Sex, Violence and the Female Voter

Sex, Violence and the Female Voter

Socialist Doctrine?

Okay, so I know this has nothing to do with writing, though it does have to do with personal faith, the creation of meaning, logic, etc.. Maybe. But as a former religion and philo student,

I've often wondered, how does one mix capitalism with the teachings of the New Testament? (Are the meek somehow translated to mean the CEOs?) It sometimes seems that the more Christian the radio, the more capitalist the preachers and the talk . . . And yet, how does one reconcile so many of the passages? I'll paste a few below, but they sound more socialist to me . . . and yes, it just baffles me. Not that it's worth the time to baffle over, but hey.


Luke.4.18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

Matt.19.21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Luke.14.13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,
And thou shall be blessed for they cannot recompense thee;

Mark.14.7 For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me.

Writer's Almanac

www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=1095771&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=d310007a64

Lucky day! (Though I have to admit to cringing every time I hear my name, my poem, read on the air. At least I don't have to hear it in my own voice.)

lapetitezine.org/

Reading

Tomorrow Night I read at Hamilton College with Jo Pitkin, another Hamilton graduate. Or maybe I should say Kirkland College graduate. Hamilton swallowed the women's college, Kirkland, and Jo was a few years ahead of me . . . In any case, Jo is amazing, and I am looking forward to hearing her read.

I was interested to read in Newsweek that Hamilton is now rated as one of the top 20 suburban schools. But I wonder how they define suburban. After all, it's in Clinton, New York, which has about 1000 residents, if that. But maybe it has changed. Maybe I will find out today that Clinton is now an expanding town, filled with new shops, hotels, businesses . . .

Truth or Consequences

1. Scam Artists

I was talking with a friend yesterday who told me a story about his mother . . .

His mother, always a frugal, hard-working woman, is getting older, and at some point (he doesn’t know when it started), she started to lose touch with reality. The first symptom?

She started writing checks out to strangers. In a matter of months she went through $60,000. She would write checks for hundreds of dollars and mail them off to scam artists, and then wait for her million dollar check to arrive in the mail.

How long would she wait? I asked.

Oh, he said, she’s still waiting. Sometimes they even call her and tell her the check is the mail. Once when he was visiting, someone phoned to say they were in the neighborhood. They would arrive at her doorstep in a matter of minutes.

And she always believes them?


Yes! Sometimes a check does arrive. She takes it to the bank and tries to cash it. Of course it isn’t a real check.

Now my friend is her guardian. His mother is livid. It’s my money, she insists. I worked hard for it, and I can do with it as I please.

She also says those men who call her to tell her the check is coming are so nice. You have no idea how nice they are.

2. Writers

Another friend, Mary, is an aspiring author of creative nonfiction. She’s always asking me how much of her essays can be creative, and how much nonfiction. What is the balance?

Ever since James Frey’s fiasco with Oprah, writers have been worried about the line between fact and fiction.

I suggested she call it fiction, and say whatever she wants, but she says she doesn’t know how to create a story, make up a plot. Life, she says, lacks plot.

But isn’t that where the creativity comes in? I ask. You have to shape whatever life you’ve experienced into a little boat people want to sail around in for a while.

Maybe, she says. Maybe that’s why I can’t publish my work. I can’t make up a story that sells.

Do you think truth is dull? she asks.

3. The Media

Why is it that writers of memoir and fiction worry more about the truth these days when the media and the advertisers seem to care less and less?

4. Climate Change

I read this morning on grist.org that now all the GOP senators deny global warming.

It’s not a story that wins elections.

Yes, the last GOP senator to admit the simple truth, that climate change is real,was beaten by Christine O’ Donnell.

O’Donnell who speaks out not only against climate change legislation but also against masturbation.

Masturbation, she seems to be saying, is against God’s will.

I can’t help picturing it. With all the problems in the world, God is not worried one bit about the consequences of climate change. Floods, famine, war, hurricanes, etc..

Instead God is peeping into your windows at night . . .

September Readings

Sept. 20 at 7:30 PM
Miami Dade College
Gallery Diet
174 Northwest 23rd Street
Miami, FL 33127
Contact: English Dept. 305-284-2182

Sept. 21
Valencia Community College
Details TBA

Sept 22 at7:00 PM
Flagler College
G a m a c h e - K o g e r T h e a t e r , R i n g h a v e r S t u d e n t C e n t e r
contact: Jim Wilson: 904-819-6339

Sept. 23 at 7:00 PM
UNIVERSITY OF TAMPA
Scarfone-Hartley Gallery,
Contact: Richard Mathews
727-244-0205

Sept. 24 at 6:00 PM
University of South Florida
Graphicstudio.
Contact: Ira Sukrungruang: isukrung@usf.edu

Sept. 25 at 6:30 PM
Edison State College, Charlotte Campus
The Edison Auditorium 6:30
Contact John Pelot ThreeTop@aol.com

September 27 at 6:30 PM
Eckerd College
Bininger Theater Studio
Contact: Scott Ward, wards@eckerd.edu

September 30 at 6:00 PM (reception at 5:30)
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
The Smith Chapel
Erie, PA 16563
George Looney, GOL1@psu.edu, (814)898-6281

Need Inspiration?

Check out Emily Lisker's paintings. I love looking at certain artists' work, and Emily is one of my favorite sources of instant inspiration. Just google her name and voila! Instant inspiration.

I must get one of these!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1385162912490



Okay, so here is the product everyone must have in order to live the beautiful life!

The deodorant to end all deodorants

The other day I was in the health food store in Ellsworth, Maine and I heard this salesman explaining to a woman why she should spend $14 bucks on a small container of deodorant.

This deodorant, he explained, changes the climate of your underarms. And with the change of climate comes a change of bacterial count. And with the change in bacterial count comes a change in the type of bacteria your armpit produces, so pretty soon you won't have any odor-causing sweat. Amazing product. Because what happens next is that after a while you don't need deodorant at all. Me, for example. I never need deodorant anymore, even when it's 95 degrees outside. I only needed a few months of this expensive deodorant but it really paid off.

But the secret is, he added, you can't use ANY other kind of deodorant because that will mess up the climate and the bacterial balance. And then you will smell worse than ever.

The woman nodded and put the deodorant in her cart.

He was so convincing, how could she resist?

I wondered after how many products I have bought over the years, buying into some absurd logic. What is the dumbest thing I've ever spent money on?

I think of those dumb homeopathic vials that make you relax. Right. Relaxing drops. Jeepers. And those pillows to reduce neck pain. And . . .

What about those books that teach you how to write a great poem? I own a few but never read them. Maybe that's what I need to do, come to think about it.

Theoretically

is one of my favorite answers.

Ask me if I wrote a poem today, and I will answer, Theoretically.
Ask me if I love poetry, and I will answer, Theoretically.
Ask me if I can do X or Y, and I will answer . . .

What I mean is something like, Maybe. Maybe not. Or, It depends on how you define poem. Or love.

I sometimes think it's words like theory and theoretically that separate the poets, the journalists, the politicians, from the scientists.


The first time I noticed this difference was a few years ago when a friend who is a doctor asked for a sip of my water. I said I had a cold, but she was welcome to take a chance. Ah, she answered, I am not a big believer in germ theory. Not when I'm this thirsty.

Germ theory? I asked. That's not a theory. Germs are a reality. She smiled and took a swig of my water.

A week later, my friend was very sick, coughing and spewing. She had a cold, not in theory but in reality.

As a joke she offered me some of her water. Would you like a theoretical cold?

Brady's Leap Played at the Lemon Grove Last Night

Hot dogs!

It is so hot! The only place to be is in the water . . .

That AWP Panel on Sex

Reading the Laux poem on Writer's Almanac today, I was reminded me of the sex panel she was on at AWP. It was an amazing panel really. I could not even begin to do it justice here. Before I went to it, I thought, this will be a waste of my time. Do I really need to endure another AWP panel on eroticism? Am I really going to believe the claim that writers of the erotic in this day and age are censored?

I was surprised to find that this panel was excellent, and I think it did go past the comfort zones of many in the audience (it seemed so in my part of the room). The authors were all extremely prepared, explicit, surprising, and varied.

The real surprise to me was Laux who stood up and said, among other things, I'm waiting for the poets who will write about sex after 65, sex after the vaginal walls have thinned, sex after the penis no longer rises and rises. (I am not quoting her here, though I am trying my best to reconstruct her words. A few variations of her commentary were run by me at the bar later that night, and I have them mixed in with what she already said. You can see the opportunity for humor here, no doubt.) Laux commented on how she and her husband are quite content now to have sexless nights. (Did she call them sexless nights? Probably not. Yes, I think that was part of the bar talk, too . . . Let me talk about my sexless nights on this panel . . . ) It's just part of what we all have to look forward to, she said. I think she said . . .

I did hear a few people say that Laux was the most disappointing speaker there.

She reminded me of a yoga teacher who told me once that in my twenties and thirties, I was in the age of the body. I should do more postures. Perfect the art of the body. In my forties and fifties, I would be in the age of the mind. I should contemplate more. Be a philosopher. Sharpen and focus my mind. In my last years, I should meditate. I should enter the age of the soul. Learn to be still, find peace. Not keep asking for more. Always more.

Yes, to have no greed. That was the goal of the aging yogi.

Somehow the message of peaceful evenings felt at odds with the energy of AWP.

This is fantastic article by Erin O'Brien

www.clevescene.com/cleveland/drill-baby-drill/Content?oid=1659409

I love this photo from Guatemala via Suzanne

Poets Confessing

I was at this bar once with a bunch of English professors when one professor suddenly suggested we all confess our literary sins. We should admit what great books we dislike.

He started by admitting that he had never read Moby Dick, nor did he ever want to. He had, in fact, taught it once.

Another said he despised Henry James so much, he had suggested the students to read Cliff Notes instead. This was at a college where Cliff Notes were not allowed.

A third one said he didn't care for contemporary American poetry. It's too sloppy, too undefined, too anything goes.

Have you read much of it? the others asked.

No, he admitted. I don't read what I don't like.

How can you do that and be an English professor? I asked. Everyone laughed.

I noticed suddenly that no one wanted to confess anymore. I didn't want to join in with my dislike of Sylvia Plath. I know, as a woman poet of my generation, I am supposed to love her, but I am allergic to her voice.

There was a heavy weight in the air just then, like the ghosts of the unmentioned dead were waiting behind our chairs, listening for their names to be called. I could almost see Sylvia watching me, twirling her long blonde hair.

Just a little more bad news

I heard on the Daily Buzz the other night that fracking is coming to Youngstown. Everyone is thrilled about this because it means there will be jobs! No one is talking about the actual process of fracking. They are just thrilled we have natural gas reserves here.

If you don't know what fracking is, it's the practice of fracturing the shale to get to the natural gas. I can't say I understand it yet, but I know it's not pretty. Here's an excerpt from an article on the subject from www.inthesetimes.com:

Fracking or "tapping the shale raises plenty of environmental and human impact concerns of its own, including the potentially devastating effects of hydraulic fracturing, or “hydro-fracking." Toxic chemicals derived from diesel and including benzene, toluene and xylene are injected into methane gas or coal beds to extract gas during fracking. Fracking is known to contaminate the water supply—a precious resource for low-income well users in Appalachia—and result in other serious environmental effects.

Citizens' groups have called for a moratorium on the practice in New York state, and a monitoring plan for liquid waste—sometimes radioactive—created by the operations. In April, the EPA said it would take a closer look at fracking."

And if that's not bad news enough, I will add this tidbit:

The American Petroleum Institute is spending a ton of money on a new ad campaign to prevent Congress from passing new taxes or setting any new restrictions on their drilling. What will happen to us if we don't do exactly what the oil industry wants us to do??

API threatens. . . 'As the nation struggles to recover from recession, further taxes on an industry that supports 9.2 million jobs and 7.5 percent of our GDP could have a devastating effect on our jobs, economic recovery and our energy security, according to the leading oil and natural gas trade association.'"

Oh, the threat by these friendly, caring corporations! Just think how it would hurt them to pay their share of taxes!

Did anyone hear today's Speaking of Faith on NPR today? Nice to hear an inspiring voice to start off the week.

Corrections

Last night I was reading a book by one of my favorite prose poets, Morton Marcus. It's hard to imagine that he's gone now. He died of cancer last March. His work is so vibrant, so alive, and I can still see his face in the audience when I had the honor of reading in Santa Cruz two years ago. Although I'd read this collection several times, I'd never noticed that he had corrected it, adding a few commas in black ink, trying to make them look like the print.

I had to laugh. I thought I was the only one who did that, though usually I can't stand to look at my books. Once they are in print, I want to change everything about them. I can imagine myself as a ghost, trying to come back and correct any pages where my poems appear.

Review

Okay, so this is a review from Amazon for a deet-free bug repellent . . .

I started wearing this to keep the cockroaches from crawling on my face at night. It worked great! That is until my wife left me. It turns out she was actually a bug this whole time. Don't buy this if you can't handle losing your loved ones.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

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Comment

Do Your Students Write about Green Dragons?

1.

A dragon swoops out the sky and takes me to another land where the wee people live.

My husband is one of the green dragons, and I am safe because he keeps the evil ones at bay.

Tiny green men are rushing to my side, healing my wounds, the ones no one else can see.

Each of these lines are from stories and essays I have read while teaching creative writing to middle-aged writers at various conferences. In all three cases the writers insisted that this really happened. They weren’t writing sci-fi. Hadn’t I, too, seen dragons?

One man told me I would understand if I had a third eye. If I had any spiritual intuition. He was a shaman himself. He could heal people like me. Blind people like me. I asked him if he took mushrooms or acid, and he said no. Not all the time.

2.

A few weeks ago I was reading a book about spiritual leaders who took acid. I was so disappointed to read that Huston Smith’s deep revelation of communion with God occurred on an acid trip. I told this to my friend who insisted that he might have had this experience even if he weren’t on acid. But he didn’t, I answered.

3.

Steroids continue to be a topic for the sports news. Most recently the steroid sport in the news was biking. Does Lance take them? everyone asks. These days I assume all the great athletes are just one step ahead of the drug police. I wonder what new drug will produce what new world record? I sometimes wonder what it would be like to run as fast as Marion Jones or Carl Lewis, or to race the Tour de France with the power of someone like Lance Armstrong.

Maybe we could all run and bike like the wind and live like superheroes. So what if all our men had tiny penises and our women grew chest hairs and beards?

4.

I remember learning in history class that we have two political parties in the U.S.. One is bought by the corporations and the rich and is designed to help the rich become richer. The other is half-bought by the corporations and the rich and tries to live with half a conscience.

But why, I would ask, why can’t we have a few politicians who aren’t bought?

They wouldn’t have the money to win, now would they? the teacher replied.

5.

Okay, maybe we so need some green dragons to save the planet . . .

If only they came in a drug-free form . . . and cleaned up oil spills and yeah, okay. I think it's time to sign off . . .

Sometimes it's so hard to write

This whole BP event is so upsetting. I sometimes find it hard to write. I feel so helpless.

Of course this won't be the first or last horrible event in which an oil company destroys our environment as we sit back and watch.


Several summers ago, in 2004 I think, I visited Suzanne in Quito, Ecuador. She had been working with an NGO there that helps keep street boys off the streets. In the airport, we met a lawyer working on the case of Ecuador against Chevron.

It was the first I’d heard of the case in which Chevron is accused by the indigenous people of Ecuador of dumping 20 million gallons of toxic waste into their rainforest, polluting the rivers and land.

The indigenous have no running water, the lawyer explained, and they use the river for drinking and bathing still. As a result a lot of the people have cancer and other diseases.

She talked for a while about the details of the case. Could they actually win this case? I asked.

Chevron, she said, will probably keep this case in the courts for a long time, bleeding us of money as they continue to pollute other parts of the world. We won’t give up, she added with a smile. Of course, no one in the US will know or care. It’s not happening to their water.

But, she added, with the US in the hands of the oil companies, the US judges will probably rule in favor of Chevron.

But even that is not cause to give up.

I just looked up the case, and the lawyer was right. It's still not settled.

Suzanne's post below, I think, is a nice companion piece to this entry:


beneficiosdebanco.blogspot.com

Suzanne's Blog!

Check it out! Be sure to click on each entry to the right or click on Older Posts. You can't just scroll down and get the entire thing.

Suzanne is working in Nicaragua right now and will be in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador (again) . . .

beneficiosdebanco.blogspot.com

Seminal Sexism

I read this letter in Jim's APS News in which one is being advised not to use the word "seminal," and the article really pricked my interest. I particularly like the cockiness of the author, his dictatorial manner and voice as he goes about informing all of us why we might not want to use the word, "seminal," again. I thought maybe this could be the opening for a seminal piece on the word, seminal.

"A listserv for college educators that I belong to recently had a post recommending a "seminal article." A response gently suggest that we try to avoid the sexist and sexual words such as "seminal" and use alternatives such as groundbreaking, cutting edge, leading edge, and foundational.

This aroused much controversy in this usually decorous forum, with levels of passion usually reached among academics only for the topic of grade inflation. One side argued that the word seminal was innocuous, the issue trivial, and the reaction a symptom of political correctness run amok. The other side said that since many did find the word distasteful and alternatives were available, why not retire it except for use in its narrow, technical sense?

Soon after that episode, I received my March 2010 issue of APS News with its list of prize and award winners and found the following words used to describe the achievement: seminal(6), pioneering (4), leadership (4), contribution (3), groundbreaking (2), elucidation (2), original (1), brilliant (1), revolutionary (1), insightful (1).

While seminal was the winner, it seems we have good alternatives. At the risk of provoking a fresh round of protests in this venue, perhaps we could suggest to prize committees that they use these alternatives whenever possible."

Okay, so who among us has the cajones to go around policing the use of the word, seminal? If it's you, if you are just dickish enough, well . . . It looks like there might be a job for you in academia after all.

Bragging

The other day I was sipping coffee, listening to parents brag about their wonderful children.

My Joe is going to OSU on a scholarship, one mom said. Football, yep. How's Francine? She's going to Duke? Well, I guess her father went there. Not that that's how she got in, but, well . . .

I was reminded of a time when I was listening to my father at a cocktail party many years ago, when all his friends were bragging about their brilliant kids, each one trying to one-up the others. My father jumped in . . .

My son's marijuana crop was excellent this year. His plants must be six feet tall. Would anyone like to see them--- They're up in the corner pasture . . .

The room went silent. Only the sound of ice in cocktail glasses.

Well, I hope he doesn't end up behind bars, Mrs. Thomas commented finally.

No worry. I have heard that the sheriff enjoys a toke now and then, my father laughed.

(Not that my father was telling the truth about the sheriff . . . )

Another time, he was at the barn with some of his friends when the conversation turned to bragging. My father let out a fart as loud as thunder.

Again it went silent. Then Tiny, the blacksmith, started giggling.

Just like the horses, my father sighed And everyone joined in with the laughing.

Well, that being said. I have to admit am one proud mother right now. Proud of my daughter, Suzanne, who is working for Catholic Relief Services this summer in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras . . . Proud of my son, Jimmy, who passed his quals . . .

Okay, now I hear my father farting his applause in heaven . . .

Ely's!

This is fun. Youngstown does have the best sandwich shop ever!

www.grist.org/article/order-up-readers-fave-sandwich-shops-PHOTOS

Escape into Life!

http://www.escapeintolife.com/poetry/nin-andrews/

summa *** laude

I wanted to find out who the anchor is on NPR's Daily Buzz, so I googled Stacia Erdos.

Stacia Erdos earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism in 1985 from Ohio University, where she graduated summa *** laude.

So I guess the censors are at work.

community.post-gazette.com

Prairie Dogs

I was reading today and came across this . . .


If you kill off the prairie dogs there will be no one to cry for rain.

- Navajo warning

Amused scientists, knowing that there was no conceivable relationship between prairie dogs and rain, recommended the extermination of all burrowing animals in some desert areas planted to rangelands in the 1950s "in order to protect the sparse desert grasses. Today the area (not far from Chilchinbito, Arizona) has become a virtual wasteland."

- Bill Mollison, PERMACULTURE

Water under the ground has much to do with rain clouds. If you take the water from under the ground, the land will dry up.

- Hopi elder

Burrowing creatures, such as prairie dogs, open millions upon millions of tubes in the soil of Earth. As Mollison notes, these "burrows of spiders, gophers, and worms are to the soil what the alveoli of our lungs are to our body." As the moon passes overhead the underground aquifers rise and fall and Earth breathes out moisture-laden air. This exhalation of negative-ion-charged air through the many fissures and tubes opened by the burrowing creatures helps create rain.

How could indigenous peoples have known this? By all our standards of scientific knowledge they could not. We have neglected to realize that indigenous peoples have always had access to the finest probe ever conceived, one that makes scientific instruments coarse in comparison, one that all human beings in all places and times have had access to: the focused power of human consciousness.

- Stephen Harrod Buhner

www.sulisminerva.org/2009/04/prairie-dogs-cry-for-rain.html

Read more: http://www.sulisminerva.org/2009/04/prairie-dogs-cry-for-rain.html#ixzz0miaHNhrh
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JIMMY!

I remember the day of the birth so well. Early AM, I called the doctor.

Yes, close. Pretty close. I'm thinking of coming in soon. Now? Right now?

Do I want to have him at home? Well, it would be better than the car, I guess.


A few hours later I was the happiest lady on earth, holding one tomato-red, cone-headed boy.

Spring Titles: The Academy of American Poets

One cool thing, Southern Comfort was listed as a new spring title with The Academy of American Poets. So was Underlife by January and Losing Season by Jack Ridl. Thank you, CavanKerry Press!

It's Cultural

A friend of mine once explained everything she did (or everything that she did that was peculiar) as--It's cultural. She was just from the south.

I was thinking about cultural differences the other day, how one word or habit doesn't translate exactly into another.

How, for example, in this country, if a person bows his head and fiddles with his lap, you might assume he is texting. In France, I am told, it's very rude to look down and do something with your hands like that. One makes a very different assumption.

Once I asked a French guest what he found most peculiar about Americans. We were driving on the freeway at the time. He said, Americans pass on the right. And then he grinned. And they are SO extra-extra large. You guys need to stay on the ground. I don't want to fly in an airplane with too many Americans.

A Spanish friend once commented on the Americans love of violence, esp. on TV. Our comfort with violence, she said, is really weird. She said that in Spain folks don't relax by watching Arnold. At the same time, they aren't alarmed by nudity. A woman's bare breasts, for example, are seen in an ad that everyone watches on TV.

So Americans, she concluded, are more comfy letting their kids see folks bloodied and blown to bits than letting them see bare breasts. Is that so?

Then she asked . . .

Why is it okay for one president in the U.S. to invade Iraq and cause so much death and destruction, and why is it not okay for another to have an affair with a girl called Monica.
Why is the first considered a good Christian, no matter how many lives he wastes. The other is considered morally corrupt?

I attended a lecture once where a Tibetan monk laughed about how Americans don't think they will ever die. They think reincarnation means they can live forever. That Buddhism is like a Disney movie. My lovely young Americans, he said, please understand. We are all mortals here. Yes, even the Dalai Lama. If you learn nothing else from me, please learn this one lesson. You will die.

Wooster College

I am tired! I had my last reading away from home for a while at Wooster College this week. Amazing. Wooster College. It was my second visit there. What a sweet place. Driving there, I kept worrying that I'd missed it. I mean, the drive takes you through Amish country and farmland and one tiny town . . . and somehow seems forever. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, this little college appears. What a college! All immaculate and impressive with its new and old buildings, its green lawns and sports facilities and . . . But what is most impressive are the students. So young, so beautiful (okay, so I'm getting old), so smart, and so engaged. One telling me about Aristotle and Locke, another referring to his paper on Beowulf, another talking about her love of the German language, another about his acceptance to Columbia for graduate work.

And to think, I didn't even know this college existed before I moved to Ohio.

Readings: Wooster College

this Wednesday at 4:00.


I LOVE WOOSTER!

AWP

AWP was the great this year! The panels, the city, the organization, the book fair, the hotel . . . From the shuttle ride in to the shuttle ride out, I was totally entertained. The company of writers can be the best medicine, esp. in times like this.

AWP

AWP PANEL
Denver

Serious Business: The Use and Abuse of Humor in Poetry
Friday, April 9
4:30 PM to 5:45 PM
103, 105 - CCC

If you are going to AWP, please come!!!

Reading

Reading in Indianapolis
IUPUI: Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Thursday, April 1 at 7:30pm

IUPUI University Library Lilly Auditorium

Reading

READING TONIGHT with Roger Craik
The Lemon Grove
Youngstown, Ohio

7:00 PM

Last night I read with January Gill O'Neil in Brookliine. Her first book, Underlife, was also published by CavanKerry Press. She is such an amazing writer--and a fellow Virginian. It was so much fun reading with her. I hope everyone runs out and buys her book!

Reading with Sally Ashton

READING IN BERKELEY
THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2010, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
NIN ANDREWS & SALLY ASHTON

Reading in Brookline

Reading with January Gill O’Neil
Brookline Booksmith
Brookline, Mass.
Tuesday, March 2
7pm


I hope the snow stops by Monday so I can fly to Boston (and back). I am so looking forward to meeting and reading with the amazing January Gill O'Neil.

All of us collect fortunes when we are children--a fortune of colors, of lights and darkness, of movements, of tensions. Some of us have the fantastic chance to go back to this fortune when grown up.

Ingmar Bergman quoted in Time December, 1980

Sometimes, at the end of a long day of writing, I feel so tired and so achy, and yet so lucky. Lucky to have had a long day of writing with few interruptions. Lucky, lucky, lucky to be able to say, I was there in the middle of so much of what Bergman calls my fortunes that I have collected and recollected so many times.

Stories to Read

I've become addicted to short stories lately. This morning I was blown away by two stories, "The Thing Around Your Neck," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. And "How to Date a Brown Girl, Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie" by Junot Diaz.

Snow Deer

It's been snowing nonstop. Just outside our porch two deer have made a nest in the snow. I can just see their heads over the two plus feet of snow. When the dogs go out, they turn and stare at us sleepily, as if to say, Please don't bother us. We're comfortable here.

The Lottery

This morning I was listening to a New Yorker podcast of Shirley Jackson's famous story, "The Lottery." What I didn't know was that this story angered many subscribers to the magazine. Many readers cancelled their subscriptions and wrote angry letters.

Funny, I can't imagine a story causing so much excitement today.