Anti Bio

A 300-word poem I wrote for Cecilia Woloch's Paris Poetry Workshop last May.

Suzanne (Allen) never knows if she’s coming or going. She used to think this was only a statement about emotions or where she stood with certain friends or family, but now she understands that things like jet lag, weather, and living in a second language can keep one quite off balance. So she craves sleep, sleep like a princess sleeps, especially in the afternoon. With the washing machine humming along in the next room like a train softly going. Her home is a place of linens and paper, creaking chairs and bread crumbs, sunlight and socks, where she dare not sit too long. So much to do. There are draperies and dresses to sew, decorative pillows to fluff and throw. Dishes to wash and old truths to unknow. She likes pink and white roses and is also rather prickly—like so many of her favorite women. She never wanted more than an old convertible and a back house, still doesn’t really, though she has so much more. Cats and Long Beach, a Filou in Paris. A man with Mediterranean eyes. Lucky. She’s just lucky. Her kindergarten teacher, Miss Able, sent prayers and Christian love—enough to last a lifetime—home in every report card; and at naptime, she moved about in the cool of the blue-green-gray classroom, putting it back in order, backlit by the wide wall of windows. Suzanne began playing teacher after that, lined up her dolls and stuffed animals in attentive rows, took attendance. By the time she was nine, she was dragging and pushing her Sears Roebucks, Country French bedroom furniture around in her room, which ultimately lead to a whirlwind career in interior design. She can space-plan any room out of a conundrum, and she makes a mean omelet, but her favorite projects are always the poems.

Passing Through

A Happy Landing in Long Beach

So here I am in sunny California. Jet lag still has me up early and the mornings are gorgeous out my second floor windows. Yesterday, I even vacuumed the wood blinds, something I usually don't do until just before I leave again. Next stop: The kitchen!

Besides housework, I've been doing a lot of reading in the week since I arrived. I received two chapbooks in the mail while I was away--winners of the contests I lost last year. One is VERY good--Bar Napkin Sonnets by Moira Egan who lives in Italy and is a FAR more accomplished poet than I. It's published by The Ledge Press and you should probably buy it.

I also read two short story collections and am working my way through (the poetry, for starters) Pushcart Prize XXXIV, because, well I HAVE BEEN NOMINATED FOR A PUSHCART PRIZE! Yes. It's true. And I'm just sorta reveling in the old cliché that it's an honor just to be nominated, because by the looks of things, I won't be getting in there any time soon ;) and April will come soon enough and all of my secret hopes will be dashed to the rocks. But it IS an honor just to be nominated.

Funny thing is, the poem that was nominated--by Cider Press Review, btw--was one of the easiest poems I've ever written. It was my last semester of grad school. My thesis had been turned in and the last of my student loans had been spent. We had just finished reading James Tate's Memoir of the Hawk with Suzanne Greenberg in our Directed Reading seminar. I wasn't even sure I liked it, but SO under the influence was I that I wrote a little response, more off-the-cuff than anything I had ever been willing to call finished. I read it in class.

Truth is, I never thought much of it after that... Not even when Cecilia Woloch picked it out of my manuscript last summer--along with a couple others--and told me she thought they would like it at Cider Press... Not really even when it got accepted and published in their volume 10 earlier this year.

It's called "Free Refills," and while I can remember certain influences for the poem's subject matter, I have never felt that this poem was my own. I was channeling James Tate, much the way I was channeling Alan Ginsberg when I wrote "Wail"--the one anthologized in Not a Muse from Haven Books. It looks like I'll be reading a lot more again.

So I skimmed through Memoir of the Hawk... just to be sure that I hadn't ripped anything off or done some slant discredit to his good name, and I noticed some similarities and some differences. Nothing alarming. Just enough to help me reclaim the poem, which got me to thinking: What the heck is this poem about? As I wrote it, it felt so automatic. The language is plain. One thought led to the next without complications or contemplation. I let my imagination play in the surreal fashion that I had just read in Tate's little scenarios.

But it wasn't until just this morning, not until I started writing this blog entry, that I realized what this poem is about. What this blog is about. What, quite possibly, my whole life is about. Passing through. We are always all just passing through. Life takes such strange twists and turns that we never know when a state of being will be over, irreversibly over. Birth control fails. Friendships fail. Uncles and grandmas and nephews die. Jobs dry up and we move away, some of us farther and further than others. New homes. New loves. New visions of life. And then a blue seahorse rides off into the desert with an old woman on its back. Or maybe it isn't the desert after all. In any case, nothing is the same.

I may have just found the title of my new chapbook manuscript... and the confidence to try, try again ;)

Thanks for reading. And thanks to Caron Andregg, Ruth Foley, and Robert Wynne at Cider Press Review, and Cecilia Woloch... and James Tate and Suzanne Greenberg. I hear an acceptance speech in the makings!

Shakin' Loose

At last!

I knew there was a good reason I was sleepless tonight. Just finished chatting with my little sis, my favorite sister... though she hasn't been my favorite for months now, not since she told me she was going to see Depeche Mode in August at the Hollywood Bowl--coolest of all LA venues--with SOMEONE ELSE! But now he can't go, so I'm in! I do hope Dave Gahan wears his leather pants!

And that's not all that's super cool tonight. I've finally begun my stint as, get this, the Creative Writing Program Director for WICE--a continuing education institute here in Paris--and our first course is all but on the books for this fall. This responsibility is the main reason why I didn't go home last month, but I'll make good use of my time since I also have a great lead on a job a language school. Thank you, Ellen Fujioka--my little go getter friend! I might have to go see her psychic while I'm in Long Beach.

I'll also be sitting in for David Barnes at The Other Writers' Group at Shakespeare & Co on July 11th and 18th. Come if you can... five copies of a work in progress, or just listen to the fine writing that others bring in. We can always use fresh eyes and ears.

Other great things that have happened in recent months: This spring I had the honor of working with Cecilia Woloch again to organize her Paris Poetry Workshop--click to see the video I made. Cecilia has such a great group of friends and poets every year. The themes of place, image, and collaboration always make for a very rewarding experience, so if you ever need a(nother) reason to come to Paris, I can highly recommend this week-long workshop. This year we also did photography with Jennifer Huxta, the Montparnasse Cemetery with Heather Hartley, a day in the country with Jeffrey Green--read French Spirits!--and an afternoon of collage poetry with Jen K. Dick. We finished up the week with a participants' reading at S&C, then dinner--Au Chien Qui Fume, where else?! The highlight of my week was reading my recently anthologized tribute to Alan Ginsberg's "Howl"--it's called "Wail"--at a reading we organized at Berkeley Books. There was thunderous applause and the owner of the bookstore complimented me on my bravery... They didn't put me in the "Woman as Freedom Figter" section for nothing! I left him a copy to read and/or sell, but if you can't stop in there, buy it here! The anthology is called Not a Muse, a global anthology of post-feminist poetry published by Haven Books in Hong Kong.

Then... I had my 39th birthday. He took me on a dinner cruise on the Bateaux Mouches--not even overrated. Can't believe it's taken us four years to finally do it! He even muscled us up to a table at the front of the boat, which made for a lovely video ;) Miles Davis' Blue In Green made the perfect soundtrack, even the title, given the colors of that evening. The clouds cleared when night fell, and then it was over.

But not my birthday! It went on all weekend long 'cause he took me to Amsterdam the next day. We just showed up at the train station and boarded the next train, wandered around town for two hours looking for a hotel that would allow Filou to stay, too. Then I got sick. Boooo... So, we're going back tomorrow/today. Seriously, does it get any better?! Ok. Depeche Mode at The Hollywood Bowl is pretty damn good.

Oh yeah, and this week Filou turned two. Of course we had a little party... and two of my MFA gal pals came! Thank you, Filou, for the great excuse to open up the Old El Paso Burrito Kit. He even got to lick his Raspberry Charlotte birthday cake. Oh yeah, and I made a video to celebrate his first two years. See it here.

I guess that just about catches you all up. 5am... time to go take my bath and head for Gare du Nord. See you soon!