there is 62% chance of forest in the future.
Well, there is in my fairly immediate future, because the state of Massachusetts in 62% covered in forest and I’ll be living there in just over 3 months. After the forever and maelstrom of MFA apps, its taken me a long while to want to write anything about it in long-form.
Don’t get me wrong, I could not be more psyched to go to UMass (Amherst). A heavy, heavy majority of my favourite poets came out of that program. And James Tate. And Dara Wier. I mean come on:
I’ve known for a while now. Almost three months since the offer, and almost a month since I decided absolutely. I got a job teaching there. I need to find some knowledge to pass on.
There are other important things I will need to find, too. Like, a home and probably a driver’s licence, and some people to hug. These things I am looking forward to. I want a home. I know that everyone does, but I want a home with an expiration date longer than a year. I want to make some kind of life for a while.
Among other things, I am nervous about finding poems again. I’ve been back in academia for a while and it is quite a contagious disease that debilitates time to write creatively. And, when the poems do make time for me / I for them, they seem to be backwards looking. All I can write about is the last earthquake that happened to me (in a good way). So I am hoping, with this anthology that James Tadd Adcox is putting together to finally write the final poem about that. It may involve a little chanting. Definitely light (I have been following etymology), and possibly angels. I’ll let you know when I know.
Oh! Speaking of always writing backwards. Just this week I had two poems in the latest issue of H_NGM_N, right here. These mean a lot to me. First of all, because Nate Pritts (editor of H_NGM_N and wonderful poet) is a such a kind soul and one of the most amazing poets writing at the moment. Secondly, because the two of them straddle either side of my leaving Atlanta, and it is just weird/ interesting seeing them together.
Of course, part of the slowness in crisis/ excitement about Amherst might be that it is going back across the Atlantic but in a very different way and to a very different place. I have peace with that, I want another new life. But I can’t imagine the real distance being collapsed– the distance that means you don’t speak on the phone, you can’t spontaneously visit someone you used to know. The people I put in a box marked ‘Extreme Fondness, But Won’t See Again’ will be on the other end of a phone, or a car ride. And that is very strange. I suppose my head still looks backwards so I can’t expect much more from poems.
Recently, it was Poem In Your Pocket Day. There were lots of quite terrible jokes about it. I carried this in my pocket, as I do many days, because I like lyric that breaks down address and lets me in. I’d I feel forgiven for not looking entirely forward, yet.
Have you forgotten what we were like then
when were were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
it’s no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners
the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn’t need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
I wouldn’t want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days
this is the new news
In the wake of actual life, I mourn my internet life. And it pains me to type that. This is what number in the slew of ‘terrible-blogger’ apologies. But still as sincere as the rest. I should say ‘authentic,’ not ‘sincere’. I’ve been talking recently about Lionel Trilling’s conception of these terms in Sincerity and Authenticity and it has made me wary of them.
But I am sorry. Great things have happened: ILK’s second issue came storming into the world and I am so so so in love with it. A massive thanks to everyone who submitted and said nice things and helped.
In a few days it will be NAPentines Day, and the new Greg Sherl edited issue of NAP will be upon the world, and include some collaborative found poems I helped to make. Some poems I wrote are also forthcoming in Salt Hill and H_NGM_N– two places I could not be more stoked to be making a home in.
And yes, I did finish applying for MFA programmes. There has been some news, but April is the largest month for that decision.
Otherwise, what? Well so many places keep stepping up the pace. I really like the new Aesthetix. I want to have time to read the new Sixth Finch. And so many others.
OH! And now sometimes I learn about Demonology. Which is much more fun than my current degree. Apart from all the Black Mountain reading I’ve been doing. And I l learnt this really cool thing about mountains: before the rise of the Sublime ideal, mountains were not thought beautiful but rather as a result of the Fall: when humankind had been in Eden and everything perfect, the Earth had been perfectly round. Mountains demonstrated the rupture and were thus thought ugly/ a bit evil. But Sublimity happened (thanks Kant, thanks Burke) and now mountains generally = awesome.
Something that needs discussing more is the lack of women submitting to literary magazines. When I say needs discussing more, I mean I need to discuss it more with people outside my immediate circles of contact because otherwise the talk goes around in circles. Hopefully, Robin Sampson and I will get a series together about this for We Who Are About To Die, but as for right now, I thought some killer lit by Bernadette Mayer (current obsession along with George Oppen) would suffice.
[Sonnet] You jerk you didn’t call me up
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Because I am just adjusting to this already godforsaken year (although, I suppose I think every year is godforsaken in a way because I don’t have a god but that is a different question), this update is going to be more like a news update than a feature story. Some good things though.
Up first: happy new year guys! 2012 started when well, because on January 1st the new edition of elimae went live and I am so happy to have a poem, ‘Interval,’ included.
Also, the new issue of Specter is also alive and I’m pretty stoked to have some erasure poems I made of Derrida for my wonderful friend Michael in such fine company.
In other news, ILK and Artifice Magazine joined forces last night to provide Camden with some killer lit. There is a promise that if / when I get into an MFA program, a Chicago edition of this alliance will happen. Huge thanks to everyone who came, and to those who read.
Directly related to the above bulletin: I have pretty much finished all my applications now. So if you are the praying kind, please pray. If not, hope, for me– that’d be swell.
Also, yesterday I had an sweet time clearing up Oxfam’s poetry selection. I found a copy of Nick Flynn’s some ether, which is just heart-wrenching. As I was reading on the bus yesterday I noticed that the book is actually signed by the author and dedicated to Mary– there’s quite a cute wee note and now I wonder if she meant to give it away. I also bought an amazing book called ‘Animal Language’ written by a zoologist in the 1930s. It is missing its accompanying record, but it tells you some wonderful things– such as, the rattle of a rattlesnake is caused by it collecting fragments of dead skin at the tip of its tail each time it moults. This is disgusting but quite beautiful.
ILK is gathering a whole head of steam for its second issue– and submissions for that are open until January 15th, so if you haven’t please send us some poems!
I really hope to be back at some point soon without such abrupt things to say. I resolve to do that!
The year that is and soon will not be.
It is pretty impossible not to succumb to the end of year/ beginning of year meditation type thing, and who am I to resist, huh? And you know, 2011 was huge for me in a lot of ways.
I started off in Atlanta, and ended up in Oxford. Believe me, I have no idea where I’ll be this time next year. That fate is terrifyingly in the hands of admissions committees, once again.
2011 was the year I turned 23, the year I really started postgraduate life. I got into Oxford. I started Oxford. I decided I wanted to do an MFA not a PHD.
ILK came into being and totally rocked that being. Going over to the editor side made me learn a lot about how to submit to magazines. It is amazing to be reading submissions and getting excited about them, but man the small mistakes writers make become really annoying.
I started writing really insistently again, this year, and had poems appear in some wonderful places like PANK, >kill author, Vinyl, ARTIFICE and accepted other places.
I read some amazing stuff too. Heather Christle’s The Trees The Trees, Brenda Hillman’s Practical Water, Ada Limon’s sharks in the rivers, Nate Pritts’ Big Bright Sun, and the list is long and other people have better ones.
Shockingly enough, all this moving around gave me a lot of feelings. Someone yesterday told me that my life pattern is not surprising as I am addicted to the highs and lows. That was a weird thing to be told, especially coming from someone who fights fires for a living.
You know how people say the people, that it’s always the people that make anything? Well yeh, I met some amazing people this last year. From all around. Including a really small person that my sister made. I like her a lot.
So yeh, 2011 was huge. 2012, I worry that you won’t shape up. If you do, I’m ready. Other side of the mountain, new mountain.
