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.

After an outpouring of kindness to me during the last few days, I am grateful for so many thoughtful and encouraging friends and acquaintances and yesterday I got even notes in the mail and a kitty-grieving care package containing chocolates and kitty socks and a very touching pencil portrait of my cat by my friend’s daughter. Thanks everyone, your well-wishes have really helped.
It also helped to be really busy this weekend with poetry-related and non-poetry related stuff – In Posse Review – who recently published an issue with some great Seattle poets – including friends like Peter Pereira 😉 – had a party at this cool coffee-and-wine bar place – I didn’t have any poetry in there but I showed up because I interviewed poet Brian Turner (of Here, Bullet) for the issue. It was nice to chat with a bunch of local poets and hang out and socialize – nothing like a party to take your mind off what’s bothering you – and afterwards, we visited the nearby Scarecrow Video – a place famous for its huge selection of movies of all kinds – and found not only rare Miyazaki videos and DVDs but a whole wall labeled POETRY – with video tapes and DVDs of things like readings and interviews by Merwin and Gluck and Jorie Graham and videos about poetry, slam poetry readings, who knew these things existed? I checked out the Gluck and Lucille Clifton videos and also Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service, which was definitely more child-oriented even than Spirited Away. Then today I met with a few other poet friends for enjoyable poetry chat and then visited the Animé Store in Bellevue, where I bought nothing but admired the idea of a store devoted to anime – it even has themed snacks, which I was too chicken to try. Yesterday I got word of the first proof copy of my book – which had some things wrong on the cover – so I also had that to stress about, a good distraction from dead-cat thoughts.

Thanks everyone for your well-wishes. We did end up having another vet do a cat-autopsy, and found that my kitty had a genetic progressive heart condition called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy that caused her heart walls to thicken over time, so that a seemingly healthy cat can just drop dead at any time, and the only way to diagnose it is with a doppler EKG. Although the pain meds may have been too much for her and slowed her already-overworked heart to the breaking point. I keep thinking, if only…A lot of purebred cats have this condition, apparently, though our little mutt kitty was not purebred. She sure was cute and sweet though. I just wish I had been able to say goodbye. Bye little black kitty, who was nicknamed “Gamorg” after the wolf-amimate-creature in the Neverending Story because of her long, long fangs. I was thinking it was about this time last year that I almost died during surgery because of an undiagnosed (and, also, rare) bleeding disorder. I was so mad at my surgeon/doctor then, but now I have forgiven her. Everyone makes mistakes, and doctors can’t assume everyone they work on is going to be the exception. Maybe over time I will get over my anger at the vet…Sorry to fill the blog with cat pictures. Soon, I’m sure, I’ll be back to talking poetry…