poem from her manuscript:


Chainstitching

After I buried my mother, I would see her often,
standing at the foot of my bed
in a handmade nightgown she trimmed with lace
whenever I was restless with fever or menstrual cramps.
I was not afraid, and if her appearance was a delusion,
it only confirmed my heritage.
Haitians always have relationships with the dead.
Each Sabbath, I lit a candle that burned for seven days.
I created an altar on the top shelf of an old television cart.
It was decorated with her Bible, a copy of The Three Musketeers,
freesia, delphinium or lilies if they were in season.
My offering of her favorite things didn’t conjure
conversations with her spirit as I had hoped.
But there was a dream or two where she was happy,
garnets dangling from her ears,
and one night she shuffled some papers,
which could have been history of my difficult luck
because she said, “We have to do something about this.”

She hasn’t visited me for months.
I worry that my life is an insult to her memory,
that she looks in and turns away
because I didn’t remain a virgin until I married,
because my debts will remain unforgiven.

Lightning tattoos the elms as florists make
corsages to honor living mothers.
I think of going to mass at St. Anne, where she was startled
by the fire of wine when she received her first communion.
But I remember that first Mother’s Day without her,
how it pissed me off to watch a seventy year-old daughter
escort her mom to sip from the chalice.

Yesterday, as the rain fell warm on the azaleas,
I planted creeping phlox on my mother’s grace,
urging the miniature flowers to bloom larger next year
like the velvet petals of bougainvillea that covered our neighbor’s gate.
I crave a yard to plant lemon and mango trees as she did.
Tonight I mold dumplings for pumpkin stew,
add a dash of vinegar for spice as she taught me,
sprinkle my palms with flour before rolling the dough between them.
I will thread my needle and embroider a coconut tree on a place mat,
keep stitching her presence in my life.

Phebus Etienne

White Noise and the Sound of Key Clicks

Much of my spare change gets spent on books and CD's (even if I don't have that much change to spare). Recently acquired CD's include the new Yeah Yeah Yeah's album, the new Modest Mouse, Tom Waits's "Orphans" triple album, and Kristen Hersh's new album. I guess I'm looking for a spark. Something that'll permit me to park my ass in front of my monitor and endure a full dosage of my own personality. Sometimes I can't stand my mind.

When I wrote "Furious Lullaby" I listened almost exclusively to instrumental music. And I'm not talking about the usual Jazz or Classical selections. I listened to weird things, collections of noises, unconventional instrumental groups. I listened to stuff from The Rachel's, The Dirty Three, Japancake, and Godspeed You Black Emperor. I couldn't listen to music that had discernible lyrics because they somehow end up in what I was writing at the moment. Melody, however, I'd allow into my writing, even if it's a borrowed melody from a musical piece. But it's not like I'm conscious of the melody when it comes as I'm writing. It's just there. It's background. It's something that allows me to keep moving.

Coffeehouses were great for some of my earlier stuff. Thinking back on it, I think the coffeehouse setting was useful because my first book was populated. There were actual people in the collection. It was a work that was about people. The second book . . . very few people. Mostly the speaker and "you." Which makes sense as I sit here, trying to figure out how to move on to the next project.

Ah yes, the next project. I know what it is and what it's becoming. That may be part of the problem. When intent overwhelms the creative process, can there be no room for spontaneity? Say I want to go in one direction with a piece, will my intent forbid me from taking alternate routes?

All this leads me back to music. I suppose listening to music allows me the possibility of a change in direction. At this juncture in the project, I don't have a great deal of perspective. I'm 20 something poems into it. And the poems are all clearly part of the same "orchestral sequence," but I'm unsure of the transitions between pieces. Maybe a tune will present the bridges between pieces. Maybe I should stop thinking about my process and start writing . . .

Currently, Tom Waits is howling. Tom Waits, are you my angel?

Quote of the day

--Everything written symbols can say has already passed by. They are like tracks left by animals. That is why the masters of meditation refuse to accept that writings are final. The aim is to reach true being by means of those tracks, those letters, those signs--but reality itself is not a sign, and it leaves no tracks. It doesn't come to us by way of letters or words. We can go toward it, by following those words and letters back to what they came from. But so long as we are preoccupied with symbols, theories and opinions, we fail to reach the principle.
--But when we give up symbols and opinions, arent we left in the utter nothingness of being?
--Yes.

KIMURA KYUHO, Kenjutsu Fushigi Hen [On the Mysteries of Swordsmanship] 1768

Cover Image Redux

Thanks for all your feedback, dear readers. At first glance, my number one choice was image #3. I liked the classical look. It did, however, remind me of a textbook, so I was a little worried about it. As I said earlier, the press preferred image #2. I've sent an e-mail to the press asking them if they could transfer the typeface and by-line formatting from #3 and transpose it to the darker boarder of #2. The project manager liked the idea and sent it over to the design folks, so if and when I get some new images, I'll post 'em here.

***

Just finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Yes, I know it's an Oprah selection. I had it in my shelves before it was picked. Anyway, I have to say that I couldn't put it down. I finished it in two days (I had to eat and exercise so I couldn't finish it in a day).

***

The first day of the Spring Quarter is now.

***

I'll be in San Francisco next week, reading for the USF Emerging Writers' Festival. Most of my events will be on the 12th. My reading's at 7:30PM in the Maraschi Room, Fromm Hall. There's also a panel earlier that day at 12:00PM, also in the Maraschi Room, Fromm Hall.

The full schedule is as follows:

SCHEDULE: EMERGING WRITERS' FESTIVAL, APRIL 11-13 On the campus of the University of San Francisco


Wednesday, 11 April, 7:30 p.m., McLaren 252--Reading by poet Paige
Ackerson-Kiely, novelist Michael Mejia and short story writer Daniel
Alarcon.

Thursday, 12 April, 12 p.m., Maraschi Room, Fromm Hall--Panel
discussion: "Becoming a Writer." All 5 writers are asked to discuss
their path to writing, publishing, etc. Structure is Q & A format.

Thursday, 12 April, 7:30 p.m., Maraschi Room, Fromm Hall--Reading by
poet Oliver de la Paz and short story writer Ann Joslin Williams.



***

Concerning the Final Four, I had three of the teams in my bracket (Kansas beat UCLA in my bracket, so I was off by one team). I had G-Town winning the whole thing. Shows you what I know . . . and apologies to Cornshake . . . yes, I had G-Town beating your Luckeyes. I thought they were too young.

My Favorite Feature

DSC02888
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

I love the tile near the toilet. It's got all kinds of colors and swirls.

Anyway, now that I'm done with this project, I can go back to my regular reading/writing schedule. Remodelling used some valuable brain cells, let me tell you. . .

Groovy Pedestal Sink

DSC02894
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

No more flourescent lighting

DSC02892
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

This is the cavernous space where our ugly flourescent light box used to hang. I moved the wiring from that box over to those lights you see in the lower left hand corner of the picture.

No Storage

DSC02891
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

The problem with pedestal sinks: no storage. We used to have a humongous cabinet, but now we had to resort to buying a little storage box for some of our things. I'm not a fan of the little box between the toilet and the sink, but . . .

By the way, the outlet where my toothbrush is plugged in used to be over where the new side cabinet is.

Our New Bathroom

DSC02887
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Ta da!

delaPazcvr3

delaPazcvr3
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

And the third.

delaPazcvr2

delaPazcvr2
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Another version.

delaPazcvr1

delaPazcvr1
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Help! Southern Illinois University Press sent me three versions of covers and I'm having a hell of a time deciding on which one. Suggestions would be appreciated!

You can already see the difference

DSC02883
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

We're going to let the tile cure over night and then apply the grout. The white dealy-bobs are spacers to keep the tiles 'bout 1/4 an inch apart. You'll notice that the shower glass has already been replaced. More to come.

One word of advice for future do-it-yourselfers . . . don't take on a project you can't complete within a reasonable amount of time. It's taken us over a month to complete this bathroom, mostly because we can only work on it one day a week. Had it been the summer, this project could've been done within a week.

Almost Done!!

DSC02885
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

At last, the tile work's done. Here's me applying the final bit of mortar. Meredith was the tile bringer and layer. After this step, we wait over night for the mortar to dry. Until then, it's kind of slippery, and you don't want the tiles to slide out of their spaces. Then, you grout between the spaces.

Oliver Villa

DSC02877
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

That's me, laying down the thin set mortar for the tiles. It was a slow process.

The tiles . . . slate from India. Very very nice tiles, but very very uneven.

"Cheese?"

DSC02869
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

That's right honey, I'm posing for you and that damn camera . . . but when you're asleep . . . when you're asleep . . .

Demolition Woman

DSC02872
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Meredith's taking in the sights and smells of the awful remains of a 30-year-old tan toilet.

Apparently, the damn thing had sprung a slow leak and had slowly eroded part of the plywood underneath. Luckily we caught it, and it was a great excuse to demolish the bathroom. Meredith set to work right away

Old Bathroom

Old Bathroom
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Here's a photo of the old 70's style bathroom. You'll note the carpeted floors, the gold-rimmed shower doors, the wooden toilet seat, the tan toilet, and the over-sized vanity.

Lucky Day

There was a raffle at AWP to win a prize . . .

I won an iPod shuffle From the Fishouse.

I think I'll ask for all my poems to be put on the shuffle multiple times. . .

***

Meredith grouted the floor yesterday. I did clean up. The floor looks FREAKING AWESOME. I've got pics. I'll post the before and after stuff after I get done grading.

Speaking of grout, when I was an undergrad at LMU, there was a urinal in the library, set into a tile backsplash. The grouting between the tiles had a bunch of sayings like "Wayne Groutsky" in one person's hand writing and then "The Grout One" in someone else's hand writing. There were more plays on the word "grout" than anyone could imagine. Ever since, I chuckle when I hear the word, "grout."

***

As for the grading, I'm almost done with stacks and stacks of portfolios. I had my students in my poetic forms class create their own forms. Some of the forms are super complicated, but doable. I'm impressed!

***

Currently listening to Beirut as I grade.

Tired

Ridiculously little sleep last night. Mere n' I finished tiling the bathroom. The unfortunate thing is that we chose to do this task at 9:00PM. Aside from a few slip ups here and there, the floor looks great. Grout's next.

***

In my CD splurge, so far this fellow's winning over the control of my playlist.

***

Meredith bought me another tub of jelly bellies. More later.

CD Splurge

I went to my my favorite record store to purchase many CD's.

Here's what I bought:

Rufus Wainwright, Want 1 and Want 2.

Arcade Fire, Neon Bible and Funeral

Lily Allen, Alright, Still

Brazillian Girls Talk to La Bomb

Beirut, Gulag Orkestar

The Shins, Wincing the Night Away

M. Ward, Post War

No, I shouldn't be buying so many CD's at one time, but I've been a very very good boy.

When Home Repair Gets Nasty

Sorry I've been away for awhile. I've been in the crawlspace under the house. I've discovered a few things about this house we've purchased . . . we had a rodent problem. That rodent problem is now gone. How do I know this? Because there's an empty tray of rodent bait in the crawlspace and . . . let's call it evidence . . . that the rodent population is in decline.

***

Also in the crawlspace, I've been trying to place some 2x4's adjacent to the toilet flange (the drain thingy where all the yuckies go) so that I can bolt in the toilet. This job would've been much more miserable if I didn't have a nail gun and a miter saw. Yay power tools. The house is clearly thirty years old. Again, I'll try not to gross you out with the details, but there's evidence of a leaky toilet around the plywood and the floor joists.

***

It's the end of the quarter. Thank goodness. I want to buy some CD's to celebrate.

***

I've been thinking about poems and poetry again. Now that Spring Break's here, I think I'm going to dive back into the stuff I started working on in the summer. Jumping back's always the hard part. Once I get going, though, I'm hoping I'll be able to sustain the pace through the spring quarter.

Which is another thing. The quarter system sucks. Just when you think you're done, after a long winter quarter, up jumps another academic quarter. Holy crap.

***

Anyone writing an epic?

Bracket Racket

The NCAA Tourney is here.

I haven't filled mine out. I'm down on the Pac 10 this year. Usually I like a few teams to go pretty far from that conference, but this year . . . This year I think it'll be a team from the East. Maybe G'town.

Karaoke in the Cantina

Meredith and I went out to get Mexican food at our local Mexican restaurant (by local, I mean we drove 'bout 25 miles). The place was packed (note to self: never go there on a Friday evening). A mariachi band was making the rounds going from booth to booth playing hits like the macarena (shudder). After we had sat down, they stopped playing because it was now karaoke hour.

The first woman wasn't so bad. She did a rendition of Journey's "Faithfully." Then some dude sang "Runaround Sue." And then some awful singer sang something I didn't recognize.

This lead me to think about some awful choices for karaoke songs:

1. "Ziggy Stardust" by David Bowie.

2. "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Donovan.

3. "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zepplin (can you imagine how long you'd have to be up there to perform this?)

***

Years back, when I returned to my hometown from college, a group of former high school classmates and myself went to the local watering hole, Rusty's Pancake and Steak. Rusty's had a karaoke night on Fridays. If you know anything about my home town, you'd know that Rusty's was the place where all the cowboys from the outskirts of town descended for drinks and talk. The air was quite thick with testosterone and steer smells. Anyway, cowboy after cowboy got up to sing country songs. I had a crush on one of my classmates who was quite crazy. She wanted to go up and sing Abba's "Dancing Queen." I, of course consented because 1) I was stupid and 2) I was buzzed. So we got up on stage and the words to the song are flashing on the monitor. The cowboys in the audience are glaring at us, like we've ruined their evening, and I'm thinking to myself, "There's a beer bottle over there on the ledge. If I can get to it and crack it open, I'll have a ready-made shiv if I need to fight my way out of the bar." None of that was necessary, of course. The cowboys were quite civil and after the song things went back to normal. I got the hell out of the bar as soon as I could. As for the girl, she went home with a cowboy.

***

Bathroom remodeling update: We painted our last coat yesterday. We start on the flooring some time this week. I returned a bunch of piping because our contractor neighbor devised a short-cut for our plumbing. I don't know what the hell I'm doing as far as plumbing goes. To me, it's even more frightening than electrical work. Anyway, once we get the flooring done, the sink and the toilet will follow. We're almost done and the bathroom looks so much better. No more carpeted bathroom floors!

***

I have no poems. They're all out. I suppose I could write some, but I'm not exactly in the mood.

Unconsolable

The outcome of this week's show has left me in a state. What in THE hell?

***

I'm sitting in my office amidst the spoils of AWP. I definitely need to clean up. Books everywhere!

***

I'm looking forward to having an actual break from travel for awhile. I've travelled somewhere for two weeks straight. I think it's wreaked havoc on my immune system. I wonder if Airborne really works. I know it's just preventative, just wondering.

***

Oh by the way, last Tuesday was my birthday.

AWP Aftermath

Whew. The folks who left Friday had the right idea. While I love attending AWP and seeing old friends, making new friends, and being surrounded by lovers of words, I get burned out rather quickly.

Overall, I had a great time. I saw lots of bloggers (Paul Guest, you are everywhere. Mary Biddinger, you're as cute as bunny slippers. C. Dale Young, I want a Green Lantern T-shirt now).

I spent most of the time semi-trapped by the book fair, mostly because they structured the damn thing like a medieval city. I kept having to circle to find the things I wanted. The bookfair was also extremely hot. I think the AC wasn't working. At one point, the air smelled like something was burning.

I didn't attend a lot of panels this year. I either had a table time conflict with a panel or I had to meet someone for coffee/breakfast/lunch/dinner.

I'll write more soon, but for now, if I didn't say goodbye to you last night, sorry. I went to bed very very early.

Back from Spokane

I returned from my trip to Whitworth College intact and in good spirits. The students there were fabulous, a clear reflection of their superb mentoring.

***

Actually, I guess I didn't come back intact. I had left my cell phone in the hotel room as well as a pair of pants and a t-shirt (Ramada was kind enough to ship those to me). I also caught a cold.

Gah. I hate being sick. What's more, I have to go to Atlanta tomorrow for AWP. I DO NOT want to be sick at AWP. Period.

***

We're talking about aesthetics in my graduate seminar. Students were up in arms about Alice Notley's "Descent of Alette" because her use of quotation marks at intervals between phrases:

"sort of" "like this" "throughout" "the book"

I showed them an essay by Garcia Villa taken from the "Anchored Angel" and they were outraged by his seeming arrogance. Additionally, I showed them excerpts of Chelsey Minnis's "Zirconia." Again, outrage.

Look folks, that's art. Sometimes it's difficult. Sometimes it's irascible. Sometimes it's flawed.

Artists are difficult, irascible, and flawed. They're also very human and what we as readers try to do is negotiate. Dialogue dialogue dialogue.

The Bathroom Renovation: How Oliver de la Paz Became a Master Electrician

That's right. I've decided to stop writing poetry so that I can pursue my bond, license, and certification as a master electrician. Why? Because I rewired my bathroom all by myself and established my awesomeness.

First, I crawled around in the attic and moved the wiring from a flourescent box over to a wall. Then, I moved an electrical outlet from one wall to another wall. I upgraded and installed a new box for two light switches and the newly moved outlet. I also installed a new box for an over-the-vanity light (where the wiring for old flourescent light box went). Nothing blew up. The light swiitches work. The outlet works and is grounded. I rock.

***

The poet Truong Tran will be reading at Western Washhington University on Thursday. I've met Truong on a number of occasions, but we've never had a chance to talk. Maybe this time I'll be able to chat with him.

***

I'll be heading over to Whitworth College to give a reading. If you're in Spokane, WA, do come over and say hello.

When I asked a ninja about poetry . . .

Ninja!

Workshop Methodology

So here's a question to all of you who've either taken a poetry workshop or conduct poetry workshops. How do you run a poetry workshop or how was your poetry workshop conducted?

Here's one example:

1. Students receive specific writing assignments beforehand.
2. Students come to class with multiple copies of poems from said writing assignment.
3. The poems are distributed throughout the class.
4. The writer of a poem reads the poem. The rest of the class including the instructor discusses the poem while the writer remains silent, listening to the feedback.
5. At the end of the discussion, the writer whose poem was up for discussion, addresses the workshop, asking questions about the feedback.


Here's another example:

1. Students prepare a poem for class that is not from a specific writing assignment.
2. The student distributes the poem ahead of time so that both the instructor and the students have an opportunity to read the piece before workshop.
3. The writer of a poem reads the poem. The rest of the class including the instructor discusses the poem while the writer remains silent, listening to the feedback.
4. At the end of the discussion, the writer whose poem was up for discussion, addresses the workshop, asking questions about the feedback.


And another example:

1. Any variation of #'s 1-2 from the above examples.
2. The students are then put into small groups (3-5 students per group).
3. They then discuss the poems within the group.
4. The instructor does not see the poems until the end of the class period when the students hand them in.

There are, of course, many other methodologies, but these are ways I've handled workshop. I prefer having the poems "cold." Lots of my peers like to have the poems ahead of time so that they can provide prepared feedback. My take is that if I misread something in the moment, that's feedback. Anyway, I'm always interested in what y'all do.

***

Week 6 of a 10 week quarter and I'm loopy. It's been a quarter of lots and lots of meetings, a pre-tenure review, manuscript copy-editing, and chemotherapy. I'm ready for the Spring.

***

Meredith and I have been singing Kate Bush's "Babushka" to each other. I don't know why.

***

I'm going to buy four sheets of drywall, some drywall screws, some seam tape, and some electrical boxes. Yes, more bathroom demolition this week. I've got to move the wiring for the old, nasty flourescent ceiling light over to the wall for a new light fixture. Check me out, trying to define a "new" Asian American masculinity. *wink*

A Man and a Fish

A man had fallen on his back and dreamt a long time. There were dreams of foxes. There were dreams of blue eggs and cats licking batter off their paws. When a man comes to dream a long time, he sees things accutely.

The ice hums. The auroras yawn and unfurl. The waxy bills of seabirds drip into the sky. The world ribbons.

Seeing the man on his back, dreaming, a fish had jumped from the lake. They stared and stared.

"Who are you that would stare at my dreaming?" asked the man.
"Who are you that would question my looking?" replied the fish.

Thus the man thought the fish was his dream and the fish likewise. They stared in their dreaming. Icebergs calved into the ocean.

Bad Pedagogy at Home Depot

After a two-hour workout, I decided to meet Meredith at the Home Depot so we could learn how to tile our bathroom. I was tired, sore, and hungry, so my brain was translating the aluminum bleacher's texture at the talk site as doubly uncomfortable.

Anyway, Home-Depot-Tile-Guy arrived and removed two largish plastic soda bottles from a grocery bag. I got worried after he had done that because that meant he was going to teach for a long time. He then basically asked the twelve of us seated on the benches if we had any questions.

Uh . . . yeah? Lots? Maybe you should direct the order of your talk a little better?

So then insane-million-question-lady-in-the-front-row starts asking questions about her house, how to build a shower, how to tile a jacuzzi, how to tile the underside of her car, how to tile her cat. I mean, SHUT UP!!!! Insane-million-question-lady-in-the-front-row kept going on and on. When people had their own questions, insane-million-question-lady-in-the-front-row would cut them off, throw in a question, REALIZE that it wasn't related to the topic at hand, and then proceed to rephrase a question so it would fit her problem. Half the time she didn't even know what topic we were on. The other people on the bleachers were rolling their eyes. If I had hair on my head, I'd have pulled it out.

We ended up leaving the session early, but the damage had been done. I'd been put in a foul mood.

This is for the insane-million-question-lady-in-the-front-row:

Do-it-yourself is not for people who need to work on life skills first.


And this is for the Home-Depot-Tile-Guy:

1. Have a planned trajectory for your talk
2. Allow for questions if they're on topic. If they're not, politely tell the questioner that you'd be happy to speak with them after the session.
3. Keep the session on time.
4. Actually DEMONSTRATE how to tile instead of giving us product pitches.

(pissy mode off)

***

Students wrote pantoums in my poetry class. Funny form. The danger of it is you've really really really got to have some damn fine lines worth hearing more than once.

They're writing ghazals now. I hope Agha Shahid approves wherever he is.

The last two forms will be the villanelle and the sestina. Please give me the strength.

***

The last of the job candidates comes on Monday. I hear somewhere some school's conducting six searches in the same department. Talk about cruelty! One's hard enough!

***

PJ Harvey is in heavy rotation on the iPod.

Since EVERYONE knows the secret already . . .

New Issues Press will be publishing Jon Pineda's second manuscript. It won the Green Rose prize and will be released in March, 2008.

Make sure to get Jon drunk on Gin and tonic when you see him. It's a hoot.

Congrats Bro!

RE: The News/Secret

Someone's already let the cat out of the bag . . . I'll still not divulge until I see an "official announcement," but if you already know, I'm sure you're smiling.

***

Jerry the plumber came by and told me a harrowing story about a dog he had given up for adoption after he could no longer take care of her. Turns out that the dog was a pit bull mix and was blind as a bat. Also turned out that after he had given her up, she had been adopted by a family with a little boy. One day the little boy was drowning in the pool. The dog heard the boy, dove into the pool, and saved him.

Meanwhile, I was writing a check for plumbing services . . .

***

I'm on the verge of writing again. I can feel it. I've been on break for a few months, which is my typical pattern. AWP usually recharges my batteries. Hopefully I can get stuff done before then.

***

I busted out my chainsaw again. Now that I'm about 95% at my normal strength and speed, I can pick up the machine and cut back some of the trees that fell in the previous wind storms. Yesterday I spent about an hour cleaning up the disaster in the front yard.

Did I mention that homeownership sucks?

I have some news

. . . which I wish I could share. I'll say this much: the news is good.

I suck. Believe me, you'll be happy when you hear about it.

***

We have completely gutted the master bathroom. I've learned a few new things 'bout plumbing, too. I've learned lots of things about wax toilet rings, toilet flanges, couplings, and L joints.

Meredith took great pleasure in tearing down the box for the flourescent light. She also rejoiced as she peeled back the nasty orange carpet. Like I said, we had carpet in our master bathroom. That issue has been remedied.

Now we've got to figure out why the shower's still leaking before we sand blast the shell. Sorry to be boring you with homeowner crap. It's been on my mind lately.

***

There's something about getting a manuscript picked up that stimulates new creativity. It's almost like you try to fill the void vacated by that previous obsession. This past year after hearing about my 2nd manuscript, I got fired up about a new project and wrote lots of newer pieces. I'm only talking 'bout this now 'cause I just did some paper work for a grant I'm applying for. Anyway, all told, this new project has 'bout twelve poems so far. More will come. I can feel them churning in the back of my brain.

***

I can't wait for AWP!

Oopsie

I made an oopsie today. A clerical error, to be precise. It seems Furious Lullaby has moved along quite nicely in a particular contest held by a particular press and I neglected to inform them of the manuscript's latest status. I received a notification about this happening and I turned beet red upon hearing the news.

I'm very embarassed by the whole thing and I profusely apologized to the press. I'm usually quite good about things of this nature, but somehow this one slipped by me.

I hope they don't hold it against me in the future. They're a great press publishing poets whom I admire.

***

Many job candidates have come and are coming by campus. They're all so good and all so hireable. I've been so preoccupied with these searches . . . clocking in longer hours on campus than normal.

We've got two searches running, and let me tell you, there are so many talented scholars out there these days. I'm so very glad I'm not in the job search this year. More power to my friends who are on the hunt.

***

Super Bowl prediction: the Bears and the Colts will score an equal number of points by half time, prompting Prince to perform an extra hour and a half, thus allowing Peyton Manning and Rex Grossman to collaborate on a razor blade endorsement for Mach 6 Razor Blades--the most advanced shaving system consisting of six blades for the closest shave ever, after which several consumers of the new razor will cut arteries and die from severe blood loss.

Quite Busy

I haven't gotten a chance to check my DVR. I know I recorded this Sunday's BSG episode. I've just been very very busy these days.

***

The house has been a flurry of activity. As I mentioned in a previous post, the ugly root ball is gone, but now there are big muddy divots in our front lawn. I've got to re-seed some time, but the ground's a bit too cold. Also, the chimney guy came by and re-mortared our decaying chimney. Apparently mortar doesn't last forever. Anyway, the mortar's been the culprit behind our leaky roof. So he sealed it right up and he'll weather proof it later. We also bought new shower doors to replace our old ones which fall off track and are a hideous gold color. We also called a re-finisher to sand blast our current shower liner which is an awful taupe.

Homeownership sucks. I am poor.

***

I've got a bucket of Jelly Belly jelly beans on my desk. My current favorite: buttered popcorn.

Pen in hand

My copy-edited manuscript came in the mail today. Now I've got to go over the copy-edit marks. Wow. It's really happening. Just quickly scanning the thing, I'm seeing several "oh gosh, I did that?" errors. How embarassing.

***

My knee hurts, but I'm off the diet from hell and I can start taking my medicine again. I should be back to my "normal" self in no time. One of the first things I did to celebrate--I ate pizza and ice cream.

There are some noticeable changes to my physical being. I can't tolerate the cold, though before I'd overheat rather easily. I'm tired by 9PM, though I'm used to going to bed at midnight. I can't wake up as easily, though I'm used to getting up at around 6AM.

***

The root ball is gone! Neighbors rock. One of our neighbors knew a guy who had a big-ass excavator. They worked on the tree and the root ball when I was at work. Now it's nice and flat! Yay!

Kundiman Retreat 2007

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

KUNDIMAN ASIAN AMERICAN POETRY RETREAT

The University of Virginia, Charlottesville
June 20 – 24, 2007


In order to help mentor the next generation of Asian-American poets, Kundiman is sponsoring an annual Poetry Retreat at The University of Virginia. During the Retreat, nationally renowned Asian American poets will conduct workshops and provide one-on-one mentorship sessions with participants. Readings and informal social gatherings will also be scheduled. Through this Retreat, Kundiman hopes to provide a safe and instructive environment that identifies and addresses the unique
challenges faced by emerging Asian American poets. This 5-day Retreat will take place from Wednesday to Sunday. Workshops will be conducted from Thursday to Saturday. Workshops will not exceed six students.

Faculty

Myung Mi Kim’s books of poems include Commons (University of California Press), DURA (Sun & Moon), The Bounty (Chax Press), and Under Flag, winner of the Multicultural Publisher’s Exchange Award (Kelsey St. Press). Anthology appearances in Asian-American Literature: An Anthology, Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women, Premonitions: The
Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, Primary Trouble: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry and other collections. Honors include a residency at Djerassi Resident Artists Program and awards from The Fund for Poetry. She is Professor of English at SUNY-Buffalo.

Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won top prizes in the 1993, 1994 and 1997 National Poetry Slams. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word Revolution and Slam. He has appeared on two seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, PBS’ “In The Life” and MTV’s “Free Your Mind” Spoken Word Tour. Regie is the recipient of the 10th annual Writers for Writers Award sponsored by Poets & Writers and has received three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships for Poetry and Multi-Disciplinary Performance.

Prageeta Sharma is the author of Bliss to Fill (subpress books, 2000) and The Opening Question (Fence Books, 2004). Her work has also appeared in Agni, Art Asia Pacific, Boston Review, Combo, Fence, Indiana Review, Women’s Review of Books and other periodicals. She received her MFA in poetry from Brown University and an MA in Media Studies from The New School.


Fees

To keep the cost of the retreat low for all participants, fees are not charged for workshops or programming. Thus, all accepted applicants are given an automatic tuition scholarship. Room and Board for the entire retreat is $300.


Application Process

Send five to seven (5-7) paginated, stapled pages of poetry, with your name included on each page. Include a cover letter with your name, address, phone number, e-mail address and a brief paragraph describing what you would like to accomplish at the Kundiman Asian American Poets’ Retreat. Include a SAS postcard if you want an application receipt. Manuscripts will not be returned. No electronic submissions, please.

Mail application to:

Kundiman
245 Eighth Avenue #151
New York, NY 10011

Submissions must be postmarked by March 1, 2007

More Poems of Mine Online

The Drunken Boat was kind enough to take a few poems of mine.

Check out how many Kundiman folks are there! Wowzers!

***

I've been drinking lots of water as the doctor ordered. Don't worry. I'll not do this.

***

I've been peering through Philip Dacy and David Jauss's Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms. It's a fabulous anthology. Unfortunately, I think it's out of print. Look at the price tag and the copyright.

20 Years to Life

I'll be quarantined this weekend. I'm not allowed to go anywhere, see anyone, touch anyone. I suppose it's a good excuse to play many hours of XBox, though I should be writing.

The geiger counters will click with each step I take.

***

Ronald Johnson's "ARK" just arrived today. I had to buy a used copy because the local distributors can't seem to locate it.

Can you imagine working on the same poem for twenty years? I don't know if I could do it. I'm pretty sure I'd go mad, though some say I already am.

Anyway, the charming thing about this copy is the notes someone had crafted in the margins. Here's a sample of some of the scrawlings:

Be O Make

Be=Eastern Religion
OM=chant that reflects the sound of creation
Be & Make, O connects the two

--what it means to see
--disorder, yet everything works

dicotemies (sp) of vowel & constant (sp)

--human body is also this
--sense and scale

Every kind
of making
is justified
b/k it's an
attempt to
build a "ladder"
to the divine

***

People have asked what I meant about Rube Goldberg poetics from my interview with Kate Greenstreet. A thing about Rube Goldberg poetics that I haven't gotten a chance to answer--the goal of the machine needs to be determined at the onset, but the steps towards that goal can vary. The narrative of the poem functions as the tracks of the machine. You can throw in a lead pipe. A parrot. A man yearning for a sandwich. A mustang. A song by Neil Diamond. They're all present along the track, but they must have a sufficient transition to them in order for them to have an effect on the momentum of the Rube Goldberg machine. If one of the elements fails (is not resolved within the machinery of the narrative), the poem fails. The pipe must wake the parrot. The parrot must tug at the cracker attached to the string. The string must lower the sandwich to the man's mouth. The motion from the hands holding the sandwich to the man's mouth must set the mustang running. The motion of the horse's trot must set the needle to the record. And ultimately, Neil Diamond must sing about "Coming to America." The machine is delightfully complicated for a seemingly mundane task. The process is, thus, the most interesting aspect of the journey in these poems.

***

I'm going to watch a few more BSG episodes tonight. A question for you fans . . . is the population count at the opening going down, up, or a combination of the two?

The Worst Diet Ever.

I am now on the Worst Diet Ever.

The good news is I've shed some pounds on this diet. The bad news is I'll probably be on the diet for a few more weeks.

No chocolate. No dairy. No baked goods. No seafood.

Just oatmeal oatmeal oatmeal and oatmeal.

***

I finished my WWU Magnum Opus: my semi-annual tenure review dossier. This go around felt very weighty. I filled a large 3-ring binder. When I taught at Utica College, I don't remember filling such a big binder.

***

Tree guys came by to give an estimate on the damage. It's not looking good for our checkbooks. I may just have to clean up the mess myself.

***

I haven't been writing much poetry these days, which is okay. I've been thinking a lot about form. Seems my students are enjoying the challenge. We'll see how long THAT lasts . . . MUWAHAHA!

More poems of mine online

Nick Carbo guest edited this issue of mipoesias.com.

Lots of cool folks listed, so check it out!

***

On a side note, I need to do a better job of logging my poems.

***

Marathon day of watching Battlestar Galactica, Season 1 while doing laundry and waiting for the "tree guy" to report. So far the "tree guy" hasn't come, even though he was supposed to check in this morning.

Meanwhile, I'm getting sucked deeper and deeper into BSG. I've fallen in a hole and can't get out.

First day of the quarter

. . . was yesterday. I "quizzed" my students on their scansion abilities. They were pretty sharp (many of 'em had me before, so they remembered their lessons).

One debate they had: How do you scan the word "Viennese"?

How do YOU scan "Viennese"?

***

Two classes this quarter, ENG 453, which is my advanced undergraduate poetry seminar, and ENG 504, which is my graduate level seminar.

For 453, we'll be writing entirely in forms, in the following order: Sonnet, Heroic Couplet, Ballad, Pantoum, Ghazal, Villanelle, and Sestina.

I'll be using "The Making of a Poem" by Strand and Boland as my text.

Why am I teaching an advanced workshop completely in forms? Because no one else is.

For my 504 class, we'll be trying to construct a manuscript of poetry, and I'll be giving them exercises for the realization of a book. I've got grad students who need to start thinking about a thesis, so this'll jump-start the process.

Books we'll look at: "Asylum," by Quan Berry, "Poeta en San Francisco," by Barbara Jane Reyes, "Descent of Alette," by Alice Notley, "Ark" by Ronald Johnson, and "Hoops" by Major Jackson. I want to teach more books, but we're on the quarter system and I don't want to bankrupt my poor students.

***

Other things . . . I'm on a low sodium diet and it sucks.

Another big tree fell. This one's our neighbor's, but it fell over the road between us, blocking our driveway.

I'm up for my 2-year tenure review, so I've got to cull together everything I've done in the past two years. I've done these before at Utica, so I know the drill.

I snowed and there are about eight inches on the ground.

Hungry Bird

Hungry Bird
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Still, we carry on. We'll get this whole mess cleaned up by the summer, and we'll have plenty of fire wood for the next winter. Meredith snapped this photo of a birdie grabbing a winter snack.

Big Downed Trees Near the House

Big Downed Trees Near the House
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

This is a better view of the three big trees that fell during the first wind storm. The rain eroded the base surrounding the root ball. Three trees had grown in a clump and when one got forced over, they all got forced over. The height of the root ball from ground to sky is about fifteen feet and there's a five-foot deep pit where the root hand once rested. The biggest of the three trees, a hemlock, is over three feet in diameter. the other two, a pine and a cedar, are only about a foot and a half in diameter each. Still, the trees were our shade in the summer and they were perches for Pileated Woodpeckers.

You can see how close the tree is to our house and we were fortunate that the winds were from the south instead of the north.

Downed Trees Blocking the Trail

Downed Trees Blocking the Trail
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

I'd been complaining about the fallen trees on our property. The sheer magnitude of the loss is hard to capture in a two-dimensional photograph. We had a logger come by to give us some idea of what it'd cost us to clean up the mess. We're talking about some valuable trees, both aesthetically and commerically.

Anyway, here are two downed cedars. I had to chop them up to free up the trail head. You can't see it, but to the right of these trees are two or three other fallen pines. This roughly a half-acre plot, so the loss of a few trees in an already thinning plot is quite noticeable.

Some Poems

Do I sound like that in real life?

Love to Fishouse once again.

***

How has your experience been with the new blogger? I'm thinking about making the shift when I visit the office to do some work. Good? Bad?

***

It's windy and rainy again, and I'm nervous about our pine trees. It's been raining a lot and lots of rain + poor drainage + wind = toppling trees.

***

Can you believe Boise St.'s win last night? Lovely article about it courtesy of Janet's link to Pat Forde's article

In 2007

I'd like to welcome in the New Year by wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2007. Be safe and be well.

***

Should I make a New Years resolution? I'm not too great about keeping to them, though it's good to have goals. I suppose I should, eh?

Okay, I resolve to do the following things:

1. Eat healthier foods. I get the occasional snack attack, but I've been bad this holiday season. Atlanta had fried this and fried that. Needless to say, I gained a few holiday pounds (though it may because I'm off thyroid meds too).

2. Create a new exercise routine. I've sort of plateaued with my current routine and I should probably do more cardiovascular exercises.

3. Prepare for classes sooner. I'm not bad about this, I just would like to be prepared a week in advance as opposed to a day or two in advance.

4. Read more poetry. Nuff said.

5. Write morer poetry. See 4.

6. Make more friends.

***

Farewell 2006.

Tales of MLA

Oh, the stories to tell! For my writer friends out there attending the conference, I wish you good luck. Smile a lot.

***

MLA's a strange place. I've gone to every MLA from 1998 to 2004, and I've always thought that it's a time when many people in the humanities act inhumane.

For starters, it's held at a terrible time. The weather's bad, so there's the inevitable travel delay. People are getting over illnesses. People are pulled away from their families during the Holiday season. I totally understand how it can make people grumpy. And of course, there's the stress of the job search for both sides of the table. It's stressful for interviewers because they have to sit with some colleagues who they may not like but must sit with for the duration of the conference. There's the interviewees who've got the hopes of future employment. There's the crush of people everywhere you turn, making the whole process a lot more daunting.

I believe an MLA in Chicago had me in one of the slowest elevators ever. I only had one or two interviews, so I wasn't too pressed. There was a pregnant woman (she was clearly in her third trimester) in the elevator riding along with me, and she was towards the front of the elevator car while a fidgety middle-aged man with glasses from an Ivy League school groaned and griped. More people boarded the car, until it was quite full. Finally, our elevator car reached the floor the middle-aged man was trying to get to. He bullied his way to the front and said, "Get the f*%k out of my way, under his breath to those of us in the elevator car, but clearly to the pregnant woman.

***

I've also found it funny when scholars who study working class lit. show up in tailored Armani suits. You can tell pedigree by the cut of the cloth.

And there's always the ever-present "look at me, not my name tag. Look at me, not my name tag" thing, when we check each other out like new dogs at a kennel.

***

I've had bad interviews, too. I was ten minutes late for one because I kept missing the elevator up to their fifteenth floor hotel room. It wasn't that I made it to the hotel late. I had been there for 30 minutes. The interviewers generally ask that you call from the front 10 minutes in advance. Any earlier and I'd be rushing them. Meanwhile, the small elevator galley was filling up with people. There were six elevators in a cramped rotunda, and each one was taking a long time. I'd go to one, only to find it stuffed with people. Then I'd wait for the next one and see that it was way across the room. I'd park in front of one, and I'd see that all the elevators except the one I was waiting for had all touched down in the lobby.

Finally, I realized it wasn't going to happen. I had five minutes until my interview and I knew I was going to be made even later if I took the elevator. So I ran up fifteen flights of stairs to my interview.

The interviewers were good-natured about the event. I arrived at their doorstep, panting, perspiring, and full of jokes about the ordeal, which certainly helped me get my breath back.

***

Still, there are fun times that can be had after a days worth of interviews. I had a great time in San Diego. The MLA in New York was a blast, and I went to see a few plays. And of course, there's the close company of writers that can be found at the end of the day. Sure, you're all going after the same jobs, so there's a little tension, but in the end, commiserating about the interviews is a good way to ease the tension.

Pugalicious

Hoops Live

I'm heading into Atlanta to watch the Hawks play the Pacers. Not the best of games, but the seats are free. Really, though, I want to catch up with Adrian and Stacey.

As a child of Oregon, the Trailblazers used to be my team, but when Clyde "the Glide" Drexler left for Houston, I gave up on them. I couldn't stomach the players that came after those title runs in the late 80's, early 90's.

When I lived in LA, I watched the Lakers a few times, but I mostly watched the Clippers because they stunk, but mostly because there were lots of seats available, and you could get up close to the floor. Hell, I went to LMU not for the Jesuit education, but for gym seats to watch Hank Gathers play.

In Arizona, it was the Suns. Rich and I were both hoops junkies. We went to a bunch of the ASU games, and we went to the pro games to watch Jason Kidd play.

These days, I'm not as much of a hoops fan. I'll watch an occasional game, but I'm more inclined to park in front of the TV for pro football.

At any rate, the tickets to tonight's game are free, and it's an excuse to go see some good friends.

Colonies etc.

I'm reviewing all the stuff I need for colony applications. I wish I could attend during "off peak" times, but my calendar is not my friend.

Breadloaf would be fun, but I'm not sure I'm eligible, since Names Above Houses is past its four-year freshness date and Furious Lullaby won't be out until September, though I'll have galleys/proofs soon. And I can't afford to attend without any assistance at this time.

Cornshake's lovely MacDowell photos have me yearning for a studio space. Yaddo looks great too. Unfortunately, EVERYBODY'S applying for the summer. I suppose the one benefit of a quarter system is that classes don't begin until late September, so I can apply for a late August - September date.

***

I've actually been working quite a bit during this vacation. Part of it is that I'm going to have to go off my hormones, which'll have me fatigued in the next few weeks. I figure, I better get as much done as I can before the new quarter starts.

For those of you unaware, I had a thyroidectomy in October. The endocrinologist needs to zap any remaining thyroid tissue, so he's taken me off the hormone.

Should be fun. I'll be puffy, slow, tired, and constipated. Great Christmas, eh?

***

Finished reading Major Jackson's Hoops. I'm still thinking about it. It's one of the books I'll be teaching for my graduate course where I'll be talking about manuscript structure.

***

All the Holiday shopping's done. Huzzah.

TOC

I just received the timeline for the book. Looks like we're aiming for September 07. Here's the current Table of Contents:

ONE

Holiness
Hour of Dawn
Aubade with Scorpions and Monsoon
Constricting Aubade
Flutter
Aubade with Doves, a Television, and Fire
The Devil’s Book
Aubade with a Book and the Rattle from a String of Pearls
God Essay
The Devil’s Hour
Aubade with Constellations, Some Horses, and Snow
Penitence Essay
Aubade with Bread for Sparrows
My Dearest Apostasy
Hush

TWO

My Dearest Conflict
What the Devil Said
What the Eye Said
What the Scapula Said
On the Pores of the Flesh
On the Pulse Residing Behind the Lobe of the Ear
On the Fenestra Ovalis
Aporia
What the Ear Said
What the Dead Said
What the Devil Said
On the Epidermis
On the Motions of Death
Epitaph for the Musculature of the Neck
My Dearest Transgression

THREE

Fury
Aubade with Starlings and Kerosene Muted by Glass
Messengers
Mysteries Essay
My Dearest Recklessness
Aubade with Memory Crystallized into a Figure of a Dancer
Widening Aubade
Aubade with a Heel of Bread, a Heart, and the Devil
Prayer Essay
Aubade with the Moon, Some Bones, and a Word
My Dearest Regret
Aubade with a Thistle Bush Holding Six Songs
Lullaby

Possible cover?

By Joel Sheesley entitled
Interior with Crucifix and Nothing Special

The case for the image: I like the quiet of the image, the shadow of the bird house, how mundane everything is.
Does it say Furious Lullaby? I'm not sure.

**Note: Click on the second link on the left**

Currently

I'm in Douglasville, GA, at the home of my in-laws. We had a heck of a time getting here. Our flights were scheduled to fly out of SeaTac, which meant we needed to drive south to Seattle. What's more, our flights were at 9AM, so we'd have fought commuter traffic. We decided to stay overnight in Seattle, near the airport. But booking a hotel was a bit of a hassle. A lot of the hotels didn't have power when I initially called. It seems the windstorms from Thursday had wiped out power to much of International Blvd., so all the hotels on that grid were in the dark. Anyway, we managed to get in touch with an Econo Lodge at the 11th hour. The hotel sucked and we got little sleep, but at least we didn't have to drive the horrible I-5 traffic at 6AM.

Our flight connecting from Chicago to Atlanta was delayed for about an hour due to "mechanical problems." So that messed with our itinerary a bit. I'm really not fond of travelling these days.

Regardless, we got here safely, about two hours late.

***

I spent the morning drinking coffee and bird watching with my mother in-law while my wife slept.

***

No plans. I'll probably finish reading Major Jackson's Hoops. Quite interesting. He's using a ballad form for some of the early poems, which makes sense, since the poems speak of playground legends. More after I'm finished.

Also, going to re-read Mark Strand's The Making of a Poem for my advanced poetry class next quarter.

Finally, I'm going to work on a few new projects and my tenure review file. We've got lots of down time over here. Maybe we'll catch a movie or two.

Grading in Progress

CURSE YOU, 16 PAGE BLUEBOOK!!!!!!

Yes, it's that time of year. I taught a large, 61 person lecture course. So, rather than reading 61 essays, I chose to give a final exam. Now I'm paying for it. One Bluebook's author has handwriting that looks like this: ........................ And that goes on for 16 pages.

At least I'm putting a dent into my grading. I've finished 'bout half of 'em. I'll try to get through another 15 or so, before I go to bed.

****

On top of that, I've got poetry portfolios to read. Those aren't as bad, 'cause I've seen most of the poems already and the poems are typed.

***

One of my favorite children's books was Charlotte's Web. I'm always worried about movie adaptations. I was pretty disappointed by the adaptation of James and the Giant Peach.

I suppose the reason why I'm not disappointed by the Harry Potter series is that I haven't read any of them. . . not a one. To you Potter purists, I know I'm missing out, but I have only SO much reading time.

Anyway, E.B. White's classic is coming out this Friday and I'm going to see that instead of Eragon.

***

I'm heading to the ATL to visit the in-laws for Christmas. We'll be there for a whopping 10 days. Yeesh. I don't mind Atlanta, but we'll be in the burbs. At least we're bringing our laptop.

***

O! Blog! Tool of procrastination! How I love thee!

An Interview

The wonderful Kate Greenstreet interviews me at Kickingwind.

Tentative

There's a tentative AWP Conference schedule online.

And like every year, there are panels/readings that I'd like to go to that take place during other panels/readings I'd like to attend. They need to make the schedule fit MY whims.

St. Cassian of Imola

December the 8th, I will celebrate the martyrdom of St. Cassian of Imola, patron saint of teachers. Yes, I know his date of martyrdom lists August 13th, but it's the end of the quarter and what better way to celebrate the end of the quarter than to eat shish-kabobs, toothpick weiners, and other skewered goodies.

Wrapping things up.

Tonight, I make my final exams for my literature class. Should be fun . . . for me, anyway.

***

I've got the last batch of poems from my intro class. Pretty soon I'll be collecting portfolios. The quarter seemed to go by so slowly. The winter quarter will be fast, but the spring quarter, I remember, seemed to crawl. That's probably because all the schools in the semestral format are finished a month before us. That's okay, I guess. The trade-off is that we start at the end of September.

***

Speaking of weird calendars, I had to turn down an offer to teach for a low-res. Alas, my full-time teaching doesn't synch-up with what would've been a great part-time gig. Maybe in the future.

***

My parents don't read my blog, so I can ask you . . . I need good recommendations for non-fiction. My mother LOVED The Knife Man. She also enjoyed The Professor and the Madman. I need a recommendation that's similar. I don't think she'd be interested in political history, or anything of that nature. Suggestions, please.

I'm a geek.

I'm excited about this trailer.

Here comes the paperchase

I've got to track down permissions from all the journals, presses, and anthologies. The press has spoken. I'm also thinking about cover art. Rigoberto mentioned that it'd be hella hard getting a cover image for a book with my title. I have one in mind, but I'm not sure if it fits the tone.

***

It's the last week of classes and I've got a million things to do. I have to finish up my article. I have to make my final exams. I have to prepare my tenure-review files. I have to buy presents. I have to apply to residencies and apply for grants. Overflow!

***

I'm quite relieved that it's the end of the quarter. It's been a strange one, with the surgery and the weird weather. But it's also been a good one.

***

THIS SUNDAY, December 10th

POETRY ON WHEELS Floating Bridge Press with support from 4Culture and Washington Center for the Book will host a reading to celebrate "Poetry on Wheels: an Anthology of King County's Poetry on Buses Program" 2pm Sunday, Dec. 10 at the Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Microsoft Auditorium, Level 1. Local poets Madeline DeFrees, Martha Silano, Dana Elkun, Paul Hunter, Joan Swift, Kelli Russell Agodon, Peter Pereira, Jeff Crandall, Susan Rich and others will read selected poems. This event is free and open to the public.

Blown

After coming back to the house from running the dog, I was getting ready to head back into town to work out. I heard water running, sounding like a faucet was on inside the house. I wandered around, trying to locate the source of the noise. Still no luck. Finally I went down to the basement. As soon as I walked in, I stepped in a puddle of water. Almost the entire basement was covered in a half an inch of water. And it was still spewing forth from behind a wall in the corner. I quickly ran upstairs and shut off the water to the entire house. Luckily, I ran into one of my neighbors as I was taking out the garbage. She told her husband what had happened. Her husband told another neighbor what had happened. Pretty soon, the whole neighborhood was in my basement, fixing the problem. They pulled back the boards, removed some insulation, and voila. A copper pipe that fed a faucet outisde had iced over, blowing the pipe. I'm ignorant about all things house-related, but I'm quickly learning (it helps that neighbor #2 is a contractor/architect and the man who built the house I'm living in now). I had to rush away to pick up Mere from school, since the roads are horrible and the Honda she usually drives doesn't have four-wheel drive. Anyway, when I got back home after picking her up, the pipe was capped. The leak was stopped. The water was back on.

My neighbors rock. That's all I can say.

***

As far as the roads are concerned, when I went back to Bellingham to pick up Mere, I had one incident where I was in my lane, and the ice in my lane had formed an icy rut, like a skateboarding ramp. I found my car's tires rocking from one side to the other because the roads were so choppy. Soon, I found that my car's tires had been ejected, sending my car veering into the other lane towards on-coming traffic. Luckily, we were all travelling very slowly and the cars in the other lane were about thirty-yards away. That gave me enough time to get back into my lane. My heart was in my ears after that.

***

I bought an XBox 360. I'm never writing poetry again.

Actually, the truth is, I haven't had time to play it all that much. Mere's happy because it frees up the TV so she can watch her homeowner porn.