Home. Exhausted.

Does anyone happen to know which volume of Merwin’s “Paul” was originally in? No luck on Google– but I am tired enough that I’m probably not searching wisely.

Boo.

Residency ends soon. I am completely wiped out and will need a day or two to recuperate before I begin the essay. I’m 90% certain that the third poem I’ll add to the essay is Donald Justice’s “Psalm and Lament”– I just need to get home and re-read it. I could be very happy writing about Justice, though, very happy.

I leave this residency a much more confident reader. I still have a great way to go as a reader of poetry, but I feel right now like I have at least the basic tools to evaluate a poem and can have a good conversation with much better readers than myself. I still prefer to experience a poem with others, in a conversation, to reading it alone, if I am to make a strong critical judgment. But I’m getting better.

I am extraordinarily grateful to this faculty for their support. Several took time to help me individually, despite the fact that I am not their student. Everyone here comports themselves with such grace until such time as the real socializing begins. And by then, I too am ready to goof off some.

I see in everything how much my previous teachers have taught me, and hope that I make them proud when we are here together. I don’t think I did in the O’Hara bookshop– a class I enjoyed a great deal and learned a great deal from. O’Hara is the kind of slippery voice that I do not read well yet. Room to improve. Always room to improve. I think I will read Lunch Poems a fourth time this semester. The bookshop has given me new tools.

How can anyone bring themselves to leave before graduation? Do they not wish to revisit one more time what they are here for?

Anna Clark, I am thinking of you this afternoon.

How could I have failed to realize that my favorite hate poem is perfect for my essay? Yes, folks, I come back again to W.S. Merwin’s “Paul.” If it’s something that the faculty would approve, I would commit to it right this second, yes I would. It is the only poem thus far that I have felt this strongly about.

Weldon Kees, who many of my students will remember well, may be another. Read this beauty, which Heather sagely reminded me about.

THE BEACH IN AUGUST

The day the fat woman
In the bright blue bathing suit
Walked into the water and died,
I thought about the human
Condition. Pieces of old fruit
Came in and were left by the tide.

What I thought about the human
Condition was this: old fruit
Comes in and is left, and dries
In the sun. Another fat woman
In a dull green bathing suit
Dives into the water and dies.
The pulmotors glisten. It is noon.

We dry and die in the sun
While the seascape arranges old fruit,
Coming in with the tide, glistening
At noon. A woman, moderately stout,
In a nondescript bathing suit,
Swims to a pier. A tall woman
Steps toward the sea. One thinks about the human
Condition. The tide goes in and goes out.

Those two poems suit me so well. If I could find another dark stunner, I would be thrilled. Thanks to all who have made suggestions thus far; keep them coming! Even if I don’t use them, I’m reading them.

I don’t think it’s going to get much more official: my essay topic for the semester is “Repetitive Stasis and Repetitive Motion.” It will need a better topic before it’s all said and done, but that should get me started.

The difficult task now is to do an essay that doesn’t just focus on what I have learned already or congeal the last year’s worth of thought on the subject (because I have thought about it… a lot), but an essay that continues to drill down into the particulars in ways I’ve not yet thought of. I had my meeting with Ellen today, and I think she thought I was overly focused on crafting a beautiful essay, at the expense of that discovery. I did come off that way, I think because it hadn’t occurred to me that I would do anything but continue to apply this topic to my own work and find ways of improving. I desperately hope for a good night’s sleep tonight; I have an incredible enthusiasm right now but my body and mind are so tired right now that I cannot express it appropriately or put it to good use.

Today and tomorrow I will spend some time sharpening up the description for Tuesday’s faculty meeting and will likely put together a list of 10-15 possible poems for inclusion, which Heather and I can winnow down to 3-4 before I go. Feeling that the topic is a lock is freeing, though– I am finally focused on one thing rather than three possibilities, and my need for some definition is met. The particulars can fall into place quickly now, so that the processing may begin.

Foolishly, I brought only two books to the residency that are not by faculty. Why did I not bring the poems I am considering? Some are online, but some are not.

Do you have a poem that uses repetition that you love love love? Do tell me.

Some terrific lectures so far: Brooks Haxton, Alan Williamson, Stephen Dobyns. I have yet to be disappointed by anything. Surely it will happen. Surely it will. I will not bet on it.

I’m working this semester with Heather McHugh, who in one hour blew my mind completely. By 5 PM today, I felt like a husk of a person, which seems antithetical to the idea that you come to school to fill up on knowledge. But today was one of those intense and bizarre days where you’re tugged in twenty different directions, and for a time, you’re able to go in all of them. Already I feel like I will need more time to reflect on this residency than I have in the past.

Dear blog,

I have not fallen off the face of the earth, but I have gone up to Swannanoa for my MFA residency, which feels at times like pretty much the same thing. But I cannot express how grateful I am to be in the company of such varied and talented people. I feel lucky that I get the chance to serve the role I do, which is sort of a cross between a 900 number and a guidance counselor for my closest friends in the program. I am blessed with the opportunity to work with a supervisor that I have a great deal of respect for, and who is kind of a ridiculous genius. I will be tired tomorrow morning, and probably every morning that I am here. I will walk to breakfast in joy.

I have only just begun to discover Larry Levis. I have been assured that not reading his work up until now constitutes a grave sin. I atone.

I just saw Scott’s announcement that he is heading back to New York, a move that seems to have become obvious to him only after it became obvious to most of the rest of us. But I will miss Scott a great deal; the best chapters in DSI were co-authored with him (or a ghost writer representing his interests). All of the best years of that experience don’t happen if Scott doesn’t drive down from Norfolk that first weekend, still not quite certain that he should be allowed to drive at all. He is now an excellent driver.

I did not plan to blog tonight, but I became afraid, dear blog, that without you, Emma’s blog might become lonely, and I wouldn’t want that for a blog so young. I should catch up with correspondence with all manner of friends, Emma and others, but time doesn’t seem to permit such things when I’m in the weird vortex that WWC represents.

The Swannanoa Gatherers arrive Sunday. Send firearms. Please.

Just finished up a conference call for work, and I think it’s time to spend some more time with poems. I have already read the work from my workshop group a couple times, but I’m making comments tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday. Does it seem like I’m procrastinating? I’ll admit to procrastinating on the annotation, but last summer I made all my comments super-early, and by the time I got to the residency I couldn’t remember what some of the comments meant. For this, I find it best to keep it fresh.

Ross White: Keepin’ It Fresh Since Winter 2007

God, Amazon one-click is dangerous. I just ordered David Ignatow’s Selected Poems and I didn’t even have to THINK about it.

I don’t apologize for calling him out last night. But since Matthew Olzmann’s name has appeared so recently in this blog, you should read one of his poems.

Hell, while I’m at it, let’s Google-stalk a couple of my other poet-friends:
Ruba Ahmed
Laurie Capps
Maudelle Driskell
Justin Gardiner
Jynne Dilling Martin
Leslie Shipman

Many of my other friends can easily be stalked via the blogroll at left.

Other than my stalkings, I have spent the evening re-shelving and alphabetizing books in my office, in preparation for another semester of working my tail off. I did something I’ve never done last night– wrote a paper using voice recognition software. It was tremendously helpful– I got a lot out, and then did more revision than normal. I think just forcing myself to talk my way through the poem gave me the opportunity to look at my topic– stasis and the moment of binding– a little more thoroughly, and perhaps in a different way than I would have if I’d typed it up. When I type papers, I tend to go very slowly and deliberately, and then just revise once. Last night was wholly different. And cool.