I’m at a loss

 

My Graduating Thesis Reading

 

Connections and Stuff

 

One of the last classes I attended in grad school last week had a lot to do with “internet presence.” The instructor mentioned how important it is to connect with others you admire and respect. I appreciate those who read and comment on my blog. Therefore, I will send some literary “internet presents” to the first person to comment on this post. If no one comments, I may be a bit sad. But I’ll get over it.

Since my last post…

 

I graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing. A bit sad to leave the program, but it was time. I’ve received all I wanted from the program… and more. A lot of alumni come back for the weekend; some even fly in. A testament to the community of the program. Peace out, Queens.

I’m pretty sure I killed it at my thesis reading. Several students, faculty, and family of graduates came up to me in the days after to tell me how much they enjoyed it. I tried to upload it here and on Facebook, but it didn’t work. I’ll find a way. Not to brag, but I think I killed it.

I had planned on staying with a friend for a few days after graduation in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s an artsy, bohemian town located in the mountains. A couple days before I was to arrive, he informed me something came up and he wouldn’t be able to be home. I decided to come anyway. I chose to stay at the cheapest place I could find. $126 for three nights at The Mountaineer Inn. You do get what you pay for. I figured I would be in town most days anyhow. Still, there’s something to be said for not feeling as if the bedding houses tiny bugs that crawl on your skin when you’re sleeping. But I enjoyed Asheville. Here are two pictures of my eventful week. I wanted to post more, but WordPress hates me lately.

Tomorrow I graduate with an MFA

 

Last night was my thesis reading. I think it was well-received. I tried to upload it here, but WordPress hates me. Facebook seems to like me, so I’ll try there. Tomorrow I graduate with an MFA. It’s been an emotional week. Bittersweet. Bittersweet.

My Craft Seminar

Prosepoempalooza: A Celebration of Diversity located Within the Prose Poem is the title of my graduating craft seminar I taught yesterday. I’ve been studying the prose poem for about a year-and-a-half. I am far from an expert.  I don’t even know there is such a thing. But I felt comfortable teaching the class. I was a bit nervous at first, but I’ve been teaching for a while, so that subsided once I started teaching. Claudia Rankine sat in on my class. She was my first mentor art Queens, so I wanted to do an extra-good job. I think I accomplished that. The subtitle of my seminar was, “How do you know when you’re writing a prose poem.” I focused on three elements (of several) that prose poems possess: the surreal, deadpan tone, and circular narrative. I started the class by asking the students to write down their definitions of a prose poem. Then I had them share their responses with the person next to them, and then volunteers shared with the class. After each student read their definitions, I read them a “safe” definition followed by two that’s “was’sup” definitions. I went on to say I prefer the second definitions because through their metaphorical speaketh, they provide the essence of what a prose poem actually is. I mentioned how the prose poem is often confused with flash-fiction and poetic prose. I also mentioned how the prose poem is getting a bad rap these days because writing that is difficult to classify is often incorrectly labeled prose poetry. I told the class I don’t like to categorize my writing. I simply try to write the strongest piece possible. After each element I asked guiding questions, so the seminar wasn’t merely a lecture. I wanted to get as many people involved as possible. I think I succeeded. The room was, literally, full; 30 people showed up. Yes, I counted. Many of them are friends, but it was nice to see people I didn’t know show up. It was actually fun, but I’m glad it’s over. My thesis reading is Thursday night. I’ll be reading from my prose poem manuscript, When Kerosene’s Involved, forthcoming this year from Black Coffee Press (plug plug).  I’m looking forward to it, the reading and the publication of my manuscript, When Kerosene’s Involved, forthcoming from Black Coffee Press (plug plug).

Here are the poems I used in my seminar:

Surreal

From The World Doesn’t End
Charles Simic

Ghost stories written as algebraic equations.
Little Emily at the blackboard is very frightened.
The X’s look like a graveyard at night. The teacher
wants her to poke among them with a piece of
chalk. All the children hold their breath. The white
chalk squeaks once among the plus and minus
signs, and then it’s quiet again.

Accidents
Russell Edson

The barber has accidentally taken off an ear. It lies like
something newborn on the floor in a nest of hair.
Oops, says the barber, but it musn’t’ve been a very good
ear, it came off with very little complaint.
It wasn’t, says the customer, it was always overly waxed.
I tried putting a wick in it to burn out the wax, thus to find my
way to music. But lighting it I put my whole head on fire. It
even spread to my groin and underarms and to a nearby
forest. I felt like a saint. Someone thought I was a genius.
That’s comforting, say the barber, still, I can’t send you
home with only one ear. I’ll have to remove the other one. But
don’t worry, it’ll be an accident.
Symmetry demands it. But make sure it’s an accident, I
don’t want you cutting me up on purpose.
Maybe I’ll just slit your throat.
But it has to be an accident . . .

Deadpan

From Angle of Yaw
Ben Lerner

The predictability of these rooms is, in a word, exquisite. These rooms
in a word. The moon is predictably exquisite, as is the view of the moon
through the word. Nevertheless, we were hoping for less. Less space,
less light. We were hoping to pay more, to be made to pay in public.
We desire a flat, affected tone. A beware of dog on keep off grass.
The glass ceiling is exquisite. Is it made of glass? No, glass.

La Feria
Naomi Shihab Nye

Here comes the woman who never looks up with the one little girl
riding her hip in a shawl and one slinking alongside. The man
who fathered these babies is hard to find. He is usually sleeping
with the woman he loved before this one who doesn’t feel bad
about it because she had him first. He is ugly but creative. He
has designed buildings in town no one wants to enter because
they feel heavy. The first woman says he will marry the second
one sooner or later and that will be fine with her. If he says it is
time. When the little girls ride a carnival car at La Feria they
grip the steering wheel tightly and don’t wave. All the other
children circle round and round, smiling as the tiny breeze
ruffles their hair. They are going on long trips, they say. But
these two look grim as if they are staying in one place.

Circular Narrative

Honey
James Wright

My father died at the age of eighty. One of the last things he did in his life was to call his fifty-eight-year-old son-in-law “honey”. One afternoon in the early 1930’s, when I bloodied my head by pitching over a wall at the bottom of a hill and believed that the mere sight of my own blood was the tragic meaning of life, I heard my father offer to murder his future son-in-law. His son-in-law is my brother-in-law, whose name is Paul. These two grown men rose above me and knew that a human life is murder. They weren’t fighting about Paul’s love for my sister. They were fighting each other because one strong man, a factory worker, was laid off from his work, and the other strong men, the driver of a coal truck, was laid off from his work. They were both determined to live their lives, and so they glared at each other and said they were going to live, come hell or high water. High water is not trite in southern Ohio. Nothing is trite along a river. My father died a good death. To die a good death means to live one’s life. I don’t say a good life.
I say a life.

 

Football
Louis Jenkins

I take the snap from center, fake to the right, fade back … I’ve got protection. I’ve got a receiver open downfield… What the hell is this? This isn’t football, it’s a shoe, a man’s brown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the same skin, but not the same, a thing made for the earth, not the air. I realize that this is a world where anything is possible and I understand, also, that one often has to make do with what one has. I have eaten pancakes, for instance, with that clear corn syrup on them because there was no maple syrup and they weren’t very good. Well, anyway, this is different. (My man downfield is waving his arms.) One has certain responsibilities, one has to make choices. This isn’t right and I’m not going to throw it.

…

 

I had planned on writing about my craft seminar. It went well. It went better than well. But things change. I met “Rick” last year last year at this time. He was the manager of the hotel where I stayed at for my first Queens residency. There were three hotels we could choose from, but I chose to stay at Rick’s hotel because it was the cheapest. It was not a very big place, and every day Rick and I engaged in small-talk as I hung out in the lobby or just got back from my day at Queens. One day he told me he wrote a little. He was a bit shy in his admission. Maybe because we were MFA students invading his hotel and he felt a little insecure. In any event, I told him I thought it was great that he wrote and to keep at it. I wanted to thank Rick in person on the day I left. I wanted to thank him for his hospitality and to encourage him to keep writing. But he didn’t come in until later in the day, so I left my sentiments in a note along with my phone number. A few months later, Rick texted me that he kept my note on his refrigerator. I texted him back letting him know it did my heart good to hear that. He responded saying, “Does my heart better.” Yesterday I got a call from Rick’s cousin. She told me Rick passed away. She was cleaning out his house and she found my note on his refridgerator. She said Rick was a “minimalist,” and that he only kept things that meant a lot to him. She thanked me for my kindness. I didn’t even know who she, or even Rick, was at first. But when I got off the phone with Rick’s cousin, I shed a tear. It was all so overwhelming. The fact that a stranger called me so unexpectedly. The fact that she called exactly a year later from when I met Rick here in Charlotte, the only time of year I’ll ever be in Charlotte again. The realization that my words could have such an impact on someone. This has been/will be an emotional and stressful week: coming to Charlotte for the last time, delivering my craft seminar, trying to create a syllabus for a college class I’m teaching, thesis reading, graduating, and Rick. Most of the time I hide behind what I write. But there is no hiding here. Things change. We must accept that. But I believe things change and happen for a reason. I believe I was meant to give Rick that note, and transfer to Queens so I could give Rick that note, and I believe everything else that got me here happened for a reason. Endings are usually my strong point. But not today. Because this is not the end… It rarely ever is.

‘Twas a good day…

 

Got a baseball poem up in decomP. Always great writing in there, so I’m thrilled.

Printed out my thesis. I’ll be reading from it next Thursday night.

Got me a part-time college teaching gig. Not gonna quit my high school teaching day job just yet, but I am looking forward to teaching adults.

Taken from MARKS Literary Journal

 

Resolutions are stupid

 

I’ve had success publishing in journals. I’m proud of the places my writing appears. But I want more. I plan on submitting to the most prestigious journals in the country. I plan on appearing in at least one.

I don’t usually do these end of the year things, but whatever…

 

 

Some literary highlights:

I started at Queens. I was worried at first, but the transfer was the right thing for me to do. Met some great people, and my writing improved.

Got to work under Claudia Rankine and Alan Michael Parker.

A high school student from another state chose me for her report on American poets. Thanks Ila

Included in the 2011 Dogzplot Anthology.

Borders closed   I wrote much of my first book on the second floor. I went there when I was happy. I went there when I was sad. I went there a lot. R.I.P.

I started taking photographs and had my first Art publications.

My second book was accepted for publication by BlazeVox. Then I withdrew my book from BlazeVox after the “scandal.”

I was in many journals. I started submitting to the bigger ones and got acceptances from Gargoyle and The Los Angeles Review.

I was nominated for my second Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize awards.

My second book of poetry was accepted for publication by Black Coffee Press.

A pretty uplifting year.

Stuffs

 

Sabrina Orah Mark said she’d write a blurb for my second book of poetry (prose poems), When Kerosene’s Involved, forthcoming from Black Coffee Press. She is one of my favorite poets. To have her words on the back of my book is quite an honor.

I leave for Charlotte in two weeks. I’ll come back with an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Poetry.

I’m a quarter of the way through Moby Dick. Pretty stellar writing.

I haven’t been writing as much as I usually do. MFA prep getting in the way. Got lots of stuff upcoming in January journals though.

Received my second Art publication. Below is one of the pictures.

December is nice. I like the cold.

AWP sent this to me. Fitting. Birds of a feather…