Updated…
Jeffrey’s poem can be found here and my fellow Steel Toe Books author Martha Silano has a poem up on Verse Daily here.
Thanks to all for your kind words and wishes on the Verse Daily thing. Especially Paul for sending me a heads-up e-mail about it. And Kelli who posted the announcement on the Wompo list. I think Jeffery Bahr may be up tomorrow!
I promised quotes from the Tony Hoagland reading and Q&A session from the SAL series, which made me label him as a New Sincerist. I didn’t take quite as many notes as I’d hoped, so I apologize for the brevity.
My favorite quote of the evening:
“If you’re not using your imagination, someone else will.”
Tony is an interesting writer in the discursive/narrative vein, somewhat like a meaner spirited Billy Collins. I generally like some of his work (especially his critique of consumer culture in poems like “America”) but some poems I’m not sure exactly how to take – especially his poems about race and women. He seems like he wears a veneer of irony over his admissions of racism and – if not misogyny, at least a deep fear of women. It seems like honesty wanting to be admired for honesty’s sake. With humor. Sometimes unhumorous attempts at humor. What do you all think?
Anyway, here is the quote, which won’t be surprising for those of you who read his essay in Poetry about his discomfort with the unpopularity of narrative in the current poetry culture:
“There’s a strong experimental impulse right now in the poetry world, in which the conversation of aesthetics has eclipsed all other interesting conversations. And the conversation has become very insular, sincerity and direct statement are seen as misguided, naive.”
He also described himself as halfway in between Sharon Olds and Frank O’Hara – between the confessional and the sociological.
So, old New Sincerist? Or just a practitioner of the old sincerity? Or is he sincere at all? I admit to questioning the sincerity of his impulse towards sincerity when I read his work…
I’m going to see one of my female poetry heroes, Mary Ruefle, read on Monday, so I’ll post notes on that as well.

Thanks Verse Daily! The poem today is “Femme Fatale” from the journal The Eleventh Muse. Stay tuned to this week’s Verse Daily episodes to see if Jeffery’s poem is from the same journal – I think it may be…
I dragged myself to the Tony Hoagland reading last night and he made some comments that make me want to write an entry called “Tony Hoagland: New Sincerist?”
Back to your regularly scheduled programming…

Note: Bloggers taking over Verse Daily –
Wasn’t just a week ago Paul Guest and Matthew Thorburn were rockin’ out on Verse Daily? Well, I just got the Verse Daily newsletter, and apparently, this week, Jeffery Bahr and I are going to be making appearances. I don’t know which poems yet…stay tuned…
So, it’s a little early for my birthday (April 30th) but a nice birthday present nonetheless – thanks Verse Daily! Cake for everyone!

Speaking of taking over, props to Peter P. for being singled out on “American Life in Poetry”

PS – For those of you who have been in contact with me lately, sorry I’ve been a little stressed out/grumpy. My advice is not to start volunteering at a new university-based literary magazine during your essay semester at school while you’re also trying to write six reviews by May and do enough freelance work to support your expensive poetry habit. Anyway, I’ve been a little overwhelmed but promise to be back to my nice, normal self. Soon.

Up to my ears in theoretical essays while working on my MFA-required ever-growing essay on persona poetry in Gluck, Atwood, and Lucille Clifton, along with other more sundry assignments, but wanted to quickly echo Jordan and say how much I enjoyed The Eleventh Muse. This is no keeping-up-the-status-quo, quiet, epiphany-having-nature-walk poetry journal – idiosyncratic, sharp, edgy, weird – I liked almost every poem I’ve read so far in it. One copy is not enough! Seriously, this magazine is in my new top ten lit mag lists. Check it out.
Shoveling through submissions for Silk Road, trying to keep my head above water. Not enough time in the day!
Note: For an interesting take on Louise Gluck, look up Elizabeth Dodd’s essays on her work. The whole “personal classicim” – ie writing autobiography in persona poems while embedding it within larger archetypal/mythological narratives – description is worth the price of admission. I wish I’d had that phrase in my vocabulary earlier in my life. Plus, raise your hand if you agree that Gluck totally cops HD’s stylings and her work with mythic personas and floral personas? I said that fifteen years ago, and I still think it’s true, even if Gluck disavowed, to my face, when she visited our classroom, any knowledge of HD. Did she dissemble?

Saw Adrienne Rich read last night with Seattle Arts and Lectures. I had seen her really burn it up two years ago at the ASU Writers Conference, so I was surprised to see her so frail at this reading, a little more subdued. I heard she’s sick. But I still hope to have such a kickass reading voice when I am her age. The work she read was less political than usual too, more subtle and poetic, although she had a great line in one poem echoing the “You Go to War with the Army You Have Line,” describing patients at a war amputee hospital, “You come back from war/ with the body you have.” A lot of people said after the reading that they liked it a lot more than they expected.
I’ve been a literal nervous wreck over the book, not sleeping well at night, shoulders in crunchy knots, worrying. I am excited about the book, but the process is more stressful than I foresaw when I was dreaming about it last year. I think I will feel better when the printed books are on my doorstep. Hopefully 🙂
I still have a bunch of work piled up on my desk I haven’t gotten too yet, but here’s what I’m wondering – everyone else (okay, at least Mary and Jeff) has gotten their contributor’s copy of Eleventh Muse, where’s mine? I hope it’s in the mail today, I could use the pick me up – two weeks and the only poetry mail has been a lone rejection from Poetry Northwest. I did get a small check from my contribution to this month’s “Favorites” March/April issue of Northwest Palate (it has my pictures of Skagit Valley’s tulip festival and Bainbridge Island’s boat dock, as well as little descriptions of both locales.)
Have been struggling with two versions of a poem – one is free verse, the other is semi-rhyme-y. I’m going to post them so vote on which one you like better. Then I’ll take them down because I don’t like poems hanging out on the blog – vote now, just like American Idol, and you can make one of them disappear!

(Poems deleted…)

Happy Shamrock Day! Took me a few days to recover from AWP (especially the un-fun 16 hour-trip home, remind me never to go to Texas or anywhere else that doesn’t have direct flights from Seattle.) My proof book copy was here the day after I got back, and it has some minor issues, which I’ve been stressing about, but I’m happy the book is on its way to being “real.” So much work to catch up on it’s not funny, the literary magazine (argh – the process is soo inefficient it makes me want to snap pencils,) my freelance work, and now homework and book reviews are starting to stack up too. And getting my list o’ reviewers together, mailing lists of bookstores and such, still on my list of things to do.
I finally got an e-mail today confirming that the NEA had received my application, which I sent in January. So that’s at least a relief. And I found out I’ll be in the print version of Wicked Alice, a journal I hold in high esteem.
I was thinking about all the applying for grants, and contests, and sending to lit journals – it’s like every time you do it, you are asking the universe, “Am I a writer?” and every act of sending out is a reaffirmation to yourself, “I believe I am a writer.” And a lot of times the world responds by punching you in the gut and stepping on your foot, but you have to elbow your way out again and again. Okay, this is too cliche for words, so I’m going to shut the hell up. Anytime you start to sound like Paul Simon lyrics you have to stop blogging. Obviously I have still not yet had a full night’s sleep since I’ve been back.
Interesting article in Slate on the Virginia Quarterly Review getting some love from the National Magazine Awards, which I think gives smaller lit mags hope for the future.
If I can keep my head above water here in the next few weeks, I’ve been writing a bunch of poems, a series of them, so I might actually be able to work on putting together a coherent second book manuscript. Not like I have publishers knocking on my door or anything, but it gives me a creative project to focus on, which makes me happy…
Cracked open Gluck’s Averno last night, and found a different, choppier, dare-I-say-more-experimental voice in it than I expected. Some parts are so sharp they cut you like a knife.

Well, today have to check out, drive to Houston, and board the late flight back to Seattle…really exhausted…yesterday spent time in the bookfair and got to see Charles read, got a review copy of a book from a reader Amber Flora who was great, met Deb Ager and little Olive (so cute!), saw Eduardo and Mary again and Victoria Chang, chatted with the Beloit Poetry Journal folks and the Poetry Flash people (who do the hard work of keeping up poetry calendars in the West coast,) and finally! got to walk up and down all the aisles, which is surprisingly daunting. I gave props to Steven Shroeder and Ivy Alvarez at their respective publishers (Bat City Review for Steve, Red Morning Press for Ivy)…took Glenn (as promised) to the Iron Works barbeque joint, which was very tasty, then took a side trip to the Wildflower Preserve, which was pretty barren, I was told, due to a year-long drought, but we still saw flowers and birds (mockingbirds, a strange no-crested cardinal, warblers and nuthatches as well as the expected grackles) and saw the meadow and native trees and cacti. We stopped on the way back at a local ice cream place, Amy’s and had grapefruit ice (because it was ninety outside and hiking about in that is also daunting) and an art gallery next door had a band and free drinks so we checked out some really amazing glass art (much more affordable than equivalent art in Seattle – I was totally wanting a stained-glass and steel butterfly sculpture.) After showering (again – did I mention Texas was hot? and not so much a dry heat) we tried to get dinner but every single restaurant was completely booked, out of everything (because of the several conventions in town) so after waiting a while we took off to go to the 8:30-10 Academy of American poets reading which had Marie Howe and Marilyn Nelson who were terrific, then dashed to get quick Mexican at a place called guero’s and then ready for Reb Livingston’s party (which we were by no means on time to, sorry!) We ran up to Denise Duhamel and Nick Carbo to tell them how great they were, stuffed pajamas in a bag to change into, and were on our way…Reb’s friends who were very gracious had a lovely house and there was even a “make out” room set up for the party complete with disco ball which totally took me back to my older brothers’ parties in the seventies. We were like two and a half hours late so the party was winding down but it was really cool to talk to everyone…you can tell my brain has turned to mush, can’t you, because nothing in this entry is remotely eloquent.. One thing we talked about at the party was how at this AWP there were policemen checking badges at the bookfair and readings, which sucked for Glenn, who didn’t have a badge, and also for people selling at the bookfair, since they got less traffic because of it…at both Chicago and Vancouver everyone could waltz right in. It seemed also perhaps the local restaurants and hotels weren’t quite up to the tasks at hand…I’m still glad I made the trip (with the help of a travel grant, thanks Washington State!) Ready to be home now…

Second report from Austin – Woke up late this morning so I’ll have to make this short – yesterday, went first thing to a reading by Alice James Books. I was hoping to say hi to Brian Turner, but he was sick and couldn’t be there, but I did get to see Anne Marie Macari (though I didn’t get to say hi! sorry Lana!) and this really amazing poet I had never heard of named Lesle Lewis who read from a book of prose poems – it had kind of a Brigit Pegeen Kelly feel, but not as dark, a nice blend of narrative and lyric, so I went up and bought her book (even though I told myself no books – I have so many in my stacks at home! and I have to fly with this stuff…argh! no self control.) I ran into my old professor Don Bogen at the reading and took him out to lunch with Glenn at a little Cajun place – it was really fun to catch up with him. We discussed how weird it was that when I went to U of Cinci for my Master’s program it was an all-white-male poetry faculty and the program had sort of a formalist bent – now they’ve hired a young woman professor who is an experimental type and she has really brought a lot of energy to the program – and they have an active literary mag for the students to work with too, the Cincinnati Review. So the program has been “hipped up” (hmm, is that a real word?) since I was there. And we talked about his publisher, Wesleyan, and his experiences with them, and what to expect from publishing a book in general, etc.
Then went to the early afternoon reading by Runes (a bunch of great readers including Ilya again and Kim Addonizio) and took a break until running to the Tupelo party where I ran into Aimee Nez and her charming husband which was great fun (and they had great food – too bad I had settled for room service beforehand) and then ran back for the AWP reading – a weird pairing of Naomi Shihab Nye and Tony Hoagland – I loved seeing Tony read, who was exactly as I had pictured him, then afterwards went to a bar with fiddling poets – including Molly Tenenbaum and KenWaldman. Today I’m going to try to catch Charles Jensen’s reading with Bloom and spend more time at the book fair and make the 8:30 PM reading – Marie Howe is one of the readers, and I love her book “What the Living Do.” Then, if I’m still alive after that, Reb Livingston’s party…so…tired…One funny thing is how many people have come up and said “Oh, I remember such-and-such from your blog…” I know I’ve said it to people here too, it’s just funny (and disconcerting) to have such a community built on the web rather than in person. All the bloggers I’ve met have been wonderful folks, even nicer than you would guess from their online journals. Will try to give a report on today’s stuff before I leave for home tomorrow…

This post is from Austin – so it’ll be fragmented – it’s hot here, in the eighties, compared to the in-the-forties temperatures we would be experiencing in Seattle right now – there were thunderstorms last night, but no drizzle or anything during the day – a welcome change. The air is filled with the weird crackling sounds of grackles, birds that look like blackbirds with long tail feathers, and the landscape is filled with scrubby, leafless trees. Yesterday Glenn and I sneaked off for a visit to the botanical garden full of blooming laurel bushes that smelled like grape soda and must have seen a hundred butterflies. I already have blisters from walking around in sandals so much. Got to meet some bloggers yesterday, and hopefully more today – the charming and very gracious Eduardo, Tony Robinson, Rebecca Livingston ( all these young men kept coming up to her and saying “I read your blog!” – what a pickup line!) the lovely and fun-to-chat-with Mary Biddinger and her husband – and got to chat with Peter Pereira (although I missed his reading – argh!) and had lunch with Tom Hunley, the Steel Toe Books publisher, and at night I went to that crazy anthology that’s causing so much consternation, Legitimate Dangers, reading at this tiny bar downtown, it was so crowded I couldn’t even move and after an hour and a half, even though I enjoyed most of the readers, I had to get out into the fresh air and go home. As at most poetry readings, not every reader was great and the reading was somewhat disorganized – I did get to meet Nick Flynn, who is as cute as his author photo and a great reader, which was fun – and see Rachel Zucker, who I am a big fan of, read – she looks about fifteen in person – and big, friendly Joshua Beckman and saw Ilya Kaminsky read, always a pleasure, but missed one of my favorite poets on the list, Dana Levin. It was so crowded I don’t even know if she was there. Tonight I have to make the agonizing choice of listening to Tony Hoagland, whom I’ve never seen read, or going to a little bar reading and social by Tupelo Books…decisions, decisions. As you can probably tell, I’m having fun this year, less stressed by stuff (politics, anxiety, etc) than the other years I’ve been, and feeling kind of carefree. The architecture in the city is beautiful – even the parking garages have frosted glass curving lines and decorative neon, and the skyscrapers form little sculptures at the top – and the Texans are very friendly. It’s very flat so you can can walk everywhere. Okay, back to real life, I have to go get ready for the Alice James reading at 11 with Brian Turner and Anne Marie Macari who I really want to see, so I have to grab some coffee and get going. I’ll try to post something more coherent later.

Yesterday, after several tedious hours at the UW doctor’s office (this time an asthma/immunology guy, who, after several hours of interviews and studying my charts, decided all my medications were appropriate and that I was doing everything right as far as diet, avoiding the sun and known allergens, etc. Peachy!) we decided to take advantage of our location and visit the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, which was exhibiting several room sof prints and pieces of Roy Lichtenstein. I was just engrossed in the beauty and texture of his pieces, some of which were created as late as 1996 – and he died in 1997. One was painted on stainless steel with enamel – another was a metal cutout of a blonde woman’s profile, one side, representing sunlight, with his typical comic-book-skinned, red dotted-appearance, the other side, representing moonlight, was blue-dotted. They also had a piece called “Reflections on Minerva” that was a blown-up scene of Wonder Woman from fifties comics saying her catch-phrase, “Merciful Minerva!” interrupted by what appeared to be slashes of reflective light or mirror. Someone should buy that piece and give it to me right now. Coveting coveting coveting. Several large scenes of blonde women – their hair severed by the frame, their eyes watering – confronted me in one room. I wrote a poem a few years ago about his work called “In the Faces of Lichtenstein’s Women” after viewing just a few pieces in his iconic style. I was enamored even then. The museum mentioned that Life magazine wrote a piece on him in the sixties, titled something like “Is he the worst artist in the world?” Like my admiration of Jeffrey Koons, my love for Lichtenstein probably has to do with the elevation of, and making-of-art-from- the combination of anxiety and kitsch.

In the Faces of Lichtenstein’s Women

We see our own faces, drawn near,
smiling tightly.

We do not quite mouth
the black letters hanging in balloons.

Our eyes water
with the brightness of your gaze.

Crayon-yellow hair with the curves of a fifties ‘Vette
severed by the edge of the frame.

(This is a real scene.)
Towers rise sharp like Superman’s Metropolis;

a moon hangs like a yellow eye,
malevolent and certain of its permanence.

In this world,
the noise from a gun floats forever.

In book news, because the proofs of Becoming the Villainess had some problems, and I wanted to proof the printed copy of the book myself, the real copies of the book will now probably not be ready/available til April. Although Tom, the publisher, may be displaying the one proof copy of the book at AWP…But hopefully those copies in April will have be problem-free – better right than fast, I guess…Remember to sign up for book announcements to be the first to know when the book of out, though I suppose it’ll show up on my blog, as well 🙂 Damn self-promotion.
And PS, thanks for the continued sympathy, everyone. Glenn and I are slowly recovering from the loss of our little prehistorically-fanged black cat. The other cat, often called Bastett, because of her resemblance to Egyptian statues of that name, has been soaking up our extra attention and affection like a cat-sponge. Also, I have finally dragged myself back to work and turned my attention on the upcoming AWP conference. I don’t really have anything to stress out about at this conference – no job interviews or anything like that to worry about – so I’m just going to enjoy myself at the readings and the bookfair, and maybe take Glenn out for some authentic Texas barbeque somewhere – Seattle is sadly lacking in Barbeque of any kind. And of course, attend some parties – last year I was so wiped out from my February surgery I barely did anything after 8 PM – so I’m also looking forward to that.