Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Read my poems at H_ngm_n!

Just Press Here.


And to those of you who miss my updates, I apologize. Grad school is a busy place and I don't have internet at home. (insert sad face here)

Friday, October 26, 2007

Coconut 10 is up!

And now available: Coconut Books!

It just keeps getting better & better!

Monday, October 15, 2007

Cold-Drill, Accepting Submissions

Cold-Drill seeks fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction from the traditional to the experimental & strives to publish work that goes beyond the obvious, that provokes & stimulates readers.

Submissions are read from September 15 to January 5. Include a SASE for response. Manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by appropriate SASE.

Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction: up to 20 pages.
Poetry: up to 8 poems.

Currently, no electronic submissions. Send submissions to:

fiction, nonfiction, poetry editor
cold-drill
department of english
boise state university
1910 university drive
boise, id 83725

Monday, September 24, 2007

these days are so strange and so fickle...

Friday, September 14, 2007

Friday, September 7, 2007

I am watching Re-Animator.

Tonight, I will go sing Karaoke. Tonight I will sing Pat Benetar...not Love is a Battlefield or Hit me with Your Best Shot, but something else.

But I'm sleepy, always sleepy. Ever since classes started it's like even when I sleep I wake and am sleepy. But most of the time I can't sleep. I take melatonin to help.

I'm struggling here. I had a week or so of this strange sort of happiness but it's gone now. Now? Just restless. Cant' sit or read or write much, but don't feel like going out and doing anything either.

I do both though. Because I can't do either.

It's all strange.

And I need to start actually looking for a job. I need a job.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The last four days have lived like a year. So much activity, so many words. And now classes and my brain is pudding.

Friday, August 31, 2007

There's a thunderstorm. It's magnificent. It makes me want to strip down to nothing and go running through the streets.

I just keep going outside and standing there.

It's perfect.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Today has been long and short.
Today I taught for the very first time and it was easier than I expected.
Today I spent about 4 hours on the telephone when normally I spend less than 5 minutes.
Today I fell asleep in the middle.
Today I read about love and talked about love and thought about love and dreamed about lovers.

It is warm in my room tonight and I think I will throw the blankets off or sleep haphazardly under the covers.

I will read before I sleep and hopefully I'll dream about something sweet and tart, like overripe pomegranates or blackberries.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

I got my picture taken at Saturday market today and will be in a Photography Exhibit in some gallery in Boise at some point.

This orange hair gets major mileage.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

As of 2am today/last night, I am "officially" very single and very lonely and very, very sad.

There is really nothing about breaking up that feels good. Not one thing.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Check out the new Cab/Net

http://www.cabnetjournal.com/

I am in it along with some other wonderful poets. It's a fabulous read.



And...

I have finished the first draft of Horoscope.

Woo.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Just another beautiful day in the neighborhood.

And I'm tempted to still hole up in my cool, breezy room watching Buffy. But alas, we have to go out into the world sometime and today is my day I've decided. No more avoiding. I will send mail today and buy a few groceries and maybe I'll have enough energy to actually read something. I tried last night with little success but today could be different. You never know.

I have two poems left to finish on Horoscope. They're near the end but not the last poem. I just finished the last poem. Serendipitous how it turned out. It feels like an ending to me. Like something that draws everything up. Not ties up loose ends or anything like that. But it feels like it will be whole, ending there. Like it makes sense. The form allows that I could keep writing Horoscope forever. It would never have to feel like an ending. But it does, somehow.

And just in time for all this life changing goodness!

I went to this thing called Live after 5 this week. Band, beer, food in a park downtown once a week. People stared a lot. And I got approached by this girl with fliers saying "Are you interested in cosmotology?" She had beamed in on me. And when I told her no her jaw dropped. "but...but...you have such great hair!" It was kinda nice. The band was real hilbilly and we didn't stay long. We ended up at this Basque wine bar and some old men came in and you know that scene with the chicken farmers in naploean dynamite? Well, that's for real. That's basque. They really talk like that. It was incredible.

I think I'm going to a rodeo next week. It makes me wish I had brought my cowboy hat.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

So I was on my way to REI

which is a good 50 or so blocks from my house, no biggie on a bike, to get new wheels and tires etc...because mine are old and I figure it's better to be safe than sorry, and I wanted to make my very heavy vintage bike a little lighter, when my back tire explodes. I don't mean it goes flat. I mean it explodes. As in the rubber part is coming out of the metal part and the inner tube is flopping about, a tattered mess. Even pushing the bike home, which was about 6 blocks away was a chore because the back tire kept getting caught and it is just too heavy to carry in this heat.

Boo bicycle.

I can only hope my roomates with cars will be charitable and take me up to REI tonight to make arrangements.

That's what I call bad news bears.

Now there's nothing left for me to do except my homework. And watch Buffy on DVD.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

I like to ride my bicycle I like to ride my biiiike.

Today I set out, for the first time, to BSU. It was smaller than I expected but the ride to campus is easy because it's pretty much downhill. Downhill is good. And what makes it better? The ride up isn't too bad either because the hill is very slow and menadingering in its incline. There's a nice bike trail too, that leads from very near my place directly to campus so I have to deal with very little traffic.

But Boise, I've come to discover, is quite beautiful. It's different than Seattle, certainly. But you can see the hills in the distance and the sky is blue. It's like living in a nice little bowl.

I do feel a bit out of place. It's only been 3 days, I know. But it is strange feeling.

I ended up staying up till 4am to finish harry potter. It was good, but the final chapter, I thought, let me down a bit. I think the book would have been fine without it, and even better with a different final chapter, but in the end I'm glad I read the whole thing. I resisted for a while. But in the end, it caught me. Anything that culturally relevant had to be experienced by me.

I also live right next to a theater (I mean literally, I can see it out of my window right now). It costs $2 so it has movies that have been out of the theater a bit. When Live Free or Die Hard comes along I will watch it there.

I also saw Factory Girl today (as you can see I'm avoiding the heat for the most part...). I hated Guy Pierce as Andy Warhol. He made me want to stick my finger down my throat and vomit. And I didn't much care for Edie Sedgewick either. I felt very little pity and I think I was supposed to pity her. And still I feel like I enjoyed the movie. Maybe it was Jimmy Fallon that really did it for me. But really I think it was Hayden Christensen playing "musician" that seemed so clearly like Bob Dylan that I don't know why they didn't just say so. In fact, all the performances were kind of horrible but maybe it was just that the people they were playing were horrible. But these affected accents and mannerisms made me want to punch them all in the face.

Maybe that's the heat talking.

I'm in Boise. It's hot. They have ice cream trucks.

I don't know.

Friday, August 3, 2007

Things that seem quite natural to Boise-ites that I find incredibly bizarre

1. Harnesses on cats. Cats on leashes. Cats chained up in the backyard.
2. Ice cream trucks.

Boise

Wow.

On the upside, it's more green than I thought. The downtown reminds me of Olympia. Kind of. It seems older than Olympia, less "hip" perhaps. I went to an art gallery yesterday and saw some of the worst art I've ever seen in my life. A lot of landscapes executed poorly. And they served punch instead of wine because Idaho is run by Mormons. Or at least that's what I was told. That the mormons rallied so that wine couldn't be served at the galleries.

I also went to a bbq with my roomate and met people who would have blended into Evergreen like little baby chameleons. They all have gardens and talk about gardening and they all brough fresh tomatoes and basil and bread and mozarella so we ate capreses. I didn't see a grill anywhere. Actually, I didn't see a single cooked dish at all. But the people were nice.

I am also unpacked.

I haven't ventured out much but it has only been 2 days.

I miss Seattle more than I had expected, and I had expected to miss it.

I probably wont venture out until the afternoon. When it cools a little. Now I think I will read harry potter. It's good so far. I think I could finish it today but I probably won't.

Monday, July 23, 2007

my new do...


My bangs are pulled back but otherwise it's Lelu meets Lola.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Two Days Left of a "Real" Job.

13 Days left of Washington.
13 Days left of Boyfriend.
13 Days left of local friends.
13 Days left of my parent's big fucking tv.
13 Days left of my dad kicking me off his big fucking tv.
13 Days left of the three dogs, Waldo, Ami, and Biscuit.
13 Days left of visitation rights with my kitty.
13 Days left of etcetera in Seattle.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

What the Giant Tiramisu Said...

I want you to want me.
I need you to need me.
I love you to love me.
I'm begging you to beg me.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Bacteria, or the time I was really bored and decided to investigate a cult

Once I cut my finger outside the Church of Scientology. Tom Cruise was there and he saw the blood and he sucked on my finger. Katie watched, her eyebrows angled angrily. He said to me, "When the aliens come, they will promote me to God status. I've ingested so much blood!" and then he ran away with his arms in the air, jumping occasionally, screaming "I love her! When the aliens come! I am the new God!" I watched him go, shaking my head, longing for anti-bacterial soap. His saliva was on me!

Walking home, I started to feel strangely. I couldn't stop staring at the sky. When I got home, I climbed onto my roof and waited for night. The sky was clear and I could see stars. I thought, that's where they'll come from.

I fell asleep there, staring at the sky. I woke to friends yelling at me. But I didn't feel like going out and having fun. I decided to hang out on the roof for a while, till sunrise, then go to church for the rest of the day. Maybe get connected to some aluminum probes. Find peace on a boat somewhere in the Pacific.

Monday, July 2, 2007

read poems from Horoscope at past simple

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Monday, June 25, 2007

say goodbye to miss negativity

i am taking a break to regain my loving feeling

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

and to think, i never used to get sick

but now i am. at work. taking trips to the bathroom waiting for my ride to get here. woohoo flu. or food poisoning. or something.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

5 weeks left at this effing job

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Erasure Poems While Waiting for Sushi

Earth without directions
the gyroscope said
the stunt identified spending hours under water



a beggar plays a penny
his collection honest
police thought it was costume jewelry
said the ring was a proposal
claimed after days



making troops making music
marketing music
dealership says sad that
war could make harmonicas handy
anyone can play to some degree

Friday, June 8, 2007

god this week has sucked. could just one thing go right? please.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

I feel anxious. I feel like people are talking about me behind my back. I am being paranoid. But I am all kinds of rattled and want to punch someone in the face.

What We Overheard

Ever notice how when you overhear other people talking they inevitably sound like idiots. It's not that I don't sound like an idiot, quite the contrary. It's that we all talk about such mindless, stupid, unimportant things that when you hear other people you're faced with the fact that we don't often have anything to say. Or, if you are talking about something that actually 'matters,' you still sound like a prat. Like you think you're better than somebody else, or smarter, or more self-important.

I do like riding the train. I just wish everybody would just shut up. I have a Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of Sparrow. Can't you see I'm reading here?

I work in a cubby hole. In the mornings I listen to my coworkers bitch when they get here in the morning. About how they got so many emails and how late they had to work the night before and the great coach bag they just bougth and how they want to buy a condo but the prices are just too high and their new ties and their shoes and their exercise regiment and their phone ringing and how great they are etc It goes on for about an hour every day. No wonder they have to work late.

People have stopped trying to have these conversations with me, and to be honest, I don't mind. If I want to talk to somebody, I go to my friend's office or out to the bar and talk to the service staff. They don't rattle on endlessly about themselves or their jobs. Sometimes they talk about sports and I listen and occasionally ask questions because I don't know a lot about sports. Sometimes they ask about the upcoming weekend or previous weekend. We all give short answers. We laugh. Belly laughs. Chuckles. Slap you on the shoulder laughs.

Does all of this make me a snob? Probably, but that's alright. They are also snobs. The kind of snobs that ask you to go to coffee or lunch with them then literally don't talk to you at all. Go out of their way to not respond to you at all. Will literally turn their backs on you.



I have been thinking about poems, mostly. And trying to get together with people who are leaving or people I want to see before I leave. I am missing people I haven't left yet. I am planning my future. I am wondering how other people's priorities become priorities. I am wishing I brought headphones. I have been singing Jefferson Airplane for two days and wishing, lightly, that I was Grace Slick, who is now an 'artist.' I kind of like her work but also wonder if she will ever grow out of Alice in Wonderland and the timekeeping white rabbit. I want to take a nap, have nice dreams of fields, endless fields.

I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Don't you want somebody to love.
Don't you need somebody to love.
Wouldn't you love somebody to love.
You better find somebody to love.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Choo-Choo

I have to say, as far as methods of travel, riding the train to and from work to commute aint too bad. I thought it would be more quiet, more upscale than a bus, but no. Snobby professionals are just as noisy as drunks and crackheads, but they talk about how they don't "mind" small cars or how Paris was or where they got their suit instead. They talk loudly though. They want everybody to know how great they are. Kind of American Psycho style. What kind of business cards do you have?

And while most of the views weren't stunning, in fact often industrial, and at one point I got to see steam rising off of a dump pile, it was nice to look out the window. Sometimes there were trees and with the sun out they were lime colored and nearly transparent. It took an hour and when we got to Seattle bodies flushed out into the terminal and waited in lines 6 bodies deep to climb the stairs up into the city. And the walk, on a day like today, from the train to my work was nice. It made me want to walk all day and never go back to work. Next week will be different. Next week I'll ride my bike to the station, take it on the train, ride it to work and back. But that will be good too. I used to hate riding a bicycle. Now I look forward to it. I can hardly wait. My shiny blue Schwinn, vintage 1978.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Boxes labeled "made from recycled corrugated paper"

Moving the bookcase made me realize how dirty my carpet really is. Why do apartment complexes use white carpet? Idiots.

Things I still have to move: one skirt, two pairs of slacks, my tee shirts, pillows, blender, spices, chopsticks, frying pans & matching pots, makeup, flat iron, toothbrush, razor.

Things I wish I could take with me: boy & cat.

Things I'm not looking forward to upon moving: sleeping in my old bed. 3 Dogs barking. Being so far away from Seattle. Still having to work & having to get up even earlier to do it. Missing said boy & said cat.

Things I'm looking forward to upon moving: sleeping in my old bedroom. Playing with 3 dogs. Home Internet Access. Spending time with my mom. Getting rid of more things, and thereby purging myself of my past. Riding my bicycle to the train. Reading on the train. Sleeping on the train. Being able to see friends that live in my home town that I never get to see now. The knowledge that it is temporary. The knowledge that it is an intercolary chapter bringing me ever closer to Boise and therefore my future. The fact that I was able to use the term intercolary which only ever makes me think of the hateful Grapes of Wrath and in effect the teacher who told me I should go into business because I am organized and assertive.

Friday, May 25, 2007

CLICK HERE FOR THE IRONY OF ALL IRONIES

Two Lonely Travellers

Every morning I get up, brush my teeth, put on my clothes, kiss my boyfriend goodbye, and walk to the bus stop. Most of the time there's a woman there. With her daughter.

The first time I saw her I thought she was familiar. I stared, probably in a way that made her uncomfortable, but I couldn't pin why I recognized her.

My first day in Greece I walked off the plane and onto a bus that was to take me to the ferry port in Athens. I met a woman who was also flying in from Seattle. She used to live in Greece. She knew her way around. She was waiting for the same ferry. I was 19 and she was older. In her late 20's. She walked with confidence and spoke to shop clerks and cafe servers in Greek. Yasu. Te Kaneis? Thelo Nescafe. But all of this was unfamiliar then. We spent less than a day together. A lot of it on the ferry. She got off an island before me.

Today, for the first time, I asked her. Have you ever been to Greece? She nearly fell over. Nearly dropped her daughter. Yes. She said yes. Then she remembered me too.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

listen to me read

Avalanche Poem at I-Outlaw alongside Charles Bernstein, Shanna Compton, and others...

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Tapes & Tapes & Tapes

I am, at this moment, listening to a cassette walkman. I am listening to a mix tape my friend Chelka, from freshman year of college, made for me. It has things like Weezer, Jets to Brazil, the Anniversary, Juliana Theory, Ani DiFranco, Nada Surf, Five for Fighting/Dashboard Confessional and Eliott Smith, among others.

I used to take this music very seriously. Man this music is funny. It makes me wanna dance, but silly. I miss mix tapes. I have an ipod that I almost never use. An ipod is the ultimate mix tape, but, somehow loses some of the flavor. That snowy ambiance. I also brought the mix tape my friend Amanda Rediske made me my freshman year in high school (well, technically junior high...). She made me a series of 3 'Amber's Crazy Mixes' mix tapes. They include things like David Bowie, Jimmy Buffet, Blondie, The Doobie Brothers, Alvin and the Chipmunks (singing their famous rendition of Michael's Beat It), among others.

The Mix Tape is a lost art. I used to spend days making a perfect mix tape for a friend. Days, making sure it included certain artists, certain songs, that there was good flow, and not too much air space at the end, not a second wasted. And I loved getting mix tapes. I mean, mix cds are good. They are. But they're so easy. Hop on I Tunes, drag and drop. You can test every variation before burning it. No need for planning. You can make a perfect mix. But man, a good mix tape is special. A rare breed. A labor of love.

The internet, computers. Everything is so easily accessible. Information. Publishing, to the point where it seems there's no need to be selective, to where you can be criticized for being selective b/c it's so easy to put something out there then why not put it all out there? Music, writing, movies...whatever. Art becomes populous.

I should have been born earlier, I think. I'm coming to that conclusion. I listen to older music now, when I bother listening to music, things like Otis Redding and Al Green. Led Zeppelin and Jefferson Airplane (not starship...) As new as I get these days is Prince.

Packing up my cds yesterday for the move I was pulling out stuff I hadn't listened to for years. I havent' bought a cd in probably a year (the last new cd being Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine, which was fantastic). I was pulling out stuff that brought me to other times, Modest Mouse, Iron & Wine, Death Cab for Cutie, Jude, and all of them related to a specific time. I don't think I can listen to these albums for anything more than reminiscing, they're so specific. Modest Mouse relates to a specific summer. To Fish Tale brewery, and bbqs, and playing leap frog on the steps outside a bank on a rainy day: a certain group of people. Iron & Wine came from my old roomie Vance. Death Cab was Eric. We saw them at Sasquatch together. Music seems to roll in phases and relate to specific memories.

I'm rambling...

Music makes everything roll out, come forward, want to be touched.

I missed certain songs and didn't know it. Maybe it was just the time.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Dreams & other missives

I dreamed about moving to Boise. In my dream I was going to look at a house that had a room available. An interview to see how I would fit. When I arrived, one of the people that already lived there was my ex-roomie Vance. This is what we said to each other, "So...you moved to Boise, huh?" and later, "How've you been?" Somebody I didn't know slept on a bed in the living room. It was warm and sunny and he had folded laundry spread over the mattress and brushed it aside to crawl under the covers. The kitchen was clean and there were stone tiles.



I've been hearing from a lot of old friends lately. It's been nice. Mostly. The people are people I want to see again and that makes it good. When I go home, to Puyallup, to visit my parents, I always look furtively around public places to make sure I don't see anybody I know. So that I can duck and run if I do. So I don't have to have one more meaningless, mindless conversation about people we used to know and what they're doing now. Can't we all just wait for the high school reunion? Vote on the msot successful. Feel like we didn't quite succeed, that we're not good enough. Try to shed that last 5 pounds before we face our past. Make sure our teeth our whiter and our job shinier and our spouses some embodiment of perfection. The internet is wierd, especially with things like myspace and facebook, etc. You can always spy on your friends and demons. You never really have to lose touch.

It's good and bad. I've reconnected with mixed results. My best from from kindergarten who I hadn't talked to since the fourth grade is quite suddenly a close friend. It was like meeting my puerto korican twin. One old friend invited me to brunch but never showed, me sitting in some skeezy diner sipping a bloody mary by myself, football and pull-tabs in the background. Mixed results. Sometimes you really do want to lose touch.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

COCONUT POWERED CARS!

Homework

To my faithful readers. I need saving. Work is dull and I am running out of ways to entertain myself. Everybody should send an email to nelson.amber@hotmail.com. In this email should be an interesting fact or something funny or a poem or short story. Some of it may even make it into this here blog. You could be straight famous.

Go. Now. Entertain.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Pretty!!!



I have discovered the joy of picture blogging. Pictures are fun. This is a supernova. The universe is pretty.

Friday, May 4, 2007

Thursday, May 3, 2007



My dream ride.

Funny Picture of Funny Man




Just found this picture. Makes me want to go home and watch Robin Williams: Live on Broadway. "I want to dress like a giant sperm. Shove an ice skate up my ass. And go balls first down an ice shute. Yes. That would be fun."

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

i'm getting free luggage! i'm getting free luggage!

it's good to have friends that can get you free stuff. too bad i don't travel so often.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Oh lord...

won't you buy me a mercedes benz. my friends all drive porsches, i must make amends. worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends. so lord, won't you buy me a mercedes benz.

school etc

I am almost registered for my classes. I'm very excited for two of them, nervous about one, and completely ambivalent about another.

I am going to shop for a bicycle on craigs list. I need a good bicycle for riding around town b/c I have decided to start riding a bicycle & limit my driving as much as possible. I want a basket on my bicycle. And maybe a horn & tassles. And little mirrors so I can see behind me. My bicycle will hopefully be brown. Or green.

May is a month of sadness. It will be sad and sad slowly.

Monday, April 30, 2007

Ugh

I'm getting so antsy. I'm ready to not work a 9-5. To not live in Seattle. To do different things with some different people. To eat different food and drink different beer and get rid of all of my shit. I mean all of my shit. I'm not even taking a bed with me. I'll get a new one when I get there. I'll have clothes and some of my books and I'm buying a bicycle. But that's it. That's it.

I want it to be summer. I want to go swimming. I want to eat corndogs on alki.

I just don't want to be at work. My job is pointless and I feel like I'm wasting my life here and I would quit if I didn't absolutely need the money and if I believed there was ever an easier way to make money, if somewhat annoying and boring and pointless and I just can't believe they pay me for this...

I still have 2.5 hours left. That's a long time. A looooong tiiiiiime...

Friday, April 27, 2007

response to o. hunt

Like everything else,
even literature,
that is necessary
as painting.
It's like being a child again,
who learns nothing
except war
or something.
Just another tv show.
We're selling sex and violence.
And eternal youth:
building erections,
eating each other alive,
red & blue & stringy.
We're rolling on the pavement
in the desert.
Who is rocking all of this?
There are too many of us.
And we're all a little scary.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Reading on the Bus

Obviously, whether that's how you choose your book or not, reading in public automatically brings to question how your reading in public appears to others, and what you're reading can impact that impression. For example, I read poetry. I like to read poetry, but I have no doubt that the people who see me reading on the bus think I'm pompous, or that I think that I'm better than they are, or that I must be smart. (I have felt this way, except for the smart part, about somebody I saw reading Dylan Thomas aloud in a coffee shop. I also thought they were an idiot b/c they were clearly doing it to make other people think that he was cool & smart. But he wasn't.)

Idea: Reading (not aloud) in public as performance. Read in strange places where you normally wouldn't see somebody read. The floor of a public restroom. Under a table in a restaraunt. In one of those chairs at the bank, or grocery store. At a concert (I actually have a friend who does this. The reaction is phenomenal.) At a loud bar (I have done this. It was awkward. I left.) Someplace crazy. Read something crazy too. Or something ordinary.

It's on the level w/ wearing a fat suit & fake pimples and walking around town to see how different people would treat you if you were less attractive. Reading as sociological experiment. Fun.

Friday, April 20, 2007

I do not have a fever anymore.
I am not puking anymore.
I have eaten solid food & seen no immediate biological reaction.

Victory to my immune system. It only took a week, afterall.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The pearls: lovers.
We wore them selfishly around our necks.
She held the needle tenderly.
The yarn, like tendons. Story like new skin,
ravelling in our mouths.
I swallowed the words. They were hard,
knotted. I choked a little,
which was fitting. Starving for
sheep flesh on cooking on the stove top.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

another day w/o sun

I am going home.

Noah Eli Gordon: On Making a Poem

"I've tried everything I can think of to bring a poem into the world: automatic writing; timed writing; making word lists; sketching out detailed charts of specific syntax and filling in the words later on; writing only in public; writing at specific times of day. The really maddening thing about it—and I'm sure this is true for many many poets—is that once you've had that breakthrough moment with a particular mode it's sure not to work the next time.

For me, being a poet is something that needs to be continually relearned. Nothing works the same way twice, which is why I think it's important to explore as many avenues as one can, to create outrageously complex and seemingly impossible projects for one's self, even if they end up in failure. Although I'm wary of labeling various factions within the poetry community, I do think this is a more generative way to consider the term "experimental poetry," as it's all about seeing what works and what doesn't. How does one experiment with language, with memory, with narrative, or even with emotional states or physical conditions? The goal is not necessarily to write a certain kind of poetry, but simply to alter the ways in which any poetry might be written."


It was great to read this. I've either said the same thing before, or thought it, or just plain experienced it.

I guess it's always nice to know you're not alone.

I'm experiencing the "nothing works the same way twice" problem with Horoscope. The first set came out easily. I find myself working harder with each poem as it comes. Slackening into old and easy tropes. I'm aware of it, making a concious effort to not ease up. But it's hard.

Monday, April 9, 2007

I think I hate my Job.

It's really easy and I'm bored a lot. I spend most of my time reading other people's blogs. I have checked my email probably 20 times today and have not yet found a new message awaiting me. I am drinking pinapple juice & soda water which creates a refreshing pinapple soda. Yum. I am thinking about alice blue b/c I need to assemble my top twenty something submissions for our "editorial panel." This is a term I just made up. I am somewhat tired of discussing "important matters." I am afraid of global warming but do not think I am afraid to die. I haven't yet been faced with my own death. I get cranky in the morning. I do not like to sleep alone. I am moving to Boise in a few months. I am moving by myself. I am glad to get away from the idiots I work with. I will miss my parents and my friends and the boy who will be my ex-boyfriend. I went to a mexican restaraunt for Easter Brunch. I stopped being Catholic a long time ago. My stomach is still revolting from said Mexican Easter Brunch. I want to go on a trip. To another country or state. Somewhere I have never been before. I want to start riding a bicycle instead of driving or taking the bus. Riding a bicycle= nearly time efficient travel + exercise. I am making a point to eat more whole fruits and vegetables, less rice & pasta & less eating out. I am addicted to diet coke though. I don't know why. I can't give it up. I used to drink gin & tonics and very dirty gin martinis. I like things that are dirty. I don't like things that are too neat. Too clean. That seems to easy. Fake. I once listened to my coworkers talk in an elevator. They think cologne is really, really important. I think they're stupid. I think a lot of people are stupid. Sometimes I am stupid. Sometimes I am afraid of what people think of me b/c of how badly I think of so many other people. Perhaps if I were in Luxemberg people would seem less stupid. That's probably just because I wouldn't be able to "overhear" their conversations. And because Luxemberg is such a cool name. I like to talk and think about all things eighties, including blue eyeshadow and full-figured models. Blue eyeshadow should not make a comeback. Curvy models should. I would like to go home now. I will go for a run but what I really want to do is sleep or watch a movie that was made in the 80's. I want to see Vibes (thank you Mr. 1988). Or Transformers (the original, w/Orson Welles. Thank you Trae).

Thank you all, and Goodnight!

Friday, April 6, 2007

I just bought...

A new digital camera. Or, I guess, my first digital camera. It makes me very excited. It's a sony with 7.3 megapixels and it's shiny!

Thursday, April 5, 2007

I don't want to be here...

at work, of course. What I really want to do is walk ten feet, out of the office and into the bar, and have a really stiff drink.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

People

in the blogosphere have decided to research and study and think about existentialism. I have decided to think about physics.

I recently watched a documentary on Einstein. It was pretty interesting.

ENERGY=MASS(SPEEDOFLIGHT)SQUARED

Stephen Hawking is coming to Seattle.

I will read A Brief History of Time. And then I will read Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe (which I have had on my book shelf for a really long time and been meaning to read.)

Wikipedia: "Physics" (often spelled physike) formerly consisted of the study of its counterpart, natural philosophy, from classical times until the separation of modern physics from philosophy as a positive science during the nineteenth century.

Neat.

Monday, April 2, 2007

Worst Idea in the World?

...watching City of God and then following that up by watching Blood Diamond.

Most depressing weekend in the universe.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Escapism, Poppycock, & Other Stuff

It's been a long time since I've written something and been really excited about it. I mean I've written things I've liked, and there are projects that I've been working on for a while that I was very excited about and still like very much but the excitement has worn off, and then, of course, all the crap I write on the blog here that I never put much effort into (it's all warm up).

This is different. This is something I think could really turn into something.

I think starting new projects is my answer when I get stuck in an old project. I have one series and one long poem that are as yet unfinished. Now I'm starting a new series. Classic escapism. Classic avoidance. (This is why I watch so many movies...more on that later...)**

The long poem entered a couple of months ago . Hellenica. It came fast. Not solid. Needs editing.

But I hit a wall a couple of weeks ago.

Not just a wall about Hellenica, but a wall blocking language in general.

Poems were slow and at best okay. Even writing throwaway poems, here, were difficult. I wrote many that were so bad I simply didn't post them. My brain had walls built all around it. My brain was on a rocketship in outerspace refusing to return to me.

I decided to start refocusing on reading. Seek the advice of others. I think I can actually blame this entirely on case sensitive (which was supposed to help me with hellenica!).

Enter a new series. Tentatively titled Horoscope. I'm four poems in in three days. I was never this excited by Hellenica. And Horoscope seems sustainable.


**

In the poetry free interim (and, let's face it, all the time just because I love them) I've been watching a lot of movies and reading a lot of blogs. Recently the two worlds collided. I just rented Children of Men (something I had wanted to see in the theater but was prevented). (Note my love of the parenthetical reference). I thought, wow, this is a lot more violent than I expected. And also, wow, this is a lot darker than I expected. And, wow, I just saw Julianne Moore get her head shot off, watched it jerk back, watched the blood splatter. But it was good. I liked the premise a lot, thought the performances were good (particularly Michael Caine. Clive Owen, however much I think he's a doll, always seems to play his characters the same: stoic with a touch of sarcasm, a little grumpy and a little cool) and overall felt involved in the movie. However, blogland seems in a bit of an uproar about it's brilliance and I think that's just a tad overshot. Overall I think the Departed was, in fact, a far better film even if the plot wasn't as blasting a social moral. In Children of Men, at the end, there's a lovely scene where a vicious battle stops b/c they see Kee walking with a crying baby. Everything gets very silent. It was an important scene. I admired this scene, but I was also very irritated by it. I didn't believe it. I also felt like I had been hit over the head with a heavy frying pan with the words "meaning" branded on it. It was a pretty thought, but also naive and heavy-handed.

I still say Pan's Labrynth is the best movie I've seen in about four years. I still need to see Babel and Blood Diamond to make a truly informed decision. And if you can think of anything else I truly must see, feel free to recommend. I am an escapist in need of more escape routes.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

case sensitive

When I still lived in Oly I went to this hippy-dippy bookstore ran by some people I sort of "knew" for a poetry reading, which was probably the worst poetry reading I have ever attended, where the reader blathered on and on about this "salt-lick" her fellow reader had given her and then continued to take breaks from reading her horrendously bad, cliched poetry to lick said "salt-lick" and then pass said "salt-lick" to her fellow reader who took his turn licking said "salt-lick."

All of this to say I'm reading Kate Greenstreet's case sensitive which is a very beautiful book and has an entire section about salt. You can see a picture of a salt shaker on her blog at this very moment.

However, having recently seen Kate read and now reading the book really impresses upon me how much the reading of a work can change it. The book is still lovely but I keep wanting to read it in Kate's very distinctive voice. Her voice is gravelly, like Janis Joplin, but quiet, quieter. And when she readers her poem she reads them casually, like telling you about her trip to the grocery store, but insistent in a way that makes you know you'll miss something if you tune out for a second. She was, without any sense of melodrama, completely captivating. If I could model my reading style off of anybody it would be Kate Greenstreet. I keep trying to superimpose her voice onto the text while I'm reading but I can't. I get distracted. It keeps floating away.

In other news, see Leonard's facial double Here

Monday, March 26, 2007

Iowa

I am reading Iowa, by Travis Nichols. It is better than I remembered from when I heard him read. Much better. But that may be because it seems largely to be about breaking up and I am in the middle of breaking up. Breaking up sucks and is sucking everything out of my head and heart and I want to fall over and never get back up sometimes.

Other people break up and they seem to make it but I don't know how they make it.

Travis Nichols has a way of misdirection in his poems that I think helped him make it and helped his chapbook make it instead of falling into the trap of so many poems of being words saved in a chip on a computer and forgotten.

I think Travis Nichols is a swell guy. He should publish a book-book. I remember that his voice shook a little when he was reading and I liked that too b/c it made me believe it meant something to him and that seems good to me as well.

I'd like to talk more about Travis Nichols and breaking up, but I have to go to work now.

Work is another thing that sucks and sucks everything out of me.

I hope everybody else has a very nice day.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

More of this interminable song.

I've been thinking about stupid things
like hole punches and the pros
and cons of leather furniture.

It's a little easier than some things.
Goodbyes, for instance, that take place slowly.

We were sitting on a leather sofa on a hot day.
Our legs sweating and sticking and it hurt to peel
our skin away. It felt like
peeling our skin away.

It felt like saying goodbye
slowly.

We should have thought of bandaids or
eyebrow tweezing.

These things are easier faster.

They also leave red marks that last
only a little while.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Lunch with a Married Man from Work

When I try to protest
he pays anyway
then puts his hand on my arm
possesively.

His hands are hard.

I tell him
I eat noodles all the time

with my boyfriend.

He smiles a lot
and tells me 'anything
for you.'

I say, you probably say that
to all the girls.

I ask him about his children.
I ask him his wife's name.
I say I eat noodles all the time

with my boyfriend.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

On the bus this morning...

...the woman next to me decided it was okay to begin clipping her fingernails. Which I suppose is better than her toe nails. But still...

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Challenge: A Second Attempt, a new story

The arsonists who walked into the library and proceeded to rip the pages out of the books on the shelves in the library, crumpling them into little balls and throwing them into a pile, and then pulled small red matchbooks out of their little arsonist pockets with small wooden matches with little red heads, like little boy pimples, and scraped the little red heads and they popped into little red flames which they threw on the crumpled papers and then lit more matches on desktops and in girls' hair and went giggling out of the burning building to watch.

They held hands, like regular people, and waited for the dust to settle.

The Challenge: A First Attempt, a rip off of a former story

How people of great power and great responsibility unclench their fists when they are forced to face the fact that they failed thereby resulting in the death and destruction of a people, a city, and the disappointment they’ll see in every person’s eyes for the rest of their lives whether in their own city or when they travel to another. Not to mention the lingering guilt plugging up their throat, tightening their chest, so that it feels like they can’t breathe and wish they would die and don’t know what to do to stop hurting, though there is no pain, the feeling useless though they remain stronger than most, having failed and knowing they have to continue.

They held hands, like regular people, and waited for the dust to settle.

The Lark by Matthew Zapruder

is a beautiful poem. A poem I want and do not want to take home with me and put it under my pillow to console me in sleep. It seems to be about and not be about being and not being with somebody. In the end it is very sad, and also not very sad at all.

I have had The Pajamaist sitting on my bookcase for a long time, since I saw him read. And I had picked it up from time to time, but today I started to read it. And I like it a lot so far. One of those books I could imagine myself reading and re-reading for a month or so. See how it ends (sorry to spoil the surprise but it's a bean of a last line!):

"O caring and not caring outside me quiet

pass me the green hat
with the feather in it

O feather falling in love with the world"

The Girl and The Sidewalk

she wore long spikey heels
and i watched
her ankles wobble a little

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Labels for this post include scooters, vacation, and fall

What does one think about when one wants not to think about their problems? For me, it's popular movies. Last night I rented a sad movie. That movie was Running with Scissors, a movie based the memoirs of Augusten Burroughs. I had been told it was a terrible movie but I did not read the memoirs of Augusten Burroughs so who am I to say whether it was a faithful rendition or not? What I can say is that it made me NOT think about my problems and that was good. And that I think Annette Benning is one of the most fabulous and underrated actresses, particularaly for her ability to play crazy. I did however find Joseph Feinnes as schizophrenic homosexual redneck slightly underwhelming. The scene stealer was a woman I recognized but could not tell you why. She played Agnes. She ate kibble. She reminded me of Allison Janney in American Beauty. Understated performance of "Wife" to" Crazy/Domineering/Powerful Patriarch". Actually, in a lot of ways this movie reminded me of a really, really inferior American Beauty.

Come to think of it, I did not like this movie at all.

I did however like Half-Nelson. I like that it made me sympathize with a base-head, narcissistic teacher with nearly no redeeming qualities aside from an unusual, yet effective, manner of teaching history in a way that seems much more meaningful than any history class I ever took. I like that Ryan Gosling, though he is not always in great movies, seems to choose roles that will challenge him in different ways and takes these roles on completely so that he seems very different from one movie to the next. Most actors don't do this. Most actors seem the same from one movie to the next, with different names, in different situations. There is one scene where Ryan Gosling's ex-girlfriend, who is an ex-base head, and he seems nervous and uncomfortable and spends most of their conversation creeping into a doorway and talking to her with his head poking out. She talked to half of a head. It was endearing. And sad. But this movie also made me uncomfortable. This movie made me want to punch this guy in the face. The little girl in this movie was also good. She was good in a quiet way. She acted with her eyes a lot, and an even voice. She didn't ever seem to move much, even though she was often on a bicycle or basketball court, and I liked that too.

Monday, March 12, 2007

String Haiku

pollution dries clouds
snowflakes unlikely to fall
brings catastrophe


spectacular ice
water without geography
city glaciers melt


change is worse than thought
rain evaporates to end
civilisation

Friday, March 9, 2007

some more haiku

now wet/dry robots
mimicking salamanders
prove evolution


in species demise
find reef's carbon reservoirs
reap natural beauty


bury greenhouses
under geo-umbrellas
meet rock surfaces

I just decided it was time

I ventured out into the blogosphere on my own.