May 05
MeredithBookmaking, Design, Poetry, Writing
As you are surely aware at this point (because I haven’t stopped talking about it for almost a month), my thesis project required me to write, design, and hand-make a book. It’s been quite a learning process, but I’m mostly done, with 30 copies just waiting to be hauled to the reading this Friday.
I plan on sharing the “making of” the book in a later post, but for now, The Mockingbird’s Song by the numbers:
- 3 years of writing
- 39 poems
- 30 copies (in a run that I may extend to 40, depending on interest)
- 15 pads of 14×7 drawing paper cut into 600 pages
- 3 pots of glue
- 10 brushes totally destroyed
- 1,440 inches of linen thread
- 1 handpainted water color egg
More photos of the book can be found on my flickr site.
Apr 30
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Writing
I’m not sure there could be a better way to close out National Poetry Month than with guest blogger Rose Huber of On A Lobster Placemat. She’s my classmate, coworker, and friend, and today she’s going to tell you about Jason Schneiderman. I’m hoping to be back on the blog in a few days with some book updates (i.e. I hope to publicly announce that I am finished, finally, goshdangit.). We’ll see how that goes. But in the meantime, enjoy Rose’s post.
The first time I read Jason Schneiderman, I was sitting in a scratched-up wooden desk in a tiny college classroom in western Pennsylvania. I was taking a poetry class (and [I'm] most definitely a fiction writer) and feeling uneasy. His work was some of the first that opened me up to poetry – a late bloomer – but better late than never.
I had an opportunity to see Schneiderman read in a Pittsburgh warehouse of sorts in 2007. Driving up to the city, my friend Eric and I didn’t really think that the Gist Street Reading Series was actually on Gist Street. It was. We got lost, showed up right before he spoke his first word and somehow managed tight seats in the first row. After the reading, I bought his book, and he signed it: “To Rose: Doctor Who is better than Titanic! Your friend, Jason Schneiderman.”
To this day, I still think we’re friends.
Here is “Sublimation Point” from his book “Sublimation Book,” published in 2004:
Sublimation Point (for M.B.)
The answer is entropy – how smell works -
little bits of everything – always spinning
off from where they were – flying off at random
into the world – which is to say into air.
There are other ways of solid to gas -
they’re substance specific, like iodine,
or dry ice – how I felt when I saw you -
straight to a new state without passing
through expected ones – as though enough
of me left at the moment you appeared that
I could never be whole without you – apply
heat – I turn straight into ether.
Apr 28
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Writing
Today’s guest blogger is Jenny O’Grady, whose poetry I shared with you last week. She’s a professor at the University of Baltimore, where she teaches Literary Publications and Electronic Publishing. For her post, she’s sharing one of Mary Karr’s poetry. And now, without further ado…
I wasn’t a mother when I first read Mary Karr’s “A Blessing From My Sixteen Year’s Son,” but that didn’t matter. I loved how the violent first lines gave birth to the story of her offspring’s growth and all the uncertainties — hers, his — that seem to orbit naturally around teenagers. I loved the last line, spoken plainly by an unassuming cop. I read it over and over again from a dog-eared copy of 2005’s “The Best American Poetry.”
Now that I am a mother, I approach it with even greater awe. I feel a mother’s relief knowing her son has not only survived the car crash, but that he has become a man of backbone, strong of character at a most fragile moment. As a poet, I appreciate Karr’s direct language, her lack of mushiness, her containment of emotion in solid words and actions. She makes it seem so easy — the writing, not the mothering.
Two excerpts from “A Blessing From My Sixteen Year’s Son,” the beginning and the end:
I have this son who assembled inside me
during Hurricane Gloria. In a flash, he appeared,
in a tiny blaze. Outside, pines toppled.
Phone lines snapped and hissed like cobras.
Inside, he was a raw pearl: microscopic, luminous.
Look at the muscled obelisk of him now
pawing through the icebox for more grapes.
* * * *
The cop said the girl in the crimped Chevy
took it hard. He’d found my son
awkwardly holding her in the canted headlights,
where he’d draped his own coat
over her shaking shoulders. My fault,
he’d confessed right off.
Nice kid, said the cop.
* * * *
Read the full poem or hear Mary Karr read it here.
Apr 27
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Writing
Note: I’m so excited to kick off a week (almost) of guest bloggers. It feels like the best way to round out the month. Today Andy Livingston, a friend of mine, does the honors as he shares the poetry of Lew Welch.
Lew Welch had no luck. Roommates with Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen. Championed by William Carlos Williams, he failed to catch any serious attention.
After a nervous breakdown, he moved to Chicago where he wrote ad copy. He was there in Chicago at the night of the famous poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco.
Although active in the Beat scene, he missed the first wave but tackled the life of a working poet in San Francisco. On May 23, 1971, he walked out of Gary Snyder’s house in the mountains of California. His body was never found.
The Basic Con
Those who can’t find anything to live for
always invent something to die for
Then they want the rest of us to
die for it, too.
These, and an elite army of thousands,
who do nobody any good at all, but do
great harm to some
have always collected vast sums from all.
Finally, all this machinery
tries to kill us,
because we don’t die for it, too.
Apr 27
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Uncategorized, Writing
For my last entry on poets I know, I thought it would be fitting to go back to where poetry begins for me: Susan Swartwout. I know I’m not the only student from Southeast Missouri State University who could say that because Susan has been a mentor to many. She has an amazing ability to look past the awkward, bumbling lines of first-time writers and see the skeleton, the roots, of something beautiful.
I pulled out my old files tonight and looked through my notes and writing from EN275, Intro to Creative Writing, and took some time to remember where I started. While it’s simultaneously slightly embarrassing and a lot amusing to look at how far I’ve come since then, I can see, through my drafts, how Susan helped me shape my writing and I can recognize those lessons she taught me that still echo in my mind every time I write or revise my poetry.
So, tonight, I wanted to share some poetry by my mentor, the woman where it begins.
First, from her book Freaks:
In the dusk of my heart there are
no safe places. Thin-skinned
winged emotions flap their blind
interior paths and sometimes scream
just to let themselves know where
they are. That they are.
~from “Nightfall Brushes Her Hair”
From her book Uncommon Ground, inspired by her time in Honduras:
Citrus trees grip the mountains, birthing
lemons the size of small melons
and limes so shining you want
to rub them over your body.
At the top of the village road,
the orange grove shimmers,
even the leaves look succulent:
cavern-green of Lorca’s dreaming.
Hard nipples of fruit that swell
in sunlight practice their pendulous droop.
~from “Fence” in Uncommon Ground
Note: I’m excited to bring this month of poetry to a close with some awesome guest bloggers, starting tomorrow. First up is Andy Livingston, so keep an eye out for that.
Apr 26
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Writing
When I was living in Cape Girardeau and going to school at Southeast Missouri State University, I was lucky enough to fall in with a wonderful group of poets. We would meet up every week for a workshop in someone’s living room or at a restaurant that would let us hang out if we bought a plate of fries and some coffee. We put on readings in bars and even an old church and published chapbooks. We called ourselves Prescription Strength Poetry.
Looking back, I know how important that time was for me. I began to find my voice, to take more chances in my writing, and to actually become a writer, thanks to the advice and encouragement those amazing poets offered me. So tonight I’m pulling out the old chapbooks and Balancing on a Bootheel: New Voices in Poetry from Southeast Missouri, a book put out by Southeast Missouri State University Press, and picking out some of my favorite poems. This means that in most cases I can’t link to the full text online, but it doesn’t make the poems any less awesome.
Doc Bertram
My favorite thing about Doc, aside from his curly hair and aviators, was his quick, bitingly sharp wit. Here, an excerpt from “Thus Spake Millard Fillmore”:
She caught me off-guard
and I never forgave her for it.
I was into her for all the wrong reasons,
and we were both okay with it.
I was attracted to her for the same reason
I’m attracted to Joan Baez and David Bowie,
and I’m not sure that’s healthy.
And when speaking of responsibility,
I quoted Millard Fillmore;
and she asked if he was an obscure poet.
Realizing she was serious,
I just replied, “Yeah, he was.”
Mandy Henley
Mandy is my best friend in the whole world, and someone I know I can always trust for an honest opinion of my work. Her poetry is elegant and strong. An excerpt from “The Phoenix”:
I know it’s time when my skin
fatiques so thin that I glow red.
Blood surges against barrier,
friction of life against a too-worn body
sparks flame. Arms parallel to the Earth,
head pointed into her, I stand alone
and erupt into fire-hell,
demand respect from a world
bogged in greens and blues
as I suffer all-consuming fire
until I am only ashes.
Ben Marxer
Things I remember about Ben–his hermit crab named the Kraken and that he taught me you should never chintz on your pizza deliver boy’s tip (they know where you live). His poetry can be brutally honest or sarcastic, and it never lets you off the hook. Here’s an excerpt from “The Square Root of Negative One Equals 1″ (you can actually hear him read it here):
I’m fairly certain
that the band Phish
doesn’t exist
I see people wearing the emblems
concert T-shirts proclaiming loudly
that they were there
that they bore witness
However, I have never heard a Phish song
I’m not even sure what kind of music they play
I heard that they toured with The Dead
which serves only to support my point
I’d never trust a doped up Dead head
to cut through the memory haze
far enough to certify whether actually they saw them
or not
Shawn McLain
Shawn’s poetry has a lucid, accumulative quality that is something I am always striving for in my own work. His poem “Father’s Wood Shop” is a beautiful collection of images, some of the every day, some of the slightly off or broken. An excerpt:
You told me a good carpenter hides his mistakes, like that missing nail
that caused a shaky shelf, the foundation, you contended, was intact
….
I would ask why not measure twice, cut one; you told me this was how
you learned, this was how to work, to frame with human hands
Dustin Michael
I remember the first time I ever heard Dustin read his poetry. A group of grad students came in to do a reading for my Intro to Creative Writing class. I’ll never forget how energetic and funny Dustin was. He showed me that poetry can run the full gamut, from serious to humorous. Here’s excerpt from “I Am Catfish” (read the rest here):
I recently sent my girlfriend’s dad
a postcard
with a fish on it.
The postcard had
Get hooked on fishing in Missouri
printed on the front.
My girlfriend had seen it and said,
Ha! You should send that to my dad!
So I did.
I didn’t know what to write
on the back, so I put,
I am Catfish. Remember me.
Nikki Owens
Every time I read Nikkie’s poetry, I think to myself, “this woman knows exactly how I feel.” Her work doesn’t beat around the bushes, doesn’t bother to make sure the reader is comfortable, it just puts it all out there. It’s a quality I admire, as I am prone to shy away from the uncomfortable in my work. An excerpt from her poem “Chunky”:
apparently, I’m not fat.
at least, not to paige,
jc penney salesgirl of the month.
through paige’s eyes,
i’m not “chubby”
or “round”
or “plump”
or “curvy”
or “heavy.”
i’m not even “thick.”
nope. it seems
i am decidedly
“chunky.”
thank you, paige.
Jon Thrower
No one can perform poetry like Jon Thrower. I’ll never forget his thesis defense where he stomped and yelled and, if memory serves, threw McDonald’s cheeseburgers into the crowd. I can’t read his work without imagining his voice–it’s not fully alive until he reads it. And when he does, it grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you, maybe even slaps your face, and you don’t forget it, not for a long time, if ever. An excerpt from “The Barge Worker’s Common Law Wife, A Letter.” (Read the full poem here. You can also hear him read another poem here).
You biked out from County Road 213
heavy metal t-shirt and small-engine forearms,
catwalked all the way to the creek, you said.
Before any of us left the big wheel,
before the ancient pains crouched
in my thighs and my flower,
before the white cars came and the men
with hubcaps pinned to their hearts.
Apr 20
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Writing
I have been fortunate in my time at the University of Baltimore to have some wonderful teachers who helped guide me in shaping my writing and developing my voice. One of the greatest things about this program is that it encourages its students to play-work, or plork, as we like to call it, and try new things to stretch our imaginations and our writing so that we can grow in our craft. And that same willingness to experiment and explore is evident in the faculty. Today I want to share the writing of Kendra Kopelke and Steve Matanle with you.
Kendra Kopelke
Kendra is a poet willing to tackle any subject, and I have seen her poems range from reflections on life-changing surgeries to explorations of the paintings of Edward Hopper. As a teacher she has an uncanny ability to give her students what they need. I know that in this last semester she has been invaluable to my efforts with my thesis, by turns encouraging, listening, and cheering me on. And when I read her poetry, I can see her, the Kendra-ness, come through. She has a clarity of language that I envy, a way of saying what needs to be said but in a beautiful way that pushes you to read on. Here’s an excerpt from one of her poems. Read it (and a couple others) in its entirety here.
I am one week post-op and sitting beside
a window that plays nothing but steamy
rush hour traffic, a sky hovering like a foul odor,
and for starters I count thirteen black
electric wires crisscrossing the street, a portrait
of the intensity and congestion that dogs old Baltimore.
~from “Pissaro’s Pontoise Post-Op”
Steve Matanle
Steve is a quiet, unassuming man who challenges his students, pushing them to take their writing further than they might think possible. He was the first teacher who asked me and my classmates the question, “Should we revise our poetry?” He wasn’t urging us to think one way or another, just inviting us to actually think about this thing we’ve always been told to do; to consider what it means and make the decision for ourselves. And his writing has a raw, honest quality about it that leaves the reader feeling like they’ve been there, standing next to the speaker. I love its plain-spoken elegance, the way a trip to the laundromat or the tiny bell above a shop door become things of beauty. I particularly enjoy this poem, which you can read in its entirety here.
. . . Our life sounded like someone
blowing into an empty bottle, although once in a while
it sounded like music, hollow ballads of love and estrangement.
Sometimes we would go to the Laundromat at night
and dump our clothes in a couple of washing machines, then go
down the street to a bar and forget about them, returning later to find
the damp tangled clothes piled on a folding table.
~from “Just This”
I’ll end with a question for my readers. We’ve all had teachers who have changed how we think or how we do things (and I’m not just talking about writing here). Which teachers stick out in your memory, and what did they do or say to make you change your way of doing things?
Apr 15
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Writing Alberto Ríos, Chicanos, living in the borderlands, Michele Serros, Poetry, sometimes I think there is no language more beautiful than Spanish
Today I’m breaking with my theme, but only just: this week has been about Spanish-speaking poets from Nicaragua to Spain. Today, it’s about Chicano poets who grew up living split lives.
The two poets I want to focus on are Alberto Ríos and Michele Serros. He’s from Arizona, she’s from California. Both grew up in a between place, a borderlands. Gloria Anzaldúa has a fantastic book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, that explores this idea, and as she writes:
…the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two people shrinks with intimacy.
The Chicano experience varies widely: Ríos was punished by his teachers for speaking Spanish at school. Serros was harangued for her inability to speak Spanish. Both carry their “shifting and multiple” (to borrow a phrase from Anzaldúa) identities into much of their poetry. I love both poets equally not only for what they say but how they say it. I am smitten with Ríos for his song-like qualities, Serros for her frank sense of humor.
Alberto Ríos
An excerpt from “Day of the Refugios,” which comes from one of my most favorite books of poetry, The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body:
I come from a family of people with names,
Real names, not-afraid names, with colors
Like the fireworks: Refugio,
Margarito, Matilde, Alvaro, Consuelo,
Humberto, Olga, Celina, Gilberto.
Read the rest…
Michele Serros
This is an excerpt from “Mi Problema,” a poem in Serros’ book Chicana Falsa and other stories of death, identity, and Oxnard:
My skin is brown
just like theirs,
but now I’m unworthy of the color
’cause I don’t speak Spanish
the way I should.
Then they laugh and talk about
mi problema
in the language I stumble over.
A white person gets encouragement,
praise,
for weak attempts at a second language.
“Maybe he wants to be brown
like us.”
and that is good.
Read the rest…
April may (I love that this sentence requires a phrase that puts April and May next to one another) be half over, but don’t forget to stop over at Poets.org or the Poetry Foundation or, for that matter, your local library’s web site to see what National Poetry Month events may be coming your way.
Apr 15
MeredithBookmaking, Poetry, Writing books are beautiful, countdown to graduation, i heart paper but it dries out my skin, my fingers are so sore I can hardly feel them anymore, sleep is for weenies
I’m smack dab in the middle of putting together my MFA thesis. It’s a manuscript of my poetry. But here at UB, we take it a step further. I didn’t just write the manuscript. Nope, I’m turning it into a book. That means designing, printing, and hand binding it. I have to have an edition of 12 done by May 5, but my personal goal is 20-30 by then. So if I seem a little short, a little tired (ok, who am I kidding, exhausted), or to have disappeared from the face of the earth, don’t worry, it will all be over soon.
Despite the late nights and occasional frustration with a misprinted page or a miscut page, things are going pretty smoothly. Ave has been a huge help with cutting the pages and explaining how the printer works. I have the guts for 15 books printed and folded. And Ave, as I mentioned, has been busy, so there are many more sheets of paper ready to go through the printer.
Right now, I’m in the midst of sewing up a couple books, trying to perfect my technique a bit more (I ran into a smidge of trouble with my spine allowance when I made my mock up). And tonight I made myself a low-tech book press that should help keep things nice and flat and even during the sewing/gluing/casing-in process.
But as well as things are going and though I’m not at full-on meltdown stage yet, I can tell I’m stressed–my skin is a disaster, I can’t remember what I looked like without these enormous dark circles under my eyes, three cups of coffee and a Coke don’t have enough caffeine to keep me going, and I’m grinding my teeth worse than I have since my senior year of college. I can’t wait for that weekend in late May when, for the first time in three years, I get to relax without worrying about school.
But despite my body’s not so subtle hints that it would like a break, I still feel pretty great. It’s been thoroughly awesome to see my book (not to mention all my classmates’ books) come together, and when I have time to stop and breathe, I’m so glad to have had the opportunity to attend this program.
I suppose the reason I’m even posting this, which I’m sure is rather dull to most of you, is that I want my friends and family to know that things are going okay and I will eventually resurface. I’m going to keep my poetry blogs going, and I’ll even try to post some pictures of the bookmaking process, assuming I can ever remember to take any. In the meantime, if you can figure out where the time keeps going, please let me know.
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