thinking, thinking again

So, I'm thinking about how I look through poetry books in order to find words. Like yesterday, I was writing a poem and I was looking through this book and saw the word "pincushion" and decided that I wanted to put it in my poem. Is this theft? If I copy a word---does that mean that I have stolen it? Or where does one draw the line? What about "the pincushion" or "the pink pincushion"?

***

Also thinking about how there are periods when the world is not poetic and there are periods when the world is poetic. What I mean is that there are some days where everything seems, feels and sounds like a poem. I overhear a conversation and think "I'm going to put that in a poem" and I thinking about how I could have overheard the same conversation on another day and it would not strike me at all as poetic or worthy of even remembering. Also, I'm thinking about how poetry begets poetry and how if you keep your ears open things, conversations, images will strike you more and more often. But I'm also thinking about how one needs to turn this process off as well because it can become overwhelming, i.e., overwhelming the subject and a subject overwhelmed is close to useless.

Because, I'm thinking still, one needs periods of real rest. One needs a not poetry time and somethings this not poetry time can last days, sometimes, months and sometimes years. And as a poet, it's very easy to put oneself down during this time. You think to yourself "well, I'm not a writer after all since I cannot think poetically." But this is a mistake. It requires a certain amount of faith--pride?--to keep imagining oneself as a poet. But then again, how embarrassing not to have written for many years and still say that you are a writer. But it's true and it happens all of the time. So, then, being a writer has very little to do with actually writing. And that seems very strange indeed.

Today, in class, we read the poem Ariel by Sylvia Plath and we discussed the use of the word "nigger" in the poem. Was it a naive use of the word? Is this possible? My students seemed very bothered by the word choice (which I understand) but then one of my students said that one of her teachers substituted the words "black man" for the word nigger in Huck Finn because it made him feel so uncomfortable. I didn't know what to think of that? Do you? I tried to replace the word in the Plath poem with something like Jew-eyed to get a sense of this discomfort and it was there--it really was.

What is so hard for me as a teacher, I'm thinking again, is the fact that so much of what we teach in poetry or literature has no answers and yet we do come to literature for answers. Answers are important too.

And on a personal note, my mom and sister were in town and we went to Saint Augustine with the baby---they call the baby Le Bebe. I got to swim in the ocean which was a huge treat while we traded off baby duties---and I stepped on something squishy---which freaked me out. I always imagine stepping on a dead body in the ocean and I don't know why. So, I swam and ate a lot of good food and I was happy to see my family because I miss them so much. Then, I was looking to see when a newborn becomes and infant (I love categories) and apparently on Dr. Spock's website it's 2 months, so Eze is now an infant and not a newborn being 10 weeks old. He isn't even a semester old yet!

It Has Happened Again!

Someone gets to this blog by google-ing "My dog is a loser"

poetry news, craving smells, big baby

Poetry News:

I'm featured here at Verse Daily. This is a poem from the Columbia Poetry Review that I wrote about 6 months ago.

I was also in With Stand, a great handmade journal of poetry by some folks at UC Davis.

I'm also in the West Wind Review, a journal from Oregon.

and will be in the upcoming issue of Spooky Boyfriend.

My next chapbook called Used White Wife is forthcoming from Grey Book Press.

I'm also going to publish another chapbook that's more like a story called Strays with Cy Gist.

Also in the latest issue of Abraham Lincoln.

Warsaw Bikini has been reviewed at Coldfront Magazine. Jason, you could have thrown in another star, dammit.

In other news, I am still craving smells---to be specific: underwater rocks and the smell of the underground subway. It is so strange and the experience virtually ungoogle-able. Now, if I was Woody Allen I would be worried that I have a brain tumor but since I am not Woody Allen and instead a rational, un-anxious human being, I think that it still has something to do with the pregnancy hormones.

My baby is BIG. He's almost 14 pounds!

Hello!

Oh the guilt of not writing the blog for a week. I just got back from seeing the therapist at school. I had to take Eze because Craig is working. Of course, Eze was very cute and smiling and then managed to poop all over his car seat. I guess I don't put the diapers on tight enough because it somehow escaped through the side and then...wham! It's kind of hard to talk about your marriage and other issues when you have the immediate problem of poop 24-7 and then a poop emergency manifest itself right in front of your eyes.

In other news, I'm going to be in Los Angeles in August to see my mom and dad and sister. I'm excited about going but I'm also anxious about the flight due to my phobia. Of course the countless airport bars and mini wine bottles on the plane are pretty helpful. Avoidance feeds phobias and while I have not avoided flying, I also have not been in an airplane in an entire year which is probably the longest I have ever gone without flying. So, I was looking into these flying clinics. Some airlines have these programs where you learn to be a relaxed passenger. I think it's a weekend thing and one of the days you fly with all the other people who are nervous about flying and then you get over your fear. The problem is that nothing scares me more than flying with one hundred nervous passengers. And if I die in a plane at least I want to know that I was doing something important like visiting family or going to Paris or something and not trying to get over the fear of flying in order to do those things. Know what I mean?

Man I want a cheeseburger. I had some ice cream yesterday for the first time in 8 weeks. No wonder I've been more volatile. Lack of dairy--but I am still trying to lose some weight--but I feel my motivation sort of going bye bye. I think that if I keep swimming it should be fine. I have to admit I was a bit obsessed with it at first but yesterday reminded me that a life without Phish Food may not be a life worth living. Isn't it sad that an ice cream named after a band is better than the band itself?

Morning!

It looks like the green poop is related to my consumption of dairy products which I have been avoiding. I think that it's actually been good for weight loss since most of my dairy comes from cheese. I am French after all. In tangential vanity news, I was watching TV last night and there was a commercial for a prescription drug that lengthens and thickens one's eyelashes. The drug, a glaucoma drug, costs over one hundred dollars a month. I just can't believe that people buy this kind of crap considering a top of the line mascara is about $25 and lasts about 4-6 months. So, I feel less guilty about buying a good mascara. Thanks Lastisse. I think that they hire poetz to name these drugs.

Anyhoo, it occurs to me that this blog used to be about poetry once and now revolves around the color of my son's shit. Not good. How low we fall, people.
Actually, yesterday after the breastfeeding support group (a whole different blog post about how I invented a breastfeeding issue in order to make new mom friends--Shekira don't tell anyone!) I went to a cafe and read a little bit of D.H Lawrence's poems with the little man.

It made me feel happy that Lawrence writes so much about birds and beasts and plants. Who can resist a poem called "The Mosquito" that begins "When did you start your tricks, Monsieur?
So, I thought I'd share something that I read:

The Uprooted

People who complain of loneliness must have lost
something,
lost some living connection with the cosmos, out of
themselves,
lost their life flow
like a plant whose roots are cut.
And they are crying like plants whose roots are cut.
But the presence of other people will not give them new,
rooted connection
it will only make them forget.
The thing to do is in solitude slowly and painfully put forth
new roots
into the unknown, and take root by oneself.

What I love about Lawrence's poems is that even the ones that are really sad never forget the intimate connection between human life and nature. It's as if all human emotion actually stems from nature---and he feels so vibrant---there's a kind of enthusiasm for the natural world that makes me just want to go for a long hike. Poems make you think, but they can also stir up a kind of joy that can be easily lost in the ennui of the everyday. And this is the problem that I have with poems about the everyday, the mundane---I feel sometimes that I'm just looking at a mirror when I want to be transported since nothing in nature is ever the same--but I've always been somewhat of a romantic.

I have not written in a while because I've been writing in a journal instead. It's funny, my hand actually aches after handwriting anything now since I am so used to typing. Anyway, Eze is 6 weeks today. Everything has been going really well and I've been writing/ revising a lot which is good. I wrote a story called "Strays" that Mark L is going to publish. I was looking at his Dusie chapbook and kept thinking "this is awesome!" and felt silly about sending him my work. I also put together a chapbook of the poems that I wrote during the poetry marathon (as well as some others) that my friend Scott is going to publish. I'm pretty excited that these two things are on the horizon. It keeps me motivated to write---though yesterday I just looked at the computer for hours and hours and couldn't come up with anything.

Well, Eze's poop has been green. It was yellow and now, for the last week, it has been green which I felt warranted a call to the pediatrician. I like the doctor but the nurses seem totally incompetent. Here's how the phone call went:

Me: Hi, my newborn son's poop is green and I am a little concerned since it has been about a week

Nurse: That's ok. We don't worry about the color of the poop.

Me: Well, is it normal?

Nurse: No, it's not normal.

Me: Um, if it's not normal when should I start worrying about it?

Nurse: Just keep an eye on it.

Me: But my next appointment is next month so I don't know what to do.

Nurse: We don't really worry about the color.

Me: So it's ok even though it's not normal?

Nurse: Yes.

So, what am I supposed to do? Shouldn't I be worried if it's not normal? Ugh.

Me and Eze---One Month Birthday

Two things that I read yesterday that I liked:


"the poet who doesn't need a job
meets a worker who doesn't need poetry

they stare at each other and neither can say
what it takes to live in the world"

Mark Wallace

I enjoyed the entire poem called "Rock Erodes a Lifespan" by Julie Doxsee.

"Hold a piece of dust at arm's length and watch its two-dimentsional twin burn at noon. Gray stranger, make your gray a happier thing. Nighttime erases as it grows over the eye."