Postcards from the Imagination

1. The brief freak-out subsided this afternoon, and I formally accepted Cornell's MFA offer. I mean, what was I thinking? I don't have it together nearly well enough to write a book and support myself financially. Sheesh.

2. I'm working the starving artist thing pretty hard right now. I know most of you are in a similar boat, but in the event that there's an anonymous reader who'd like to support the arts directly by giving me some money, I put a button up over yonder. Yeah, I know it's crass, but I can't really afford dignity at the moment. My car is all but undrivable and I have about $3 in the bank. Like PBS, I'm willing to throw in a "free" gift. I have a stack of pretty paper here, and if you give me more than $25 I'll put together a handmade chapbook for you. I can probably do about 7-10 of them.

3. I mail a mean submission. If you hate sending work out and would rather pay someone else to do it, I'm your gal. Email me for the nuts & bolts.

Posted by Ginger at 06:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally hit the wall today. Two days back at work and the MFA started looking pretty sweet. I've all but made up my mind, I think. Maybe. At the very least, I'm looking forward to relaxing this weekend, which is nice. And I think I may do the NaPoWriMo thing this year.

Posted by Ginger at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

But no jiggity-jig. As soon as I stepped through the door I wanted to step back out. I'm in a weird, restless mood. I enjoyed journeying. Envied the flight attendants. Traveling solo was particularly gratifying. I relaxed and opened all my senses and no one else's experience intruded on my own. I got myself in a spot of trouble, and got myself out. I kissed a cute poet boy (lest you thought I wasn't serious below. I'm usually serious, which puts me in an odd relation to most of my peers). I ate incredibly well. I paused. I wondered if an MFA is the right thing for me right now. The old life is suddenly over and I'm hovering over a blank canvas with a loaded brush--afraid I think, to make the first mark. I will have to get it all figured out very soon.

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Kelly posted a great quote in one of the comment boxes below. "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out." --Anton Checkhov.  I could almost nod my head right off my shoulders.

Posted by Ginger at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Fun-fact: If one takes the Blue Line out of Boston to Logan Airport, the train's ultimate destination is called Wonderland. I don't why this is so, but it's right across from the dog track, and nothing like the way it sounds. If I get my ass out of the house on time Saturday morning, and remember my camera, I'll take pictures for you.

Posted by Ginger at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Check out Phil Crippen's "Amateur Porn" at Eoagh.

Posted by Ginger at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I take as my theme, "The Independent Woman,"
Independent but maimed; observe the exigent neckties
Choking violet writers; the sad slacks of stipple-faced matrons;
Indigo intellectuals, crop-haired and callous-toed,
Cute spectacles, chewed cuticles, aced out by full-time beauties
In the race for a male. Retreating to drabness, bad manners
And sleeping with manuscripts. Forgive our transgressions
Of old gallantries as we hitch in chairs, light our own cigarettes,
Not expecting your care, having forfeited it by trying to get even.

But we need dependency, cosseting and well-treatment.
So do men sometimes. Why don't they admit it?
We will be cows for a while, because babies howl for us,
Be kittens or bitches, who want to eat grass now and then
For the sake of our health. But the role of pastoral heroine
Is not permanent, Jack. We want to get back to the meeting.

Knitting booties and brows, tartars or termagants, ancient
Fertility symbols, chained to our cycle, released
Only in part by devices of hygiene and personal daintiness,
Strapped into our girdles, held down, yet uplifted by a man's
Ingenious constructions, holding coiffures in a breeze,
Hobbled and swathed in whimsy, tripping on feminine
Shoes with fool heels, losing our lipsticks, you, me,
In ephemeral stockings, clutching our handbags and packages.

Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking,
In need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware,
Keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces.
Look at man's uniform drabness, his impersonal envelope!
Over chicken wrists or meek shoulders, a formal, hard-fibered assurance
The drape of the male is designed to achieve self-forgetfulness.

Posted by Ginger at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Poetry Daily today with "A Quiet Skin," and "Retreating Figure." Hers is a book I'd really like to read.

Posted by Ginger at 07:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

That doesn't prevent my sitting here sleepless at 1:00am filled with all manner of existential angst about having to rinse & repeat tomorrow. Some days it takes an enormous force of will not to cut and run. I don't know why I have so little fortitude for the everyday, but I don't. A long, long time ago, a man to whom I was married, frustrated with my perpetual restless said, "Jesus, Ginger, life is not a John Hughes film!"...the memory of which makes me want to listen to the Bangles sing "Hazy Shade of Winter."

Posted by Ginger at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Small talk with the receptionist today ended in poetry. We were noticing how ridiculously fresh the poinsettias in the lobby still are. We talked about how they should really be replaced with spring flowers. We talked about daffodils and Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud." Then all of the sudden she busted out John Greenleaf Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie" from memory in its entirety! She said she'd learned it elementary school more than fifty years ago. And damn if didn't sound absolutely lovely the way she recited it. I can't say Whittier usually does anything at all for me, but when you've been staring at an Excel spreadsheet all day, rhyme is most welcome.

Of course, afterward, I could just about hear some sour-smelling formalist opine, "They don't write 'em like that anymore. That's why your average reader turned his back on poetry!" But isn't the real difference obvious? It's not about rhyme or meter or 'accessibility.' It's about the fact that poets like Whittier merely told their audience what they wanted to hear about themselves. You could teach him to fourth graders, because there was nothing subversive about his verse. Rather, he half constructed and half affirmed America's myths about itself.

Oh, the average reader could understand contemporary poetry just fine if didn't upset the narrative of his life. The average reader would embrace poetry if we'd all learn to *wink* and *nudge* and assure him we're just kidding once in a while. Right, Mr. Collins? The average reader might take us into her lap more often if only we'd abandon our preoccupation with reality and start serving up a little more spiritual tidiness. Right, Ms. Oliver?

Another co-worker, noticing me reading a book of poems while I was covering the reception desk, fetched from his own desk a German-English edition of Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld, which was effing hilarious if you enjoy laughing to avoid screaming.

Posted by Ginger at 09:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Barbara Ehrenreich's latest column: Before You Write That Book...

Unfortunately, I'm not doing much to support the literary arts myself lately. As some of you may have noticed, it's March and I haven't added a single poem to the list I promised to keep. At this particular juncture, I just can't afford the journals, so I've been reading books instead. And with things being what they are, not terribly many of those. But this is what graduate school is for, right?

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I did go to bed with Frank O'Hara for a little while this evening.

To the Harbormaster

I wanted to be sure to reach you;
though my ship was on the way it got caught
in some moorings. I am always tying up
and then deciding to depart. In storms and
at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide
around my fathomless arms, I am unable
to understand the form of my vanity
or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder
in my hand and the sun sinking. To
you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage
of my will. The terrible channels where
the wind drives me against the brown lips
of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet
I trust the sanity of my vessel; and
if it sinks, it may well be in answer
to the reasoning of the eternal voices,
the waves which have kept me from reaching you.

Posted by Ginger at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is going to be a very long day. The row of locked offices behind me means everyone's traveling on business. I've already caught myself watching the clock half a dozen times. Is it 5 yet? Is it 5 yet? Is it 5 yet? Time for my lunchtime drive + iPod to refresh.

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Hmmm. That's only refreshing if some girl in a massive white SUV doesn't forget to look left before turning and force you to stunt drive your way out of an accident.

Posted by Ginger at 02:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nashua River looking east 

Looking west

Posted by Ginger at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I checked to see how my little video looked on YouTube, and Björk came up in the "Related" side bar. Ha! I only wish I were doing such interesting things. In due time, I guess. Till then, feast your mind on this:

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The office closed for snow at three o'clock, which was cool except that it took an hour to drive the four miles home. And by drive I mean alternately rolling, slipping, and stupid-anti-lock-brake-thinging. I try to avoid tripping the ABS as much as possible, but there was no getting around it today. As soon as I even thought about braking thththe cccar ttoook oovver. It was like driving with Microsoft Windows under the hood. Bleck!

Posted by Ginger at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That doesn't make sense out of context and I don't feel like explaining it. Maybe I'll put it in a poem instead. An epistolary chapbook perhaps.

Posted by Ginger at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mind Share: One of the main objectives of advertising and promotion is to establish what is called mind share... When people think of examples of a type or category of product, they think of a limited list (referred to as an evoked set). Any product included in an evoked set has mind share...[the most familiar product]...will have the greatest proportion of one's mind share. (Wikipedia)

That's your consiousness and mine they're talking about. Neurons as nickel stocks. Lovely.

Posted by Ginger at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was sunny and 72 degrees here today in New Hampshire. All day long people were looking at each other, saying, "Don't get used to it." And wouldn't you know, there's a winter storm watch in effect beginning tomorrow night, with 6+ inches of snow and sleet possible.

I'll be visiting Ithaca from the 24th through 27th of this month, courtesy of the grad program. Hopefully the weather cooperates while I'm there. I'm looking forward to meeting the faculty & students, sitting in on the workshop & on Roger Gilbert's seminar The American Long Poem. I've even set aside a little time for a personal mini writing retreat. It will be nice to breathe & think & have a different landscape to look at.

Those of you who read here often enough know that the last time I was in Ithaca, I was packing myself, my four year-old, and all our belongings into a U-haul, having run out of money after only a semester as an undergrad at Cornell. I made myself forget what it was like there, until I received a packet in the mail, and it all came flooding back. Returning as a prospective grad student is going to be something else.

Posted by Ginger at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Maybe it's time to make some lemonade. Without a lease or a permanent job, I'm really free to go anywhere I want this summer. Why maintain an apartment when my daughter can spend the summer with her dad? [And in fact, I just learned that I'd need to sign a one-year lease in order to qualify for reduced rent anyway.] Why not put my things in storage and go someplace I've never been before? Find a cheap sublet and a job waiting tables in the Bay Area, for instance? Meet new people, write new poems.

August 1st my new life begins. I'm 95% sure that I'll be moving to Ithaca, NY to attend Cornell U's MFA program. Why remain isolated here in NH for the six weeks leading up to that when there's really nothing keeping me here? 

And it'll give you folks something more interesting to read than why it sucks to sit in an office all day when the weather's so nice! 

Posted by Ginger at 07:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Today Ron Silliman reminds me that we can inhabit very different perspectives and still enjoy the same books.

Posted by Ginger at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

3/13/07: Letter under my door from the management office. Just to be a pain in my ass (because it'll only net him a few hundred dollars) S. has decided to terminate the lease early. Fortunately, my income qualifies me for a low rent program in a different apartment, so my daughter will be able to finish out the school year. But it won't be fun explaining to her why we have to move for two months and then move again.

A few good things to know before signing a joint lease:

1. No party to a lease can simply throw up their hands and say "I release myself from the obligation." Not without being taken to court by the landlord and sued for the balance of the lease.
   
2. Neither party can have the other removed from a lease without their consent.
3. As long as a person's name is on a lease, they are legally entitled to access the property at will.

Also, in NH at least, it is against the law to intimidate a person by causing them susbstantial emotional distress. I'm not a lawyer, but if I had to guess that probably means a person can't try to control another's real or imagined speech by threatening to make the speaker's life miserable if she says, or is perceived or conjectured to have said, things the intimidator doesn't like.

So hopefullly that's the end of that for now. 

OR NOT. Jesus fucking christ. I am not going to be emailed and voicemailed and voicemailed and emailed about what language to use or not use on my blog. Leave me the hell alone already. That's what the above was intended to convey. It's not OKAY to decide who I can talk to, or whether sex is an appropriate topic for my blog, or to dictate the specific language I can use to indicate that someone is in fact threatening to make my life miserable if I don't do as I'm told. A threat is a threat whether it's financial or threatening to slander me on a blog that gets "more than 750 visitors a day" or telling me to warn other bloggers that you'll assault them if you ever meet them in person or whatever. And I'm not going to take this backchannel so that I can have my sanity privately questioned. Just STOP!

Posted by Ginger at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I guess the upside of being a single-mother poet is that I don't actually stress out about my poetry career. I may never get another date this lifetime, or stop living paycheck to paycheck, but I'm pretty sure my poems will find an audience somewhere.

Also, I do not EVER want to be a professional poet. Teacher? Fine. I'd love to share my enthusiasm for poetry with young people who give back their enthusiasm for life. But I don't want to play by your rules--whoever you happen to be--for creating and disseminating art. Nor do I want to read your shitty poetry just because you paid your dues and earned a laminated membership card. I reserve the right to put a photograph of my own hairy bush on the cover my first book. I reserve the right to circumvent appropriate channels if publishers aren't down with that. I reserve the right to sleep with cute poet-boys and cute poet-girls and I reserve the right to publish them because their words turn me on. I reserve the right to talk about the ravages of mental illness and the ravages of capitalism and the ravages of apathy and I reserve the right to mean it. I refuse to believe this can be orderly. I refuse to believe it should.

Posted by Ginger at 05:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Had a fender-bender in my parking garage first thing. Three different people have called me Victoria this morning. Had to take minutes for a/n 1.5 hour conference call during which much of last week's call was simply rehashed. At the moment, I'm chained to the phone-rarely-rings reception desk while all my co-workers are out to lunch together. And other miscellaneous unpleasant things--including the wasteland that is this weekend's social calendar. Four hours, seventeen minutes...four hours, sixteen minutes...four hours, fifteen minutes...

Posted by Ginger at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

*snip*

Posted by Ginger at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A long, long time I ago I submitted some poems to Swink's Online Edition. This morning I woke up to an email from the editor saying they'd like to publish two of those poems when they launch their new format in early April. Not a bad way to start Wednesday.

Posted by Ginger at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Making yourself something delicious on a Monday night for no good reason. 

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