December 08, 2014

On Sand



                                                 "...Draw 
a line, make it my mouth: I'll name
your country. I'm a Yes man at heart."

~from "The Sand Speaks" (I Was the Jukebox)

These lines are actually an oblique reference to my least favorite idiom, "drawing a line in the sand." I grew up unsure what it meant. I associated the phrase with the Battle of the Alamo, vaguely, but hadn't the Alamo fallen? I did not know the Biblical story (John 8:6), in which Jesus uses the gesture to halt the stoning of a woman. 

So throughout my twenties, I argued with anyone who used the phrase to describe a situation with a hard boundary, or a scenario in which a course of action, once committed to, could not be reversed. I made my case in poetry workshop; at the office of the magazine where I worked; at home, talking to my then-boyfriend.

Why draw the line in sand? I always came back to this. Why not etch the line in stone? Why not concrete? The choice of medium was an endemic vulnerability, the literal promise of a decision's erosion. Sand gets blown away. Sand gets washed away. Sand slips through your fingers. 

The last three weeks have drawn line after line: The failure to indict in Ferguson for the shooting of Michael Brown.  The failure to indict in Staten Island for the choking of Eric Garner. A wave of horrific stories concerning sexual assault at UVA. Mark Strand has died. Marion Barry has died. Steve Cymrot has diedClaudia Emerson has died

Amidst it all, an incredible gift as well: an NEA grant. A blessing of confidence in the poems, all of which will be in Count the Waves. A bulwark against debt. 

These are days when everything feels utter. Like anyone, I move through many worlds as a poet, as an alumna, as a DC resident, as an American citizen. All halved in some way, Before and After. As frightened as I am by this feeling, what frightens me more is the notion that it will not last. Martyr, classmate, icon, mentor, friend. How long does it take for any one name to become a footnote? 

I ask that with hesitation, not wanting a genuine unease to lapse into solipsism. "It ís the blight man was born for," Gerard Manley Hopkins writes. "It is Margaret you mourn for." Amidst the worries of these worlds, my feelings matter very little. 

Still. The practical hours make their relentless march. Pages to proof. Chicken to be cooked. The students of DC need final grades on Friday, even though my poet-heart wants to trek four hours south to a memorial service. I am trying to be responsible. I am trying to burn the candle at one end only. Yet I am trying to change, and be changed, by all that is happening. I'm trying to end up with something more than a fistful of sand.

November 14, 2014

Oh Hey There, Jared


"Love your Pandora bracelet!"

So, you have these new ads. Apparently, you hope that the trend of charm bracelets will sweep the nation this holiday season. Women will bond, in the language that all women share: jewelry. Men will be lauded for their savvy gift-giving. 

Because a bracelet can communicate critical facts, such as the following….



"The ballet slippers?" "I used to dance."
"Suitcase?" "Anniversary trip."
"Soccer ball?" "Soccer Mom."




Or this one, in which the token professional accolade (She's the boss!) is quickly set aside. Do we find out that she oversaw a merger? That she has a law degree from Haravard? That she holds a revolutionary engineering patent? Nope.  

"She's been to London, Paris, and her son plays baseball."

Each time with the tag line...Telling her life story with just a turn of the wrist. 

Oh, Jared. Your new ads are horrible. We're not even going to get into "the red-hot love bead." (Though if you are prepared to offer a cast pewter clitoris, let's talk.)

How kind of you to innovate a way for us to express ourselves. But luckily, we came up with a few alternative options, such as: Poems. Essays. Whole memoirs, even. Do you want to see what it looks like when a woman really tells a life story? Read this...

"Breasts Like Martinis" - Jill McDonough (Slate)

or this:

"Till Death Did They Part" - Molly Krause (Brain, Child Magazine)

or this:

"Piece of Her" - Monica F. Jacobe (Barely South Review)

Here's the thing, Jared: the truth doesn't jingle neatly. A woman's story doesn't consist of sequential beads on a string; it doesn't consist solely of activities pursued on behalf of her children, or in the company of her husband. We love, we sacrifice, we regret, we wonder, we hope, but none of it is linear. This is what it means to live a life. 

You know what Pandora was doing, when she turned her wrist

She was lifting the lid off the box. 

October 16, 2014

Horizon Lines (Posole & Patience)


Hard to believe that two weeks ago, we were watching the sun rise over Amelia Island. Now all is wet leaves & heavy clouds in DC. I'm heating up a pot of posole, so rich and thick that I'll eat it with a fork. Later, I'm taking part in a reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" down in Dupont Circle, thanks to Kramerbooks. In other words: autumn.  

Good things are happening in DC. Graywolf is bringing a quartet of poets to the Folger (or to be precise, across the street from the Folger) on Monday, October 20. Poets & Writers is hosting a daylong event on independent publishing, with panels and roundtable discussions, at the Library of Congress on Saturday, October 25. Ambitious folks might then dash over to Dance Place that same evening for The Ghost of DC Past: An All-star Spoken Word Reunion. On Sunday, October 26, there is a release party for Mathias Svalina's Wastoid, published by the good folks of Big Lucks, at The Big Hunt. Amidst it all, a shameless plug--I'm hosting a reading at the Arts Club of Washington on Wednesday, October 29 for The Book of Scented Things. This anthology puts together 100 contemporary poems about perfume, solicited from writers across the country, and it's the first volume designed and printed by The Literary House Press (based out of the Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College). We'll hear from contributors with their poems, editors Jehanne Dubrow & Lindsay Lusby will answer questions, and they'll raffle off a designer perfume. A veritable scent-topia. 

Oh, and on Wednesday, November 5, there is a doubleheader at American University: journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates (7 PM), and poet Patricia Smith (8 PM). Seriously now.

At 4 AM, I got up to scribble down ideas for an essay. Counting through this morning, I've reached critical mass for some kind of prose book. But what kind? I'm picking up threads from nonfiction projects I thought I might write over the last few years, but being a little more honest about where my life is now, and what I have to say. When Stephen King titled On Writing, he added the subhead, "A Memoir of the Craft." I love that notion of writing in a way that is analytical, attentive to form, and yet also interweaves the personal. I have different obsessions to attend to than King, and no great anecdotes of coke-binge drafting sessions; no Firestarter or Carrie on my shelf. Yet there's something here.

The manuscript will be a long time in the making, I suspect. It used to be that the prospect of starting a project that I didn't think could be completed within months had no appeal. The MFA / thesis experience coaches us to force a book into being, and that's a perfect match for a deadline-driven writer such as me. Even when I sold Don't Kill the Birthday Girl, I vouched that I could finish it in a year, with only 20 pages in hand. But now a longer-term project feels welcome, like a promise to myself. When you're making a good soup, you have to be patient. That's what complicates the flavor. 

Perhaps that's a lesson learned with Count the Waves, which has a poem in it dating back to 2005, a poem greatly improved in 2014 by the edits that I figured out (finally!) needed to be made. I am so thrilled to finally have CtW's cover in hand, as well as a firm pub date--June 1, 2015--and the knowledge that it will be hardback, 96 pages or so. Peekaboo:



October 02, 2014

At a Loss

This is not what I thought I would be posting about today. 

The Meadville Tribune has reported that Kirk Nesset, professor of English at Allegheny College and a familiar face to many of us in the creative writing community, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Erie later this month for a preliminary hearing on federal child pornography charges. He does not deny downloading child pornography to his home computer. The entire article is available here. 

An article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette adds that in the affidavit, he expressed "a preference for girls ages 10 to 13." He confirmed plans to resign from his teaching position. The entire article is available here. 

As I write this, we share 710 "friends" on Facebook, which essentially represents our overlap in the writing community. Many of those writers are parents who unhesitatingly post snapshots of their kids in various stages of dress. They deserve to know, and so I will link to this on Facebook. But that felt like an inappropriate place to make a primary post of some complexity and length, which is why I'm using my blog. 

If you attend the annual AWP Conference with any regularity, you've probably seen Kirk Nesset. He's memorable because he carries his mini-Pomeranian everywhere. I read with him for a literary journal panel a few years back, and we've always been on friendly terms; I admired his tenacity in creating opportunities for students to travel.  

There's been anxiety and anger in our community as of late because of transgressions--some alleged, some confirmed--of one writer against another, with accusations that a cloak of protective silence has come down around the perpetrator due to his or her popularity and/or influence. I've stayed out of it. That choice, I realize with some embarrassment, is a luxury of not knowing any of the parties involved. I have no such luxury here. I have implicitly endorsed Kirk by making friendly introductions over the years; I have offered explicit endorsements by sending students his way. 

This poetry world thrives in part because of the little-bigness of it, the sense that we're all in this ridiculous, sublime, entirely un-lucrative adventure together. This isn't just a common profession; it's a tribal affiliation. How many couches have I crashed on, vulnerable, at the houses of people who I'd only known for the length of a reading? 

When my younger sister got stranded in Seattle for a night earlier this year, I called the first poet I could think of in that city, knowing I could trust her to his family's care. (And I was right! He made her midnight pancakes while she shared the details of a harrowing day.) I joked to my husband that I'd activated the "Emergency Poets' Network," but it wasn't really a joke. We watch out for each other.  

There are many ways that the consequences of these type of charges may be mitigated. Even a jail sentence does not equal banishment. People can and do re-emerge. I'm writing this in part because if we ran into each other at some future AWP Conference, I might be tempted--caught off guard, on the fly--to take the easy route of smiling and waving. Because hey, those terrible things that happened a few years back wouldn't feel relevant in that very moment, right? Wouldn't it be easier to just smile and wave? Wouldn't it be okay?

Not okay. Another writer might see that gesture, and think Oh, she knows him. Might then feel comfortable letting his or her child pet the nice man's cute dog. Might not mind when he snaps a photo or two.  

In Matt Bai's recent cover story for New York Times Magazine, he quoted former senator Bob Kerrey: "We're not the worst thing we've ever done in our lives, and there's a tendency to think we are." As Bai observed, those words should be posted on the wall of every newsroom, and are relevant here. I'm not sharing this with any vigilante joy. If it weren't already at the level of public record, I would not share it at all. 

I am sad for Kirk, who has often shown he is capable of kindness and generosity, and for the reality that his professional accomplishments will be overshadowed, in the coming months and perhaps for years, by this massive violation. 

It's important to note that the Black Forest Writing Seminars has severed all ties. Kirk Nesset will not be a part of their Summer 2015 program. There's an amazing roster of talent lined up, and director Deborah Reed is happy to field questions.

I love the poetry world. I really do. It's an automatic, unguarded love that I might outgrow someday but not yet, not yet. When I go to a new town, I like to find the poetry shelf of whatever the local bookstore is and run my fingers along the spines like I'm thumbing the pages of a yearbook, looking for any name I can match to a face and conversation. The eccentric good-ness of this writing community has seen me through many a dark night. 

We owe it to each other to shepherd that goodness, and that means recognizing when something has gone very wrong. 

August 29, 2014

In Praise of Organic Poetry Communities

Great crowd for Little Salon on Wednesday. I bought one of Fawna Xiao's beautiful screen prints and made the one pictured, using a stencil she designed. Samuel Prather and his bassist played a lovely version of "My Funny Valentine." Melissa Girard spoke about Georgia Douglas Johnson, a poet and hostess of salons for the Harlem Renaissance, who lived only a block away at at 1461 S Street NW. I found out that Lucas Southworth is also in the baby-tooth club, and I picked up his fiction collection Everyone Here Has a Gun. I debuted a selection from Count the Waves, a book that gets more real by the day. Thanks to Amy Morse for the snapshot below. 



August is a funny, often melancholy time for writers, especially in the age of social media. The need to go back to school looms for the many of us who teach. If you got to experience an immersive colony or conference--a low-res MFA residency, Sewanee, Bread Loaf, VCCA, Tin House Writers Workshop--you're mourning the distance from that community. If you didn't get to go, you might be quietly envying those who did, wondering what you missed. 

There's power to the bonds forged in the fire of such temporary tribes. All it takes is a few words to evoke the memory of a Famous Writer's presence, good or bad; the late nights, the fifth drink, the legendary readings. But let's not under-appreciate the bonds that form more slowly, as well: your organic poetry community. It's not the hotshot community that you choose, or that chooses you, for two adrenaline-laden weeks. It's the community that sneaks up on you through accretion of experience. One of my companions for the evening was writer and activist Natalie E. Illum, a good friend since we were both graduate students at American University in 2002. I can't count how many readings we have attended together. Watching a new series like Little Salon come to life before our eyes, I feel a bit…not-new. Not in a bad way; in a thoughtful way. 

Anyone with an organic poetry community will recognize the archetypal moments below. Some are bittersweet at best. Many of us in the DC writing community shared a wave of sadness with the recent news of Wendi Kaufman's passing; even though I never got to know her like some did, I certainly knew "The Happy Booker." She was part of the fabric of my experience here. Each signpost is reminder of your literary landscape, your shared history, your common vocabulary. There is value in that. People would miss you if you up and left tomorrow. Don't forget it. 


SIGNPOSTS OF AN ORGANIC POETRY COMMUNITY


-You still stubbornly use and re-use bags from a bookstore that closed years ago. 

-You know the usual suspects: The gentle, slightly formal poet who speaks four languages. The grizzled, cynical editor who has published everybody under the sun. The novelist with the funky eyeglasses. The children's book writer who actually sells more books than any of us. The ones who always show up a half-hour early, and sit in a corner scribbling. The ones who always hover by the free wine. 

-You remember that time a Famous Writer visited town, for some weird reason nobody showed up, and you felt so bad that you bought two copies. In hardback. 

-Someone else's cool new venue is your favorite old dive bar. 

-You said Yes to visiting the high school class at 9 AM, and lived to tell the tale. 

-You said Yes to a reading with a line-up of over twenty people, and lived to tell the tale. 

-You said Yes to the reading at the senior citizens' home where they asked for "some Maya Angelou," and lived to tell the tale. 

-You've taken part in a debate over the hiring/election/portrayal of a local arts figure. 


-You've found yourself trying to sell books at the annual fair, one table over from the nice lady selling handcrafted yarn and soap. 

-You remember when those two people who now barely acknowledge each other were a literary super-couple. 

-You have taken part in a celebration for someone who passed away before his or her book made it to print.  

-You've met an up-and-coming writer with a familiar last name and, with a start, realized: This is [X]'s daughter! This is [Y]'s son!

-You have a go-to order at the local teahouse, the perfect amount to justify 90 minutes of camping out with a draft of a manuscript. 

-You remember when the semi-successful hometown musician used to show up at poetry open mics with a guitar and test out lyrics.

-When you meet a recent transplant who starts ragging on the arts scene, you give a tight smile and say "it's just a little fragmented." Because while it may have its problems and shortcomings, it's your scene, dammit. You dance with them that brung ya.

Like all writers, I have moments of feeling left out. Far away. But the organic poetry community in DC is pretty amazing. Richard Peabody took this photo in 2005, for the Gargoyle #50 reading at Lubber Run. I bought that skirt in high school. I got lost driving, the reading was long, we all got bitten by mosquitoes. Moira had not yet moved to Italy. Hilary was still with us. I'm lucky to have been here then, and to be here now. 


August 17, 2014

360 Degrees


Hard to believe that summer is in its waning days (though Indian Summer's burst of sop-sweat humidity still lies ahead). After a road trip to Ocean Springs for the Mississippi Writers Guild and a day trip to Charlottesville for the Virginia Quarterly Review Writers' Conference, I'm staying in place this fall. Doing a little more teaching than usual--continuing on with my University of the Tampa students as well as a class at American University, "Writers in Print and Person." We met with new friends for spectacular spicy food at Doi Moi, and I met with an old friend to celebrate her birthday at 2Amys. I'm overdue for a visit to the Hirshhorn. I'm hoping my dad and I are on hand to root the Nats toward a championship season. 

Last night, I gathered with a group of poets at the edge of the reflecting pool for a reading. Pictured above is Barrelhouse editor Dan Brady, our closing reader for the night. As Mark said, the motivation was simple--it's been a tough week. As I've written about elsewhere, there are few things more restorative for one's faith in poetry, or in poets, than these late readings without pomp or premise. I could use a few more. 

More readings on the horizon….





(Hosted by Brandon Wetherbee at the Gibson Guitar Center's DC showroom; I'll be performing alongside David Carter, Franqi BC French, Meghan McCarthy Vadala, D'Arcy Neal, Ben O'Brien, and John F. O'Donnell)

Twice in the last few days, someone has asked me "how do you do it?" That suggests a level of competence that I don't deserve--the short answer is that I'm not sure I am doing it, if "it" signifies a flourishing career. Like anyone else, I stutter and fumble in my strategies. I agree to do too many things for free. I get scared the new work isn't as good as the old work. I procrastinate. I spend too much on scotch. 

I have certain moments when I'm doing something I know I can do well, for an audience I care about, and I'm immensely grateful. The conference in Mississippi felt that way, three talks in one day, with good conversations in between. Sitting on a panel to discuss memoir with VQR editor W. Ralph Eubanks and Scott Stossel (editor of The Atlantic) felt that way. I believe that when the universe knows you're trying to support yourself through writing, the universe offers more opportunities for you to do so. But I don't spend a lot of time thinking "I'm doing it!" What goes well, I chalk up to luck. And I'm always pretty hard on myself in terms of what could have gone better.  

Just wanted to be honest about that. 


When you're a full-time writer, you have to balance your attention to the muses and the more practical matters. This week, I was working on my Author's Questionnaire for W. W. Norton, in preparation for next summer's publication of Count the Waves, my third poetry collection. These are onerous documents; what starts out as a 2-3 page list of questions can swell to a dozen pages, single-spaced. But they are incredibly helpful as a way of organizing one's thoughts in preparing for publication. I know so many folks who--after jumping the hoops to editorial acceptance--are ambushed by the additional hoops it takes to sell the book. The Author's Questionnaire is meant to help itemize your contacts, expand your market awareness, and rehearse answers to likely questions. 

If you've got a book coming out, you should fill one out. It's okay if some questions draw a blank. It's okay if you're self-publishing, or working with an understaffed indie, and there's no one else to carry this forward on your behalf. The upside about the lag between acceptance and pub is that you have time to become your own best publicist.

Creative writing students are often so savvy in terms of their craft, but completely blindsided in terms of navigating the industry. (This remains a largely verboten topic in MFA programs, much to my frustration.) If you're just taking your first steps toward sending out, with the goal of publishing books down the road, an AQ offers a valuable survey of the elements that add up to defining one's "platform."

If this feels a little crass and reductionist, apologies. I don't argue that this gets at the heart of what we write or why we write it. But no author need apologize for wanting to reach readers--and if the questions below give you a fresh idea of how to do so, so be it. 

Without further ado, a glimpse from behind the scenes….


AUTHOR QUESTIONNAIRE

YOUR NAME:

TITLE & SUBTITLE OF YOUR BOOK:

YOUR EDITOR:

About Your Book

1. Describe your book in no more than 250 words. 

2. Describe your book in 15-20 words or fewer.

3. What were the circumstances that led to the writing of this book?

4. What books do you view as comparable to yours?

5. Are there any recent or forthcoming books that might be perceived as competitors? Please list them, and note briefly how your book is different.

6. Do you have reasons for recommending a particular publication date (e.g., the anniversary of an event, a time of year that book buyers and/or media would be especially interested in the topic of your book, etc.)?

Personal Information

1. Your primary contact information—phone, email, and mailing address:

2. Your home address:

3. Date and place of birth:

4. Citizenship:

5. Are you married? To whom? Do you have children?

6. What is your chief occupation? Please give your title and a brief description of your job. Mention any other aspects of your career which might be relevant to promoting your book.

7. Do you have any other areas of interest or hobbies that pertain to the subject of your book?

8. List all schools, colleges, universities, etc., attended. Include dates of graduation, degrees, honors, grants, or awards received.

9. List cities and states where you have lived, and give dates of residence.

10. List the names and locations of bookstores where you are known; the bookstores where you buy books.

11. If you have a Web site, please give URL and tell us a little bit about the site. Is there anything else we should know about your online presence that might be helpful to your book?

12. List your other books, mentioning publishers, dates of publication, and sales figures. Were any of these books selected by book clubs? Made into movies? Excerpted in magazines? Awarded prizes?

Special Sales Contacts

Please supply us with names and addresses and, wherever possible, a contact at any or all of the following:

1. Special interest groups, associations, societies, or organizations that might make bulk purchases of your book.

2. Specific industries, firms, or corporations that might find your book useful as a corporate gift, sales aid, or educational tool.

3. Mail-order catalogs and/or online commerce sites that specialize in the subject.

Marketing and Publicity Contacts

1. Please list names and addresses of people whose comments on your book would be influential in promoting sales. Include other authors, commentators, booksellers, and any prominent individuals you think would be interested.

2. Do you intend to give lectures? If you have a lecture agent, please supply contact information.

3. List any specialized magazines, journals, Web sites, or newsletters that focus on the subject of your book or have expressed interest in your work. Include any contact information you have.

4. Are there newspaper or magazine journalists, critics, columnists, or bloggers who write about subjects similar to that of your book or who are familiar with your work? Please list names, publications, and addresses if you have them.

5. List any television shows, radio programs, or podcasts that have expressed interest in having you as a guest, or that focus on the subject area addressed in your book. If you have been interviewed before, give show names and years of appearance. Are recordings of your appearance available?

7. Please list any friends or contacts you have in the print, broadcast, or online media, along with detailed contact information and an explanation of your relationship.

8. What are your hometown newspapers and alumni publications? What are your hometown TV and radio interview shows? Are there any other local publications that will be interested in you and your work?

9. Do you have access to any mailing lists or email lists that could be used to promote your book?

#

I suspect many writers see the heavy emphasis on contacts in the media and freeze up. But you know more people than you realize. Consider all 360 degrees of your life: your identities as a teacher, a community member, a volunteer, a parent, an alumna. Don't fixate on promoting your writing exclusively to other writers. If anything, those other audiences will be more excited at the novelty of you writing a book. 

While you're at it, assemble the rest of your publicist's toolkit. Specifically:

-Business cards with phone number, email, website. Consider including the name(s) of your book(s), as well as the cover art (or a key element of it). That's more effective than postcards, which tend to get kindly accepted but ultimately thrown away. 

-An author photograph in hi-res (300 dpi), with files saved in both color and grayscale versions, all permissions secured for reproduction online and in print. 

-Three narrative versions of your author bio: 50 words, 100 words, and 250 words. 

#

I was commiserating with a friend a few weeks back, who also has a book coming out in the coming year. That seems weird to write--but yes, even folks with books coming out have cause to commiserate. There's a difficult lull that comes in the period after you've stopped having control of the text, but before the book has a "face" in the form of a cover and firm pub date. All you can do is show your commitment, question by question, email by email. Assemble your toolkit. Put one foot in front of the other. 

In a strange way, these next couple of hometown readings are particularly precious. Because I won't have a book in hand to sell--not yet, not for a while--and there will be no underlying machinery. These readings will just be about the art of what is possible when a writer faces a crowd, and opens her mouth to speak. 

July 14, 2014

A Letter to My 20-Something Self~



This was an out-and-about weekend in literary Washington--one writer's farewell party on Friday night, a coffee meet-up with dozens of women on the roof of the Kennedy Center, editing Count the Waves over a saison at Little Red Fox, my friend Susan Coll's book party (read The Stager!), which was filled with familiar faces from Politics & Prose, and the Three Tents series at the Big Hunt on Sunday evening. When I moved to 18th & S Street NW in 2002 (my little fourth-floor studio with a view of the gas station and questionable fire code compliance) I had no idea what DC would come to mean to me. There's a radius around Adams Morgan that holds a layer upon layer of sense memory: past addresses, jobs, loves, fears, and aspirations of a decade past. 

Dear Self of My Twenties,

So you're the girl seated at the far end of the Kramerbooks bar, scribbling away on workshop drafts. You're the one trying to learn to parallel park. You're the one storming away from the bar at 2 AM after one kiss, a terrible blend of vodka and tater tots churning in your stomach. You're wearing a kitty-cat mask and a little black dress on Halloween night. You're driving an hour, alone, to see the Counting Crows in concert. You're the one who can pull an all-nighter on a single cup of coffee. 

You're going to do just fine. But here's what I wish you'd known along the way.

Say Yes to every creative opportunity, whether it be a reading or lit mag or tutoring or community organizing; whether it be poetry or fiction or essay-writing. You think you know what you want to write, and the way and where of how you'll publish it, but you don't. The less you pigeonhole yourself, the more likely you'll have the variable skill set it takes to make a living as a writer. 

Your underpaying office job knows that you work on your writing while at your desk. They don't mind. Just don't hold up someone else's copy run because you're printing out your manuscript. Stealing pens is okay; stealing postage is sketchy.

Although you bitch and moan about the Metro, you will never have so much captive reading time ever again. 

Resist the futon, as cost- and space-effective as it it. Falling asleep with a television in your immediate line of vision is bad, and waking up to it is worse. You will sacrifice any hope of instilling habitual punctuality to the 8 AM to 9 AM block of Charmed.

There's never a good reason to eat canned spinach for dinner. 

Invariably, you will encounter the Open Mic of Death, in which everyone waiting to read has no interest in the work of others. Someone will have a hacking, sneezing hay fever. Someone will stand up and dodge the "one page" limit by reading single-spaced prose. You will read, then think, "Surely it's okay to get up and leave now." Don't do it. This is where you begin cultivating good form as a writer, and that includes having a Happy Place you can retreat to in your mind, unobtrusively and without egress, during such readings. Also, the host always notices the people who leave early. 

When a work supervisor puts his hand on your shoulder and refers to you as his "nightcap," though your first thought should be "How do I report this," what your actual thought will be is, "How do I prevent the rumor that we slept together?" You will feel terribly guilty, because, How dare you tempt him by making good conversation? This is the downside of being a bright, chatty 20-something woman with a superhuman sense of agency. He knows better. He is a dean of students at a liberal arts college. 

Close-toed shoes really aren't so bad. You should try them. Cold toes are distracting.

When your mother tries to explain hurtful things your partner does by framing it as "Men do X; Women do Y," do not dismiss her with a withering, "I don't believe in all that gender-stereotyping." Just because you dislike her rhetorical frame doesn't make her life's accumulated experiences irrelevant or invalid. Also, she's probably trying to find a discreet way to tell you what it's like to be married to your dad. Also, by the time you're in your 30s you'll find yourself saying "Know what? Men do X; Women do Y."

There are people you admire in the field of writing. You will eventually meet most of them them. Some of them will make you feel small and uncool. You will try again, like a golden retriever begging the attention of a minor god. They will make you feel small and uncool, again and again. This has nothing to do with you.  

There is a delightful subset of this group that will make you feel small and uncool only the first time you meet them. Then you'll realize that actually, they are just painfully shy. These people are usually worth cultivating to the point of friendship, or at least companionable silence in crowded rooms. 

Out-drinking someone is the worst waste of time. Even when you win, you lose. 

Other writers will be, in fact, as as ebullient and kind as you always hoped. There's a generosity of spirit that comes with having talent, and having been recognized for it. 

Just because you regard someone as your mentor does not mean he or she will be able to write you recommendation letters, ad infinitum, on less than ten days' notice. 

Hand-writing the note on good stationery is always the right thing to do. 

I look back at some of the worst sunburns, when the skin across breasts and shoulders itched and bubbled before peeling away, and I think: What the hell? Sun as a byproduct of living: Yes. Sun as a goal, timed in half-hour intervals on a ratty towel: No.

Develop at least a moderate skill set at the 3Ps of pool, poker, and ping pong. When writers get together for any length of time at a conference or residency, there is invariably a group that separates itself in order to play one of these things. It's good to have the option of joining them. 

Andy Warhol had a simple method of record keeping: at the end of each month, he tipped the mess of papers covering his desk into a box. That's kind of space-consuming, but time-capsule yourself in a manilla envelope every few months with a stack of emails, invitations, and handwritten drafts. Doesn't need to be precious--just what was on your mind at the time, labeled. As an artist, you'll be so glad to have it later.

Some people surf from crisis to crisis. Up to you, how much you let their crises become your crises. Don't convince yourself someone is passionate, when what they really are is just dramatic. That said: when in doubt, go for the kiss. You're in your 20s, after all. 

Work a little harder to keep your plants alive.

Please keep all the photographs in which you're laughing. ALL of them. No matter how unflattering or out of focus. Countless poised smiles in front of bridges or mountains, though picturesque, don't summon much of a memory. But the photos where you're delighted & in motion & and don't give a damn about the camera? That's the real story. 

Love,
Sandra


July 09, 2014

On Tampa! (& Taming the Essay)


This snapshot is misleading--I never got into the pool while in Tampa. Just felt weird, hopping into the water between a morning workshop and an afternoon craft lecture. Which is a shame, because I packed a pretty awesome blue & white bikini.


On the upside, we did enjoy rich plantains at Columbia, and bought a few cigars in Ybor City, and made our way to the speakeasy off Bayshore Boulevard. My favorite restaurants in the neighborhood of the Sheraton Riverwalk, where the low-res MFA program puts us up, are Spain Restaurant & Toma Bar--which imports its octopus and has $4 sangria and live guitar on Friday evenings--and Bamboozle Cafe, which has a great deal on design-your-own rice-paper garden rolls, with ingredients like five-spice pork & pineapple & jicama. Few from the program venture to these spots, which makes them a welcome getaway. Next time: Taco Bus.

In our workshop we talked about prose poems, erasures, haiku and other syllabic forms from Japanese tradition, and the organization of Milk and Filth. We talked about Denise Levertov's theories concerning line breaks, pairing it with a close look at two Mary Ruefle poems: "Rain Effect" and "Mathew Brady Arranging the Bodies." I attended as many of the readings and craft talks as I could. Since I spend most of my year outside academia, I'm still in the position of learning; it's also interesting to see who connects, and who doesn't. A great writer is not the same as a great lecturer (though in the case of Ben Percy, That Voice is so remarkable that it elevates it all to a different place). I felt like students were particularly invigorated by Carmen Giménez Smith's discussion of investigative poetics, and Leslie Jamison's look at Joan Didion and the juxtaposition of internal and external stories in creative nonfiction. The closing night reading with Rick Moody (shown here, reading a short piece from Demonology before debuting new work) and Susan Minot (who read from Thirty Girls) was thrilling, in part because the work was so strong and in part because of a much-overdue change in venue. We should hold more readings in Sykes Chapel. 

*

Most people come to an MFA program because of a passion for their own creative writing. You have stories to tell. You are not necessarily looking to be a scholar of the works of others. Yet in addition to the annotations in response to assigned readings that are required every term, we ask each student to write a substantial critical essay in their third term. This shouldn't be too big a stretch. The best critical writing showcases creativity of language, and the skills required to conceive and structure a scholarly essay will benefit any writer in his or her own work down the road. 

That said: a 25-page paper is intimidating, especially if you are not coming from another recent degree experience. When you're juggling the needs of an outside career and household, working in 45-minute spurts or 4-hour marathons at 2 in the morning, 25 pages can feel insurmountable. So I've been putting together some notes, just general thoughts on how to make a long critical essay run smoothly. (I almost wrote "come to life," but that's the wrong metaphor--too organic. I'm talking nuts and bolts here.) 



First, a personal note: The most demanding professor I ever had, for a graduate course on forms in poetry, never asked for a paper of more than five pages. But those pages had to be brimming with essential, spot-on analysis tied to close reading. It was terrifying. "Why is this important?" was a recurring test put to every thesis. The introduction couldn't be more than two paragraphs. In comparison, the 55-page paper I wrote as an overzealous undergrad was easy: a clever insight about the "emasculated protagonist," a few sparkling examples, and a bloat of background information and broad assertions. (I also spelled it "Hemmingway" throughout, which my gracious and long-suffering professor marked without rancor.)

I have no doubt that someone who is a talented poet or short story writer can bring all kinds of style and nuance to the page. What I want to push you on is being able to articulate your paper's goals in simple terms. What's the elevator pitch for your reader? A smart, well crafted thesis is key. The better delineated your paper's foundation, the more material it can bear. Readers will enjoy the pleasures of your elegant phrasing, your figurative language--even your humor--only if we're secure in understanding your aims. Never try to hide a paper's confusion under verbiage.

If my suggestions for constructing a critical essay feel formulaic, that's because they are. We tend to offer up examples of critics at the height of their prowess--talking about beloved stories or poems they've read and re-read, making assertions based on years of practice in the field, occasionally meandering into personal recollection. Those models can be inspiring, but also overwhelming. The goal of my notes, in tandem with those available elsewhere, is to keep you grounded while you get started. 




[Note: these are notes toward a proper essay, in progress.]

THESIS

We often talk about the thesis in terms of expressing your main point in 1-2 sentences. But this is a fairly vague definition, and offers little prescriptive advice to those struggling to define their "main point." Often, where we truly begin is with an undifferentiated swirl of literary interests. 


A table that rests on three legs is a steady table. A strong thesis has three elements: the WHO (which author or authors, which books), the WHAT (the craft principles demonstrated by this/these author/s or in this/these book/s), and the WHY (the real world consequence, whether aesthetic or cultural). One way of fine-tuning your thesis is to recognize that two of these three elements should be relatively stipulative--focused elements that you can define in a succinct way. The third should be the expansive element that constitutes the body of your paper's argument. The expansive element can typically teased out into the discussion of three sub-elements or examples.   

Don't expand each of the three main elements of your thesis. You'll deluge readers with information, and the level of literary critique will devolve into summary. Authors can start with approximately the same three elements of interest, but--based on what they choose to expand--end up with very different critical essays. 

A few examples:

If you want to write about William Carlos Williams, and specifically his use of the triadic stanza, describe THREE major ways this stylistic innovation affected his contemporary readers and fellow poets; or, write about three localities of impact across time and place (a specific who and what, an expansive why). Alternately, write about THREE different WCW works that use the triadic stanza at length (an expansive who), but with a somewhat simplified treatment of the overall impact. Or, describe how Paterson is WCW's "breakthrough" work not just in terms of the triadic stanza, but in terms of two other craft techniques as well (an expansive what). 

If you want to write about F. Scott Fitzgerald AND William Faulkner AND Ernest Hemingway, consider writing about how they used the same prose technique, and the common way in which this technique reflected American social instability in their post-WWI era (an expansive who, a specific what and why); or, write about how Fitzgerald's character development in This Side of Paradise reflected three distinct social trends in its characterizations (an expansive why). Or write about William Faulkner's fiction, distilling three distinct craft techniques he uses consistently in his books to evoke racial unrest in the American south (an expansive what). 


Do you see how we're turning the prism here, using one set of interests to generate multiple effects? Your thesis is where you throw open the doors to the light of new ideas. It can and should be a place where you generate excitement about your topic. But the subtle (often missed) balance is that the expansive element is only one part of a thesis; the other two parts should be as specific as spotlights. 

INTRODUCTION

The introduction is where you provide identifications, define necessary terms for your readers, and offer historic or cultural context. The intro is also where first drafts tend to run long--five, even ten pages devoted to what needs to be acommplished in 2-3 pages. Resist cramming everything into the introduction that made you want to write this paper in the first place. Do not announce your intent ("this paper will demonstrate that...."), which is a kind of meta-language is only approriate when wording an abstract for an academic paper, or a patent application. 

BODY ARGUMENT

Given a 25-page assigned length, I'd think in terms of drafting three sections, about 6-7 pages each, each of which comprehensively covers one part of the elaborative element of your thesis. I'm a big fan of using specific quotations from text, with commentary that directs reader attention to thematic elements and/or analyzes how the author is executing his or her craft. Close readings should make up the majority of the text, with periodic summary observations and ties back to the thesis. 

TRANSITIONS

I've seen folks title sections, or offer periodic epigraphs as points of reference; or just insert breaks when the attention shifts, without comment; or some find witty segues, eschewing hard breaks in the text. Usually there's 3-5 sections (plus intro and conclusion, though they should not be labeled as such), which roughly corresponds to the shape of your thesis. But I've seen cases of effective "mini-sections," which offer a paragraph or two of tangential commentary in an otherwise tightly organized paper; these sections can be opportunities for the voice and passions of the author to come through. I'm open to whatever works for you, as long as the reader doesn't feel lost or exhausted. Please pace the reading experience for us. 

CITATIONS

You gotta have them. MLA Citation Style works well and seems efficient; here's a simple guide~  https://www.library.cornell.edu/research/citation/mla

Because your tone is conversational, keep endnotes or footnotes to a minimum. 


CONCLUSION 


Your 25-page paper is a lot like a chicken.

Stay with me here.

You've got a dinner party coming up, and you're all about this chicken. You went to the grocer, got the perfect size. You have a recipe.

But it's not easy, roasting a whole bird. On the morning of the meal, you realize you have to prep. Where's your onions? Where's your rosemary? You reach up under the skin to spice for flavor, creating a tent between skin and flesh. Gross. Feels vaguely disrespectful to the spirit of the fowl. You stuff the cavity with lemons, then groan.

You'd forgotten. First, you gotta discard the innards which--while crucial to the chicken's original function--are not relevant to this meal. You pull everything out, reach up inside, find the gizzards. You stuff it again. 

Do you know how to truss this thing? You tie several bows, hoping for the best. 

The oven seems unable to hold its temperature. Maybe you should have baked lamp chops, but it's too late to change the menu now. You're committed.

In the meanwhile, this chicken is not the only thing going on. Potatoes are boiling over on the stove, waiting to be mashed (annotations!); asparagus is charring in the grill pan (workshop drafts!). Periodically you have to pause, pull the chicken out to survey its progress, and baste the damn thing with its own juices. You accidentally burn your wrist on the lip of the oven. You need three hands, and you only have two. 

Right around the hour mark, it might be hard to remember you even like chicken. 

Sitting at the table are your dinner guests, waiting. One might favor dark meat. One might crave nothing but the white meat. Another might judge the whole bird by the crackle of its skin. These readers (er, guests) are a picky and by no means uniform lot. 

OK, OK. The chicken is going to be good. Trust me. You wouldn't be worrying about it so much if you weren't a cook in the making.

And the guests, well, you are not in charge of their taste preferences.

Here is what you are in charge of: giving the chicken enough cooking time. As you carve, consider take care with the portions. You want to fill everyone's belly, and yet you always want to leave the promise that there's just a bit more meat on the bones, waiting. Enough for tomorrow's sandwiches. Enough for next week's soup stock. 

I've always disliked chicken Milanese, in which the breasts are prepared paillard style, pounded flat and quickly sauteed. Sure, it's tender enough, easy to cut, because you've beaten the beast-iness right out of it. But the illusion of breadth on the plate quickly resolves to a lingering hunger; when you're done, there's no reserve. No tender hiding beneath the bone.

When someone takes a topic that would make for a decent 15-page paper and stretches it to fill 25 pages, you're serving your readers a paillard. And we can tell, because your conclusion will be a tasteless scrap. There's an art to presenting 30 pages' worth of ideas in a 25-page paper--a much finer, more impressive art than presenting 35 pages of information in, say, exactly 35 pages of paper.

A great conclusion whets the appetite. The reader notes his or her satisfaction, but is aware of something more. A concluding gesture could come in the form of noting a congruence between a literary work and the author's biographical life that, while it is not appropriate to presume a connection as a supporting proof, provides a pleasing echo in the reader's understanding of the two. Or perhaps, given the accomplishments of your thesis, there is now an important question that needs to be asked for a future paper. Or the conclusion could bridge between a book or author's past impact to the present day, with a suggestion of future ramifications. 

Whatever it is, leave us wanting more. And be sure to wash all your cutting boards thoroughly when you're done. 

*

Tampa clicked this time. Maybe it was having my new husband (!) for company; maybe the schedule was a tad less grueling; maybe it was finally understanding how to get my copies made ahead of class; maybe it's the indulgence of having only four students, and all of them poets. Whatever it is, I'm truly excited for the term ahead.