On Loving Men

Struggling to write a new piece for the Lilith collection, but hey, any start is a good start, right?

On Loving Men
Note: Poem removed due to pending publication

July Update

Last week I mailed out packet 2 of 5 for my second MFA semester. I haven't gotten the chance to do any gnarly revising, but am coming to that now that the hectic traveling part of my summer is done and I can unclench my brain.

Let's see, what's new on the writing front... I'm part of a writing group that works via GoogleGroups, and that has allowed me to get feedback on some pieces that are far different from my usual writing and a bit out of my comfort zone, so that was useful - these folks don't hold back and it's the best way to get honest critique. And Greg has given me some feedback I need to get cracking on for the Lilith collection, which I've mostly been sitting on, though some new energy is now simmering for it. I've been receiving a steady stream of rejections from the pieces I sent out in April, so I sat down last week and sent out another batch to - count them - forty-one journals. I feel slightly less like s slacker now. I also applied for an assistantship for next semester, since my bootstraps are no longer quite long enough.

Workwise I've been relatively productive, too, but am mostly pleased I got a grant application in under deadline, and am praying that they approve it even though I just got a grant in April. Once I hash out my presentations for Internet Librarian (an October conference), I plan to concentrate on one article at a time until I've written the three I've got percolating in my head. Chasing the tail of the tenure dragon, yep, that's me. My creative writing doesn't count at all in this venue, but I'm really tempted to report it in the 'semester accomplishments' for faculty the University puts on the web.

In addition to the 16 hours of MFA coursework, I'm signed up to take a poetry workshop with Earl Braggs and a class on critical theory with Matthew Guy here at UTC towards the MA in Literature, which I may manage to finish the semester after I finish the MFA. (Which really begs the question, what do I do after that? The EdD? The MSCJ? So many choices...) Fall semester should be nice and busy, just the way I like it, and I'm dying to get back into the classroom. As a teacher, you smartasses *wink*

Anyway, am planning to seriously dig in on some revisions of the Lilith collection, maybe bang out a few new pieces, which are desperately needed. I feel like my blood has turned to clay in my veins when it comes to writing on this anymore. Time to ramp it up and fire the kilns, folks.

Claddagh

One of my prompts from Greg was to write about an object for which I had great affection. I don't have many (I mean, I love my books, but I can rid myself of most of them without tears). The few things that came to mind were Duchess, a stuffed white persian cat my Nana got me when I was 5 (she is currently in my closet so Otto the Basset Hound of Doom does not eat her), a Claddagh ring I received as a baby from my grandfather that I never take off...I'm sure I could come up with others if pressed, but these are really my most prized possessions. (A monetarily worthless old grayed stuffed animal and an un-bejeweled ring that would impress no one, I'm sure. I need to work on hoarding better stuff, I suppose.) A bud vase I received from my father when I was very young was on this list, but it fell and smashed when I was in my teens. (And yes, I'm still devastated about that.)

This is also not to say I don't have anything else of value - my mother has given me more than I can count. Shout out to the mom-ster! Just not one particular object that holds everything she means to me.

Anyway, I felt silly writing about the cat (though the vase is likely a good idea, will set that aside for later consideration), so the ring won out. This is literally a first un-revised draft that I sat down and spat out. As always, all criticism welcome:

Claddagh

I’ve had it for as long as I can remember –

ten carat gold, no gems, diamond-cut to glitter.

He gave it to me when I was a baby;

I was too small to wear it so my mother kept it

in a velvet box in the safe dark of her dresser.

He asked about it when the cancer started

gnawing at his bones,

and I was allowed to wear it

on a chain around my neck.

I liked the weight knocking on my collarbone,

like a bevy of Irishmen

stippling a family history onto my heart,

a summons of Papa’s memory

when it warmed against my flesh.

I was proud to own something that glittered,

proud to call something precious mine,

I would slip my finger in

to the first knuckle and tug,

that reassuring circlet as good

as when Papa held my hand.

He was an O’Reilly.

The ring made me Irish, too, I was sure.

When the chain broke in gym class,

I defied the teachers and blackened my knees

until I found the ring camped out

befriending dustbunnies under the bleachers.

The very next day, I went to the kiosk

in the mall, and had it resized. Twenty years

ago, a man stretched the small band

to make a snug fit,

my flesh has had to move

to accommodate the gold,

no longer a perfect circle, dented

by softball and hard work. I can count

the number of times I’ve taken it off

on the same hand I wear it:

the skin beneath is young-girl white,

unblemished and always new.

The Poetess Works on Getting Her Groove Back

So, as I sit back down to write, I find I can't start right back into the pieces I sent in my last MFA packet. At least, not right now, not on a laptop. I need to do that with paper, ink, and enough space to surround myself with copies of drafts and Greg's notes and such. By the time I got myself set up for all that, it'd be time for bed, so I decided to take a different route and leave that for the weekend. Instead, I thought I'd turn back to a project I've put on the way back burner, mostly because it's rather in a similar tone to the poem in my last post, sort of a sassy, rougher rhythm than my usual work, a little bit raw, a little bit bitchy. It's a fun way to work, if not as natural as I'd like for it to be. My best piece in this vein (in my opinion) is called "Love Letter From a White Woman," but no one has picked it up yet. I'm thinking about calling the collection "Muse Made Me Her Bitch," and that's the piece I'm working on right now.

What I'm really trying to do is get my mojo back. It's been a hugely hectic two months, and I feel completely off. I'm off my writing schedule, I'm off my sleep schedule, I'm feeling wonky and both under- and overwhelmed. So, here's to me trying to get my groove back: that's how the upcoming weekend will be spent. For now, I'm getting back to writing about my muse. And how she wears kitten heels and a purple duster jacket and keeps a bottle of Beam at hand. You know, just in case.

To the Guy at the End of the Bar

This poem was originally incarnated (enpaperated?) as a short, innocuous thing. Then I got into a bitchtastic mood today and pretty much rewrote it into this. Liking the rhythm & snarkiness of it, personally. What do you think?

To the Guy at the End of the Bar

look at me

look at how hot I am

sitting here

like a big plate of YES

with my legs crossed

and my eyes narrowed

in my black skirt

and my good bra

look at me

sitting here

on this fake-leather stool

tracing your name in the air

with my sharp high heel

sitting here

waiting for you

to smooth your cowlick down

to brush off your shirt

to forget how the last woman

sent you slinking back

to your piss-warm beer

and your fish-cold wife

look at me sitting here

looking just like you fear

your daughter will look

looking at you the way you fear

your daughter will look

at that guy at the end of the bar

look at me

A Great Mentor is a Great Thing

I just received my first MFA packet back from Greg Pape, and it was a doozy. I sent far more original poems than I should have, and he was utterly gracious about it. Greg works by annotating the packet, sending a letter, and speaking into a cassette tape. Can I just say - - Best. Evar. If you've ever met Greg or heard him read, you know he's got a mesmerizing voice. Getting his advice both in writing (which I require for academic processing, because that's how my brain works) and via audio (which lends a wonderful personal note to the packet exchange) is wonderful.

Greg is also one of the most diplomatic workshoppers I have met so far. He manages to blend his critique (always to the point and very useful) with non-pandering praise so that you really do feel you have some worth as a writer and that there's something salvageable in whatever you sent that needs work. I sent Greg a goodly chunk of my Lilith collection, which none of the other faculty has seen yet. It's been niggling at me, and I've been stuck - something seems off, although I'm still enamored of the project, and this rut has really derailed my writing.

Greg hit the nail right on the head. I was paying so much attention to rhetorical structure, language and rhythm, I got lost and forgot about how essential crisp images are. (Um, yeah. IMAGE, Poetess. How do you forget a thing like that? Idiot.) There were other criticisms that were also on the money - like that staying too deep in mythic language without dipping into the contemporary is overwhelming, and some other things, but the overarching fixable thing is image. D'oh. Anyway, Greg pointed out some of the weaker areas that can be shored up or rewritten, and now that I have a handle on the areas of suckitude, I feel empowered and able to write again, and do some serious revision work.

I'm frustrated that it is something so obvious (though pleased that it's something fixable and not a flaw with the idea of the project itself) that has been holding me back on this. Then again, it's a nice reminder as to the importance of having an outside reader who is willing to wrestle with your work on its own terms and ferret out exactly what it keeping it from being excellent. I'm lucky enough to have not only friends who are willing to read and critique for me (and friends who write in different genres at that!) but that I've got access to great mentors through Spalding's MFA program. Every once in awhile I ponder at the selfishness of pursuing an expensive degree that doesn't net me much other than personal satisfaction and better writing...and then help like this comes along, or a kind comment from a fellow writer who understands the frustrations of being a writer, and I realize that my life is better for this.

I'll admit that my anti-hippie stance led me to laugh at all the self-actualization hooey you hear about from life coaches (and, um, Maslow). But I'll tell you what - absolutely nothing beats having a career you actually love, and pursuing the things that are important to you and make you feel whole and right. And if that's selfish, well, then let's count it a good thing that I don't have kidlets.

And back to the mentor topic - yes, get someone who reads your work. They don't even have to be a writer, or in your genre - just genuinely interested in helping. I'm always amazed at the great insights that the quote-unquote-untrained come up with. It's often more insightful than what you can get in a workshop because they're not constrained by 'rules' or what they think they should say. Go for it. Can't hurt!

Hard to Write

Ugh, I've been violently ill these past few days (and this post is also being written in between bouts of unpleasantness). Been wrestling with some decisions I've made in the past, and someone I know online was also mentioning how difficult life's choices are. Good fodder for poetry, though I'm not much a fan of confessional mode. This'll likely get chopped up and the pieces used in separate poems, but here's a first shot at it.

Choices

I

He swept twenty-six years aside

in a bout of midlife crisis fueled by crack

but he calls every night between ten and two

in the grip of paranoia just to hear my voice

and to ask if I sent them if I sent these

low men to watch him through the walls

and every no I send hurtling over the line

gets lost in the fury in the shadow of a life

and he tells me he’s coming he’d like to

take a trip he’ll drive so when I buy the gun

he can take it back to New York with cops

none the wiser not knowing a thing

and the images of broken glass and mom

cowering in a corner while Meaghen called the cops

haunted me in the hours it took to choose sides

to place the call that made him call me

lucid enough to know what he meant

when he said aloud You are not my daughter

II

I stopped taking the pills from the beginning

they didn’t help the pain they dulled me

I didn’t want to be dull when you came to me so seldom

so seldom in the night when I left the candles lit

and you loved me in vanilla light

I thought maybe a miracle maybe a chance

maybe some small sign God is kind

could cure me and bind us and fix things

you kissed my throat and I wrapped my legs

tight around your waist wishing

for a different ending with tiny fingers a different

cure than tears and the great wide emptiness

and I loved you and the thought of you

as a father as mine I thought of us forever in the morning

but I bled and the doctors took my womb and you left

and now the only crying at night now is mine

III

My mother is never sick but she called

sounding like she had hauled water up a bridge

sick so sick she said she couldn’t move

when she hasn’t missed work in three years

in tears when the doctor pooh-poohed her away

but I knew I knew it was more when she was so weak

and a new doctor found the thyroid wrong

which was more than nothing but less than cancer

and she always sounded so strong I was new

at work I was broke and tired and far away

and a trip to Anaheim breathing down my neck

so I accepted her fine because I needed it

and when she had to swallow the iodine pill

that was radioactive I didn’t ask her if she dreamed

of her mother and father and uncles and aunts

and all of her cousins who died after chemo

and Anaheim called right after mom did

and she gave me the fine a bit stronger like a gift

so I could believe and I could look at myself

without too much hate that was her gift and when

I stepped onto the plane it was not to go home