tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-128441622024-03-15T21:10:04.074-04:00__Chicks Dig Poetry__...occasional postcards from Washington, D.C. writer Sandra Beasley...Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.comBlogger684125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-82875811398076522562023-08-15T04:52:00.134-04:002023-08-15T10:21:34.361-04:00Home Again, Home Again<p style="margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPutdF3kpRS9iM1KKkWMTBFUXGJq28GVVdT8pfINWQTIVaX53Iz7SyH1MpsZ1GQas-gTz8SpgpWCKdp5lwogsIxmEVze0WYhy7KBkSe9xqf98DJkp61qLwGlWSJcn5_F34xzfvJCHd9XFrHKnLfNL1IsbNvBjkefJ5XNBYGs4sMCY-txMV5Rb6Zg/s4032/Highlights%20Cabin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPutdF3kpRS9iM1KKkWMTBFUXGJq28GVVdT8pfINWQTIVaX53Iz7SyH1MpsZ1GQas-gTz8SpgpWCKdp5lwogsIxmEVze0WYhy7KBkSe9xqf98DJkp61qLwGlWSJcn5_F34xzfvJCHd9XFrHKnLfNL1IsbNvBjkefJ5XNBYGs4sMCY-txMV5Rb6Zg/w400-h300/Highlights%20Cabin.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Got back from Pennsylvania a week ago, where I visited with the WCSU MFA program to read from <i>Made to Explode</i>, which won <a href="https://housatonicbookawards.wordpress.com" target="_blank">last year's Housatonic Book Award in poetry</a>, teach a seminar on sestinas and golden shovels, and take part in a panel on publishing. We were hosted at the Highlights Foundation retreat, at the base of the Poconos, which was gorgeous (and brought back memories of searching the "Hidden Pictures" feature in magazines kept in my allergist's waiting room). Readings! Fireside nights! Bagpipes! Karaoke! So many wildflowers! So many bunnies! </span><p></p><p style="margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfl9I2fNouAvk42WXHsCXXzTsXf-1M3sOoQAha4vJ4-o2z5v01WAkaA-9v3xJCogM69IaO86IvP8AB_FWSWqLxxP7UKTTPbLlXiP5R5lnVViSfZu1vQ14jxu7q3XaMJVGsOa6N0t6n2rHV6H6Of4VYI9n_y3LWsH80W54z3vRxqH-MCw7FIn7VcQ/s4032/WCSU%20Opening%20Night.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfl9I2fNouAvk42WXHsCXXzTsXf-1M3sOoQAha4vJ4-o2z5v01WAkaA-9v3xJCogM69IaO86IvP8AB_FWSWqLxxP7UKTTPbLlXiP5R5lnVViSfZu1vQ14jxu7q3XaMJVGsOa6N0t6n2rHV6H6Of4VYI9n_y3LWsH80W54z3vRxqH-MCw7FIn7VcQ/w400-h300/WCSU%20Opening%20Night.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9GmBM0uEqCpW9OQGcxTZ_tzuF851v7KyMWHzaIcQm-0evQiJcVVVHnvuT1XZK8iI3uHGZEzXJhKj7hCDMAtm2PF6IkQh7QrsFHezV1obPcOCS9dZsbRtLy2LrNWtKAB0-JbydM6S5LTfobvDBKEpU8YGGfpc75kKpBJOeONjc9JTwubMQWR4Fg/s4032/Highlights%20Foundation%20Trail.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9GmBM0uEqCpW9OQGcxTZ_tzuF851v7KyMWHzaIcQm-0evQiJcVVVHnvuT1XZK8iI3uHGZEzXJhKj7hCDMAtm2PF6IkQh7QrsFHezV1obPcOCS9dZsbRtLy2LrNWtKAB0-JbydM6S5LTfobvDBKEpU8YGGfpc75kKpBJOeONjc9JTwubMQWR4Fg/w480-h640/Highlights%20Foundation%20Trail.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCxKeBal0r4um0fKEi7Rmtw1cJfVeXk0He2ct8qM1ddDD-tOwmBsG20GnvicQScmjMMw1PS_xcnJ8vDSawU_bP5sSaCm4BVTEiHrZ4r2iDGtJPiIpz19CHEMuRRonsOdKLEyUEnlsxAmIA_4Rf4S3UbO1dnL9kcBX25ptWM35PXd3efZNMm-SFlg/s4032/WCSU%20Residency.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCxKeBal0r4um0fKEi7Rmtw1cJfVeXk0He2ct8qM1ddDD-tOwmBsG20GnvicQScmjMMw1PS_xcnJ8vDSawU_bP5sSaCm4BVTEiHrZ4r2iDGtJPiIpz19CHEMuRRonsOdKLEyUEnlsxAmIA_4Rf4S3UbO1dnL9kcBX25ptWM35PXd3efZNMm-SFlg/w400-h300/WCSU%20Residency.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Just got back from Nebraska a week before that. Had a precious two weeks at home between North Carolina and Nebraska. Took a train to New York City on Monday, so</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><a href="" style="color: #954f72; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I can read at Bryant Park</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> on Tuesday evening. </span></p><p style="margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I'm a little surprised I never titled a blog post "Home Again, Home Again" until now. I did title one "Jiggedy-Jig" on October 1, 2006. That was a short, Millay-Colony-aftermath update that included a prescient announcement: <i>New manuscript title: "Theories of Falling"... </i></span><span face="-webkit-standard, serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As I type that, I feel both the nostalgic wave of joy that I got my first collection published at all, and then one of sadness that New Issues Poetry & Prose—which gave a start to so many poets, including Jericho Brown and Chet'la Sebree—was recently shuttered by the university that should have protected it. I have to link to the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">University of Chicago Press's distribution page here</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, because that's the last place one can easily survey the incredible back catalogue. You should grab copies while you can! The future of that distribution relationship is TBD once October 2023 is behind us. The New Issues website is down, perhaps for good, since there’s no longer staff to follow up on getting the URL registration renewed. Ooof. This is such a harrowing time for university presses and MFA programs on an infrastructure level, which is in such sharp contrast the vitality of these programs in person. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">People still sometimes find “Chicks Dig Poetry” through a particular archived post, or because someone mentions it while using an old bio note to introduce me at an event. I don't plan on ever retiring the blog entirely unless (until) technology forces my hand, even if it survives simply as one or two posts a year. Everyone should have a place to speak freely on the internet, and recent months have made it clear that Facebook, Twitter/X, and other social media platforms are only “free” up until it is the whim of their owners to dictate otherwise. That surely applies to this place too—I notice that one of my posts has been flagged for “sensitive” content, though I can’t tell which one. But for now, I’ll treat it as the closest I have to a soapbox in the public square. (For timely updates, you can always check </span><a href="http://www.sandrabeasley.com/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">www.SandraBeasley.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">On a practical level, here’s what has happened since I last checked in: I started three jobs in the space of six months. I don't recommend that pacing for the sake of work-life balance, but it was worth it. I’m putting in more hours with Maestro Group, finding that I enjoy consulting on messaging and other projects beyond writing blog posts on<a href="https://maestrogroup.co/confessions-of-a-recovering-overtalker/" target="_blank"> inter-office communication styles</a>. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I also began a faculty affiliation with the <a href="https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-communication-fine-arts-and-media/writers-workshop/mfa-program/index.php" target="_blank">University of Nebraska Omaha’s low-residency MFA program</a>, which takes me to the Lied Lodge in Nebraska City twice a year. (Although not as glamorous a setting as the University of Tampa, where I taught until the program’s closure in 2020, this MFA program doesn’t run the risk of losing students to the temptations of Ybor City.) In July, I watched my first thesis student give his graduating presentations. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ZxqGRW8PxQ_ZVFqIOP6Jj-sPKfYloZJ_IgPV0OYWsJPpw9bmDCgcjgiKGunW6aSvWP-1zDCyZBfJj6BFRgNWuJ2V8iVGUxpE_ofUzKiBgrflHv6255PQwujhKuOwd2EpAuXCwGZd4ZlIAcJWncA008hPulKH6UpfN4FzrSZ9CQWF_H3aXSZf5w/s4032/Lied%20Lodge%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ZxqGRW8PxQ_ZVFqIOP6Jj-sPKfYloZJ_IgPV0OYWsJPpw9bmDCgcjgiKGunW6aSvWP-1zDCyZBfJj6BFRgNWuJ2V8iVGUxpE_ofUzKiBgrflHv6255PQwujhKuOwd2EpAuXCwGZd4ZlIAcJWncA008hPulKH6UpfN4FzrSZ9CQWF_H3aXSZf5w/w400-h300/Lied%20Lodge%201.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLco4hdBP0Mfl0T_F7b5KsTyzItBReJjUQ17QLViwjKIHlkf1pQf38zCWxVyN0hV0FUPZvCCR03SRAXxiSQHZBC76WbzYEPUsICLCFwnGEMS1HSNS8t4fI3kUmCrE8z_jmwx30Ta86-GxbL1RAP-YwJiCkwa2i1MrtqdCcz5Wb8BVkPSPzd3wwtQ/s4032/UNO%20Session.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLco4hdBP0Mfl0T_F7b5KsTyzItBReJjUQ17QLViwjKIHlkf1pQf38zCWxVyN0hV0FUPZvCCR03SRAXxiSQHZBC76WbzYEPUsICLCFwnGEMS1HSNS8t4fI3kUmCrE8z_jmwx30Ta86-GxbL1RAP-YwJiCkwa2i1MrtqdCcz5Wb8BVkPSPzd3wwtQ/w400-h300/UNO%20Session.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEwukWtenO1Z-QEFGB9rPmiSC5zNHgxX2KLlPjzrAPa8VbigBa998XhDNsl3ttoDZVxeVhh04vrbrAhIWRhqvH5ZPLnbA3Na60H7oD5qs6KYOxkUTwWnuMdLYTY-pHGja8usq07oUHymwqzs7055zmkFZOLnvlGi8pjdKrNj8MsoVAwkKufa6kQ/s4032/Lied%20Lodge%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEwukWtenO1Z-QEFGB9rPmiSC5zNHgxX2KLlPjzrAPa8VbigBa998XhDNsl3ttoDZVxeVhh04vrbrAhIWRhqvH5ZPLnbA3Na60H7oD5qs6KYOxkUTwWnuMdLYTY-pHGja8usq07oUHymwqzs7055zmkFZOLnvlGi8pjdKrNj8MsoVAwkKufa6kQ/w400-h300/Lied%20Lodge%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX7cZhKSYez8q57Yoq24ui_wo2YMXaG8ZAyuTb8ddcRAFyx5swMzWUuxuHsDkNdc1hD4z1stwIDtk_iOyZaJQ0gfjLv0bJjik_lPjZWc3fOrmJvLmKrR_gy2iJ-qKiqzTJK5-WPBLKGDYP3x8otfnPARUFz0MbTWmH99of46DII9kDX7ps0-q-7w/s4032/Lied%20Lodge%203.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX7cZhKSYez8q57Yoq24ui_wo2YMXaG8ZAyuTb8ddcRAFyx5swMzWUuxuHsDkNdc1hD4z1stwIDtk_iOyZaJQ0gfjLv0bJjik_lPjZWc3fOrmJvLmKrR_gy2iJ-qKiqzTJK5-WPBLKGDYP3x8otfnPARUFz0MbTWmH99of46DII9kDX7ps0-q-7w/w400-h300/Lied%20Lodge%203.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In spring 2023, I also made good on a commitment inked two years ago, by serving as the </span><a href="https://issuu.com/_davidsonian/docs/final_2-22-23/s/19572805" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" target="_blank">McGee Visiting Professor of Creative Writing</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> at Davidson College in North Carolina. I came very close to enrolling at Davidson way back when, so this opportunity meant a lot to me on many levels. The roster of McGee professors past is serious business—the program was established in 1988—and includes </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Dorothy Allison, Henri Cole, Maxin Kumin, Thomas Mallon, D.A. Powell, Therese Svoboda and Kazim Ali.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> When I was offered the position at the height of the pandemic, it felt like a pipe dream, and then last year's medical crisis threw things into doubt all over again. But we made it happen somehow.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: left;"> </span></div><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWIpPhVqlmGaDblwdtn6cfjn0dX-xESL7UhjIMptCAb_ozlHxJLCj-Xv1MKivoBRj2fW78tWt3ozG0arfe-mN4whtE5RV8As8fq7m1jRAglpvIEAenYJG0_yvuqV3qf102jV4E63FDCrqh6BX9Mgk2QeSwGABtD4hGD4fnSxUWTytNbW25fVFOQA/s4032/Davidson%20House.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWIpPhVqlmGaDblwdtn6cfjn0dX-xESL7UhjIMptCAb_ozlHxJLCj-Xv1MKivoBRj2fW78tWt3ozG0arfe-mN4whtE5RV8As8fq7m1jRAglpvIEAenYJG0_yvuqV3qf102jV4E63FDCrqh6BX9Mgk2QeSwGABtD4hGD4fnSxUWTytNbW25fVFOQA/w400-h300/Davidson%20House.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_KlvnbDkPDAYgXerJEUWpPsp38MiWcfwVrI-blCdTgC0TJD2ae_J90LkOajZu3GNMD7YV4v1-cBHAP5YaLQCl6zUR4J3ebgz8Uvgc4ZlrN_FAs0PZH-xM9rs6XQOhsX7Iij12AMXVeRYT2tssvKExn--m3tHCKSKqe6ILde2nHj-UlUrxJF37pg/s4032/Davidson%20Porch.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_KlvnbDkPDAYgXerJEUWpPsp38MiWcfwVrI-blCdTgC0TJD2ae_J90LkOajZu3GNMD7YV4v1-cBHAP5YaLQCl6zUR4J3ebgz8Uvgc4ZlrN_FAs0PZH-xM9rs6XQOhsX7Iij12AMXVeRYT2tssvKExn--m3tHCKSKqe6ILde2nHj-UlUrxJF37pg/w400-h300/Davidson%20Porch.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNcApamCOzGmMAunFJbYeF-wId859VgLxj1IXA_Ocwcuank8OEtXFLTiaI1K2Tx1BzD5Ksdt3cpSpTJnIDko2_YnITHgCMG94F9fnhS-h-o9xGUkTrZL8PRgkXG_8RDvMIedepfUp0jU4FZ23o_F28VbQZrZCsLWMhuedf6s-M_vcTuBap_W3eFw/s2016/Sal%20in%20Drawer.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNcApamCOzGmMAunFJbYeF-wId859VgLxj1IXA_Ocwcuank8OEtXFLTiaI1K2Tx1BzD5Ksdt3cpSpTJnIDko2_YnITHgCMG94F9fnhS-h-o9xGUkTrZL8PRgkXG_8RDvMIedepfUp0jU4FZ23o_F28VbQZrZCsLWMhuedf6s-M_vcTuBap_W3eFw/w400-h300/Sal%20in%20Drawer.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_QNeKbjan9fHQdDmzIQ42IADNPZIKrqqLL9YktskhMG-KuuHBZ6-xVTiuOlLUIBKWzNwQau11_aS9CTY78JvcO82evtICIKxpPlTkgacBudqJASA4SVSxgBBrtMCOcXFe2FrIcRZMgMigwhAml4R8n_MCGVbsfhFzXNYjjf2NXHRAduO2O9n2mA/s4032/Lancasters%20BBQ.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_QNeKbjan9fHQdDmzIQ42IADNPZIKrqqLL9YktskhMG-KuuHBZ6-xVTiuOlLUIBKWzNwQau11_aS9CTY78JvcO82evtICIKxpPlTkgacBudqJASA4SVSxgBBrtMCOcXFe2FrIcRZMgMigwhAml4R8n_MCGVbsfhFzXNYjjf2NXHRAduO2O9n2mA/w150-h200/Lancasters%20BBQ.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>Fortunately, the college loaned us a place to stay—the bottom level of a house just across the street from campus—that made it possible to feel “at home” while still maintaining our beloved apartment in Southwest Washington, DC, and with fairly frequent 6-hour drives between the two addresses. Sal the Wonder Cat promptly investigated the nooks, crannies, and drawers of the new place. I got to teach a 200-level Introduction to Poetry class and a 300-level Creative Nonfiction class. Both met seminar-style, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, plus Thursday office hours. I became a regular at one of the bars on Main Street, where I'd sit reading or working on the proposal for the next book. Davidson professor, author, and cartoonist Alan Michael Parker made sure I got to a Wildcats basketball game and ate Lancaster’s BBQ, while I found my own way to good music in Cornelius and readings hosted by <a href="https://www.charlottelit.org" target="_blank">Charlotte Lit</a> that included Gaby Calvocoressi and Melissa Febos. <p></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkcP6WU9n7y7KSKtEDG_pdX6nDu2HgG3dUZcZ3V0AG1Sraz2-l_QtGP4AYPxhIOfp5jfddv6ejTeGzqKSW1FQJEdCcUSqBS7-50BMxJykBBhaHDJStowGr4rQr6q14F9_O7KCdG-xmGy3hI6ClgedXy-UxnE7s8tm-CFVKJB-7DKp6_duFj2Bkpw/s8192/CharLIT_Gabrielle%20Calvocoressi_23006_0137.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5464" data-original-width="8192" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkcP6WU9n7y7KSKtEDG_pdX6nDu2HgG3dUZcZ3V0AG1Sraz2-l_QtGP4AYPxhIOfp5jfddv6ejTeGzqKSW1FQJEdCcUSqBS7-50BMxJykBBhaHDJStowGr4rQr6q14F9_O7KCdG-xmGy3hI6ClgedXy-UxnE7s8tm-CFVKJB-7DKp6_duFj2Bkpw/w400-h266/CharLIT_Gabrielle%20Calvocoressi_23006_0137.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6rng7G-wgr08RHZ9NUKQAyz2qScxu06gBjgM9Aq72kgvQVAHyw5Mbsd4pX3-VbPIJ0tw8VU1_C-3QtbnbIUOYzMv_zGbKbF-2burohaJy0nIedgTZ1Sz85rvwqRfs6MKfwTpYMJu78HFRm-vOFXT_T422nRU3qrx64qwCG1EWnxRp_V5-VzcEg/s6588/CharLIT_Gabrielle%20Calvocoressi_23027_0400.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5464" data-original-width="6588" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6rng7G-wgr08RHZ9NUKQAyz2qScxu06gBjgM9Aq72kgvQVAHyw5Mbsd4pX3-VbPIJ0tw8VU1_C-3QtbnbIUOYzMv_zGbKbF-2burohaJy0nIedgTZ1Sz85rvwqRfs6MKfwTpYMJu78HFRm-vOFXT_T422nRU3qrx64qwCG1EWnxRp_V5-VzcEg/w400-h331/CharLIT_Gabrielle%20Calvocoressi_23027_0400.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">My husband restarted his artistic practice thanks to an affiliation with the <a href="https://mccollcenter.org" target="_blank">McColl Center</a>, and I sometimes joined him for Tuesday evening figure drawing sessions led by artist Felicia van Bork, who happens to also be married to AMP. Old friends from grad school and even high school days (!), plus new friends in the form of my English Department colleagues, helped us feel welcome. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Davidson is deeply invested in learning, and the administration understands that learning cannot flourish in an atmosphere of scarcity. There was just so much about the school that miraculously functioned <i>the way it was supposed to</i> (anyone who has spent time in academia will understand my sense of wonder). Conversations were lively. Classrooms were bright and airy. Tech worked. Accessibility needs were met. The copy machine had paper in it. The campus was teeming with artworks, and hosted a robust guest speakers that included Natasha Trethewey, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Rhiannon Giddens. My 26 students were amazing, the kind of curious and creative minds that any professor dreams of having in the classroom. I’m pretty sure I coaxed a few to fall in love with sestinas and golden shovels, braids and <a href="https://vmcsymposium.davidson.edu/collective-abecedarian-poem/" target="_blank">abecedarians</a>; more importantly, I hope I helped them connect with their voices on the page. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKneZCtZSUnS74gnSfPrTKKUCSusbZQx7vBWPoQz5oYBqx3bm95GHoTXN-oaP36IypwCBA_33TXvo-KEsgALlIckbgLU9oUd8xYKwT-laanfJWSurUMMqs_OYv9uI5mHdOszBut8yQcAgDSJTG3Y4emPB0j24eyj2hy26Pxy8c927vRg6VdhN3VA/s3268/Abecedarian.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2810" data-original-width="3268" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKneZCtZSUnS74gnSfPrTKKUCSusbZQx7vBWPoQz5oYBqx3bm95GHoTXN-oaP36IypwCBA_33TXvo-KEsgALlIckbgLU9oUd8xYKwT-laanfJWSurUMMqs_OYv9uI5mHdOszBut8yQcAgDSJTG3Y4emPB0j24eyj2hy26Pxy8c927vRg6VdhN3VA/w400-h344/Abecedarian.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The nature of the McGee gig is that it is one-and-done, but we fell a little in love with North Carolina life. <a href="https://charlottelit.configio.com/pd/314/poetry-nightclub-with-sandra-beasley?cid=2439&stg=4&returncom=productlist&source=search" target="_blank">I’m going back for a Charlotte Lit reading on December 1.</a> Maybe I can eventually get someone to take me out on Lake Norman. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In early spring, American University queried about my return for the 2023-2024 school year. The administration cautioned that while they wanted to count on me to teach, locking in my schedule and advertising classes under my name, I wouldn’t actually receive my nine-month contract offer until late summer—and as always, it would be budget permitting. This is the operating norm of so many colleges and universities these days: a perpetual limbo of contracts that are nonrenewable and provisional, on paper, but in practice are essential to the integrity of a department. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I love AU’s community, and I’m appreciative of all who advocated for me to be in the position of being asked to return. In particular, I believe it is so important to carry on Richard McCann’s legacy of workshopping creative nonfiction, and I was excited to teach a new class I’d developed on the ethics of writing creatively. But that "budget permitting" wilted my spirit. I couldn’t figure out a sustainable way to stay. The salary offered for a 3:3 wasn’t enough to for us to afford our place in DC, with me acting as a sole income provider managing medical debt, and yet the job would be too time-consuming to coexist alongside other work. Plus, I’d have to look forward, come summer 2024, to figuring out my options all over again. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So I decided it was time to move on. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In a sense, “moving on” is exactly what will permit me to stay around and continue taking part in AU events (including sitting on another half-dozen MFA thesis committees). I'm not really going anywhere! I just want to feel like an enthused alumna who occasionally visits Writers in Print and Person, not a burned-out contract worker wondering how to convince others to assign quantifiable value to her service.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Shortly after making that decision, I sent out a burst of applications to residencies, and one yielded a yes—I’ll be at the <a href="https://www.khncenterforthearts.org" target="_blank">Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts</a> for one month beginning in mid-September—an opportunity that I could not have taken if committed being on a DC campus three days a week. (Thankfully, both my work with Maestro Group and the UNO MFA is portable.) Walking away from an opportunity to keep teaching at the institution that trained me as a writer feels wild and, frankly, inspires periodic pangs of regret. But I’m going to resist that conditioned, ever-looming sense of worry and take a chance on myself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I'll probably have some other news to report before end-of-year. But even if I don’t, I’m grateful to be figuring it out little by little, with my husband in our apartment by the Southwest duckpond. I can't wait to wrap up my summer by looking out from our balcony filled with plants. Sal, of course, continues to serve in a supervisory position. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY9jbF5qnRTcmeWxIjGbjWe2guZ3hQoqDr-TDStHrboixlgCxUiokVwOUFP9Te7YWVtOcTAHgm2GyUPTWGoRG4fBsnpKT_vftYuWrbCYeSNdu18jIEmMSW886aQ_edSujhQ06IGObFV-1dsVmWGH2IOmG8HVmFpGenTPADDcfNXHsHxoJTVao0pQ/s4032/Balcony%20SUmmer%202023.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY9jbF5qnRTcmeWxIjGbjWe2guZ3hQoqDr-TDStHrboixlgCxUiokVwOUFP9Te7YWVtOcTAHgm2GyUPTWGoRG4fBsnpKT_vftYuWrbCYeSNdu18jIEmMSW886aQ_edSujhQ06IGObFV-1dsVmWGH2IOmG8HVmFpGenTPADDcfNXHsHxoJTVao0pQ/w400-h300/Balcony%20SUmmer%202023.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNLGEgbYojQ6CopiSFrLS4Vg8JouiUmgayDapBSYGJpF1EE5lrFN79DHiEc_8tpDDPxBlxlbSDhLY51hOlsyJBmbSNHuZigzY4Djf3ljBbbTT-0dIp10vBFwxxbZ35zEApM8172fJixfkQjbwCjlbK8UQmm2W2AbJUOcaUSWGUp8vkhaGcdk7wbg/s4032/Sal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNLGEgbYojQ6CopiSFrLS4Vg8JouiUmgayDapBSYGJpF1EE5lrFN79DHiEc_8tpDDPxBlxlbSDhLY51hOlsyJBmbSNHuZigzY4Djf3ljBbbTT-0dIp10vBFwxxbZ35zEApM8172fJixfkQjbwCjlbK8UQmm2W2AbJUOcaUSWGUp8vkhaGcdk7wbg/w240-h320/Sal.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwhRY3kG1YL0AMmPAHDzDRu7XlY2KFW52wIq-TZ6LlwwC1CwG7WRMRCqbPF-f40LPvpvyL5zGNn7jH0q7EDJu0U4epZKrfzoxAid9PKlBIStH3EauKey3_AEzaAassseY4aHv7Pbkvrq1qU9VPHlww3rPI2YSpNQQmBQFuDS6cWuOd8pA06HjyMg/s4032/Balcony%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwhRY3kG1YL0AMmPAHDzDRu7XlY2KFW52wIq-TZ6LlwwC1CwG7WRMRCqbPF-f40LPvpvyL5zGNn7jH0q7EDJu0U4epZKrfzoxAid9PKlBIStH3EauKey3_AEzaAassseY4aHv7Pbkvrq1qU9VPHlww3rPI2YSpNQQmBQFuDS6cWuOd8pA06HjyMg/w400-h300/Balcony%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">We're really lucky that my position at Davidson College offered a chance to get some perspective (and, to be honest, stabilize our finances). And I’m extremely grateful that Maestro and UNO, in a very short period of time, have provided so much foundational trust and camaraderie for me to build on when envisioning the commitments of future years. Our family and friends have lifted us up over and over, in the past year. A lot has happened. There's also a lot to look forward to. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Here's the thing: t</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">he universe can only give you new opportunities if you free up space in your life to hold them.</span></p></div>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-36693696943036586222022-11-12T20:11:00.081-05:002022-11-13T11:23:05.513-05:00Dear Graduating MFA Students<div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCg6dHmZZW-hk-fFMl1azKDXfescs5rYtcp-eVrpkEjgY80VlWZDwSDoOZZ6TMoQlJEUBN8pMrEUaIUq2zFyH-B20Gf4RDrtGD68-5hHO0Xf7U1VioYHjbOBkfU7WwizusIcXfTN4djc1h30XWoVIjl11kK_ZVLeRaaTPygP4HIdTRTVBT8I8/s1006/whywewrite-web.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Nine-paneled cartoon shows writers in various tableaus intended to illustrate "Why We Write." The reasons are listed as: For deep introspection; Uncharted directions; Piles of rejection; Reclusive conditions; Quixotic ambitions; Midnight revisions; Caffein-filled creation; The reader's elation; And frequent flights of imagination. Last panel shows four authors in the night sky over a city, riding pages of drafted work as if they were magic carpets." border="0" data-original-height="1006" data-original-width="700" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCg6dHmZZW-hk-fFMl1azKDXfescs5rYtcp-eVrpkEjgY80VlWZDwSDoOZZ6TMoQlJEUBN8pMrEUaIUq2zFyH-B20Gf4RDrtGD68-5hHO0Xf7U1VioYHjbOBkfU7WwizusIcXfTN4djc1h30XWoVIjl11kK_ZVLeRaaTPygP4HIdTRTVBT8I8/w446-h640/whywewrite-web.jpeg" width="446" /></a></div><br />Image credit: "Why We Write," by Grant Snider </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="http://www.incidentalcomics.com" target="_blank">See more of his work here at "Incidental Comics"</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>***</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Dear Graduating MFA Students,</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Pssst.</i> You don't need to go into academia.
Has anyone said that to you yet? Because it is so important to receive that message. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>You.
Do. Not. Need.
To.
Go.
Into.
Academia.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>But I love teaching! </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then teach! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I understand feeling that teaching is a vocation that you're called to, enjoying the community that it provides, and wanting to incorporate it into your path of professional experience. But you can do those things without making teaching with being your primary source of income and (ahem, America) health care. For decades, every major city in the United States has had at least one if not multiple community-led spaces for workshopping poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (not that the pandemic is over, <i>nota bene</i>), these organizations had to adapt to moving all their learning opportunities online. Most of these organizations are keeping those channels open, understanding the ways that online learning can increase equity and access--which means that even if you don't end up living in a major city, you can still offer a class through that hub. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Will you make much money? No. Best case scenario is a 50/50 split of proceeds with the hosting institution. But you'll teach classes on topics in creative writing that you truly care about, versus composition, and you won't be saddled with grading or advising (a responsibility that often falls back on beloved teachers, when those assigned to do it fail to do it). You might meet adult students who choose to take your classes again and again, and become a meaningful part of your audience (your "platform") for when you get books out into the world. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just a few of the places that you might pitch regarding workshop proposals:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://geminiink.org" target="_blank">GeminiInk</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://grubstreet.org" target="_blank">GrubStreet</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.lighthousewriters.org" target="_blank">Lighthouse Writers Workshop</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://loft.org" target="_blank">The Loft Literary Center</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.poetrybarn.co" target="_blank">The Poetry Barn</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.writer.org" target="_blank">The Writer's Center</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Note, what you'll want to do first is write a short, polite note to someone on staff, requesting to be added to the email list that calls for pitches. They probably reach out to their existing pool of instructors 1-4 times a year to gauge interest, with set deadlines for submitting ideas. Be prepared to give a brief (one paragraph) introduction to your education and background, including any journal pub credits, and a couple of sample courses (at the very least, indicate the genres you did your thesis in). Do play up any local connections, even if you're hoping to teach remotely. For remote teaching, clarify whether you're drawn to synchronous learning (using meeting platforms such a Zoom) or asynchronous (in which you build the course content entirely in written form, online, and post feedback, versus orchestrating the live workshop experience). Plan a class that can be excused successfully in 4-8 weeks, OR one standalone session (typically informational or generative, perhaps focusing on a single shared text, versus something that is discussion- and feedback-based). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you find your initial queries to organizations such as these aren't getting traction, or if you ge the chance to offer a class but it fails to "make" the minimum numbers, don't despair. You may you need a little more time to develop your record of publication. Sometimes these organizations can create enrollment draw based on the topic alone; other times they are looking for the added value of the instructor's reputation. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Consider cross-referencing your passion for writing with another cause you feel passionate about--such as working with the LGBTQIA+ community; people who have experienced domestic abuse; outreach to unhoused or incarcerated populations; mission-driven organizing (environmental or social justice); or working with specific age groups, such as middle-grade children or senior citizens. Look for organizations whose work is in those sectors, versus being squarely in the "literary writing and publishing" space, and ask about opportunities to bring a creative workshop component to any existing outreach programs. Be prepared to volunteer your services at first, and keep your time commitment proportionate to that (1-6 sessions, max), but trust that it is legitimate and useful experience to build a CV. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Since these organizations tend to have a firmer and specific geographic radius of reach, I can't offer a general guide. But here are a handful of exemplar DC-area organizations that I know to have utilized volunteer service to lead creative writing or storytelling workshops in the past:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://826dc.org" target="_blank">826DC</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.dcscores.org" target="_blank">DC Scores</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://thedccenter.org/outwrite/" target="_blank">OutWrite</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.sitarartscenter.org" target="_blank">Sitar Arts Center</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.splitthisrock.org" target="_blank">Split This Rock</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.streetsensemedia.org" target="_blank">Street Sense Media</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Don't forget to consider querying local museums, libraries, and (if a comfortable fit) churches or centers for faith-based gathering as well.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Okay, okay. So maybe I don't have to go into academia to satisfy my love of teaching. What do I do instead to pay the bills?</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you think you don't have options beyond academia, please understand, that's not evidence of a limited capacity or skill-set on your part. That's an institutional failure to think outside the models at hand; meaning, most of your mentors are they themselves in academia, and have been for at least 5-10 years, if not their entire professional lives. Remember, you came to an MFA program because you wanted to write and publish books, right? Choose the job that sustains that goal. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here are three ways that non-academic jobs may actually be <i>better</i> suited to nourishing your writing-career aspirations:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">-The job has clearly defined hours from which you can can clock out, versus the constant "I should be prepping..." The emotional stakes are typically lower; yes, you may stress to meet a proofing deadline or make a big presentation, but you won't have the well-being of students on your mind. At-office jobs may provide infrastructure resources (e.g., printing, internet) that you can occasionally divert towards your own projects. Academia loves to talk about funding attendance to conferences, but it's rarely enough to offset the full cost of a trip, whereas if you travel for business outside academia they will take responsibility for the full docket of expenses (and you still get to do a little sightseeing on the side). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">-Vacation weeks can be taken year-round in non-academic jobs whereas, in academia, your "time off" is attached to very particular and inflexible seasonal windows. Those are the same seasonal windows that every other academic applying to artist colonies and residencies are requesting, which makes those periods hyper-competitive. If you get an opportunity whose duration exceeds your available vacation days, and you've been working at the company for more than a year, consider presenting your notification of acceptance with a thoughtful request for additional days as unpaid leave; this may be a viable option, especially if you're willing to be available for emergency contact if needed. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">-You're organically doing "research" outside the realm of literature, which can provide the grist of settings and subjects for your manuscripts. Building a creative landscape on the pedagogy of learning is challenging to do in interesting ways; drawing on the lives of your students, when building characters, poses deep ethical concerns. In contrast, there's a bold tradition of situating stories in non-academic labor landscapes and, even if your office setting isn't dynamic, you'll benefit from the variety of life experience you pick up on in conversation with work colleagues. Any job that expands your vocabulary--whether by introducing the dictions of science, tech, medicine, law, even economics--is a net gain.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you're reading this as a graduate student local to DC, I'd like to amplify: please consider staying! This area is unusually deep and varied in terms of these kinds of non-academic opportunities for employment in writing and editing. For example: federal and city government and funded-initiative offices (i.e., Golden Triangle or SWBid), advocacy non-profits, science and tech organizations with national membership and DC headquarters, plus straightforward media organizations such as <i>The Washington Post, </i>NPR<i>, </i>National Geographic Society, and <i>The Atlantic.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>How do I find these jobs in writing and editing?</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a starting place, try <b><a href="https://www.indeed.com/" target="_blank">Indeed</a></b> and <a href="https://www.idealist.org" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Idealist</a>,<b> </b>searching using key terms such as "writer" and "editor." If a job asks for 1-2 years of professional experience and you didn't work during your MFA years, don't be afraid to apply anyway. Those kinds of stipulations are just meant to ward off completely unqualified candidates; if you're a match in other ways, and you have a good interview, they'll trust that your learning curve will be sufficient for you to catch up. (If they're requesting 3-5 years, don't apply unless you have legitimate professional experience you can cite, though you can be liberal in teasing out "writing and editing" from a previous job that was not explicitly labeled as such, such as grant development or paralegal work.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>What do I need to be prepared to apply for these jobs?</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">-A resume of one page that leads with professional experience, then education history, then other skills such as languages and office software proficiencies. You can add characterizing language under the professional experience, typically 2-3 bullet points of descriptive language. Emphasize strong and active verbs, yet drop the "I" whenever possible; may read as a fragment, but that's okay. Play up any significant scales in terms of budget or populations served. (That said, keep your multi-page CV up to date! They are so, so hard to create later if you do come back to academia, especially in terms of tracking real-time readings and journal publications. Trust me, this was my hard-earned lesson.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">-Be familiar with the likely format of any "tryout." In terms of writing tests, they probably don't want to see that ten-page essay with MLA citations that you wrote. They probably want to see a 500-1200 word sample press release or blog post that reflects the vocabulary of the organization, with straightforward syntax and language that is musical but not self-indulgent. Hold off on the metaphors and similes for now. If you receive a proofing test, anticipate a letter to shareholders, a white paper (a particular type of in-depth report associated with non-profits), or a case study. Here's a couple of round-ups of exemplar case studies:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/case-study-examples" target="_blank">HubSpot, "28 Case Study Examples Every Marketer Should See"</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://breadcrumbs.io/blog/case-study-examples/" target="_blank">Breadcrumbs, "13 Brilliant Case Study Examples To Be Inspired By"</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">...You'll be expected to provide both objective corrections, fixing typos and grammar, as well as subjective style considerations around syntax, formatting, and diction.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">-References (but not letters, thankfully). If your references are former professors, give them a heads-up so they know to praise the appropriate qualities. If you did something outside the classroom that is relevant--such as working with the school-hosted literary journal--make sure they know your scope of experience so that they don't default to discussing "scholarship" and "creative talent." Those great qualities may be be counter-productive to emphasize here; you don't want the employer to be scared off by wondering if you'll stay.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Wait. Back to that editing test; I don't have the chops! What am I going to do?</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, you gotta learn if you want to make money as a professional writer and editor. There's no way around that. I'm not saying that your creative work needs to hew to the rules of Western colonialist culture; there's all kinds of good arguments contrary to that kind of absolutism. But there are few downsides to having a broad array of tools at your disposal, so think of this as a tool you're taking the time to acquire. (Also, this was going to come up if you stayed on the American academic track, anyway.) Fortunately, there are a couple of reasonably priced resources for online learning of professional writing, field-specific copywriting, and editing. Approach these classes the same way you'd take a chance on a Duolingo course:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/learning/subscription/topics/communication-2" target="_blank">LinkedIn's Online Courses [1-month free trial / $19.99 a month]</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.mediabistro.com/online-training-courses/" target="_blank">MediaBistro's Online Courses [2-week free trial / $14.99 a month]</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you want a litmus test of copyediting skills, the <i>New York Times</i> did a series of fun, fast, and free "Copy Edit This!" quizzes spanning 2016-2019, seventeen of them in all.*</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/11/insider/copy-edit-this-quiz.html" target="_blank">"Copy Edit This!" Quiz No. 1</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/insider/copy-edit-this-17.html" target="_blank">"Copy Edit This!" Quiz No. 17</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(*Now that you know the title convention, you can search out the ones in-between.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The good news is, you probably have all kinds of intuitive skills that you regularly apply--and take for granted. They just need a little sharpening. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">MFA students, I am rooting for you. I believe that a 2- or 3-year program, whether residential or low-res, can provide a real and specific good of sowing the seeds of a creative writing pursuit. <i>Anyone who says the MFA is a dying degree, due to the ascent of the PhD in creative writing, is myopically focused on the belief that graduate degrees in creative writing should lead to a full-time teaching job. </i>There are other paths! Paths that are open and waiting and (dare I say it) may even be a lot more humane and nourishing to you as a writer. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Go get 'em. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In other news: I'm here, waving from DC, as I do from time to time. <b><a href="https://housatonicbookawards.wordpress.com" target="_blank">Won a prize!</a></b> (Yay, seriously yay.) <b><a href="https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/litawards/finalists.htm" target="_blank">Was a finalist for another prize.</a></b> Working on a proposal for the next book. <b><a href="https://poets.org/text/entering-whirlpool" target="_blank">Wrote a thing for <i>American Poets</i></a> </b>on T.S. Eliot's <i>The Waste Land</i>. The paperback edition of <i>Made to Explode</i> will be out in December. Come March 2023, I'm going to be part of an <b><a href="https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/schedule_overview" target="_blank">AWP panel in Seattle</a></b> that is getting the support of livestream, captioning, and ASL interpretation, which makes me very happy. I am both teaching at American University, and not-teaching (e.g., freelancing) with a pretty great company called the <b><a href="https://www.maestrogroup.co" target="_blank">Maestro Group</a>, </b>a company that has ties to my high school, and which invites me to write funky blog posts for them such as this series:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.maestrogroup.co/maestro-mastery-blog/art1" target="_blank">"The Art of Sales: Embracing the Hustle"</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.maestrogroup.co/maestro-mastery-blog/art2" target="_blank">"The Art of Sales: Sharpening Visual Perception"</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.maestrogroup.co/maestro-mastery-blog/art3" target="_blank">"The Art of Sales: Taking Your Time"</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.maestrogroup.co/maestro-mastery-blog/art4" target="_blank">"The Art of Sales: Activating the Audience"</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In closing, I'll give you a snapshot of Sal the Wonder Cat, just because. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ulliZk4SLU-cDbvV3_1vgm7jSNTmoFpmkWJTS_PoswpyXgzmk8jTy0sPquTtdPF_cny22FZvZw4U3MwX6TVqbZks86jOpTrEcM-mROVwkPRyysnQEnCZGjzxciVDdANXr4VsBVrZybWjbe08aiIvpzTElS_1hnC69TvSF907ZC_3SKhlDuE/s4032/Sal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A black-and-white cat is fully stretched out on a green carpet, besides a partially visible blue couch." border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ulliZk4SLU-cDbvV3_1vgm7jSNTmoFpmkWJTS_PoswpyXgzmk8jTy0sPquTtdPF_cny22FZvZw4U3MwX6TVqbZks86jOpTrEcM-mROVwkPRyysnQEnCZGjzxciVDdANXr4VsBVrZybWjbe08aiIvpzTElS_1hnC69TvSF907ZC_3SKhlDuE/w300-h400/Sal.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sal is also rooting for you, always, especially if you have kibble to share.</span></div>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-77160480662338449952022-08-20T06:52:00.006-04:002022-08-20T06:52:48.810-04:00Buckle Up<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">When opening the Blogger interface, I am struck by how much things have changed. <i>Hello, hello out there. Is this thing on?</i> I think, as well, about my footprint of "SBeasley" and "SandraBeasley" across the web. If the internet is around in a hundred years (assuming civilization as we recognize it is around in a hundred years), generations that come after us may consider it wildly shortsighted that we were allowed to claim whole internet domains and social media spaces simply by way of being the first person, with a particular name, to think of seeking ThatName.com. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Or maybe the point is that there will always be newer platforms that create space for the next generation to stake their unique claim. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I try to be reasonably tidy in terms of my internet presence in terms of website, Facebook, and Twitter. The two outliers are Instagram--newest platform for me, and I'm not sure how I want to use it--and this blog, oldest platform for me, and I'm not sure how I want to use it. (In this respect, <b><a href="https://www.janetfitchwrites.com/janets-blog" target="_blank">Janet Fitch</a></b> is a kindred spirit.) Today, I'm just bulletin-boarding my 2022. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In order to explain 2022, I have to rewind and explain the years prior, specifically the academic years. The simple version of the story is that I got to serve as American University's Visiting Writer in Residence for AY 2020-2021, and 2021-2022. What I loved about my time was leading the graduate workshops in creative nonfiction, advising MFA students on their thesis work, teaching a LIT 215 undergraduate course called "Writers in Print and Person" (a class I've had an adjunct relationship with going back to 2014), and learning to teach LIT 107, the "Intro to Creative Writing" class that spans all genres. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have never had the security of a multi-year contract in teaching, much less a tenure-track job, which makes it harder to measure pedagogical growth. But I used this sustained appointment to adopt a contract grading policy for undergraduate teaching, with an emphasis on equity; to re-invent my workshop technique with graduate students, abolishing any "cone of silence" tradition; and to conceptualize a 300-level literature class, "The Ethics of Writing Creatively," which was ultimately approved to fulfill AU CORE's Ethical Reasoning requirement. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Wait; I came here for a chick who digs poetry, not a chick who digs teaching. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Teaching fuels the poetry, I promise. But it's also true that publishing a book of poetry during a pandemic is really hard! I haven't gotten to do many readings for Made to Explode since it was published in February 2021. The paperback edition of <i>Made to Explode</i> will be out in December of this year, and I hope that gives the collection a second chance to make it into reader's hands, and maybe even people's classrooms. In the meantime, my spirits were considerably lifted by learning that the <b><a href="https://www.lva.virginia.gov/news/press/Library_of_Virginia_Announces_Nine_Finalists_for_the_25th_Annual_Literary_Awards.pdf" target="_blank">Library of Virginia has named the book one of three finalists for the 25th Annual Literary Awards, in the poetry category</a></b>. Alongside books by Tina Parker and Rita Dove (mentor & hero, no pressure). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The pandemic has made it difficult to think expansively over these past few years. Our emphasis has been on hunkering down and surviving. But I came into the summer with something like Big Hope, in part because a next nonfiction book (a collection of essays in unconventional forms) has been coming into focus. After the brief spring "tests" of driving first to AWP in Philadelphia back in March, then a literary festival at Clemson University, I lined up substantive summer travel in the form of two residencies--first ten days at <b><a href="https://airstudiopaducah.com" target="_blank">A.I.R. Studio</a></b> in Paducah, Kentucky, and then all of June at the <b><a href="https://storyknife.org" target="_blank">Storyknife Writers Retreat</a></b> in Homer, Alaska. Both offered responsible options for quarantining (if needed) and staying safe, while also furnishing the community I've craved.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Those residencies were amazing. Full stop. Storyknife, in particular--we were on the Ring of Fire, with volcanos on the horizon! in the solstice season, meaning, 20 hours of light a day! six women writers, gathering around a dinner table!--took my breath away. </span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeopfEUZXXrvmGg7rb99MkmcrPtPIXfcjWlZgYY4FBGBHh-qyRkA6OyVbrFYx4U-8hbid9fRhUynpv2ZKULwgXhuQyTkxoANh9SVP29eKk4DtWo0cFWPc8OTeLTKy2FtLRsqJJRL2uR9OTpUclGDsCGynNMpYDzvLnfrrzvdg1x6Coue55XWo/s4032/8%20PM%20Sky.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="Wooden rail in foreground, as part of back patio view; Alaska landscape with waterline and pine trees, bright sun mid-sky." border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeopfEUZXXrvmGg7rb99MkmcrPtPIXfcjWlZgYY4FBGBHh-qyRkA6OyVbrFYx4U-8hbid9fRhUynpv2ZKULwgXhuQyTkxoANh9SVP29eKk4DtWo0cFWPc8OTeLTKy2FtLRsqJJRL2uR9OTpUclGDsCGynNMpYDzvLnfrrzvdg1x6Coue55XWo/w400-h300/8%20PM%20Sky.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">8 PM Sky in Homer, Alaska (July)</span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVZ4euEZYZoSEz6ydP_mh4DPyB4p8R2cSQbm7hVS5H6ImSg6Xx3lEtvm9I-Cx7pc8502IYmhZatKGCbeJKa8Ym2e8gMxRXwyePzx94FTsqioysc-kS6Gmueh6Y_nOF1Ja2xDCrq7qV4n5Opcn0R2sZc0YJ9P0ylCR_PyAX_VuUKVoE4g2A_CM/s4032/Cabin%20Studio.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="Office view, showing a small desk pulled to a window--vase with flowers on the sill. Window view shows Alaskan landscape at mid-day, water and pines. Office decor includes roller chair, lamps, and purple comfy chair.." border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVZ4euEZYZoSEz6ydP_mh4DPyB4p8R2cSQbm7hVS5H6ImSg6Xx3lEtvm9I-Cx7pc8502IYmhZatKGCbeJKa8Ym2e8gMxRXwyePzx94FTsqioysc-kS6Gmueh6Y_nOF1Ja2xDCrq7qV4n5Opcn0R2sZc0YJ9P0ylCR_PyAX_VuUKVoE4g2A_CM/w400-h300/Cabin%20Studio.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Evangeline Cabin Studio Desk</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiccQs0exVCWufS3ZUUBURlAxlKdnFA7tFFlaGcANdVpmQkHVSQBS36zssdD-gtaYctEHt5IdPDkFNOT15S__wi6VqvqtvZ9D0yrqHNL07sqVkyhm0dE6ymgGDGRohELLEUGbLnCgqd6YOOtrcsvyQlymnje-re-b3hrEqjdO-nBGqIZWSoyFo/s4032/Main%20House%20Deck.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="View of a back patio to main cabin, with six green adirondack chairs and empty planter boxes. Two green cabins with white trim and brown roofs in mid-background. Landscape of pines in distant background." border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiccQs0exVCWufS3ZUUBURlAxlKdnFA7tFFlaGcANdVpmQkHVSQBS36zssdD-gtaYctEHt5IdPDkFNOT15S__wi6VqvqtvZ9D0yrqHNL07sqVkyhm0dE6ymgGDGRohELLEUGbLnCgqd6YOOtrcsvyQlymnje-re-b3hrEqjdO-nBGqIZWSoyFo/w300-h400/Main%20House%20Deck.JPG" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Residents' Deck of the Main Cabin</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhekPTHcc8jSwxuHKkU0hkN-98jExd7SzSdan3OcOuAxWQj7R_iV3UCdnmhPNVtLsos-3D1sFoDcQ4Zn9xl0yGU9URIgk-m9Ps5vbpJgjfXQDBifBelNkWigNmok1tllpZZLJY-GuBjWtdpzQi9-xqwch-TNIphU6fcVorfk3JlLl-eSewy1Hc/s4032/Residents%20Dining%20Table.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="Dining table, modern, with six chairs. Flowers on the table, persian rug beneath. Windows behind chairs show view of Alaska landscape, with pines, at mid-day." border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhekPTHcc8jSwxuHKkU0hkN-98jExd7SzSdan3OcOuAxWQj7R_iV3UCdnmhPNVtLsos-3D1sFoDcQ4Zn9xl0yGU9URIgk-m9Ps5vbpJgjfXQDBifBelNkWigNmok1tllpZZLJY-GuBjWtdpzQi9-xqwch-TNIphU6fcVorfk3JlLl-eSewy1Hc/w400-h300/Residents%20Dining%20Table.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communal Meal Table in the Main Cabin</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcRh-bQFKM2jzRdNU0fsZtpRMfQgXVMfTr0CzRCoNkGducF0-Ehm_0cl25TDibXHuvH6XEDBIC5CmC9EUpr_5D2XHue_oWiR9ODpM8cpFrJmfGFeK0b2OK7nNu1kmpNBnAuw-P_VNqVqeiTsJl_0qvBRtRw-SjZ8BVugcTtFrFDEDddr27gc/s4032/10%20PM%20Sky.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="Evening sky, sunset colors ranging from pinks to blues, Alaskan landscape with pines and mowed grass in foreground." border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcRh-bQFKM2jzRdNU0fsZtpRMfQgXVMfTr0CzRCoNkGducF0-Ehm_0cl25TDibXHuvH6XEDBIC5CmC9EUpr_5D2XHue_oWiR9ODpM8cpFrJmfGFeK0b2OK7nNu1kmpNBnAuw-P_VNqVqeiTsJl_0qvBRtRw-SjZ8BVugcTtFrFDEDddr27gc/w400-h300/10%20PM%20Sky.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">8 PM Sky in Homer, Alaska (July)</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I used my time at these two residencies to read, write, and refresh. So there's no easy way to segue to what came next: on my last full day in Alaska, I got the call that my husband was in the hospital back in our home of Washington, D.C. He spent most of July in the ICU. Now we're wrapping our heads around what comes next. I had to resign my Visiting Writer-in-Residence position at American University for Fall 2022. I had to defer a plan to join the faculty of the University of Nebraska's low-res MFA. I have no choice but to slow down, to be present in the moment, and to be grateful for the company I'm keeping. (And, in a brief nod to the fickle cruelties of the American medical system: to remember, money isn't real.) </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">That's the thing about life--it keeps changing, right out from under us. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-24358626063886960422022-01-11T08:06:00.002-05:002022-01-11T08:14:46.187-05:00January Jump<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">When I opened my laptop at the end of December, determined to post to this blog once more before the close of the year--well, that's how I found out Betty White had died. I thought, <i>Nope, see you in 2022. I</i> closed the laptop's cover<i>. </i>If you've struggled with social media for this past year, I get it. I've needed to go silent for long periods. That's particularly painful when the pandemic hasn't given us a chance to connect in other ways, because it can feel like damned-if-you-do, erased-if-you-don't. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">But I'm grateful because when I look back at the second half of 2021, I spot bright glimmers of living, of pleasures taken, seized in a time that felt dark. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPF_2KrmA0guqIX6ksYDR5G3aLVoxL7EWHU8vTAzDbU4hyrlcB1rVljEmZCjMVhIa_U2fEr-BCUnq76WGQPf5sV3HmvQjLJ7J0MSvDqQwtofIz5mzGXtlCnpxmUpOuBL9cmv5oam8IiSAi8TdWHmst-Yj8_FznCbwbjOqokh7rFkpLvMHFKxI=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicO84DWkxr0Sl6kR4KkIxHsB9UhcRv9MKDnU58Q82tp4ZEE6-0QUxdZgmmELOtcjs_wBFGNFXWSiRipQV3SyN8MCoATA7vDU3Jq3SgwLATG76Hf3A0u5AbSjMVu-qu9SzxzN0ej4v7L4LmKcy7njwekjPzrpHwx5Vfh1jmCcFaVzB5HB0rOSQ=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicO84DWkxr0Sl6kR4KkIxHsB9UhcRv9MKDnU58Q82tp4ZEE6-0QUxdZgmmELOtcjs_wBFGNFXWSiRipQV3SyN8MCoATA7vDU3Jq3SgwLATG76Hf3A0u5AbSjMVu-qu9SzxzN0ej4v7L4LmKcy7njwekjPzrpHwx5Vfh1jmCcFaVzB5HB0rOSQ=w300-h400" width="300" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhj55cUA30df5KFMgw2qdFelSbAOpPUTK0PNW6934dxv4WJrQZkyXfsNuErEFH9JNCrljukcanY5DHKw5RhYp5vqpgM7V_iHUaagwiQWjDeWuhlZ2Sale07xJlrRP7_U1XbS0-3sAquN8eXf6pkT8stkoYwdXJJXFFj8XQW3joEbahSYky2yZg=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhj55cUA30df5KFMgw2qdFelSbAOpPUTK0PNW6934dxv4WJrQZkyXfsNuErEFH9JNCrljukcanY5DHKw5RhYp5vqpgM7V_iHUaagwiQWjDeWuhlZ2Sale07xJlrRP7_U1XbS0-3sAquN8eXf6pkT8stkoYwdXJJXFFj8XQW3joEbahSYky2yZg=s320" width="240" /></span></a><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPF_2KrmA0guqIX6ksYDR5G3aLVoxL7EWHU8vTAzDbU4hyrlcB1rVljEmZCjMVhIa_U2fEr-BCUnq76WGQPf5sV3HmvQjLJ7J0MSvDqQwtofIz5mzGXtlCnpxmUpOuBL9cmv5oam8IiSAi8TdWHmst-Yj8_FznCbwbjOqokh7rFkpLvMHFKxI=s320" width="240" /></span></div></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I went to Nationals games, mostly with my dad, and we cheered when the team was good and hung on even when they were terrible, having traded away almost all our star power. The cactus in our bedroom bloomed a half-dozen times. Sal the Wonder Cat kept us amused, though for a stretch we had to refocus on his critical care--a crisis he came through thanks to Marshall Veterinary Clinic and VCA SouthPaws. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnTpKfwgVqbL0qEZBgObra71Wo-i_2EJ9aIaI8XMZzLAMBb-sZxvIZuWrHd6QVPbbwRAWA65Wzm0AeOntnYPFvAiYlbNMoAGMJjdEFZAbpjtbo2ve2xdSIDIWVp5amYPzBhJRUgz70IkFhfh6ysNAg2kthpR3IHjjweFQCpLzd5Ecppt_P3vA=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnTpKfwgVqbL0qEZBgObra71Wo-i_2EJ9aIaI8XMZzLAMBb-sZxvIZuWrHd6QVPbbwRAWA65Wzm0AeOntnYPFvAiYlbNMoAGMJjdEFZAbpjtbo2ve2xdSIDIWVp5amYPzBhJRUgz70IkFhfh6ysNAg2kthpR3IHjjweFQCpLzd5Ecppt_P3vA=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-SoPuOHCzKDOySesHc6VI-E1PuoDfvNay0DAz8RHyt9FSXOzrH0gkncu75GB07GwkgojiPhSh4lYis2qTMe6vKtVIub4VI_P3s81NL-6GQ93BE00j-4khcZHCxNEQ3nhsIrSBaVu8g_UF2qmYNgUOekiRU3ozGao1uovtAW-TEfhs8_bsB4Y=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-SoPuOHCzKDOySesHc6VI-E1PuoDfvNay0DAz8RHyt9FSXOzrH0gkncu75GB07GwkgojiPhSh4lYis2qTMe6vKtVIub4VI_P3s81NL-6GQ93BE00j-4khcZHCxNEQ3nhsIrSBaVu8g_UF2qmYNgUOekiRU3ozGao1uovtAW-TEfhs8_bsB4Y=s320" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyRRlGz_h8UrMMugKEKewwzFLeyU-U4WcffmVLMYthaerzXlHnPMQkvYlveD7QF-jdcsd8JEUBZObueRLGQuvn62W39MHNdXxddZ3raeDfPBmdyx6E43aR_7DFlyKizTh9P3X2aRsfS1iBsuUFInSVTOAXTerGJKNjuc4iuCjRwJZ6lUq5sNs=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyRRlGz_h8UrMMugKEKewwzFLeyU-U4WcffmVLMYthaerzXlHnPMQkvYlveD7QF-jdcsd8JEUBZObueRLGQuvn62W39MHNdXxddZ3raeDfPBmdyx6E43aR_7DFlyKizTh9P3X2aRsfS1iBsuUFInSVTOAXTerGJKNjuc4iuCjRwJZ6lUq5sNs=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We took advantage of the post-vaccine, pre-variant lull to visit friends in Maine; one of them, Maureen Thorson (pictured distantly on the shore), has a great poetry collection coming out next month called <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/share-the-wealth/9781949776102" target="_blank"><b><i>Share the Wealth</i></b>.</a> We went sailing and ate many oysters. Their house backs up against a stunning Audobon preserve. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQW4rL17YyuhNk4wbeP62MrDwJG2rg8vr7NzYYKatRUMWZ1uZVKSdTnYdv3eCE0VwSHlWVLsIiZmhzv6Gmw9ZAUe4MGiCQOxOqL7atYYO5x7yUfm3-732G6auIbq0sy6t4rXRo9QwGHTLfx4wUQUCn0VtcRUHk-5BxIT1aNEfBunBMbUbmYH4=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQW4rL17YyuhNk4wbeP62MrDwJG2rg8vr7NzYYKatRUMWZ1uZVKSdTnYdv3eCE0VwSHlWVLsIiZmhzv6Gmw9ZAUe4MGiCQOxOqL7atYYO5x7yUfm3-732G6auIbq0sy6t4rXRo9QwGHTLfx4wUQUCn0VtcRUHk-5BxIT1aNEfBunBMbUbmYH4=s320" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1xe-I7eyvVyJNhMb_N_OUUdTVfNZSNVV7vZ__BCZS959ljqiTEHRomNW_xYEEUMsI7025W0Av8t8A6b9P6GDM4sphh6DuY6V_QaqzRSxDD5u2GEVhimC5F_mtnlV2kdESUY0FIZr2yCBZhiFBaISQn2Wg3uOJy5WJgYsGHNG4F4EZFcU_zt4=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1xe-I7eyvVyJNhMb_N_OUUdTVfNZSNVV7vZ__BCZS959ljqiTEHRomNW_xYEEUMsI7025W0Av8t8A6b9P6GDM4sphh6DuY6V_QaqzRSxDD5u2GEVhimC5F_mtnlV2kdESUY0FIZr2yCBZhiFBaISQn2Wg3uOJy5WJgYsGHNG4F4EZFcU_zt4=w300-h400" width="300" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3Zjl5KOoLV2FreRoCE2PdDYLRhiJ45dzWUSFQnuiqrZOUR1kI7Q_X4O9XVBPfuTIcw29C4z4Jg1ItYaQRAoJF5UzvgdQujjtRzsqwp6x_stakOIm-fDwrS-9b_hQHzOVuAUfTeCkha0WPvT0ftD5y6oMhlAosrLLQHr3M-2a9a5cNdhsleFU=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3Zjl5KOoLV2FreRoCE2PdDYLRhiJ45dzWUSFQnuiqrZOUR1kI7Q_X4O9XVBPfuTIcw29C4z4Jg1ItYaQRAoJF5UzvgdQujjtRzsqwp6x_stakOIm-fDwrS-9b_hQHzOVuAUfTeCkha0WPvT0ftD5y6oMhlAosrLLQHr3M-2a9a5cNdhsleFU=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The day before fall classes started at American University, my husband and I day-tripped down to the <a href="https://www.annmariegarden.org" target="_blank"><b>Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center</b></a>--the planned part--and added on a dusk hike to Calvert Cliffs--the unplanned part. My semester was good but busy. I instituted contract grading, which is a larger conversation I'd like to have; not sure if this blog is the place to do it. I had very few chances to gather in-person with writers, which is usually a big part of why I teach, but we did have a lovely reading at GoodWood on U Street. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">That doubled as a chance to say goodbye to longtime local fiction writer </span><b style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="http://www.workinprogressinprogress.com" target="_blank">Leslie Pietrzyk</a></b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, who moved down to North Carolina. Fortunately I think she'll be back to visit because her new story collection, <i><b><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/admit-this-to-no-one-collected-stories/9781951213411" target="_blank">Admit This to No One</a></b></i>, is all about DC.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVuUKadlJRcoJH2dqThpwCjANj3G4-m4Yy2Sq2c_qRwYd4Cr8UH-OOiteWQKMww58T6UBMxA8y0_bBvz0VvK2pwAQC49d4dHlvuYHXHYBvk2rH56-mP4l5-ZzIi4eb4lN6QXFjOu_qSwL4qbexwr4VbKr3nGnlE3sr5zYyDokmnXo-2wlLoUo=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVuUKadlJRcoJH2dqThpwCjANj3G4-m4Yy2Sq2c_qRwYd4Cr8UH-OOiteWQKMww58T6UBMxA8y0_bBvz0VvK2pwAQC49d4dHlvuYHXHYBvk2rH56-mP4l5-ZzIi4eb4lN6QXFjOu_qSwL4qbexwr4VbKr3nGnlE3sr5zYyDokmnXo-2wlLoUo=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhblp0DLFADD11SWRJ6sOV9yR8l6S-ZAUg2RXBMRbFiH1on1KxsHceB-pgbZ6T2bygym18prrNYZfZlTvJfj-AVkbu1r8OzIBFfuWo20lIZuY-uwC6Zo84bkwifwkc9jDh-lsPLlg3pWTZ2tCi_75nsOWijNThZGpS1nawiCwDCZvk-gY7VrSo=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhblp0DLFADD11SWRJ6sOV9yR8l6S-ZAUg2RXBMRbFiH1on1KxsHceB-pgbZ6T2bygym18prrNYZfZlTvJfj-AVkbu1r8OzIBFfuWo20lIZuY-uwC6Zo84bkwifwkc9jDh-lsPLlg3pWTZ2tCi_75nsOWijNThZGpS1nawiCwDCZvk-gY7VrSo=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHuoTSw_Bd--XwBWsRQ5EKZ7JSKyCrXC6L2Y2Fw8Y8gBlP9Pylq-c-qSgznX-807bV22D7sgMBFXsAPkDiRscVC07nwMOV4Jm53r5sk_tIS768wnef9fcQ2DSbpAVGW-bmHKEZZJwQMfJJ-j6BbEj_inyFaJrQTIyVdWGwhJhG8F6eA1CFsJw=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHuoTSw_Bd--XwBWsRQ5EKZ7JSKyCrXC6L2Y2Fw8Y8gBlP9Pylq-c-qSgznX-807bV22D7sgMBFXsAPkDiRscVC07nwMOV4Jm53r5sk_tIS768wnef9fcQ2DSbpAVGW-bmHKEZZJwQMfJJ-j6BbEj_inyFaJrQTIyVdWGwhJhG8F6eA1CFsJw=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My one bit of book-travel was for Lit Youngstown, and poet Teri Ellen Cross Davis was a much-needed passenger for the long drive to Ohio. I got to give a lecture on the golden shovel as a form, and introduce Jan Beatty for the closing night reading. The unexpected gift was a painting by Kelly Bancroft inspired by my prose poem, "Cherry Tree Rebellion."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiL4c3tGyozGV_29fkCGm4EKxM5ePLq3E2RJljWuXqZctiaES52HAJNY6cQXaTtkbvm4Rau2Hu3UvTZzjBfgZMRAvjYewzSiv05gJ_snjaNDywTxd0imCLNSMyf-tJv5I-HZOpnIB4d8-xSuHz7-OB7sQ5BQd5NcJHYbLEFClnh2wuBbwJhsyw=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiL4c3tGyozGV_29fkCGm4EKxM5ePLq3E2RJljWuXqZctiaES52HAJNY6cQXaTtkbvm4Rau2Hu3UvTZzjBfgZMRAvjYewzSiv05gJ_snjaNDywTxd0imCLNSMyf-tJv5I-HZOpnIB4d8-xSuHz7-OB7sQ5BQd5NcJHYbLEFClnh2wuBbwJhsyw=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbYbsh6pHHkEbuswVo6PqM1Uq-pxQWwOIL_LMgEI23O0HF25ZWXDWrEnCwNc2DVCpe83y40aQj-OzKPJcCSg52peFy6BbrkpETPWB2ixPQneDEx0tJsahgbQH1HaUdcSbI_5wBtQJJ7UfgHfBpY_tKHtlqf5UJAiDyaIgJVioCe9_mXdkJguI=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbYbsh6pHHkEbuswVo6PqM1Uq-pxQWwOIL_LMgEI23O0HF25ZWXDWrEnCwNc2DVCpe83y40aQj-OzKPJcCSg52peFy6BbrkpETPWB2ixPQneDEx0tJsahgbQH1HaUdcSbI_5wBtQJJ7UfgHfBpY_tKHtlqf5UJAiDyaIgJVioCe9_mXdkJguI=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiegxyq0qv8w6qi8fB45t3bzWy8JOur2sa_GpM0FgbfYalKwRnqOMIhqxETWTp--wkY9WJ5lHvxNWmuN6OuO5QkelEd3PrZmfSC8ygRbtSlV_Oml5Vhs50NGGDAVqM7m-YRFqXt226k1IrHYILgLnAUTuc9ECPx2ajqshX-LLBOdjI4vl26Z_Q=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiegxyq0qv8w6qi8fB45t3bzWy8JOur2sa_GpM0FgbfYalKwRnqOMIhqxETWTp--wkY9WJ5lHvxNWmuN6OuO5QkelEd3PrZmfSC8ygRbtSlV_Oml5Vhs50NGGDAVqM7m-YRFqXt226k1IrHYILgLnAUTuc9ECPx2ajqshX-LLBOdjI4vl26Z_Q=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Our neighborhood is right by the water, and I've tried to take advantage of that--there's no quicker lift to my spirits than a walk along Hains Point, and for many months a free jitney ran back and forth across the Potomac Channel for the sake of the neighborhood. The Wharf restaurants are too expensive to visit regularly, but one quiet afternoon I treated myself a a Vesper and worked on an essay collection. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm very ready for the new year. Let's be honest, that exactly what I said at the end of 2020. 2021 did right by me in many ways. I put out my fourth collection of poems, <i><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/made-to-explode-poems/9780393531602" target="_blank">Made to Explode</a></i>, and had work appear in three anthologies. My family got to c</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">elebrate my sister's wedding in October at Glen Echo, and we managed to safely host my husband's family for Thanksgiving; these are immeasurable gifts. And yet I'm ready, I'm ready, and daring to be optimistic. I hope you are too. </span></div></div></div><p></p>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-9642822743939280252021-06-12T03:50:00.011-04:002021-08-01T20:52:10.769-04:00Still a TJ Kid at Heart<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Have you come across the pseudo-fact, circulating recently, that claims 72% of all American adults live within 20 miles from where they grew up? I don't trust that as a statistic, but its true that the when I map the driving distance from my home in SW Washington, DC, to my family's home in Vienna, VA, the distance comes up as just 17 miles. Though I'd note that distance still takes more than a half-hour to travel thanks to Beltway traffic. </span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are moments when I nourish the instinct to get<i> away, </i>and moments when it feels incredibly rewarding to have stayed so close to home for so long. Evidence of the latter has been a recent dialogue with Fairfax County's Public Libraries, which <b><a href="https://sbeasley.blogspot.com/2013/09/an-open-letter-to-fairfax-county-public.html" target="_blank">provided refuge on many a day growing up</a></b>. Our conversation has resulted in both an hourlong "Meet the Poet" event recorded online last week (<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMCxAGeZAJw" target="_blank">which you can view here</a></b>) and an <b><a href="https://librarycalendar.fairfaxcounty.gov/event/7767052" target="_blank">upcoming July seminar</a></b>, free, on "Narrative Strategies and Truth-Telling in Nonfiction," intended for folks interested in self-mentoring themselves toward writing a memoir. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the heels of a virtual 8th Period visit with the TJ Poets Club for National Poetry Month in April, <b><a href="https://tjhsst.fcps.edu" target="_blank">Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology</a></b> asked me to speak at their graduation ceremonies. As an alumna, I couldn't imagine saying no. But as the date neared and it got <i>really </i>real, I wondered how I was going to use this chance--</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">all six glimmering minutes of it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The actual morning of ceremonies was a flustered affair, because the administration had only gotten the green light for an in-person gathering less than two months prior. My husband and I trekked out to Woodson High School in Fairfax on the first blazingly hot day of summer. A bunch of us tried to access the football field one way, then turned around and got told we would have to backtrack. I realized I didn't have a contact phone number for anyone. Seconds were ticking down to the 9 AM start time. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But somehow (after being yelled at for accidentally stepping on the track), we found our way to the incoming march of TJ faculty. I felt tremendously relieved to spot Marianne Razzino--fellow member of the Class of 1998, now mathematics teacher--who was holding a black robe and generic regalia to throw on over my dress. Next thing I knew, I was sitting on a stage facing the Class of 2021.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-6xA9_mHlYD0zFAJ8a0p-ZRcpB6BMUYokrdX1uSPe5IHQDEzO10UktB6BXuOoz-ocPZT5DzR9hznkMZEcdgmh13LKfczquSPalisz5E_fnUnr8lMf4TO2p-Bky4iWg4U_7Zq8oQ/s658/Screen+Shot+2021-06-05+at+6.44.14+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="658" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-6xA9_mHlYD0zFAJ8a0p-ZRcpB6BMUYokrdX1uSPe5IHQDEzO10UktB6BXuOoz-ocPZT5DzR9hznkMZEcdgmh13LKfczquSPalisz5E_fnUnr8lMf4TO2p-Bky4iWg4U_7Zq8oQ/w400-h134/Screen+Shot+2021-06-05+at+6.44.14+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here's what I had to say, opening with a few ad-libbed observations as I eased into the strangeness of the task at hand~</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSCrwcXCNEyWK1JDW6Y_YEkSVCnGysaCmgytqgg2zZHtEyHeptN-AOZaILvOKKjhs3xO6jdieO723ypXfZuxrsjhvW_1eTKtHi5wu6drdqq0e6jaGqeRhtsxXr3r-0ZCmhgVfIdw/s2048/IMG_9367.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSCrwcXCNEyWK1JDW6Y_YEkSVCnGysaCmgytqgg2zZHtEyHeptN-AOZaILvOKKjhs3xO6jdieO723ypXfZuxrsjhvW_1eTKtHi5wu6drdqq0e6jaGqeRhtsxXr3r-0ZCmhgVfIdw/w240-h320/IMG_9367.JPG" width="240" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Thank you for that wonderful introduction; thank you for choosing me to be here; thank you to my own former classmate, who made the regalia sit on me. I'm really honored. I'm glad to be here at Woodson, site of many a Thomas Jefferson High School Homecoming victory, and in the company of...cicadas. </i></span><p></p><p><i style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>I know that you are a good, honorable group of people, because during this time I have watched multiple cicadas land on you, and you've found gentle ways to--[hand gesture]. I haven't seen a single one swatted or squished yet. I appreciate the pacifists among us. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>Years ago, I actually auditioned to be the graduating speaker for the Class of 1998. I was not chosen. So I thought about digging up that old speech. Pulling it out, tearing away the dot-matrix feeder strips; if you don't know that reference, ask your parents later. B</i></span><i style="font-family: georgia;">ut the world that we lived in, in 1998, is so different from </i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>the</i></span><i style="font-family: georgia;"> world we live in now. </i></p><p><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I</span></i><i style="font-family: georgia;"> wanted to speak to you all as an alumna. I wanted to give you the most direct and hardest-earned knowledge that I could offer, and I'm following some amazing comments that have been made already. Forgive me that</i><i style="font-family: georgia;">, in typical TJ fashion, I working on these comments 2 AM on the day they were due. </i></p><p><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’ve got five minutes and I've got three things to tell you. </span></i></p><p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>First, I want to talk about a honey fungus in Eastern Oregon, </i>Armillaria Ostoyae<i>. I know. Stay with me. It's the largest creature on earth—it's the size of sixteen football fields—and it lives mostly underground. The bad news is this mushroom isn’t allowing the coniferous trees above to grow. But the amazing news is that parts of the organism are 8,000 years old. </i></span></p><p><i style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>And then, I want to talk to you about the octopus, and the fact that it has three hearts and dark-blue blood. I want to talk about how capybaras are the friendliest creatures on Earth. I want to talk to you about DNA, and black holes. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Science is the language that humans use to articulate wonder and curiosity, and it is beautiful thing that every one of these students, every one of you, speaks that language of science. You can go into any number of professions—you can become lawyer, restaurant owners, even a poet—but I can guarantee that your success in whatever field you choose will be enriched by continuing to learn about the science and technology of this world. So please, always hold space for that.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-style: italic; white-space: pre;"> </span><i>Second, I know I am talking to a crowd that is expert at cramming, at acing, at burning the candle at both ends, whatever metaphor you want. I say this with love: please, now, if you aren't already, think about your mental health. Think about taking care of yourself. Build your reserves. Recognize that the You who gets a B is worth just as much as the You who gets an A. </i></span></p><p><i style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>And I love that I wrote this message to you all last night, but I've already heard it echoed today. I heard your principal say it, and I heard your classmates say it, and that tells me that you all are thinking about these things. Because I have been where you are. And, trust me, there will come a time when all-nighters are no longer an option, okay? All the caffeine in the world will not allow you to activate the way that you're able to activate right now. I</i></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>n addition</i></span><i style="font-family: georgia;"> to being brilliant, high-achieving performers, you might want to be good partners, loving parents, or simply people with lives outside your work. </i></p><p><i style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre;"> </span></i>You are more than your productivity. To loosely cite Voltaire—whose</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Candide </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">I read in Ms. Curtis’s AP Literature class—do not let “perfect” be the enemy of good. </i></p><p><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">The third thing I want to say is that you are so fortunate in the company you have kept for these last four years, even when it was over Zoom. I move among artists, who tend to congratulate themselves for being interesting. And they are. But honestly, person-for-person, your classmates at TJ are the most interesting cohort of people you’ll ever meet, and their names will constellate the sky of every imaginable profession, every geographic location, in the years to come. So keep track. Don’t disappear on each other. </span></i></p><p><i style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Doesn’t mean you have to say these were the best years of your life and, in fact, I hope aren’t. I hope the best is ahead of you. But trust me when I say that the bonds forged in the fires of this high school mean something. </span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I look out and know that I am looking at the people who will shape our world in the years to come. The great part is, I trust you with that world. I have seen so many signs that this generation is talented, adept, inclusive in your social values, generous with your spirit. I ask only that you take care of yourselves, and take care of each other. Thank you. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the ceremony shifted into presentation of diplomas, I realized that my placement--you could draw a straight line from the photographer's camera, to the principal, to my chair--meant that I'd be photobombing graduates as they received their diplomas. Sitting and smiling through 400 names is no joke. But it wasn't hard to smile, watching their individual energies as each person cued up to cross the stage. They fussed with their tassels, they stood on tiptoe, they double-checked which hand they were supposed to extend. "Whatever feels good to you, man, just go with it," one of their faculty advisors said, clapping his hand on the back of a student.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Watching a wave of blue caps flip into the air, what I felt was gratitude. And hope. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEBJ01dAnicUjVrBuGbCbBZM0xhqto3ceIEJ_phn9gDipF3o6pkTMjONg7UqsVpdkZteTHI4DCjb6czysxmy3yu1rX89wdW8wbd5TeTWF6Ogm14Y47gKEOzencbfPW7g8xmuvdOw/s2048/IMG_9379.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEBJ01dAnicUjVrBuGbCbBZM0xhqto3ceIEJ_phn9gDipF3o6pkTMjONg7UqsVpdkZteTHI4DCjb6czysxmy3yu1rX89wdW8wbd5TeTWF6Ogm14Y47gKEOzencbfPW7g8xmuvdOw/w400-h300/IMG_9379.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-14952699806597919672021-05-05T02:23:00.004-04:002021-05-05T02:45:06.981-04:00Poetry in Bloom<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">1:30 AM on the (very) early morning of my 41st year, and I'm giving myself the birthday present of a blog post I started drafting (checks notes)...oh, back on April 11. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">National Poetry Month is always busy, especially with a new book in hand, but this year the events were all from my office--my Zoom corner. I have missed traveling on a profound level, because those long drives turn out to offer the time when I mull new projects. On the upside, never have I gotten to give so many readings while barefoot; two highlights were my event hosted by </span><b style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVi54ZxGFIs&t=7s" target="_blank">Politics and Prose, with Teri Ellen Cross Davis,</a></b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> and my event for </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqMLAgrQXw" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank"><b>The Writer's Center with Kim Addonizio</b></a><span style="font-family: georgia;">. And my husband has held down the fort magnificently in terms of cooking dinner most nights</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4v99-NH_ROf5gL1H77VXqRT70XURvh2GaYzV6xq01l0q_-KFWpfd6d8M8cHMMI7FNf3hf5aT881ISAO5tR92-6b8xB_cV3YXhrD1jbN8pJa3iXQCDwbR9puXFLpDWR46o_EzrHg/s2048/IMG_8169.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4v99-NH_ROf5gL1H77VXqRT70XURvh2GaYzV6xq01l0q_-KFWpfd6d8M8cHMMI7FNf3hf5aT881ISAO5tR92-6b8xB_cV3YXhrD1jbN8pJa3iXQCDwbR9puXFLpDWR46o_EzrHg/w300-h400/IMG_8169.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">April also marked my first experience coordinating an event for the <b><a href="https://www.omiami.org" target="_blank">O, Miami Poetry Festival</a></b>. The challenge in proposing a project for 2021: to what extent would people be interacting? How could we create something fun, but also safe? I reached out to Neil de la Flor last fall (great poet, lives in Miami, always has interesting ideas), and something came up organically in conversation--that his family had a multi-generational business in floral deliveries. One thing led to another, and we partnered with <b><a href="https://www.swwim.org" target="_blank">SWWIM</a></b> to curate a selection of poems inspired by flowers, which then went out in bouquets delivered by <b><a href="https://dollysflorist.com" target="_blank">Dolly's Florist.</a></b> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My contribution, other than a general habit for task-mastering, was to conceive delivering the poems in origami form--something that could sit decoratively in a bouquet and invite unfolding as a tactile interaction. Since I turned out to be the only origami enthusiast on the team, this also meant the literal hunkered-down time of folding 150 pinwheels. Felt good to do something hands-on, since I couldn't actually set foot in Miami. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've loved origami since I was a kid, taking classes on how to make cranes at the McLean Community Center. One thing I thought about as I worked in the (once again, very) early morning hours is how I used to try and rush through the preparatory folds; the moments in process when the paper has to be creased, then uncreased, to ease a later move. Younger Me thought that was a waste of time, that surely I could finesse the move without it. Older Me understands the necessity. Maybe there's a metaphor in there somewhere. I'd like to think that the challenges of 2020 were, in a sense, preparatory folds for some great move ahead. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiaRFgbtq6E5LfzR3rB2wgl5pt7K8SKwrkEySYT7P02tWtpYjrBk7Gc3AkwAgWjF6RrjQHr4yS3tTFBg1B0H7vvsXMnrzhTFS9ec-ArfpQVaaHm5NwZeTHI7CYpWsprgJkyiFiPg/s2048/Pinwheels+in+Progress.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1328" data-original-width="2048" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiaRFgbtq6E5LfzR3rB2wgl5pt7K8SKwrkEySYT7P02tWtpYjrBk7Gc3AkwAgWjF6RrjQHr4yS3tTFBg1B0H7vvsXMnrzhTFS9ec-ArfpQVaaHm5NwZeTHI7CYpWsprgJkyiFiPg/w400-h260/Pinwheels+in+Progress.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some other things that happened: I logged on at 5 AM on a Friday to hear the work of a friend I made in Cyprus, an international poetry discussion only possible across Zoom; I got to virtually visit my old high school, which has asked me to speak at their (in person!) June graduation proceedings; I wrapped up a semester of teaching creative nonfiction workshops at the undergraduate and MFA levels, which proved a particular delight; we refreshed the balcony planters with a new type of sedum, "Indian Blanket" (Gaillardia pulchella, a wildflower), tomatoes and peppers; Sal the Wonder Cat continued to loll his ridiculous self across every conceivable surface of this apartment. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Perhaps this is a trite thing to say, but I do appreciate you coming by this blog. I don't update it as often as I could, or should, or want to. But it's a good, sturdy little tether that binds me to remembering the question of whether I would ever publish a book at all, and therefore how quintessentially lucky this life has been. I'm happy you're here. </span></div><p></p>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-5405517761202584642021-02-28T07:43:00.009-05:002021-02-28T15:45:23.890-05:00The Golden Shovel: On the Legacy of Ms. Brooks and the Future of the Form<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><b><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/made-to-explode-poems/9780393531602" target="_blank"></a></b></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOq9veUQOtHiUyzYZchn7usMYRdJ6MIQjRvUwnVkXZIzxAdlFM4baPqaTibU7GZzRLk2ygfc2i8LjDECZmtH-6aGdhv-k7hvebBTBwrYX9DS8S9595F0gsv6cat0zJNN0DBxxm5w/s2048/Made+to+Explode+Cover+Art+300+DPI.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1356" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOq9veUQOtHiUyzYZchn7usMYRdJ6MIQjRvUwnVkXZIzxAdlFM4baPqaTibU7GZzRLk2ygfc2i8LjDECZmtH-6aGdhv-k7hvebBTBwrYX9DS8S9595F0gsv6cat0zJNN0DBxxm5w/w213-h320/Made+to+Explode+Cover+Art+300+DPI.jpg" width="213" /></a></b></i></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><b><br />Made to Explode</b></i> is out! I want to pause and celebrate that, even though I couldn't do what I would customarily do--fill a room with folks, several times over and within a 14-hour driving radius, for readings and hugs and pints and signings. March and April will bring a number of online, Zoom-based events (check out my schedule on the right-hand side of this blog), but I miss what tactile reality. Still, it is a gorgeous book and I'm grateful to <b><a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/made-to-explode" target="_blank">W. W. Norton</a></b>, my blurbers, and for those who have already reached out to say they are reading it. If you think you might want to teach the book and want guidelines, or even a virtual classroom visit, just reach out and let me know. The life of a poetry collection is long--this is the hardback, there will be a paperback incarnation, and there will be the chance for future conversations. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I aim for each of my collections to have a couple of craft conversations going on. <i>Count the Waves </i>was about iterative modes, and included six sestinas and a series in dialogue with "The Traveler's Vade Mecum." <i>Made to Explode</i> is the first collection where I've deeply engaged with the prose poem, particularly in a series of monument and memorial interrogations with the title "____, Midnight," meant to evoke visiting those places in the liminal nighttime hours. But it's also a collection that holds two Golden Shovels, and I wanted to write a bit about what that form's (relatively brief) history, its implications, and how it might advance into poetry's collective consciousness. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBtgTSNZqJdcF_rZzofajNEU_fDqQZr9L7eOZVhBrH1r-Rlu55UW9X5W6MzWHbC8RaBHvdnV_QYAnqRwsMxx830u5NAL6mOqUnv5RPh_Ei54Qnf1O9txRQqufvOm7uKuMEpCUYw/s2048/HayesLighthead.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1331" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBtgTSNZqJdcF_rZzofajNEU_fDqQZr9L7eOZVhBrH1r-Rlu55UW9X5W6MzWHbC8RaBHvdnV_QYAnqRwsMxx830u5NAL6mOqUnv5RPh_Ei54Qnf1O9txRQqufvOm7uKuMEpCUYw/s320/HayesLighthead.jpg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />In 2010, Terrance Hayes published <i>Lighthead</i>, his third collection, which would go on to win the National Book Award. In the notes at the back, he spends the most time defining the <i>pecha kucha</i>, a mode based on the format of Japanese business presentations. But he also acknowledges that his poem "The Golden Shovel" "is, as the end words suggest, after Gwendolyn Brooks' 'We Real Cool.'" A few entries later, he notes, "'The Last Train to Africa' is after Elizabeth Alexander's poem 'Ladders.' Like the form used in 'The Golden Shovel,' the end words come from her poem." Hayes would later elaborate on the backstory, which involved asking his two children to memorize poems--one by Langston Hughes, the other by Gwendolyn Brooks--and, after becoming preoccupied with their nightly attempts at recitation, deciding to "string the whole poem down the page and write into it." Multiple drafts resulted, two of which made it into the collection. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55678/the-golden-shovel">"The Golden Shovel"</a></b> would be a striking, classroom-friendly poem under any circumstances, because it showcases Hayes' gift for the heightened lyric vernacular, his disciplined and yet playful lineation (sometimes enjambing mid-word), and an ongoing thematic concern with the father figure. But something caught afire about this "nonce form"--a term I assign because it's invention that can be credited to a particular poet, in a particular moment, that may or may not carry forward. What fueled interest is both excitement for Hayes' work and shared reverence for the figure of <b><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gwendolyn-brooks" target="_blank">Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)</a></b>, an incredibly brilliant poet--the first Black poet to win the Pulitzer Prize, the first Black woman to act as poetry consultant for the Library of Congress. The opportunity to teach these two important voices in conversation helped move the form from the realm of "nonce" to "contemporary form," as multiple poets began engaging the mode at the same time. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgySaSvr5Cv3NLdJmF8MVpTv2eZWwoG0MSmOC0D_uV8AgmE0Xh69xfalurGQt6Q-VhYgsd0kCrVQWnzwMjACnWLY9V3CLWzR92ESMBAgiTBP9SpzbmUn6mHCITcNaK6Lv5xfYgVxg/s356/Gwendolyn_Brooks_USPS_postage_stamp.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgySaSvr5Cv3NLdJmF8MVpTv2eZWwoG0MSmOC0D_uV8AgmE0Xh69xfalurGQt6Q-VhYgsd0kCrVQWnzwMjACnWLY9V3CLWzR92ESMBAgiTBP9SpzbmUn6mHCITcNaK6Lv5xfYgVxg/s320/Gwendolyn_Brooks_USPS_postage_stamp.jpg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The chief engineer of this initiative is Peter Kahn, himself a noted poet with an MFA from Fairfield University who, as a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths-University of London, founded the Spoken Word Education Training Programme. Kahn has taught in Chicago's high schools since 1994, and his investment in distilling and assigning the Golden Shovel to students seeded a cohort of young poets. He co-edited, with Ravi Shankar and Patricia Smith, <i><b><a href="https://www.uapress.com/product/the-golden-shovel-anthology/" target="_blank">The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks</a></b></i>, which came out in 2017 from the University of Arkansas Press. The anthology's intent, <b><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-golden-shovel-anthology-new-poems-honoring-gwendolyn_b_5a14565fe4b08b00ba673468" target="_blank">which Kahn described in an interview</a></b>, was the place student work alongside that of more established poets, all of whom would constitute a "second generation" to Hayes' original experiment. Hayes' blessing, in the form of introducing the anthology, offers the clear dictate that "the 'Golden Shovel' form belongs to no one so much as Ms. Brooks. Peter Kahn, a citizen of Brooks' Chicago understands as much."</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">My contribution to the anthology is "Non-Commissioned: A Quartet," which uses the text of Brooks' opening in the "Gay Chaps at the Bar" series. Brooks' sonnet is a poem I have taught countless times, often in tandem with Gregory Orr's theory of the four temperaments. (In the original theory essay, considering the possibility of a poet who might perfectly balance story, structure, music, and imagination, Orr offers up the model of William Shakespeare; I'd counter with the model of Gwendolyn Brooks.) I won't try to unpack my own poem here, other than to say it's thinking about the experience of 20th-century soldiering; before appearing in the anthology, the poem won the 2015 C.P. Cavafy Poetry Prize from <i>Poetry International</i>, and now it appears in<i> Made to Explode</i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5UYxvyBaUn9vIx5QfwsDfYgCRhcUtljzBW5NxYihFahYj8C0t8tnqHj1On4cXfZA9nRZTLca703UZboV4jREleYQkl8AlvBFOK3DhOqsUzY4yMKlDrwfuWBMC5H8L-9Z2CqAJgA/s400/%257B1FDC44A0-177E-433A-A280-2477573834E2%257DImg400.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5UYxvyBaUn9vIx5QfwsDfYgCRhcUtljzBW5NxYihFahYj8C0t8tnqHj1On4cXfZA9nRZTLca703UZboV4jREleYQkl8AlvBFOK3DhOqsUzY4yMKlDrwfuWBMC5H8L-9Z2CqAJgA/s320/%257B1FDC44A0-177E-433A-A280-2477573834E2%257DImg400.jpg" /></span></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Brooks is one of my favorite poets, full stop. So it felt organic to spend the hours required to "write into" one of her poems. Yet I also became increasingly aware of the forms' challenges--if we break the full text of a sonnet into a series of end words, we are talking about a <i>really </i>long poem (~100 lines). I was not surprised, in looking through the anthology to see that most people opted for briefer excerpts of longer texts. This flexibility has resulted in contributions from amazing folks, more than might have taken part otherwise, and it is fun to see how they intersect based on the common choice of a Brooks poem: both Aracelis Girmay and Hailey Leithauser, for example, write into "The Anniad." Other poets taking on lines from "Gay Chaps at the Bar" include CM Burroughs, Laura Mullen, Christine Pugh, Danez Smith, and Lewis Turco (and, though he didn't make it into the anthology, Reginald Dwayne Betts). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Will the form survive into becoming not only a contemporary form, but a received one? I don't know. Should the form be prescribed as specifically a tribute to Brooks, that uses her poems exclusively? Even Hayes himself uses the form on an Elizabeth Alexander poem (though it should be noted that they're kindred spirits, and Alexander edited <i>The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks</i>). Can the "Golden Shovel" be relaxed into a form that uses any previously published poem, <b><a href="https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/golden-shovel-poetic-form" target="_blank">as the description in this Writer's Digest entry</a></b> suggests? What about song lyrics? Does an author have any responsibility to pick up the concerns of the original text?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I felt compelled to work within the entirety of each Brooks poem in part because I wanted to guarantee any reader's immediate access to her poem's entire text. One of the things I love about this contemporary form is the title, which is actually a matter of relative coincidence: the "Golden Shovel," in the epigraph to the original Brooks poem, is the name of the pool hall where these seven youths gather. But as I've broken it down when explaining the form to students, the title contains somewhat paradoxical impulses: to make something "golden," a.k.a. to gild, but also to bury, e.g. the "shovel" at work. Because isn't even a celebratory occupation still a kind of colonizing? Am I truly writing "into," or am I writing over? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi61E7WKq3j0TAlOydjU_hawbdtrTA4Or5jvgB3I8M2td9M6qlno-ya9V4_7l1WwLZqDRC9f1UwJB8sC_bIogPzKxNMzrh0qrlzfJgLzRzu3D0CtUjoHsDSWkDUZ6TuvEs9gkf7bA/s692/black-death-spectacle.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="692" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi61E7WKq3j0TAlOydjU_hawbdtrTA4Or5jvgB3I8M2td9M6qlno-ya9V4_7l1WwLZqDRC9f1UwJB8sC_bIogPzKxNMzrh0qrlzfJgLzRzu3D0CtUjoHsDSWkDUZ6TuvEs9gkf7bA/w200-h139/black-death-spectacle.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In this thinking, I'm guided by Solmaz Sharif's insightful later-wave meditation on erasure aesthetics, <b><a href="https://thevolta.org/ewc28-ssharif-p1.html" target="_blank">"The Near Transitive Properties of the Political and Poetical: Erasure,"</a></b> which first appeared in Issue 28 (April 2013) of <i>Evening Will Come: A Monthly Journal of Poetics. </i>I'm also thinking about this as a white poet writing in tribute to and in (attempted) conversation with a poet held dear by the African-American community. "Non-Commissioned: A Quartet" is one of the oldest poems in <i>Made to Explode.</i> "Black Death Spectacle," which takes its name from Parker Bright's protest at the 2017 Whitney Biennial, is one of the last ones I completed as part of the manuscript. Parker wore a gray t-shirt on which he'd written that phrase, and stood between viewers and Dana Schutz's painting. The poem deals frankly and in a meta-mode with these issues, in part by applying the Golden Shovel to the entire text of Ms. Brooks' “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till." </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I haven't known what to write in people's books, as I send out copies of <i>Made to Explode, </i>any more than we've known how to begin and end our emails to each other in these twelve months of the pandemic. "Stay safe"? "Hope to see you again"? But one thing I've been able to say is that I'm glad to be a poet now, in this time, because poetry is complicated and robust. And considering our emergent forms, and how they will (or won't) propagate is a big part of that. Neither of my Golden Shovels has been published, to date, anywhere online. With that in mind, I'll share them here. But I would ask that they only be taught in full dialogue with the Gwendolyn Brooks poems that shaped them. So I will include those texts, as well. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Gay Chaps at the Bar</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">...and guys I knew in the States, young officers, return from the front</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">crying and trembling. Gay chaps at the bar in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York...</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">—Lt. William Couch in the South Pacific</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We knew how to order. Just the dash</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Necessary. The length of gaiety in good taste.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Whether the raillery should be slightly iced</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And given green, or served up hot and lush.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And we knew beautifully how to give to women</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The summer spread, the tropics of our love.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">When to persist, or hold a hunger off.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Knew white speech. How to make a look an omen.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But nothing ever taught us to be islands.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And smart, athletic language for this hour</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Was not in the curriculum. No stout</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lesson showed how to chat with death. We brought</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">No brass fortissimo, among our talents,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">To holler down the lions in this air.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>-Gwendolyn Brooks</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">#</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>NON-COMMISSIONED: A QUARTET</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A Golden Shovel</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>after Gwendolyn Brooks, </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Gay Chaps at the Bar.” </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">No one chose us. We </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">chose ourselves. What a man knew</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">in the concrete embrace of bunkers—how </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">or who—would never make it to</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">the foxhole. A sergeant catches the order </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">as it trickles down his just </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">commander’s leg. We hauled the </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">water. We led the dash.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We’re the vertebras necessary </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">so the skeleton can dance. We’re the </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">eighteen rounds in the length </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">of a minute; the fifty pounds of </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">an M1928 haversack. We’re the gayety </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">of five-card draw in </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dead night, the muffled barter of good</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">smokes for bad booze. Privates taste</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">fear. A corporal will spit it out. Whether </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">a man remembers to thread the</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">diaper of his pack: the stuff of raillery, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">except when it should </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">save your life. We chose to be </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">grenade men. There was no<i> slightly.</i> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is no plum butter, no bread, no iced</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">tea, no lemon. There is a meat can, and </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">there may be meat in it. What’s given </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">to a boy as he trembles, as he turns green, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">is the lesson of swim or</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">goddammitswim. You serve or are served </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">on a stretcher. Once home, belly up </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">to the bar and speak of the hot </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">dusks—how you aimed the mortar—and </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">remember us, who stayed in the jungles lush.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">II.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The difference between liver and </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>foie gras</i>, we were taught, is in how we </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">hold a beast’s head before feeding. We knew </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">the throat lining to be beautifully </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">calloused, like a palm. We learned how </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">to load the gavage, to </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">simmer corn in fat to give </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">their flesh fat in return. They told us to </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">keep the men. We discarded women</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">after hatching and the </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">smell was foul, but so goes summer. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We could almost taste the spread, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">rich in iron, surrendering to a tongue the </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">way an ice cube melts in the tropics.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nothing was wasted and of </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">the lies they’ll tell, that’s the worst: that our </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">care was a form of waste. It was love.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Everything stings less when</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">shot with rye. We took time to </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">pin tin to each swollen breast, to persist</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">even when they hollered or </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">the cage held more than it could hold. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We stroked their throats and called it a </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">sign of hunger </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">if they swallowed. We took off</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">shoes that shone with their filth. We knew </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">their feathers would not stay white.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">No one had to give that speech, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">nor show us how </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">their eyes would glaze when ready to </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">slaughter. How can I make </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">you understand? This is not a </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">form of betrayal. Look.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the field, the officer’s job is to make an</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">office: anything else is an empty omen.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">III.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">nothing</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">ever</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">taught</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">us</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">to</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">be </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">islands.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">IV.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">If a mother cradles her son’s face and </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">praises how <i>brave</i> he is, how <i>smart</i>, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">how nimble or athletic, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">she is teaching him the language </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">of easy victory—ten points scored for </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">his team, the test aced, the prick of this </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">needle to which he did not weep. An hour </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">in the trench offered what was </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">a different dictionary. We do not </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">speak of smart, or brave, or <i>honor in </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>battle.</i> That’s for telegrams to the </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">parents, the posthumous curriculum. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Little sprinter, you have no </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">advantage in this marathon, no stout </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">legs to carry you to the finish line’s lesson. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Those soldiers who showed </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">grace with a bayonet understood how </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">the body must become a weapon to </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">be wielded; how every chat </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">is a conversation with </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">the self we want to save; how death </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">listens in, nodding. We </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">laughed at the lieutenants who brought </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">photos of sweethearts, because no </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">girl wants to kiss a mouth full of brass. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">If the only volume is fortissimo, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">it’s not music that’s playing. Among </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">every hour, what I recall is our </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">silences. Our greatest talents—</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">accomplishing with a look what to </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">a weaker man required a holler. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We raised them. We laid them down. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We learned faces but not the </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">names, and we left lording to the lions. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The roof of the house I lived in </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">had a chevron’s peak. I took in this </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">breath and then there was no other air.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>-Sandra Beasley</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">[["Non-Commissioned: A Quartet" appears in <i>Made to Explode</i>, W. W. Norton, 2021]]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">#</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>The Last Quatrain Of The Ballad Of Emmett Till</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i> (after the murder,</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i> after the burial)</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Emmett's mother is a pretty-faced thing;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> the tint of pulled taffy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">She sits in a red room,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> drinking black coffee.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">She kisses her killed boy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> And she is sorry.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Chaos in windy grays</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> through a red prairie.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">-Gwendolyn Brooks</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">#</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>BLACK DEATH SPECTACLE</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A Golden Shovel</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>after Gwendolyn Brooks, </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till.” </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A man asks those viewing<i> Open Casket</i> what comes after</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">their shock, when from the </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">safe distance of cocktails the boy’s murder</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">becomes a matter of palette, of line and stroke, after</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">someone fumbles their way through the</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">—<i>drowned? Was he drowned? </i>Wasn’t the Chicago burial</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">a kind of show, they say, curated by Emmett’s </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">mother? The painter says, <i>And I, too, am a mother.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Our tools seduce. Ask what the shovel is</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">burying. Know that the paintbrush sees only a</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">canvas: <i>Make it yours. Make it pretty. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Carolyn Bryant is here and shit-faced </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">again and muttering that she couldn’t do a damn thing</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">to stop them, bacon burned, wheels off the </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">wagon, that if her husband had heard even a tint </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">of recanting he’d have slapped her silly. Of </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">course she’s here—moth pulled </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">to the flame, one kid jealous of another’s taffy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Now that a white woman’s hands are all over this, she</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">wants in. Carolyn paces, paces, sits.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ask the poet what gets colored in. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ask the poet what gets colored in a </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">red </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">room.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ask the poet who sits in a red room, drinking.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Most oil painters will not use pure black.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">They build their black instead, from shades of coffee</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">and navy. When she </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">leans toward the painting she almost kisses </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">the tacky surface. <i>There.</i> She adjusts the spot-lamp, her </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">skin catching the glow off what has been killed. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Emmett Till is a fourteen-year-old boy,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">quick to laugh and </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">to help his mother with the laundry, and she </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">offers driving lessons if they go to Omaha. But he is </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">determined to be Mississippi-bound. Does he say sorry?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Does he promise, <i>next time</i>? Before the chaos, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">he tucks a pack of bubblegum in </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">his pocket. She brings him home to the windy </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">city so thousands can file by in their best church grays.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the Biennial, the man’s T-shirt challenges those passing through. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">BLACK DEATH SPECTACLE. They murmur over the bloom of a</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">wound, seeing red without seeing red.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Question the shovel, he says, that’d till this prairie.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>-Sandra Beasley</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">[["Black Death Spectacle" appears in <i>Made to Explode</i>, W. W. Norton, 2021]]</span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">#</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Just a reminder of the Golden Shovel form--reading the end words of each of my poems, above, will embody the full text of the Gwendolyn Brooks poem cited in the dedication line. Please do not replicate these texts except for educational purposes. ~SB</i></span></p>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-50598656823590308522021-01-24T08:22:00.003-05:002021-01-24T08:26:29.574-05:00Who Gets to Be "From DC"?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHGbmEmJK3x6EchMUc1K7er_SEgxFJxnhjDuAu_hHKL_KOdsldJzNkW9-s5z4yf1P9B7hLpGcBTQCUbMmxQcESqxY79W2Hx38CZ0km95XViXVxMI6UQEd2jImNzb6fe71-Z6QYQ/s2048/View+of+Capitol.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHGbmEmJK3x6EchMUc1K7er_SEgxFJxnhjDuAu_hHKL_KOdsldJzNkW9-s5z4yf1P9B7hLpGcBTQCUbMmxQcESqxY79W2Hx38CZ0km95XViXVxMI6UQEd2jImNzb6fe71-Z6QYQ/s320/View+of+Capitol.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />If I stand in the right spot of our ninth-floor apartment, I can see the Capitol. I looked this way a lot during the past week, anxiously checking for smoke or other signs of distress that might interrupt the days around Inauguration My gaze cuts across the vacant lot at 501 I Street SW, bare grass that has been the site of a hotly contested development plan since we moved to this neighborhood in 2015. If approved, the plan calls for a nine-story mixed-use building, and the Capitol will disappear. Never choose a place for the view, my neighbor reminds me. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">When I give readings from my books, I am sometimes introduced as "from Virginia"; other times the host says I'm "from DC." Neither feels wrong. This is my sixth rental since first moving to Dupont Circle in 2002. I spent eighteen years growing up in northern Virginia. I’ve lived in Washington, DC, just as long and almost longer. But I’d never say that I'm "from DC" on DC soil, not after having been asked—not unkindly, but firmly—<i>So what quadrant were you born in? Which hospital?</i></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdxWZHxjrmdNM2kzmCN2YZ9J8bfuYx7mjUOVtLIUts61ECsVvldxQwR0C5xotCYMSmwWcPye8AZRDlQ2seOItPGEnB0xgILso-NDd2ht8behGiQLjMgw7kswewtE64CfTW6_3IrA/s2048/Sandra+with+Capitol.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdxWZHxjrmdNM2kzmCN2YZ9J8bfuYx7mjUOVtLIUts61ECsVvldxQwR0C5xotCYMSmwWcPye8AZRDlQ2seOItPGEnB0xgILso-NDd2ht8behGiQLjMgw7kswewtE64CfTW6_3IrA/s320/Sandra+with+Capitol.jpg" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The vacant lot in my sightline used to be Southeastern University, founded in 1879. A little further over was once 4 ½ Street SW; Myra Sklarew, my teacher at American University, wrote of her grandfather posing for a photo outside his home there back in 1913. The Titanic memorial hovers at the corner where Fort McNair meets with Southwest Waterfront Park, forever mourning those lost at sea in 1912. To live in this neighborhood is to box with one’s ghosts. My dad drove us along Hains Point to see <i>The Awakening</i> clawing out of the ground, back before they moved the sculpture to National Harbor. My Grandma Beasley gathered us for the Thanksgiving buffet at Phillips Seafood. My Grandma Pruett hummed along to the melodies of Arena Stage’s musicals. Here is where 22-year-old me roamed the Environmental Protection Agency building, destined for demolition and taken over in the meantime by Art-O-Matic in 2002. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />My first Southwest address was a building designed by I. M. Pei, and the second a complex by Chloethiel Woodard Smith. Both were key figures in the 1960s urban renewal movement that turned this neighborhood into a Brutalist toy-box of beautiful and, today, dilapidated forms. Their buildings also displaced thousands who couldn’t afford the new reality.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2N_DJN5OvoelI7Xz0HoYXTQ5o9TZziUYe3FqctkhA7g4QctuyJkE4_uMhSzv9vVUst_n8RD30leIB_4D63BOO6fT1RyKsi44jRRhuczmi_KugG1N9NpGeA7Se8K8ks85eDoeJHQ/s2048/Well+Get+Thru+This.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2N_DJN5OvoelI7Xz0HoYXTQ5o9TZziUYe3FqctkhA7g4QctuyJkE4_uMhSzv9vVUst_n8RD30leIB_4D63BOO6fT1RyKsi44jRRhuczmi_KugG1N9NpGeA7Se8K8ks85eDoeJHQ/w240-h320/Well+Get+Thru+This.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sometimes when describing Southwest Waterfront, the other person interrupts—<i>Oh, you <br />mean the Wharf?</i>—and I wince, caught between waves of gentrification. The pandemic has complicated my feelings toward this multi-million dollar behemoth. Restaurants where I couldn’t afford to a sit-down meal converted their pantries to bodegas that sold chicken, carrots, onions, and greens. The fancy liquor store distributed locally distilled sanitizer. When I first read The Anthem’s sign, “We’ll Get Thru This,” my immediate thought was: <i>Okay then. We will.</i> I needed to have someone say it. I needed for someone to spell it out in foot-tall letters.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Still, the city’s ghosts pull no punches. This past April, when it didn’t feel safe to go out, I could step out on the balcony and see cherry trees blossoming along East Potomac Park. I took great comfort in that. Now Washington Channel is disappearing, floor by concrete floor. Fifty years after our own building went up, I understand the irony of complaining about new construction or rising rent. I can still glimpse the water, if I stand in the right spot. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqp8XFykmgmDIdbSwf3TtsezhZ5Mio25Rxv0TK_kyc9ZLGZNDD6Y9O9wGANTwFF-y7zSftWcZyRkakq7lyppr83fLMcTRbEOEWLoEy_-vJTcdPCPTWa4ISc4QlN-DexJ4h0Xeo1g/s2048/Orig+View.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqp8XFykmgmDIdbSwf3TtsezhZ5Mio25Rxv0TK_kyc9ZLGZNDD6Y9O9wGANTwFF-y7zSftWcZyRkakq7lyppr83fLMcTRbEOEWLoEy_-vJTcdPCPTWa4ISc4QlN-DexJ4h0Xeo1g/w480-h640/Orig+View.jpg" width="480" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiS0lOrps-TcNVU2KUHIdD8YlFyGEDgpug6jWrsWTXVNLgKlOBCXbxtpXEL3NF6XYCbuicH2Jin9qpyYjQvWdzsCzUMPK-m5Zq1XSw2VWUQKjscaW-U8pbiQX5rfJWVbRrrebkUQ/s2048/Blocked+View.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiS0lOrps-TcNVU2KUHIdD8YlFyGEDgpug6jWrsWTXVNLgKlOBCXbxtpXEL3NF6XYCbuicH2Jin9qpyYjQvWdzsCzUMPK-m5Zq1XSw2VWUQKjscaW-U8pbiQX5rfJWVbRrrebkUQ/w480-h640/Blocked+View.jpg" width="480" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In just a few weeks<b><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/made-to-explode-poems/9780393531602" target="_blank">, <i>Made to Explode</i>,</a></b> will be published with W. W. Norton. The collection (my fourth!) has a whole section of prose poems that interrogate the strangeness of our <b><a href="https://www.benningtonreview.org/sandra-beasley" target="_blank">monuments</a></b> and <b><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/lincoln-midnight/" target="_blank">memorials</a></b>, our "living history, plus <b><a href="https://poets.org/poem/american-rome" target="_blank">a sestina called "American Rome."</a></b> There are lots of things that I am unsure of, but one thing I do know is that DC is the right place to be as this book enters the world. I'm particularly excited that Politics & Prose is using it as the February pick for their <b><a href="https://www.politics-prose.com/signed-first-editions-club" target="_blank">Signed First Editions Book Club</a></b>, because that will put the book into the hands of some Washingtonians who may not usually reach for poetry. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Vienna is where my family is. Hyattsville is more affordable. Yet this neighborhood holds me, this peculiar cauldron of personal memory and cultural history just blocks from the National Mall. Maybe I won’t ever get to be a Washingtonian; maybe that was decided the moment I was born at Inova Fairfax Hospital. But I am here now. I choose DC for the view. Not a literal vantage point, or one particular set of windows, but because I am invested in what has been and what might be to come.</span></p>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-91007445388027459112020-12-27T09:45:00.001-05:002020-12-27T09:45:59.954-05:002020<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoHyTkqomGOFTTrQjaOrnVvGPwLt08CyoDIKJ5sxhsMUZnzcv1Iu8eAuJ0-GeUO7ivoUwWuIfuT8BPFgiBbHWPYYSQzn36ZqHAQJpp0q3rQbwU6O43wIKXzTrDA_h1lAYG8X79eQ/s2048/Sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="Sunset over ocean." border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoHyTkqomGOFTTrQjaOrnVvGPwLt08CyoDIKJ5sxhsMUZnzcv1Iu8eAuJ0-GeUO7ivoUwWuIfuT8BPFgiBbHWPYYSQzn36ZqHAQJpp0q3rQbwU6O43wIKXzTrDA_h1lAYG8X79eQ/w400-h300/Sunset.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've grieved this year. I know you have too. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/business/media/nick-kotz-dead.html" target="_blank">I lost a dear mentor</a>. The program in which I taught <a href="https://www.ut.edu/graduate-degrees/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing" target="_blank">closed down</a>. I came close to getting a dream job--but did not. Another opportunity required weeks of fraught negotiation. My city's streets were invaded, helicopters a constant presence overhead. Tyrannical subversion of the law has felt like a very real possibility at every turn. A pandemic has attacked friends, family, whole communities, killed thousands, and shut down local institutions that long anchored my understanding of what it meant to live as a writer in DC. Last night, as I opened my laptop and first sat down to write this blog post, brought the news that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/magazine/tony-rice-guitar-hero.html" target="_blank">musician Tony Rice, who shaped my understanding of bluegrass</a>, passed away on Christmas day. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnQY14Ox5GLGzM8e32PPMaWo8ANnQeZUSM4MaGH41CrhBFasvRMfpFgECBdVUvciq3f3adYn1dg1_j2WAxpcHAx3VLWnza3PrAJnToQQWVoFSd97v21m3VyOk4StuD_PTALCuYwA/s2048/Tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="Large, bare trees on a beach shore. Human figure in distant background." border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnQY14Ox5GLGzM8e32PPMaWo8ANnQeZUSM4MaGH41CrhBFasvRMfpFgECBdVUvciq3f3adYn1dg1_j2WAxpcHAx3VLWnza3PrAJnToQQWVoFSd97v21m3VyOk4StuD_PTALCuYwA/w480-h640/Tree.jpg" width="480" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm grateful to all the writer-friends who have stayed active on social media, who have given us dialogue beyond the latest doom-scrolling (a word I did not need before 2020); I simply found it difficult to be one of them. If you're seeing this it means you didn't give up on the possibility of my posting here. I'm grateful for that, too.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd29NpSBOweTQdGugF2TiNCxx4SUhDgb8iZofv__gwGldltrpYuqKn-yQhgF3LXAO498skZCB6hJpgjhT41Sbk5OaouU6bbXq4RvA3HfydHPhf7IBmwcYlSmluzoA6mz83nsWgLA/s2048/Shore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="Sea shore with tidal pools and a bright patch of green algae." border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd29NpSBOweTQdGugF2TiNCxx4SUhDgb8iZofv__gwGldltrpYuqKn-yQhgF3LXAO498skZCB6hJpgjhT41Sbk5OaouU6bbXq4RvA3HfydHPhf7IBmwcYlSmluzoA6mz83nsWgLA/w400-h300/Shore.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There were beautiful moments of this year. Friends had babies. My sister got married. We brought home Sal the Wonder Cat. My husband and I worked through sharing a small space day in, day out. <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/made-to-explode-poems/9780393531602" target="_blank"><i>Made to Explode</i> got its cover</a>. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can't be glib about silver linings, but I can recognize the planting of seeds that will bloom. I'll see you in 2021.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZN1SIToT_tLZEWasWPVVzNyk8MmgqVAXxI4cYyOsUMAFd_bqlQ3E9EcpO62sAjFjAOjVGo7UuWM2u65JexCHQ4wol3bMCUyfPelWNHBIzuMbqD9SpKITV3TGo8kP8hQ8EdkANag/s2048/Sal+31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Close-up of bed in a beach-themed room, cat with black and white head hiding behind pillows." border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZN1SIToT_tLZEWasWPVVzNyk8MmgqVAXxI4cYyOsUMAFd_bqlQ3E9EcpO62sAjFjAOjVGo7UuWM2u65JexCHQ4wol3bMCUyfPelWNHBIzuMbqD9SpKITV3TGo8kP8hQ8EdkANag/w240-h320/Sal+31.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div></div><p></p>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-48457434002614451292020-09-24T10:11:00.006-04:002020-10-03T19:43:00.462-04:00Transcript of The Slowdown (9/24/20)<span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMipTsv9p5yPQSEFpXhdMFW_kHQh0Fgz5nC9Xl3fWvWIfuRrb56JPXlj0GXo1OhocpAv4wmdCz8ME5WmbT819zMc8_UNgj5Vm4DhqRf7UdmbCNu20NXfJemLbO3sOuEwLdKGPlog/s1024/Subscribe-to-Slowdown-Podcast.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMipTsv9p5yPQSEFpXhdMFW_kHQh0Fgz5nC9Xl3fWvWIfuRrb56JPXlj0GXo1OhocpAv4wmdCz8ME5WmbT819zMc8_UNgj5Vm4DhqRf7UdmbCNu20NXfJemLbO3sOuEwLdKGPlog/w200-h200/Subscribe-to-Slowdown-Podcast.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I woke up to a flurry of notes from folks excited that my poem, "The Piano Speaks" (part of my second collection, <i>I Was the Jukebox</i>) is featured as part of Tracy K. Smith's podcast "The Slowdown." I'm excited too! </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">But I believe in fighting for optimal access, which means podcasts should come with transcripts. Since they didn't release one, I made one to post here. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Please ask podcast producers to create and release transcripts of their shows. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">The more pressure we create as a community, the more likely our requests will be honored. Eventually this can (and should) become a baseline standard of access. Access is love. </span><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2020/09/24/479-the-piano-speaks" target="_blank">#479: Transcript of The Slowdown Podcast with Tracy K. Smith</a></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2020/09/24/479-the-piano-speaks" target="_blank">September 24, 2020 [Click here to visit the site's page with audio] </a></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[[Opening announcement for Better Help online professional counseling services. Listeners get 10% off the first month of services with the discount code “Slowdown.” Go to www.BetterHelp.com/slowdown to learn more and make an appointment.]]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[Background music, instrumental.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’m Tracy K. Smith and this is The Slowdown.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[Music break.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You know how they say that, when confronted with a photo, most peoples’ natural inclination is to seek out themselves? I suspect this might also be the case on videoconferencing platforms. I have Zoom meetings most every day, and I hate to admit it, but of all the faces in the tiny grid, my eyes keep gravitating back to my own. Is that what I look like when I talk? I find myself thinking. How is<i> that</i> the expression I make when I listen? What’s up with my mouth? And on, and on. I think I may have found the true culprit of the “Zoom headache.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My kids are the same way. For them, Face Time is just a chance to make loony faces in what is, essentially, a flashy mirror. With a tap of button I hadn’t previously known existed, they can turn themselves into foxes, or sharks, or—much to my dismay—poo emojis. Which is why it’s so exciting when I find them enthralled by a mound of dirt in the backyard, or bent over the pages of an actual book. They’ve wriggled free of the human compulsion for self-scrutiny. For however long it lasts, they’ve forgotten themselves entirely. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The same goes for me when I sink into a good book, or sit in the backyard chasing after a woodland creature with just my eyes. That rapturous self-forgetting helps me temporarily cut ties who I am, and what I lack, and how soon I ought to get back to the task of trying to keep up with my betters. It’s been hard to get to that state under the current conditions. Everywhere I look, there’s evidence of <i>me</i>. Best are the days when something unexpected takes me by surprise. A song comes on, even a song I’ve heard a thousand times before, but this time it opens up a new door. Or, I turn the page onto a rapturous metaphor and finally, thankfully, I’m carried far far away from the cage of my own self-regard. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I guess this is another of the lifesaving properties of art: the ability to carry us far beyond the limits of our known selves. Because the world is full of fascinating perspectives, and sometimes one very good form of self-care is to get lost in the world outside your head. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today’s poem is “The Piano Speaks,” by Sandra Beasley.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Piano Speaks<i><span style="color: #757575;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">After Erik Satie<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For an hour I forgot my fat self, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">my neurotic innards, my addiction to alignment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For an hour I forgot my fear of rain.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For an hour I was a salamander<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">shimmying through the kelp in search of shore,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">and under his fingers the notes slid loose<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">from my belly in a long jellyrope of eggs<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">that took root in the mud. And what<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">would hatch, I did not know—<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">a lie. A waltz. An apostle of glass.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For an hour I stood on two legs <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">and ran. For an hour I panted and galloped.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For an hour I was a maple tree,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">and under the summer of his fingers <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">the notes seeded and winged away <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">in the clutch of small, elegant helicopters.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[Background music, instrumental.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Slowdown is a production of American Public Radio in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, on the web at arts.gov.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">#<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Update: The Slowdown has added an automated transcript service. </b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinxKeJ78EK_Up61SuaKM9nVNoPySphy6P97LZJW8eN6hscRfCntivzjQVwQRjnr116NTX7TWi3ImqmF7JD5YnZ-1x2PypxEy6BapRo5l4UCHM8eZdp8kR6SByI84UNfFRSd5VBZw/s655/Screen+Shot+2020-10-03+at+1.22.43+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="594" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinxKeJ78EK_Up61SuaKM9nVNoPySphy6P97LZJW8eN6hscRfCntivzjQVwQRjnr116NTX7TWi3ImqmF7JD5YnZ-1x2PypxEy6BapRo5l4UCHM8eZdp8kR6SByI84UNfFRSd5VBZw/w363-h400/Screen+Shot+2020-10-03+at+1.22.43+PM.png" width="363" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p></div></div></div>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-73227186978453200102020-09-17T05:51:00.017-04:002020-09-17T12:40:05.581-04:00"The End of an MFA"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu98WwJgMWUEE2xa78oKEwK0neLuM_FdYvCh6QsLGDP5U51sAq7YuvjqsNeLXQvU0vI4-ivP2BLXYxgxsQHT2iEUxT0T19k5v4v_trxSOJXf-aZDy74xKM359NbaDSNrfPtAYzSQ/s2048/IMG_6694.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu98WwJgMWUEE2xa78oKEwK0neLuM_FdYvCh6QsLGDP5U51sAq7YuvjqsNeLXQvU0vI4-ivP2BLXYxgxsQHT2iEUxT0T19k5v4v_trxSOJXf-aZDy74xKM359NbaDSNrfPtAYzSQ/s2048/IMG_6694.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-b5xyOSS1zWl8lETTwPtFEbQy9vC43xIWi6X74jAWxHhzNjOfzK5E32zCf3UtLJzjZqbfK1CmAmKeg7NQVFS1qRIFYvH3LM3NIvlyHfthBIa2SsJeDgg9bv1PjS-MkxApITVxBw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-b5xyOSS1zWl8lETTwPtFEbQy9vC43xIWi6X74jAWxHhzNjOfzK5E32zCf3UtLJzjZqbfK1CmAmKeg7NQVFS1qRIFYvH3LM3NIvlyHfthBIa2SsJeDgg9bv1PjS-MkxApITVxBw/w400-h300/image.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /></span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">First off, full disclosure: I had to request that we call it "The End of <i>an</i> MFA." They'd titled it "The End of <i>the</i> MFA," which felt far too dire. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have a new piece out in a nationally distributed magazine, and usually when that happens I shout from the rooftops. But I've been quiet this time--until a couple of friends, earlier this week, gently asked: why the silence? Part of the reason is that my essay, "The End of an MFA: What Happens When a Low-Residency Program Closes?" is not online; there's no link to share. Anyone interested will have to go pick up the <b><a href="https://www.pw.org/content/septemberoctober_2020" target="_blank">September/October issue of <i>Poets & Writers</i></a></b> off the newsstands or, more likely, get around to finally reading the subscriber's copy that arrived a few weeks ago. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm proud of the piece. I welcomed the depth of understanding that came with the multiple interviews I did to research it--I found that people were excited to talk with someone paying attention to the fact that * seven * low-res MFA programs have closed down since 2015. What's hit me in recent weeks is how acutely I am also grieving the loss of <b><a href="https://www.ut.edu/graduate-degrees/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing" target="_blank">my own program at the University of Tampa</a></b>. From the (very recently) updated website: "The MFA in Creative Writing is being discontinued and will no longer accept applicants."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The view in the snapshot above is one I've gotten every January and June since 2014, with the minarets of Plant Hall visible on the other side of the river. I'll always be grateful for the traipsing to Ybor City in the early days; the brisk walks along the river in recent ones, where I would stop in at the Armature Works for a bowl of ramen or a slab of ribs; the discovery of the gem that is the <b><a href="https://tampamuseum.org" target="_blank">Tampa Museum of Art</a>; </b>conversations at The Retreat that left the stink of smoke in my hair; </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">a pint sipped under the thatched-roof of Four Green Fields while I worked on an intro for the Lectores series</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">. For the first time I had my own distinct home city in Florida, a state that my family (and my in-laws) have had ties to for as long as I can remember. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tampa is where I learned to teach. I got the invitation to apply when the main adjunct experience I had under my belt was a "Writing I" class at the Corcoran College of Art + Design (also now closed, ooof). I'm not saying I was unqualified--I'd led workshops in community writing spaces such as <b><a href="https://www.writer.org" target="_blank">The Writer's Center</a> </b>(where I still teach), and I'd had multiple visiting writer gigs in tandem with book tours, which had taken me into classrooms across the U.S. But this was different. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Steve took a chance on me. This was a paradigm shift, something that began to sink in as I met the other teachers and thought... </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">colleagues?</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> After years of lone-wolfing, I'd found a pack. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">My devotion might have been particularly acute because I had nowhere else where I taught on a regular basis. Sitting in on every seminar that I could--usually from my vantage point of sitting in the corner, on the floor, near the stage of Reeves Theater--I got a priceless education of my own. I hope that the colleagues I annoyed over the years by "eavesdropping" on their lessons can forgive me, but honestly I was just so excited to learn from you all. I also reaped the benefit of the fancy writers who we brought through as visiting Lectores. To be honest, I learned both <i>from</i> them and <i>about </i>them. I learned that what matters isn't the excitement the students have when you arrive, because that can be all glamour and no substance; what matters is the forward momentum the students have after you leave. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tampa was where I developed my workshop style: bright, performative, probably reading- and vocabulary-heavy, hopefully with a lot of laughter to ease the rigor. Tampa is where I developed my first dozen go-to hourlong lectures, which I'll carry with me for the rest of my teaching career, and realized that I delight as much in teaching nonfiction as I do in teaching poetry. Tampa is where I discovered what I'm most gifted at (line edits) and what I spend way too much time on (line edits). Tampa is where I had the time to form lasting mentorships with students, often seeded by the solidarity of shared identities or reference points. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tampa is where, ironically, I learned these mentorships were not limited by geography. I'm a firm believer in the low-residency model for the access and flexibility it offers. I took student work with me to Cyprus, to Kansas, to Ireland. I conferenced with a student on my wedding day, while someone fussed with the back-closure of my dress. I conferenced with a student while I was hunkered down on the floor of my SW DC apartment with my dying cat (that wasn't ideal, but bless the student for making me laugh in such a tough time). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Students, you have been so, so kind and patient with me, and you trusted me with such valuable material of life and art. I'll never forget that. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the scale of 2020 losses, this is bearable. I've already heard from teachers delighted by the UT transfer students landing in their respective low-res MFA programs. I have every faith that they'll thrive. I'm fortunate to have a final two talented students, both of whom I taught in earlier semesters, with whom I'll get the satisfaction of shaping thesis manuscript--one last poetry collection, one last nonfiction work.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">That said, I wish we'd gotten a proper send-off. When we met in January of this year, though there was open concern, there was also a resolve to rally and recruit. By February, the program had been shut down via an e-mail. In March, all of our AWP gatherings were cancelled. The June residency moved to Zoom because of COVID-19. I suspect the January 2021 capstone events for our last round of graduates will also be online or, even if there is an in-person component, it will feel risky for our scattered (former) faculty to fly in for the festivities. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">We deserved one more dance party. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There's no need to use this space for a post-mortem, or to philosophize about why our low-residency program was vulnerable in the first place. Read the article! I just thought I'd put here what I couldn't put there, which was: pure gratitude. And pure sadness. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOdjD8gXbpW2lfYVYje0i3tZBBWH0i-Ma-l3AQVM2hpLiHCe37beBuCQ5beKajJkXE78wXDLPP5uN7tmRq82bAwAdK4oUeIRqUypBRu-kX937dK7sjFCCCT35yK46txq6NkxS2g/s2048/IMG_8192.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOdjD8gXbpW2lfYVYje0i3tZBBWH0i-Ma-l3AQVM2hpLiHCe37beBuCQ5beKajJkXE78wXDLPP5uN7tmRq82bAwAdK4oUeIRqUypBRu-kX937dK7sjFCCCT35yK46txq6NkxS2g/w300-h400/IMG_8192.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-6716945815888365762020-08-04T04:45:00.001-04:002020-08-04T04:50:26.518-04:00Necessity Is the Mother of New Poems<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I get leads on projects many different ways, but this is the first time that a neighbor--one with whom I trade cat-sitting favors--has given me a heads-up on a call for poets. Fast-forward to being on the phone with the organizer of an annual local outreach project that usually takes the form of four communal meals staged during the month of August. The Sunday Supper series would have to take a different form this year, due to COVID-19 concerns. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The question: could I write six poems with one week's notice?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The answer would usually be <i>No</i>. I'm not a particularly fast or prolific poet. If asked to talk about how I come up with a poem, <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2010/05/metaphors-of-craft-by-sandra-beasley.html" target="_blank">I compare the process to an oyster at work</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I really wanted to take part in this project, to be staged in the Southwest Duck Pond adjacent to our apartment in DC. That's the park I look out over, from our balcony; the park whose quacking ducks keep company on quiet summer days; the park we walk through on our loop to the farmer's market. For me, the Southwest Duck Pond is the heart of the neighborhood, and I couldn't imagine passing on the chance to have poems there. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I talked to the organizer, I was pacing our living room. My gaze fell on a copy of Yoko Ono's <i>Grapefruit</i>. That was the solution, I realized: action poems.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don't know if there's any singular or formal definition of an "action poem" but they are usually simple in their premise, a text that stages a series of steps or philosophical considerations (they have a counterpart in Ono's "pieces," such as <i>Cut Piece</i>, where the emphasis is on the actual engagement versus the prescriptive text). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As a student at the University of Virginia, I fell in love with Ono's work through a literature class that had us considering it alongside Ishmael Reed, Djuna Barnes, Tillie Olsen, and other counter-culture icons. If I visit a museum with a significant Fluxus holding, I go in search of her work. The big and heavy, blue-foil-covered 2000 edition of </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">YES</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> was my first experience with getting a "fancy" art book; I'd bought </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Grapefruit</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> from Brooklyn's now-defunct BookCourt as a travel edition, something I could share with students. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The project organizer signed off on the umbrella concept. Now I wouldn't have to come up with six separate premises--but I still needed six distinct ideas. My husband and I sat out on the balcony over the weekend, brainstorming what we thought of when we thought of the SW quadrant, and why we'd moved here five years ago. The next morning, he presented me with a Post-It on which he'd jotted notes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The night before deadline, I was up for hours but it was a happy energy. Most poets will admit a crisis of confidence after we finish a book. <i>Is that it?</i> <i>Is that the last poem I'll ever write?</i> I knew that these texts were engaging themes in <i>Made to Explode</i>--which has a whole section of prose poems dedicated to DC--but they felt distinct, new, in part because a public art installation requires a different energy. And oh, it felt good simply to be word-smithing and line-breaking again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The installation went up yesterday. In lieu of the actual long table with 25 chairs of years past, a chalkboard-covered mock table invites comments from passersby, while two oversized chairs model a social distance. On fifteen of the bright red rocking chairs that are a signature, a mesh pouch holds a laminated, ring-bound booklet featuring the work of seven local poets, alongside conversation prompts and suggestions for additional reading; <b><a href="https://www.swbid.org/sundaysuppers" target="_blank">an online component shares all the poems, plus streamable playlists from DC DJs. </a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I write this, a tropical storm is passing through the city. So I have to hope that those laminated pages are water-tight, and that the letters in "community" are fastened to stand against high winds. I have to keep faith that the sun will come back, and people will gather to the duck pond to sit in the rocking chairs and read poems. Nothing's easy in 2020. But I'm still here, and you're still here, and that's a start to something. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-77742089278244333012020-05-02T17:53:00.000-04:002020-05-02T17:54:36.250-04:00What Breaks Through: Poetry Book Contests<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A couple of weeks ago, I taught a streamlined online version of "Taming the Beast," a seminar on organizing poetry manuscripts that I've offered at <a href="https://www.writer.org/" target="_blank">The Writer's Center</a> and elsewhere. My customary version considers Tables of Contents from a number of collections, and explores the topic of meta-text: meaning, the way that title, epigraph(s), TOC, and section divisions combine to present an understanding of a book's core concerns. (I wrote a brief craft essay on this subject that will be included in <i>Demystifying the Manuscript</i>, slated for publication by <a href="https://www.twosylviaspress.com/booksproducts.html" target="_blank">Two Sylvias Press</a>.) When time permits, we also do a partnering exercise that analyzes with the meta-text for each participant's work-in-progress. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Those who have worked with me through the University of Tampa's MFA program, or <b><a href="http://www.sandrabeasley.net/for-hire/" target="_blank">in individual consultation</a></b>, know that organizing manuscripts is my favorite thing to do. There's something magical about observing what chemistry is generated from individual poems, written over a span of months or perhaps years, being put into conversation with each other. I try to be generous but persistent in asking what it will take to create a successful manuscript, versus the optimizing of individual drafts. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I love shuffling and re-shuffling pages to create the right pattern, and approaching ordering as both art and science.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've benefitted from winning multiple contest-driven models toward publication, and been a behind-scenes force in deciding the outcome of others. There's a lot of apprehension and suspicion around awards--how deliberation happens, who benefits, how you can bet prepare your manuscript. I don't claim to have definitive answers, but I can tell you about my own experience and instincts. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>As a judge, here's what I look for:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Is the approach to speaker(s) discernible?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I never assume the speaker and the author are the same person. Period. Even if there seems to be a close congruence. The rigor of my position has proven useful in leading workshops, and it means that I'm not prejudiced against "unlikable" protagonists. That said, I know we often draw from the well of biography in writing poems, and I respect the intimacy of the "I" and "you," as well as any archetypal proper nouns such as "Mother" or "Dad," when on the level of the individual poem. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What gets tricky is when I'm reading a chapbook or section in which the manuscript only periodically relies on having a sustained speaker: meaning, the author wants the understanding to be cumulative, in fact relies on it...until they don't. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This often takes the form of a persona poem that would, if applied to poems surrounding, dramatically shift our understanding of the relationship to a "you" or a given love / family member. The manuscript actually wants us to engage with that poem in a vacuum--to lift it out of context, as a moment of experimentation--but if that's the case, I look for helping signifiers on the level of title or form. Otherwise, you're inexplicably breaking your contract with the reader. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And if a figure carries over from a poem to the one immediately following, check to see if there's continuity in tense and mode of reference (direct address, versus third-person narration). If there's a change in how the character is handled--why? Is it tied into a changing perspective or emotional distance? There's nothing wrong with revising poems to be in more substantive dialogue with one another, even if they'd already been in print on the level of journals or magazines. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Does this gathering of poems have urgency?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This often gets simplified to saying contests favor the "project" book. I don't think that's strictly true. But every artistic medium is struggling with the pleasures and perils of volume--the reality of many worthy voices that are publishing, performing, and producing new work in these times--and while that's terrific, we look for why this particular set of poems needs to appear <i>together </i>and<i> now</i>. This is particularly relevant in scenarios where you're taking your recommendation of a winner into conversation with a group, arguing for it against others' top picks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tension can come from concerns that are thematic or formal, but it's gotta be there. Personal identity, historical moment conversant zeitgeist, core relationship dynamics, craft of form or line--create a collection that articulates a crisis or big question of some kind. H</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ere's the good news: sometimes a single poem is enough to raise a collection's long simmer to a boil.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Maybe that's a poem waiting to be written. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>What poems do I remember the next day?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Judging is usually done under less than ideal circumstances, along with everything else when you're trying to make a living as a writer. <a href="https://aboutaword.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/erika-meitner-in-the-poetry-contest-gulags-project-vs-mix-tape-books/" target="_blank">The boxes of binder-clipped pages that used to arrive at the homes of National Poetry Series screeners were legendary.</a> Although we've since found a way to spare the trees using online submission, one's neurons can still get pretty frazzled. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Any responsible judge will only solidify a decision over multiple days, usually via an informal sifting out of manuscripts worthy of further consideration. Every manuscript on Day 1 might blur together. But the manuscript we pick up first on Day 2 or 3 might get our best, freshest attention. Motivate us to return to yours. If the decision comes down to a few manuscripts of indistinguishably high quality, we might ask, "What's the single poem that has made the strongest impression?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So: don't hide your light under a bushel. Lead with a poem that will energize and inform every poem we read thereafter, and don't save the "best" for last. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you want more thoughtful dialogue about what poems to use when opening and closing, check out </span><a href="https://chireviewofbooks.com/2020/04/21/how-do-poets-choose-a-collections-final-poem/" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;" target="_blank">this series of interviews conducted by Sarah Blake for <i>Chicago Review of Books</i>.</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Keep in mind that this is<i> </i>in addition to whatever evident qualities of image, soundplay, lineation, and narrative that I'll reward on the level of the individual poems. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There's no magic formula to calculating who will like your work: some judges favor contest entrants kindred to their own aesthetic, whereas others specifically resist anything that sounds too much like themselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What I'd advise is that if there's any particular "de-coding" that might be needed to best access the collection, such as identifying a nouveau form or citing historical resources and allusions, err on the side of being direct in your explanations via endnotes, epigraphs, etc.. You can always lighten the touch later, in consultation with your editors. But there's no way to clarify retroactively.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Here's what I don't worry about:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Who you are</i>. Manuscripts are usually scrubbed of identifying info before they get to me but, when not, it's pretty easy to set aside awareness of the author. (Unless I've mentored or have an intimate relationship with them--at which point, I'd disclose the conflict.) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The extent to which author identity matters is if the manuscript centers on a particular culture, I want to have good faith that it's not an appropriative or merely decorative gesture. But it's on me to figure that out from the text itself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>That one typo.</i> You know how you send off a manuscript and then find the page where gibberish (or worse, a wrong but plausible phrasing) has crept in? Or realize you should have switched the order of a couple poems? That happens to all of us. Don't feel like you need to bother a contest administrator--</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">pleading to update a file or substitute a page--</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">based on such gremlins. They aren't the make-or-break factor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Here's what YOU need to consider:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you view a chapbook or book as the destination, you'll almost invariably be let down on some matter of production value, interaction with the editors, or lack of media recognition. No process is perfect, especially if it's coming after years of anticipation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I use the metaphor of book as passport; online or in person, where can a collection can take you? What conversations will it spark? </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That said, your publisher is not your travel agent. People are often surprised to realize that W. W. Norton doesn't arrange or fund my participation in readings, conferences, or festivals. I do it all on my own. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And there's a lot to consider about the privileges and iniquities embedded in an attitude of "you make your own path"--that's not a tidy end to any conversation. But it's where we need to begin, in understanding the value of contests that yield an artifact of bound pages and a judge's citation. What I've experienced over and over is that what matters most is not a physical book, but the community it fuels. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you're interested in learning more about <a href="https://www.driftwoodpress.net/adrift-chapbook-contest" target="_blank"><b>Driftwood Press's Chapbook Contest</b></a>, the guidelines are <a href="https://www.driftwoodpress.net/adrift-chapbook-contest" target="_blank">here</a>--you have until <b>July 1</b> to submit a manuscript of 15-40 pages. The cost is only $12, though I'd encourage you to take the $20 option that includes a copy of the winning chapbook. I bought a trio while visiting the Driftwood Press table at the (rumored, improvisational) AWP Conference in San Antonio, and they're beautifully designed. Each closes with a brief interview with the author, which makes the collection eminently teachable. Pictured here with editors Jerrod Schwarz (center) and James McNulty (right) is recent winner Kimberly Povloski, author of <i>Hell of Birds. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'd love a chance to read the poems that you've been working on.</span><br />
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Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-36347982710602874712020-04-15T15:36:00.001-04:002020-04-15T15:36:20.202-04:00Unexpected Cameo<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Looking through magazines put out in February is quite surreal now--pages of calendar listings for summer performances, conferences, and art exhibits that we now know to be cancelled or drastically altered. But if there's one thing I can't justify on the flip side of these stay-at-home weeks, it is a stack of unread periodicals. So yesterday morning, I picked up the latest Poets & Writers and settled in with coffee. This is actually a great issue: compelling profiles of a quartet of accomplished women writers--Natalie Diaz, Emily St. John Mandel, Monica Sok, and Bethanne Patrick--plus an insider look at the National Park Service retreats, which I've always wondered about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I got about half-way in and thought, Oh! Katrina Vandenberg! The essay is "Seeds of Change: What a Summer Writers Conference Can (and Cannot) Do For You." I was with Katrina at the Sewanee Writers' Conference. We haven't stayed in close contact. But I regularly use her craft essay, <a href="https://www.pw.org/content/putting_your_poetry_order_mixtape_strategy" target="_blank">"Putting Your Poetry in Order: The Mix-Tape Strategy</a><a href="https://www.pw.org/content/putting_your_poetry_order_mixtape_strategy" target="_blank">,"</a> in my classes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then I got to page 55 and thought, "Um...."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The text, in case you can't access the image: </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"At one conference a fellow read aloud a poem she claimed to have written the night before. The poem was brilliant, and I didn't believe her for an instant.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So I watched her during the next twelve days. She was present at every reading and taking notes at every craft talk. She was unfailingly well dressed and cheerful. She was among the last to leave each late-night party. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One morning I got up very early for a bird walk. As I crept down the stairs of my arm before 5 AM, I found her with her laptop on a couch in the lobby, wearing glasses and sweats. She was writing. 'She's like a professional athlete,' I thought. I was humbled. I gained a new level of respect for the work ethic and athleticism of major-league writers. I decided to believe her about the poem."</span></i></blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sandra Beasley at SWC, 2008 - Photo by Aaron Baker</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is such a generous portrait that I'm hesitant to claim it, especially since there's <i>no way</i> in which I'm like a professional athlete. That said...this is about me! And a quick email to Katrina confirmed my suspicion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I would have been wearing pajamas, not sweats. I got in the habit of wearing pajamas when I lived on the Lawn at UVA (a year that required trekking outside to use a communal bathroom). I've always been a night owl, and I was on deadline to <i>Black Warrior Review </i>for a chapbook manuscript that was supposed close to being ready and which, secretly, I had not written yet. I don't know about being ever-cheerful. On one hand, I was thrilled by the recent publication of my debut; on the other hand I'd been told by the distinguished mentor assigned to me for the conference that my new work didn't interest her much, so much so that she had no feedback to offer. I didn't know what to make of that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What saved me were the fellow fellows. I loved their camaraderie, their kindness, drinking and laughing into the late hours. I'd never been around so many writers in the prime of their creativity. And yes, sometimes on top of those late hours I would add later hours of drafting. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrjm0hMxbZ97JV2ZfgUvpuui-Yd6t39ps2xaeBLGuRYHLDOGvq0I2F_uXrhGaTGSk8mxqWDh6_ohK0MYH5Hp2JWKiEU8U17W4dQPjPK67wx2TD7m6J-L3LYYSYKnBxanvfhg9XLQ/s1600/SWC+2008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="604" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrjm0hMxbZ97JV2ZfgUvpuui-Yd6t39ps2xaeBLGuRYHLDOGvq0I2F_uXrhGaTGSk8mxqWDh6_ohK0MYH5Hp2JWKiEU8U17W4dQPjPK67wx2TD7m6J-L3LYYSYKnBxanvfhg9XLQ/s400/SWC+2008.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some of the 2008 SWC Fellows.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This was the summer that I fell in love with the sestina: it's gyroscopic energy, the requisite problem-solving. The poem that Katrina is referring to is <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/52654/let-me-count-the-waves" target="_blank">"Let Me Count the Waves,"</a> which uses an epigraph from Donald Revell. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I was intrigued by the possibility that if I used "face" as one of the endwords, and "butt" as another, the collision necessitated by the closing envoi would invite me to address someone as "buttface" (sorry, Mr. Revell, I was strictly motivated by technical opportunity). What really fueled the poem was thinking about the ways my age and femininity--my skirts, my shawls--were affecting the lens through which my work was being viewed, even while attempting a bravado of form. I printed out a draft on the cheap but sturdy Hewlett-Packard I'd lugged down in my trunk from DC, and slipped a folded copy to Claudia Emerson for her to read before anyone else. By the time we sat down to the dinner table that night, I'd ramped up my confidence (aided by a prod from Eric McHenry) to share the poem aloud. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ironically, it would be the one sestina that the BWR editors <i>didn't </i>accept for inclusion in the chapbook, which was published as "Bitch and Brew: Sestinas" later that year. In 2009, <i>Poetry</i> took it instead. In 2015, that poem lent its title to my third collection. I wasn't just drafting a sestina: I was navigating toward the next phase of my career. What a strange gift that Katrina happened to witness it, as part of an early morning's pursuit of birds. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anyway, all of this is just to be thankful for the generosity shown here. Like most writers, I'm prone to doubt and slippage in my sense of self. I don't think I'm "major league," but it's nice to be reminded that, dammit, I'm still taking my chance at bat.</span></div>
Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-68035067923970172502020-03-27T12:54:00.000-04:002020-03-27T14:00:05.985-04:00Hill of Beans<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hello, 2020. Weren't you supposed to finally be the better year? I've refused to change my Facebook profile photo since November 2016--the snapshot I took just moments after voting, relatively secure in what I thought that day's outcome would be. I was wrong. So many days since then have felt wrong, especially living just blocks from the nation's capitol, but when you're going through hell you <i>keep going</i>, right?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now here we are. Last week, I watched a man at CVS steal a single item: a digital baby thermometer. It was the only thermometer left in stock, it was priced absurdly ($46.99), and I was not going to stop him. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My silence has not been for lack of adventuring. Everything has felt in flux. I had a great trip to Tampa--followed by news that the MFA program where I have taught for six years is shutting down. I had a great trip to Knoxville--for a job I didn't get. I was in the 1/3 crowd that made it to the AWP Conference, in part because of sunk costs and in part because I so wanted to see a city that my father's family has always loved. San Antonio was wonderful, with its riverwalk and El Mercado and art and the Japanese Tea Garden and red-pepper mezcal cocktails and BBQ and bluebonnets and Friends of Sound Records. Going to Texas was a reset we needed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The conference was strangely intimate, with longer conversations, and yet also strangely distanced, with so many less hugs. In a different year, there would have been praise for the benches on the books fair floor and the banks of motorized scooters available for check-out. I hate to think of that momentum being lost, just as I hate to think about AWP losing the service of Diane Zinna. As it was, I was able to take part in "The Future is Accessible," talking in person with Emily Rose Cole and connecting with Jess Silfa and Alice Wong via Skype; I attended three other substantive panels and an offsite reading. That was enough. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We got home safely, if nervously. That was before everything started getting truly strange. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And to counterbalance all this anticipatory grief, one beautiful piece of news: meet Sal the Wonder Cat, who keeps me company while I work from home.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now we are are hunkered down in our Southwest apartment, the three of us (poet / artist / cat), wondering what on earth we're going to do to pay rent and health insurance in the coming months. Usually, a weekday is punctuated by announcements being piped throughout the elementary school catty-corner to our building, but schools are closed. The red rocking chairs that ring the duck pond are empty. I try to get some fresh air every few days, but between my seasonal allergies and a history of severe asthma, the pollen bloom makes that a questionable proposition. No one wants to feel short of breath right now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Any in-person events for March, April, or May have been cancelled--and with them, that income lost. I'm hoping to keep leading spotlight discussions for Politics & Prose; a first session to discuss Carmen Maria Machado's memoir <i>In the Dream House</i> went well, and another discussion of Carolyn Forché's <i>What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance</i> is coming up on <a href="https://www.politics-prose.com/class/forch-s-what-you-have-heard-true-2023" target="_blank">Wednesday of next week (April 1)</a>. Teaching online isn't easy; I have to multitask between so many different types of attention, and I'm still looking for an effective live-captioning option. But they're deeply absorbing conversations, and that's a bit of a godsend right now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The only in-person conversation I've had with anyone other than my husband was when one of the workers from Officina ran over with a bag of groceries. With their dine-in options shuttered, they're trying hard to stay afloat. He recognized me from my regular pop-ins to their market, where I usually buy fresh bread and pork sausages. Now they're selling me produce straight from the prep kitchen that might otherwise go to waste: bags of parsley and broccolini, Idaho potatoes, huge onions, and a whole brined hen we'll roast this weekend. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Beyond that indulgence, we're sticking to what's in hand--pasta, rice, canned tomatoes, tinned sardines, bacon, and every imaginable kind of bean and pea. I got really excited because <a href="https://shop.cento.com/collections/pantry-essentials" target="_blank">Cento</a> is still shipping their basics. I have a huge jug of olive oil and a stash of white wine. When I was editing <i><a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820354293/vinegar-and-char/" target="_blank">Vinegar and Char</a></i>, I spent a lot of time thinking about the good, sturdy foods we deem essential in times of crisis. Yesterday, as I worked through preparing <i>Made to Explode</i> for W. W. Norton (the manuscript goes to the copyediting desk next week), I paused on this poem, an earlier version of which appeared in the Southern <a href="https://www.southernfoodways.org/tag/gravy/" target="_blank">Foodways Alliance's </a><i><a href="https://www.southernfoodways.org/tag/gravy/" target="_blank">Gravy</a>~</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">IN PRAISE OF PINTOS</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Phaseolus vulgaris.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Forgive these mottled punks,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">children burst </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">from the piñata of the New World,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and their ridiculous names</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of Lariat, Kodiak, Othello,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Burke, Sierra, Maverick. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Forgive these rapscallions that </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">would fill the hot tub with ham</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">while their parents </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">go away for the weekend,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">just to soak in that salt. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Forgive their climbing instinct.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Forgive their ignorance</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of their grandparents who</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ennobled Rome’s greatest: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fabius, Lentulus, Pisa, Cicero</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the chickpea. <i>Legume </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">is the enclosure, fruit in pod,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">but <i>pulse</i> is the seed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From the Latin, <i>puls</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">is to beat, to mash, to throb.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Forgive that thirst. Forgive </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that gallop. Beans are the promise</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of outlasting the coldest season.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They are a wink in the palm of God.</span>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-26537271856857896042019-11-30T14:04:00.000-05:002019-11-30T14:07:51.319-05:00Odd & Ends & Giblets<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Remember when a blog post would just be a round-up of whatever one happened to be experiencing at the moment? I miss those "everything and the kitchen sink" posts. They're a big part of why I still feel so close to a cohort of poets who came up together, posting to blogs en route to their first and second books, in the mid-2000s. So here are the odds, the ends, and (as a nod to the holiday) the giblets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://dcist.com/story/19/11/21/d-c-mayor-and-arts-commission-strike-deal-in-fight-over-citys-public-art/" target="_blank">Mayor Bowser has forged a truce with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities in regards to the Art Bank.</a> But it remains to be seen if the newly minted "Creative Affairs Office" will try to take up what has traditionally been DCCAH responsibilities, and DC is approaching the end of 2019 with still no poet laureate. That makes me sad. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our Thanksgiving break started off with a drive as far as Savannah, stopping off with my husband's old friends--a photographer and a plant designer who does work for Mashama Bailey. We had good food at The Grey Market, the chef's new lunch-counter spot, which serves okra-tomato stew and hand-bottled Bloody Marys. We bought a pack of Benton's bacon to fix in Jacksonville, and a bag of Sea Island red peas for a January 1 hoppin' John.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our week on Amelia Island has been quiet. A long walk by the sea, during which we found four perfectly whole sand dollars. A day trip to see Jacksonville's museums, the MOCA collection and the Cummer, which had a special exhibition of Tiffany glass. Thanksgiving with four generations of Taylors. A trip to Fernandina Beach, which included taking a chance on a junk shop that turned out to have a treasure trove of stuff--including unopened packs of Garbage Pail Kids cards, circa 1987, complete with the stick of gum inside. We sat down to the bar of Peppers and ordered a round of mezcal just in time to see UVA beat VA Tech in a reasonably epic football game. Then we walked down to the water and watched the pelicans feed off the scraps cast off by fisherman, cleaning their day's catch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is the most intense academic fall of my past five years, which is saying something: I've taught in five different spaces in the past three months. But the method behind that madness is always being open to new modes, new audiences. The dark horse that turned out to be a delight was a four-week online course for 24 Pearl Street, which drew on my growing interest in "Essaying in Unconventional Forms"; they use a Blogger platform not unlike this one. The quality of the student work and the ability to organize my time caused me to turn around and immediately pitch a class for the new year. This one will be "Mapping Your Memoir from Start to Finish," and it'll run for eight weeks rather than four. <a href="https://web.fawc.org/24-pearl-street/mapping-your-memoir-start-finish" target="_blank">The details are here. I'm really excited about it.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I need a new official author photo. I'm not wearing an engagement or wedding ring in the one that gets used now, taken in 2011, which Milly West was kind enough to grant permission for me to use in tandem with publishing <i>Count the Waves</i> in 2015. I hadn't met my future husband yet; you can't tell by looking at the photo, but I can. I'm ready for a photo that shows off the silver streak in my hair. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Will we ever go somewhere "on vacation" that isn't tied to a residency or a conference? That's a legitimate question for a two-artist household with no kids. I'm used to working, even when the ostensible mission is to relax, and on a family trip like this one that transforms into cooking dinners for all. So far I've made a pearled couscous pilaf, several salads, fruit curry, and posole verde with tons of green pepper, savoy cabbage, and cilantro, plus a side of black beans with radish greens. My prep generates far too many bowls to be cleaned, a glut of <i>mise en place</i>, but I'm soothed by the process of chopping and sorting. Fortunately my in-laws seem to enjoy the results, and they're patient when a pot of broth unexpectedly takes an extra twenty minutes to come to a boil. In anticipation of making posole, we packed a can of hominy from home, but I'd forgotten just how many ingredients there were to be assembled. My husband saved the day when he found tomatillos at a local supermarket. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My friend Leslie Holt makes amazing art centered on disability, and she just opened an online shop to support her "Neuro Blooms" project. <a href="https://www.neuroblooms.com/" target="_blank">Check it out here. </a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A few years back, I met someone whose profession involved maximizing impact across social media platforms. He'd taken a particular interest in poets and so when I introduced myself, he immediately observed, familiar with my handles--oh, yeah, you're a "burst" person. Apparently that refers to my tendency to post to Twitter seven times in one day, but then go quiet for two weeks; or the way that I post long, substantive posts to this blog of unique content, but I only post them once a month. I suspect that's one of the patterns where return on investment is lowest, but it's what feels right (or at least necessary) for now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.arkansasonline.com/obituaries/2019/nov/20/john-churchill-2019-11-20/" target="_blank">John Churchill has passed away.</a> He was my first boss, and he seemed eternally youthful. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not the most auspicious "how I got my first job story," but: I turned up to my spring 2002 Phi Beta Kappa induction at the University of Virginia an hour late, because the clocks had spring forward that morning. John, the newly minted Secretary of national headquarters, was making the rounds to every chapter in the country to lead ceremonies in person. I was so apoplectic with apology that I offered to volunteer time to PBK in the coming year, when I'd be back at home and attending graduate school at American University. I knew they'd just begun offering a poetry award, and I thought they might need help running it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That turned into an internship, which became the job of Awards Administrator--not just the poetry award, soon defunct, but book awards for writing about humanities, sciences, and literary criticism; a fellowship in philosophy; a scholarship in Greek studies. When John's executive assistant was on maternity leave, I sat at her desk. When the PBK Senate met, I took elaborate meeting minutes that were later, he told me, entirely too editorial for public use (though greatly entertaining on initial read). He modeled a genuine love for the liberal arts that was inspiring, and he made sure </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The American Scholar </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">got the funding it needed. He was a gentle soul with a big laugh. Nonprofits are odd, often highly stratified places to work, where the shadow of fundraising needs looms constantly. Later, I'd look back and realize that creating a humane environment, under those circumstances, was no small feat. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My MFA program's literary journalism class required an extensive interview-turned-profile. I asked John to sit and talk with me, which he did, his Arkansas drawl unfurling over a Bass ale that he nursed for two hours. My questions were...boring, polite, perhaps overly mindful that he was my boss. I wish I could re-do that interview. I'd ask about traveling to Oxford. I'd ask how to make great pickled okra. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In Fernandina Beach, we took a place on a junk shop that turned out to have box after box of sealed collectible cards from the 1980s and 1990s. I couldn't resist a pack of Garbage Pail Kids. I carefully pried open the wax packet, originally priced at 25 cents, complete with stick of gum. They are just as beautifully horrible as I remembered. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-728037107867184552019-10-31T10:24:00.000-04:002019-10-31T11:01:27.917-04:00World Series Champions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My Dad and I have been going to baseball games together for a long time. Long enough that my early memories are of driving up to Baltimore, parking on the other side of the train tracks and walking to Camden Yards, and coming back to find the pennies we'd left smushed by the passing trains. I saw three Ripkens on the field at once. I was there when Cal tied Lou Gehrig's streak of playing in 2,130 games straight. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When the Nationals first came around in 2005, I didn't know how to calibrate my loyalties. They won me over one game at a time--even the ones they lost. My husband and I watched forlorn in a Memphis bar, surrounded by cheering Redbird fans, as the Cardinals took Game 5 of the 2012 NLDS.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 2015, when we moved to Southwest, going to a game became a quick walk over to the stadium. Baseball became embedded in the texture of getting to know our new neighborhood. Sometimes I headed over for just a few sunny innings, and sometimes I settled in for the long haul on a breezy night. Ryan Zimmerman! Denard Span! Gio González! Wilson Ramos! Even Jason Werth, who wears the beard of an artisanal soap-maker! Max Scherzer seemed to ignite us. I'd never seen so many strikeouts. The day my husband took his friend to see a game, Max pitched a no-hitter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All of this is to say: I love baseball. I love baseball for the very specific place it holds in the otherwise relentless life of someone who is not very good at slowing down or relaxing. I love the indulgence of getting a beer and french fries with barbecue sauce. I love the talking with my dad or the not-talking. I love singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." I love that Anthony Rendon sits on our liquor shelf in a garden-gnome incarnation. I love the season seats we've had for some years now in Section 314, and their view of the field. I love that we're a dorky city with a (slightly) dorky team that runs the presidents midway through the fourth inning. When I think of moving, it's one of the utterly irreplaceable things that has kept me in DC. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghLgw7HZA-3XJOe8IDHV1jSCOSzC6TcBbw1ac8wPhlewWaT316VfphENCIUlmkDFb0XAS3Um2HmmFBRCEqJTzunY12xXoM_Ay_RFy9TNvtT8xc0uP0eJKA9AyArOuRCGwvWzBbzw/s1600/IMG_6133.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghLgw7HZA-3XJOe8IDHV1jSCOSzC6TcBbw1ac8wPhlewWaT316VfphENCIUlmkDFb0XAS3Um2HmmFBRCEqJTzunY12xXoM_Ay_RFy9TNvtT8xc0uP0eJKA9AyArOuRCGwvWzBbzw/s320/IMG_6133.JPG" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When my dad surprised me with the news that he'd been able to snag tickets for Game 3 of the National League Championship, I didn't know what say other than "Yes yes yes thank you yes." We raised our rally towels high. And when Zimmerman, our guy since 2005 (and in many ways, before that, since he's of UVA and Virginia-Beach born), hit a home run in his first at-bat of the World Series, the first home run for any National in the Series, it felt (for the briefest of moments) like all was right and just in the universe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Watching Games 3, 4, and 5 from the road was agonizing--I was in Mississippi, my dad was in Hawaii. One loss, we could handle; two we got nervous. Then having to pull Scherzer took the wind out of us. But Game 6 fanned a spark of hope. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not knowing whether we'd win or lose, I shared this poem with my students at American University last night~</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">BASEBALL</span></b><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">for John Limon</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The game of baseball is not a metaphor </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and I know it’s not really life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The chalky green diamond, the lovely </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">dusty brown lanes I see from airplanes </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">multiplying around the cities </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">are only neat playing fields. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Their structure is not the frame </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of history carved out of forest, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that is not what I see on my ascent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And down in the stadium,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the veteran catcher guiding the young </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">pitcher through the innings, the line </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of concentration between them, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that delicate filament is not </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">like the way you are helping me, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">only it reminds me when I strain </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">for analogies, the way a rookie strains </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">for perfection, and the veteran, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in his wisdom, seems to promise it, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">it glows from his upheld glove,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and the man in front of me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in the grandstand, drinking banana </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">daiquiris from a thermos,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">continuing through a whole dinner</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to the aromatic cigar even as our team</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">is shut out, nearly hitless, he is</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">not like the farmer that Auden speaks </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of in Breughel’s Icarus,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">or the four inevitable woman-hating </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">drunkards, yelling, hugging</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">each other and moving up and down </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">continuously for more beer</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and the young wife trying to understand </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">what a full count could be</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to please her husband happy in </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">his old dreams, or the little boy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in the Yankees cap already nodding </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">off to sleep against his father,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">program and popcorn memories </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">sliding into the future,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and the old woman from Lincoln, Maine, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">screaming at the Yankee slugger </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">with wounded knees to break his leg</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">this is not a microcosm, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">not even a slice of life</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and the terrible slumps,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">when the greatest hitter mysteriously </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">goes hitless for weeks, or</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the pitcher’s stuff is all junk</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">who threw like a magician all last month, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">or the days when our guys look</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">like Sennett cops, slipping, bumping </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">each other, then suddenly, the play</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that wasn’t humanly possible, the Kid </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">we know isn’t ready for the big leagues, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">leaps into the air to catch a ball</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that should have gone downtown, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and coming off the field is hugged </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and bottom-slapped by the sudden </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">sorcerers, the winning team</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the question of what makes a man </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">slump when his form, his eye,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">his power aren’t to blame, this isn’t </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">like the bad luck that hounds us, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and his frustration in the games </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">not like our deep rage</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">for disappointing ourselves</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the ball park is an artifact,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">manicured, safe, “scene in an Easter egg,” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and the order of the ball game, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the firm structure with the mystery </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of accidents always contained, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">not the wild field we wander in, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">where I’m trying to recite the rules, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to repeat the statistics of the game,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and the wind keeps carrying my words away.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~Gail Mazur</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In class, we discussed <i>apophasis</i>, the ancient rhetorical technique with which Mazur convinces us of the very thing she's denying: </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"this is not a microcosm, / not even a slice of life...." But it is, of course. Right down to the slumps and those left stranded on base. I walked out of Kerwin Hall just as the first pitch of Game 7 was being thrown, and I drove home as fast as I could, listening anxiously on the radio as the Astros homered. We reheated the Ethiopian take-out that I'd gotten on campus and settled in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My team won. We won a series no one expected us to win, a series that one that no one even expected us to be in, and we won in an incredible & improbable four games on the road. We won after a May low of being 19-31, 12 games below .500. We stayed in the fight, and we baby sharked our way through our embarrassment, and we hustled the bases, and we danced--yes, even Stephen Strasburg--and here we are. And dammit it, that's a slice of the life I'm here for. What a beautiful game. </span><br />
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Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-85005761744865582692019-10-16T14:19:00.002-04:002019-10-16T14:44:00.665-04:00Echoes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One month exactly after losing our cat, Whisky, I had a good if tiring Tuesday that culminated in leading the MFA poetry workshop at American University. Many folks were absent--it's that time of the semester--so we let out a little early, which meant that I spontaneously offered to pick up dinner from 2Amys, which meant that my car found itself crawling along Macomb Street right as the services from Washington Hebrew Congregation let out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I didn't want to process what I could see in front of me. Squirrel? Must be a squirrel. But a woman coming in the opposite direction stopped her car in the road and hopped out. Bless her for breaking the spell. "This is someone's kitty," she said, scooping up the gray cat and moving it to the sidewalk. She had what might have been a young son in the passenger seat, wide-eyed, so after that she kept going. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the next intersection, I flagged down a police officer and asked him to go check. I told him the cat might still be alive, and he nodded noncommittally. After I parked I walked back, wondering, and of course there the creature was alone, still and untended, as passersby from the services streamed past along the pavement. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So I knocked on doors. And I rang bells. And I crossed the street, back and forth, looking for someone--anyone--who might answer and know this cat. I couldn't bear the thought of someone emerging the next morning to find the cat there or, worse, animal control coming by and taking the body before anyone knew what had happened. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eventually, a woman come to the door of the smallest house, the one the cat had been closest to, the one that had a small bowl for kibble on the front step. This was my third try and I was about to give up. Apparently her ringer had never sounded inside, but she'd spotted the lavender of my dress. The moment I even began to speak, she knew. She cried, "Dusty!" The cat had been with her for twenty years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Her grief is her grief, and it's not mine to display here. But I was grateful to be there with her, in the moment, to help as we took care of things; to feel the cat's light heft in my hands as it was curled into a bed bought not that long ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because this is what humans do, I still went and got the damn pizza, the roasted peppers and anchovies, the rapini. In the moment I had no appetite, but I knew that I would later. I was glad no one asked about my red, swollen eyes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next night was another class at American University. I wanted to choose something that dealt with grief, but not of an articulated sort. Undergraduates are just finding their way to naming what makes them feel the way they feel--and you have to be careful not to force it on them. So I reached for this beautiful if puzzling (for some) poem from <b><a href="https://poets.org/poem/orchids-are-sprouting-floorboards" target="_blank">Kaveh Akbar, "Orchids Are Sprouting From the Floorboards"</a></b>~</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Orchids Are Sprouting From the Floorboards</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Orchids are sprouting from the floorboards.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Orchids are gushing out from the faucets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The cat mews orchids from his mouth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">His whiskers are also orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The grass is sprouting orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is becoming mostly orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The trees are filled with orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The tire swing is twirling with orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The sunlight on the wet cement is a white orchid.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The car tires leave a trail of orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A bouquet of orchids lifts from its tailpipe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Teenagers are texting each other pictures</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of orchids on their phones, which are also orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Old men in orchid pennyloafers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">furiously trade orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mothers fill bottles with warm orchids</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to feed their infants, who are orchids themselves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Their coos are a kind of orchid.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The clouds are all orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They are raining orchids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The walls are all orchids,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the teapot is an orchid,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the blank easel is an orchid</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and this cold is an orchid. Oh,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lydia, we miss you terribly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>~Kaveh Akbar</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I often use this poem to talk about contemporary poetry's value on parallel structure, anaphora, and excess. The reaction tends to be polarized--some readers love it, others really resist it. In particular I always enjoy the telescoping of those penultimate lines, as the poem's "camera" seems to zoom in on a particular room and a particular speaker (one with a cold). I was delighted that this time the students found their way organically to thinking of how funerals are often the cause for a profusion of flowers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Since I didn't want to create an utterly morose atmosphere, I found another way to think about excess: <i>Neko Atsume</i>, the Japanese mobile game of cat collecting. There's a calming quality to cats en masse, even though on another level it's creepy; this resonates with anyone who has been to an island where the feral cat population has surged. I offered a few screenshots toying with the game's premise and outcomes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...goofy, for sure, but poetry thrives alongside goofy. I was mostly trying not to cry.</span></div>
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Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-38985024318984984742019-09-08T19:49:00.001-04:002019-09-08T21:56:24.391-04:00Pretty Girl, Goodnight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When we adopted, her name was explained has having been a change from "Whizzer." Courtesy her first owner, who had passed away, leaving a nine-year old cat who no one in the family was willing to adopt. The folks at the Montgomery County shelter figured "Whizzer" was an unnecessarily alarm-inducing name, so they changed it to "Whisky."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The name <i>Whisky</i> appealed to me. A quirky polydactyl cat temporarily housed in a vegan warehouse (the shelter had made her anxious) appealed to me. Her photo appealed to me. All these things appealed to my sister, too; independent of anything she found the same cat advertised on Craigslist and wrote me, <i>I think this is your cat. </i>Fortunately my husband agreed, and we had finally moved to a place whose lease allowed a pet. We drove up to Rockville to meet her, this great big Muppet-cat, and the first time I leaned down to look her in the eyes she tapped me nose-to-nose. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From the get-go of bringing her home, she had some medical issues. I'm too exhausted to go into them, except to say that we fought hard. And I've always said to her, since then, hunkered down at eye level: <i>Thank you for staying with us. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Turned out, I needed a cat. I needed company for 2 AM stints of writing or editing. I needed the slow blink, the trill of curiosity, and the oddly conversational vocalizations we shared as I broke the catnip treats in half so she could smell their contents. I needed to watch her discover my husband's gentleness and humor. I needed to know that this household we've created was so filled with love that it could shelter a creature. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I say "creature" intentionally--I've never enjoyed the metaphor of a pet as a child. We didn't meet Whisky until she'd already had a full, mysterious life that included loss of someone she'd probably loved. We chose her. She chose to stay. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have traveled so much in these past four years: to Florida, to Mississippi, to Cyprus, to Kansas, to Cork, and so on through dozens of 2-3 day overnights. During that time, the simplest check-in with my husband took the form of a texted snapshot of Whisky. He took such good care of her; they had their own rituals. She'd be lounging in the sun, or nibbling, or staring at the camera with a gaze at once penetrating and slightly dismissive. That image told me that all was well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When the two of us traveled together and made our way across the parking lot, lugging luggage, I'd turn to him and ask, <i>Where's my kitty?</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Waiting for you,</i> he'd always answer, and that gave me great joy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She was an exceptionally handsome cat. Everyone thinks such about the cat they love. But she was a tortoiseshell with 22 toes and a fox-like face. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My sense that Whisky's time with us was drawing short came on about two weeks ago. One night, she settled onto second and third row of pillows behind my head--a favorite spot--first facing toward our closets and then, as she often did, methodically rotating and resettling so she could watch me sleep. She reached a paw out toward me, as she often did, but settled it on my forehead instead of the part in my hair.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The feeling of her cool, cupped paw-palm was at once soothing and unsettling. The only other times she had done that, I've been in tears. Why was she comforting me now? The next night she jolted awake at 5 AM and was inconsolable, wanting the underside of her chin to be stroked again and again, pressing her jaw and cheeks into to my touch. Something had shifted. (Her body, as it turned out, was failing in every way--digestion, metabolism, joints. No point in detail, but it was utter.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She held on until my husband came home from August at an art colony in Vermont. We had this quiet week together that included familiar rituals. She sat between us on the couch as we watched evening television. She wolfed down some chicken pate. Her energy surged long enough to hunt a few spiders. Friends came, my family came, and she had as gentle an exit as anyone could ask. Tomorrow we'll take her body down to Marshall, Virginia, where the country vets will care for her one last time. I'm so grateful to my cousin Kathy and everyone on staff there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That first morning when, for whatever reason, I <i>knew</i>, I set aside everything on my to-do list to read Doris Lessing's <i>On Cats</i>. I'd bought the book at Whistlestop Bookshop while in Pennsylvania for a reading at Dickinson College. The bookstore had an in-house cat, a much needed sighting after a particularly intense stretch of travel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lessing is of an older generation. There's lots in the book (an aggregate of three essays) that is worthy of skepticism in this contemporary age--everything from the language toward other cultures to the attitude toward spaying and population control. But I found myself deeply soothed by two things, which I'll share here. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One was the unmistakable takeaway that when a household is meant to have cats, it is in designed into the very architecture of the space. A particular cat will come and go, sometimes heartbreakingly, but your attitude toward those events has to respect the loss while protecting the architecture. In other--do it right, as best you can, so that you have the energy to do it again. I've really clung to that principle in these past few days, centering Whisky's passage instead of my grief. Though I'll admit that I pounded a pillow and howled about two hours ago, once I was alone in the apartment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The other comfort was these paragraphs, quoted from the end of Lessing's book:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What a luxury a cat is, the moments of shocking and startling pleasure in a day, the feel of the beast, the soft sleekness under your palm, the warmth when you wake on a cold night, the grace and charm even in a quite ordinary workaday puss. Cat walks across your room, and in that lonely stalk you see leopard or even panther, and it turns its head to acknowledge you and the yellow blaze of those eyes tells you what an exotic visitor you have here, in this household friend, the cat who purrs as you stroke, or rub his chin, or scratch his head.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When you sit close to a cat you know well, and put your hand on him, trying to adjust to the rhythms of his life, so different from yours, sometimes he will lift his head and greet you with a soft sound different from all his other sounds, acknowledging that he knows you are trying to enter his existence...</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He likes it when we sit quietly together. It is not an easy thing, though. No good sitting down by him when I am rushed, or thinking about what I should be doing in the house or garden or of what I should write. Long ago, when he was a kitten, I learned that this was a cat who demanded your full attention, for he knew when my mind wandered, and it was no use stroking him mechanically, let alone taking up a book to read. The moment I was no longer with him, completely thinking of him, then he walked off. When I sit down to be with him, it means slowing myself down, getting rid of the fret and urgency. When I do this--and he must be in the right mood, too, not in pain or restless--then he subtly lets me know he understands I am trying to reach him, reach cat, essence of cat, finding the best of him. Human and cat, we try to transcend what separates us. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rest well, pretty girl. You've earned it. Thank you for staying with us. </span></div>
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Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-21663086379944117942019-08-19T16:37:00.000-04:002019-08-19T16:47:36.493-04:00August, August<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wasn't expecting this to be the type of summer that got one big end-of-season post, but here we are. Even if one experiences a temporarily happy moment these days, coming to social media--and a shared news cycle--tells us that things are very much awry in the world, and in particular in the United States. How do we use these spaces we've created? For affirmation? For protest? For the quotidian? We struggle, in the moment, whether we should use them at all. Sometimes it is all we can do to shut up, and to take in the changing colors of the water around us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This was a small-scale summer, which I needed after beginning the year in Ireland. I traveled to Tampa for teaching; my husband and I did an overnight getaway to Charlottesville, stopping off to visit Virginia Center for Creative Arts in tandem; and I just returned from running a few seminars in Delaware, as part of the Lewes Creative Writers' Conference. Otherwise I stayed very much anchored to home.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />I've been working to forge my own connection with the Wharf, a rather shiny and megalomaniacal new complex mere blocks from where we live. The Wharf brings a lot of commercial energy to the neighborhood, but that's not the same as calibrating to the neighborhood's needs or price point. I'm slowly figuring out the best spot to sip a cup of coffee during a meeting (Velo), or to sip a single fancy cocktail while alternating between reading and taking in the view (12 Stories), the best $10 lunch (Grazie Grazie), and the place to snag a free chair right by the water (I'm not telling you). Officina's market has good deals on house-made sausages, and big loaves of fresh sourdough and ciabatta. We cooked a meal using filet from the fish market--posole verde with cod--and that's the start of something, even if I did add so many spicy chili peppers that our guests hiccuped. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">An incredibly talented poet happened to be temporarily in the neighborhood, too, and that proved to be another anchoring joy of the summer. We had hijinks, as one should. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Many of my worries about what might happen in going to Ireland did not come true--they were phantoms, nothing more--but one did come true: Whisky, our beloved cat, lost weight. She is not a cat who could afford to lose weight. (Look at those jutting hip bones in the photo below. Good lord.) She missed us, despite three superb cat-sitters. I've been trying to bring her back from the brink one bite of food at a time, which entails many pets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been planting things. That is partially a literal observation--I've redone all the succulents inside the house, and I've flipped many of the patio containers that get challenged by the brightest of suns and the strongest of winds and, on the 9th floor, a lack of natural pollinators. They are hanging in thanks to daily watering. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The planting has been going on figuratively, too. I am leaving the summer with a nonfiction manuscript of lyric essays in hand, as the wheels turn on the next poetry collection. The fall is teeming with teaching responsibilities. For the University of Tampa: thee nonfiction students, two in their thesis semester. For places outside the academy: <a href="https://www.politics-prose.com/class/bringing-world-to-poem-workshop-19142" target="_blank">a three-session arc at Politics and Prose</a> (poetry), and a <a href="https://web.fawc.org/24-pearl-street/essaying-unconventional-forms" target="_blank">four-week online class for 24 Pearl Street</a> (nonfiction). For American University: my usual undergraduate session of Writers in Print / in Person, and teaching the graduate poetry workshop--a classroom space I first entered as an MFA student, 17 years ago. Bringing some apartment life into my campus office felt like a good idea, so I got a baby-Groot inspired holder for one of our air plants. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I was working on this post, I found out that a friend died. He'd been ill for a couple of months, an inexplicable interruption to a vibrant (and much loved) life down in Mississippi. If there was a cool thing going on in town, Ron would be there. That was how you knew it was where you wanted to be. His generosity came so easy to him, so natural--"Got U a chair if U wants," says an old text message, "I'm to right of stage"--and though I'm tempted, once again this summer, to fall into silence out of grief...I know he wants us out here doing the things. All the things. Live a life that makes people miss you when you're gone. </span></div>
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Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-54828278282150551902019-05-21T13:42:00.000-04:002019-05-21T17:51:08.703-04:00Trips, Journeys, Voyages - More from Cork<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been back from Ireland for almost a month. There have been so many welcomes back--buying coneflowers and basil to plant on the balcony, cooking spicy dinners, a few long phone conversations, petting the kitty x 10, sifting through my books on their shelves, watching the American University MFA students give their graduating readings, even a bottle of Maker's Mark (cask strength!) as an unexpected gesture of Southern-Foodways-inspired generosity. There is good to being home. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yet Ireland is still echoing through my head; so many shades of gray, blue, and green.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Venturing to the seashore in Garyvoe, and up to the edge of the cliff all in Ballycotton, with my student on an overcast day--before we took shelter at the Jameson's distillery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The countryside is dotted by yellow gorse, beautiful but thorny (and invasive). Another student showed me that the crushed flowers smell uncannily like coconut.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When my parents came to visit, we braved the roads in their rented car to Clonakilty and beyond to see the stones of Drombeg. We pulled up to a silent, misty field.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A small bit of signage helped us understand what we were seeing: the circle of seventeen stones oriented toward the midwinter solstice's setting sun, with a center where an urn with cremated bones had been recovered, dated to somewhere between 153 BC and 127 AD</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. Nearby, the remains of two small huts, plus a hearth and trough where water would have been heated by dropping in stones heated by fire. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A friend drove me to Kinsale by way of several small towns, including a stop at the ruins of Timoleague Abbey. The weather was comically rainy--great gusts pushing us as we traipsed through the soaked courtyards. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">By the time we got to Kinsale, the weather (and the water) was a crystalline blue. We circled the edges of the Charles Fort.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A few weeks later, my husband and I caught the bus to Kinsale, going into the fort for an hour to explore before venturing further out to the water's edge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From the Scilly Walk back to downtown, you can see the remains of the older James Fort--occupied by Spanish forces during the 1601 siege--on the far shore. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of my students took us to her family's place by the shore, just outside the town of Castletownbere in the Beara Peninsula. The forecast had predicted two straight days of rain. The fates were kind and the weather cold, but clear. I come from a family of seashell-hunters and it felt right that for the first time in Ireland, I found them here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The schedule was simply: stop for whatever beckons before the sun sets. That began with a walk along sea cliffs. My student knew the right gate to open.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We made what should have been a quick stop to see the (purported) shrine to the children of Lir, only to be gently waylaid by a pack of horses that had gotten loose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ireland's only cable car runs to Dursey Island. The door is secured with a latch. Emergency supplies consist of a two-way radio and a bottle of holy water.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Making our way back for the night, we saw a sign for a ring fort--a place even my student had not yet visited--and decided to check it out. Wherever there's a green ladder, you have permission to go. Just don't bother the sheep.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A new day, a new gate to open--this time to see a stone with an ogham inscription, a primitive form of Irish writing. </span></div>
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Our host wanted to show us Gleninchaquin lake and the Uragh stone circle, which crossed us into County Kerry. We got to the stone circle and found it overtaken by sun-lazy sheep. Slowly, surely, we negotiated with the locals for a closer look.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A week later, when another poet offered to take us anywhere we wanted to go by car, I said: "I'd like to see castles." And castles he did provide: three in one day, with a bonus spotting of a sheela-na-gig when we stopped off in the walled town of Fethard. The enclosure of Fethard probably dates to the 14th century. These female figures, with their exaggerated sexuality, date from well before that--appropriated and re-mounted into the walls. In 1990, when one disappeared from the town, the tabloid headline read "Rude Nude Stolen."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kilkenny had the castle I'd heard about, and it probably pained my Tipperary-born host to be so set on seeing it. He patiently endured my misguided pursuits of cream ale on draft and hurling tchotchkes, steering me instead towards a a perfectly good tavern whose owner, Alice Kyteker, was convicted of witchcraft in 1324 after her husbands kept dying. Fortunately, she escaped to England before she could be burned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Cahir castle was the best, the surprise of the day--a beautifully preserved example of 13th-15th century defensive design. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The rooms inside were stark, with </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">stairs of varying heights designed to trip up invaders. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The portcullis is the only one in Ireland still fully operational. You've probably seen it come snapping down in a movie. A few days earlier, shooting had wrapped on scenes for <i>The Green Knight</i>, a retelling of the Sir Gawain myth due out in 2020. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We knew we wanted to try taking the train, and Fota Wildlife Park was an easy twenty-minute ride from the city centre. I was stunned by the extent to which the animals can roam free, and the size and the healthiness of their populations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From there, we went on to Cobh. <i>Don't bother</i>, a few told us, but there's something special about this hilly, slightly dingy port city that has been a jumping-off point for so much history. We had a pint at Connie Doolan's and heard the story of how the owner had acquired the bar, after the previous owner had won it in a contest run by Guinness. I found myself in the seat frequented by "mailbag baby" Millvina Dean, who for years had been the last living survivor of the sinking of the <i>Titanic</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My student suggested one last road trip, on the heels of our last mentoring session at Alchemy Coffee. Gougane Barra sounded modest enough--a church in a valley--but the actual site of where Saint Finnbarr took shelter, before going on to become the first Bishop of Cork, was unexpectedly moving. This lake marks the source of the river Lee. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We took one of the forest walks. Except it turned out to not be an official "forest walk" at all, but straight-up hike through private farmland--the part where we climbed a ladder should have been our tip-off. Soon the church was just a dot far below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My first poetry teacher, Rose MacMurray, titled her book<i> Trips, Journeys, Voyages</i>. These are snapshots from the trips, a day or two at a time. The journey took me from D.C. to Cork and back, and it's a journey that (with any grace of luck) I'll be making again. The last time I felt this strongly about a place was Mississippi, and I wouldn't mind if they both turn out to be lifelong affiliations. The voyage is a larger one, of trying to figure out the writer I can be in this world. No map, but with the good fortune of the wind at my back, and these memories still fresh in my heart. </span></div>
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Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-42511460003085828822019-04-30T11:31:00.000-04:002019-05-21T13:45:12.131-04:00Save the .4%! (Or: The Autonomy of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Is Under Attack. Artist Grants Are Being Targeted. Here's What You Need to Know.)<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>ANOTHER UPDATE:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>"</b></span><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><b>Mayor Muriel Bowser Wants Big Changes for the City's Arts Commission"</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><b><i>And that has many people in the arts community on edge.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/arts/article/21068949/mayor-bowsers-proposed-changes-to-the-citys-arts-commission-have-artists-on-edge" target="_blank">Washington City Paper's comprehensive overview of how we've gotten here, with many thanks to Matt Cohen and Kriston Capps for their reporting.</a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>UPDATE:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"</span>Mendelson Moves to Block Mayor’s Restructuring of the City’s Arts Commission"</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Council chairman's pointed budget recommendations come after a public outcry from the arts community.</i></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/arts/article/21067129/mendelson-moves-to-block-mayors-restructuring-of-the-citys-arts-commission" target="_blank">Read the whole story here, via CityPaper.</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...Apologies if I contributed to any confusion by citing a .4% figure versus .3%; that was a point of accidental misinformation at the Eaton Hotel meeting. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thanks to everyone who helped get the word out and advocated with their councilmembers!</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"># </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Chairman Phil Mendelson</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">DC Council of the District of Columbia</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dear Chairman Mendelson,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am writing to express grave concern over the status of arts funding in the District of Columbia in the proposed Fiscal Year 2020 budget put forward by Mayor Bowser’s office and now being considered by the Council. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The specifics of the Commission on the Arts and Humanities budget table (BX0) are nested within“2020 Economic Development and Regulation.” This structure recognizes the symbiotic relationship between the arts and the general economy. Robust arts activity is a key contributor to our city’s finances. But that revenue will continue only if artists are given funding to create a vibrant, inclusive, multi-disciplinary scene that attracts audiences. Support for arts is crucial to the preeminence of Washington, D.C., in America’s cultural landscape. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For the Fiscal Year 2019, as a result of focused advocacy and initiative, Washington, D.C., dedicated .4% of its sales tax revenue to funding for the arts. This allocation was an important and logical gesture recognizing that local arts—galleries and exhibitions, dance, theater, and music performances, literary festivals, and other events—are a principle draw for retail activity in terms of tickets, merchandise, and tandem items such as food and drink. The Mayor’s proposal eliminates that hard-earned allocation, proposing a set disbursement instead. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the short term, the amounts might be comparable, but in the long term this severs an organic alignment between commercial growth and arts funding. The consequence is painfully ironic for artists who are part of a neighborhood that picks up business as a “hotspot” for arts tourism, due to their labors, only to be priced out of residency. When funding amounts stay static while the costs of living continue to rise precipitously, practicing artists are forced out of the city. Restoring the dedicated sales tax funding is both a practical and proportionate decision.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Another point of concern is the “DC Cultural Plan,” which includes an “Innovation and Entrepreneurship Loan Fund.” Individual artists who might have previously received grants will, instead, be directed toward loans. There is no disclosure of what public or private institutions will offer these loans, or their terms. This proposal is grossly inappropriate in its understanding of an artist’s income model, and entrenches debt upon those likely already struggling with the debt of higher education and any attempt to own local housing or studio space. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The manner in which these and other changes have been put forward, without dialogue with those responsible for DCCAH’s daily functions, indicates what seems to be a larger goal to undermine the Commission’s authority and subvert its existing (and legislatively mandated) independence. Other symptoms have been the reassignment of the poet laureate position from DCCAH overview to the Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments, and the attempt to attach a morality clause to grant paperwork without Commissioners’ knowledge or approval.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The justification for some of these designs has been the practices of other cities. But Washington, D.C., stands alone as a city, a de facto state, which doubles as the seat of national governance. Our resident artists and organizations are in a unique position of engaging local, metropolitan, and federal audiences simultaneously. The Commission was founded soon after the National Endowment for the Arts, another beloved institution under recent attack, and has had fifty years of effective action. The autonomy of DCCAH should be celebrated, not corroded. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My confidence in the Commission on the Arts and Humanities is informed by firsthand experience with their capable staff. As a resident since 2002, I am a four-time recipient of individual artist grants and a two-time Larry Neal Writers’ Award winner. I have volunteered my time as a panelist. I have attended commission meetings where I spoke during the public comment portion, and I will attend more. Experienced arts administrators and voices of reason among the DCCAH Commissioners are calling for help and transparency. Please listen to them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Chairman Mendelson, I believe in your commitment to the city. I trust that you will take these concerns seriously. I am copying this letter to Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who represents my Southwest neighborhood, as well as At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman, and I will circulate the text publicly. These issues are time-sensitive and urgent. Every artist and arts organization in Washington, DC., and all those who reap the benefits of our arts community, will be negatively impacted if the budget advances as proposed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sincerely,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sandra Beasley</span><br />
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Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-31864586339393436812019-04-01T12:33:00.003-04:002019-04-01T12:34:50.908-04:00Teaching (& Festival-ing!) in Cork<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Strange to navigate the busy waters of the <a href="https://www.corkpoetryfest.net/" target="_blank">Cork International Poetry Festival</a>, and then the very next week--from a distance, via social media--watch writers navigate the even busier waters of the AWP Conference in Portland, Oregon. I managed to photograph every reader I saw in the Cork Arts Theater, except for closing night when my phone died. (Note that this happened mid-email. So I spent an agonizing twenty minutes wondering if I was standing up Kim Addonizio. Luckily, she got the message and made her way to Cask to meet up for dinner.) The downside of the phone dying is that I can't show you Kim's awesome shoes, or the sweet interplay between Billy Collins and Leanne O'Sullivan, a rising star of Irish poetry who had received the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/leanne-o-sullivan-wins-first-farmgate-market-cafe-national-poetry-award-1.3832810" target="_blank">Farmgate Café National Poetry Award</a> earlier in the week. The upside is that I was able to relax and fully inhabit those moments. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The festival was an extraordinary event overall, and I particularly praise the organizing efforts of Patrick Cotter, Director of the <a href="http://munsterlit.ie/" target="_blank">Munster Literature Centre</a>, and MLC administrator James O'Leary. One of the notable features is the commitment to cross-cultural exchange, with several multi-lingual readings. The pleasure of hearing Polish poet Tomasz Różycki (right) was heightened by knowing that a stateside friend, Mira Rosenthal, had done the artful translations of his sonnets. Copies of <i><a href="http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/awards-and-poets/shortlists/2014-shortlist/mira-rosenthal/" target="_blank">Colonies</a> </i>sold out almost immediately, but I snagged one and had him sign it; I'm hoping to have Mira sign it, too, at some future AWP. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Festival photos aren't the most exciting material; they take place in a monotonous setting. I take them to lock in the remembered experience. But I knew I wanted to post a few photos, and that includes snapshots of my co-reader <a href="https://kimmoorepoet.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Kim Moore</a> (left)--what terrific company of smart, funny, feminist poems, including the "All the Men I Never Married" series--and of <a href="http://munsterlit.ie/gregod_winners.html#results19" target="_blank">Shangyang Fang</a> (top), winner of the <i><a href="http://munsterlit.ie/Southword/issues_index.html" target="_blank">Southword Journal</a></i>'s Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition, whose work showed daring and exuberance in its intimacies of image, with intriguing choices of when to dart like a diving bird and when to meander along the stream of consciousness. Another favorite was <a href="https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=182" target="_blank">Sasha Dugdale</a>, who read an astonishing title poem from her collection <i>Joy</i> that channels the voice of Catherine Blake (William's wife and collaborator on his printmaking); I bought the book and devoured the whole thing later that night. I was thrilled to see students from both University College Cork and MLC mentees present at the Cork Public Library, which is also where Cumbrian poet <a href="https://halekatie.com/" target="_blank">Katie Hale</a> read from<i> Assembly Instruction</i>, winner of this year's <a href="http://munsterlit.ie/Fool%20for%20Poetry.html" target="_blank">Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition</a>. Her "Teaching Grammar in a Poetry Lesson" is an instantly satisfying <i>ars poetica</i>, a bit like Billy Collins' "Introduction to Poetry." But unlike the Collins poem it ultimately yields to celebrating the creative instincts skills of the students, rather than disdaining their attachment to meaning. An immense, endearing compassion pervades Hale's work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I took a little downtime this past weekend to update my teaching files. Since I'm not working toward some future tenure application, it's important to pause periodically and <a href="http://www.sandrabeasley.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SBeasley-Seminars-and-Lectures.pdf" target="_blank">do my own self-archiving of the lessons I've created</a>, including fine-tuning of handouts and syllabi. My commitments in Cork include a graduate-level workshop at University College Cork, where we used the sonnet as a recurring building block of formal engagement; two community menteeships with accomplished students, tailored to their needs on such topics as sequence-building and manuscript organization; and a standalone meeting with the women's group of the Cork Migrant Centre, housed at Nano Nagle Place, where we discussed poems of origin and heritage. </span>As part of the festival time, I offered a four-day seminar class on "Bringing the World to the Poem" that ended up filling to capacity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As has happened at every turn in Ireland, I was delighted by the curiosity and sophistication brought to the close readings. Each day I turned up with eight to ten possible poems, then went with the five that felt right for the pacing and interests of the group. I thought it'd be fun to share here--links to texts where available--along with photos of the prompts I offered. (If you're reading this with a screen reader and want access, email me at earthlink.net and I'll transcribe.) They're organized by theme, which is how we progressed day by day. One of the decisions I had to make was whether to try and feature Irish poets, but I decided to play to my strengths of familiarity and shared culture. As I told the group, they didn't need an American poet barging in to teach them about Seamus Heaney. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ANIMALS</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47252/golden-retrievals" target="_blank">Mark Doty - "Golden Retrievals"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/how-triumph-girl" target="_blank">Ada Limón - "How to Triumph Like a Girl"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56764/there-are-birds-here" target="_blank">Jamaal May - "There Are Birds Here"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lucia Perillo - "Shrike Tree"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51821/the-elephant-56d22fd2a2a75" target="_blank">Dan Chiasson - "The Elephant"</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSCuxZiGEJhUHyf2jhkWmYrOPZApsxczB8pEFYBlvCXmR1POnbE4oWEol7dxwzzLOaOpHWIjFZcW9Rozn4puRQZoVStDDIpN6REPI0-6VOwyMtafuosPHYyAitLv8nkowNCvSGMw/s1600/Animal+Writing+Prompts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSCuxZiGEJhUHyf2jhkWmYrOPZApsxczB8pEFYBlvCXmR1POnbE4oWEol7dxwzzLOaOpHWIjFZcW9Rozn4puRQZoVStDDIpN6REPI0-6VOwyMtafuosPHYyAitLv8nkowNCvSGMw/s400/Animal+Writing+Prompts.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">FOOD</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.southernfoodways.org/shucking/" target="_blank">Elton Glaser - "Shucking"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Henry Taylor - "Artichoke"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wisława Szymborska - "The Onion"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kevin Young - "Ode to Pork"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48605/my-uncles-favorite-coffee-shop" target="_blank">Naomi Shihab Nye - "My Uncle's Favorite Coffee Shop"</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigP2l1sZEih6TUINlQnVLPZ6qtYB9g19SxYbA-fSfmoY99RMpkvkSX9jowooovfjYUKNnriqqiqeiTSn9Wnym0wrobsHsda-RQdOX_ey1kSQXrWjSWnk3L09ghphUCDDbmrSZRIA/s1600/Food+Writing+Prompt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigP2l1sZEih6TUINlQnVLPZ6qtYB9g19SxYbA-fSfmoY99RMpkvkSX9jowooovfjYUKNnriqqiqeiTSn9Wnym0wrobsHsda-RQdOX_ey1kSQXrWjSWnk3L09ghphUCDDbmrSZRIA/s400/Food+Writing+Prompt.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/looking-gulf-motel" target="_blank">Richard Blanco - "Looking for the Gulf Motel" </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/return-florence" target="_blank">Cyrus Cassells - "Return to Florence"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/souvenir" target="_blank">Beth Ann Fennelly - "Souvenir"</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/amsterdam" target="_blank">Megan Fernandes - "Amsterdam"</a> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiozPyLuApL3MCCv67UOTe6ctBlAo01A12Hith48y-ZWsT4InMIg0vyfp0JyG5UxmjiS8c7zHOL52LFyOPhMfTErbtgQEwlZfX22ZfQ5HhlDzO_18TWN2GBBA4FuoeqC5e2V-BCdg/s1600/Travel+Writing+Prompts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiozPyLuApL3MCCv67UOTe6ctBlAo01A12Hith48y-ZWsT4InMIg0vyfp0JyG5UxmjiS8c7zHOL52LFyOPhMfTErbtgQEwlZfX22ZfQ5HhlDzO_18TWN2GBBA4FuoeqC5e2V-BCdg/s400/Travel+Writing+Prompts.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">SCIENCE</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58389/the-blue" target="_blank">Camille T. Dungy - "The Blue"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kimiko Hahn - "Maude"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/lobaria-usnea-witches-hair-map-lichen-beard-lichen-ground-lichen-shield-lichen" target="_blank">Jane Hirshfield - "For the Lobaria, Usnea, Witches Hair, Map Lichen, Beard Lichen, Ground Lichen, Shield Lichen"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/einstein-defining-special-relativity" target="_blank">A. Van Jordan - "Einstein Defining Special Relativity"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48353/some-extensions-on-the-sovereignty-of-science" target="_blank">Alberto Ríos - "Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science"</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVCxcmPUB4i6O-aVGjyfranBU1XMhSPV2oN8-_LsX-zjscwMABhx2mnJVv9sTYzqTRxIdgOUx9P6yWeSVHpVAnIaCqB8w1W2N9z1pQn27HuVI60frFyyLPeBPgcIAuwOD26f-bIg/s1600/Science+Writing+Prompts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVCxcmPUB4i6O-aVGjyfranBU1XMhSPV2oN8-_LsX-zjscwMABhx2mnJVv9sTYzqTRxIdgOUx9P6yWeSVHpVAnIaCqB8w1W2N9z1pQn27HuVI60frFyyLPeBPgcIAuwOD26f-bIg/s400/Science+Writing+Prompts.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Turns out that in addition to wrapping up finals grading at UCC and working with my community mentees, I have one more unexpected teaching opportunity on the docket. As part of the daily prep and handout-making for the festival workshop, I made friends with the good folks at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mousecork/" target="_blank">Mouse Internet Cafe</a>. So when I found out that an instructor had cancelled on them for an event scheduled as part of the <a href="https://www.corklearningfestival.ie/" target="_blank">Cork Lifelong Learning Festival</a>, I offered to step in. If you happen to be in Cork on Monday, April 8, come hang out with us at 7 PM (location on Barracks Street near the Southgate Bridge). We'll be discussing "Three Poems for People Who Really Dislike Poetry."</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihT13TkDiP3wHeo0y3BfS5cOEhFu7G_NuzUExEW_TB_iklTVflmrw5jWhO9jAHWwsQjyi3w3cEmLSLLn7f6lnV-69m4s5q11ImN_AfIFL9UhMkXQ9RCNCSurF7QM_85T7r4pGBpA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-31+at+3.29.00+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="621" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihT13TkDiP3wHeo0y3BfS5cOEhFu7G_NuzUExEW_TB_iklTVflmrw5jWhO9jAHWwsQjyi3w3cEmLSLLn7f6lnV-69m4s5q11ImN_AfIFL9UhMkXQ9RCNCSurF7QM_85T7r4pGBpA/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-03-31+at+3.29.00+PM.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-58537601097055624552019-03-01T16:48:00.002-05:002019-03-02T15:08:33.962-05:00The Road to Cork<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3abh7-TFCYE8ZaMdTvgVCf0eVup2RAcsOxi8vqBC2Y3eBw4kT40SCnAoHr3hU0ZGBJo2QMdE9uFATJ-4UfBsugbEKPETf723sZGsf5tdGI49LriKGxC0VciuI_4cpS0wMGlDULg/s1600/2019-01-25+15.50.31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3abh7-TFCYE8ZaMdTvgVCf0eVup2RAcsOxi8vqBC2Y3eBw4kT40SCnAoHr3hU0ZGBJo2QMdE9uFATJ-4UfBsugbEKPETf723sZGsf5tdGI49LriKGxC0VciuI_4cpS0wMGlDULg/s400/2019-01-25+15.50.31.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The universe knew I needed a change. I love DC, but I have been soul-weary. So when the call came from the director of the Munster Literature Centre (an actual phone call) asking if I would take on the John Montague Poetry Fellowship, I said yes. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEBLdZdjfHJfd1FYb6OXSNh370qNwUOJjjluK8_ZoS3DSuDEFkhYXvQkGQLRTy0sb3RmUxgQAqUjUEk8PV1sRDC-YYrigMmpMbR_TN0_9xD_A3BzCtoLIFNSau9AlJ4XsSzJ6tGw/s1600/2019-01-25+17.56.46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEBLdZdjfHJfd1FYb6OXSNh370qNwUOJjjluK8_ZoS3DSuDEFkhYXvQkGQLRTy0sb3RmUxgQAqUjUEk8PV1sRDC-YYrigMmpMbR_TN0_9xD_A3BzCtoLIFNSau9AlJ4XsSzJ6tGw/s400/2019-01-25+17.56.46.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I had never been to Ireland. In the weeks leading up I fielded kind suggestions of what I had to see in Dublin, in Kerry, the castles and cliffs. but I privately thought <i>I just want to live in Cork</i>. I was determined to embrace this city. This city, in return, has embraced me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjzM95HzpY3HScL4PAE4wV9egiEzZojIH4Ttch3KJoumDCTHWkV5omHUU0RZri8HAPGvV_P0iMbsQXeuVEpLi19F7ZjjoQaE8OX3n8WKdi_MZW4Pt1WSkVvuoq9oD2EsxgXzlL-w/s1600/2019-01-25+15.25.28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjzM95HzpY3HScL4PAE4wV9egiEzZojIH4Ttch3KJoumDCTHWkV5omHUU0RZri8HAPGvV_P0iMbsQXeuVEpLi19F7ZjjoQaE8OX3n8WKdi_MZW4Pt1WSkVvuoq9oD2EsxgXzlL-w/s400/2019-01-25+15.25.28.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">My home is at Nano Nagle Place, where the namesake Honora Nagle is buried. Born in 1718, she went on to open a half-dozen schools (partially in secret, years education was still forbidden to Irish Catholics), to found the Presentation Sisters, and to spend her life serving Cork's people. My apartment is simple and bright, with a full kitchen. All my neighbors are nuns. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQwMaMtzU6dk1zAMbBp-6neHk0adiS6tawaQJyzF_bCzJcHmtVEUIISDae4eZOEDhiasO7dXq3q14d8G7WH7TDXTpWFG5qdb59CUY7QuByiUeCAEHwXKlRdb1Le4F1wosSoRANGQ/s1600/2019-02-06+14.59.11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQwMaMtzU6dk1zAMbBp-6neHk0adiS6tawaQJyzF_bCzJcHmtVEUIISDae4eZOEDhiasO7dXq3q14d8G7WH7TDXTpWFG5qdb59CUY7QuByiUeCAEHwXKlRdb1Le4F1wosSoRANGQ/s400/2019-02-06+14.59.11.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On February 4, NNP hosted a Chinese New Year celebration for the Year of the Pig. Goldie Chapel was transformed by a Buddhist altar, bright with incense flowers, and fresh fruit. The festivities included a dragon dance, several hours of chanting, and a communally lit table transformed into a "river" of 1,000 tea lights. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Every Tuesday walk up and around a cobblestone bend to Alchemy Coffee, where I get a regular black coffee to go. From there I quickstep to the University College Cork, where I lead a workshop for ten graduate students. We're using the building block of the sonnet, complicated by extensions and playfulness in the form: Rita Dove, Mark Doty, Wilfred Owen, e.e. cummings, Olena Kalytiak Davis, with Terrance Hayes and Wanda Coleman on the horizon. Along the way we're detouring to look at poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, Harryette Mullen. Five workshop poems per class is the magic number--crunched, sure, but manageable, unlike the six per class that I always tell myself I can do (but never can). </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaAHnWg16qEKocNj0LHZygmya6X_WYeVNdluftaJgkgGpCJKpOIiXqzxGN00NS2NloKXdMmGWJBFgF9vN9GQ7jYxcIdazbuZ8HHX7_ZQB-wNKT3zs4O65sNumHlPsnx1d4101KjA/s1600/2019-01-28+15.22.53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaAHnWg16qEKocNj0LHZygmya6X_WYeVNdluftaJgkgGpCJKpOIiXqzxGN00NS2NloKXdMmGWJBFgF9vN9GQ7jYxcIdazbuZ8HHX7_ZQB-wNKT3zs4O65sNumHlPsnx1d4101KjA/s400/2019-01-28+15.22.53.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wednesdays, I try to not leave the apartment at all. I stay in and I rest, and I write. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On Thursdays and Fridays, I have two-hour one-on-one sessions with poets in the community, who I chose based on applications with work samples and project statements. These are a different space, chatty and collegial, but at the same time I can really push on individual needs and risks to be taken. Although I orchestrate readings for each given week, I don't try to do written feedback--they simply leave with the notes they've taken during our conversations. I'm struck by how energized I am by a model where each week holds six hours of "live" teaching paired with two hours spent on notes and prep, versus what is usually the opposite ratio. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I walk--and I walk everywhere--I just try to take it all in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The river Lee is a constant, audible presence. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Ujy04-N-y31kX8GmI30wdF1j3IwPsw8HM6QcV8tng1jGWhZs9UsADZTHSJ8hh9n2v-MbnqzPrZggwSDUxbcWbkCDSF-N88fcbDEoNULfB-tIOpk4VsSYxHklffvTXvur8B0UeA/s1600/2019-02-04+14.21.14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Ujy04-N-y31kX8GmI30wdF1j3IwPsw8HM6QcV8tng1jGWhZs9UsADZTHSJ8hh9n2v-MbnqzPrZggwSDUxbcWbkCDSF-N88fcbDEoNULfB-tIOpk4VsSYxHklffvTXvur8B0UeA/s400/2019-02-04+14.21.14.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral was completed in 1879; the site's significance for Christianity dates back to a <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">seventh-century monastery.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLXQyqG_l3Xf4Uot9MrbIiv3nixrTRSYsFjo-EjIxKmyxRRNVjpCL4tIAjAXj150rq2VE8p40wEe57cIWavBHL-us206LcwjWrJn0SDlyAL7kEo3t6sHRM8vMWCD_Ibr8XQi8y-A/s1600/2019-02-10+11.48.32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLXQyqG_l3Xf4Uot9MrbIiv3nixrTRSYsFjo-EjIxKmyxRRNVjpCL4tIAjAXj150rq2VE8p40wEe57cIWavBHL-us206LcwjWrJn0SDlyAL7kEo3t6sHRM8vMWCD_Ibr8XQi8y-A/s400/2019-02-10+11.48.32.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Took me more than a week to realize that signs for "The Lough" were directing me to a lake thick with swans, ducks, geese, assorted wild fowl, and--on the particular morning I walked there--older men directing their remote-controlled boats in a kind of regatta. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbLxb4MzyFr7mTuV_ip9-9ZKENknYD3hzfTcav833cuS0PuZuusnyfWh8mOEkKA8TmlLHqnWU1m3ME4Zk3v2XaLAMBtw-dqnyy2Y5Rszk3RKeEJQvLNoOxjk94199CcMC5Z3WdVQ/s1600/2019-01-31+16.58.47.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbLxb4MzyFr7mTuV_ip9-9ZKENknYD3hzfTcav833cuS0PuZuusnyfWh8mOEkKA8TmlLHqnWU1m3ME4Zk3v2XaLAMBtw-dqnyy2Y5Rszk3RKeEJQvLNoOxjk94199CcMC5Z3WdVQ/s400/2019-01-31+16.58.47.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The street graffiti is vibrant, often interrogating Ireland's politics and nationalisms. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Welcome Inn is one of two downtown pubs licensed to open at 7 a.m.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the Shandon quarter, visitors can climb to the top of in the tower of Saint Anne's Church and ring the bells on the way up. The tower is known as the "four-faced liar" because the clocks never read the same time. The weather vane is affectionately known as the "goldy fish"; it's actually a salmon.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD4ZC3HAIXUXR5rmIdj2D-rUve4w5BDCkANmd6uTUIS6lVunvVmDjrYa-BpiwCFwwPYclP0ESRcD3VUbPgTfNSZxHvc8MjV62SZ_SN33hhpR7telgeInYV-YuksRXmdhMLJoL6TQ/s1600/2019-02-05+16.14.38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD4ZC3HAIXUXR5rmIdj2D-rUve4w5BDCkANmd6uTUIS6lVunvVmDjrYa-BpiwCFwwPYclP0ESRcD3VUbPgTfNSZxHvc8MjV62SZ_SN33hhpR7telgeInYV-YuksRXmdhMLJoL6TQ/s400/2019-02-05+16.14.38.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cork suffered terribly in the recession a decade ago, but there's signs of recovery in the construction all around town. Tension, too, as residents plea for affordable housing instead of fancy hotels. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I get a long weekend of Saturday & Sunday & Monday. There's terrific music at places like the Corner House, Charlie's, and Sin E. Pub life is as simple as walking in to pick out your draft (I prefer Beamish), plunking down the requisite stack of coins, and striking up <i>craic</i> with whoever is in earshot. The O'Bheal poetry series, which includes an open mic, takes place above the Long Valley Bar (the "Hayloft") and runs until midnight on Monday nights. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsWoAXtUf8r3iXWmUEKAB1JGb6Y9P8zGFrRHKyDku3QqKAZiLHf-Sy72ekq6vj_sHipYFjCvzS54ukKqg4Zhyphenhyphenj7TaQ0YD3iXV1TkvfQ9xVH6n7uTqzwyBRN8H_eWtW06-DhwMDbQ/s1600/2019-01-28+22.20.38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsWoAXtUf8r3iXWmUEKAB1JGb6Y9P8zGFrRHKyDku3QqKAZiLHf-Sy72ekq6vj_sHipYFjCvzS54ukKqg4Zhyphenhyphenj7TaQ0YD3iXV1TkvfQ9xVH6n7uTqzwyBRN8H_eWtW06-DhwMDbQ/s400/2019-01-28+22.20.38.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Triskel Church, just over the bridge, has been converted into a theater--I saw <i>Casablanca</i> there on Valentine's Day. I got a balcony seat for the "Johnny Cash Road Show," a grand sing-along at the Everyman Theater. I went back a week later with a second-row seat for the Irish National Opera's <i>Orfeo ed Eurydice</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">A</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">ll the principle roles in the opera were sung by women, the choreographer did double-duty as the director, and the conductor played harpsichord. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of the best things about conversation here is that when you tell someone you're working as a poet, they don't freeze up or look embarrassed for you There's always a common ground--another writer they know, or a favorite book to recommend. Walking down the street, one passes whole blocks mural in the words of poets. I have difficulties with the brogue, sometimes mistaking a question for a statement. But I have no difficulty owning who I'm here to be. Even my American-ness is greeted kindly, versus the self-disgust I've internalized as a function of the last few years' national affairs. As I experienced in Cyprus, the rest of the world does a much better job remembering how <i>young </i>we are as a country. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been modest in my restaurant ambitions, mostly happy to have the roast chicken lunch at Farmgate or a quick sushi bite. The Quay Co-op (I had to learn to say "key," not "qway") has fresh produce, canned curries, brown rice. I have made good stir fries, squid ink pasta tossed with tuna, but I'm saving the more intensive prep for when I can team up with my husband. We'll walk to the English Market and buy a meal's ingredients from A to Z. I miss him terribly. If I could figure out a way to smuggle the kitty into his suitcase when he comes over, I would. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwAhD8-vPYyAPGXm1W4eHhY3qm2rpMDZMwCadoRWipboGB4sJAtZYUKNK8NFVo68lOpTZdYU-KDnuCwxSupxL8nP2Vfbc9LuPMD5nvRAEqoM4VpfoYzC3FlrEawdqIcSf777jC9Q/s1600/2019-02-19+22.28.40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwAhD8-vPYyAPGXm1W4eHhY3qm2rpMDZMwCadoRWipboGB4sJAtZYUKNK8NFVo68lOpTZdYU-KDnuCwxSupxL8nP2Vfbc9LuPMD5nvRAEqoM4VpfoYzC3FlrEawdqIcSf777jC9Q/s400/2019-02-19+22.28.40.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I keep my drink orders here simple--a Beamish, a whisky--but one spot, Cask, has excellent fancy cocktails. The Conkers consists of Powers, blackberry wine, palo cortado, and chestnuts salted in-house. They set it on fire before serving. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A fellowship isn't a residency. My duties are more complicated than that--not only because of financial concerns, but because I feel a general responsibility to be out and about in the city. But like a residency, this time gives me distance and fresh perspective on life at home. I miss so much, but I don't miss everything. And letting go of those things that I don't miss will be an important part of returning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The weather can be mercurial. The hills are steep. Strange to become a version of myself that reaches for blue jeans and flats, instead of skirts and heels, and buries herself in warm clothing. But this is a deeply good place, and I am grateful to be here. </span></div>
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Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-30664713678640929782019-02-01T10:19:00.001-05:002019-02-01T10:36:14.159-05:00January Tidings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvhoSMMLYCwiTyt_MYVcYLJFPOZEZ53qM-PJVUu3xnL6ZMDRPIiaLBo4erZDXQ2to0AJJYC_dlGVN0jNQTJpg-0w1BFWT3DmeoApaQWTxsUa6kulATwU0ZbJdw_m-eDeRK7bA7Cg/s1600/2019-01-01+12.24.22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvhoSMMLYCwiTyt_MYVcYLJFPOZEZ53qM-PJVUu3xnL6ZMDRPIiaLBo4erZDXQ2to0AJJYC_dlGVN0jNQTJpg-0w1BFWT3DmeoApaQWTxsUa6kulATwU0ZbJdw_m-eDeRK7bA7Cg/s400/2019-01-01+12.24.22.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I made black-eyed peas on New Year's day. I'd need every bit of good luck I could get, since the next day held a fourteen-hour hell-drive straight to Tampa, arriving in time to teach with my MFA program's residency. Nothing says "fancy life of a poet" like napping for an hour in front of a South Carolina rest stop. But increasingly, Tampa has become such a dear place to me. I love my students. I love waking up at the Sheraton and looking out along the Riverwalk. Funny how something that began as a source of anxiety--I'd had no previous graduate-level teaching experience before joining faculty--has, five years later, become an anchor and such a valued part of my life. This particular residency, we were fortunate enough for a visit from Meg Day: amazing poet, unforgettable lecturer, friend, kin. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDlM748gqBD2jeAOHFZYesv_bO1YLNloFzngQt2FrdX25-uQwyiLgR-UnO7dn0g6BBiIE7lME9RsK5BVyrTUGfiFYfXflsdMKTEKRKDjQY_d9uFhzOr0_zT0qFNcydiC6o1GVOvw/s1600/2019-01-09+10.29.55.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDlM748gqBD2jeAOHFZYesv_bO1YLNloFzngQt2FrdX25-uQwyiLgR-UnO7dn0g6BBiIE7lME9RsK5BVyrTUGfiFYfXflsdMKTEKRKDjQY_d9uFhzOr0_zT0qFNcydiC6o1GVOvw/s320/2019-01-09+10.29.55.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrT4fq5sfcQvu6qGxQ8qH_zfj4VB5NPMd-qF8dWeKMSBbSfcJQy4MmA3Z4CFmhHOlc2HPLMfCzzgMIHclif-r7TJfOQjQN60CYBydksa9daB3Mvtj1Of9CihR_T08CWlOResW1gw/s1600/2019-01-09+10.29.57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrT4fq5sfcQvu6qGxQ8qH_zfj4VB5NPMd-qF8dWeKMSBbSfcJQy4MmA3Z4CFmhHOlc2HPLMfCzzgMIHclif-r7TJfOQjQN60CYBydksa9daB3Mvtj1Of9CihR_T08CWlOResW1gw/s320/2019-01-09+10.29.57.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Seeing Meg connect with Kayla, this term's Outstanding Graduate Student--graduating with a superb essay collection I was fortunate to help with--was all joy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From Tampa, on to Naples to visit family. We wandered through the Naples Botanical Garden, then got bug-bit while enjoying dinner courtesy a campground of food trucks set up by the water. Adding a somewhat surreal element, Abby Wambach was chilling nearby with her partner and their dog in a very nice motor-boat. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj_CKREfEROjZ1ppr53i2faRxaZEe3MWwsMjJFyLrdlS0uG3Llg5jMySGuK-WMVOa9g_KmBN50fmR-DrnVLN3FnAERWG23f5eX0pB2XVHtS6c_F9Bq91x5wJjF0U4si_3y9QVbkw/s1600/2019-01-13+18.15.25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj_CKREfEROjZ1ppr53i2faRxaZEe3MWwsMjJFyLrdlS0uG3Llg5jMySGuK-WMVOa9g_KmBN50fmR-DrnVLN3FnAERWG23f5eX0pB2XVHtS6c_F9Bq91x5wJjF0U4si_3y9QVbkw/s320/2019-01-13+18.15.25.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtdZrErmO9_bFXKyVn03XI0ZO0Bjsgh219bpv3TiNXJHb8lPUbtBwCoyJkTWRcY8LUdFPt9zuylGAR_Ewv3hh8YLKpGPPQNZj5K9T_ASY90Oof9oj_GXJo3EqhPs_P-5WsWQQfw/s1600/2019-01-15+15.32.06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtdZrErmO9_bFXKyVn03XI0ZO0Bjsgh219bpv3TiNXJHb8lPUbtBwCoyJkTWRcY8LUdFPt9zuylGAR_Ewv3hh8YLKpGPPQNZj5K9T_ASY90Oof9oj_GXJo3EqhPs_P-5WsWQQfw/s200/2019-01-15+15.32.06.jpg" width="150" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you happen to be making your way from Naples to Miami, you'll be driving through the Everglades and I highly recommend you stop off at Joanie's. They took good care of me, allergies and all, from the lima bean soup to the fresh-grilled grouper atop salsa made that morning and a salad dotted with tiny flowers that had been grown in the cafe's front yard. I also had a moment during a rest stop when a crowd looked at me funny, as I walked along talking on my cell phone. So I turned back and looked--I'd passed right by an alligator. He was too sleepy to notice me. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg753fsjlNDlhoSfuQN5ExNm8PUJJgZgLHHLU7wozsKGpl7ZJKqDXxPeTsuOKYDoHRa00fA7-kzBA8h-StS8giauMHDwlSeQNtvEToGDJI8X3-FhjlTaMU270fww6iQ8oS_pUjdBA/s1600/2019-01-15+17.50.28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg753fsjlNDlhoSfuQN5ExNm8PUJJgZgLHHLU7wozsKGpl7ZJKqDXxPeTsuOKYDoHRa00fA7-kzBA8h-StS8giauMHDwlSeQNtvEToGDJI8X3-FhjlTaMU270fww6iQ8oS_pUjdBA/s200/2019-01-15+17.50.28.jpg" width="150" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In Miami, I had a brief residency at <a href="http://www.thebetsywritersroom.com/" target="_blank">The Betsy</a>. <a href="http://www.thebetsywritersroom.com/" target="_blank">The Writer's Room</a> program is amazing (in return for a reading and a meet-the-artist reception, they give you a place to stay and a $50 / day tab at their restaurants). That said, one has to get past the strangeness of the entire staff knowing who you are and why you're there. SWWIM was kind enough to host our reading, where I finally got to meet <i>Vinegar and Char</i> contributor Elisa Albo. (Have you signed up for <a href="https://www.swwim.org/" target="_blank">SWWIM's daily poem</a>? You should!) I read four books in two days--Jessica Hopper's <i>Night Moves</i>, David Menconi's <i>Ryan Adams: Losering, a Story of Whiskeytown</i>, Alexander Chee's <i>How to Write an Autobiographical Novel</i>, and Porochista Khakpour's <i>Sick</i>--</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">lounging whenever I could by the Betsy's rooftop pool. I checked into a cat cafe for an hour. And I walked down to the South Pointe Park, a walk that brought me comfort so many days back when I was living in Miami in February 2011, as part of a now-defunct artist residency. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm working on my next nonfiction book, and this was the perfect setting. But that's all I'll say about that for now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lyn at Square Books sent me a snapshot of the year-end display of bestselling titles in the front window. And look: <i>Vinegar and Char</i> is right there, nestled at #48. I'm grateful because I'm so dang proud of this anthology and, for various reasons, I haven't gotten to celebrate it properly outside Mississippi. But my <a href="https://www.folger.edu/events/vinegar-and-char" target="_blank">March 11 reading at the Folger Shakespeare Library</a>--with contributors Atsuro Riley and Sean Hill--will go a ways toward fixing that. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thank you, January, from delivering me from the arms of Florida into the embrace of the new: I'm in Ireland. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm settling in as this spring's John Montague International Poetry Fellow for the <a href="https://www.munsterlit.ie/" target="_blank">Munster Literature Centre</a>. That means teaching a workshop over at <a href="https://www.ucc.ie/" target="_blank">University College Cork</a>, mentoring a few community folks, and leading <a href="https://www.corkpoetryfest.net/workshops.html" target="_blank">a four-day seminar on "Bringing the World to the Poem"</a> (still some spots available) as part of the <a href="https://www.corkpoetryfest.net/" target="_blank">poetry festival March 20-23</a>. (Sorry to miss you, AWP.) People have been kind enough to make all sorts of tourist suggestions, and I'm sure I'll explore as the weeks go on. For now, I'm just happy to be in one place. </span>Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.com0