Poetry Calling

Last night we had a big crowd for the Omission Summer Poetry Tour's stop at Baked & Wired (which serves all your standard coffeehouse fare...plus sweet tea so rich it should carry a warning label...plus bacon cupcakes). The work was great; as I told the audience, this felt like a snapshot of What's Being Written Now, and I was honored to be part of that constellation. Our host Diana Khoi Nguyen was every bit the charmer I expected. Justin Boening read before me, and is pictured below. His PSA chapbook (selected by Dara Wier) is gorgeous, and I'm looking forward to it. My vision of "area poets" got a little bigger, as I learned Miriam Bird Greenberg had spent the summer tending to a grandmother who lives mere miles from my family's house in Vienna, and John Fenlon Hogan is here to stay awhile. 


Afterwards we wandered down to Mr. Smith's, one of those venerable Georgetown institutions with the crumbly brick and the peacock-hued stained glass, where we snagged two tables in an outdoor courtyard. I wouldn't want to be there on a Friday night when the Jager-bombs are 4 for $10, but on a Monday night it was kind of awesome thanks to inexpensive house IPAs, a basket of curly fries for the table, and a surprisingly tasty vegan Israeli couscous dish with spinach and "sundry" tomatoes (how that snuck on the menu is a mystery). All of which took a backseat to the conversation, the kind of totally indulgent poetry-talk--on blurbs and contests and conferences and feuds--that I crave but rarely find outside AWP. I had fun eavesdropping on the post-Columbia MFA conversations, a program whose dynamics seem so very different from my time at American University. 

Not surprisingly, I woke up this morning wanting to write. There's about five calls for poems that are uppermost on my radar, on topics ranging from perfume to gravy to politics. Like many poets I'm both lured in by the Los Angeles Times' call for "op-ed" poems and turned off by the condescension of the tone ("if you have an opinion that can only be expressed in rhymed iambic pentameter or lively doggerel, in a haiku or limerick, now's your chance to express it"). 

I've also been inspired to dive back into blogs. Leslie Pietrzyk has an epic recount of her travels through small-town Georgia, which I must re-read before I embark on the Georgia Poetry Circuit in spring 2014, which takes me to nine colleges around the state for readings. Gotta brush up on my Flannery O'Connor before then, too. I found out from Victoria Chang's blog that she has a third book out, The Boss, courtesy of the new McSweeney's poetry imprint. You can subscribe to said imprint, $40 for four "issues" (a.k.a. books). I'm assuming these are poems in series with the ones she wrote for VQR a few issues back--fragmented views of a dystopian workplace--which has me intrigued. And I'm not going to link to any one post on "The French Exit," because they're all so damn good; Elisa Gabbert keeps one of the most interesting and substantive blogs among poets these days, even when (like most of us now) she only updates once a week. 

There's a lot to do. I must be a little more settled, because creative ideas are simmering to the surface again. but there's a LOT to do. Luckily this life is long...and also I have enough kale and watermelon in the fridge to skip grocery shopping for a bit.

Moving Days

This has been a sticky, sweaty, unrepentant month of DC summer--and a month of moving. I'm not someone who takes well to liminal spaces.  I speak no second languages because I can't bear the in-between of faltering, approximated phrases. I've been known to char sponges and dish towels because I start cleaning the stove before the burner is off. So it's very hard for me to function in these sprawling days; my instinct is to line up, to square away, to settle. As we have hand-carried our lives into this place, one box and bag at a time, the building itself has been mid-facelift as well. This should be our last week of scaffolding (and its accordant 8 AM wake-up call of construction clatter); the halls smell like new paint. Patience. 

When moving, writers are always preoccupied by the question Will I be able to write here? And the panicked answer is almost always, initially, No. Or to be more precise: Noooooo. The chair I used for three books is gone, the leather seat having worn away to flakes and threads. What has been my desk now feels, more than ever, like a dining table. The overhead fan makes a regular, undeniable clicking noise. All of which has had me lying awake at night, terrified that I've Made the Wrong Decision and Will Never Write Again. 

The antidote to this abstract and paralyzing fear is as simple as writing, of course. I'll get there. Part of growing older is learning to ignore my inner Harbinger of Doom and Self-Doubt. 

One must take comfort in small pleasures, like pint glasses that have been chilled in the freezer beforehand, from which one drinks Boddinger's Pub Ale while muddling through hour two of sorting fifteen years' worth of cds while one sits on a bare floor. When one really should be writing. Because one is overdue on three major deadlines. 

A beacon of encouragement has been that this will be a place where I cook. Often. Enthusiastically. There is a spice rack. The oven need not double as a storage unit for six pans. I can actually open my fridge AND my dishwasher, all the way--O the novelty! Because our apartment approximates tropical rainforest levels of humidity, and because my love works evenings, we've been experimenting with the art of the "odds & ends" lunch that consumes the day's perishables. So far my favorite has been a linguine based with onion, bacon, and red peppers, with avocado added for creaminess. Sauté all of that together with salt, pepper, and chili flakes, fold in a little spinach and squeeze in some lemon juice before serving--voila. Cooking is a creative process. If I can improvise with flavors, words will follow. 

I've also relished being back in town for readings, which included hearing Katherine Hill at Politics & Prose yesterday to celebrate the release of her debut novel, The Violet Hour. Her images were tight--she has a poet's ear for metaphor, but curbs it in proportion to dialogue. The premise, a family's outing on a boat, set up the right balance of claustrophobia, humor, and tangible action. She had a standing-room-only crowd and a long Q&A; the book sold out. At her reception afterwards, Katherine's father--a fellow Board member at the Writer's Center--poured glasses of cava spiked with creme de violette, while his wife prepped a cake made in the image of the book's cover. "Did I do all right?" she asked them, which is the exact same question I ask my parents after every reading. Yes, you did, Katherine. In fact you kinda kicked ass. So thrilling when you can feel the electricity of a book that is going to be big, and deserves to be.

Long story short, I am laying low for a bit. Not even reading--except for the Sunday New York Times, which now miraculously appears on my doorstep each week. I am unpacking. Perspiring. Conspiring. Devising salads. Debating "lemongrass" versus "jade" as a rug color. Wondering how to curb the ripening of bananas. Re-acquainting myself with Tryst. Updating addresses in umpteen databases. Cleaning closets. Pondering file cabinets. Figuring out the most efficient elevator routes for a building with nine external doors. Meeting the new neighbors, like this epic pup, who seems to share my disposition toward this weather. Onwards.  Sometimes, the secret to a move is just that you gotta keep moving. 

Oh! And before I forget, I have one lil' reading in August--at Baked and Wired, my sister's favorite Georgetown spot--with some vagabonds of poetry: Justin Boening, Miriam Bird Greenberg, and John Fenlon Hogan. Justin won the Poetry Society of America's National Chapbook Fellowship with "Self-Portrait as a Missing Person," and this fall he'll be the Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University. Miriam teaches ESL in San Francisco (when not wandering) and has had stints at both P-Town and as a Stegner Fellow. John has had work popping up all over the place, including Boston Review and Quarterly West. Diana Khoi Nguyen, who is organizing it all, is a powerhouse of poetry herself, a Columbia grad and a recent Bread Loaf waiter. Frankly, I'm not sure I'm cool enough to be part of this line-up. But I'm excited to hear these new voices. The "Omission Summer Poetry Tour" stops off in DC at 6 PM on Monday, August 5, free. 

Workin'

This would have felt like the longest day no matter what, because I spent seven straight hours of it completing a grant application. But it is the solstice, the literal longest day of sun all year. My hair is also long these days and right now, like a fairy-tale princess, rippled. That's because I tucked it into a bun on Wednesday while it was still soaking wet, where it then stayed for eight hours straight. Because I am Working--and it's been a while since I felt that pressure of must be clean & must look professional. 

Three days a week I am going to my old office to send emails, corral files, and get things in order. A lot (books!) has happened since I last worked there, but the vocabulary of itineraries and rolos remains the same. As of late I have dusted, pitched defunct CD players, and pulled dead leaves off a valiant but struggling purple plant of unknown origin. There's several cabinets of papers to compress and label. There's about a zillion cards and letters to answer. Why is it so satisfying to do these tasks for someone else, these things we eternally put off when it comes to our own lives?


I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to help out my former employers. We come to working together in a far better and more equitable place than before, at ease with each other's rhythms and idiosyncrasies. And frankly, it feels good to have an hourly wage again, to have stretches when my time is invested in someone else's priorities and creative output. As I type that I look around, worriedly, like someone is going to come and take my "full-time writer" license away. Eh. When I tell students of creative writing to resist falling into the assumption they must primarily teach to support themselves--to choose that path only if it truly appeals--I mean it. But everyone's got to pay the bills. In fact, I would urge those looking for work that dovetails with a writing life to investigate whether their local college has a retiring professor who needs help prepping papers for donation. It can be sneaky, fascinating work, filled with stories.

Is there a job you'd return to, if you could? Knowing what you do now?

The news has been shared elsewhere that a selection from my third collection (in the hands of editors now) has won the 2013 Center for Book Arts chapbook prize, judged by Harryette Mullin and Sharon Dolin, and will be published in a letterpress, limited edition of 100 copies come this fall. Having stood at the Center's table during many an AWP Bookfair, gazing longingly at the array, it's surreal to think my work will soon be among them. The award comes with a bit of money, which gets added to a substantial freelance assignment I'm working on right now, which gets added to my pay from the work described above, which equals a summer's worth of rent. 

The thing is, and it's healthy to be transparent about this, no one of these gigs could be reliably multiplied into "making a living." For the one contest I won, I spent hours and $$$ applying to a half-dozen more (with many of the same poems!) to no effect. Though I expect this freelance essay to run on time, or close to it, there are several more mired in editorial limbo and therefore unpaid. I couldn't and wouldn't return to my old job five days a week; that would minimize the possibility of writing new poems, much less touring to read them. So, I juggle, which is the true task of the full-time writer. It's a Friday night, at 10:30 PM, and here I am trying to rally to get back to work.

This post is not illustrated with me at a desk, or me up to my elbows in dust and bent file folders. Instead I'm sharing snapshots of "The Commission," a one-night art installation in Charlottesville, courtesy of Virginia Center for Creative Arts; a book arts exhibit at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston; a glimpse of the seashore at Folly Beach, from the end of the pier; a glimpse of the marsh (and bordering roses) that line the other side of the island; and below, the set at intermission--waiting for the comedy to commence--of The Shakespeare Theatre's The Winters Tale, which I attended with my dad for Father's Day. 

Not pictured: a sunburned shoulder, NOPA's brussels sprouts, and Star Trek: Into Darkness. These have also been a part of my crazy, busy June. That's the thing about work, though we knock it, though we whine. Work yields play. Wine tastes sweeter after a day of thirst. Let me go test that theory now, and I'll get back to you.