This weekend was the Redmond Poets in the Park Poetry festival, which is still a fairly small, low-key event. I got to hang with some poet friends, workshop with Wanda Coleman, who is a very interesting personality, and get formal poetry tips from ex-nun poet Madeleine de Frees. Sold some chapbooks and got to reconnect with some folks I hadn’t seen in a while. This was my first big social event since the surgery, and kind of a warm-up for AWP. I was in some pain this weekend so hopefully over the next 8 days I will get all better. I’m taking my vitamins!
The funny thing about these events is that they almost always generate poems, and here’s why: when I zone out during the less, um, arresting poetry readings, I usually get hit with poems of my own. I wrote four this weekend, one of which I really like. So, yay for less than riveting readings.
The two foci (plural of focus?) of the weekend seemed to be formal poetry and performance poetry. Since what I write could not be characterized into either of those categories, (besides the odd syllabic) I felt a little out of the loop. It’s a problem, isn’t it, not fitting into any “school.” I’m not post-avant, I’m not new formal, I don’t slam…Perhaps this is why I’m having trouble getting my manuscript published. It’s just plain old fashioned regular lyric-narrative, persona-monologuing, mostly free-versey, pop-culture-and-mythic-archetype-referencing poetry. Anyone know a good outlet for that? 🙂 A friend at the conference recommended sending to U of Pittsburgh Press and Four Way Books. I’m open to any and all suggestions. PS Should I start my own school? PSS Even though I know AWP is coming up and I should be getting a jump-start on homework, I’m totally not. I’m just not feeling the essay feeling. Maybe I should eat some cheetos – junk food always helps. PPSS – My fans seem to be older men and lesbians, plus the odd goth girl and school teacher. Nothing against these groups, but I’m curious about why this is. Do you notice your fan base includes certain demographics? Do you think it’s something I’m wearing? Maybe I should ditch the bustiers and miniskirts. Just kidding, I don’t really wear those. Together, anyway.

Well, the latest blog chain thing is called the “The Stick” and supervillainess/new mother Reb L. has sent it to me.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood (because one good futuristic dystopia deserves another)
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Does Darth Vader count? At 6, that was my first crush.
The last book you bought is: Carol Ann Duffy The World’s Wife
The last book you read: The Poet’s Companion by Dorianne Laux and Kim Addonizio
What are you currently reading? Tony Hoagland, What Narcissism Means to Me
Five books you would take to a deserted island:
The Bible, King James Version
Medical Botany, Walter Lewis and Memory Elvin-Lewis
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Julius Ceasar by Shakespeare
Possession, A.S. Byatt

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why? Because these three fabulous poets have yet to be whacked with “the stick.”
Kelli Agodon
Deborah Ager
Peter Pereira

My Life as a Pincushion – both literally and metaphorically.
I just got back from the big-city blood lab, (the only one in the state that does the tests I needed) where I was led to the hemophilia lab (!!) and then had a series of tests, including a blood draw with the biggest syringe I have ever seen (about the size of one of those orange juice glasses, maybe bigger) and some razor-blade cut tests that will scar up to look exactly like I’m some kind of blade-toting self-mutilation person. I should have at least asked to have them done in some kind of meaningful formation, like a star or my initials. I have been getting blood tests at the rate of once or twice a week since early January. I don’t even wince at the big needles now.
At the same time as my adventure through the series of doctor appointments over the last few weeks, I have been growing increasingly discouraged with the process of sending out manuscripts and receiving no news/no good news back. My mailbox has been distressingly empty of any kind of poetry news and I just don’t have the energy to send out my ms these days. I like the book and I think it deserves to be published (no arrogance there. Well, I blame my low platelet count for any ravings) but I just don’t feel like dealing with any more rejection. Besides the results of book contests, I am also waiting to hear on about 84 individual poems at this time.
Anyway, I know all writers go through times of discouragement and that health-wise I haven’t been on a joyride since the surgery and that probably adds to any regular garden-variety writerly depression. It’s easy for me to make money writing – I have more freelance work than I can handle so maybe I should stay away from poetry for a while, do the easy stuff, then get back to it when I am not seeing the world “through a glass darkly” as they say. Sorry to write such a downer post. I promise to be more upbeat next time. I guess I’m in more of a supervillain phase than a superhero phase (see post below re: supervillains.)

Top Ten Poems Today

(Though these may implicate me as a big squishy Romantic with a capital R. I really am very edgy and um, urban, and post-post-modern.)
In no particular order:
“She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep” – Robert Graves
“My Father in the Night Commanding No” – Louis Simpson
“Somewhere I have never travelled” – e.e. cummings
“I could not live with you” – Emily Dickinson
“The Wasteland” (Yes, that’s right. I enjoyed it. Okay, really only the first half.) – T.S. Eliot
“Parsley” – Rita Dove
“Not the Moon” – Margaret Atwood
“Midnight” – Louise Gluck
“Life, Friends, is Boring” – Dream Song 14 – John Berryman
“I knew a Woman” – Theodore Roethke/”Why I am Not a Painter” Frank O’Hara

Carol Ann Duffy and pop-culture post-feminism – can you tell that I’ve been steeped in homework the past two days? With all this enforced bed rest at least I’m getting my reading done. Today and yesterday I’ve been studying Brit poet Carol Ann Duffy, who frightened me because of her scarily similar tactics in poetry to my own – do you ever have that experience, where you think you’re doing something really different, then you read someone else who is doing it already, maybe (probably) even better than you? She writes these direct dramatic monologues in the voices of women from fairy tales and mythology in the book “The World’s Wife.” Her poems remind me a little of Plath with their sing-songy rhymes coupled with feminist persepctive, but more contemporary – a lot of slang and pop culture references. Anyway, I like her, but am afraid of reading any more of her.
Then I read two books that examine the place of the pop culture post-feminsist heroine (aka Wonder Woman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sydney Bristow et al, Witchblade et al.) Some really interesting arguments in a book that is a collection of essays called “Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture.” These essays use a variety of academic theories to talk about the stuff that I’m pretty much obsessed with, like – is it empowering to watch powerful, sexy women do violence, or destructive? What’s the downside of Lara Croft? Are these women really doing anything that different from heroines of the past? Do these women trangress cultural norms or reinforce stereotypes? I think I’ve come down on the side of yes – these characters do have a positive impact. But, then what would you expect from me? It’s also intesting how little pop culture has permeated the seemingly outdated content membrane of “literary” poetry (aka Paris Review, Poetry, most books by big poetry publishers – especially weird when you think that, for my generation, anyway (X-er and proud of it) pop culture may be the only common cultural experience? I mean, how many poems about gardening can you read before you’re like, yeah, now how about some poetry about something relevant? Not that poems about gardening are neccessarily bad, but I mean, there are movies and music and the internet and science fiction and video games and you may hate the television and the Xbox but they are currently the dominant icons of today’s kids, who are tomorrow’s poetry readers, right? I was reading on someone’s blog – Jim Behrle’s maybe – that “Grand Theft Auto is tomorrow’s Proust.” Which I thought was fairly apt.
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m evil? Leave a comment – I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this.