tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1954742381064420862024-03-13T01:06:09.028-05:00independent studyMollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-87611837869269433942010-08-11T11:50:00.004-05:002010-08-12T12:01:54.833-05:00bread loaf, day oneOn the plane out, we sat two rows and across the aisle from Carl Phillips, Meryl's workshop leader. He has runner's legs, was reading prose and occasionally from the workshop packet.<br /><br />When we arrived we <a href="http://glossary-of-field-work.blogspot.com/">stayed overnight with some of Meryl's old friends</a>, off the grid, in a sense, and I found myself in love with wild blackberries and wanting to hear an owl.<br /><br />This afternoon, we checked in--we are room mates, my good MFA friend and I, and are staying in the Annex this year, a room in the corner right above the bookstore, which is always dangerous for someone like me.<br /><br />We had dinner, learned to navigate the system with as a vegan (Meryl will now go into the kitchen every day to see what the chefs have prepared), and after, the opening welcome, followed by a reading by Linda Gregerson (love, love, love) and Jim Shepard, <a href="http://literaryvoyeurism.blogspot.com/2009/09/yesterday-with-jim-shepard.html">who came to campus last September</a>. You can see how beautifully Gregerson speaks:<br /><br /><object style="background-image: url("http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/_vxpAHT6SIk/hqdefault.jpg");" height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_vxpAHT6SIk?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_vxpAHT6SIk?fs=1&hl=en_US" allowscriptaccess="never" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />She read from a series of poems about Dido, which really was gorgeous ("Dido Refuses to Speak," forthcoming in <a href="http://www.kenyonreview.org/"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Kenyon Review</span></a>), and I was reminded as she read more and more, how deeply I love her images and her verbs. I devoured all the books of hers I owned just before the conference and am certain I will return to them again not long after returning.<br /><br />** I will add photographs from each day on my return, I think, as I have tragically lost my camera battery charger and want to get through the ten days with a full string of photographs.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-10511776728060662492010-07-31T11:40:00.000-05:002010-07-31T11:41:03.562-05:00two anthologies<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Z78Vcgs8f9Plla7h1gkSeN8IddP2PypfLGGQVn4p2KaC1DklODS0WCuVt4JOtlw9jZEfp3GDnu9MFEZW6XApvWZadzIdr9ogEsSf-Fo6hGe6975H_t2oLziKBF77URkY0mMzzww1Vks/s1600/bookpages2.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 336px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Z78Vcgs8f9Plla7h1gkSeN8IddP2PypfLGGQVn4p2KaC1DklODS0WCuVt4JOtlw9jZEfp3GDnu9MFEZW6XApvWZadzIdr9ogEsSf-Fo6hGe6975H_t2oLziKBF77URkY0mMzzww1Vks/s400/bookpages2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5500108883290955586" border="0" /></a><br />There are two anthologies I want to call your attention to:<br /><br />1. <a href="http://shashtin.com/FromOFG"><span style="font-style: italic;">From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens</span>,</a> edited by Kerstin Svendsen, which will be available in mid-August and is $4 off pre-orders. Of course, I'm extra-excited about this project because I have three poems inside: the title poem to my chapbook (which is <span style="font-style: italic;">still</span> making rounds, but I promise an update, even when it's a bridesmaid again) "The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake," as well as "Kitchen" and "Palming Earth." <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNpugYvzHW3FC7l5reyyxfglmIO3vHA4Kg9xbPGxtfrU2XhbWr0iAsRAYAUZUiMXBq1NPji6wbGlD661uAF19B_FHJosn9Pka6DKIGYk0rKh-Wjpqy-QQ5QYz8eGQHC5uTmrcbIOJ2jj8/s1600/tumblr_l64zi5OY0P1qcm6bvo1_500.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 359px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNpugYvzHW3FC7l5reyyxfglmIO3vHA4Kg9xbPGxtfrU2XhbWr0iAsRAYAUZUiMXBq1NPji6wbGlD661uAF19B_FHJosn9Pka6DKIGYk0rKh-Wjpqy-QQ5QYz8eGQHC5uTmrcbIOJ2jj8/s400/tumblr_l64zi5OY0P1qcm6bvo1_500.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5500108187558899266" border="0" /></a><br />2. The other is a collection being published by <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/imprints/index.aspx?imprintid=517986">Harper Perennial</a>, and my tattoo, done by the lovely and talented <a href="http://www.shawnhebrank.com/">Shawn Hebrank</a>, will make an appearance in its pages. You can read more about my specific tattoo in <a href="http://literaryvoyeurism.blogspot.com/2009/09/its-only-his-outside-man-can-be-honest.html">this post</a>, and you can check out the book's webpage <a href="http://tattoolit.com/">here</a>. It will be released October 12th.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-79725029571937800482010-07-19T18:53:00.001-05:002010-07-19T18:55:34.605-05:00HOWL<object style="background-image: url("http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/8JzqHXubfYk/hqdefault.jpg");" height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8JzqHXubfYk&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8JzqHXubfYk&hl=en_US&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="295" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br />See also: <a href="http://www.allenginsberg.org/">Ginsberg Project</a> + <a href="http://ginsbergblog.blogspot.com/">Ginsberg Project Blog</a>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-59100345714347466162010-07-16T13:04:00.002-05:002010-07-16T13:13:37.441-05:00a few links- My friend Meryl's <a href="http://shawnhebrankart.blogspot.com/2010/07/arrange-whatever-pieces-come-your-way.html">Virginia Woolf tattoo</a> is all healed and gorgeous. Her husband did my arm tattoo, so I have a special affection for his literary artwork.<br /><br />- <span style="font-style: italic;">The New York Times</span> made a little page called <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/07/11/opinion/20100711_OpPoems.html">Hot Type: Poems for Summer</a>, featuring Tony Hoagland, Edward Hirsch, Carl Phillips, Sarah Lindsay, Robert Pinsky, and Claudia Emerson. (Emerson's <span style="font-style: italic;">Late Wife</span> is one of my favorite books of poetry.)<br /><br />- The recent issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">The New Yorker</span> has a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/07/12/100712crbo_books_orourke">review of Anne Carson's <span style="font-style: italic;">Nox</span></a> and a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2010/07/12/100712po_poem_plumly">poem by Stanley Plumly</a>. Not long ago, I wrote a review of Stanley Plumly, and a few days ago, I finally was able to see <span style="font-style: italic;">Nox</span> in person and was inspired for my own thesis, which promises to tango with the fragment, the repurposed document, etc.<br /><br />- I could gaze all day: <a href="http://bookshelfporn.com/">bookshelf porn</a>.<br /><br />- <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/books/01poet.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1277982180-DkrCO9bitIDY2Dx4jBROuQ">article on WS Merwin becoming poet laureate</a>.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-89946448227800215242010-06-29T17:28:00.001-05:002010-07-07T12:36:01.455-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaSdmGcgUKLrZP0kvWAqGpPfRDblG3vrxhXhhj8t43h9QDhyphenhyphen_yJjcoizXE8GRIPGmIzlJ58d098yvosdvWhqvNjCzg-vcDcqYGdKPmTCxjtztPY6nzrJwD61bstQPr-tYhoy7rM73W-yUQ/s1600/IMG_0285.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaSdmGcgUKLrZP0kvWAqGpPfRDblG3vrxhXhhj8t43h9QDhyphenhyphen_yJjcoizXE8GRIPGmIzlJ58d098yvosdvWhqvNjCzg-vcDcqYGdKPmTCxjtztPY6nzrJwD61bstQPr-tYhoy7rM73W-yUQ/s400/IMG_0285.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488326245365695778" border="0" /></a><br />I often read with a pen, a habit I've had to instill in myself, much like one develops that first taste for beer or coffee. I resisted for so long, mostly because I loved to keep my books pristine, care for the bindings and smudge-free pages, and even as an instructor--five years now--I would use little flags or jot notes in a separate notebook, neither of which were very helpful as I'd forget what I meant with the flags and lose the notes in last week's essays or next year's plans.<br /><br />Just now, my friend Meryl and I are finishing a shared reading experience, where we promised to write notes in the margins to Ellen Bryant Voigt's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Art of Syntax</span>, little thoughts and doodles and agreements or disagreements. I've carried mine with me to doctor's appointments, so Meryl will also get the progress report of each visit.<br /><br />And the there are the books with typos and mistakes. I keep thinking to myself, a job as a proofreader might not be so awful, though what pressure to catch every little slip. In the case above, though, the writer was referring to experiences without technology, and when people call the big green goon "Frankenstein," I simply want to cringe and rattle a cage and ask them what they are doing writing a book if they can't recognize a classic such as this. I remember listening to a book-on-CD in one of my commutes where the reader continually mispronounced "Kerouac," and I wondered how no one could catch it, correct her. <br /><br />I realize my small complaints here are ridiculous, given my fifth-grade spelling capabilities and my shaking-fist struggle to pronounce words such as capuchin (thanks, Gerald, for making me enjoy this poem and stumble through it in poetry seminar--thanks, me, for not figuring out how to pronounce beforehand):<br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/06/09/080609po_poem_stern">Spring</a><br /> by Gerald Stern<br /><br /><div id="articletext"> <p>The road the road just south of Frenchtown the poem</p> <p>the one by Mordecai the river the river the</p> <p>one on my left if I am travelling north the</p> <p>car a box with wires loose on top of my</p> <p>left leg the radio fine the light behind</p> <p>behind the clock not working the rose so dead </p> <p>I am ashamed the crows too shiny their feathers</p> <p>too wet the cliff on my right too red the blood</p> <p>the blood of an animal, a skunk, they bleed</p> <p>and stink, they stink and bleed, the monkey on top </p> <p>of me, a New World monkey, not a howler,</p> <p>an organ-grinder monkey, a capuchin,</p> <p>his small red hat is on my head and he’s</p> <p>on my back, he’s dropping orange peels down my neck</p> <p>March 22nd on the Delaware River.<br /></p> </div></blockquote>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-16487705244395146042010-06-24T17:13:00.003-05:002010-06-24T17:43:19.791-05:00intro to poetry 2I finished <span style="font-style: italic;">Triggering Town</span> last night, and though I was not moved by oceans with this book, I did find a serious of bits I will want to share with my own students. When I consider the book as divided lectures, it's fine, a nice little slip into something comfortable, an essay to be read in the bubble bath. As earnest early-writing-course reading, I'm not so sure. It didn't cause me to want to run to my notebook and <span style="font-style: italic;">write</span> (though more often it is reading full length poetry books that will do that for me than anything else). I didn't feel buzzy about it, the way I might feel so very inspired elsewhere, and that <span style="font-style: italic;">title</span> has so much gorgeous promise. I had hoped it would be more about how to take triggers and turn them into beautiful poems, how to follow that poetic impulse, but I got lost along the way.<br /><br />A few moments, comparisons, etc. that will help drive crucial points home to the students, or at least given them something wider to ponder:<br /><br /><blockquote>Often if the triggering subject is big (love, death, faith) rather than localized and finite, the mind tends to shrink. Sir Alexander Fleming observed some mold, and a few years later we had a cure for gonorrhea. But what if the British government had told him to find a cure for gonorrhea? He might have worried so much he would not have noticed the mold. (7)<br /><br />One way of getting into the world of the imagination is to focus on the play rather than the value of words-- (16)<br /><br />Make your first line interesting and immediate. Start, as some smarty once said, in the middle of things. When the poem starts, things should already have happened. (Note: White unlined paper gives you the feeling nothing has happened.) If Yeats had begun "Leda and the Swan" with Zeus spotting Leda and getting an erection, Yeats would have been writing a report. (38)<br /><br />When rewriting, write the entire poem again. If something has gone wrong deep in the poem, you have taken a wrong turn earlier. The next time through the poem you may spot the wrong path you took. If you take another, when you reach the source of your dissatisfaction it may no longer be there. To change what's there is difficult because it is boring. To find the right other is exciting. (38)<br /><br />Use any noun that is yours, even if it has only local use. "Salal" is the name of a bush that grows wild in the Pacific Northwest. It is often not found in dictionaries, but I've known that word long as I can remember. I had to check with the University of Washington Botany Department on the spelling when I first used it in a poem. It is a word, and it is <span style="font-style: italic;">my </span>word. That's arrogant, isn't it? But necessary. Don't be afraid to take emotional possession of words. If you don't love a few words enough to own them, you will have to be very clever to write a good poem. (40)<br /><br />Behind several theories of what happens to a poet during the writing of a poem--Eliot's escape from personality, Keats's idea of informing and filling another body, Yeats's notion of the mask, Auden's concept of the poet becoming someone else for the duration of the poem, Valery's idea of a self superior to the self--lies the implied assumption that the self as given is inadequate and will not do. // <span style="font-style: italic;">How you feel about yourself </span>is probably the most important feeling you have. It colors all other feelings, and if you are a poet, it colors your writing. It may account for your writing. (67)<br /><br />... the imagination's impulse to create unknowns of knowns... (73)<br /><br />...memory and the imagination modify and transform experience... (75)<br /></blockquote>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-63566646428409464472010-06-23T16:08:00.002-05:002010-06-23T16:15:29.343-05:00intro to poetryIn the fall, I am teaching Introduction to Poetry, so I have been test-driving all kinds of books in hopes of finding a perfect fit. This year may be my only year to fill out those book-request forms with books I will actually enjoy reading; when I taught high school, I had little choice as to which texts I would teach, and when I taught the first two years at university, it was a professor who picked for me or it was composition, and really, who can get excited about a comp. textbook (unless it's written by <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/74-9780321439017-0">Donald Hall</a>).<br /><br />Right now I am reading-with-a-pen Richard Hugo's <span style="font-style: italic;">Triggering Town</span>, and though I probably will not opt to assign it (I'm not in love with it), I know I will pull a few moments from it to bring into the classroom. One is the struggle to practice daily writing, something a <a href="http://www.sipswithoutstraws.blogspot.com/">good friend of mine</a> and I have been trying to do this summer, with limited success. Here is the paragraph that proves <span style="font-style: italic;">others</span> use this analogy too:<br /><br /><blockquote>Once a spectator said, after Jack Nicklaus had chipped a shot in from a sand trap, "That's pretty lucky." Nicklaus is suppose to have replied, "Right. But I notice the more I practice, the luckier I get." If you write often, perhaps every day, you will stay in shape and will be better able to receive those good poems, which are finally a matter of luck, and get them down. Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work.<br /><div style="text-align: right;">pg. 27<br /></div></blockquote>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-72943119622649964312010-04-26T20:07:00.003-05:002010-06-23T16:22:34.790-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7WHDB8C2-gydojcDnUUs8fMQrOZ9kwWGYY56eB8f8dpJFXem1zQR-c0jzrJllr9SmbbQWSHIjtbwKlVhzlBrAkJ3qAdckmYwI1UENjaNq9Qb0zGdF0jpr11KfA5xonvO2X9UH0sGA6gSp/s1600/IMG_9098.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7WHDB8C2-gydojcDnUUs8fMQrOZ9kwWGYY56eB8f8dpJFXem1zQR-c0jzrJllr9SmbbQWSHIjtbwKlVhzlBrAkJ3qAdckmYwI1UENjaNq9Qb0zGdF0jpr11KfA5xonvO2X9UH0sGA6gSp/s400/IMG_9098.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464617975765318034" border="0" /></a><br />After a long break from bookish blogging, I am back now, very happily.<br /><br />And while my blogging took a pause, my writing life did not. Here are a few lovely deatils:<br /><br />- <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/acertainslantoflight/sets/72157623656459409/">a field trip with my poetry girl friends</a><br />- <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/acertainslantoflight/sets/72157623855102378/">AWP in Denver</a><br />- <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/acertainslantoflight/sets/72157623730845407/">an artistic reading</a><br />- <a href="http://glossary-of-field-work.blogspot.com/2010/05/461-mdb-retirement.html">a poetry instructor's retirement</a><br /><br />Currently reading: <span style="font-style: italic;">Alias Grace</span> by Margaret Atwood<br />Currently grading: nothing tonight, but tomorrow I will get 24 research essays<br />Currently working on: a presentation on the zuihitsu for my exegesis poetry classMollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-76955514358879678262010-02-25T13:35:00.002-06:002010-02-25T13:37:52.771-06:00For now, I'm taking a little hiatus from this space. <br /><br />HOWEVER, I will still be having lovely poetic conversations that need citations over on <a href="http://cityoflanguage.blogspot.com/">in conversation</a>, and I will still be blogging about everyday life over on <a href="http://glossary-of-field-work.blogspot.com/">field | work</a>, so it's not really a <span style="font-style: italic;">blogging</span> break as much as it's simply a <span style="font-style: italic;">test run </span>of consolidation. Simplicity, methinks.<br /><br />xoMollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-69505704039527682432010-02-15T19:50:00.004-06:002010-02-15T19:55:28.529-06:00seminar study: george oppenBoy's Room<br />by George Oppen<br /><br />A friend saw the rooms<br />Of Keats and Shelley<br />At the lake, and saw 'they were just<br />Boys' rooms' and was moved<br /><br />By that. And indeed a poet's room<br />Is a boy's room<br />And I suppose that women know it.<br /><br />Perhaps the unbeautiful banker<br />Is exciting to a woman, a man<br />Not a boy gasping<br />For breath over a girl's body.<br /><br /><br /><br />There's a kind of quiet beauty in Oppen's work.<br /><br />I also love <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20372">Psalm</a>, which you can read and listen to on the Academy of American Poets' website.<br /><br />Here's also another gift: a talk (or, "poetry course," as it is listed on the webpage) given by Louise Gluck and Michael Braziller titled <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.philoctetes.org/Past_Programs/Our_Life_in_Six_Lyrical_Poems_George_Oppen">Our Life in Six Lyrical Poems: George Oppen</a>.</span>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-9452123810618830052010-02-14T09:21:00.003-06:002010-02-14T09:47:16.976-06:00Lucille Clifton, 1936-2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsKUN2fAfx4yZuGruO2tBHSy_A-c_1CYp7MP8hGhM0niTlNzZhsvSEzcLuqtOQ9vws_C0MOp9mLsYARsbmUsEv5PzOP8O9-l6bHDVCwA9fBRbkC_SZoIyqx-Y_SS0c0K6y3OfJBW-gkTcQ/s1600-h/LucilleClifton.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsKUN2fAfx4yZuGruO2tBHSy_A-c_1CYp7MP8hGhM0niTlNzZhsvSEzcLuqtOQ9vws_C0MOp9mLsYARsbmUsEv5PzOP8O9-l6bHDVCwA9fBRbkC_SZoIyqx-Y_SS0c0K6y3OfJBW-gkTcQ/s400/LucilleClifton.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438126094401483874" border="0" /></a><br />I just found out <a href="http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/955670.html">Lucille Clifton passed away yesterday</a>. It's always sad when a laureate passes on, especially one still so active in the poetry community. She was scheduled to be a special guest at <a href="http://www.squawvalleywriters.org/poetry_ws.htm">Squaw Valley</a> this summer, among other engagements.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-30690285245604649682010-01-28T12:34:00.002-06:002010-01-28T12:36:45.363-06:00JD Salinger, 1919-2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5yaLjxTdAFQV9aIDwr4lAnrocAEOhybjHmQpdi17mQC68En7RO6pPZrG9cEUdKGv83E-2o31H_CH3OXJYyhEA-VvUmu9K0_zvQPpBKd9Y_3c7iPm3kJDQo06qoLV030VhaNQb7VuK9BL/s1600-h/salinger.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 327px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5yaLjxTdAFQV9aIDwr4lAnrocAEOhybjHmQpdi17mQC68En7RO6pPZrG9cEUdKGv83E-2o31H_CH3OXJYyhEA-VvUmu9K0_zvQPpBKd9Y_3c7iPm3kJDQo06qoLV030VhaNQb7VuK9BL/s400/salinger.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431860935998278546" border="0" /></a><br />It's amazingly strange when one of the heavy hitters passes away. <span style="font-style: italic;">Of course</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span>his novel was a long-ago favorite; in my teenage years, I always gave a copy of it to male friends who "weren't readers," and they promised they enjoyed it, though that may have been to appease me.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-30049553533723579582010-01-20T13:00:00.001-06:002010-01-20T13:03:57.035-06:00poetic line<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhapdhGvjlr8EYNTkmhQO7p78TQQTKB4hrT3ejYpyOrIy9YQG75cjwBe8KVwUhHA-yw2AV-4nvcMRn-rd5RHNlrIRgqqdrO4pWEKKzgS7bkrcYd6LmpCBSkQr3j84bMCKtpteZ37nQSPty8/s1600-h/wallace-stevens.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 336px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhapdhGvjlr8EYNTkmhQO7p78TQQTKB4hrT3ejYpyOrIy9YQG75cjwBe8KVwUhHA-yw2AV-4nvcMRn-rd5RHNlrIRgqqdrO4pWEKKzgS7bkrcYd6LmpCBSkQr3j84bMCKtpteZ37nQSPty8/s400/wallace-stevens.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428898689718592946" border="0" /></a><a href="http://baroqueinhackney.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/happy-birthday-wallace-stevens/"><span style="font-size:78%;">(image source)</span></a><br /></div><br />I think of this class as a bit like looking up a poem's skirt, or if it were possible, that cliched x-ray that might lead us to a bit more knowing. I like the idea of examining a poem, part by part, and this week, we spend some time with the poetic line.<br /><br />What surprised me, though, was that we spoke minimally about the line itself, a bit when we took a look at the short lines of <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15535"></a><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15537">W</a>C<a href="http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/williams/4510">W</a>, but even then, the larger focus was on general explication.<br /><br />Before class even began today, I had a few hours between teaching and studenting, so I did some google'ing (what else?) and learned a bit about what immediate search results have to say about "the poetic line," which I thought I would keep here:<br /><br />This blog gives a <a href="http://ekphrastics.blogspot.com/2007/09/primer-on-poetic-line.html">nice introduction to the poetic line</a>, particularly handy if you are teaching an introduction to poetry course or just need to warm your brain up a bit before delving further.<br /><br />Denise Levertov's <a href="http://www.ualr.edu/rmburns/RB/levlinet.html">On the Function of the Line</a>. This can also be found in her <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9780811212182-0">New and Selected Essays</a>.</span> I love her exploration of the musicality and tones of line breaks; it reminds me of an activity where one gives students a poem as a block of prose, then has students break it. So many variations and so many reasons--here is a place to springboard discussion. Also particularly compelling is the idea of how form becomes antiquated, almost" anachronistic," to use one of her terms.<br /><br />Some <a href="http://www.ualr.edu/rmburns/RB/linet.html">excerpts from <span style="font-style: italic;">Claims to Poetry</span></a>, edited by Donald Hall.<br /><br /><br />The first hour and a half, two hours of class was spent examining Wallace Stevens' "<a href="http://www.writing.upenn.edu/%7Eafilreis/88/of-modern-poetry.html">Of Modern Poetry</a>." We opened with the metaphor and how we came upon knowing, how language can introduce a metaphor before the full reveal. We spoke of what we notice before we even read the poem, the shape of it, the blank verse (some slant rhyme, but mostly unrhymed iambic pentameter), the mid-break of lines and how that resembles the dialog in a Shakespearean play. Where does the temperature of the poem change? How do we know? We spoke of specific vocabulary--what is Anglo-Saxon versus "borrowed" language, such as the "souvenir," which brings to mind: snow globes, for one student, trinkets, for me, and an element of cheapness and trashiness to our professor.<br /><br />In this poem, Watkins emphasized that "meaning cannot be disembodied from form," that opening a class with "What is Stevens saying about modern poetry?" would be a large misstep. He told us he believes, "poetry is performative."<br /><br />We spoke of the other voices Stevens could be evoking--the recognition of Shakespeare, of course, and later what Watkins called the "syntax slip, evoking the opening lines of <span style="font-style: italic;">Paradise Lost</span> and its fruit," we spoke at length about interpretations of Whitman and how Stevens' solipsism was perhaps oppositional to Whitman's--the containing multitudes versus the alienation and spotlit stage. He mentioned Wordsworth's "Prelude," and then returned us to Milton, in the end of this and the ending of "<a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Emilton/reading_room/lycidas/">Lycidas</a>," the elegy with a kind of cheery end, the echo of: "Isn't that nice? See what I can do! A taste of poems to come." And Eliot--how there may be an engagement with Prufrockian failure.<br /><br />Time was spent discussing what he said was "a lot of pretended satisfaction in this poem." We get that repetition in the large middle, the Hamlet soliloquy, the risk of cliche and no chance for dialog.<br /><br />If you want to read more about "Of Modern Poetry," there is a collection of analysis <a href="http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/s_z/stevens/modern.htm">here</a>.<br /><br /><br />The first class was wonderful, that puzzle work, the game of explication, though I felt humbled, so very out of practice, the need to revisit the grammar I learned so long ago, to open my eyes, to read and re-read and re-read.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-28650533823464904732010-01-18T20:58:00.003-06:002010-01-18T21:12:25.641-06:00while the syllabus printsWinter break is nearly over. I'm listening to the gears of the printer wear thin, I'm cursing the comp department for making us march too-far in the slush to make photocopies (having one in the same building can spoil a person so, and I don't get up early very well--and this class will have me rising before the sun this winter), and my syllabus is nearly done. I've winnowed it to six hearty pages, two and a half of which is the daily schedule, so much in the spirit of covering-all-bases.<br /><br />I've been working at chipping away at my stack of books half-read, that sloppy bedside collection. I finished <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Zhivago, </span>part of my winter of Russian literature, and I confess, I didn't mind those sprawling descriptions of snowy landscape, the feeling of being pent-up indoors with nothing but potatoes and vodka, and I especially appreciated that later manic passage where Zhivago can only reverse his days and nights in order to write poetry, but overall, it was a bit of a plodding experience. I have the 2002 British miniseries adaptation being sent here, which may help straighten out some of my plot / character confusions.<br /><br /><blockquote>From these old, completed poems, he went on to others that he had begun and left unfinished, getting into their spirit and sketching the sequels, though without the slightest hope of finishing them now. Finally getting his stride and carried away, he started on a new poem.<br /><br />After two or three stanzas and several images by which he himself was struck, his work took possession of him and he felt the approach of what is called inspiration. At such moments the relation of the forces that determine artistic creation is, as it were, reversed. The dominant thing is no longer the state of mind the artist seeks to express but the language in which he wants to express it. Language, the home and receptacle of beauty and meaning, itself begins to think and speak for man and turns wholly into music, not in terms of sonority but in terms of the impetuousness and power of its inward flow. Then, like the current of a mighty river polishing stones and turning wheels by its very movement, the flow of speech creates in passing, by virtue of its own laws, meter and rhythm and countless other relationships, which are as yet unexplored, insufficiently recognized, and unnamed.<br /><br />At such moments Yurii Andreievich felt that the main part of the work was being done not by him but by a superior power which was above him and directed him, namely the movement of universal thought and poetry in its present historical stage and the one to come. And he felt himself to be only the occasion, the fulcrum, needed to make this movement possible.<br /><br />This feeling relieved him for a time of self-reproach, of his dissatisfaction with himself, of the sense of his own insignificance.<br /><div style="text-align: right;">Pasternak, Boris. <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Zhivago</span>. New York: Pantheon Books, 1958. 437.<br /></div></blockquote>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-37489841970144995152010-01-12T10:37:00.001-06:002010-01-12T10:37:00.328-06:00spring semesterTo answer the question: What are you taking next semester? For those unfamiliar with our system, the U of MN has students attend half-time and teach the other half. Two classes counts as a half-load, and teaching assignments vary. Last semester and this semester I have a stand-alone comp class the university calls "First Year Writing" technically under the designation of "Writing Studies." Last spring I TA'ed two sections of Contemporary American Literature under a professor who had lecture twice a week and the autumn before, I taught the discussion section of Intro to Creative Writing, which was once a week and the lecture had rotating guest writers come in. Next year, I'm slated to teach two stand-alone classes: one semester will be Intro to Poetry Writing and the other will be Intermediate Poetry Writing. (I'm already dreaming up book lists.)<br /><br />For now, these are the two classes I'm taking for the spring; I've opted out of an overload, though last semester I took three classes (Reading as Writers: Memoir with Trish Hampl, Poetry Thesis Seminar, and an Independent Study to cover my lit requirement on Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop) and survived.<br /><br />I also intern with the department and am poetry editor of the literary magazine <span style="font-style: italic;">dislocate</span>.<br /><br />(Course descriptions from the website.)<br /><br />1. EngW 5310: Reading as Writers: Reading Poetry<br /><br /><blockquote>This is a course on poetry with a primary emphasis on lyric verse written in England, Ireland, and America from the end of the Middle Ages to the present. Our emphasis will be on prosody, craftmanship, versification. Literary scholars can hone skills of argument and exegesis answerable to an array of theoretical and historical perspectives and it will offer writers a chance to think about the aesthetic consequences of a variety of romal choices. We'll begin with a unit on poetic line in isolation before turning to questions of meter, scansion, enjambment, end-stopping, rhyme and free verse. We will move on to English stanza forms: couplets, quatrains, tercets, rhyme royal, ottava rima, Spenserian stanza. We will then move to sonnets, ballads, villanelles, songs, hymns, monologues, elegies. Our final unti will take up three poets who have a complex relationship to the poetic past: Yeats, Eliot, Stevens. Requirements; a journal that will include several exercises in versification and a final exegetical paper (10-12 pages).<br />Book: Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Edition<br /></blockquote><br /><br />2. EngW 8120: Seminar: Writing of Poetry: Politics of Poetic Forms<br /><br /><blockquote>This course focuses on the current state of contemporary American Poetry and how its forms have changed. We'll discuss the evolution from deep image lyricism to language-poetic fragmentation to fresh approaches toward line, image, and phrase. We will debate the notion that American poetry has evolved into a "hybrid" form that bridges old schools of poetic thought. Close reading of texts by key poets, along with craft talks centered on poems each student will submit, should lead toward a deeper immersion into the shifting terrain of the modern poem. Each student will create and submit one major project centered on American poetry and its vast changes. This project will require a combination of written paper, performance, and media presentation. Required texts: American Hybrid: Anthology of New Poetry (Cole Swenson, David St. John); A Wave, John Ashbery; The Complete Poems, Elizabeth Bishop; Averno, Louise Gluck; Selected Poems, George Oppen; Hotel Insomnia, Charles Simic.</blockquote>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-24315572921308137972010-01-11T15:17:00.002-06:002010-01-11T15:30:44.237-06:00It's interesting how I have such ridiculous feelings towards poetry: I hop onto Good Reads after I have finished <span style="font-style: italic;">Cooling Time</span>, and I find a string of people have trod here before. How can this be? Reading this book was such a deeply private and glorious experience, secreted away like savoring good chocolate--how could it be that all of these Others have also read the book, most have loved it too? I thought poetry readers were declining, were withering away, and now there are all these kindred spirits I don't even know, I haven't even met. Shouldn't we gather more often?<br /><br />Lately, my reading habits have been strange and sporadic. I have half a dozen books going at once, and my moods shift so quickly, I cannot keep up. I want to read the dense Russian novel, no--the nature notes, no--I must start an escape book, no--why haven't I finished the Dickinson biography? And on. And on. Ad <span style="font-style: italic;">nauseum</span>. Is this what happens in winter light? Is this what stealing a set schedule does to a woman? My days and nights are returning back into their rightful compartments, though I am honestly tempted to clamor up those narrow steps to our bedroom, burrow into the down quilt, find myself lost in some strange world, fall asleep mid-day, leave the dogs to their own devices. <br /><br />I return to campus in one week. It all seems so fast, and yet, being at university (and no longer teaching high school), I am spoiled with winter break. I need to remember though: double check the textbooks are ordered, revise last semester's syllabus to reflect this semester's goals, order in a few of those books my professors require that I don't have (strange to think this might be true, in a house weighted with books as ours is), email my poetry girl friends and demand we have a pow-wow and read cold poems to one another. Brr. January is an indoor month, though that generally doesn't apply--too <a href="http://sylviatheteacher.blogspot.com/2008/01/colville-park.html">much</a> <a href="http://glossary-of-field-work.blogspot.com/2009/01/187.html">beauty</a> <a href="http://natural-curiosities.blogspot.com/2010/01/colville-eagle-watching.html">has</a> been found there (interesting how each of these is from Colville, and each from a different blog I have / have had).Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-91742955754390284332010-01-10T00:09:00.001-06:002010-01-10T00:19:04.224-06:00cooling time<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip1LUBb1rD1iZYAGvsUXK1yQHYXKq79KlmRWfZf4k8VA8uFhws0arfcwG2hiltAkPUVWDDRD-m17fazRnhqO-9NxIsQhFPvEL6D_AdwXAm7zJavvfzuCrlCFexV59cR91fYHOpeHce6ex4/s1600-h/wright-cd.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 397px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip1LUBb1rD1iZYAGvsUXK1yQHYXKq79KlmRWfZf4k8VA8uFhws0arfcwG2hiltAkPUVWDDRD-m17fazRnhqO-9NxIsQhFPvEL6D_AdwXAm7zJavvfzuCrlCFexV59cR91fYHOpeHce6ex4/s400/wright-cd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424989466179129762" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/presskit.php"><span style="font-size:78%;">photo: Marnie Crawford Samuelson</span></a><br /></div><br />One of the beautiful things about having a poet-friend is that said poet-friend is often willing to let you tag along in her reading adventures. She's finished reading and I'm only a third of the way through, but we're discussing CD Wright's <span style="font-style: italic;">Cooling Time</span> over on "<a href="http://cityoflanguage.blogspot.com/search/label/cd%20wright">in conversation</a>," and I welcome anyone to join us as the more voices are always the merrier.<br /><br />It's a really wonderful, packed book, even if it is incredibly slender. My brain is dancing and my little highlighter tags are flying. There is much to be brought to the surface here.<br /><br />From the back of the book:<br /><blockquote>An unruly paean to American poetry, <span style="font-style: italic;">Cooling Time</span> blurs the divisions between poem, memoir, and essay, while borrowing regularly from the peculiarities and backwards of the American idiom. The book's title derives from a line of legal defense, unique to Texas courts: if a person kills someone before having had time "to cool" after receiving an injury or an insult, he is not guilty of murder. Ever focused on possibilities, C.D. Wright--who was called "one of America's oddest, best, and most appealing poets" by <span style="font-style: italic;">Publisher's Weekly</span> and who just received a MacArthur Fellowship--demonstrates that "the search for models becomes a search for alternatives." Filled with humor, eroticism, and an hypnotic fascination with language, <span style="font-style: italic;">Cooling Time</span> is a prickly love-letter to the life of poetry. As she writes: "Tell me, what is the long stretch of road for if not to sort out the reasons why we are here and why we do what we do, from why we are not in the other lane doing what others do."<br /></blockquote>Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-24643114988600388302009-12-25T18:40:00.002-06:002009-12-28T18:46:43.600-06:00tattoo on christmas<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPujHVjzKX5elVTnMB8OBbmGnGZRaehmjHCLKpAFFQgndtmmKeMLUt39pUBQrVW_jiGEpHFzfM5oNmAYjFtm_sz3671InZBzV-vdguW96Dp0-fmEkE7Hyv9c_NjxiiPiZCz5SHnLtCSRY4/s1600-h/IMG_3701.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPujHVjzKX5elVTnMB8OBbmGnGZRaehmjHCLKpAFFQgndtmmKeMLUt39pUBQrVW_jiGEpHFzfM5oNmAYjFtm_sz3671InZBzV-vdguW96Dp0-fmEkE7Hyv9c_NjxiiPiZCz5SHnLtCSRY4/s400/IMG_3701.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5420451653146612386" border="0" /></a><br />Happy Christmas! I had my mother take a shot of my tattoo, all healed, while visiting for the holidays, and I thought I would share it here.<br /><br />I've also submitted the tattoo to <a href="http://htmlgiant.com/web-hype/we-still-want-your-literary-tattoos/">this literary tattoos book</a>, which is still accepting for the next week. Several people have pointed out the project, and I'm also sending it along to <a href="http://www.contrariwise.org/">Contrariwise</a>. May as well pass along the tattoo love, but I wanted to make certain I had a healed picture for sending it out.<br /><br />As far as presents are concerned, I am now swimming in more books--books on Elizabeth Bishop, essays suggested by Ellen Bryant Voigt, plenty to keep my mind turning over for months.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-35983375687109734562009-12-22T23:26:00.003-06:002010-01-20T11:07:06.263-06:00good-bye office<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQYpY_epCYn1peqp_m7LidG_ar1sPe8FNk7Dv3MSJvXVaDrq27iVHhSCeo3F05nPNDLcgi0Pm8LBLLMLO6KgdQWQR-ZzMVO01hA5eDMTmmo4a0oEObmshgNZrDulGSkJnXf1Um9c3f7VCI/s1600-h/IMG_3340.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQYpY_epCYn1peqp_m7LidG_ar1sPe8FNk7Dv3MSJvXVaDrq27iVHhSCeo3F05nPNDLcgi0Pm8LBLLMLO6KgdQWQR-ZzMVO01hA5eDMTmmo4a0oEObmshgNZrDulGSkJnXf1Um9c3f7VCI/s400/IMG_3340.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417556940943840562" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAXfQMkapiTQwuqjaPtN-b-UB8mL04JF_ivpJwlAk2J6IEZt_xyiY74Nxp7-M9tGi8s5QDHC_L4tPfFY4QQtIlJKyuaymyf7f5bnuBJScgCcYoa-LqojYEnfPQUiyd5d402Cj9js26BW9O/s1600-h/IMG_3341.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAXfQMkapiTQwuqjaPtN-b-UB8mL04JF_ivpJwlAk2J6IEZt_xyiY74Nxp7-M9tGi8s5QDHC_L4tPfFY4QQtIlJKyuaymyf7f5bnuBJScgCcYoa-LqojYEnfPQUiyd5d402Cj9js26BW9O/s400/IMG_3341.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417556933037717986" border="0" /></a><br />Oh, little cubicle space. I did a little swishing of the 2009-calendar, a little finger running along the tabletop--just before I went out for coffee with one of my favorite MFAers. The little quote is actually on the third floor bathroom wall, something I find charming.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-19166130874844362432009-12-21T23:11:00.006-06:002009-12-21T23:11:00.472-06:00the last memoir<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ_Jnbm4IIxNj3gor82T4TtloRRzNEteR-BUO5i025UidHBQTbD9L4IDO6zBzouO4s55-I0Znmn3YH8OVvrgrrGhje6K_vkM_REe2oe7U6Y7V6LydD3_OemPf2x8su6iet-UVMnrfC_yUZ/s1600-h/IMG_3315.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ_Jnbm4IIxNj3gor82T4TtloRRzNEteR-BUO5i025UidHBQTbD9L4IDO6zBzouO4s55-I0Znmn3YH8OVvrgrrGhje6K_vkM_REe2oe7U6Y7V6LydD3_OemPf2x8su6iet-UVMnrfC_yUZ/s400/IMG_3315.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417555354159436194" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Qs1EIR8pP5ENz6-YPwKys1_tnzlc4V1Ag4957T_GDGUOyCfFL5_DU9zMbruF17YKf_uAC5SgB26noWwfU__i8B5ObrHxbDDyq0aEUqXZJssyBaxNNFQygTD2-e3LikOXG8uj0osfBer7/s1600-h/IMG_3309.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Qs1EIR8pP5ENz6-YPwKys1_tnzlc4V1Ag4957T_GDGUOyCfFL5_DU9zMbruF17YKf_uAC5SgB26noWwfU__i8B5ObrHxbDDyq0aEUqXZJssyBaxNNFQygTD2-e3LikOXG8uj0osfBer7/s400/IMG_3309.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417555348856815026" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHWxVjSzkvZ6kXKWc9fKj0efrkC6D4tdIksObMVjwKZFbzs8-knpG1Z0bleILVKiKQmomlA-qaZsGrH6PqqzGXt8_tvuI5iljEITHQMTEa1ErcGVlYJNmo6kRD5hJEQvbZ1ztVT4cVp3zZ/s1600-h/IMG_3278.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHWxVjSzkvZ6kXKWc9fKj0efrkC6D4tdIksObMVjwKZFbzs8-knpG1Z0bleILVKiKQmomlA-qaZsGrH6PqqzGXt8_tvuI5iljEITHQMTEa1ErcGVlYJNmo6kRD5hJEQvbZ1ztVT4cVp3zZ/s400/IMG_3278.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417555344527078306" border="0" /></a><br />There were people there too, I promise:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbXdT6wfz0gjtWID4AZoRDDlIztVi9JlYQ4S9q4Wliv8QaT_PtNRIdFUeAGcdzr7PfmDk9BtBVETYDFwB3pz-7DHnGiyi0bF7v4NZw_dtYJL-XVF4qVTgRZ4Q3K_QZ9WgK61z6MVaQlgdI/s1600-h/IMG_3274.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbXdT6wfz0gjtWID4AZoRDDlIztVi9JlYQ4S9q4Wliv8QaT_PtNRIdFUeAGcdzr7PfmDk9BtBVETYDFwB3pz-7DHnGiyi0bF7v4NZw_dtYJL-XVF4qVTgRZ4Q3K_QZ9WgK61z6MVaQlgdI/s400/IMG_3274.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417554956026545362" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6AQaCNFhElDs6xnbe__DRluwnhBF-HDFVAmYzxzoFa-oekP4tbFrpj5xEL-5o2dIuR4fTyh6lgg8geww5SCJCa5PWzFgQyjF66sWPtOmHkGlx4dM-Yv3iuNlVUJ50ZHRehY8Z0Ink3N3e/s1600-h/IMG_3292.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6AQaCNFhElDs6xnbe__DRluwnhBF-HDFVAmYzxzoFa-oekP4tbFrpj5xEL-5o2dIuR4fTyh6lgg8geww5SCJCa5PWzFgQyjF66sWPtOmHkGlx4dM-Yv3iuNlVUJ50ZHRehY8Z0Ink3N3e/s400/IMG_3292.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417554947372610018" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg29nrFmsX4H4X3crIEVv28864iVI931bnG8z3JpctQKfPqvxb-qP07kFpXnYCBaH0-l8YRep_joxaDVdtGVb1qSOhioQDap1VBFzpXOMuw7lsON6Yzm5sEclf2d5w7hlc-mI_v_v5in9ik/s1600-h/IMG_3311.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg29nrFmsX4H4X3crIEVv28864iVI931bnG8z3JpctQKfPqvxb-qP07kFpXnYCBaH0-l8YRep_joxaDVdtGVb1qSOhioQDap1VBFzpXOMuw7lsON6Yzm5sEclf2d5w7hlc-mI_v_v5in9ik/s400/IMG_3311.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417554939454549298" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocfPgKsfnGbjsG6qsoFH1rANZeFR0ZiIEq5bzPKiGpY0eAw8zplHJcJl9f2brT8IgOksiM_6VW508hfqIzYKbhRC9V26M9AZVnXfAiYAWaqkuSuCDIecTUUnzg4ViCBWvYD3GoMF4VPCQ/s1600-h/IMG_3316.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocfPgKsfnGbjsG6qsoFH1rANZeFR0ZiIEq5bzPKiGpY0eAw8zplHJcJl9f2brT8IgOksiM_6VW508hfqIzYKbhRC9V26M9AZVnXfAiYAWaqkuSuCDIecTUUnzg4ViCBWvYD3GoMF4VPCQ/s400/IMG_3316.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417554306448220754" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw85QfKtuEgqPU1nc94QGQy8imVmrEdXvwQ-wPj1bI2MbtFIUr4J-f_70YsPRGQ2u2cLaRDWaPn-4YIKaob7kHMYZIdESnKoNFT9vT_CpHTLghtnEQq5FzyH_s0_vmLNKGx2r2Yj5FjPuc/s1600-h/IMG_3319.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw85QfKtuEgqPU1nc94QGQy8imVmrEdXvwQ-wPj1bI2MbtFIUr4J-f_70YsPRGQ2u2cLaRDWaPn-4YIKaob7kHMYZIdESnKoNFT9vT_CpHTLghtnEQq5FzyH_s0_vmLNKGx2r2Yj5FjPuc/s400/IMG_3319.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417554298141414850" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjZ7h4fINCbEutyIHHUIClc9V9YoMeGYBKkPw8oWwP9i-ugYuCpgq2iDd7-56y329tokIz_v3lqNLGM1SW_bJTh8eQk88APEeIuckB4x1GKnOtFYgbWFTiOnOgL6hp1tjuVQ7911aOZvL/s1600-h/IMG_3326.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjZ7h4fINCbEutyIHHUIClc9V9YoMeGYBKkPw8oWwP9i-ugYuCpgq2iDd7-56y329tokIz_v3lqNLGM1SW_bJTh8eQk88APEeIuckB4x1GKnOtFYgbWFTiOnOgL6hp1tjuVQ7911aOZvL/s400/IMG_3326.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417554296119559602" border="0" /></a><br />A few images from our last memoir class, which met at Trish Hampl's beautiful St Paul home. I will share some of my best notes from the class, many of which will not live up to the experience. My honest opinion? If you have the chance to work with Patricia Hampl, do so. (Don't tell, but a good handful of these people aren't in the class due to a passion for memoir but for a realization that she is one of the best professors in the program.) (Of course, a great appreciation, if not love, developed from our studies.)<br /><br />For me, it was a crucial class; my own work, poems and prose, have been approaching the self in such strange ways, so it was good to discuss and dissect from this perspective.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-26675641283302459782009-12-20T23:03:00.002-06:002009-12-20T23:10:41.949-06:00joyce sutphen at the anderson center<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg03VgkhVNp2pI5vQeYwA_Ohf-a4SIHGg2gvo8XUzfV4eplHq6Z0V4jUOV7oCzI71uRpmOaevdY0Bom_6aj0aqyCfzXu8A0R3a_KTN2Bs8XjaRGBELg2DpQg4dJ4QAai0B9SGNBhvgeifFB/s1600-h/IMG_3273.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg03VgkhVNp2pI5vQeYwA_Ohf-a4SIHGg2gvo8XUzfV4eplHq6Z0V4jUOV7oCzI71uRpmOaevdY0Bom_6aj0aqyCfzXu8A0R3a_KTN2Bs8XjaRGBELg2DpQg4dJ4QAai0B9SGNBhvgeifFB/s400/IMG_3273.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417550943778240418" border="0" /></a><br />Among others, here is one reason I am explosively blessed: I live in the same town as the Anderson Center. One of those coveted retreat-places, one that draws in talented writers and artists, and this winter, a few weekends ago, Joyce Sutphen graced us with her presence at the winter celebration of the arts, reading from her new collection, <a href="http://www.reddragonflypress.org/music/2987"><span style="font-style: italic;">First Words</span></a>. <br /><br />She recognized me, from the Zagajewski event, from others, and we spoke of the toughness of getting into MFA programs, the retirement of Michael Dennis Browne, and she urged me to say hello when I saw her next. I will, and perhaps, I will gather up the bravery to tell her how much her books meant to me when I was an undergraduate, how much her memoiristic voice means to me now.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-53542410401361251982009-12-17T16:31:00.002-06:002009-12-17T16:34:51.588-06:00<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/o5n43xlCZYI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/o5n43xlCZYI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />I fell in love with Marie Ponsot at <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/acertainslantoflight/3277833062/in/set-72157604078316935/">AWP last February</a>, and whilst wandering strange places on the web, I found the above video from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Mom Egg</span>.<br /><br />This conversation is particularly interesting in how Ponsot speaks about rhythm and rhyme, particularly after my last independent study meeting with MDB and how I spoke to him about my aversion to the Dickinson and the Bishop poems that were most "sing songish." MDB loved Bishop's triple rhymes while I did not; I think learning to love that kind of controlled versification is something I'll have to put on my to-do list for the last year and a half of my MFA. I will learn to appreciate, if I cannot love. Admire what one can do with foundations.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-70402934504836367702009-12-10T23:31:00.004-06:002009-12-10T23:39:07.513-06:00on the occassion of emily's birthday<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixQjUWw42b0iOyZzl2j01Xdbigj3hgQuzuGXkRXbJUFrniOuneMg3hVS-6dlbYQoV-dA5td31bb5APdj5ofIuq__IubwoZmwXDP15oNwAylqp8bIWh5Lg8x_tsrdjtHa6eQMzjSwYy2JXH/s1600-h/isa04.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 342px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixQjUWw42b0iOyZzl2j01Xdbigj3hgQuzuGXkRXbJUFrniOuneMg3hVS-6dlbYQoV-dA5td31bb5APdj5ofIuq__IubwoZmwXDP15oNwAylqp8bIWh5Lg8x_tsrdjtHa6eQMzjSwYy2JXH/s400/isa04.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413847908659563378" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">illustration: <a href="http://www.isabellearsenault.com/">isabelle arsenault</a><br /></span></div><br />One hundred and seventy-seven is the rumor: and she looks so good.<br /><br />1488.<br />Birthday of but a single pang<br />That there are less to come --<br />Afflictive is the Adjective<br />But affluent the doom --Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-21868758253499836542009-12-09T20:58:00.004-06:002009-12-09T21:10:49.931-06:00We had a blizzard all through the night, making driving after thesis seminar stretching time in strange ways, but I'm fortunately listening to a <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780684807614-1">Benjamin Franklin biography</a> that kept my mind contented.<br /><br />At home, I've been reading through a book of poems a day, similar to something I did in May (oh, but May rhymes so much nicer than December!), and reading through Sophie Cabot Black's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Descent</span>, reminds me of something I read in another book I'm paging through this week, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wounded Surgeon: Confessional and Transformation in Six American Poets (Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, Delmore Schwartz, and Sylvia Plath)</span>--something I should have already realized, but the concept of capitalization of that first word on each line, as in <a href="http://ilovedeadbirdpoems.blogspot.com/2009/12/sophie-cabot-black.html">this dead bird poem</a> in the collection, and how that act of capitalizing then emphasizes the line as opposed to the sentence.<br /><br />I had always eschewed that capitalization as something basic, or Microsoft-Word-lazy. <br /><br />I love having my eyes opened, even when those concepts seem elementary.Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195474238106442086.post-8978126835141894122009-12-04T22:05:00.002-06:002009-12-04T23:16:10.942-06:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL7GzNUGjyKgxtfFlhFWkTfxLXOnLuvOIOdf78s8gQFhuywCN872pLByzUaQNle1MhI_R0qU4aflIqgqQ4tumL0IAip7PUSxFYpRXgXvu13x6K6HoopLk2mF74bPDxwjlJd9KngUuVDX0u/s1600-h/57326590.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 286px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL7GzNUGjyKgxtfFlhFWkTfxLXOnLuvOIOdf78s8gQFhuywCN872pLByzUaQNle1MhI_R0qU4aflIqgqQ4tumL0IAip7PUSxFYpRXgXvu13x6K6HoopLk2mF74bPDxwjlJd9KngUuVDX0u/s400/57326590.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411598468476006418" border="0" /></a><br />In my thesis seminar, all of the second year students are to turn in five poems every handful of weeks, while the third years present us with a full manuscript on the first day. I was much more dry this summer than I anticipated, not leaving me with an arsenal of quality work to begin with, and here, at the end of the semester, I find myself veering into new territory: from that of the elderly body flattened by Alzheimer's and into the infertile woman's body. The poems are a bit more vulnerable, more teetering and uncertain.<br /><br />I wonder if I am the kind of writer who writes in cycles--I have my chapbook-sized collection in one series and now, I embark one what could be a book-length intrusion. With this, I have no full-plan, no handrails. And there were some disappointing moments about critique, but I've got so much buzzing in my mind that I won't let anything not-so-helpful trip me up--not too much, anyway.<br /><br />Right now, I'm working at a series of <span style="font-style: italic;">figures</span>, coming mostly from the reproduction gallery at <a href="http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Bodies: The Exhibition</span></a> at the Mall of America {shudder}, a place I've visited twice now. This recent visit was with fellow-MFAer <a href="http://www.sipswithoutstraws.blogspot.com/">Meryl</a>, who also paused and wrote alongside me on the scattered benches and wore our pens weary. It's a good day when my pen-callouses throb.<br /><br />Also fun in the world of poetics: I've started a collaborative blog called <a href="http://www.ilovedeadbirdpoems.blogspot.com/">i love dead bird poems</a>, a response with a back-story, but for now, you can enjoy a little Bishop and Zagajewski (and if you want to join in the fun, please let me know and I'll send along an invite!).Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02684472385651395069noreply@blogger.com1