If you are in the DC/B'more area and just can't get enough NaPoWriMo, I will be reading some of my NaPoems this Saturday, as part of the i.e. reading series. I will be reading with Buck Downs and Rupert Wondolowski. The reading starts at 8 p.m., and takes place at:
CARRIAGE HOUSE
2225 Hargrove Street
Baltimore, MD. 21218
Be there or be someone who is sadly absent.
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...2 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...1 comment
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
This has been a strange NaPoWriMo for me. For starters, these are like, the girliest poems I have ever written. They are full of leaves and feelings. I kind of have a violent reaction toward them. "Ugh, Maureen, how did you get so full of leaves and feelings?"
(Of course I know the answer to that and it is fine and dandy and yeah, but I am just so terribly unused to presenting in any way that really strikes me as feminine. My presentation of myself my strike other people that way, of course, but it usually doesn't strike me that way. Nor as masculine. Just Maureeninine).
But now I read these poems and I say, "dude, you are such a girl."
Which is to be expected. I mean, these poems come out of a good while of studying work by women poets, they are heavily influenced by women poets. And I am a woman poet. Poet. Who happens to be a woman.
But here I am, just falling into old traps of thinking. Most of the women poets I was reading before embarking on this project are not really explorers of gender. Nor is their work flowery or dramatic. Rather, I would consider their work rather coldly intellectual. At the same time, however, their work encompasses leaps and connections that seem to proceed from some inarticulable (i.e., emotional) source, as opposed to formal, syllogistic logic. Their poems aren't sonnets that propose, discuss, and answer; they're essays which may or may not have open ends.
What I am really getting at here is the "leaves and feelings." I wanted to write work that had more of this "emotional" logic -- and did not work so much on a ask-and-answer level. I wanted to give the poems some space -- visually, substantively. I am not sure I have been successful at this attempt -- syllogisms are both relentless and totally awesome in my view, and it is hard to divorce myself of them.
But it is a mistake (or at least simply unnecessary) to think of this kind of writing as particularly gendered. At the same time, though, I cannot really think of male writers of this kind of work. Maybe I just haven't seen it (terribly likely, really -- there are only 3 kajillion poetry books I haven't read). It does put me in mind a bit of Wallace Stevens, although more by way of result than method -- his poems are superficially hyperrational, but I think that the imagination has to do as much work as the old logic-circuits in processing his work.
Another brain-twister for me: following Barbara Guest's advice in "Forces of Imagination," I haven't been titling poems until after they're written. Resisting the desire to title in advance has been excruciating. Generally, I title first and then let the title shape (if not dictate) the content. Working without this safety net has been scary, even if I think the results have generally been fine.
How's about you? Any changes in your writing this month?
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...5 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
Then I decided to look for some ads I remember from my youth in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia: the unbelievable ads of personal injury lawyer Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley. And behold! The tubes did not fail me! Here are six wondrous ads from the gentleman who once proudly declared, "if you want dignity, DON'T call Lowell 'The Hammer' Stanley, but if you want CASH..." Replete with awesome glass-smashing sound effects!
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...2 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
Of planet-eating proportions.
His excuse... "It will lead to more lawsuits." Now, I am a lawyer, but I fail to see how lawsuits are inherently bad. Particularly when brought against sexist jagoffs.
This "anti-lawsuit" crapola -- the sprawling, be-tentacled bastard stepchild of the pharmaceutical industry -- this idea that somehow, pursuing justice is bad, like only whiny babies want to you know, use the courts to vindicate rights and punish the bad, is, to me, about the same as saying, "You know all those great Englishy freedoms and stuff? Yeah, well I want to burn the Magna Carta. I want to be medieval France."
Not a real democratic contention. Sort of thing only someone who regards himself as king can get behind. "Oh me, I can just use my vast wealth and privilege to get what I need. I don't need no stinking equality before the law." Of course, we all know how well things turned out for the kings of France...
More on the Ledbetter bill available here. And I know that everyone is currently suffering campaign fatigue. I personally am not on or off any bandwagon for any particular Democratic contender. At the end of the day, I don't care whether the president is Clinton, Obama, or a scarecrow made out of old White House post-it-notes and banjo wire. Just as long as it isn't McCain.
Eyes on the prize, people!
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
There appear to be five available colors of bearded iris on Capitol Hill: white, yellow, purple, blue, and orange(!).
I have been getting grumpy walking home this week. It is beautiful and I am grumpy. Flowers nod knowingly in my direction and I am grumpy. The sun sings dopey little melodies about harmony and joy, and I am grumpy. Friendly dogs wiffle their tails and snouts appealingly, and I am grumpy.
I think I am having trouble acclimating to the new apartment. I don't feel quite settled yet. The last apartment I lived in for 2 1/2 years -- the longest I've lived in any place since I was in high school. So there is an adjustment, even though the new place is bigger and better in every regard. (Except for the trash-loving hoboes...but that's another story). And there are still some things to put together, pictures to hang, etc. Tonight we are going on a giant shopping expedition to Bed Bath and Beyond.
Somedays I would like to be a large shrub, and stay rooted.
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...1 comment
Jeff was going to come as the 19th century's most eligible bachelor, but he just shaved off all of his elaborate whiskers. So I'm afraid no one's gonna get a chance to hear "Yer looking quite ravishing in that bonnet, m'dear" or anything along those lines. Alas.
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...1 comment
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
Second day of rain here: the lilacs are drooping but everything else looks lush. Just received word that the magic of cable and internet have finally been bestowed upon our new home. The home is looking more homelike every day: the Great Reshelving has been completed, and many boxes have been divested of their contents, which have been arranged, or stored, etc., while the boxes have gone out back to get recycled.
A fabulous edition of In Your Ear yesterday, with work from Lauren Bender and David Gatten. Soundless performances only enlarged by the extremely audible thunder and rain pouring down on the theatre.
Also seen this weekend: baseball, Dippin' Dots, nineteenth-century facial hair.
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...1 comment
