The title of this entry comes from John Berryman’s “Dream Song 39″ — it’s one I’ve always passed over, but it suddenly struck me today, if only for these lines:

our sad wil riffs come easy in that case,
thinking you over,
knowing you resting, who was reborn to rest,
your gorgeous sentence is done.

Brilliant.

I’ve been re-reading Berryman’s Dream Songs — which, I admit, I do every few months without prompting — after reading Beth Ann Fennelly’s take on his work in her new book, Unmentionables. Fennelly does an amazing job taking on Berryman’s language and form, but as much as I am interested in the similarities between the series, I’m perhaps more interested in the differences. As the title suggests, Fennelly’s poems take as their subject all of those things which are unmentionable in our society — the heedless impulses of destruction which lead us to tip an innocent cow just because we can, the presence of lust in places which we consider lustless, the insistence of lusts we don’t want to be lusting, the insistence of memories we don’t want to be insistent — even the idea that, at the bottom of it, our national obsession with nostalgia is essentially an obsession with ourselves, a kind of nationally authorized self-importance. I think that it’s arguable that Berryman’s poems often tread the same territory, but, whereas Berryman pften brought our Huffy Henry and Mister Bones as characters to voice his confession, Fennelly speaks through the sheer and stark I. It’s interesting to see the difference in tone this creates, and has lead me to re-imagine Berryman’s poems — what if “Henry” had always been “I”? How would the work be different?

Of course, Berryman does use the “I” — as he does in what is perhaps my favorite Dream Song — number 22, “Of 1826″ — and, as it is almost the fourth of July, I would be remiss if I did not post it! The poem refers to one of those weird facts of American history that fascinate me to no end — the fact that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4th, 1826. Incidentally, a friend once gave me a recording of Berryman reading this — it’s been a staple on my iTunes ever since. Definitely worth searching for — I tried to upload it, but couldn’t figure out how to do so. In vain, in vain, in vain, indeed.

Dream Song 22: Of 1826

I am the little man who smokes & smokes.
I am the girl who does know better but.
I am the king of the pool.
I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut.
I am a government official & a goddamned fool.
I am a lady who takes jokes.

I am the enemy of the mind.
I am the auto salesman and lóve you.
I am a teenage cancer, with a plan.
I am the blackt-out man.
I am the woman powerful as a zoo.
I am two eyes screwed to my set, whose blind-

It is the Fourth of July.
Collect: while the dying man,
forgone by you creator, who forgives,
is gasping ‘Thomas Jefferson still lives’
in vain, in vain, in vain.
I am Henry Pussy-cat! My whiskers fly.

At this point in my packing, I can only assume one thing: books are, somehow, in some way, genetically related to rabbits.  Or, at least, my books are.  This much is clear.  What else can explain the fact that I have filled fifteen boxes to the very brim with books, and still there are more books to be packed?  Only that my books are somehow reproducing.  That, and only that.

I spent the weekend in Georgetown, looking for a place to live, and had halfway hoped that the remaining books would find their way into boxes before I returned: if books can reproduce, surely there’s some way that they can also grow legs?  Sadly, however, this evolutionary step has not yet occurred.  I did, at least, find somewhere to live, though I am, at the moment, wondering if perhaps I should rent an entire apartment just for said books.  I fell even more in love with Georgetown, though, and can’t wait to live there.  I mean, just look at this:

Perfect!

In the meantime, my World Literature I class is drawing to a close.  We’ve reached the point of the semester where I fall head-over-heels in love with language again, first with Heaney’s amazing translation of Beowulf.  I’m particularly impressed with Heaney’s treatment of the kenning — he goes beyond the “whale-road” and “swan-road” to having a speech-giver “unlock his word-hoard,” and having others speak of the body as a “bone-house.”  The class closes with one of my great loves: Macbeth, which I’m pretty sure that I’ve read far past fifty times, and loved more with each reading.  I have to catch myself so often while reading this, as I tend to get lost in the rhythm of the language.  I’ve heard a billion times that the iamb is like the human heartbeat, but never really realize the full effect of this until reading Shakespeare, in whose hands the iamb moves swiftly from a gentle lullaby to heart-pounding nightmare.  I must admit that each reading also brings to mind Tammy Wynette, as a particularly brilliant Sarah Lawrence production of Macbeth, directed by the particularly brilliant Kevin Confoy, featured Lady Macbeth lip-synching to “Stand by Your Man” while gathering the daggers after convincing (though whether or not he needed much in terms of convincing is a matter of debate) Macbeth to murder Duncan.  Brilliant.  So brilliant that I saw it three times.

In other news, I learned this weekend of the existence of the Guard Llama — a llama whose job is to guard livestock, apparently, from single-dog attacks.  I think it is clear that I must have one of these, even if I don’t actually have livestock.  The Guard Llama could guard the feline Gertrude Stein and myself, I suppose.

I returned my students’ mid-terms yesterday, and we’re nearly finished with the Bhagavad Gita — both signs that the summer session is past its mid-point and drawing to a close.  This, along with the fact that my study currently looks like this –

– serves as a sign that it’s time I made an announcement: this will be my last class at Auburn University.  I’ve greatly enjoyed my time here at Auburn, and learned so much from my students, to whom I will always be grateful.  I’ve met some amazing people here and developed friendships that will last a lifetime.  I’ve been so lucky to have the opportunity to teach at Auburn, and I’m especially happy to have worked with the Alabama Writers’ Forum, the Sun Belt Writing Project,  and the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities on outreach projects.

The time, though, has come for me to move on.  In the fall, I will join the English department at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky, where I’ll serve as a visiting assistant professor of English in Creative Writing and as the poetry editor of The Georgetown Review.  I am absolutely ecstatic about this, and incredibly grateful for this opportunity, and, most of all, thrilled beyond thrilled that I’m going to be part of such a warm and wonderful department.

So, hooray!  And please forgive the lack of updates to come.  Just look at those boxes, and think of how many pairs of shoes I have, and think about how all of those beautiful shoes have to find their way into boxes before I leave for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and think of the fact that every time I pack a box, I spend most of my time getting the feline Gertrude Stein, who’s just jumped in the box, to jump out of the box without damaging its contents … Oh, dear.

As a child, I was a big fan of The Muppet Show.  I’m going to go ahead and revise that statement, as that’s not entirely true: I am still a very big fan of The Muppet Show.  There were so many things I loved about it: Fozzie’s “I Got Rhythm” song, “Pigs in Space,” the guest artists (Rita Morena singing “Fever” with Animal? Paul Simon singing “Scarborough Fair” with Miss Piggie? What could possibly be better?).  Perhaps my favorite part of The Muppet Show, however, is Statler and Waldorf’s heckling.  For example:

Waldorf: That seemed like something very different.
Statler: Did you like it?
Waldorf: No.
Statler: Then it wasn’t different.

The problem, though, is that sometimes, when it comes to my thoughts about my writing, I feel as though I’ve internalized Statler and Waldorf.  Every poem seems flat, every idea seems tired, every word sounds like the word before it — I find myself as cranky and irritated with my own work as those two Muppets, heckling from the stage left balcony.

I’m usually very frustrated with my Statler/Waldorf periods, but I wonder if there isn’t a worth to them, after all.  I mean, after all, it’s in these times of deepest frustration, when I’m sick to death of the sound of my own voice, that I tend to take leaps and risks and jump as far outside of my box as possible, just to quiet Statler’s complaining.

Perhaps the most relevant Statler and Waldorf quote, then, doesn’t begin and end with a Boo! after all:

Waldorf: Well, you gotta give them credit.
Statler: Why’s that?
Waldorf: Well, they’re gonna keep on doing it till they get it right.

My co-teacher, the lovely and talented Whitney Reed, sent me these photographs today, which reminded me of something truly terrible — I have yet to post about the Sharing the Spotlight reading, the culminating event of the Art of Writing Program Whitney and I taught this spring!  The program, incidentally, was made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities at Auburn University, the Sun Belt Writing Project at Auburn University, and the Alabama Writers’ Forum — all wonderful organizations that do a great deal of good for a great deal of people in Alabama and beyond.

The reading, which took place on May 21, served as the official release for the anthology of poems by the students in the program, titled The Amber Moment and gorgeously designed and produced by Russell Helms and co. at Absnth Publishing, Inc (seriously — the book is amazing, and Russell was a dream to work with — if you ever need a professional publishing service, he’s the man to call).  Nine young writers read their poems, and I was amazed and awed not only by the strength, beauty, and clarity of their work, but also by their phenomenal readings — they did a wonderful job bringing their poems to life!  I was inspired by hearing them read in a way that I’m rarely inspired — it was incredible to hear these poems they’d work so hard crafting, which spoke so honestly, beautifully, and movingly of their experiences and emotions, their hopes and dreams.  Our guest speaker, the always-incredible Chantel Acevedo, gave a rousing speech which encouraged the students to believe in themselves, their writing, and their experiences.  Sage advice, and advice I hope they follow!

Here are the girls gathered before the reading, with Whitney Reed (in the red dress on the far right), myself (with new bangs and odd expression on my face), and the city of Valley, Alabama’s Mayor Arnold Leak, who was wonderful enough to join us — thank you, Mayor Leak!

After the reading, the girls had a book signing — they’re superstars!  I can’t even express how proud I am of them and the work that they did this spring, nor can I express how grateful I am to them, for how much they’ve taught me, and how much they’ve inspired me.  Thank you, everyone, for an unbelievable semester!

Oh, goodness. My apologies for vanishing from cyberspace. I’m spending most of my time, at this point, reading graphic and violent Greek tragedies in preparation for my World Literature summer course (Hecuba, today — if you haven’t read it, you should read it, and you should pre-order Anne Carson’s translation, which first appeared in the APR a while ago, and is absolutely amazing), relocating Gertrude Stein after she’s jumped into a half-packed box, and dealing with various equally massive piles of papers (paperwork to fill out, papers to sort through, papers to recycle, papers to shred, papers to grade). And, I apparently did not get enough of self-torture during April, and have begun another poem-a-day project. But! I do have announcements:

Announcement the first: The Mariner’s Wife has shipped! I’m always happy when I don’t have to try to make a pun because, well, when I do, it’s a disaster. The chapbooks have set sail (see? disaster) via priority mail, and should appear in your mailboxes soon. An infinite amount of gratitude, again, to everyone who ordered a copy.

Announcement the second: Well, it isn’t so much an announcement as simply a statement of something that happened … Finally, after two years of work, I decided to put all of my witch poems into one file, and found that the file is … fifty one pages? Which seems suspiciously close to a “manuscript,” though I’m kind of loathe to use that word. Let’s just call it a vaguely-manuscript-like-pile-of-paper. The vaguely-manuscript-like-pile-of-paper has made its way to two trusted and fabulous readers, and into a desk drawer, where it’s going to sit a while and think about what it’s done before I approach it again. After all of this, of course, it’ll probably be a lot closer to eleven pages to fifty one, but I’m very pleased to have the basic bones of it down. Finally.

Announcement the third: Bread and butter pickles. Delicious.

Announcement the fourth: Someone sent me this cartoon this morning, which has absolutely made my day. Enjoy!

Announcement the fifth: Incidentally, the little guy with the really round head speaks the truth — love IS like DANG.

I began teaching my first summer class this week: a section of World Literature I.  When I planned the class, I decided to do something I’ve never done before — I decided to abandon the confines of the anthology and teach entire texts.  We’ll read Gilgamesh, Hecuba (which I’ve never taught before and am quite excited about), the entire Bhagavad Gita, Heaney’s Beowulf, and Macbeth.  With the exception of Macbeth, each are texts or translations I’ve never taught before.  After I turned in my book order, I began to panic a bit, but am now glad, if only because I’ve discovered that Maureen Gallery Kovacs’ translation of Gilgamesh is pretty much awesome and amazing.

I was particularly impressed by her translation of Gilgamesh’s curse against Ishtar.  Since starting the witch project, I’ve been interested in the power we attribute to language — in particular, the power language can have to harm — and have been paying a great deal of attention to the way we construct language that’s meant to do harm.  The Upanishads present an interesting take on this, implying that language has the power to harm because language is, in itself, a great power.  Take, for instance, Yajnavalkya’s statement in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:

Then speech is our light, for by that we sit, work, go out, and come back.  Even though we cannot see our own hand in the dark, we can hear what is said and move toward the person speaking.

Gilgamesh also seems to imply the same sense that language is power, and that powerfully harmful language has its consequences.  There’s no question that his curse against Ishtar is incredibly powerful, and also strikingly modern:

You are an oven who … ice,
a half-door that keeps out neither breeze nor blast,
a palace that crushes down valiant warriors,
an elephant who devours its own covering,
pitch that blackens the hands of its bearer,
a waterskin that soaks its bearer through,
limestone that buckles out the stone wall,
a battering ram that attracts the enemy land,
a shoe that bites its owner’s feet!

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this is that it seems that the curse — the most harmful thing that can be said — has the most to do with the harm one causes one’s self and others, that the utterance of this is the worst thing a person — or, in this case, a goddess — can hear.

I’ve found myself in one of the most unfortunate situations any writer can find themselves in: stuck. I am, simply, stuck. There’s no other way to say it. Stuck. On the witch poem project. On the project of poem-ing altogether. Stuck. Over here, a rock. Over there, a hard place. Between them? Me. Stuck.

I’m doing all that I can do, in this situation: I’m looking backwards, so that I may look forward. I’ve spent much of the past few days with the witch poems, carefully combing them over for clues, hoping that they will become maps to show me the path I should take — or, at least, to show me where the sink holes are, so that I can fill them. I’ve also begun the grimy work of revising, filling in chips and chinks with mortar in order to create a strong foundation for the poems to come. Mostly, I’ve been tinkering with verb tense, and with voice — I’ve found that many of the poems are written in that strange “you”-that’s-actually-an-”I” voice, as if I was so unsure of myself at the beginning that I wanted to create some kind of distance. I think the poems, however, require a sense of immediacy, and very little distance, and perhaps that’s why I’m finding it so difficult to write new ones. For now, at least, I work and work on the old, and Gertrude Stein sits patiently in the rocking chair in the corner, occasionally meowing to remind me that even though I have work to do, she still requires treats.

If you have ordered The Mariner’s Wife, thank you, thank you, thank you. If you have not ordered The Mariner’s Wife, incidentally, and you would like to order The Mariner’s Wife, there is still time to do so on the Finishing Line Press website. But if you have ordered The Mariner’s Wife and find yourself thinking to yourself, hey, I ordered The Mariner’s Wife, and I seem to recall that it was to ship this week. Where o where could it be?, worry not! You will still receive The Mariner’s Wife. Due to some especially inclement weather, the press is running behind schedule, and the book is slated to ship in early June.

In the meantime, please enjoy these instructions for making your very own mariner’s knot:

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!