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May 31, 2005

What Would You Do...

To see George W. Bush impeached? Today the President called Amnesty International's report on human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay "absurd" and Dick Cheney said, "I frankly just don't take them seriously..."  Upon hearing that news, Seth turned me and said, "I'd walk [from New Hampshire] to Washington if that's what it took to impeach this president." As would I. I'd pack a knapsack and hit the road right now. Hopefully we're not just a couple of partisan crazies. Hopefully there are others like us who see the harm this administration has done both at home and abroad, and would be willing to go to extraordinary lengths to effect a positive change. So, what would you do? Would you walk from wherever you are to the nation's capitol? Drive? Any other creative ideas? Don't be shy...write in!

Deep Throat Revealed!

Vanity Fair Article: advance1.pdf (application/pdf Object). WOW.

Questions

Where does one turn for solace if God does not exist, and the humanity one knows is not enough? Books? Can literature really stand in for religion without becoming a kind of religion itself? I don't know how to answer these questions, but for some reason I feel as though they're relevant.

May 30, 2005

Memorial Day

It's a shame CNN's Memorial Day feature does not mention the 1,657 soldiers who have died in Iraq since the start of the war. What more important memorial could we erect in their honor than to hold our leaders responsible for waging war, and to continue to strive for peace? (Prompted by Josh Corey's very thoughtful post this morning.)

May 28, 2005

And the winner is...

Pityriasis Rosea, which is both good and bad news. 

Good news: 1) I don't have Lyme disease, 2) it's not contagious 3) I won't need a long course of antibiotics, 4) I won't suffer any long-term effects, and  5) I've heard the wake-up call loud and clear about playing in the woods unprotected.

Bad news: 1) there is no treatment for PR, as it is suspected to be viral, 2) it may take as long as 3-4 months to run its course, which means living with this horrible body rash for several weeks more, 4) no strenuous activity (like biking) until it clears up, 5) UV rays can help speed healing, but I'm too fair-skinned to take advantage of the sun without burning, 6) I have no idea when the muscle aches, fatigue, and headaches that have accompanied the rash will subside.

Things could be worse, though. Much worse, and I'm thankful they're not.

My plan for this long weekend is to get caught up on reading submissions for The New Hampshire Review. While that might not sound terribly exciting, I relish the task. I've heard writers liken submissions to lottery tickets, and I get something of that feeling myself when I go through our inbox. There's always this sense of anticipation, this sense that something wonderful is waiting to be discovered. If you'll allow me to gush for a moment: I love poetry.  My soul feels at home in it, despite the struggles with my own writing.

Editing has actually helped me move past some of that. As a reader, I've spent an inordinate amount of time absorbing other people's notions of a what makes a poem good. As an editor, I get to see the failures too. And it's those failed attempts which most inspire me right now--because they're a constant reminder that none of us is all grace. Simply trying means sometimes failing.

A teaser from the piece I'm currently working on:

O-O-O-Orion
     if you swing your star-arm finally,
     will it spin the rotors of a Blackhawk in reverse?

Swing it anyway.

O-Orion,
the lucidity of intuition is not lost on you, friend.
     Though tonight the rain is greening this earth-box,
               this round earth-box,

You are there. You are there. You are there.

May 27, 2005

Can You Spot a Fake Smile?

Via Bev Jackson's blog, Spot the Fake Smile, courtesy the BBC. As a bonus, you get to see which guesses were right and wrong once you've completed the quiz. I scored 16 out of 20 correct--two real smiles I thought fake, and two fake smiles I thought genuine.

Look Who's Blogging

I just stumbled upon our state Poet Laureate, Cynthia Huntington, here in the blogosphere at Love and Salt. Who isn't blogging these days?

May 26, 2005

Sonnet

The Horticulturist Speaks to her Conceits

I tell you even Eden can’t out-lush
my garden—all you walking flowers, you
are trembling petal flesh. Outstretched, you blush
beneath the most congenial sun. I dig you
out of common ground and put you in
my hothouse. Annual, biennial, perennial—
I drench you all with water from my skin
and watch your buds fall open as I kneel
to catch your scents. I see your pliant stems
bend toward one another, bend toward me
and I am infinitely pleased. You gems,
you, quaking in your beds by twos and threes!

And as for me, my petals are a show,
a bit of quivering color, quid pro quo.

------------------------

Call this one an exercise in how to write about an orgiastic fantasy, then hand it in to your creative writing professor for a grade. One of my favorite lit-crit phrases is Seamus Heaney's  "the erotics of composition" (from his introduction to Beowulf). Being turned on by the world is such a beautiful way to begin writing, no?

When I wrote this, I had a minor, completely sexual, and completely unspoken crush on my very-much-older professor--which led me to wonder about the very nature of such fantasies. To a one, almost everyone I've spoken with on the matter admits fantasizing about both people they know and total strangers. But what does that mean? Is it predatory, disrespectful, wrong? Or does fantasizing about another require a sort of generosity of spirit, an ability to romanticize the other, a readiness to see their latent beauty? This poem records some of my initial conclusions on the matter.

All of which I post here because I remain intensely interested in the erotic as an area ripe for creative inquiry. Our mass culture is so damn conflicted about sex, what with the ubiquitous adolescent male fanatasy butting up against those die-hard strains of Puritanism. I have no desire to write traditional erotica, because I want to write about more than just sex. Nor do I find 'clinical' approaches appealling. But if what I have is not quite a vagina, and not quite a cunt, what is it?

(An aside...I was appalled to read the following lines this evening, in Denise Levertov's "Hypocrite Women":  "And if.../ a white sweating bull of a poet told us / our cunts are ugly--why didn't we  / admit we have thought so too? (And / what a shame? They are not for the eye!) // No, they are dark and wrinkled and hairy," With all due respect to Ms. Levertov, NO! NO! NO! THEY ARE NOT UGLY!)

How to render the sexual impulse as pure and as worthy of celebration as I believe it to be, without completely desexualizing it (a la the romance novel, which back in 1988 when I secreted it off to a far corner of the public library to read, used ridiculous euphamisms to sanitize body parts), or coming off as idiosyncratically oversexed (read: slutty)--that's the question!

I think the finding the answer probably begins in unflinching honesty.

May 25, 2005

A Poem, ca. 2003

I wrote this one some time ago. In fact, it may be one of the last poems I finished before my block hit big. I revisited it today because it leans toward one of my obsessions--i.e. poetry as performance (though not 'slam'). This example leaves much to be desired in its execution, but the fact that it's written in two voices is a start. (Note: were I to revise this I'd probably do away with all references to The Waste Land, as that poem has little to do with how or why I wrote this one.)

Nevermind What the Thunder Said

At night she sets aside her dimestore turban,
  slips off a burden
of rings, and plunges her fingers into a hot sink
filled with greasy pots and dish soap.
Even so, there are things Madame Sosostris knows. 

“There are a thousand ways to get it wrong,” she said.
“Like that girl.
Someone told her heaven was a cumulus cloud,
  and looking down,
she guessed the oak’s grey bark demanded penance. 

In her zeal to give back to the Earth,
she carted around a heavy-duty
staple gun, and reams and reams of 20 lb. bond.
     It took three weeks, but finally,
she managed to paper over all the trees in the neighborhood. 

Next day we had a downpour,
and there was pulp everywhere.
Even as Aprils go, it was a rough month.” 

There are a thousand ways to get things wrong,
like insisting on beginning
at the beginning, when prophecies are shimmering
in the numbers of the next highway exit sign. 

But maybe you aren’t driving. Maybe you’re going by
boat, or by train, or by, God forbid, an airplane,
and as it’s huffing down the runway,
you stifle a novena for air, and fret about the life
            stuffed into a suitcase,
                    stowed in the cargo hold. 

Maybe looking out the window you notice
the way distance swallows entire hometowns,
then spits them back out as geometry,
            and you call for a stewardess,
                    about to be air sick.

“There are more ways to get it right than you may think,”
she said. “Like that woman who thought herself cursed
because a lizard spoke thunder at her in a dream.
In the intimacy of the tent she forgot herself and said:

All I really want to know,
Madame Sosostris, is—
Is it okay to go on hoping?
 

And when I looked her in the eye,
    and answered,
                           Yes

she simply ceased her disbelieving.” 

There are a thousand ways to get things right.
    Like finding yourself on the verge
of another one of Earth’s everyday revolutions,
        back turned to the twilight
as it wastes out of the sky, watching some magnificent
         constellation gather flesh on the horizon.

A Mouthful of Lifebouy & the OED #1

A regular feature in which political potty-mouths are taken to task for their misuse and abuse of the English language. Be forewarned, I'm no satirist. Humor, for me, is hard work, and so I leave it to wittier souls to make you laugh.

Item: Oops! Did I Say Freedom? I Meant Fraud.

"Walter Jones, the Republican congressman for North Carolina who was also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol Hill restaurants, told a local newspaper the US went to war "with no justification"."

Link: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | French fries protester regrets war jibe.


Up Next: America's Largest 'Minority' Group...

May 24, 2005

Freaky

I'm currently laid up with what my doctor suspects is Lyme disease, and I haven't energy for much more than surfing the 'net. The following horoscope profile is based on my date, time and location of birth. It's probably too strong on my strengths, and not strong enough on my weaknesses--but there's a general sort of accuracy that's a bit spooky. Even the internal contradictions seem to pick up on contradictory aspects of my personality. Hmmmn? Has the Lyme gotten to my brain?

Short Report - Personal Portrait
(from http://www.astro.com)

Your sun sign is Gemini. This is the sign in which the Sun is in your birth chart. Your Ascendant is in Libra, and your Moon is also in Libra.

Sun in Gemini, Moon in Libra

You were born with the Sun in Gemini and the Moon in Libra. Your inner thoughts and emotions can be totally harmonious with your actions and surroundings.  The Sun in Gemini lends you a powerful intellect and natural ability to work effectively with concepts. Your mind is versatile and fond of changes. Your facility of speech enhances your personality considerably. You are well aware that you are very clever. You approach life with energy and a high activity level.

You have a need for physical and intellectual freedom.  As a result, it is very difficult for you to commit yourself to a permanent relationship. The words forever and always frighten you.

You have a connoisseur's appreciation for the arts, good food, and elegant fashions.  You will be successful in your relationships, if you exert your will. Because you are exposed to others so much, you will be greatly influenced by your associations.

Because you are so susceptible to changing influences, a steady partner in life will channel your diffuseness and set you moving in one direction.

Ascendant in Libra, Venus in the Tenth House

At the time of your birth the zodiacal sign of Libra was ascending in the horizon.  Its ruler Venus is located in the tenth house.

This denotes a life in which the native adopts an attitude which is courteous, kind, and affectionate.

People with Libra Ascendant are basically motivated by feeling and emotion rather than intellectuality. Your life will demonstrate your keenness of observation, and a tendency to effect comparisons largely of an aesthetic nature. You will not display too much energy in your actions and, therefore, there is a tendency toward following routine and the lines of the least resistance.  You are a sympathetic person who seeks the approval of others and is also very adaptable. Your intuition is remarkable and you derive sensual gratification from engaging in social intercourse, by loving all social aspects of life.

If you do not control this tendency to be so involved in human relationships, you may become too attached and over dependent.

Some restlessness, changeability and lack of persistence is noted in your life. Your main feature is that of constantly favoring the fusing of two things or people together.

Unfortunately, this involvement with harmonizing and adjusting people to one another, tends to make the native a little unrealistic and lacking in action. You will be, however, easy going and congenial, socially oriented and preoccupied with adornments, clothing, social conventions, standards, and aesthetics.  In love, if you cause the relationship to be a serious one, you will find that the affair is the consequence of your own interest in flattering yourself rather than to satisfy any profound emotion.

Professionally, you will be inclined to activities which require a high degree of culture and even artistic knowledge.

You will find your life geared to the satisfaction of social needs: promotion lies with assistance from acquaintances and other connections: and perhaps certain fame is achieved from artistic activities. You are one of those rare persons who has the necessary tools for achieving success in life without losing sight of her moral principles.

There are forecasts for general prosperity and you are going to enjoy the privilege of protection by important personage.

Uranus Conjunct Ascendant

You have a personal chemistry that never fails to stimulate people to be friendly toward you. No one should feel any discomfort with you because you project yourself freely and honestly.

You relate easily to all types of people and are friendly to everyone, regardless of their social status.

Concerned primarily with the future, you are eager to participate in the development of a higher consciousness, which will be the nucleus for the greater awareness of man.

Jupiter Opposition Ascendant

Jupiter opposition the Ascendant indicates that you are generous toward your associates and civil with competitors. You are polished and refined, sometimes to the point that others may be suspicious of your motives.  You prefer to associate with people who seem sure of themselves and their goals. Just as an investment broker deals in financial resources, you deal in the resources of people; who they are and what they can accomplish for themselves and for you. You pride yourself on your good judgment, but you ignore the fact that you are a taker, not a giver, except when it suits your long-range purposes.

Your greatest problem is that you use people to serve your personal objectives. You must learn that being generous is as beneficial to you as accepting the generosity of others.

Mars Opposition Ascendant

Mars opposition the Ascendant shows that you attract people who threaten you. You do not really have that much self-confidence; your aggressive actions are an attempt to convince yourself that you do.

Meeting others in competition is how you learn to assert yourself constructively, with greater self-control and discipline. Naturally argumentative, you are not the easiest person to get along with. You must learn to be more compromising if you want peace and harmony.  Making concessions shows strength of character, not weakness, and if you realize this, you will be respected for your maturity.

In personal relationships, your offensive tactics force you to raise your defenses when the going gets rough.

But an attitude of superiority often masks feelings of inferiority or inadequacy. You have a lot of creative energy you should express. Remember, it is what you do rather than what you say you can do that is important. Develop more self-control, or you will run into many troublesome situations that could be extremely difficult to resolve.

Sun in the Ninth House

The Sun was found in the ninth house at the time of birth.  This is an indication that your real self possesses an attraction to higher levels of thought. Additionally, this indicates that the most important realizations may come through the process of pure reasoning.

You will tend to grow through the workings of your higher mind where you may find, after much striving, the creative principle and the power of self-expression.

You possess a rather austere mind which is fearless, self-confident and keenly analytical.

Regarding life events, you will be inclined to obtain success in subjects connected with law, religion, and possibly foreign lands.

Saturn in the Ninth House

Saturn was found in the ninth house at the time of birth.  This indicates that your concern over the impermanence of all things will urge you to restrict your personality traits and assume a position of caution and planning before pursuing any important matter.

In a practical sense, your attitude to all higher intellectual functions is that of a studious, serious, and meditative person. You must, however, be attentive to the possible presence of several challenging elements in your intellectual make-up such as depression, fear, and severity.

Venus in the Tenth House

Venus was found in the tenth house at the time of birth.

You will appear as a person who seeks harmony, inclined as you are to observe the aesthetic value of all things in life, to engage in artistic activities and to possess all that is lovely and beautiful. You have sufficient potential to achieve success in life, especially if your occupation is artistic or musical.

Much of your success is a consequence of applied interest and hard work; you posses merit and ability, and your congenial, intelligent manner produces a very exalted image.

In any case, there are very good possibilities for the acquisition of some social distinction, a good reputation and financial success at some period of your life.

Moon in the Twelfth House

The Moon was in your twelfth house at the time of birth. Secretly, you enjoy a love of romance and adventure that lends a bit of excitement to your daydreaming.

It is possible that the little popularity that you may enjoy in this life will be from some very reserved and secretive circles where your merits are recognized.

It can be expected that you will be successful in positions that call for solitude or remote locations.

Pass It On

Grammy-winning guitarist Robert Cray just released his new song about a soldier in Iraq, and it's free for TrueMajority members.

hi speed: real windows
modem: real windows


May 23, 2005

Spin, Spin, Spin

Link: CNN.com - Senators compromise on filibusters - May 23, 2005.

It is a sad day, not only for our country, but for language itself when words like 'sensible' 'moderate' and 'compromise' are used to describe a deal that gives one political party license to rubber stamp any of its radical judicial nominees.

I'd like to post more on this, but for the moment I'm too bitterly disappointed in Senate democrats, who once again have utterly failed to stand for anydamnthing.

Propa-Tillman(?)

"More than a year after their son was shot several times by his fellow Army Rangers on a craggy hillside near the Pakistani border, [fmr. NFL player Pat] Tillman's mother and father said in interviews that they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country."

Link: Tillman's Parents Are Critical Of Army. (Washington Post, free registration required)

May 22, 2005

Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?

P. B. Shelley

You are Percy Bysshe Shelley!  Famous for your dreamy abstraction and your quirky verse, you're the model "sensitive poet." A vegetarian socialist with great personal charm and a definite way with the love poem, you remain an idol for female readers. There are dozens of cute anecdotes about you, and I love
you.

Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?
brought to you by Quizilla

Geez, even the quiz knows I'm bisexual! (I said it. I guess that means I'm "out" now, though I'm not really sure what out means in my case. Maybe it's just that I am who I am and I own it. Also, no one should be surprised or puzzled in the future to find strains of homoeroticism in my writing.)

Taking 3 Minutes Out of My Comfortable Life...

To call your attention to the genocide underway in Darfur. Not because I want to wag my finger at anyone, but because I watched a film on PBS this evening called Sometimes in April, about the Rawandan genocide. It was a devastating reminder of just how important it is that we keep an eye out for one another. So, if you've not already done so perhaps you could drop by DarfurGenocide.org and send a letter to President Bush urging him to act.

Admittedly, it's not much, but it's is how these things work. PBS shows a film to heighten awarness, people like me mention it to the people we know, and hopefully there's enough of a bump in public pressure to move our leaders. I know how difficult it is to feel effectual as a mere cog in that wheel, but as Auden famously wrote:

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame
.

May 20, 2005

The Suburban Ecstasies

My sweetheart has joined the Blogwagon! Go check out his shiny, new web presence, The Suburban Ecstasies, at http://sethabramson.blogspot.com

[Be not daunted by his verbosity. As between us, he is by far the better writer.]

Welcome to TypePad

Now that I've been blogging regularly for a few months, I've decided I want a little more functionality than was available at Blogger. So here I am. Come on in, make yourself comfortable, and don't forget to say hello every now and then. :-P

May 19, 2005

Recommended Reading

Spent some time in Barnes & Noble this evening with the current issue of The Yale Review.  Sherod Santos's Girl Falling Asleep in the Museum Gardens is available online, and I highly recommend it. Not online, but worth finding a copy to read are Jacqueline Osherow's formal beauty Poem for Jenny, C. Dale Young's meditation The Tunnel, and Lizzie Hutton's episodic Dear One.  For fans of Virginia Woolf--of which I am definitely one--there is an engaging essay by Theodore Leinwand entitled, Virginia Woolf Reads the Great William, which deals with Woolf's phenomenological experience of Shakespeare. Heavy quoting from the reading notebooks. Does the academically brilliant reader respond differently to Shakespeare than the creative genius? Read and find out.

May 18, 2005

If You Came Here Looking for Sex...

You're in the wrong place. Go back, go back!

Most recent Google searches:

female orgasm
richard siken's crush
ginger   nh   mature
pissy
pissy lips
ginger sex
trying to sleep jack gilbert
ginger sex
newport, ri

At least two of them were literary.
________________________

Listening to Aimee Mann, Save Me (lyrics below), from mix CD a la S., which also includes:

       
  1. The Verve, Bittersweet Symphony   
  2. Ballboy, One Sailor Was Waving   
  3. eels, Mr. E's Beautiful Blues   
  4. Super Furry Animals, Hello Sunshine   
  5. They Might Be Giants, Birdhouse in Your Soul   
  6. The Lilys, Precollection   
  7. The Waxwings, Fragile Girl   
  8. The Lilys, Will My Lord Be Gardening?   
  9. Moby, Porcelain   
  10. Super Furry Animals, Liberty Belle   
  11. Coldplay, Daylight   
  12. The Waxwings, Keeping the Sparks   
  13. Aimee Mann, Wise Up   
  14. Belle & Sebastian, Photo Jenny   
  15. Maroons, 9 1/2   
  16. Israel K., Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World   
  17. Toto, Africa

Aimee Mann, Save Me

You look like a perfect fit
For a girl in need of a tourniquet

But can you save me
Come on and save me
If you could save me
From the ranks of the freaks
Who suspect they could never love anyone

'Cause I can tell
You know what it's like
The long farewell of the hunger strike

But can you save me
Come on and save me
If you could save me
From the ranks of the freaks
Who suspect they could never love anyone

You struck me dumb like radium
Like Peter Pan or Superman

You will come to save me
C'mon and save me
If you could save me
From the ranks of the freaks
Who suspect they could never love anyone
'Cept the freaks
Who suspect they could never love anyone
But the freaks
Who suspect they could never love anyone

C'mon and save me
Why don't you save me
If you could save me
From the ranks of the freaks
Who suspect they could never love anyone

Except the freaks
Who suspect they could never love anyone
Except the freaks who could never love anyone

May 17, 2005

Which Existentialist Philosopher Are You?

I took the quiz, but won't be pasting the results here. I scored as Martin Heidegger, and the author of quiz offensively suggests, "You...might have sympathetic feelings towards Nazis."

The love of my life and future husband is Jewish. I don't know if that influences my response to the statement or not, but I know the assertion immediately raised my hackles. I don't think the historical atrocity of Nazism has been resolved in such a way that now it's appropriate to make light of it. There's still plenty of anti-semitism about worldwide. Plenty of plain misunderstanding and ignorance too.

Moreover I find that so much of the moral philosophy of Reform Judiasm accords with my own world view in its emphasis on social justice that I guess it's shocking to hear someone suggest that any part of that world view is compatible with genocide.

Of course, I don't think the author of the quiz gave that much though to it--but he or she should have.

Which Musical Instrument Are You?

Via Laura Carter's écritures bleues  :

   
Castanets
You scored 70 oddness and 100 difficulty!
      
My word...you are hard to play. It is so difficult to get those too little seemingly innocent bits of wood to bask together in a set rhythm. You are quite rare except in Spain and Latin America where you are numerous. Round here I have never met anyone who has mastered the art of good castanet playing so aren't you the mysterious one. Mainly played by charming Senors and Senoritas...aren't you lucky!!!! Viva Espana!
      
        
Link: The which musical instrument am I? Test written by boomching on Ok Cupid

May 16, 2005

Intersection

My 30th birthday is about a month away, and I've been giving some thought to what entering that new decade will be like. To quote Tom Waites: How the hell did it get here so soon?  Frankly, I'd hoped to have accomplished more by now. My B.A. for instance. And on the poetry side, instead of this extended bout of writer's block, I'd hoped to perhaps have a book out. But alas! Not a single published poem.

The silver lining: By the time I do start publishing, it will be mature work. Or at least more mature than that which I was capable of in my twenties. I've won some hard wisdom over the past decade, and that wisdom has deepened my ambivalences and uncertainties, making me (to borrow Carl Phillips's adjective) a more athletic thinker.

Perhaps thirty is the decade in which youth and maturity intersect--the decade in which vitality merges with early wisdom and proves fruitful. I'm optimistic.

May 14, 2005

Finally...

After having gotten lost in cyberspace for a while, my voice has come back to me! Click below to hear a very strange and interesting poem by Gerald Stern.

this is an audio post - click to play


What is Your World View?

You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Man is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.

Existentialist 81%, Cultural Creative  81%, Postmodernist 75%, Materialist 63%, Idealist 63%,
Modernist 50%, Romanticist 44%, Fundamentalist 19%

 
created with QuizFarm.com


     Thanks to Whimsy for the link! And another via the blog formerly known as geneva convention...

Your Brain is 46.67% Female, 53.33% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female
You are both sensitive and savvy
Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed
But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve


I scored an androgynous mind! A little more male than female, but somehow I'm not surprised.

May 13, 2005

Yes, Please!

US scientists have invented a pill that can boost memory.

The drug CX717 belongs to a family of compounds called ampakines and works by boosting the brain chemical glutamate that makes learning and recall easy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4539551.stm

May 12, 2005

Poem in Progress

I've been working on this for a couple of weeks now. I feel like the writing is coming back, but s l o w l y. This is the first piece in a long time that I've felt I might actually finish. The first in a very long time that I've come back to without feeling utterly defeated. It's not a draft so much as a fragment, but it's a start.

Greeley Park

Between the half-sun and the half-broken promise
etween tof it, there is a place to sink
our toes into the dead grass and wait
Betdsdfdfgfgween for silence to lapse into answers.                  

There was a glimmer once of something we called
beautiful, and there is a lifetime of feeling ourselves
so bone-heavy that it floats above our heads,
Betwasdfsdfsdfsadfsdfasdfeen the                                               beyond our reach.

One might say our passion is inarticulable.

fffffOne might say it is a drumbeat on a dry plain—
Betfffffween ta skin-covered hollow
fffffout of which the unboundaried language
Betwfdfdfdfdffdfdfddeen t             of rhythm blooms.   

The yellow cactus flower announces water,
but can we weather the crucible of spines?

fffffOne might say it is the unbearable sound of
ssfffffdfsds not joy,
asdfa
fffffsdfaasmsdfbut its echo.

 

May 10, 2005

Photo Album

Found some old photos on a disc...

Cbe

Snapped in traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway 7/23/2003, during one of many, many trips home from New England.

Cambridge, MA - June 2003

Boygenius

Boy-genius, S., hard at work coloring his restaurant menu.

Quechee Gorge, VT - August 2003

Quechee

View from the bridge that spans the gorge.

Ogunquit, ME - August 2003

Ogunquit

Newport, RI - August 2003

Forty_steps
The Forty Steps at Narragansett Ave.

From Cliffwalk.com:  

"During Newport's Golden Age, the Forty Steps were a
gathering place for the servants and workers from the nearby mansions.
Here they would hold weekend dances and play the Irish songs and music
that reminded them of home."

And now for something completely different...

Sculpture
That's me, as interpreted by a classmate at Drew University, ca. 2002. For the duration of the exhibition I found it impossible to sit anywhere in the courtyard where this was taken. Abstract though the sculpture is, I felt that I too would be on display if I sat anywhere near it. Of course, I was also flattered.

Art/Lit Project 2002

Chaucer
A visual interpretation of Chaucer's Prioresse's Tale, made from a series of layered transparencies, stamped wax, silk flowers, and a set of my mother's rosary beads. I put everything on a flatbed scanner, then draped one of my skirts over it to provide a background. I really had a lot of fun with this.

Poetry Meets Flesh, ca. 2002

                              
                        
Pound
 
So, once upon a time , I decided it might be interesting to write verses in lipstick on this gentleman friend of mine, and with his permission, use them on my now-defunct poetry website. Unfortunately, this is as good as that project ever got, owing to my ineptitude behind the camera. I still like the idea though.

Hard Day's Night

Elgato
El Gato Cor-oh-no!

May 09, 2005

Redecorating

Change, change, change. I have a penchant for it, and picking a new blog template is far less taxing than rearranging the furniture. I chose the "Harbor" design because it reminds me of Martha's Vineyard. The island's gingerbread houses are a bit much, but the fresh salt air, the vegetation, the seascapes! To sit in the warm sand picking blue, green, pink, orange stones out of lapping water, watching the Atlantic's vast sway, knowing the only way in or out is by ferry, and so feeling you've really gotten away!  I hate the traveling part of traveling--the sitting in a car, on a bus, on a plane--but being someplace beautiful, that's something else.  I haven't had nearly my fill of beauty in this life.

May 06, 2005

Bittersweet

S. received an acceptance yesterday from a very, very good journal. I was thrilled for him. Truly. And at the same time, seeing a line that I wrote (or spoke, rather--one of those spontaneous bits of poetry that sometimes tumble past one's lips in bed) in one of his accepted poems brought a tear to my eye. I'd actually forgotten all about it until the notification came. I was looking through the pile of submitted poems to see which version (we'd worked together on the editing & submissions) had been sent out. I found it, began reading it aloud, and got choked up when I read "my" line. Even though I'd given him my blessing to use it, part of me wished I'd been able to plug the little gem into a publishable poem of my own. As is I haven't produced any world-ready poetry in so long I probably have no right to call myself a poet. I guess the only thing to do is keep trying.

May 05, 2005

A Poet Recognizing the Echo of the Voice

By Diane Wakoski

I. Isolation of Beautiful Women

"How were you able to get ten of the world's
most beautiful women to marry you?"
"I just asked them.  You know, men all over

the world dream about Lana Turner, desire

her, want to be with her.  But very very
few ever ask her to marry them."
       -- PARAPHRASE OF AN INTERVIEW WITH ARTIE SHAW

We are burning
  in our heads
  at night,
  bonfires of our own bodies.
  Persia reduces our heads
  to star sapphires and lapis lazuli.
  Silver threads itself
  into the lines of our throats
  and glitters every time we speak.
  Old alchemical riddles
  are solved in the dreams of men
  who marry other women and think of us.
  Anyone who sees us
  will hold our small hands,
  like mirrors in which they see themselves,
  and try to initial our arms
  with desperation.
  Everyone wants to come close to
  the cinnamon of our ears.
  Every man wants to explore our bodies
  and fill up our minds.
  Riding their motorcycles along collapsing grey highways,
  they sequester their ambivalent hunting clothes 
  between our legs,
  reminding themselves of their value
  by quoting mining stock prices, and ours.       

But men do not marry us,
  do not ask us to share their lives,
  do not survive the bonfires
  hot enough to melt steel.
  To alchemize rubies.       

We live the loneliness
  that men run after,
  and we,
  the precious rocks of the earth
  are made harder,
  more fiery
  more beautiful,
  more complex,
  by all the pressing,
  the burying,
  the plundering;       

even your desertions,
  your betrayals,
  your failure to understand and love us,
  your unwillingness to face the world
  as staunchly as we do;
  these things
  which ravage us,
  cannot destroy our lives,
  though they often take our bodies.

We are the earth.
  We wake up
  finding ourselves
  glinting in the dark
  after thousands of years
  of pressing.

II.  Movement to Establish My Identity

                        I know what wages beauty gives,
                        How hard a life her servant lives...
        -- "To A Young Beauty," W.B. YEATS

A woman wakes up
  finds herself
  glinting in the dark;
  the earth holds her
  as a precious rock
  in a mine         

her breath is a jumble
  of sediments,
  of mixed strata,
  of the valuable,
  beautiful,
  of bulk.         

All men are miners;
  willing to work hard
  and cover themselves with pit dirt;
  to dig out;
  to weigh;
  to possess.         

Mine is a place.
  Mine is a designation.
  A man says, "it is mine,:
  but he hacks,
  chops apart the mine
  to discover,
  to plunder,
  what's in it / Plunder,
  that is the word.
  Plunder.         

A woman wakes up
  finds herself
  scarred
  but still glinting
  in the dark.

III.  Beauty

                            only God, my dear,
                            Could love you for yourself alone
                            And not your yellow hair.
        --"For Anne Gregory," W.B. YEATS

and if I cut off my long hair,
  if I stopped speaking,
  if I stopped dreaming for other people about parts of the car,
  stopped handing them tall creamy flowered silks 
  and loosing the magnificent hawks to fly in their direction,
  stopped exciting them with the possibilities 
  of a thousand crystals under the fingernail
  to look at while writing a letter,
  if I stopped crying for the salvation of the tea ceremony,
  stopped rushing in excitedly with a spikey bird-of-paradise,
  and never let them see how accurate my pistol shooting is,
  who would I be?      

Where is the real me
  I want them all to love?       

We are all the textures we wear.       

We frighten men with our steel;
  we fascinate them with our silk;
  we seduce them with our cinnamon;
  we rule them with our sensuous voices;
  we confuse them with our submissions.         

Is there anywhere
  a man
  who
  will not punish us
  for our beauty?       

He is the one
  we all search for,
  chanting names for exotic oceans of the moon.       

He is the one
  we all anticipate,
  pretending these small pedestrians
  jaywalking into our lives
  are he.
  He is the one
  we all anticipate;
 
beauty looks for its match,
  confuses the issue
  with a mystery that does not exist:
  the rock
  that cannot burn.      

We are burning
    in our heads at night
    the incense of our histories, finding
    you have used our skulls
    for ashtrays



Ginger Heatter

vmheatter[@]gmail.com
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