As the sheer mass of posters, placards, painted billboards, fliers, and glamor shots urging me to vote for the Miss AU Homecoming of my choosing around town attests, homecoming week has arrived here in Auburn. The homecoming football game is a concept I still need my students’ help to understand — one Composition class laughed at me when I asked if the homecoming game was the first home game after an away game (which makes sense, right? I mean, that’s only logical. Right?). However, I now fully understand homecoming in a more general sense, and why it’s such a big deal, after having my own homecoming this Friday at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Granted, there were no pom poms and no pigskin, but the day was incredibly meaningful for me nonetheless. My visit happened to coincide with the final day of Fall Week, one of my favorite ASFA traditions, namely because it culminates in a Halloween costume contest you would really have to see to believe. It was good to see that the students are still keeping up the tradition of having The Most Awesome Halloween Costumes Ever — I saw quite a few 80’s dance party costumes (which looked shamefully like my day-to-day wear), a very convincing Jack Skellington, a young man who I falsely accused of being dressed as Alex from A Clockwork Orange, several very well-crafted Harry Potter costumes, and a very convincing duck. I can’t thank everyone at ASFA enough — the reception was absolutely gorgeous, from the orange-themed flower arrangements to the spooky punch (I really can never say enough about my love for sherbet-based beverages) to the Halloween-themed brownies. While reading at the school for the first time in ten years meant more than I can say, I have to say that my favorite part of the day was the author visit. I am very glad that I got the chance to spend time with such a dedicated group of young writers — I was inspired by their intelligence, their wit, and their passion. And also comforted by their love of lolcats.
Which brings me to this: I have had the theme song to Super Mario Brothers — yes, the really, really old one, the one with the Goombas, laughable graphics, and Duck Hunt — stuck in my head for five days. Someone in Cat Macro Land must agree:
Emma Bolden is the author of How To Recognize A Lady, a chapbook of poems published as part of Edge by Edge, the third in Toadlily Press' Quartet Series, and The Mariner's Wife, a chapbook published by Finishing Line Press. Her third chapbook, The Sad Epistles, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She was the recipient of a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers' Conference and was named a Finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship by the Poetry Foundation/Poetry magazine. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in such journals as Prairie Schooner, the Indiana Review, Feminist Studies, The Journal, Redivider, The Greensboro Review, and Verse. Her manuscript was a semi-finalist for the Perugia Press Prize. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Georgetown College, where she also serves as the poetry editor of the Georgetown Review.
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November 1, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Jessie Carty
Love the Mario Cat! HA!