A Century of Nerve

This, and my heart besides, and these brief updates:

Brief Update The First: Regular visitors to the blog will know that I do not often post photographs, especially if they happen to include myself.  But, if I’ve been photographed with my Ultimate Poetry Hero and Idol, surely this is means for an exception!

Okay, so, obviously, as this was taken outdoors, and we are not separated by a set of stairs or a screen, and she communicated with me verbally rather than jotting down a couplet on a small piece of card stock and sending it to me on a platter with a bud vase and a violet, this isn’t the real Emily Dickinson.  But it is the next best thing: the wonderful and gracious Rachel Ochs, who plays Emily Dickinson at the Alabama Book Festival.  Many thanks to her for taking a picture with me!

Brief Update the Second:  Mea culpa!  Mea maxima culpa!  I mentioned in my last post that my memory of the Putt-Putt Incident was faulty, and it apparently was very faulty indeed, as my parents have informed me.  The real story is quite different and infinitely more hilarious.  As my mother pointed out, my father really would never have gotten angry if the putt-putt course had involved a windmill or a crouching gorilla or a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  See, it seems that we took several trips to Panama City, and there were several putt-putt courses, one of which indeed did involve a windmill and a crouching gorilla and a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  However, the incident described below did not take place at that putt-putt course, but at another, windmill-, gorilla-, and dinosaur-less course.  Apparently, the hole in question was a very short, straight shot.  I hit the ball once, got angry, threw down my club, and threw a fit.  Which leads us to a very different lesson about Emma: Emma tends to be easily frustrated and act like a brat.  Which one can’t do in poetry, either.

Brief Update the Third: Today was the last day of my residency at Fews Alternative School.  The students gave a reading in the school’s media center, and they did such a great job!  I’m incredibly proud of them, and inspired by their dedication and by their willingness to open up, to write, and to find their voices.  These kids are on their way to great things, and I’m grateful to have known them!

Every fall at Auburn, I’ve had my Composition I students write an essay in which they examine their family stories in order to develop an argument about why such stories are told. Some of the most perceptive essays I’ve read have concentrated on stories in which the authors’ parents described what the authors were like as children, and many argued that families tell such stories to show us what our tendencies are — especially our tendencies towards bad behavior (and especially bad behavior in public places) — and how to combat and/or correct them.

This argument is certainly supported by my own experience. The story my parents most often tell about my childhood involves a nasty incident at a putt-putt course in Panama City, Florida, during which I displayed A Very Bad Attitude towards miniature golf (a side note: somehow, I even managed to find a postcard on the Internet featuring this particular putt-putt course’s most famous feature: a giant and terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex, who still haunts me in my dreams).  A second side note, this one non-parenthetical and necessary for understanding the following story: Emma does not do miniature golf.  Emma does not do miniature golf for a reason.  And that reason is a very important reason: because she is inherently awful at anything that a.) is even vaguely athletic or b.) involves hand-eye co-ordination.  Putt-putt, of course, involves both, and I am, in a word, terrible at it.  Shamefully, shamefully terrible.

Nonetheless, during a vacation to Panama City when I was five or six, I found myself on a Putt-Putt course with my parents.  Needless to say, things did not go well.  Though the details of the story and of my memory are hazy, based on subsequent putt-putt experiences, I assume that it took at least fifteen tries to get the ball through the grinning clown’s mouth, and twenty to even get near the windmill.  It might, in fact, have been the windmill that pushed me over the edge and ignited my five-year-old rage.  Regardless of what hole it was, I realized that things were not going well, and my Very Bad Attitude emerged in full force.  I threw the ball.  I threw down my club.  I threw a fit, and refused to play even one more half-second of putt-putt.

But then I looked up from where I was — which was (again, shamefully) probably throwing a fit on the Astroturf in front of the windmill — and I saw my father’s face.  My father, who is rarely moved to anger, was far, far from pleased.  He would not have me be a bad sport, and he would not have me be a sore loser.  And so he made me pick up the ball, and the club, and walk the seemingly eternal distance to the next hole, where I would try and try and try again to get the ball past the crouching gorilla and up the hill.

And I’m very glad that he did.  I mention this story because I think it’s key to what it takes to be a writer: not giving into the desire to scream, throw down your pen and paper or even your laptop, and give up.  One of the most important — if not the most important — things for me, as a writer, has been persistence, finding a way to play through when it seems like I’m losing every hole, when the rejection slips pile up in the mailbox and the poems themselves just aren’t behaving.  And I think that this was most essential for me during NaPoWriMo.  It seems miraculous now, but I managed to make it all the way through NaPoWriMo for two years in a row — thirty days, thirty poems.  The process was not without its frustrations, its humiliations, its moments where I wanted to throw everything I’ve written away and walk away from the game.  But, largely thanks to the support of my fabulous NaPoWriMo partner, I made it through, and I’m glad I played every hole.  Being that deeply connected to my creative process for that long was agonizing and exhausting, but I learned a great deal.  Perhaps more than anything, I learned a lot about my habits — for instance, that, as a friend of mine once told me after a poetry reading, I sure do like lists.  I learned that it’s sometimes essential to avoid giving in to this habit, and sometimes essential that I do give in.  I learned that I do have the tendency to write the same poem over and over, but that I often need to do so, if only to get a subject out of my bloodstream.

And, perhaps most importantly, I learned how important community is in this often-solitary endeavor, and what a blessing it is to not work entirely in isolation.  My partner and I are even planning another month-long writing adventure.  So spinning windmill, prepare yourself!  I’m coming back to the course!

Dear denizens of the blogosphere, do forgive me. I’ve fallen terribly behind not only in terms of updating but in terms of responding to comments and reading all of the other blogs I so enjoy reading and generally being a communicative member of Internet society. It’s been a very busy few weeks, and I think that the fact that I’ve only skipped one night of NaPoWriMo (which I later made up by a two-poem-day) must certainly be a miracle.  Or insanity.  I can’t quite make up my mind about which prevails.  In the past week alone, I’ve driven over a thousand miles, fueled by a thousand liters of Diet Dr. Pepper. However, the frenetic frenzy has, beyond any slim shadow of a doubt, been worth it. There are several bits of Very Excellent News from the Emma Bolden Camp. One piece of Very Excellent News I shall save for later. For now, I can only say that it is a Doozie of a Piece of News, and the cause of much joy and celebration.

One piece of Very Excellent News I shall now share: I found out yesterday that I received a Tennessee Williams Scholarship in poetry for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. I am absolutely thrilled about this, and can’t wait to revisit that beautiful place, or to work with such amazing writers!

Last weekend, I attended the Alabama Book Festival, which turned out to be a humdinger of an event. This year, Jeanie Thompson organized a poetry-only tent. I hope I’ll be forgiven for the following entry — I once read one blogger (I thought this appeared on Poetry Snark, but I can’t seem to find it) absolutely eviscerate another blogger for an entry of this sort, accusing her of attempting to manipulate Google results. I have no real understanding of how Google actually works, other than through pure magic and wonder which I suspect could only be created by tiny joyous fairies, and so can honestly say that I’m not doing that. My intention is simply to squee like the poetry fan girl I so often am, and couldn’t help being at the Festival.

The morning began with my reading with Bruce Alford, who read some moving and resonant new poems. Alas, I fear that just as I am forever fated to miss Feist in concert, I am also forever fated to miss hearing Jake Adam York and Dan Albergotti read. I first missed them a few months ago in Auburn, when my 103 degree fever prevented me from attending their reading at the art museum; this time, I was signing books. Egads! However, I now have copies of A Murmuration of Starlings and The Boatlands, and can at least imagine what a reading would be like. I no longer have to imagine, however, how amazing it would be to hear Natasha Tretheway read. Her reading ranged through all three of her collections, and found me crying, publicly, twice. During no other poetry reading have I cried, publicly, twice. Not only was her work incredibly powerful, Ms. Tretheway herself was as kind and accessible and gracious as can be, and should definitely be considered a poetry superhero. I took a lunch break after this reading, but returned to the tent to hear Louie Skipper’s reading. I was very much taken and inspired by the way he writes about faith, and look forward to reading more of his work. Nickole Brown and Doug Van Gundy, two Red Hen Press authors, gave an excellent reading. I found myself completely absorbed in Ms. Brown’s reading; her work has a raw, riveting, all-encompassing power that’s rare in contemporary poetry. Mr. Van Gundy’s reading began with some fiddle playing, as all events should, which served as an excellent introduction to his poems, which strongly convey a sense of place, celebrating the Southern landscape. Last but not least was Kate Gale, whose poems are powerful and direct as a knife blade, and told with an urgency that makes you pay attention.

In a word: squee! A fantastic event, and I’m humbled and honored to have been a part of it!

And now, dear readers, Emma needs to catch up on something else she has definitely missed a great deal: sleep. But first, a student sent me this photograph today, due to my propensity to talk about Whitman and All About Eve in class. How happy am I to have both combined in one photograph?

(I especially love the expression on her face, which seems to be some strange combination of complete disdain and utter boredom. She must not have gotten to the good parts yet.)

First and foremost, some shameless self-promotion: if you’re interested in obtaining a copy of The Mariner’s Wife, my second chapbook, fear not! There is still time! The pre-publication sales period ends on April 18th. Check out Finishing Line Press’ website to order it (also, check out the amazing cover photograph by the amazing Bogna Kuczerawy — how lucky was I to get permission to use this?)!

Second and unforemost, I am a day late on my weekly NaPoWriMo update, which may, in itself, tell you all ye need know about how NaPoWriMo is going. We’re over two weeks in, and while I am still, somehow, miraculously, fifteen for fifteen, I feel as though I’ve entered my sophomore slump. The steam runneth out, and so, it feels, doth the inspiration. I’m at the point of NaPoWriMo where poetry begins to feel like a lot of practice, muscle-stretching and exercises: perspiration, with little inspiration.

Which leads to a question which, I think, a lot of writers often wonder about: what is it that makes a good piece of writing — or, more importantly, a good writer — is it practice and perspiration, or is it some stroke of luck, some natural talent, pure muse-given inspiration?

I found myself pondering this question while at home this weekend. My mother is an absolute expert at two things that elude me absolutely: cooking and decorating. First off: cooking. Whereas I regularly ruin Jell-o and can’t seem to make toast without burning it, my mother is a master chef. Seriously. As in, should have her own show on Food Network. You take one bite of my mother’s lasagna, you will never eat anyone else’s lasagna. My mother attributes her skill in cooking to the fact that she, well, cooks — she tells me that, when it comes to the kitchen, practice makes perfect. And practice she does: trying new recipes, altering old ones, tasting and salting and tasting again. I have followed her advice, to the extent my patience allows, and practiced, and I have gotten to the point where I don’t burn everything every time I cook. But, sitting down this weekend to her goat-cheese stuffed chicken with figs and roasted asparagus (I know — seriously), I knew that no amount of practice would bring me to the point of that dish.

So maybe it is natural talent. Maybe it is some spark. But maybe that spark is something different than the “you got it or you don’t” theorizers suggest. Maybe the answer lies in watching my mother cook, and watching my mother decorate. Upon reflection, I think that I have learned more about my attitude towards writing, and towards the teaching of writing, by watching her than by reading or studying anything else. When I cook, I’m usually frazzled and harried and dropping egg shells in a bowl and saying some unbloggable words. But when my mother cooks, she’s transformed, serene. When she’s dealing with fabric and paint swatches, with patterns that match and paintings that flow, she’s completely enthralled, she’s happy — she loves the work. She loves it enough to go on, to push beyond boundaries and difficulties, to continue to try , to ignore the no’s, the seeming impossibilities, to keep going, to create.

And perhaps that’s the spark, after all: not so much natural talent as the natural gift of patience that love can give. If you love the work, you’ll stick with it, you’ll persevere, and you’ll progress, even when it seems more like perspiration than inspiration, because you love it enough to know that if you stick with it, the inspiration will return.

It’s April 7th, which means that one week of NaPoWriMo is O-VAH! I am stunned with both shock and pride to be able to say that I am currently seven for seven. This seems like a good time to log some reflections.

Last year, the first week of NaPoWriMo found me flailing a bit, but still excited and energized. This year, the first week of NaPoWriMo found me feeling a feeling that can best be described, as most feelings can, through a macro — in this case, a faildog:

Yes, yes, yes. That is very much it: face pressed against the bars with my eyes closed, with the word “FAIL” in large white letters just above my right ear.

There are two reasons for this.

The first reason is that I felt terribly, horribly, terribly out of practice when it comes to the whole poem-ing business. My poor poetry notebook reflects this: though I do have an astounding amount of notes on the medicinal benefits of Alehoof and early modern beliefs about hoot owls for my Witch Project, the population of new poems has dwindled as of late. Regretfully, my last full draft was written on February 20th, and January 28th before that.

Though this fact shames me to no end, I confess because this leads to reason two: the poem population dwindled mostly because I told myself that I just Did Not Have the Time. NaPoWriMo, however, has shown me that this is nothing more than an excuse: I have the time now, so I had the time before — I just wasn’t making enough time for my poetry. Fail.

This lesson is a hard lesson, but one I needed to learn. And I am learning another good thing, which is that it’s a good thing that it’s true, what they say about bicycles — you never forget. Now that I’ve been back on the bike for a week, the poems are easier to write. I’m not quite flying downhill with my hands off the handlebars, crying “wee!” for all of the neighbors to hear, but I’m beginning to coast comfortably without training wheels.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about NaPoWriMo, for me, is that the sheer force of production forces one to face one’s greatest fears about or in their writing. For me, this is the fear of writing Very Bad Drafts, even though I know that it is often absolutely necessary to write Very Bad Drafts to get the The Draft Which Works Well. The thing that I’m learning is that perhaps the most dangerous thing for a writer to do is to think of the Very Bad Drafts as failures. A Very Bad Draft, as unpublishable as it may be, is more of a triumph than a failure: how else will you ever get comfortable enough to say what most needs to be said? How else will you learn?

So, regardless of the outcome, NaPoWriMo? WIN.

A visual aid to the forthcoming story provided by Eric Conveys an Emotion:

One day at young writers’ camp, my friend Seth, who had just the night before been prescribed some incredibly strong decongestants for a stubborn cold, stumbled into breakfast with a well-bandaged hand.

“Seth!” I said, “what’s with the hand?”

“I punched myself in the mirror.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. I just saw myself in the mirror and thought, ‘That [expletive deleted] deserves it.’”

I don’t know if Seth still writes — I hope that he does, as he was an incredibly talented writer — but, if he does, I’m fairly sure that he’d agree that this is an accurate description not just of decongestant-fueled teenage angst but also of the feeling one typically gets after receiving a certain number of rejection slips in a week. Say, eight. Five if it’s a bad week otherwise. But definitely eight.

Lately, however, I’ve been getting a very strange new type of slip — the it’s not you, it’s me rejection.

Take, for instance, the e-mail I received about a residency I’d applied for — a “dear applicant” (like “Dear John?”) letter explaining that the residency program was shut down completely, due to insufficient funding. This is, of course, depressing on a great many levels, mostly because it brings to mind how difficult it is for any arts organization to barely survive, much less thrive, nowadays.

And this brings to mind my second it’s not you it’s me rejection, this one from the New Review of Literature. It seems that, due to a variety of circumstances, including the collapse of its primary distributor, this very fine literary magazine is ceasing publication with its Spring 2008 issue. Though this is incredibly depressing, the editor’s (Paul Vangelisti’s) response to the situation is nothing less than inspiring. Enclosed with the rejection was a manifesto of sorts, published as an editorial in the Spring issue, bewailing the fact that “the current publishing and literary scene appear[s] dire, impoverished, and hopelessly conformist and institutionalized,” and sounding an alarm about “the need for action, for a departure from previous modes of production and distribution.” Their action? A bi-annual review of literature to be published and distributed free of charge, aptly titled or. What’s more exciting than people with the passion to innovate, to recreate the way we read and receive poetry? The editors ask that you write for a copy. I already have.

I received a third it’s not you, it’s me rejection, but this one stirred me to quite a bit of thought, and I think it best to reserve an entire entry for it. Plus, I’m excited to start thinking about tomorrow’s NaPoWriMo poem, and, perhaps, do a little tinkering on my last SECRET NaPoWriMo post.

Whenever I think, say, or hear the word “SECRET,” incidentally, I cannot help but think, say, or hear it the way it’s pronounced in the Conan O’Brien skit.

To NaPoWriMo, or not to NaPoWriMo? Much of my time in the last few weeks has been spent in queasy contemplation of this question. Every few hours, I felt the familiar vise of fear and terror and joyous expectation that accompanies any contemplation of a plan to dedicate myself to writing a poem a day for a month. And not just any month: April. April, that most hellish of months, when the papers pile up, the exams demand to be made and administered, the students realize that spring has sprung and each class requires one hundred and sixty times more energy in order to get them to focus on Krapp’s Last Tape and The Wasteland rather than the sight of seventy or more of their closest friends sunning themselves on the lawn outside the window. April, the academic’s nightmare, the month that usually leaves me comatose on the couch watching America’s Next Top Model marathons for days — and a poem a day, on top of this?

At the end of NaPoWriMo last year, I felt like Martin Sheen at the end of Apocalypse Now. I had traveled down the terrifying river, I had seen the horror, the horror. There’s no sequel to Apocalypse Now, and there’s a reason for that. I decided no, no thank you — I might try this in a more amenable month, like June or even August, but NaPoWriMo during NaPoMo? No thank you. No thank you very much indeed, sir.

Or so I thought. My mouth, of course, often does not first discuss things with my brain, and this leads me into trouble — this time, of the poem-a-day-during-the-busiest-month-of-the-year kind. Yesterday, I drove to Valley for my outreach program. Whitney and I had decided to find a way to ease the students into form, and I designed a whizbanger of a class plan based on Nice Hat. Thanks. It went remarkably well. Miraculously well. You could practically see the light bulbs flashing in a fluorescence brighter than they’d ever flashed over the students’ heads. Poetry was fun! Poetry was sheer joy! Poetry was exhilarating! And at the end of class, Whitney and I talked to the students about the importance of regular practice, of writing even when the school is overtaken by the testing aliens.

And then it happened. My mouth opened. My tongue went into position to form sounds which would make themselves into words. And the words were as follows: “April is National Poetry Month, and a lot of poets do this thing called NaPoWriMo, where they write a poem a day. Let’s do it together! I’ll do it, if you’ll do it! A poem a day! For a month! Who’s interested!” And the hands shot up, waving with joy — my hand included.

D’oh.

So, it looks like I’m going to be part of the NaPoWriMo crowd again, this time, sadly, partnerless, as Ross White has abandoned me, cruelly, on the side of the road with no shoes and no map. Oh, the horror. The horror

I do have to post some of the poems from our Nice Hat. Thanks. exercise, as they’re hilarious. Here’s an example written by Whitney, my co-teacher, and myself:

And one from a student and I:

Especially for Ross White, who loves the Lolcats as I do:

I am generally puzzled by the things people Google to end up here.  Yesterday, however, I was overjoyed to see that someone Googled the term “Gertrude Stein (the cat).”  Googler, since you asked, I give you Gertrude Stein (the cat):

Clearly, she is accomplishing her goal of world domination.

And, a tiny excerpt from the human Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons — the Rooms section — which is often pretty darn brilliant, if you ask me:

“Act so that there is no use in a centre. A wide action is not a width. A preparation is given to the ones preparing. They do not eat who mention silver and sweet. There was an occupation.”

Yet another reason — besides the museums and the galleries and my lovely friends and the plays and the streets and Central Park and etcetera etcetera — to move to New York, this one arriving via Poetry Daily’s Weekly Newsletter:

Anne Carson in performance at the 92nd Street Y
Come see Anne Carson in performance at the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center! Wednesday, March 26, 8:00 pm. Carson will perform her pieces Cassandra Float Can and Possessive Used As Drink (Me), featuring dancers and singing. An essayist, classicist and poet, Carson is the author of Decreation, The Beauty of the Husband, Eros the Bittersweet and Autobiography of Red.. 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, NYC. Tickets: $18.00/$10.00 Age 35 and under. Call 212-415-5500 or visit us online.

I am so jealous of everyone who’s even vaguely close enough to New York to see this, I can’t even talk about it.  If you are in New York, in the tri-state area, or even vaguely close enough to New York to see this, it is your solemn duty to GO, GO, GO, and then write me and tell me about it and make me jealous.  Anne Carson!  In performance!  The only thing that could make me more jealous would be a performance of “Lots of Guns: An Oratorio for Five Voices.”  Who doesn’t love a little Gertrude Stein?

Speaking of Gertrude Stein, my Spring Break has drawn to a close, and I have already packed up my (thankfully, marvelously fuel-efficient) vehicle for the drive back to Auburn.  Now, all that remains is for me to pack up Gertrude Stein (the feline version, who is currently sitting on my mouse pad) and all of her accessories, and prepare for a few hours of constant yowling.  Thankfully, there’s George Harrison, who was, in my opinion, not only the coolest Beatle (I know, I know, people say this is blasphemy, but, seriously.  The guy was awesome), but who is also the only singer with the magical power of lulling Gertrude Stein into a meditative calm during road trips.  I always have All Things Must Pass on reserve — the second she hears the opening to “I’d Have You Anytime,” Gertie settles down and starts to purr.  She may eat bugs, but she’s got great taste in music.