Martha's Blog

George Bilgere Wins Muriel Spark Poetry Award

2006-02-17T21:15:00.000-06:00

As a brand new graduate student at the University of Denver in the mid 80s, George Bilgere was quite kind to me, tolerating my silliness and embarrassing young antics with grace and patience. He was one of the few more senior grad students who invited me into his home. I remember his wife as particularly fun and graceful.

He also gave me a fascinating audio tape that I've used for more than 20 years as a teacher. It's a recording of a breaking Ball glass jar; the recording repeats. The first time you hear the jar breaking, it's been slowed WAY down. It sounds like an ocean liner breaking the ice. The loop repeats, at a slightly faster pace, and then repeats again, at an even faster pace. Finally the sound is played at its normal speed.

I use the tape to talk about perception and writing. It's one of my favorite exercises and it's all thanks to George. So congrats, George!

To hear a Library of Congress cybercast of George Bilgere reading his work, click here. To view his web page, go here

Bonafide

2006-02-16T19:18:00.000-06:00

Aren't you jealous of my roses? Valentine's Day roses are fleeting, fragile, and fantastic. And these live in my house, until the petals drop off. Prrrrr.

The ticket to have this Friday is clearly Andrew Bird/Haley Bonar, but for the second time in a year, I won't be seeing him. Instead, TB and I are going to hit Mother Fool's Coffeehouse on Saturday night for a spoken word / acoustic show: The SexPression Tour featuring Amy Steinberg and Cynthia French. I've not heard of either one, but then I don't follow spoken word very much. Here's hoping it's as saucy as it sounds!

On the Road Manuscript Photography Controversy

2006-02-05T11:24:00.000-06:00

On the Road Manuscript, #3 Originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

"Art is the highest task and the proper metaphysical activity of this life."--Nietzsche

I went to high school and did my undergraduate work near Indianapolis, so any literary news with an Indianapolis connection catches my eye. Ron Irsay, the owner of the Colts, purchased the original scroll manuscript of On The Road several years ago, and sent the manuscript itself on the road, making a multi-city tour over the last couple of years.

According the Literary Traveller, the Kerouac estate first passed to Kerouac's mother; upon her death in 1973, the estate went not to Jan Kerouac, Jack's daughter, but to the Sampas family, related to Jack's last wife. The issue of a forged will came up and was in litigation, apparently, when Jan died in 1996. The wrangling went on after her death, which has prompted the sale of the manuscript to pay the legal debts, apparently. And here's an interesting website exploring provenance.

Now, apparently, it is on display a the San Francisco public library until mid-March. Click here to see a photo of Carolyn Cassiday & daughter Jami at the exhibit.

However, Thomas Hawk, photographer and fellow blogger, was prevented from photographing the manuscript by the tour organizer, who cited copyright violation as the reason Hawk could not snap digital photos. (Also, see his entry on 30 boxes, a fascinating calendar tool in development). After he wrote a letter about the issue, the tour organizer responded here. In some of the discussions at the end of his post, some exceptionally interesting comments were made about Kerouac's last wife and the owners of the book's copyright. In fact, the copyright issues raised are quite thorny and interesting to me--gotta find out more about them.

My Peruvian Lillies

2006-02-04T07:08:00.000-06:00

...are still beautiful. Thank you.

Happy Birthday, Gertrude Stein

2006-02-03T06:40:00.000-06:00

"How prettily we swim.Not in water. Not on land. But in love." — Gertrude Stein

Normally, I save my birthday wishes for living poets. But I adore Gertrude Stein, am sentimental about her actually. Today is the anniversary of her birth, a fine time to see what's new with her. Death, I find, has done little to diminish her popularity.

I was a bit surprised to read that the About Face Chicago-based theater company is staging an original musical based on Stein's romances and work. They describe their mission is to "create[s] exceptional, innovative, and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity." The current offering, Loving Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein is described thusly:

Loving Repeating explores the romantic world of Gertrude Stein – her giddy love affair with language, with self-expression, and with Alice B. Toklas. Stein – the great modernist and artistic gadfly – is one of the most influential artists of the past century, and she and her expatriate milieu – including the likes of Picasso, Matisse, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and her beloved “wife” Alice B. Toklas – changed the way contemporary artists see the world and express themselves.

Quite appropriate, one would think, for V-day. I'm not sure I care so much for the autobiographical approach to literary studies, but it would be interesting to see nevertheless.

Now for something completely different:
Tonight I'm going to see the always delightful Reptile Palace Orchestra at the Slipper Club. They're teaming up with Dr. Cherie D'Amour, Miss Lola Martinet, and Mona N'wal for a romp.

Saturday, I'd like to promote my wonderful colleague's book release party. If you're in town, go see:

Laura Sims

Reading poetry from Practice, Restraint,

4 pm at Avol's Bookstore 315 W. Gorham St.

Madison, Wisconsin

(608)-255-4730

Go Laura! I hear she's leaving us and heading off for Japan to write for a while, so go see her soon!

LCD Magnets Write Their Own Poetry

2006-01-28T13:49:00.000-06:00

Oh...this is so very, very cool. Refrigerator poetry kits gone turbo! Read about it here.

Apparently, someone is developing fridge magnets with "a 16-character LCD display that communicates with other magnets; the displays can identify what part of speech they're showing, and use the information to form poems on their own."

Kind Words and A Loaded Gun

2006-01-27T23:51:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite parts of being a college professor is writing letters of recommendation for my favorite students. I love this task for many reasons, some good, some bad. My evil side enjoys the selectivity of the whole process. I can say NO...and I sometimes do.

When it comes to teaching, I sometimes feel like an emotional hostage to the job. If someone stops by my cube, I can never hide, or tell them to go away, or express any emotion I'm actually having. It's all about them, all the time. And that's the way it should be, in spite of the occasional asshole who takes advantage of the fact I can't tell him off. But in a letter of recommendation, I can say no, I can say yes, I can talk about overall strengths and weaknesses, which isn't appropriate in day to day conversations.

But the real reason I love writing letters of recommendation is that I think it's the only place in my life I get to use one of my most undervalued skills. I see people. I appreciate them with a depth that others don't quite understand. It's a tiny skill. But I love having a place in which it's valuable, even if it's a skill that none of my colleagues see or understand or value.

AND, of course, it's an act that makes a huge difference in someone's life, even if he or she doesn't understand it at the time. My own life has been affected by letters of recommendation in magnificent and devastating ways. As an undergrad, the stress over asking for letters of rec nearly made me give up going to grad school. Later, letters of recommendation saved my life, and then sunk it. Looking from the whole mess from the other side gives me a sense of being a grown-up (finally).

One Word

2006-01-25T07:47:00.000-06:00

[Via Lee Herrick's You Are Here]
At One Word, visitors are presented with a word a day--and are asked to freewrite on that word for 1 minute. You can also read words offered on past days, and review what others associated with them. My word was appeal...an ironic one for me. I have never been an appealing woman...but sometimes, I'm appalling. Check it out!

BUY THE BOOKS!

2006-01-24T22:13:00.000-06:00

In this article in the Washington Post online, the disturbing news is that students are no longer buying the textbooks for their college classes because they're so expensive. At community colleges, the article says that textbook costs are 3/4 of the tuition cost. Instead, they are borrowing the textbooks from students in other sections of the same class, while their friends are IN class. Of course, many of these students have to re-take the class because they get little or nothing out of it.

The interesting news is about rental books policies, something which seems TOTALLY reasonable to me.

Here's a press release from Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) on the study he conducted on New York State textbook prices. The average there for public colleges is $103.98, which seems about right to me for English...but underpriced for a science class.

Truthiness

2006-01-22T22:07:00.000-06:00

Okay, I have to stop posting about word lists. I don't know why I've become so obsessed, but I have. Here's the last one, I PROMISE.

The American Dialect Society defines and explains the following best new words (among others):

truthiness
intelligent design
lifehack
whaletail
man date
metrospiritual.

Now, can anybody use all those words in the same sentence?

A Word about Words

2006-01-20T23:41:00.000-06:00

**No recent posts lately because...gasp...I'm happy. And busy. And when I'm happy together, output temporarily suspends.**

In the news today, I read that it's the season for the top lists of words to emerge. In looking for the story online, I ran into a few VERY interesting blogs on the subject of words that I hadn't encountered before.

First, The Global Language Monitor. I like their beat. Although in English departments divide content between the British and the American, increasingly I see this as a numbskull way to see the bounds of literature and language when it comes to English. Studying colonial English languages and literatures includes a lot of subversion that I like. Some of the projects on GLM are odd but intriging--like their quest to figure out exactly how many words are in the English language. I'm also fond of their Political Buzzword Quotient, "a proprietary algorithm that tracks politically sensitive words and phrases in the print and electronic media, on the Internet and the Blogosphere. The words and phrases are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets."

According to the GLM, among the top words and phrases this year are: refugee, Chinglish, Recaille, Purple Finger/Thumb, The Golden Quatrilateral, Jumping the Couch, and my favorite, Deferred Success. Yeah...that's right. My diet and exercise plan have not failed me; I'm just experiencing deferred success.

Banished Words List :: 2006

2006-01-19T00:04:00.000-06:00

Now I like THIS as a story idea. What phrases should we stop using altogether? The mighty-mite Lake Superior State University has put out the Banished Words List :: 2006.

I'm in the mood for a prank...

2006-01-16T20:28:00.000-06:00

The Economist is running a contest:

"to nominate their contender for the finest prank in history, explaining in 750
words why it deserves the title, to reach us by January 20th. The three best
entries will be announced in February and published on Economist.com. Entries,
please, to pranks@economist.com."

I'm quite a fan of the esoteric prank; lately, I've been participating in the Ministry of Reshelving Project at several local bookstores (but I never do this when I'm with anybody, so relax, friends.)

But I was thinking the other day that the imaginitive prank has really gone by the wayside here in Wisconsin. We don't have any practitioners over 30 at all, it seems. Cheeseheads don't seem to appreciate pranks so much; they're too enamoured by the reality of the beerglass. However, I'd love to see something as creative as the photo below...

According to the Economist, pranks are encouraged at MIT, and
"Students at Yale scored a big victory during last year's football match against Harvard when they passed out pieces of paper to thousands of fans on the Harvard side of the stadium. The fans were told that, when held up, the bits would spell “Go Harvard”. In fact they spelled something else (photo by Mike Kai)."

For some reason, I'm in the mood for a prank today. Wicked of me, isn't it?

Happy New Year

2006-01-08T09:05:00.000-06:00

After a long hiatus, I'm back at work and back blogging, too. Since last blogging, the following things have happened:

I'm starting my own book and food club. I had no sooner put forth the words into the world than my best friend, S--, gave me Sarah Gardner's Read It And Eat, a guide to running a book club with menus. She also gave me a wonderful chef's coat that fits perfectly! The first selection we're reading together is an inspirational selection, The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre. It's a good choice, because even if folks don't make it thru the book, they can cheat and see the movie. And the menu will be Indian food. Anybody wanna participate?
I finished last year by reading 42 books, not 50. I ended with Prep, which rang a lot of bells for me. This year, it's 50 or bust.
My first book will be a gift from one of my favorite students, E--, who gave me Teacher Man, Frank McCourt's latest. I was honored that such an outstanding student liked me.
One of my most impressive, interesting students from several years ago got in touch to ask a favor. This is a GOOD thing. At the end of the class several years ago, I asked him to drop by my office (in my most friendly and engaging fashion). His response was "what for"? I nearly burst into tears. Now, two years later, the worm turns. Evil laugh.
My older sister infected me with the Sudoku bug. I now torture myself daily with numbers, a strange new habit.
I took 5 naps, in the middle of the day, in the bright sunshine! Although I never take naps, I was so drained by the end of the semester, I discovered I enjoyed them.
I discovered a poem by Arielle Greenburg in Double Room that expresses EXACTLY how I'm feeling right now--hopeful...trying to not to give up or get my heart broken...on the cusp of happy.

Make-a-Flake

2005-12-15T18:07:00.000-06:00

Not to be confused with the venerable "Shake and Bake" coating for chicken, the Make-a-Flake web site is hours and hours of fun at final exam time when one is REALLY wanting to make paper snowflakes out of all the papers that have piled up and are demanding to be graded or one will go to hell, go straight to hell, like the wonderful Albert Finney in the musical Scrooge. (I'll watch Albert Finney chew the scenery in just about anything. How wonderful was The Dresser?)

Go and try it. Making a virtual snowflake, that is. Not going to hell.

Was that first one a long enough run-on sentence for you?

Actually, that term "Shake and Bake" has been adopted by the military. It refers to white phosphorous shells that were fired on cities "exploding on houses and sending up huge plumes of white smoke. Insurgents would be killed instantly or, fleeing the carnage, exposed to sniper fire" according to Toby Harnden of the News Telegraph among others. People unable or unwilling to evacuate are now the chicken in this recipe, a ghastly development.

New Blogolicious-ness (with apologies to Blackalicious)

2005-12-14T22:28:00.000-06:00

Two blogs that I love caught my eye tonight, and I've added them to my blogroll. First is an edublog, Confessions of a Community College Dean, which asks a number of EXCELLENT questions about higher ed, including "how do you know a good college when you see one?" This is a great question. I like great questions. How one answers this question largely depends upon one's idea of what education is--assuming that's what college is about. For many people, college and education may or may not be connected; it's not a clear relationship these days at all.

A lovely addition to my lingblog reading is Linguists Gone Wild, which has the best post on dirty talk I've seen in a while. Dirty in the sense of vulgarity or profanity, that is. Not dirty in an oh-you-naughty-boy-do-that-again way, which is quite nice in its own way, but we won't talk about that now. Anyway, I gather it's written by an ex-pat in Cambridge, whose sobriquet is "Guy"--one of the quintessential British names.

The Toughest Critics

2005-12-11T10:32:00.000-06:00

I'm shopping for great books for some young friends of mine for Christmas. I noticed that children have started posting reviews at Amazon. I'm a big fan of The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and Here's a review on another of E.L. Konigsberg's works:

Amazon.com:
The View from Saturday: Books: E. L. Konigsburg:
"A Kid's Review"
I had to read this boook for school my teacher has no taste in books. What a complete waste of time it is confusing. If you like tea, turtles, and a boy who i think likes his cousins and i mean LIKES her then go on with your mad self."

Go on with your mad self indeed! :)

Interviewing Bird

2005-12-10T20:20:00.000-06:00

This particular interview begins a sporadic series of interviews about poetry, teaching, and writing on Martha's Blog. Actually, I'd intended to try podcasting this interview, but botched the sound quality. Look for podcasts in the future.

Bird Cupps is a non-fiction writer in Madison, Wisconsin. Her background is in children's publishing, finish carpentry, and Peace Corp work in Kenya. She's been my colleague in the English department at MATC for four years. She has a large farm in the southwestern corner of Dane county on which she and her partner raise pastured poultry and lamb protected by a flock of guinea fowl and herding dogs. She is a working carpenter in addition to being an instructor of English.

This interview was conducted at the Harmony Bar in Madison, which turned out to be a poor venue when the euchre game immediately behind us picked up in intensity.

Martha’s Blog: How would you define a writer?
Bird Cupps: Someone who does the work. At this particular moment in time I’m not doing the work. So I’m not a writer. I suppose I could be defined as a writer in the past tense. To me it’s the work. If you don’t do it, you’re not a writer.

MB: What was the first piece of writing or literature you ever loved?
Bird: Some children’s book.

I cannot think of a book that I am as passionate about as I am about a piece of music. I can think of lots of writers I am impressed by [who] have affected the way I look at the world. Writing’s a poor substitute for music.

MB: How do you define education or an educated person?
Bird: I know a lot of people who don’t have formal educations who are plenty smart. I guess I draw a line between intelligence / curiosity / smartness and education. [Education], to me, is a book learning thing. There are levels of education you can evaluate. There are better and lesser educations. I guess I would call it a process. I also think the education we do in a Comp 1 class is better or more valuable than the education we do in a Literature or Creative Writing class.

MB: Do you believe there is a Role for the teacher? If so, how does it differ from the role of the citizen?
Bird: What’s a teacher?

No. They are the same thing. As soon as you stop being an ordinary citizen you stop being a good teacher.

MB: How important is philosophy to your writing?
Bird: Not important at all. Writing is a spiritual activity. It has nothing to do with philosophy.

MB: What is the relationship between words and the body in your writing?
Bird: You [Martha’s Blog] refer to yourself as a brain in a jar, and you’re a very mental sort of person. And I’m a physical one. But I’ve already told you that writing, for me, is a poor excuse for not being able to play the trumpet. Writing is physical. A writer is a person who does the work.

Writing is about creativity to me. [Writing] is not about the writing, it’s not about works of literature; it’s not about having something to say. It’s a spiritual exercise....I don’t give a shit about the outcome.

You know that Robert Frost poem “Mowing”? He suggests that work is a source of meditation, and he suggests a spiritual transcendence that comes from looking at the work. But you can’t get there by winning the lottery. The spiritual state is the writing process.

MB: What is travel and what role does it have in your life?
Bird: I don’t like to travel, so I don’t know. It’s voyeuristic. I lived in another country.

MB: What character from literature, television, or film do you most identify with? What character do you WISH you could identify with?
Bird: Martha, I read non-fiction. I can’t answer this because I don’t have this encyclopedic knowledge of characters and stuff. I like war movies, does that help?

I identify with people who tend to go against the grain in one way or another and have that battle. My students and I just read Seabiscuit, so which character do I identify with? I identify with the horse, I think. But I would want to be Tom Smith.

MB: Which determines the end of the story, the small choices or the big decisions?
Bird: It’s the detail. Everything’s the detail. I’m a finish carpenter.

MB: Of Love, Hope, Justice, or Truth, which has the highest priority in your values right now? Twenty years ago?
Bird: Truth and Truth.

MB: What word do you love?
Bird: Chocolate or kweli. Kweli means all kinds of stuff in Swahili.

MB: What word do you hate?
Bird: Sconce

MB: What’s in the play list on your I-pod right now? OR what was the first music you loaded onto your I-pod?
Bird: The Night Air. Democracy Now. Tortoise. Radiohead.

Bird shows off the ring she purchased when she received her first substantial check for a piece of writing. She calls it her "writer's ring."

British Design Strikes Again: The Poetry Archive

2005-12-06T21:39:00.000-06:00

I adore British design. It's urbane, sophisticated, thoughtful, and often out-and-out gorgeous. My latest love affair is with the British version of the American Academy of Poets site--The Poetry Archive.

This site is gorgeous, usable, personal, and chock full of outstanding content. Andrew Motion provides a lovely, warm introduction to this site, which is clearly quite a legacy. It's everything the American version should be, but isn't. The collection of live readings of contemporary English poets demonstrates "strength in depth." The selection is clearly skewed to white males, in my opinion, but the selection of British women poets is solid and growing. (Medbh McGuckian, one of my favorite poets, is omitted--but I'm hoping she'll be added soon.) Even over dial-up, the sound is gorgeous and fast. Try it!

Visiting Mr. HaHa Jones

2005-12-04T13:36:00.000-06:00

From Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" (1956):

It's always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: "It's fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat."

My very favorite christmas story has to be this particular one, almost 50 years old now, written by one of my favorite prose writers. It always makes me cry when Those Who Know Best remove buddy from his dear friend's loving care. I don't identify with Buddy so much as the dear friend, whose life is so circumscribed and yet so well lived.

Although I've not been involved in fruitcake production since I was in high school (when I first discovered this story), I am doing a British Christmas Cake this year, with a Wisconsin twist. Today, in between loads of laundry, I'm measuring and marinating fruit. Tomorrow evening I may actually bake the cake, and age it until Christmas. My colleague, L--, said she was doing a Christmas cake, and I couldn't POSSIBLY see myself outdone, so I had to try one, too.

The actual recipe for this cake varies greatly, but marinating the dried fruits in booze is pretty standard. I had to visit my local liquor store, no where near as colorful as Mr. Haha Jones, the moonshiner, but easier to find. (I do wish my sister, who lives in West Virginia, would take me to a moonshiner sometime!) This year, I'm using a mixture of Thompson raisins, Golden raisins (sultanas), currents, cranberries, and just a few dried papaya pieces thrown in because I have them. It's all thrown intoa giant crock I only use around the holidays, for mixing stuffing and cakes. The crock is a family heirloom, dating back 3 generations at least.

None of my immediate family members really like christmas food all that much, and I've simply not had much Christmas spirit for quite some time. But this year seems different somehow. I don't know who I'm going to share this cake with, but so many people have shown me small kindnesses lately that I can't help but feel unusually thankful. I've made some new friends, deepened friendships with some of my favorite people, and heard from old friends in most kind ways. And of course, I'm very thankful that readers here email and comment so nicely!

So it's Christmas cake weather. "That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven."

What Martha Needs

2005-12-02T21:12:00.000-06:00

Martha needs more.
Martha needs a BIG attitude adjustment if for no other reason than the way she treats people.
Martha needs help.
Martha needs to rebuild her self-confidence by identifying why it has been so difficult for her to establish and maintain friendships.
Martha needs to let go of her attachment to the results of her work.
Martha needs the eggs.
Martha needs a butch bitch for protection...
Martha needs to stop and spend some time on her most important relationship.
Martha needs to e-mail Mike about the time for the October 2 General Meeting.
Martha needs to get over this feel-good notion that prisons exist to rehabilitate.
Martha needs to pick a better place to hang out if she wants to lie, conspire and obstruct justice.
###

Google your first name and the word "needs." This is like a digital I Ching.

The interesting thing about my name is that SO MANY of the needs are based on transgression and punishment. Most of the other memes I've seen have been racy or funny or much more hodge-podge than this one. It's because of Ms. Stewart, of course, mainly. But I think analyzing the differences between a woman's named results and a man's named results would actually be rather revealing from a cultural perspective. Anybody else wanna chime in?

Calendar Girls...er Boys...er Girls

2005-12-02T20:25:00.000-06:00

Oh. My. Gosh. Well, after that Fence cover, the boys were due for some equal time. They're getting it this new year.

Introducing Mr. Sept., William Allegrezza:

Click on the link above to see the following hot fantasy boy toy poets and buy the calendar which includes an "Intriguing and Sensual" male poet for each month (oh...and a poem of theirs, too):

Now in fairness, this calendar benefits a Chronic Fatigue charity. Anyway, I bought one for my garage. That's where the girlie posters go, don't they? Next to the other power tools?

Church Keys and Trading Cards

2005-11-29T20:22:00.000-06:00

While at a lunch meeting with a senior member of my department, we ordered Pellegrinos, with a pop-off, rather than twist-off, bottlecap (called a crown cork, I discovered). They hadn't uncapped them for us, and when presented with the problem, they said we needed a "church key." I HAVE NEVER HEARD THIS TERM BEFORE. I am nerdy enough to find this quite exciting and went home and Googled it.

World Wide Words is a great site for fascinating turns of phrase and words. There's a nice little definition of Cento, which is a slightly derrogatory term for a verbal collage it seems. It's one of the few sites with a clear definition of "mash note," a term I used a while back that NOBODY knew. Yes, I'm a word geek.
****

On a so-geeky-it's-cool note, I discovered the Flikr pool of Librarian Trading Cards. I've chosen this particular card in honor of the gun deer season, which apparently just closed (I know because so many of my students start grunting and avoiding work at the start of the season :)

I find these cards absolutely hilarious. I want to do this for English teachers, now! I know nothing about trading cards...but am fascinated by the concept.

Librarian Trading Card Uploaded on November 29, 2005by sylvar

Here's my card:

You can make your own using Flickr toys here.

on your nerve: Vin Diesel

2005-11-26T09:11:00.000-06:00

(via Woody Loverude's On Your Nerve)

In this post entitled "The Very Best of Vin Diesel," we find out the particulars on why Vin Diesel is such a bad ass. Warning: swallow your coffee before viewing this post--or you will spit it all over the screen in glee.

Actually, I have one to add. In class, I once said that I like Vin Diesel (we were talking about Boiler Room, one of his earilest movies with Giovanni Ribisi, who I think is one of the most talented actors of his generation). The next day, one of my favorite students came in with his head shaved, and smiled shyly at me. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Also, I've actually always thought that Vin was frightened--shaking secretly--of women because we talk ABOUT FEELINGS. Poor man, I thought. Scared to death. Other people, apparently, do not have this impression.

My New Tree

2005-11-25T19:55:00.000-06:00

Here's a shot of my new Christmas Tree. I've never had my own tree before; I love the fresh ones best. But since I'm always away from home for the week of Christmas, I'm afraid to have a real one, which dries out something fierce with no water and forced air heat.

However, it's snowing today, and I missed Christmas. Here's a shot of my new, pre-lit Christmas tree.

Although I wanted this adorable chartreuse tinsel tree (how moderne!), I didn't want to pay $200 for it. Sigh. So I got a 6.5' sierra pine tree lit with red lights. I have no ornaments, but I think I'll start looking for anything red or gold for it. And maybe some funkier red lights, too.

Update: Dec. 3rd:
Here's the decorated tree!

Can I Cook!

2005-11-22T23:13:00.000-06:00

tomorrow evening I begin to cook for Thanksgiving. I'm not doing the whole thing this year, which is a blessing in many, many ways. It's also kind of a curse, because the leftovers are my favorite part (even though they're bad for me).

I always try to look presentable for the meal itself, particularly if I'm cooking for a whole bunch of family and friends, as I did in my 30s. Even put on cruel shoes on occasion. However, that's not the best part of the day.

I love changing into something REALLY comfortable after the guests go home, like a negligee and big panties :), and making a white meat turkey sandwich with mayo, grainy mustard, and a little cranberry sauce at 8pm on Thanksgiving day and escaping on the couch under a fuzzy throw blanket into a great movie. That's the best part, don't you think? Nothing better.

The name Martha is typically associated with food. Good food. The biblical Martha had to get back into the kitchen and finish up. Martha Stewart makes millions on the whole kitchen connection. I'm a pretty good cook when I try, too. And I enjoyed the German film, Bella, Martha. Sadly, it has me pegged in many ways. Now all I need is that film's ugly, passionate Italian to eat that turkey sandwich with! Sadly, I have not him--and this year, not the leftovers either.

This weekend I'm planning an escape after T-day with my best friend's family. I'm considering a weekend at the Pfister, the art museum, and a show. Anyone got any better suggestions?

Waldrops in Wisconsin

2005-11-21T21:57:00.000-06:00

Tonight, I had the great pleasure to enjoy a wonderful reading from Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop. I missed them at the Woodland Pattern Book Center last weekend, but was delighted that they came to Madison after all.

Their intro was one of the best I've ever heard, at any poetry reading. After reading the details of a spam offering college degrees from "prestigious, non-accredited universities" that were based on "your present knowledge and life experience." These degrees require no tedious "tests, classes, books, or interviews" but offer "a prosperous future, money, earning power, and the admiration of all."

The point of this intro was to point out that version of education was everything Waldrop's work is not. It is not based on life experience. It does not encase accepted reality in a lacquered perfection. It has content that moves us beyond experience, even beyond sense. The nouns are all intangibles. Like translation (which is what Rosmarie is so good at), her work wrestles the soul from one body to another. (not original, that, but I can't think where it's from) The reading was fab, of course, homely and comfortable and spritely.

I was left thinking about education. My own reaction to education was so different from so many of my peers. For them, easy meant classes and books that didn't challenge them, that didn't ask more of them than they had at that moment. For me, that would have been the hardest thing in the world. Still is. It's a coddled egg; shelled formlessness. There's that lovely updraft out there, on things you can't quite reach. And my heart loves to fly.

So how do I explain this to a student who complains about everything in education? Who looks at all the wrong things? Who can only see the "admiration of all" aspect of education?

Whitbread Shortlist 2005

2005-11-20T08:19:00.000-06:00

To start with, the Whitbread Poetry Shortlist. I've only read David Harsent's work, an earlier book entitled Marriage. The excerpts I've read from Legion are good but disturbing (as a book on war should be, probably). Read an excerpt, "Art," here.

David Harsent, Legion. (not available in U.S. yet)
Christopher Logue, Logue's Homer Cold Calls.
Richard Price, Lucky Day
Jane Yeh, Marabou. (not available in U.S. yet)

Next, the biography awards. I crave biographies; they're my guilty pleasures. They fuel my petty delusion that life has a pattern and a design, and we can reconstruct it if we just look hard enough. I plan on reading Haw-Haw, and Stuart.

Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margeret Joyce by Nigel Farndale (a profile of the couple who made pro-Nazi broadcasts in Britian during WW2)
Nature Cure by Richard Mabey
Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters (not available in U.S. yet)
Matisse the Master: The Conquest of Color by Hilary Spurling

Finally the novel awards--which have had the most press, but contain the most familiar names. I plan on reading Shalimar and The Ballad.

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie
the accidental by Ali Smith
The Ballad of Lee Cotton by Christopher Wilson

I had a most remarkable evening last night. Although I didn't stay long (nobody wanted the ugly single girl who falls in love too easily around, and I hadn't managed to scare up a date), I met two people who I've not seen for a while. They were precise opposites--and seeing them both in one evening threw me for a loop.

One, the introvert who loved education--who was eternally present in the classroom and processed everything through his heart, has dropped out of school and just became a father last month. The other, the extrovert who hates education but needs that mantle of authority, stubbornly stays in school. I'm not sure what to make of this synchronicity or of my feelings about either one. I wish things would stand a little closer apart.

Brian Turner, "The Embedded Poet," and the Beatrice Hawley Award

2005-11-19T07:53:00.000-06:00

Brian Turner has an MFA from the University of Oregon and his Sergent's Stripes from the conflict near Mosul. In this profile in the New Yorker posted last week, he talked about war in the land of Gilgamesh.

I've not read his work, which is available here, but publisher's weekly said this: "The verse in this book is not good, but it is, in a cultural moment that includes Cindy Sheehan, timely." Ouch. Is that praise or not?

Stuff On My Cat

2005-11-18T23:27:00.000-06:00

Sisters--this links' for you.

Both my sisters have cats. Just one cat each--but they are both quite special. My younger sister has a cat named Trixie, which sounds like she was named for a stripper but is ACTUALLY named for the woman on the Honeymooners. My older sister has a cat named Hippolyta, named for the Amazon queen.

I, on the other hand, have resisted the urge to be yet another 40 year old woman with cats. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, it's just that a) I hate being typical and b) I might go insane and put stuff on my cat like the picture to the left, courtesy the website above.

Since I am plenty insane in other ways, dressing up cats seems redundant.

Funny Poems, Cream of the Crap From Personals

2005-11-16T13:14:00.000-06:00

Would I be a horrible teacher if I pointed my online students to this site? It REALLY reinforces why one should make an effort to grasp the concept of the sentence. Capitalization and spell-check aren't bad things either.

This site is particularly funny to me because I'm internet dating right now. And, gosh, it's made me realize what a limited blood supply to the brain many people have when it comes to writing personal ads. Geez!

Laura Sims & Bin Ramke Read in Chicago

2005-11-15T12:37:00.000-06:00

Okay, my colleague, the wonderful Laura Sims, is going to be reading with an old pal, Bin Ramke--AND NEITHER ONE INVITED ME TO THE READING. What's up with that? Shame on you both! Here's the info:

Wednesday, November 16, 7:30 pm

Laura Sims reading with Bin Ramke

The Danny's Reading Series

Danny's Tavern

1951 W Dickens (in Bucktown, near Damen and Dickens)

Chicago, IL

Despite their obvious failure to recognize my fabulousness and invite me to this reading, it sounds like a great event that everyone should attend. I'd love to hear Bin read from Matter, which is a superb book with poems to break the heart. Can anyone podcast it for me? Or at least tell me how they did?

How do you live for now?

2005-11-14T21:27:00.000-06:00

(Via Popgadget)
Vodafone is hawking something, I'm not sure what because I'm on tech overload right now. But it has a very creative little site that allows you to live like a Mayfly.

The idea, of course, is what would you do if you only had a very short span of time to live?
When you answer that question, your name is added to the flying mayflies for 24 hours, just as a real mayfly’s life only lasts 24 hours.

Popgadget says, "Nice design, nice navigation, nice site to stumble upon on a Sunday evening" and I agree. However, can meaningful things be accomplished in 24 hours? In my life all meaningful things are both a process and an instant--sort of like how light is both a wave and a particle. Falling in love can happen in 4 hours on a bitter cold, MLK holiday in January...but there's a months-long series of events and words that set up that moment, isn't there?

But it's a great idea and design.

file magazine : a collection of unexpected photography

2005-11-14T14:46:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to start the New York Correspondence School of Madison, ala Ray Johnson. However, in doing some research on this topic, I came across a reference to a Toronto group that publishes FILE magazine, which "gives listings of mail art people, as well as what they want to receive."

Does anybody have a copy of this periodical?

I did manage to find File Magazine, which accepts stellar photographs (they really are wonderful--MDG look at them!) However, no Mail Art stuff so far. Hints?

David Citino Dies

2005-10-22T16:58:00.000-05:00

The author of one of my favorite recent books about the art and craft of poetry has died, apparently from complications of MS. The Eye of the Poet contains some of my favorite essays on the line, in particular, of any anthology I've read lately. I had intended to use it in my poetry workshop if I'd gotten to teach it this semester.

Charles & Douglas Chat Over Crumpets & Dumplings

2005-10-18T21:32:00.000-05:00

Here's a mishmash of stuff I've enjoyed reading/hearing about lately while avoiding midterm work:

Douglas Messerli in conversation with Charles Bernstein, September 7 to 12, 2004
Jacket 28 - October 2005 - Douglas Messerli in conversation with Charles Bernstein, September 7 to 12, 2004 via Fait Acompli.
"On and Off the Page: The Poetry of Anna Moschovakis and Matvei Yankelevich." They'll be talking about starting their own wacky little press, which always interests me as this is what I do in my dream life. This is the latest in the Felix writing lectures, hosted by my much-lauded colleague Laura Sims. You can see this presentation on:
Thursday, October 20
4:30 pm – University of Wisconsin-Madison
Memorial Library, Special Collections (9th Floor)
With reception and refreshments to follow.
The Redletter Reading Series has a nice lineup with Lina Ramona Vitkauskas & Ander Monson this Friday evening. I can't go because I am ATTENDING A MARY KAY PARTY (yes, Faith, I will be consorting with the devil tonight--I fear I may see pink ribbons floating in the air!)
I really like Vitkauskas' Milk Magazine.
Okay, nasty, guilty pleasure is Jim Behrle's regular feature, "What the Hell Is Up With Your Author Photo." I nearly fell off my chair reading the entries about Don Revell. I should keep quiet about that one, because I knew the Don. But it's a really funny picture. And I've privately remarked on the uncanny resemblance between David Lehman and that kid who was in Ferris Bueller's Day Off--the one who was wound too tightly. I even love his take on Anne Bradstreet.

Oh, I am a catty bitch.

I Am a Deputy of Cosmic Goodness and Life...or a Cosmic Deputy of Goodness and Light

2005-10-14T14:01:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the Book Festival was not what I expected. It was MUCH lower key than in years past. While I appreciated the focus on younger writers, I really missed the excitement that a glut of well-established names generates. My choices, Harvey Pekar, "Writing in Unreaderly Times," and the Poetry Slam Finals were not what I expected, either.

On Writing in Unreaderly Times from the publisher: "The book features authors in their twenties and thirties — those raised when TV, video games, and then the Internet supplanted books as dominant cultural mediums — and their intent is to examine: (1) how this generation came to writing as a calling, (2) what they see as literature's relevance when media consumption and competition have reached unprecedented levels, and (3) how writing and reading fit in with the rest of our rapid, multitasking world." I highly ecommend it for some of my
students

Harvey Pekar was entertaining, but the interview conducted with Jim Fleming was strangely uninspired. The questions from the audience, however, were lively. I wish Fleming had started the questions earlier. I understand why he didn't though; the Orpheum wasn't even half full on the main floor and the balcony was entirely empty unlike previous years. The presentation that followed "Writing in Unreaderly Times" was entertaining, but I gave up halfway through, too tired and empty to continue.

However, Saturday night, which I hadn't been looking forward to, was far better than I expected. As I indicated in a previous post, I don't care for spoken word poetry because it's too closely tied to one individual's life. Although I can sympathize, I can't empathize. And after a while all the slam stuff sounds alike.

However, my friend L--, who invited me to go, pointed out that the spoken word is a much more primal use of language, and I shouldn't be such a snooty-nose about it.

This slam was very much a high school kids' event. There were adults presenting, namely the cutie Bear Wolf pictured below left. (Okay, yes he's got a huge number of visible tattoos and hair that needs a makeover from the Queer Eye boys, but he's quite good boy toy material other than that. Prrr.) However, the kids ruled, and brought all their friends with them. When one finished, the entire group got up and hugged him or her.

Following the break, Kalamu ya Salaam, a performance poet, gave a baffling series of "poems." In the first one, he played imaginary instruments as he hummed, burped, and squealed a progressive jazz rendition. No words at all. I do this sort of activity, too, but only in the privacy of my living room when I've had way too much to drink and have not enough company. I do not present it to people interested in hearing poetry. Then, he combined the haiku form with air pan flute. I wanted to throw things to make him stop. I was glad I didn't, however, when he read an ACTUAL poem that included a participation piece in which we stood and were sworn in as well...I'm not sure what. But it was great fun.

I'm a BookGeek: National Book Award Nominees

2005-10-14T06:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, so here's the finalists for this award, although I'm sure everybody's up on this info already.
Fiction:
E.L. Doctorow, The March
Mary Gaitskill, Veronica
Christopher Sorrentino, Trance
Rene Steinke, Holy Skirts
William T. Vollmann, Europe Central

Nonfiction:
Alan Burdick, Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion
Leo Damrosch, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers
Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves

Poetry:
John Ashbery, Where Shall I Wander
Frank Bidart, Star Dust: Poems
Brendan Galvin, Habitat: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2005
W.S. Merwin, Migration: New and Selected Poems
Vern Rutsala, The Moment’s Equation

Young People's Literature:
Jeanne Birdsall, The Penderwicks
Adele Griffin, Where I Want to Be
Chris Lynch, Inexcusable
Walter Dean Myers, Autobiography of My Dead Brother
Deborah Wiles, Each Little Bird That Sings

So what's the reaction to the choices above?

Reasons To Be Happy, Part 1

2005-10-13T20:20:00.000-05:00

The week before midterms is a tough one for teachers and students. The meltdowns begin for us both. So here are a list of happy things sparking my imagination this week.

The Wisconsin Book Festival is this weekend! This is a great little festival here in Madison; I look forward to it all year. This year the council has decided to ask just a few "names" to speak, and invested more funds in new or developing authors. We'll see if this is a strategy that pays, but it's one that's introduced me to some wonderful new writers like Pam Houston. (I would SO love to do a Pam Houston/Hemingway pairing in Contemp. Lit) Anyway, on Friday night I plan to go see Harvey Pekar, followed by the presentation "Philip Gourevitch and Kevin Smokler : Writing in Unreaderly Times." On Saturday night, I'm going to the finals of the 2nd Annual Poetry Slam.
I tried to mend fences with an estranged friend, BDDB, by asking him to join me Friday night at the Harvey Pekar event. He hasn't responded, which makes me sad for us both. We fell out about many things, including the intimacy of poetry.
My best friend, S--, was nice enough to have a birthday. We celebrated by going to The Dining Room in Monticello, Wisconsin. That's pronounced Monty-cello (like cellophane) by the locals, which made me smile. The menu was creative, the dishes superb. (Click on each menu item for a PICTURE!) Knitting displays (!) were on the walls. We had the works, a beet appetizer (pictured to the right), salad, a butternut squash risotto that was NOT GLOPPY, pork tenderloin with cherries, sticky toffee pudding, and a final cheese course.
Did you know that Miller Williams' daughter is Lucinda Williams? Apparently they did a reading together recently! That would explain those end-rhymes in "Righteously."
Read a very interesting critique of performance poetry:
"The committal to print is an important part of the development of poetry, of why poetry is more than a throwaway rant or the la-di-da of a happy pop lyric.
And yet, this notion that a poem is language arranged in a form that has the power to speak - to shock - beyond the immediate person is under heavy and consistent assault in contemporary poetry circles.

Ironically, it is performance poetry that is eating away at the universal characteristics of poetry. Voice has become, not something that is welded into lines of language on a once-blank page, but a fetishised thing of personal ownership - my voice, with my accent and all I have to say with this voice is to do with me, me, me. That's why the only way you can experience this language is if I personally perform it for you." Yup--that's rings a bell with me!"
Landis Everson won the Emily Dickinson award and Tony Hoagland won the Mark Twain prize from the Poetry Foundation. (Thanks to the commenter who tipped me off on this!)My students love Tony Hoagland. I keep copies of What Narcissism Means to Me giftwrapped in my desk for any student who expresses an interest in poetry.
I'm digging into Susan Wheeler's Ledger, and also enjoying her Record Palace.

Swash My Buckle, Mate

2005-10-11T18:40:00.000-05:00

I'm getting a bad reputation. One of my friends, L--, just sent me this link to a quiz that helps you determine your pirate name. She says the questions are better than the final name, & I agree. But try it anyway.
***
I love the word "craptacular" when applied to describe a bad research paper. If it's not in the dictionary, it should be.

Elizabeth Bishop's a SUPERSTAR

2005-10-07T21:46:00.000-05:00

Today, I wore cruel shoes. They were pretty and brown and retro and kitten-heeled. I love that expression: kitten-heeled. They also caused GREAT BIG RED blisters on my heels. Sigh.

So after the torture of cruel shoes, I wasn't up for the gallery crawl scheduled for tonight. That's really too bad, because my ideal date is a gallery crawl followed by coffee, conversation, and a good snog. Even when you do the art crawl part alone, as I do, it's pretty fun. However, I was, quite literally, too lame.

But I needed some warmth and comfort & a movie always lets me escape. In Her Shoes was just great--and the BIGGEST surprise was the extended recitation of Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art." It's been one of my favorite poems for the longest time, and I love reciting it to my students. I first memorized it for a poetry workshop I took with the language student, and I can still say most of it--although the repetitions get messed up. And even Cameron Diaz couldn't ruin it; the poem actually stole the show, I think.

How to Charm Me (with apologies to Dooce)

Reading itself actually played a big role in this film. The smart girl is seduced when the smart boy reads her a cheap romance novel, and the slut is redeemed when she understands a villanelle. I miss having someone read to me. I miss the studied sound of words from a page. The power of spoken word poetry is too produced for me; give me the halting depth of a voice comprehending syllable by syllable. I love the sweetness and vulnerability of it all.

Where No Man Has Gone Before

2005-10-06T20:42:00.000-05:00

Uploaded on September 24, 2005by wiccked
First of all, who knew the British actually had a National Space Centre? I didn't. But ever civilized, the British are looking for ways to send a poem into another galaxy for aliens to read according to the BBC. They've chosen a poem entitled "Human Beings" by Adrian Mitchell as the prime candidate.

Makes some sense, since one of my favorite schools of poetry is The Martian School, founded largely by Craig Raine. It's named for his poem, "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home."

Does anybody know if the U.S. has ever bothered to put a poem into outer space? Because I'm a Tufte fan, I know about the pictogram we put on a lot of flying stuff; it's based largely on mathematics and images. To the best of my knowledge, poetry isn't involved, and least anything one would recognize as poetry. I'm sure Marshall McLuhan fans would know...

What American poem would you shoot into another world?
***

I'm DYING to know...who won the Emily Dickinson First Book Award today in Chicago? Was anybody there in millennium Park? I can't find out! I just love the concept of this prize--it's designed for "an American poet over the age of 50 who has yet to publish a first book." In ten years there's still hope for me!

Another Reason Why Canada Makes Me Hot

2005-10-01T10:29:00.000-05:00

catarac2
Originally uploaded by cobotelar.

People might walk up to me on the street and read me poetry, as described here. Purrrrr.

Wicked in Wisconsin

2005-09-27T21:04:00.000-05:00

Wisconsin isn't what you'd expect. At least, it's not what I'd expect many days. When I first moved to Wisconsin, I managed a local fabric and craft store while I taught part-time. On my lunch hour I read poetry. The fact I read poetry didn't seem to surprise my co-workers, but the covers of the books did. I was particularly enjoying a wonderful poem about Elvis' hips [which I personally think should be as interesting a trope as Marilyn Monroe seems to be in American poetry] in a book with a gauze-swathed nude on the cover, when my co-workers whinnied in shock. It was an unexpected moment.

But then, I don't seem to be very good at predicting what shocks people here.

In the Milwaukee Sentinal Journal comes the news that UW-Green Bay, a second-tier member of the UW system by all accounts, has banned "Patriot Act," a work of art depicting George W. with a gun to his head. From the Sentinal-Journal website:

Al Brandtner, a graphic designer from Chicago, created "Patriot Act" for a traveling exhibit called "Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin."

The exhibit - a compilation of 127 mock postage stamps made by 47 artists from 11 countries - came together after Bush described Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union Speech. The organizer, Chicago artist Michael Hernandez de Luna, instructed the artists to depict what they viewed as evil. As Brandtner recalled, he told them to "leave the wimpy stuff at home."

Now given this context, I'm left wondering why the painting wasn't read differently--more as a statement that violence is evil. I'd interpret such a work as a statement, albeit a roundabout one, for non-violence. Or better yet, perhaps postage stamps are non-expository statements? In the article, the Journal states that secret service agents had viewed the show at a previous venue and took a pass on shutting it down. [Next question: I didn't know secret service agents got to work art shows! Maybe I should rethink that career with the FBI after all....I have no criminal record! And nobody would ever mark me, the fat middle-aged blonde, as an agent of any kind.]

Of course, the UW Madison, the flagship of the state system, is having trouble firing professors convicted of sexually assaulting women, repeated sexual contact with a minor boy, and stalking. Here's a link to a press release from Sept. 15th regarding these cases from the UW Madison. Steven Clark, an oncology professor, is currently in jail; the UW is finally recommending he should be fired. However, he's actually just "on leave without pay" now. Ditto for the other two professors convicted of felonies.

Additionally, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Barrows, has been found guilty of sexual harrassment involving a graduate student. Although this offense is nowhere near as damaging as the felony convictions above, it is behavior directly connected to his job (and the felonies above were not, as far as I can tell). His punishment was to lose his $191,749 job, and move into his backup job at $72,881 with "sexual harrassment training." Note to UW: I think he's probably pretty good at harrassment; perhaps training him not to harrass graduate students would be more effective.

I have to say, that if I worked at the UW Madison, I would be more than a little embarrassed and angry about professors convicted of serious crimes but still, technically, a member of my department. And don't get me started on how bad backup jobs are for a department! "Temporary" positions are cruel to everybody and bad for students.

What will and won't be tolerated is sometimes pretty mysterious.

Potty (About) Poetry

2005-09-26T20:50:00.000-05:00

Over at the BBC, I was amused to see a regular feature entitled "Potty About Books," which reminded me how often I get into trouble for using British slang. It's not an affectation (no, I'm not Madonna), it's just that British English was my first language and it's quite deeply ingrained. Periodically, embarrassing expressions leak out--like when I asked a student if the bulge in his shirt pocket was a "fag": short for faggot used in its dictionary sense--a cigarette. Or when I say I miss a good "pash," which is a passionate kiss, people assume it means fuck. The British are a much more sentimental lot than we Americans.

Anyway for anybody interested in light verse of a high calibre, you should check out the BBC's poetry pages. When I first encountered Wendy Cope in the late 80s, I didn't much care for her. But I was a far too earnest and serious girl, and I've learned the deadliness of the light line. Here's one of Cope's poems published at the BBC; you can hear her read it here:

Men and Their Boring Arguments
by Wendy Cope

One man on his own can be quite good fun
But don't go drinking with two -
They'll probably have an argument
And take no notice of you.

What makes men so tedious
Is the need to show off and compete.
They'll bore you to death for hours and hours
Before they'll admit defeat.

It often happens at dinner-parties
Where brother disputes with brother
And we can't even talk among ourselves
Because we're not next to each other.

Some men like to argue with women
Don't give them a chance to begin.
You won't be allowed to change the subject
Until you have given in.

A man with the bit between his teeth
Will keep you up half the night
And the only way to get some sleep
Is to say, 'I expect you're right.'

I expect you're right, my dearest love.
I expect you're right, my friend.
These boring arguments make no difference
To anything in the end.
Copyright: Wendy Cope.

Right now, that particular poem speaks to me. VERY LOUDLY. I'm not sure if it's the drinker who seemed determined to hate me no matter what I said and loudly complained to anyone who would listen, or my most recent crush, who I'm missing so very much. Sigh. But boy, did this ring the bell.

Still in a very black mood--and getting short-tempered with obfuscation and silliness. One of my co-workers said I needed a glass of wine with dinner tonight!

****
I'm watching the PBS airing of Bob Dylan: No Direction Home on American Masters, a Scorsese joint. "People are always taking old songs and changing them," Pete Seeger says. "I'm part of the long chain." In American poetry, we still do that, of course. But something fundamental is changing--I'm not sure if it's a new instrument or a different class of instrument that's singing the old songs in contemporary poetry. There's a nice metaphor there, but I don't quite have it yet.

(Pores superindex) An Avant Garde Journal of Poetics Research

2005-09-16T19:57:00.000-05:00

Black mood. But this is a great journal I just discovered. Also discovered an interesting conference on a digital poetry festival

Reunited--and I Don't Mean Peaches & Herb

2005-09-11T21:40:00.000-05:00

Link Via the Times Online. Photo: Hughes and Sylvia Plath holding a manuscript, 1958, by James F. Coyne (Emory © Black Star)

Ted & Sylvia are together again in this interesting little exhibit at the Grolier Club in NYC. I've never really heard much about this venue before, but then I only did time in upstate New York (SUNY-Buffalo, not Attica, but on snowy days, 3/4 of the year, there wasn't much difference in many ways).

The exhibition runs from September 14 to November 19, 2005. "No Other Appetite": Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, and the Blood Jet of Poetry is curated by Stephen C. Enniss, from Emory Univ. where Ted Hughes' papers are stored, & Karen V. Kukil, from Smith where Sylvia Plath's papers are (largely) kept. [Question one...why did Hughes leave his papers to Emory??? How do authors choose where to leave their personal papers if not to alma maters?] Here's one of my most intriguing finds in the description of this display:

"Among the highpoints of the exhibition is a selection of notes and typescripts for Plath's unpublished novel Falcon Yard. This autobiographical novel, described in Plath's notes as "a fable of faithfulness," recounts the story of her and Hughes' courtship and marriage. One of Plath's early biographers doubted the existence of such a manuscript altogether. More recently Plath was thought to have destroyed the entire manuscript when she learned of Hughes' affair with Assia Wevill. The notes and typescripts included in this exhibition -- part of a larger selection of manuscript fragments of the novel in the Emory collection -- escaped destruction because of the couple's habit of composing new work on discarded manuscript pages of one another's work."

Plath apparently re-used Hughes pages or Hughes reused Plath's pages. I wonder whose work was written first--and can we tell from the pages themselves?

Another reaction I have relates to the scholarship on manuscripts themselves. Reusing pages from your spouse is a fairly unusual choice it seems to me. Are these simply re-used pages or is there some relationship between the backs and fronts of the pages? Hughes and Plath both wrote poems about their wedding, for example, which are very interesting to contrast side-by-side. [Read them here and here.] Is her novel in some way related to Hughes' poems on the flipside? And what's the time span between the writing on each side? Is one side a "defacement" of the other ideologically?

The double-sided life brings up questions, albeit badly formulated ones here, of doppelgangers in Plath & Hughes' life. The double-sided manuscript of Plath and Hughes...Hughes' double suicides, one with and one without children (Assia Wevill, whom Hughes left Plath for, also killed herself in their kitchen, but killed their baby, too). In what way does repetition with variation inform their work? I'd condemn this kind of biographical criticism as pointless up until learning about the double-sided manuscript. Not just the life but the work seems.

Their personal libraries will also be on exhibit, too, it seems. That's quite something. I've always thought of my personal library as too personal in many ways...what a choice to leave it to an institution.

Conchology: Literary Narcissism and the Manufacture of Scandal

2005-09-10T17:20:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Gabriel Gudding for reporting on The Great Naropa Poetry Wars, a book that's out of print and unavailable at my local libraries. His comments connected with me, for sure. I've always been afraid of the big personality mentor. I've had these cult of personality teachers in my life since junior high, and have never really been able to explain why I found them toxic. Other people whom I deeply respected managed to trust and be loyal to them, and they never really got bit in the ass by it.

However, put me in close contact with one of these--well, Gudding refers to them as narcissistic--people, and I bring out the worst in them no matter how placid and wallflowery I manage to appear. Of course, I see them complexly; I see the incredible brilliance that's often wrapped up in all the crisis and catastrophe. And perhaps that's what attracts them--a recognition that this girl will just keep going and going in terms of attention. She doesn't see them as a god or a demon--she's a good audience.

Gudding's observations are connected to Ginsberg in particular, who I mentioned in a previous post and an uncharacteristically emotional one at that. Ginsberg did court unpopular causes in order to be that poet. What's enlightening to me about Gudding's post is the level of detail about narcissim, and the connection between alcoholics and narcissism.

Because of my current life circumstance, I run into more than my fair share of folks who have drug and alcohol problems. It's been the most difficult part of aging--developing all these friends who are in AA and those who need to be in AA. The crash of reality can be heartbreaking. Strangely, too, my closest alcoholic friends are always writers, who connect with me on an intellectual and emotional level that's, ultimately, dangerous, for just the kind of reasons Gudding elaborates.

What's the ultimate damage from these narcissistic folks in teaching positions and in writing programs? Huge. In fact, they appear so often in MFA programs I know that I'm beginning to think that MFA programs may never be salvaged and are, in fact, doing very specific harm as well as the more general harm they seem to be doing to contemporary literature. But that crankiness is best saved for later.

Read Gudding's notes.
***
Update: It ocurs to me that not everybody might recognize what Gudding says directly applies to that fellow who runs that website which rhymes with poetry. It does...and enough said.

FVia cafe' cafe' poetry blog

2005-09-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

Key the word failure into Google...and see what shows up at the top of the list. Hmmmm.

Carbonator's "Poem for that Idiot"

2005-09-08T18:18:00.000-05:00

I didn't like a lot of the 9/11 political poems. I posted about my views on political poetry earlier. In that earlier post, I questioned the use of irony and praised political poems that didn't polarize the viewpoints.

But somehow, I'm really moved by Nick Carbo's raw, stinging indictment of the FEMA director who is enforcing obstructionist policies that emphasize order over pragmatism (that's the nice version of what he's doing. Others, whose grandparents were abandoned in nursing homes to drown in their beds, have not been so nice.)

We need a barbaric yawp and howl. I miss Allen Ginsberg today, but Nick Carbo's more modest scream does me good.

New Poem on Birthday Issues

2005-09-05T11:01:00.000-05:00

The Happy Birthday Balloon

One of the smokers brought it,
laughed. It blew away twice, the last time
to the arch above the doorway,
and, trapped, couldn't keep still.
It was taut with a happy thought, one
of many, an imaginary party, surprise plans, time
on someone's hands.
Indoors

it seemed so unbelievably red
against the open floor plan, the forty
shades of grey; the flat lights
of our terminals. Fastened
at the window, it was seen
from every cubicle, and you'd realize
it had held your gaze for a full five minutes
or, absently, would catch yourself
just doodling a picture of it.

It has lived there for a week.
It has shrunk, now, like a sort of soft fruit
and no one has the heart to remove it.
Once or twice we lift our heads and look
to where a finch or sparrow
hopelessly confused, attracted,
pits and blurs its wings against the glass
and fails and fails to taste it.

Pretty wretched poem. The balloon wasn't for me, by the way. It was for my cube neighbor, a business professor who's been here longer & has more friends in the department. Nobody knew about my birthday, which actually is okay. I'm really blocked creatively right now, probably becuase I'm spending twelve hours a day trying to get my classes together. It's too bad, because a new colleague just sent me a poem to review & work on. I WANT to work with M--, but am woefully constricted right now in terms of words & imagination.

Birthday Loot!

2005-09-03T13:56:00.000-05:00

I am officially a very lucky girl. For all my bitching and moaning about lacking someone to love who does not, technically, have fur, I have a WONDERFUL family and friend list. Here's what I'm thankful for on the day that I no longer officially celebrate, but my mother does:

From sister M-- A--, I got an OXO 3.5" cookie scoop, and the Handsome Family CD, Singing Bones. This scoop isn't technically going to be used for cookies; I intend to use it to scoop mashed veggies, sorbet, etc., in healthy portion sizes. The CD is a double gift--I do enjoy the music, but a new friend with great musical taste has been taking charge of my sad, embarrassing taste in contemporary music. This is a step in the right direction.
From sister R--, I got Sarah Vowell's Assasination Vacation, a book that I hear is great & deals with the Buffalo area, which I always find fascinating like a car crack-up, and the DVD The Bread, My Sweet, which is THE most romantic film for middle aged folks I know of. She can't send me a lover, but she can certainly send the romance!
From parents J-- and D--, I got a U. S. Savings bond. Yes, they are still sending me savings bonds, which I appreciate because they still imagine I'll live long enough for them to mature!
From best friend S--, a mezzaluna and BREAKFAST with her two adorable daughters (in Kindergarten and 4th grade) and new rat terrier puppy, Chaca (?). It's a real friend who invites you over for breakfast. Before joining the breakfast table, her kindergartener called down, "Mom, can I wear high heels to breakfast?" YESSSSS! I love being with the girls!
And I got birthday greetings from a couple of you in the blogosphere (THANKS!) and my life insurance agent. Okay, that last one seems either mercinary or the the MOST SINCERE best wishes for health I've every gotten.

I'm also incredibly thankful for my former mentee, my bosses M-- and K--, all my colleagues in the English department (F--, B--, A--, and L-- especially) and Mentor group, the Language Student (a small, unexpected miracle that I most sincerely hope works out!), and former students K--, B--, and J--. The next time I complain, thwack me upside the head as an ungrateful hag.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2005-09-03T02:02:00.000-05:00

No cake for me this year, but I do like the candles. It'll be much quieter than last year because it's on a weekend and because of the sad, sad national news. No unexpected drinks with friends like last year, I'm afraid, but perhaps someone will call. A great conversation long into the night would be my heart's desire. Maybe next year.

My luxury for the day will be a latte and a few hours reading poetry or poetics, which has no earthly use in my life right now. That is, of course, exactly why it's a pleasure. I've spent 35 hours this week just trying to get my code to display properly in our content management system for my online classes. My forms still aren't working in the latest upgrade of this software (done the week before school starts...grrr), and the script to keep connections refreshed during quizzes just quit working. These kind of problems give me a twitch. I didn't leave school until almost 7pm yesterday...and I went in at 7am.

So I'm really looking forward to plowing into Resin by Geri Doran later today. Comfort & joy for me, comfort and joy.

It's A Marvelous Night for a Moondance

2005-08-31T17:38:00.000-05:00

Happy 60th Birthday, Van Morrison!

On All Things Considered tonight, they announced that Van turns 60 this year. Back in the summer of 1989, I lost something while "Moondance" played over and over on the turntable. He's had my heart ever since.

A boy once nicknamed me "Tupelo," for Morrison's song "(She's As Sweet As) Tupelo Honey," for the color of my hair, he said. It was one of the sweetest things a man's ever called me, the only endearment I've ever been given. He was goofy and insecure, and he lost an arm in Iraq last year, just an old soldier who didn't get out of the Reserves quick enough.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Morrison. As my own birthday fast approaches, I wish we all could see 60 and still want to sing.

Scenes from the First Day of School

2005-08-30T22:00:00.000-05:00

IMG_0130[1]
Originally uploaded by Martha Schwer.
Two hilarous scenes from the hallways of my school during the first week of school. I can't really explain what's funny about the scene above--except I'm not really sure who's supposed to fill out the checkboxes. Was it a public vote? It's the American Idol version of paper grading! Now, will it work with student essays?

Below is a scene from my office. I share a large office with about 25 other instructors from all different disciplines. I particularly enjoy the cubes belonging to the Anatomy and Physiology teachers because they have the most interesting props. I love their skeletons, which get rolled around from room to room. Our skeletons are rickety raw at this point, losing bits and pieces all over the place. Today, it looks as though one of those skeletons could use a hand...hee hee.

I love that it seems to want to grip the back of the guest chair. That's one way to keep the students at a respectful distance!

Actually, this hand is pretty much a plastic replica, but we do have one real skeleton in the building. I'm not sure where she came from; skeletons have such twisted paths. I once thought about donating my skeleton to an art school. The thought of appearing naked and very skinny (one can never be too thin!) in front of scores of the eternally young appeals to me in a grisly way. Well it did, until I read how they get the flesh off and make an art school skeleton!

***

Note to BDDB: Don't lose heart. Finances will improve, you can do the work, and people still care. Me, for instance. Cleave.

A White Dress on a Saturday Night

2005-08-28T00:10:00.000-05:00

Originally uploaded by Scott Schram.

I should confess that I am not much of a country music fan. I like roots and alt country, though. Johnny Cash is about the extent of my popular country tastes; is there a more evocative song than Cash's verson of "The Beast In Me"?

"The beast in me
Has had to learn to live with pain
And how to shelter from the rain
And in the twinkling of an eye
Might have to be restrained
God help the beast in me"

Lately I've been invited to a lot of country music events for some reason. Tonight was Loretta Lynn, who is, sadly, going quite deaf. The sound was unbearably loud (for Loretta, apparently). You gotta love a woman who writes a song that rhymes "catalog" with "selling a hog" in her lyrics.

But "Portland, Oregon" was fresh and clever and contemporary.

Fanfare and Glamour Spot, Please!

2005-08-25T18:47:00.000-05:00

Via Fascicle and Cahiers de Corey

photo © Michael Jastremski for openphoto.net

Thanks to the wonderful Josh Corey, I discovered Fascicle. You MUST visit and read and read and read. The interview Corey points us to IS wonderful, but I was also blown away by the local news. In fact, when I read about the Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee, I felt as if angels began to sing, the dramatic top-lighting had been turned on, and the fan had begun to blow through my long blonde hair...very much like a Weight Watcher's version of the hilariously offensive graphic surrounding "The Hot Tutor" on Tommy Lee Goes to College (my new guilty pleasure on the stairmaster).

I love teaching basic and technical writing, I do. But I spent a number of very happy years studying contemporary poetry with the finest minds in the country...and it's been approximately eight years since I've talked to an actual live human being who'd read a serious, ambitious poem written in the last five years that they didn't write themselves . I've given up that part of me, really; this blog is as close as I ever hoped to come to a community of serious living poets.

I know, I know, there's Chicago. But it's not close enough to go on a regular basis, and I've never been a part of the UW community. I'm hoping that Woodland Pattern is close enough to easily do in a day. Here's a wonderful color photo of Lorine Niedecker from the current exhibition in the gallery. And check out the Robert Duncan pic, too.

And in the past month, my department has hired a wonderful young poet as a temporary full-time instructor (we still want comp/rhet degrees, but take good teachers where we can find them!), (he'd actually read Richard Siken's work recently!) AND I've possibly reconnected with a dear, sweet poet from my past who's in the area temporarily (if I haven't scared him off already)...but all in all life is looking much more bearable lately!

Doing the Hot, Salty Shuck

2005-08-21T12:33:00.000-05:00

My favorite local festival is taking place this weekend--the Sun Prairie Sweet Corn Festival. There is nothing like fresh sweet corn--REALLY fresh sweet corn--and this festival is so unique, I'd put it on my lists of favorite things.

At most state or county fairs, sweet corn is available, generally grilled or boiled, and it's pretty good. But Wisconsin, being a midwestern state, adores economies of scale. Sun Prairie, whose main claim to fame is being the birthplace of Georgia O'Keefe (who never had anything nice to say about it), has honed the sweet corn feed to an art.

Semi-tractor trailers bring in sweet corn boiled in the husk and feed the ears down a conveyer belt. Volunteers load up totes, generally with a dozen ears each. Customers have to shuck their own, which is hard because the corn is BOILING HOT. But once you've managed to pull back the husks, you proceed to the Butter Girls. These women wear silicon mitts and roll each hot ear on 5 pound blocks of butter (this is a dairy state, after all!). The final stop is the salty clothesline--a tree-type clothesline onto which 50 or so salt shakers have been tied.

Then, you get to taste heaven on a cob. Sadly, I'm not going to be able to attend this year. I'm behind in writing my fall course, and having trouble concentrating. Sigh.
All photos courtesy of McBeth.

Blogoview

2005-08-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

Charles Jensen asks "Would you rather be remembered for living a notable life or for writing notable work?"

For some reason, this question makes me think of Lorine Niedecker, among others. In Wisconsin, particularly her native Ft. Atkinson, Niedecker is virtually unknown. The people who do know her name think of her as a local, provincial poet, a "versifier" (probably because they've never read her work). They all promote the idea that she is pretty much "unknown," which is, I know, untrue. But her local reputation could be characterized as simply part of the local scenery: not a notable life. Locally, no one can figure out why she's famous because her life was so unremarkable.

Outside of Wisconsin, of course, Niedecker has a national reputation; she's never seen as a local color poet. However, she is sometimes discussed primarily as one of the few female objectivists (a kind of female freak among the boys), or a woman whose work cannot be mentioned apart from Zukofsy's. The connection makes me uncomfortable sometimes because the life and the work seem to blur in some criticism; I know this often has to be, but it still makes me sad for some reason. Her work shines, sometimes in spite of her notable life choices which seem to have actually harmed how we see her work in some ways.

Contrast her notable life and notable work dichotomy with a true local poet: James Whitcomb Riley. I grew up in Riley's birthplace, a town that worshiped his poetry in a way that is unknown in any other town in the U.S. Virtually every resident can recite at least a couplet from a Riley poem, a life-size statue supervises the courthouse lawn, and an entire 4 day festival celebrates his birthday every year with poetry contests, parades of flower-toting schoolchildren, and a general street carnival. Riley was also reported to be the town drunk with questionable moral standards and gamey personal hygiene. But the life has been supressed in favor of his very prolific body of sentimental, notable, and subtley offensive work. Ick.

Jensen's question in my case, of course, is specious. My work is teaching, which is something of the moment, so temporal, that reputation beyond my own students is impossible. And I never expect to publish poetry again. I do my best to avoid attention in terms of the way I live my life; and I have neither spouse nor children. So I suppose I'm choosing neither a notable life nor writing notable work.

Niedecker's life seems to have eluded her neighbors, family, and her literary critics alike. There's a lonely kind of freedom there. But it could be a kind of honesty, too, which I really rather like. As Mary Oppen noted about Niedecker's work, she wrote "perfect small gems of poetry written out of her survival, from the crevices of her life, that seeped into poems." However, I like best the way Andrea Brady puts the life/writing question in the following:

"the personal can also become invisible without disappearing: the lack of pronomial referents in some later poems, or the reductive syntax which mystifies subjective experience as it renders it in apparently direct language, does not affirm a wholly materialist vision of a universe without ethics. Rather, Niedecker's poetry ratifies a kind of natural law, a set of compulsions derived by right-thinking observers from nature's own works. But if that is the code of her own ethics, Niedecker's own pragmatism keeps watch dialectically over the discrepancies between natural law and human action: and especially over their alarming divergence during the mid-century."

[Photo of Niedecker from Jenny Penberthy, ed. Lorine Niedecker: Woman and Poet, Copyright © The National Poetry Foundation.]

Academic Commons |

2005-08-17T20:22:00.000-05:00

via Infocult, a wonderful new discovery by itself.

Academic Commons is a great online resource center. I'm loving the collection of digital resources for teachers fighting to stay on the side of the angels in terms of technology usage. I'm particularly impressed with the links to cool copyright tools--licensed under a creative commons tag. Yeehaw.

On a more personal note, even though I adore my job, my teaching and my students, I'm trying to accept that the beginning of a new semester is upon me. I'm not ready! Grrrr. I'm wallowing in denial. Anybody else wanna whine about going back to school?

Poetry Magazine

2005-08-16T19:37:00.000-05:00

In my recent post about humor poetry, I forgot to include the recent issue of Poetry magazine that got me on the humor jag. The July/August issue is hilarious--and polished to a high, high level.

What I particularly loved in this issue:

Even though I've never been to an AWP conference, I've been to enough conferences in general and debated the current value of M.F.A.s in Creative Writing to love Kay Ryan's piece "I Go to AWP." I particularly loved the sentence, "I agree and shoot me now." Don't stop reading until the end of the piece!
Dabney Stuart's parody "Pied Booty," and Andrew Hudgins' contributions.
And the News Notes nearly made me pee my pants with glee. Who would NOT want to go to F(u)"n"W//orL=d, run by the United Comradeship of Language Poets? I bet Mark Strand will be inspired on that "Nude Cruise for Poets, departing from Orlando." Rats, I missed that note that "Poetesses who register before August 1 are eligible for many benefits." Now where is my old membership card?
Even the Contributor's Notes cracked me up. Here's Bob Hicok's blurb: "Bob Hicok wonders if the contributor's notes might be collected from every magazine and put out twice a year as Contributor's Notes Review: A Journal of Bragging. He's been trying to explain window glass to a cat who keeps hitting its head against a bird."

I have never subscribed to Poetry before. It generally didn't speak to me; I felt more excluded as a reader than included. Since new editorial direction has taken over, namely Christian Wiman, I've been thrilled with the changes in direction and attitude. The last two issues, specifically, have moved me enough to subscribe for the first time ever.

I have to say that I'd never heard of Wiman before this appointment. Now, he has the unenviable chore of reading 90,000 poems a year. Even with two assistants, this sounds daunting! Apparently he's looking for "voice" in poetry, rather than content or approach.

Discussion on the Changes at Poetry magazine:

Christian Science Monitor's "Changing the Landscape of Verse."
Here's an audio interview with Wiman that I found particularly informative.
Here's another, more recent audio interview with Wiman, from the Illinois Poet Laureate web site.

Update: Here's the latest about the new Poetry Foundation associated with the magazine: "The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, has embarked on an ambitious plan to bring the best poetry before the largest possible audience. In the coming year, the Foundation will sponsor a recitation contest in the schools, a major new poetry website, and an unprecedented study to understand poetry's place in American culture." US Newswire

Emerging Writers Network: David Abrams - Fobber excerpt

2005-08-16T06:14:00.000-05:00

Read This: Emerging Writers Network: David Abrams - Fobber excerpt

SFC David Abrams reports from Iraq. It's nothing we don't know or haven't heard before, I suppose. But Abrams manages to discuss the relationship between words and pictures in a war zone. For him, the pictures can't lie--but the ancient, Socratic concern about rhetoric and poetry (from The Republic on) still rings true.

Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest - 2005 Results

2005-08-15T17:11:00.000-05:00

Photos: Courtney Siebring and T. S. Eliot.
I don't write funny poems. I am full of Sturm und Drang, and take myself far too seriously. However, I do seriously envy (or is it jealousy--I get them confused!) colleagues who can whip off outrageous limericks for retirement parties or graduations. I'm too sentimental (and possibly dull) to do that.

One of the funniest competitions for funny poems is the Wergle Flomp contest. This year, the third place winner, by Courtney Siebring, is entitled "The Tight Thong of J. Alice Prufrock" and it's a hoot.

This poem made me laugh till I cried for two reasons. First, my college crush, now an executive editor of a major sports magazine, and I bonded over Eliot. We memorized different parts of this poem, and between the two of us, we could probably recite the whole thing from memory. Of course, bonding over that particular poem did NOT bode well for the future of romance, but I (being young and innocent) didn't quite figure that one out before I got my heart broken.

Secondly, of course, my former professional occupation was training people to sell silk underwear over the phone. If you ever want a bra fitted correctly over the phone, I'm your girl. Additionally, I often handled "special" clients--which generally meant cranky or famous ones. I learned that famous diet gurus often order their underwear too small, and famous French chefs often order too large. There's an eternal truth there, even if I'm not quite sure what it is. Then there was the perv who called up for my "panty report" every morning: "What color is your underwear?"

Corporate underwear trainer was an odd job, but you can learn a LOT about people based on their choice of underwear! And it's an endless source of humor. So finding an underwear-themed parody was a real belly laugh for me. Enjoy!

Update: Language Log has a great entry on "tighty whiteys." I do call them Y-fronts, for the record.

Commentary from the Higher Ed Community on Blogging

2005-08-14T11:43:00.000-05:00

A recente email prompted me to look up a series of links on blogging and higher ed that I've been collecting for a class I've been preparing to teach in the spring.

Bloggers Need Not Apply is a pseudonymous article about the hiring process in higher education. The author suggests that blogs almost universally hurt a candidate's chances of being hired as an English professor: "for professional academics, it's a publishing medium with no vetting process, no review board, and no editor. The author is the sole judge of what constitutes publishable material, and the medium allows for instantaneous distribution. After wrapping up a juicy rant at 3 a.m., it only takes a few clicks to put it into global circulation."
On "The Phantom Professor" is an article about an SMU adjunct fired for blogging about her students. The article itself doesn't break new ground, but the comments on the article are quite interesting & represent a wonderful range of values. The blog discussed in the article has radically reformed; it's now clearly part of the teacher's mainstream teaching practices (and no longer seems anonymous).
Were There Blogs Enough and Time is a great piece on the other side of the debate--an attempt to embrace blogs for legitimate reasons. This piece also makes a clear distinction between a blog and an online journal (like LiveJournal), which is a big, important distinction.
Matthew G. Kirschbaum's entry on Tribble's article. His views most closely mirror mine--and he publishes under his own name too.
Dialogic has a nice middle of the road position on this matter.

I've been thinking about these issues for a while this summer, particularly since the Blogher convention notes discussed generating guidelines blogging on each blog, too.

So Why Do I Blog?

Because I want to "show my work." Staying abreast of current trends in communication is tough for someone who doesn't take to it naturally. This media keeps me motivated.
Because it connects me. I'm an English professor, but that's a narrow coffin to die in. And it's important to me not to die on the vine. Breadth of intellect is important to me.
Because I want a place to put writing, oddities, leftovers, mistakes, recipies, lazy ideas.
Because my students need to understand digital culture isn't just 1 and 0s. Teaching students to use the web without getting them to think criticically about it is irresponsible. They need to think about the difference between public and private space on the web. They need to define these.
Because I need to understand the consequences of free speech, good and bad. I want to model good behavior within an idealized democratic public arena. I want to figure out how to behave responsibly AND creatively.
Oh yeah, because it's fun!

Another Reason Why I Teach Online

2005-08-13T22:29:00.000-05:00

Chronicle Careers: 08/10/2005: Female Professors and Clothing in the Classroom

I'm catching up on chronicle reading today, in between re-writing my online tech reporting class.

Okay...in the fall all my classes will be online. I have the luxury of NOT spending a whole bunch of money trying to make my sorry-ass figure look stylish. Welll...sort of.

Unlike many online profs, I go to work every day and sit in my little cubicle and type away to students. I make sound recordings of comments on their papers. And I'm a handy sub for the classroom or the writing center, as well as a committee member.

As a result, my colleagues see me--so I can't really wear sweats or flip-flops or anything. I can't wear pointy shoes (my feet won't take it anymore) to establish my authority (as this article suggests), but maybe I should buy a pointy bra to have the same effect. Do the pointiest boobs still rule the room?

Learning Styles Vs. Content

2005-08-12T17:38:00.000-05:00

Tall, Dark, and Mysterious : Different learning styles versus different content

In working on revamping my online classes, I have been trying to assess the best teaching strategy for the material on a daily basis. In fact, right now it's an overwhelming challenge. My university doesn't have an instructional designer on staff to talk this stuff over with--we're just supposed to know this in addition to our subject matter. One horrible misconception that I've had to deal with in my capacity as an online mentor is the many-ways-to-learn-the-same-knowledge-fallacy. Moebius Stripper responds to an article in the AFT newsletter regarding this mistaken phenomenon. Check out the discussion on the post, too. The comments are quite high-quality.

Moebius Stripper (one of the greatest pseudonyms for a math professor I've ever heard) writes a blog that charms me, despite the anonymity (which I generally hate in a blog). She's not for everyone's taste, but her views are always provocative, well-reasoned, and provocative. As a rule, I don't have the outrageous students that she does, but many of the scenarios she presents sound uncomfortably familiar at times.

Menu for the Blessing Way

2005-08-11T18:35:00.000-05:00

Chocolate Souffle
Originally uploaded by anonymousthomas.

Here's what I made for my students' blessing way--a chocolate souffle. I served it with vanilla ice cream and homemade cherry sauce. Things went quite well, and my students seems quite giddy over all the attention. They're nervous, though. I tried not to tell horror stories about unintelligble TAs, 300 seat lecture halls, or finals week freak-outs.

I decided on something chocolate after reading The Chatelaine's side-splittingly funny post about "paintings, chocolate, and young men." (You go girl--you've got guts I don't!) I supplied the chocolate; the young men supplied the paintings. It was a rejuvinating evening!

Here's my damn fine chocolate souffle recipe:
5 T butter
1 T plus 1/2 cup sugar
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1/8 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla
1 T Grand Marnier
6 egg yolks
8 egg whites
1/4 t. cream of tartar

Butter a 2 quart souffle dish; coat with 1 T of sugar. Refrigerate.

Melt chocolate in double-boiler. Stir in salt, vanilla, and liqueur. Set aside.

Beat the yolks and 1/3 c. sugar until pale yellow. Fold into chocolate mixture.

Beat the whites until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat to stiff moist peaks.

Vigourously stir 1/4 of the whipped whites into the chocolate mixture. Gently fold the remaining whites until just incorporated. Spoon it into prepped pan.

Bake at 375 for about 25 minutes.

THE GREAT AMERICAN PINUP: TED KOOSER�DELIGHTS & SHADOWS

2005-08-10T09:26:00.000-05:00

THE GREAT AMERICAN PINUP: TED KOOSER�DELIGHTS & SHADOWS

For the record, I'd like to say that this wonderful post on Ted Koozer's work perfectly articulates a lot of what I feel about our national laureate's work. I particularly like the tone of this post; I'm not a big fan of polemical rants about the School of Quietude. But I do feel that this kind of criticism needs to occur regularly.

At the end of the day, I am a midwesterner, and I identify a bit more with Kooser than the author of this post. But his interesting and provocative comments keep me reading.

Edward Tufte Makes the Wonderful Familiar and the Familiar Wonderful

2005-08-08T18:30:00.000-05:00

Today was a pretty big day for the following reasons:

I saw first editions of books written by Euclid, Galileo, and Newton. That, in and of itself, was pretty thrilling. Edward Tufte travels with them, and brings along a lackey in white gloves to schlep the wonders around to the back of the world. It was miraculous.
The people around me knew how miraculous seeing these books were. They also knew how lucky they were to be listening to one of the most original minds in the U.S. It's not that I think that people are stupid; it's that people who value a life of the mind are seldom drawn together by anything in the physical world.
The room had slightly more men than women--and all the men were HOT. I nearly titled this post "Whoring Around with Edward Tufte," but that would reveal that I, perhaps, did not belong in the room. But it was hard to ignore being in a room with men who had something going on upstairs besides scotch and soda was thrilling and unbelievably sexy. Prrrrr. If I hadn't been monopolized at lunch by a married colleague who wanted to chat, I would be the Whore of Mensa after all. These were men who could hold up their end of the conversation--and know when to stop talking and take some action!
Better than ever, I understand why Powerpoint is almost always so horrible. And a wonderful excerpt that I can use in my classes only costs $7. Yippee! It has a hilarious version of the Gettysburg address via the Powerpoint Content Wizard. "There's no bullet list like Stalin's Bullet list."

Madison's Former Poet Laureate, John Tuschen, dies at 56

2005-08-08T17:40:00.000-05:00

The Capital Times: Death of a Former City Poet Laureate

Sad news: activist poet John Tuschen died today. You can read a nice biography and some of his poems here. The paper makes it sound as though he's the current laureate, but he's not. That honor belongs to Andrea Musher.

21st Annual Distance Ed Conference

2005-08-06T14:45:00.000-05:00

This week I've been silent because I've been to a distance ed conference here in town, at the lovely Monona Terrace, pictured above. There's a streaming gigaconference record if you're interesting in distance ed here. Although Madison is more Arts and Crafts than Deco in design, I think that crazy F.L. Wright did a pretty good job on this one, even if it did take about 70 years to build.

The conference was great, very thought provoking, but I'm exhausted right now mentally. I'd intended to revise my Tech Reporting Course this weekend, but it isn't happening. Instead, I went to see A--, a colleague who sings in the Reptile Palace Orchestra, a Balkan Lounge Swing group, at the Atwood neighborhood Summerfest.

These block parties are a uniquely Madison thing; I've never lived in a city this size with such notorious block parties. The Atwood is a family affair because it's far enough from the campus to eliminate the drunken orgies that occur on Willy Street and State Streets earlier in the year. I was alone, so although it got me out of the house, I missed having someone to chat with, but I loved the people-watching.

And Monday, I'm going to get to ~~worship at the feet of~~ go see Edward Tufte! I AM a lucky girl!

Blogher Conference Notes

2005-07-31T21:22:00.000-05:00

Posted by sar

I just took a look at the site notes for the Blogher conference, which I wanted to attend but didn't have the cash for. Based on the notes taken by Jill Fallon at the "Blogs in Academia, $$ and Sense," this conference must have been excellent. To all my students and colleauges, please check out the notes from this session!

Check out another excellent set of notes on the conference at Sacred Whore. Good stuff about broadcasting and blogging naked! And of course, don't miss Dooce's pre-con post about the conference. But put down your hot coffee before you read it!

This conference is so refreshing because it's such a model of productive and creative communication. Interdependence has often been my weakness; collaboration doesn't come naturally to someone as g-d independent as I am. And lately, I've been around people who are so horribly passive-aggressive that it challenges one to keep a civil tongue in my head. Instead of responding with a polite, simple "no, thank you," these people either don't reply at all or give some shaggy dog story. As an educator, you'd think I'd become of a connessuier of the shaggy dog story, but they're among my biggest peeves. Manners, people, it's about manners.

Although the chief offenders have (hopefully) decided to spread their joy elsewhere, this year I've installed a nice plaque which reads "Love * Tolerance * Respect * Manners * Hard Work." Lie to me while looking at that, why dontchya?

I'm a happy camper tonight. I've not been to the movies lately & saw two good ones in the last week: Hustle and Flow and Happy Endings. Both were excellent, although Hustle and Flow won my heart with one of the best screen kisses EVAH. Now I bet you think I go for the lush romantic kiss, short on commitment, long on longing. NO! This kiss was passionate, intense, searing, emotional; it was an entire marriage in 60 seconds. I've never had a kiss like that...don't think most people have. And that made it a good cinema kiss, for sure.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Kunitz!

2005-07-29T19:02:00.000-05:00

Photo by Ted Rosenberg

On All Things Considered, the exceptionally long-lived poet, Stanley Kunitz, reads "The Long Boat" about a Norse tradition. He preceeded the reading with a short statement that he didn't wanna talk about his health or age...just read a poem about a dead body slowly floating out to sea and looking back at the shore.

A strange choice for a birthday poem...but for a centurian (?) with a sense of very dark humor, a fitting choice.

He's been publishing poetry since 1930. Hard to fathom, actually. I once heard poets generally live to 62--and live much shorter lives than fiction writers. I'd been making plans to kick off at 62...maybe I should up the contributions to the retirement fund!

Reason #11 Not to Give Up on Life

2005-07-28T17:38:00.000-05:00

Tow-headed, ten-year-old neighbor boys still stand in front of gumball vending machines with their hands on their bent knees, looking longingly. They still check all the empty dispenser slots, just in case. They smile when you catch them shaking the machine, and scratch the scabs on their elbows.

It's a lovely summer day in Wisconsin.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Bumper year for poetry prize

2005-07-26T20:02:00.000-05:00

Bumper year for poetry prize (via Poetry Hut Blog)

The Guardian reports the following books have been shortlisted for the best poetry collection for the Forward prize. Here's the list:

The Good Neighbour, by John Burnside;
Legion, by David Harsent;
A Shorter Life, by Alan Jenkins (which has the best cover art! British printers are awesome!)
Woods etc, by Alice Oswald;
Stolen Love Behaviour, by John Stammers.
Sadly, most of these books are very hard to come by in the U.S. Legion, for example, is already out of stock, even from Faber & Faber.

The nominations for the best single poem are:
"Passages," by Sarah Maguire (the poet in residence at Chelsea Physic Garden!?!);
"99 Poems," by Stephen Knight;
"Liverpool Disappears for a Billionth of a Second," by Paul Farley;
"Buffalo Calf," by Katherine Pierpont;

######

Although I can't imagine doing very well on any time-sensitive competition these days (altho I'd love to be a contestant on The Amazing Race), I COULD read 20 books in 28 days! I WOULD like to take part in a new BBC Four programme!

####
I'd intended to publish on this blog every day this summer. Unfortunately, I've been blocked in writing my online classes, and blocked in this as well. Blockage is probably a result of missing someone terribly. I've got to work on less spillover between my personal and professional life! But the sense of disappointment when someone dear doesn't seem to want to be close...but just doesn't seem to have the guts to say that...GRRR. And of course I keep giving second chances, and getting the big slapdown when I do!

Of course, hauling my ass to the gym makes me forget about it all. After an hour on the elliptical trainer, I'm barely able to walk, much less pine for any man, no matter how sweet.

Besides, there are a number of friends who do love me, and want to be near me. Why am I not satisfied with that?

Watching Netflix also helps. I've gotten a number of duds, but have also enjoyed Season 2 of Columbo (my not-so-secret personal hottie), the first season of The Bob Newhart Show, the 5th season of the Sopranos, The Paper Chase (which made me yearn to be John Houseman this time!), and Sister Helen.

Between the lines - Lisel Mueller

2005-07-21T20:42:00.000-05:00

Between the lines - Sunday Poetry via Poetry Hut Blog

I love Lisel Mueller's work. In a contemporary lit class I taught once two years ago, I wanted SO much to include Alive Together in the reading list. I ended up NOT including it, and I'm glad I didn't.

Sometimes, when I teach something that means so much to me, I get irrationally disappointed and heartbroken when students don't love it as much as I do. And then I get cranky. I become like a bad lover, a stalker. "Why don't you love it?!?" I say with slitty eyes. "You promised to love it by taking my class. Is it ME?"

Sigh. But back to Lisel Mueller. This poem is typical of what I like about Lisel--her inspired, simple metaphors. She's not well known & isn't fashionable. But her work is one I can live with on a daily basis. Everyday poetry is wonderful. I mean I love the fireworks of Richard Siken's Crush...REALLY. But I like inspired and warm on a day-to-day basis. The fireworks can only happen in small doses.

When I read this kind of everyday poetry, my outlook changes. It's not "other"--it becomes part of me. Changing me, like the shape of my own shadow. "Love Like Salt" is such a poem.

###########

Okay, I'm typing this with the TV on. I've not watched much TV this week--I've been watching Netflix mainly. Since my gym has cable TV at each exercise station, I've been trying to use that as an incentive to go. Anyway, on this horrible reality show "hooking up," which is about online dating, one of the dippy protagonists just said "In New York, men expect you to sleep with them on the third date." Then she turns to her date, who's helping her cook, and asks, "When do you expect woman to sleep with you?"

"Right after they cook for me" was his response.

YIKES. Okay, this summer I've put out a LOT of dinner invitations to men I know. Eee gads. Did they all think the big, fat, ugly girl wanted to hug & kiss em in the bedroom after dinner??? OMG. I think of myself as someone who can read social cues pretty well, but it never occured to me that men equate cooking for them as a sexual invitation. Wait...if they DO, that might explain the hesitancy of Mr. BDDB to come visit me. I am officially really embarrassed. On the other hand, what do I know about seducing men? Babe in the woods here. This is all too complicated. I think I'll just go have a nice hot bath with tea and an almond cookie!

Arielle Greenberg's "Some Dark Holler"

2005-07-20T17:05:00.000-05:00

Arielle Greenberg

Wonderful new poem by one of my favorite younger poets!

Poet's Choice

2005-07-19T19:15:00.000-05:00

Okay, how come my local paper doesn't carry anything like the Washington Post's Poet's Choice column??? I really wish more people had access to this brief, readable column that makes poetry part of an everyday life. Now that Rhubarb is Susan is no longer publishing :(, I've gone back to Pinsky's work. But I sure miss Simon DeDeo's work. Here's one of his most interesting posts--although it's not typical.

Despite my appreciation of this hilarious cartoon vaguely reminiscint of LANGUAGE school encounters, I just picked up Juliana Spahr's latest big pub: This Connection of Everything With Lungs. So far, I'm just loving it. It occurs to me that even though she's basicly a scholar from Ohio, she's updating the immigrant tongue experience that seems so important to Reznikoff, Zukofsky, Stein, etc. by taking on Hawaiian culture in the way that she has. There's more than a hint of Stein in her work of course--and sometimes I wish she'd push Stein in a new way a bit more. But her work is provocative and fun.

There's been so much talk about Richard Siken's Crush, and based particularly Robert at Of Looking at a Blackbird's comparisions to Plath, I bought it, too, today. I've got high hopes!

What's for Dinner?

2005-07-15T18:54:00.000-05:00

Photo by Auntie P

Today, I went shopping for fruits and veggies. Tonight I'm having white, sweet, Crenshaw melon wrapped with proscuittio, a glass of $7.99 white zinfandel, and, if I'm still hungry, mesculin green salad with homemade croutons. The soundtrack to this evening is Barry White's "I Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Baby" and Carole King's "(You're) So Far Away." Let me be perfectly clear; I'm too young for either of these songs. But I know a good sad FM evening when I encounter it!

So what are you having for supper tonight? And what would you want if I invited you to dinner? What's the food/music combo?

Quake Review

2005-07-14T23:15:00.000-05:00

In my quest this summer to A) see more live theater and B) speak to someone every day I just got done seeing UW-Mitchell Theater production of Quake, a Humana festival play on production locally, by Melanie Marnich.

Melanie Marnich by Keven Mclaughlin.

I went alone, as usual, and had quite a nice seat in the third row. Strangely, though, the audience was older than the average Madison audience--or at least older than the audience I'd expected for a play with the following description:

"Lucy is on a mission. She's searching for the love of her life. She
follows the curve of the world, picking up enough speed to cross mountain
ranges, rivers, lakes, and jet streams. Amid humorous encounters with a variety
of guys, she dreams of a brilliant astrophysicist serial killer with a mean
romantic streak—a woman on a parallel quest. Since a body in motion will
keep moving unless acted upon by another force, will either of them ever be
able to stop? A young woman grapples with the laws of physics and the
evolving desires of her heart in this wacky comic journey that shakes across
the fault lines." From the Daily Page's review.

Lucy goes through the following kinds of men in the following order:

the simple, hunter-gatherer man who lacks civilization.
the college-educated modern boyfriend who cheats.
the old man whose money is more attractive than his temperate love.
the loyal, put-together, handsome attractive man whose dull perfection makes one feel trapped.
the brain-lite slightly flakey boyfriend who doesn't take committment terribly seriously.
the silent, smoldering blue collar bully whose darkness is both attractive and abusive.

However, in Lucy's mind is a perfect, magnificent, powerful and terrible idealism about selfhood and love characterized as a female serial killer, who she identifies with. It's a very interesting play, one that many women will identify with--particularly if she'd idealized passionate love.

Now I'm not saying that an audience of 50+ can't appreciate this play; in fact, I'd almost expect them to understand both the essential message of the play about the difference between BIG love (a divine kind of love, agape, idealism and life-force) and romantic love (passion, affection, everyday sex kind of love), and how one needs the other but can't substitute for the other. Both are needed. Surely at 50+, one has figured out the essential joy of an evening spent looking at the stars on the porch of a house with lovers and children safely asleep inside.

But the really lovely part of this play was the LANGUAGE, the poetic, peripatetic use of language that totally enchanted me.

However, as the play finished (and it was a completely competent and enjoyable performance), a RUDE lady behind me started asking, "did you understand that? Did YOU understand that?" to everyone around her. She asked me that question and I smiled--I DID understand, thank you very much, and was about to say so when she said, "So far, I haven't had anybody say yes yet."

I tried to pipe up with "Yes! I identified with this play a LOT"--but she was gone, muttering about the ills of contemporary theater. Grrrr.

I love Madison, I really do. But even here in Madison, the arts are getting more conservative. Or maybe they always were provincial. But for crying out loud--not everything has the plot clarity of a Charlie's Angel episode. Linear plots are boring (and this actually was a linear plot--with some poetic, non-linear monologues that were very beautiful). Sigh.

Sunday Poem

2005-07-10T14:23:00.000-05:00

Resurrection, Imperfect

A rare dish is right for those who
have lain bandaged pale in a tomb for weeks:

peach and pheasant to demonstrate
that fruit and birds still grow on trees,

eels to show that fish still needle streams.
Rarer still, some strange white crabs,

not bleached but blank, pulled from
a depth of ocean that the sun would drown

if it approached them. Two-thirds
of the earth is sea: and two-thirds of that sea

away from currents, coasts, and reefs
is lifeless, colorless, pure weight.

This poem seems right for a Sunday afternoon. It's based on John Donne's poem, of the same name. I seem to be reading a lot of metaphysicals lately--I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm trying to deal with the widening gap between my physical and spiritual realities. It's not that this gap is new--it's just that I'm more aware of it in the relative solitude of summer. It's a separation of inches--but how large those inches seem.

This afternoon, I'm baking another peach buckle for friends. I hope this one actually buckles!

Silly Stuff

2005-07-08T06:13:00.000-05:00

Courtesy The Poetry Hut Blog, there are two sites that combine chemistry and poetry in silly and entertaining ways.

The Periodic Table of Haiku and The Periodic Table of Poetry assign a poem to each element. I'd actually like to find existing poems appopriate to each element--but that's a bit hard for elements like Lawrencium!

One of my hometown heros is a woman who teaches chemistry but writes great plays, often about historical female icons like Madame Curie and Susan B. Anthony. I envy scientists this ability to cross into the arts. They're taken fairly seriously as artists...even though it's not their specialty. However, if I was to run research studies or experiments...I wouldn't be taken quite so seriously. Hmmmm.

What Does My Bookshelf Say About Me?

2005-07-07T17:32:00.000-05:00

Over the 4th of July, I visited some good friends in their lovely new house. I took a peach cobbler [click here to view], and got a great home tour. After stopping in their new study, I noticed their very perfect bookcase, stocked almost entirely in Norton Critical Editions. It was a picture of intellectual perfection.

I went home and took a look at my own bookcases. Oh dear. I actually have 4 large bookcases full, and 12 sacks of more recent books in my spare bedroom.

My name is Martha and I'm a book-a-holic.

Okay...even more frightening is a list of the titles on one shelf of my bookcase. Here's a list of titles that stand next to each other:

Eat More, Weigh Less by Dean Ornish. From my vegetarian phase.
Overcoming Lonliness by Leslie Carter. Purchased in response to Ornish's point about a lack of a support system leading to overeating, a point not lost on me. Although I'm probably just trying to keep everyone at arm's length. Fairly pointless book.
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. Dark short stories about twisted lives.
I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich. A dark novel by a man with a twisted life.
The Corinne T. Netzer Carbohydrate Counter. In direct opposition to Ornish.
The Snow Leopard by Ruth Padel. Poetry about animals by a British vegetarian.
Don't Be Silly Mr. Twiddle, by Enid Blyton. Mr. Twiddle was one of my favorite childhood books. He likes kippers and has a terrible memory.
Awakenings by Oliver Sacks. A book about real people who are frozen in time...except for their memories.
The Shy Single by .... I'm not sure who by. Okay...see numbers 1-8 for why I needed to read this.
Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life : How to Use Feng Shui to Get Love, Money, Respect and Happiness by Karen Carter. This book of magical thinking suggests I need to clean out a closet or two to make room for the man...and he will show up.

Okay...I'm officially a crazy person. CRAZY. I need to get rid of a LOT of these books.

I have several collections of books. The Poetry Collection needs weeding, but will stay. However, my graphic design collection needs to go. If you're interested in picking up a bunch of great graphic design idea books, particularly if you're interested in studying commercial art locally, PLEASE let me know. You can come get a bunch.

MIT Weblog Survey

2005-07-03T15:58:00.000-05:00

MIT Weblog Survey : Thanks: ""
If you haven't already, participate in MITs research project on blogs and blogging!

New Appliances

2005-07-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

tess_001_1
Originally uploaded by Martha Schwer.

This is Tess, my new washing machine. She's named for Tess of the D'Urbervilles...who had to deal with a lot of stains and dirt in her own way. My washing machine knows all my secrets--washes away the evidence--just as Tess would have liked to do, I'm sure.

Joining Tess in my home is Hank, my new bottom freezer fridge. Actually, his full name is Hanker--as in "I'm hankering for some eggs benedict." He also has a manly feel about him...upright and controlled.

What I Did This Week

2005-07-01T19:49:00.000-05:00

Discovered that one's refrigerator preference tells just a little too much about one. Okay...I had to buy a new fridge this week. I also had to read 27 applications for two one-year full-time positions teaching English at my fine school, so that we could invite five candidates in for an interview. As we were getting giddy from just one too many app with some math professors in a similar situation, I discovered colleague L-- likes top freezers, I like bottom freezers, and T--, upon whom I have a secret crush because he can put his academic hood on WITH ONE HAND, is a side-by-side man. Knew I liked him!
Sent ten cards and letters to my godchild, who is at camp this week. Before going, she asked if I'd ever been to camp and if I got homesick. Although I did go to camp & hated every minute of it, I found myself telling a horrible fib that the homesickness would pass. I think I was so flattered that someone, anyone, wanted to ask me that.
Discovered that many English teachers are even worse at interviews than I am. Oh dear oh dear.
Considered buying a beautiful new oak round table with 2 drop leaves and and extension leaf that cost $649. The chairs, which didn't even match, were $249 apiece.
Decided to buy a much less pretty, generic round drop-leaf table with 2 chairs for $399 combined. Sigh. But now I have a clean apartment and a table to serve a piece of pie on. Just need a suitable appetite. Of course, this is the story of my life somehow. I have a Craftsman Bungalow mind, but a Walmart body.
Renewed my gym membership, although I don't know why. I don't go often enough really justify the expense. Strangely, just having the membership does not seem to reduce the size of my ass.
My old leaking and loud fridge was removed from my sight. I now know what lives under the fridge and I wish I didn't. Ugh.
But I'm now a bottom-freezer girl....I'm saying it loud and proud! All hail the new bottom freezer. I've named it Hank. Hank was a bit too wide to fit in the old fridge's 29 1/2" space. I had to rip the trim off...but now Hank is happily cooling my milk and cherries.
Heard from a dear old friend. Am composing a message...hang on old friend!
Still trying to decaffienate. Not terribly successfully. That demon java!

MiPO 2005 POETRY CRUISE!

2005-06-29T07:48:00.000-05:00

This week, I'm giving English placement advice to incoming students. Although this is a time-consuming process, I rather like doing it because one can look like an absolute star--all-knowing, wise, and kind. Then I have to go home and deal with broken refrigerators and stained carpets, of course, but one gets to feel in the know for approximately 8 hours per day. Sigh.

At least I get attention from real people--which I sorely miss in my online teaching format!

MiPO 2005

Kudos to the lovely redesign over at one of my favorite online mags, MiPoeisis. They've added a number of features I've been meaning to blog about for a bit. One is the podcast area...which has careful (and hilarious) instructions for reading one's own work.

"Before You Read for MiPo Radio....please make sure you are not dead." This advice could apply in a variety of situations. It's almost as helpful as "when travelling, eat and pee when you can," which is the most helpful advice my father ever gave me.

Also, there's a poetry workshop cruise at sea! I've never been on a cruise...and if I were to go, I might NOT want to write. I'd probably like to listen to poets better than me read their work and attend participatory art projects. However, a floating poetry workshop would be delightful to conduct! And David Lehman, Denise Duhamel, David Trinidad, and Nick Carbo get the fun of leading a variety of workshops loosely connected by studying form. I'm not really sure why the subject is form on a cruise ship...but it's a cruise right after classes end next year. Anybody wanna go with me?

More info about the Walker Art Center's recent opening show to come....

Devoid of Content - New York Times

2005-06-26T19:18:00.000-05:00

Sorry no posts over the last couple of weeks--I've had family in town and needed a brief sanity break after a tough semester.

Devoid of Content - New York Times

Here's an excerpt I've been mulling over from the New York Times, written by guest editorial author and curmudgeon, Stanley Fish:

"Most composition courses that American students take today emphasize content rather than form, on the theory that if you chew over big ideas long enough, the ability to write about them will (mysteriously) follow. The theory is wrong. Content is a lure and a delusion, and it should be banished from the classroom. Form is the way.

On the first day of my freshman writing class I give the students this assignment: You will be divided into groups and by the end of the semester each group will be expected to have created its own language, complete with a syntax, a lexicon, a text, rules for translating the text and strategies for teaching your language to fellow students. The language you create cannot be English or a slightly coded version of English, but it must be capable of indicating the distinctions - between tense, number, manner, mood, agency and the like - that English enables us to make.

You can imagine the reaction of students who think that "syntax" is something cigarette smokers pay, guess that "lexicon" is the name of a rebel tribe inhabiting a galaxy far away, and haven't the slightest idea of what words like "tense," "manner" and "mood" mean. They think I'm crazy. Yet 14 weeks later - and this happens every time - each group has produced a language of incredible sophistication and precision."

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. When I teach poetry, for instance, I spend a great deal of time discussing parts of speech and grammar and the nuts and bolts of language. I love it. The power of the verb is often discovered for the first time in poetry. So I really want to agree with this wacky dude (and yes, I know who Stanley Fish is...I still think he's a wacky dude), I really have to protest.

Students who attended the University of Illinois--Chicago might be able to handle this task beautifully. But they're quite willing to give anything a shot. They probably aren't taking time away from their toddlers to do their homework. They're probably not half dead from being run off their feet as bar staff or dishwashers for a full shift before getting time to start their homework. And they probably don't have serious alcohol and drug problems that rob them of imagination and higher thinking powers. Although I love the process of what must go on in his classroom, the final product seems like crap. And does this take A WHOLE SEMESTER for his students???

My goodness. This idea would certainly cut down on homework and papers for me to grade, which I would adore. But....really....Prof. Fish, the emporer has no clothes.

Blogoview #2

2005-06-02T18:23:00.000-05:00

Charles Jensen's Question of the Week is:

A poet-seeking missle is heading to earth from outer space philistines. Only three contemporary poets (besides you) will be able to survive in the bomb shelter. Which three poets do you choose to save and why?

This question made me think of lots of ways to answer. Of course, if I was being grandiose in redesigning poetry in the future, I'd choose a poet from each school of poetry I'd like to survive into the future. So making these decisions becomes an interesting exercise in canon formation (and a really subversive and fun one, too!) So would I stick to the party line and only choose L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets? Or choose a New York School poet, a poet laureate, and a New Formalist? Actually...I probably wouldn't want to live with that mix!

But, if I'm really honest, I probably wouldn't have that much insight. I'd just choose based on personal connections and more intimate dynamics. I'd pick one guardian angel, to keep us all sane, I'd choose one hot poet as a fantasy boy-toy just for me, and I'd need a best friend, after poet fantasy-boy broke my heart. Hmmm. Here are the nominations for each position:

Guardian Angel: Bin Ramke. Bin kept me alive during some very dark personal days while working on my Master's degree. Literally. I think I'd have shot myself in the head without his humor and gentle insight. I loved making him giggle, too. He hates any form of mean-spirit, and I trust his judgment more than anyone I've ever met. He'd be good company. [Link to an excellent essay he wrote on American Poetry]

Hot Poet Fantasy Boy: Thomas Lux. Just for the record, I've never met him. I'm not stalking him. I've just lusted after his poems and the various pix on the covers. He's awfully cute & I have a crush on him. There. Of course, he'd also bring the right tone along. No-nonesense.
Best Friend: Medbh McGuckian. I've never met her either, but I love her work so much, I could spend the rest of my life getting to know her.

Now...would this redesign contemporary poetry by default? Probably not. I'm terribly traditional in my choices. But of course, I have to keep the position of exciting, unpredictable, ever-developing poet would have to be kept open for me!

New Poem

2005-05-31T18:48:00.000-05:00

Lost

When the snooze function on your clock goes
        a third time
and light, staining the window, has thinned to a
        skimmed milk
there would be as much point in us calling out to
        you
as there would be in us calling to Mount Blanc.

There would be as much point trying to stir you as
        your cold coffee.
This waste of crusted cups, this waste of crusted
        plates,
the bony hills of your old duvet
the lamp, giving its spud-colored 40 watts,

is your reserve: your dark little landscape
rolled over again, unconscious, on its hip.

There are people in my life I'd like to wake--and not just in a morning-after sense. Part of my impulse to teach is wrapped up in such a a sentiment.

In working on my teaching portfolio last week, I had to write a teaching philosophy statement. The difference between what I believe I'm doing, and what I actually sometimes need to do as a teacher weighed heavily on my mind. Sometimes, no matter how much I care about a student, I can't seem to wake them to the moment of clarity they need.

Of course I'm also a person who needs waking in some ways. And I wish someone would wake me, too. We wake each other, I think. Maybe I need to work harder on the good ones--the ones who can awake.

Just Living

2005-05-29T19:32:00.000-05:00

Marilyn Monroe: How do you just live?
Clark Gable: Well, you start by going to sleep. You get up when you feel like it. You scratch yourself. You fry yourself some eggs; you see what kind of a day it is. You throw stones at a can. Whistle.

Watched The Misfits all the way through for the first time. I'm "just living" this weekend. I need to arrange for repairs all over my home...and cleaning. But I'm not doing any of it this weekend.

Clark Gable: You mean you don't have a business to run or a school to teach?
Marilyn Monroe: Me, I never finished high school.
Clark Gable: Well, that's real good news.
Marilyn Monroe: You don't like educated women?
Clark Gable: They're all right. Always wanting to know what you're thinkin, that's all.
Marilyn Monroe: Maybe they're trying to get to know you better.
Clark Gable: Did you ever get to know a man better by asking him questions?

Now, THERE'S a lesson I need to learn!

Here's a fun site for singles like me--courtesy 43 things: quirkyalone.net

My First Friesian

2005-05-28T17:58:00.000-05:00

Orignially uploaded by Martha Schwer via Flickr

Like many 10 year old girls, I was obsessed with horses. I whined over riding lessons; I collected Breyer model horses; I closed horse shows down. Since I'm allergic to horses in reality, the closest I've ever come to owning a real horse was a stint on the equestrian team as an undergraduate. I was the WORST rider on the team and I loved every minute of it. I did finally manage to keep my seat through a 4 ft. jump, but it was never pretty.

I still go to the occaisional horse show. This weekend was the big Saddlebred show in Madison, in the same arena my school held its graduation in a couple of weeks ago. Saddlebreds aren't my favorite type of horse. They're terribly high maintentaince and have an undeniable "my pretty pony" vibe.

But mixed in with all the saddlebreds in an English Pleasure class was this GORGEOUS thick, juicy black creature with feathers. After some searching, I realized I'd seen my first Friesian. Although I seem to have developed an unexpected fetish for all things Dutch lately (de Kooning, etc.) I'm hooked. I've always loved draft horses--their big, slow power is absorbing. And despite their size, they always seem safe. A friesian is a drafty saddlehorse--a delightful find. Now, I just need about $20,000 to buy a nice gelding. Sigh.

60's Party Food

2005-05-26T18:54:00.000-05:00

Today, my last time-sensitive obligation ended--it's officially summer. Of course I still have to create two classes for fall and finish everything I didn't get done in the last 2 weeks, but my schedule is my own for a bit.

So I invited a friend for a picnic. It didn't happen, of course, but I dug out a bunch of old recipes I've not looked at in years. I nearly made my mother's favorite party snack, stuffed celery. It's a very 60's food, and delicious when everybody's gone home and it's time for mom & the girls to clean the kitchen after dad goes to bed. Yummy!

Atomic Age Stuffed Celery

celery
1 package cream or neufchatel cheese, softened
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon finely chopped pimento-stuffed olives
2 teaspoons sweet pickle relish
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon tabasco sauce

Wash and scrape celery. Cut into 3 inch pieces. Combine remaining ingredients, mixing well. Stuff the celery pieces with cream cheese mixture.

I didn't end up making this--sushi is more 90s and easier to pick up. But before the summer's over, I'm making this!

Pop Capitol!

2005-05-25T21:34:00.000-05:00

Originally uploaded by Martha Schwer.

I used some REALLY old film in the pop cam--and the red goes first, apparently. But this is the general idea of the pop cam. Pretty cool, huh?

The Blogoview Project [via Gila Monster]

2005-05-24T17:40:00.000-05:00

Over at Charles Jensen's Therapist with a Dream Inside, the blog with the great tagline: "Nothing kills a budding friendship like a shitty poem," a new project's afoot. The Blogoview Project asks a question ever week related to writers and writing (I assume). This week, the question's:

Q: If you could turn any room or building in the world into your writing studio, what would you choose and why?

A: For me this is a tough one. I need lots and lots of books around, a space in which my friends can drop by in the afternoon, great artwork on the walls, and an ever changing view. So what kind of place does that mean?

I've always loved the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago. At 13, I went to the Empire Room for lunch before going to see A Chorus Line at the Schubert. It was a seminal experience for me. Here's a great photo of the entrance to the Empire Room:

Uploaded on April 17, 2005by kables via Flicker

Of course, I'd also like something a bit cozier--perhaps a nice desk from one of the displays at the Chicago Institute of Art in the Arts & Crafts section placed in front of the Chagall window.

Chagall Window Uploaded on May 7, 2005by Envious Emerald via Flickr

Institute facade Uploaded on April 29, 2004by selva via Flickr

Photo Friday!

2005-05-20T21:39:00.000-05:00

Firefly Coffeehouse
Originally uploaded by Martha Schwer.

Here's where I spend a lot of Friday nights with lots of other music lovers, the Firefly Cafe in Oregon. It was 7:45 when I took this shot--delightful evening!

The Idea Monkey Topic Generator

2005-05-16T19:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, if anybody ever had trouble picking a topic for a graduate seminar paper, they just needed to go to the Idea Monkey Topic Generator here: CIOS - It generated a great one for me--what are the metaphors of feminism about? Pretty fun & cool.

And on an unrelated monkey note, www.rathergood.com has a hilarious video about drunken monkeys--particularly appropriate as I see the Mifflin Street Block Party fines assessed on the news every night. Please enjoy "The First Drink of the Day!"

Recent Netflix Viewing

2005-05-14T16:50:00.000-05:00

Today was the departmental end-of-year party. It was a delightful party, but I was far too low for a party. A-- asked me how I was, and I promptly burst into tears while trying to say "okay." I thought I'd feel better once the semester was over--but knowing this semester was so bad is hard for me to deal with and let go of.

I had wanted this great summer--like I had when I was 18--long talks into the night with someone interesting I was getting to know. Looks like it won't happen again this summer; work is calling, and interesting people have made choices that don't include me. Right now it looks like another sad, lonely summer filled with solitary work. Sigh.

On a happier note, I've been seeing some great films trying to cheer myself up. Here's a list:

Vera Drake, Mike Leigh (2004). I've loved Leigh since High Hopes, still one of my favorite films.
Random Harvest, Mervin Legroy (1942). DELIGHTFUL flick about amnesia.
What the #$*! Do We Know!?, 2004, William Arntz, (2004).
Word Wars, Eric Chaikin, (2004). Documentary about Scrabble.
Cooley High, Michael Schultz (1975).
The Heart of Me, Thaddeus O'Sullivan (2002). A Helena Bonham-Carter flick.
Wonderfalls, Todd Holland, (2004). A surprisingly good series set near Buffalo, my old stomping ground.
What a Way to Go!, J. Lee Thompson, (1964).

Spring Graduation!

2005-05-14T15:56:00.000-05:00

B--, one of my excellent students, graduates!

Today was graduation at my college, and it was completely charming. Although we filled the coliseum, it was smaller than any of my own graduations (probably less that half the actual graduates attended). But its eccentricies were delightful. Yes, we had the Big Screen that's become so fashionable; people could actually see each graduate briefly. But it was closed-captioned by one of our own graduates! And while most commencement ceremonies offer neither food nor drink on site, ours had the crowd eating nachos, yes NACHOS (my least favorite food).

Our graduate speaker, the delightful K--, gave a wonderfulf speech. Unlike most of the graduate speakers I've heard whose speech reminds me of those Christmas Form Letters that make one want to kill oneself because one's own life suddenly seems completely worthless, K-- talked openly about how college success only came her way after two unsuccessful attempts when she realized she couldn't do it by herself. That's the thing I wish I could teach everybody--that independence is often the biggest liablity there is. It was a lovely approach to a difficult speaking situation. View her performance here.

And then there were the students--the fire science grads wear their firehats, the bakers and chefs wear their white floppys and tall white fezzes--the dental hygenists pasted big white teeth to their mortarboards. Before the ceremony, the grads and faculty gown together--and their dear faces are delightfully shiny. After so much grading in which I felt buried & dead, hope was most welcome on a lovely spring day. I only wish some of my favorite grads had actually shown!

And this week, my mentee gave me LILACS! That's two bouquets in two weeks! I am luckiest woman on earth. That 43 things actually works!

Tom Waits for No Man

2005-05-13T18:52:00.000-05:00

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I love Tom Waits' music; he's probably the reason I managed to make it through my Master's degree. His song, Martha, is the only song about my name I've ever liked. I even had a snippet on my answering machine in the 80s. Over at Tom Waits for No Man, a Waits fan blog, there's a transcript of a nice Waits interview.

Tom Waits for No Man � Long Tom Waits Interview

In the course of the interview, Waits comments on the position of the author: "I guess I’ve always admired people that are able to dance like there’s nobody watching - that’s kind of what making songs is trying to accomplish, to ignore the fact that it’s being recorded." Writing isn't language--it's the representation of language. Can I write like noboby's watching? Is it possible for me to figure out that much truth?

Dancing like there's nobody watching--that's certainly the kind of poet I want to be and the kind of life I'd like to live occaisionally. He also discusses the old-fashioned motif in his own work, how it comes from his desire to rebel against the rebels in his past. It's an interesting position to be in--and particularly relevant for my generation, I think.