over the cliff

No, I didn’t get any… though that would be so cool… but I just sent my first ‘OMG I LOVE YOU!’ mail to a poet. Okay so that’s not quite what I said…

To make a short story long, I came across two poems in the New Orleans Review (30:2) by a poet named Andrew Bode-Lang. One of the poems, “At First She Just Came to the Bar with Friends” is basically the poetic equivalent of a palindrome. It’s so perfectly symetrical that it gives me shivers. Really. In fact, I think if you have any interest in poetry you should go here and order the issue. Just for that poem. Seriously.

His other poem is “Care of the Soul” which is equally fabulous–it has one of the best last lines of a poem I’ve ever read.

Oh yeah, about the mail.

At first it bugged me that there was a clear structure to the poem but I couldn’t name it. So I took it to Allison Joseph who is well versed in poetic forms and asked her if she knew what it was. She didn’t. She suggested I e-mail him because “poets like that”. At first I thought it was too fangirlish but what the heck, I don’t have any pride so I did. And I babbled. A lot. Asking him if it was a variation of another form or if he set out to write a poetic palindrome or what… and also which came first: the poem or the form.

Hopefully I didn’t embarass myself too much, as I tend to do… like that time we saw the actors from that play in that place in Stratford….

Or that time I tripped and fell as Oliver and I were walking to the movie theatre…

Or that time other time I admitted to buying and reading the sequel to Eragon…

Or that time I should’ve stopped talking about how many times I’ve made a fool of myself and didn’t…

Yeah.

I just had… the most… bizarre dream ever. Don’t believe me? Judge for yourself.

The dream starts as I’m watching an episode of Friends. The character Joey is talking about he wants to run into some girl that he thinks is pretty and how he got in trouble with the city for trespassing on her terrace. So someone says something about a visitation pass–and the next thing I see is Joey climbing up the fire escape until he gets to the terrace of this girl’s apartment and the girl ends up being that blonde lawyer in his spin off show.

So then I’m talking to the blonde chick, and we’re both talking about what a long drive it is from New Orleans (where we are apparently) to… somewhere. And I said ‘well it’s a shame that you have your car down here otherwise you could drive with me.’ She says ‘hmmm’ and all of the sudden we’re driving together–only now this girl is like a cross between the blonde lawyer chick from ‘Joey’ and my old friend Candace Eckstein. And she’s saying that she just doesn’t know what Law school to go to. And she also starts telling me about this organization that I want to say was named ‘Ethos’ only it was like a mix of Satanism and Neoconservatism and how she liked it because it was different but they were too extreme for her. I tell her that when I was looking at MFA programs I visited this school in Madison that had really great diversity–so we go and when we arrive we go in for their information session and we tell the guy that I’ve been there before (for the information session) and told my friend it was great. He says ‘Well they’ve already started and I think what you saw was something different entirely because we’ve changed it’. We leave. I don’t know why.

So we’re walking around this school, whose hallways are eerily similar to Ellot of my old high school, and talking about how the Information guy looked a lot like James Van Derbeek (sp??). In one part of the building they’re filming this movie–like a student film–only they’re filming in Black & White. I don’t mean black and white film, I mean the actors we’re looking at and the small set (office scene, person at desk and two guys talking) are in black and white. And I see one of those big industrial light things that’s pointing at him and think ‘oh, they have some special light that when it shines on them it turns them black & white). So we go back walking the way we came, and suddenly we’re passing through some professor’s bedroom/office and we have to run.

So then I say ‘how about I show you my office’ (so I guess we magically transported back to SIU only not?). And we run into Evon (GA here at SIU) and my friend blonde lawyer chick from ‘Joey’/Candace (in this part she was more Candace) knows Evon and I don’t know why. But happy reunion time. So we head up this stairway and at the top of the stairs is a stack. It’s the old printer from my office and a bunch of my papers. For some reason I know that now my keys won’t work in my office door but I don’t know why–and blonde lawyer chick/Candace is suddenly gone from the dream. I head downstairs and I run into Catherine Powell (girl I went to highschool with) and she says ‘Oh I know why they stacked that–you’ve lost your assistantship.’

‘Why?’ I ask

‘They’ve been going by classrooms to make sure people are teaching’

‘But I’ve been to every class. I may have let them out early some days but I’ve taken attendance’

So she tells me to take the attendance sheets to Dr. Amos. Then I think how nice it was for them to remove all the papers from my office so I can find the attendance folder. So as I’m getting all these things out, I walk to this cafeteria like place where Dr. Amos is eating/talking to… someone. As I’m about to slam the attendance sheets on his desk and chew him out and/or beg for my job back… I wake up.

So… anyone want to interpret that for me?

You know what I also hate? Something frustrating happens… so you get mad… and you have every right to be mad… so you call someone to chew them out… and that someone ends up being nice and helpful and then you can’t go and be mean because that would make you a bad person.

Anyway, to make a short story long, back in early December I ordered ‘The Final Key’ by Catherine Asaro. It’s the sequel to ‘Triad’ that I read (and loved, obviously) last year. So I go to Barnes & Noble, they don’t have it. That’s okay, I’ll just order it. So I do. They take my number. They say they’ll call me when it gets in.

Christmas comes. And goes. Ditto to January. So I stop by today to see if maybe it arrived and they forgot to call me. I ask. Nope. ‘Confirmed by not received’.

Odd.

Maybe the publishing date was pushed back?

I get home. I check.

Release date: November.

Wtf.

So I call Barnes & Noble prepared to scream and yell and make the salesperson feel like dirt just like my Daddy can do.

And the stupid twit was nice. And she said that she ordered a book that still hasn’t come in after 3 weeks when it was supposed to be 3 days. Something about the warehouse and distributor or something. I’m just so… annoyed. I mean it’s been two months. They could’ve called Catherine herself and had her write a damn copy in longhead and walk it to my apartment by now.

Anyway, in other news.

‘Prince Charming’ was nominated for a Rhysling. There’s a spot for me to ride in Iris during Mardi Gras. I spent all day doing SFPA stuff which may sound dull but I’m a dork and really enjoy stuff like that. Yesterday I ordered 6 books of poetry. 4 contemporary. 1 speculative collection by SFPA Prez Mike Allen. And the first issue of Jabberwocky.

And speaking of Jabberwocky, Sean Wallace announced that Jabberwocky 2 is finally finished and I’m going to share a ToC with Jane Yolen.

I love my life.

The Strange Horizons reader’s choice poll is online here.

And I swear I’m not just posting that because Prince Charming was published in Feb of 05

Poetry is not Dead

You’ll fill it out if you really love me

Johari Window

Most members of the SFPA have probably already made their Rhysling nominations. I haven’t. Why? Is it because I have not yet read all the batches of eligible poems sent to me by people on the listserv? Is it because I have not yet gone through the missed weeks in Strange Horizons, Chizine, Star*Line, and Dreams and Nightmares? No. It’s because I’m lazy and indecisive.

Well all those other things are a factor too… but mainly it’s because I’m lazy. And indecisive. No, definitely lazy. Or that other thing…

Anyway. Over the past year I’ve come across a couple of poems that have really stood out. The form poems by Joanne Merriam come to mind. But should I nominate the poem that just happened to stick with me for months on end, or should I scour through all the poems I can find until I find the absolute best?

My hope is that my favorite poems have already been nominated by other members… in which case should I try to find the poem that I think might be overlooked?

Argh.

And then there are the January/February/March poems… the ones that came out so long ago that maybe people have forgotten about them. Should I nominate one of those lest they wither away and die before their time?

Should I try to find a poet I think is particularly grand, one who though lacking a single poem that I worship above all others, has produced a volume of work that I find extraordinary?

…Someone just walked by with a camera… like a TV News Station ‘Back at 11 with news that could kill you’ camera. Wtf.

And Rodney just came in and said that my poem from last week was wonderful.

And apparently the newscamera is here filming a 3rd year poet who just got a book published. Good for him.

And I’ve just come up with another reason as to why I haven’t nominated any poems yet…

Shiny object syndrome.

Plus I’m lazy.

And indecisive.

But I wrote a poem that Rodney liked, so all is well in the world…

That my site helps people in their question to “detect evil gazebo”. It’s amazing what bizarre search strings will lead people to one site or another. Some other favorites from the past couple of months:

“course nobody go crazy when i’m banging all my boogie” - I actually know where this comes from. It’s part of the lyrics to ‘Bongo Bong’ which I am VERY sad to say, is no longer available on Real Rhapsody. At any rate, I posted the lyrics a while back. Actually quite a few of the searches that leads people to my corner of the universe have to do with that particular blog entry.

“cliff pasta” - Wtf

“psychological deviancies” - Should I feel insulted?

“the great depression dialague” - Nice spelling there anonymous internet browser

“amateur crackwhores” - What do you have to do to turn pro?

“god thinks” - that I am an amateur crackwhore apparently.

They may have very little academic benefit, but lately I’ve started giving my students brain teasers. It actually prompted one of my students in my 1 PM class (right as I was letting them out early because it was Friday) to ask, “Why are you so nice?”

Me? Nice? Rather than lecturing them and providing them with valuable knowledge to prepare them for their academic careers, I have chosen the path of asking them difficult questions with no or many answers in order for them to find their own version of truth.

I’m a bitch.

Who doesn’t like to prepare lectures.

At any rate, these puzzles and riddles and patterns have actually gotten my 9 AM class to start talking. So for now the freewrites are out, and watching my students get frustrated and/or blurt out absurd possibilities is in.

But for you anxious fans at home (hi Mom), I thought I’d share one of my personal favorites. Figure out the pattern and write the next line:

1
1 1
2 1
1 2 1 1
1 1 1 2 2 1
3 1 2 2 1 1
1 3 1 1 2 2 2 1
1 1 1 3 2 1 3 2 1 1
3 1 1 3 1 2 1 1 1 3 1 2 2 1
1 3 2 1 1 3 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 3 1 1 2 2 1 1

So in an attempt to get my students to actually maybe talk in class rather than stare at me blankly, I brought in an article written by Phyllis Schlafley. My favorite line? “Women’s Studies courses openly teach the ideology that American women are oppressed by a male-dominated society and that the road to liberation is abortion, divorce, the rejection of marriage and motherhood, and unmarried sex of all varieties.”

It’s the ’sex of all varieties’ part that I really love.

But my students? No reaction. They said they agreed with the article (the first part is about schools costing too much and conspiring to keep students in school longer to make more money). But to me it was a lot of nonsensical rambling, conclusions based on irrational and illogical leaps, and the occasional insult. It’s complete rubbish.

But my students?

“Who here disagrees with the article.”

No hands.

“Who here agrees with it?”

Lots of hands. Murmurs of ‘Parts of it’

So then I asked them why they agreed with it. And my students responded with things that weren’t actually in the article. So then I asked about the readership.

Them: “All incoming freshmen.”

Me: “Does it exclude anyone?”

No response.

“What about non-traditional students?”

“They might be insulted or turned off by it.”

“What about women’s studies majors or African Diaspora Studies Majors”

“Them too.”

“So what’s the readership?”

“All incoming freshman.”

*facedesk*

I don’t know if it’s because I talk too fast (which is possible), or because they didn’t read (which is likely), or because since they don’t talk I’m reduced to asking really dumb questions that they don’t even want to dignify with a response (which is I hope is the real reason). But seriously, what the hell am I supposed to do?

After a little while some of them started raising their hands and providing input (bless them), and I know they’re smart… but I can’t get them to talk to me. Which means I have to talk. And I really don’t like to sit there and listen to the sound of my own voice.