Welcome Back

the above as much to myself as to you (whomever you are who may still check this long-neglected blog). spring is setting in (i hope), and i've just begun today, teaching Huck Finn to 11th and 12th graders. it's got me all aflutter with ideas for projects and discussion points. just now, we're watching the ken burns twain documentary - terrific. so many things i didn't know. one i did, but it is the most pertinent for this blog, and that item is this: twain was born the night halley's comet sailed over missouri and he was born weeks and weeks too early. he was tiny, thin and ill. his mother thought he would never amount to much, even if he did live. so there.

i am still working on that comet, but it's maturing and i'm not rushing it. i've moved into a third section of smaller story-poems having nothing to do with my own narrative or that of the comet's own physics or halley's trials and tribulations. i am collecting anyone's and everyone's stories now - and it's a wonderful pan out from the careful thematic focus of the first two thirds of the poem. it's a good spring project. get me out of my head, myself, my house, my pattern. it's good for me, however much of it i end up using. meanwhile, i'm full up on daytime (and evening) work between teaching all day at the high school and two nights a week at the university. i'll be tired by the end of april and ready for summer by the middle of june. hopefully happy to round up all the new poems at that time and see what i've caught.

school's almost out now. and then to office hours and two english 200 classes. i can do it!

i'll be back again soon.

it goes like...

here's how writing works right now: i'm adding a whole new frame to the comet poem that's really coming along so well, i can't help but get over-excited about it. i've told my first reader i'll have a solid, revised manuscript to her some time in january, so maybe i should be not so excited and a little more focused. currently, i'm without my truck, out in the country at my parents' house helping out with the christmas-ifying of the house. my grades are all in and i'm in relaxed holiday mode, though there are fifteen abandoned jewelry christmas gift projects on my coffee table at home that i wish i had here with me. i've dug real deep into the life of edmond halley, "original" (ahem! - european) discoverer of the comet... his daughters, his responsibilities to the king as astronomer royal, his lists and quirks and his penchant for sailing. i so wish i had more time than these crowded three or so weeks.

to the right here is maria mitchell (old, seated), the first American woman to discover a comet, newest character in the ever-expanding comet.

obama celebration playlist!

while i get my act together to do an actual, full post, this, for your consideration:

obama celebration playlist (duration of song included, just because itunes lists it that way)
i feel like most of these don't necessitate explanation, expect for the Jay-Z. it's not because michelle's so great; it's because mr. obama has dispensed (until election 2012, that is) with at least one of his problems. enough said, i think.

more coming soon!


1.Mr. November 4:00 The National
2.This Land Is Your Land 2:40 Woody Guthrie
3.99 Problems 3:55 Jay-Z
4.Sweet Home Chicago 1:41 Buddy Guy, C.E. Smith & Gregory Porter
5.Obama 3:04 Pistol Opera
6.Yes We Can, Can 6:02 The Pointer Sisters
7.If the Kids Are United 3:46 Sham 69
8.Power to the People 3:20 John Lennon
9.If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out 2:44 Cat Stevens
10.Obama 2:49 Washington Salsa Band
11.Uptight (Everything's Alright) 2:53 Stevie Wonder
12.The Times They Are A-Changin' 3:14 Bob Dylan
13.Champion 2:48 Kanye West

my first house. sloped plant beds to disguise the foundation, perhaps? saving up!

best. idea. ever.

go here!
and then the obama girls can join 4H.

back to skool.

good afternoon from Fall semester 2008! less bookstore, less bar, more educating. more writing, too, you might be interested to know. two things: the talented alumni ranks of the VCU MFA has yielded yet another slim volume of poetry, deemed fit for public consumption by poet Thomas Lux and to be published by the University of Georgia Press. (I would link this, but the National Poetry series is still listing the 2006 winners as current on their website - Yikes! never leave poets in charge of computers.) Congratulations from bryher to anna journey for her achievement in writing and in the kind of work ethic that should put every one of us to shame.

thing two: former teacher of this poet (me) and of at least a couple of people who read this blog, Claudia Emerson, has been made poet laureate of our very own swing state (that being virginia). next stop, the white house. find her and congratulate her while she's still under the radar enough to answer her own phone.

in other news, allegedly tomorrow you can go here and see another part of the comet (this section actually called "The Comet" just for brevity's sake). a smart friend of mine recently recommended that i simply call the whole thing "The Comet" and be done with it. i am considering. the title, though, is kind of the furthest concern from my mind right now. i am initiating a pretty big overhaul and rearrangement of the poem in total. it involves a wholesale change of POV, and recognizing and bringing to the forefront some themes that have been screaming for more attention. laying off the majority of the weird work hours i have been keeping for the past few months is helping my brain to come out of hiding. getting out of town for a week helped as well. the above hard-working poets making good is also encouraging. styles and choices may vary, but poetry isn't necessarily dying - this is good to know. my students are adorable and attentive and i'm just so glad not to be commuting to fredericksburg this year, i feel like i can do anything. so, of course, i have just volunteered for the zero reward or glory position of Adjunct Faculty Rep for my department. because they definitely pay me enough to care more. i figure, now that i have time and am not split between two different universities, i should probably be more informed about my own tenuous position here. being involved is the only way i'll have a chance to change things anyway. i don't expect anything revolutionary, but i always feel as though i should be more informed.

office hours now. i would like some hot chocolate to help me think.

three cheers for pursuing art in the face of bankruptcy. wish me luck as i attack the comet and ask it to be something quite different from what it is now.

gunning in neutral.

so the mission is to get myself together enough to send the comet and a few straggler poems out in chapbook form for some fall contests. i can do it, i just have to cram it in while i'm still in the storm of pre-fall semester working. the issue i'm having right now is climbing down from being so stressed out. i'm too twtichy to make much happen right this second in organizing and revising. i am going to go to yoga today for the first time in two months, make some dinner later, have a glass of wine and see what happens after the sun goes down. a bit of a lonely day, as mike is somewhere between nashville and st. louis right now, wedged into a greyhound bus seat. he's probably got his neutral-mike face on, which at all times says, "it's a bad idea to try talking to me," even if he's feeling entirely friendly. so he's safe in his Big Guy with Beard bubble, but i'm having separation anxiety and need to go get some exercise before my mind can settle down. i have been writing over the past few days, though and have an outline for the third section of the poem. i'm excited but just can't seem to get down to it right now. and it's hard to be patient. or hard for me.

back after yoga,
your stalled out poet.