Thanks, Studs

When we read a book, we change our lives; we redesign the way we think by assimiliating certain parts of the writing into our own ideas, values, viewpoints. What power words have, and how glad I am that I grew up in a family of readers, writers, and lovers of words. Our home library was accessible to me all of the time (my father made shelves that lined the walls of the living room and guest room), and my mother took us weekly (and more!) to the local library.

Many of my close friends and several of my students know that I read Studs Terkel's "Working" when I was eight or nine years old. I can still imagine the red spine of the book peeking out of the shelves in the living room. It was a well-worked spine, with many wrinkles, and rightfully so. I think it was the heft of the book that appealed to me initially then. I was always wanting to read something that looked like a "big book." I found it to be easier to read that I'd imagined - the short sections of interviews, real people speaking in normal language. I became aware of colloquialisms (even though I didn't know what they were), dialects, and different speech patterns. I learned about all sorts of people and the lives they led, and found them all fascinating. I remember being surprised at the model talking about hauling a heavy wardrobe all over the city, and realizing how unglamorous being a model is.

I think "Working" found me at just the right time in my life. Reading it so early offered me the benefits of referring to its pages (and the memory of its contents when I am away from my copy), in a way that makes it feel like a parent to me. "Forget who you are and what your purpose is? Come here and read me," it whispers.

Studs Terkel understood the value in people sharing their life stories, and in writing them down. He honored that. Reading his book rearranged my pattern of thought, and made me part of who I am as a person and a writer today. "Working" is a book that has informed my values.

Credos

I am of those who believe
different things on different days

- Steve Kowit

I've been working with some middle schoolers recently, encouraging them to write what they believe. Cakewalk, right? This isn't an easy task for adults, and 12-14 year olds want to stand out from the crowd and shout out their beliefs about as much as a squirrel wants to wear pants.

This isn't my first stab at this assignment. I've written a few credos of my own, and tried various ways of cheering them on from others over the years. NPR has a great resource in their "This I Believe" segment, which has been a project in the works for over fifty years. Dorianne Laux and Kim Addonizio's book, "A Poet's Companion" has a writing exercise on beliefs that is pretty good as well. I've used and combined things from both of these sources, plus added a few ideas of my own into the mix. Eventually, something gets written, but the most important part of this assignment is that thought happens - long, sustained thought about what it is you really believe, and why. Some of us never really know what it is we believe until we are tested and pushed into thinking about it. In the best of situations, there are some really long, philosophical discussions. The bell rings and no one notices.

I've promised my group that I'll be writing my credo as well, since it is something that can and should be done on a semi-regular basis to see how you've grown and changed. The last one I wrote was about a year ago, and before that it was around 2004 I think. I'm due to check in with myself.

"The Poet's Companion" cites an example from the novel "Crooked Heart" by Robert Boswell. A character named Ask has a list of rules he carries in his wallet. These are a few of his rules:

1. Never make a complicated thing simple, or a simple thing complicated.
2. Wear white at night.
3. Take care of Tom. (Ask's brother.)
4. Eat from the four food groups.
5. Be consistent.
6. Never do anything with the sole intent of hurting someone.

This seems to be the direction I'm heading in with my own credo this time. When I've completed it, I'll post it here.

Statement of Intent

My goal as a writer is to create works that I would enjoy as a reader. I don't want to write anything formulaic, or anything that is so complex and dense that the reader feels like she's trapped in a bramble. I am interested in innovation, but not just for the sake of newness -- innovation that breaks new ground in order to unearth the nut of the writing. Whatever is discovered in that rooting should be written in an honest and genuine in manner, not forced. I want what I write to be true to it's self.

A Big Box of Beige

Last night we tried out a new restaurant in town. It's another in what seems to be a long and well-worn, traditional line of upscale Italian restaurants in our area. Since we've been frozen under three inches of ice for the past two days, I was looking forward to not cooking or doing the dishes.

I'm not sure I'll ever get around to recounting the food we had, because the decor has left me with so much to review. How many types of beige can you imagine?

Ecru
Tan
Honey
Beige
Honey beige (that's for Dad)
Organic Egg
Underside of Mole
Jersey Sand
Caramel
Elementary School Tagboard

The entire interior of this restaurant is decorated in various types of tan, more numerous than the list I just jotted. Two large glass doors greet you into an open foyer with beige walls, cream wood trim, and a brown hostess station. The theme continues through the rooms of the restaurant: Beige walls. Sepia toned photographs. Cream tablecloths. Tan ceiling. Carmel swags. Ecru window blinds.

The three of us started to discuss what the designer might have been thinking. We decided that they were going for a "do-not-offend-or-excite" ambiance. Before the bread arrived, Helen already had the room we were sitting in newly designed with deep red walls, curtains made of paper, and some beaded light fixtures. Dan asked what I would do to redesign it. "Call Mark," I said.

On the upswing, this restaurant has no televisions, except for in the bar, which was gratefully out of our field of vision during our meal.

After our dinner, we were able to focus more on the brulee of shades going on in the artwork. Each sepia-toned photograph is double matted in two tones of beige, then framed with a light wood. That's some commitment to the Law of Beige.

I left feeling like I'd been in a sandstorm, my memory of the meal erased in a static of tan.

Sing a Song of Self-Consciousness

When I’m awake early and writing at my desk I can catch a glimpse of myself in the reflective surface of the window. At five or six a.m. I look a mess. I tilt my head a little – what is that? A sagging jowl? This is not writerly. It is exactly who I am. Almost forty, taking notes on jowls.

How lucky I am to be just waking up, at all. I remind myself that I have friends who didn’t make it to forty, who left behind students who adored them, or their own children. So soon I will be forty, and then I will have to say that I am forty, not “nearly forty,” which sounds so much better than “forty,” which is definite, even, and very much in the middle of a long life if I’m lucky enough to have it.

I read a poem recently by a writer who I know has ego issues, and the poem was beautiful, and I wished I didn’t know anything about the poet. I figure that every writer has one issue or another, or multiple ones, or at least I hope they do so it is not just my aging face reflected in the glass but a whole chorus of us. Yes, this makes me selfish. Who wants to be alone, really? When the sun swings its magic wand and the morning hits that point where everything shimmers we will no longer be an image pressed onto the window, but part of the entire landscape. Just the words, not our faces. If we're lucky. It's something to strive for anyway. If I can stop thinking about my jowls long enough to write something with elegant virtuosity, or eloquent virtuosity. I can't remember the phrase -- not writerly, but written in a genuine and honest voice.

Unfinished Symphony of Augury

A mazurka of birds casts shadows on the snow. The cat’s tail swings in a half-hearted quarter time. I sink into the background, doing my best to disappear in the open score of January, to erase with the syncopation of bleak days. Yesterday, the word “peace” spelled itself out in shadow across the road. Who knows how long it will last – probably a few more days when the municipality decides that the holiday season has wrung out its final arpeggio. With yesterday’s events the word peace felt like augury. Our chimney smoke draws itself along the neighbor’s page of yard. I’m not sure if it’s God that makes a red barn cast a blue shadow in January, but it sure is a complex and beautiful symphony.

Pop Quiz

My daughter and I discuss an upcoming trip, and I explain the itinerary and switchover at the airport. "We might have to run a little to catch the next plane. I'm not sure. I have to check. Hope we don't miss it." My insecurity is obvious. "Ha, ha! You're the one in charge. You have to get us there," she laughs. Many moons ago, I became a mother. I am the map, the guide, the latitude, the longitude, the compass, the clock, the necessitous, bulging, and often embarrassing luggage.

MapQuest does not get you to the right gate at the airport. It's a do-it-yourself operation. With any luck, you're not at O'Hare. Arriving at any destination for me is a combination of luck, pluck, intuition, and winging it. That is what I've been teaching. I should plan more, and pay attention to the details.

My daughter squeezes in a last minute study-session in the car on the way to school. "Mom, what's didactic?" I stumble around my morning brain. "Preachy. Well, poetry or stories that teach a lesson. Not necessarily negative, but sometimes. Like a speaker can be didactic. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's it." I turn off the defroster, feeling pretty good about myself. "Ok, so what's a bildungsroman then?" Son of a. I haven't had coffee yet. "Sounds ancient, and faintly poopy...is this a matching test? I hope for your sake it is."

As soon as I get home I check the dictionary and find this:

Bil⋅dungs⋅ro⋅man
/ˈbɪldʊŋzroʊˌmɑn; Ger. ˈbildʊŋksrɔˌmɑn/ [bil-doongz-roh-mahn;
Ger. beel-doongks-raw-mahn]
–noun, plural -mans, German. -ma⋅ne  /-ˌmɑnə/ [-mah-nuh]

a type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist.

So it is ancient and faintly poopy! Parenting.

A Day of Sounding and Resounding

I've heard Paul Dutton perform once when we were invited to give a couple of readings in Toronto and Ottawa. We were in the Victory Cafe, and Paul stood behind me on a bench and began reading a poem which was filled with a series of sounds that I couldn't believe were being created by a human. His was the most memorable reading of the evening. I don't remember what anyone else read, including myself - I remember Paul's marvelous and surprising utterances.

Yesterday I participated in a Soundsinging and Sound Poetry workshop with Paul. We organized a reading and workshop with him for the community at the studio, and we partnered with Wilkes University so he could give another reading through the Creative Writing Program. (It's tonight at 7 p.m. in Kirby Hall - be there if you can!)

Our Third Friday reading series has a cast of regulars, but there are always a few new people to visit. There was a good energy with the people in Paul's audience on Friday, and surely a few who were unsure what was going on exactly. A young newcomer and her mother shifted uncomfortably in their seats with the first sound poem. One of Paul's poems, titled "Um," starts with him shifting through his papers and saying "um," in a way that makes you think he's forgotten something, or lost his place. The tension builds between the performer and the audience as he continues to shift papers about and say "um, er..." and then you realize that this is part of the poem. It's perfect. Friends I spoke with afterward said that they felt themselves tensing up at first in the reading and then finally relaxing into all of the sound.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the workshop, but I knew what I hoped to gain from it - a better sense of what type of house my body is for sound. Paul started us off with a short talk on the physicality and mechanics of sound in the body, and how the body holds tensions and memories in the muscles. He led us through a long relaxation and deep breathing session, where we were all supine on the floor, with heavy limbs and sleepy eyes. This was probably the longest deep breathing exercise I have ever done, and it was completely relaxing. We didn't make any sounds using the larynx yet, just inhalation and exhalation. From that relaxed state, he encouraged us to get up when we were ready, find a place to stand (and we could also move around the room), and begin making sounds. The group split up and found places - one in a corner, one in the bathroom, I stood in my little office for awhile, a few stood in the front near the door. My first sounds were windy, and reminded me of the howling wind of my childhood bedroom at night, which made me cry a little in the imitation of it, and the surety of the memory, which was not an unhappy or scary one, but a kind of comfort and connection with nature that I miss now as an adult. Paul walked around the room. Other workshoppers were making rhythmic noises, and he encouraged us at times to move the sounds we were creating into other parts of the mouth, throat and head (earlier, he gave us a great visual of the mouth as a cave). I was at times aware of the others in the room, and at other times unaware of their sounds. Some of the sounds I made were primal, gutteral, monsterous - and I couldn't keep myself from moving my hands as I made them. The total sound in the room (when I was aware of it) had peaks and valleys I think. There was some laughter, but it was experimental. None of this felt weird to me at all. Before we broke for a long lunch (enough time to digest), we shared our experiences of the session.

The afternoon session included a more improvisational group effort, where we were encouraged to listen to one another, move about the room and create sound. My experience at first was a little more self-aware and awkward, but I eased into it. We finished the day with some group exercises, and a chant. Everyone left feeling energized. And they didn't leave, actually. Most of them came to the house to join us for dinner with Paul.

My friend Mischelle always surprises me, and last night was no exception. She played the piano as soon as we got into the house - some Beethoven sheet music I had on the rest. She's been to the house many times before and never touched the piano. I sat with her and we played duets, and she is such a good sight-reader that I begged her to play some Sondheim, which she did. I sang. When Paul arrived with Dan (and the ingredients for our dinner!) he sat down at the piano and played improvisational boogie woogie and blues. Bananafish (our bird) sang along. Another friend danced. The whole house was sonorous songlorious.

A Food Memory for Dan

It was the year of the recurring earache, the year of the pink fluoride tablets, the year of the rental A-Frame, the year of hiding under the stairs, the year of wheat germ sneaked into morning cereal. It was also the year of the Not-to-Be-Forgotten Liver Dinner. Liver and onions. My father and mother enjoyed liver, and my sister and I, both young (I was seven and she was ten), hadn’t really had the opportunity to try it yet. While I played post office under the stairs or tidied my box house in the loft, my mother was working her secret machinations with liver in the kitchen. I wasn’t aware of it, and didn’t recognize the smell. When my father got home from work, we all sat down at the dinner table. Dad was probably tired, and really looking forward to the not-meatloaf, not-spaghetti meal. My memory is a little hazy here, and the story has been told a bunch of times. It’s one of those perennial family favorites, told with joyful gusto to every newcomer to our clan. The meal was served. I think I winced. I must have made a face, or grunted. I was told to try it anyway. I balked. The liver smelled funny. It was covered with wormy onions. My father’s face reddened. All he wanted was to enjoy a good meal, and his shaggy-haired second grader was ruining it. “Enough, Jenny. Try it.” I pierced a piece with my fork and put the liver to my lips. My sister suggested the “hold your breath” technique, which fueled dad’s furor. Holding my breath didn’t work. I could still taste and smell the liver’s metallic tinge, and I gagged. Then I cried. My crying made my sister cry. The sight of us crying, her frustrated husband, and all the hard work and preparation that went into a meal all gone to hell in a handbasket, made my mother cry. There were all of my father’s girls, crying in front of plates full of cold liver. I don’t remember if dad finished his meal. I know I didn’t.

Word List

While looking at the all-forgiving snow floating in sun and onto the ground today, I wondered how many words I really know. What is my total vocabulary? I started to list the words beginning with the letter A in the notebook I keep in my pocketbook, then I realized I need the OED (which I have, thanks to Dan!), to make sure I don't miss any. Not that I expect to have a really impressive list by any means, but I want to make sure that I don't cheat myself either. I have a bad memory. Today I begin my list of words in my working vocabulary. There will be two parts to this list: words I know, and words I know and use. Who knows how long it will take - maybe two days - maybe two years? I'll let you know the outcome. I expect it to be humbling.

Fortieth Birthday Parade

She closed her eyes, chewed on her fork, and imagined two small poodles walking on their hind legs. Each wore a pink sequined hat and a little matching bow tie. Walking on back legs made their front legs dangle like gloves on a clothesline. Would they be able to keep up if they led everything? Would it be humane? Probably not. Someone would have to whisk them away after the first few steps. What would follow after the poodles was harder to imagine, but the cast appeared -- 80’s hair bands. Duran Duran. Flock of Seagulls. The old guy who rode his aluminum foiled bike down Main Street every day to collect recycling should make an appearance, and also the one who wore a bike helmet to walk around town. No politicians, no clowns, no causes. Then her float, covered in middle-school dance tissue paper flowers, soap bubbles lifting from its cushioned surface. The parade would be over as quickly as it began, a metaphor for life’s pomp and circumstance. Perfect. She’d wear a tiara and those white patent leather shoes she always wanted as a kid. Her husband and teenage daughter would probably stay home. There would be no crowd. Any spectators would be the elderly neighbors who just happened to be sitting out on their porches that morning. It would take place in an alley, and pass by the backs of bars and their beer-stained carpets. The township wouldn’t notice, so there would be no reason to ask permission to close off a street. She’d wave and pop bubbles. She’d curl her toes in those shoes.

Flappy Gnu Rear! A List (ordered by whim) for 2009

1. Don't be a lazy writer, be a scrupulous one.
2. Take a class in something you're interested in that isn't related to writing.
3. Take a class in something that is writing related, but not poetry.
4. Collaborate with someone who scares you a little.
5. Take more walks in the woods.
6. Be honest in your writing.
7. Sing more.
8. Be more patient. This includes patience with your own writing/reading cycles. However, you need to finish two projects this year, and you know which two those are.*
9. Don't be afraid to say no. You can't do everything.
10. More risk taking. Don't be afraid to say yes, either.
11. Travel and visit far-flung relatives.
12. Work out a better submission/pub schedule.
13. Resume driving lessons with Helen.
14. Help Helen with her portfolio for college.
15. Blog when you feel like it, but not when you don't.
16. Write every single day, even if it's complete drek. The drek doesn't need to be shared.
17. Read more.
18. Do more work with seniors and memoir.
19. Exercise.
20. Put a door in the back room that leads out to the patio.
21. Spend more time with friends.
22. Work on the garden.

* I am not good at being patient.

2008 List in Review

It's out of fashion or unoriginal to make resolutions, and it's also a bore to say you don't make them. I like to make lists. They help to keep order to my days, and some sense of a goal for longer stretches of time. Last year I made a list titled 2008 - Goals Ordered by Whim. Here is that list, with a brief commentary on what I achieved, what I didn't, and what fell into a goal purgatory.

1. Less residencies. No teaching in the summer.

Overall, this went pretty well. In 2007 I overextended myself with teaching in schools and community centers. I love the work, but I burnt out and was committed to rest, learn, and work on my own writing.

2. Write more. Daily.

Hm. This was a half-hearted promise to myself I think. I wrote in my journal, but maybe I should have been more specific about what type of writing I wanted to do on a daily basis. I completed a project that was in the works for awhile, so that's a plus.

3. Publish more.

I did send more work out this year than I have in the past, and a few short fiction pieces and poems found homes.

4. Workshops at the studio - programming.

We came up with a great idea for this that we never really set into motion. There were several workshops this year that were successes, and a few that no one showed interest in at all. Setting up programming is exhausting, and more often than not a thankless job, and it takes away time from #2 & #3. This goal defeated what #1 was trying to accomplish.

5. Publish PKP books, develop program for others to print.

Wow. This is quite a list I have going here. Lots of big goals. I kept my promise with this one, and the second half is just starting now, but it a slightly different form than we envisioned. Not bad. Did I mention that the layout, design, editing and correspondence with authors also takes away from my own writing time? It did. However, I love the work.

6. Get married.

Done. We got married in a library.

7. Take more walks in the woods.

What happened here? I raked my mom's yard the other day. I don't think I took one good forest walk this year at all. Maybe? I don't remember, and that is sad. Since I grew up in the woods, I feel very close to nature and miss it here in the coal town burbs. I did buy a bike this year, and loved riding it in the nice weather across town, or to the studio.

8. Fix sidewalk. Finish two rooms in the basement.

Thanks to my husband, the first part of this is done. I have to say, it is nice not shoveling concrete away along with the snow. The second half of this is not complete, and the flames of passion to finish those rooms now are tiny embers. Meh.

9. Travel.

I think we did more traveling last year, but we did make some pretty great and meaningful short trips into the cities this year.

10. Spend less money, and keep track.

Did I really think I was going to keep track? I should be more honest with myself when making these lists. And we got married, fixed a sidewalk and installed a new bathroom sink this year, which means we spent a chunk of money. Did I mention the work on the patio? Yeah. That too. Oh, and the county decided to raise my property taxes.

11. Exercise, but don't be obsessive over it.

I bought the bike and used it in nice weather, and have been going to the gym on a daily basis since late October. I still feel fat.

12. Visit elderly relatives with Mom, Helen and Dan.

This is the most important of all, and I fell short here for sure.

13. Read more, and diversely.

The diversely part could use a little work. We all have our favorites.

14. Take a class instead of organizing or teaching one.

I had one all lined up for myself this summer, and it was cancelled because of low enrollment. This isn't to say I haven't learned anything this year. Instead of taking a class, I spent July/August acting in a play, and learned a whole lot from my fellow performers, the director and the stage crew (Helen did all the props for the show).

15. Give more readings.

No more than usual. This seems to be seasonal - a few in the spring and a few in the fall.

16. Spend quality time with Helen.

The play was a big part of our quality time together this year, I think. We met a lot of wonderfully talented new friends, and we both got a chance to learn something about ourselves. Helen's got some great prop making skills! We're always doing something goofy together, and I can almost always make her laugh.

17. Teach Helen how to drive - then panic when she can.

I don't know if Helen would classify this as quality time spent with Mom or not. Probably not. Apparently I have a tendency to panic. We started driving in Dan's car, which is a standard transmission and a tough go for a first-time driver. Then we switched to my car, which is an automatic, and winter happened. We'll resume in the spring. Both the panic and the lessons.

18. Record dreams, and interpret.

You have to really love someone to listen to the retelling of their dreams. I know who loves me for sure. I've recorded some, and let others disperse with the vapor in the shower.

19. Keep in contact with and visit Dan's family.

Pretty good, not great. The wedding offered an opportunity to visit a tiny bit, but certainly not enough.

20. No more blogging.

Cut back, but ha, ha, ha! My desire to do this has something to do with a public vs. private writing struggle, that I'll write more about tomorrow...on my blog.

21. Finish the novel. Start it.

I like how finishing the novel comes before starting it here. I finished the former, the latter needs work.

Palimpsest

In the course of spending 12 years of my life in this slanted little house, my writing desk has settled itself into three rooms, the first being the living room. This was a total disaster, because even with my morning writing schedule, I felt the pull of the kitchen dishes stacked behind me, or the laundry below, or whatever remnants were left from the previous evening on the dining room table. Exotic plants took up valuable real estate in the windows, so there was little view. In the summer, I took my journal outside and sat on the kitchen steps, avoiding the desk altogether, writing among the bamboo we have planted along the fence. Later, the desk moved upstairs into the bedroom, and near a window that overlooks my neighbor's deteriorating concrete piling, their covered swimming pool weighted with gallon jugs of water, and the empty eyes of an abandoned Catholic church. In winter, the birds congregate near the cross, where I suspect most of the heat from the building escapes. Being able to roll right out of bed and into the writing chair has benefits. The drawback came when the bed was upgraded to king-sized and I didn't want to leave it. For the past few weeks I've been a surreptitious writer, dashing off whatever notes I could, and my desk became just another surface to fill with old playbills from the theatre.

Yesterday my desk took up residence in what we refer to as the "back room," which houses the bulk of our books, a library card catalog, and an old Dickson coal stove. It felt good to carry the desk, dust it off, and settle it under the bookshelves and next to the card catalog with its ever everlasting hope of order. To the left of my desk is a window that looks out onto the patio and backyard. Being near a window only makes more time to daydream, watch the last brown leaves hang on with diligence, and listen to the cat's wheeze as she stares out the window too, waiting for a sparrow to notate the feeder. Still, I'm hopeful that this new space will be one I return to on a daily basis. I know that there is nothing better than being here, writing with so many great sentences above me, and one white cloud hanging over the neighbor's shed like a thought balloon.

Suggested Reading

There's a great cartoon in Issue #7 of Opium Magazine that says "I thought I'd never write again. Then I put on my cold wristwatch." The text is a short poem from either the wife of Philip Guston, or Philip Guston himself.

I've never been able to wear a watch because whatever chemical goodness is going on in my body stops time. Gee, maybe I should take that as a hint: Quit taking time for granted. Also - thank your friends for opening bookstores and recommending books to you.

This is a reading list that was prompted by my friend Jennifer, who is going to have a bone marrow transplant at the beginning of the year. It will be a renewing spring of 2009 for her. The other day she asked Dan and me what we've been reading that's been good lately, because she wants to stockpile some reading material for her months of recovery time. She asked particularly about poetry. I had no quick answers for her, which was upsetting. I've been a lazy reader this year - or rather, a not-so-interested-in-poetry reader this year.

So, here's my updated reading list - some of the books I've read recently that I liked. For you, Jen, and anyone else who loves to read.

Poetry

Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid by Simon Armitage

The collection begins with a short found poem called "Hand-washing Technique -- Government Guidelines," which I thought was odd at first, then realized the brilliant placement of the poem. You should always wash your hand before reading a book of poems. God knows where they've been, and perhaps you should wash after, also. This collection has one of my newest all-time favorite poems in it, which I read to Dan last night. It's titled "You're Beautiful." Seek this collection out if you haven't read it already. I bought my copy at my favorite indie bookstore, Anthology. If you don't have a favorite indie bookstore, seek one of those out too.

The Door, by Margaret Atwood

A poet I return to on a regular basis for her terseness. The Door is her newest collection of poems, which includes a CD of Atwood reading some of the poems. I haven't listened to it yet, because I have a happy memory of my friend Heather reading a few of the poems from the book in the car on our way back from her reading in Scranton. Where was that reading? Oh yes, at Anthology, where I bought the book. I love these lines from "The Poet Has Come Back...":

The poet has come back to being a poet
after decades of being virtuous instead.

Can't you be both?
No. Not in public.

The Journals of Susanna Moodie, by Margaret Atwood

I already have this book and have read it, but I scored a first edition paperback at the Philadelphia Free Library bookstore last month on our honeymoon. I read it all in one sitting when we returned from our trip, and was surprised and happy to read in the Afterword that the poems were in Atwood's words "generated by a dream." She also did all of the art for this collection.

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties, Translations by John J.L. Mood

A gift from Heather, purchased the day of her reading at the bookstore. I've written in the margins of this book, a sure sign that I liked it. It contains selections from Rilke's letters on love, poems on love and other difficulties, and shorter selections or Rilke's work, and an essay by John Mood. I thought the prologue to the book was one of the best I've ever read, and we used a selection from this book on our wedding program.

The Beforelife, by Franz Wright
This collection begins with a simple dedication:
I wrote these poems between December of 1998 and December of 1999 for my wife, Elizabeth." Wright wrings out striking, brief poems about alcoholism. From "Nothingsville MN":

The sole tavern there, empty
and filled
with cigarette smoke;
the smell
of beer, urine, and the infinite
sadness you dread
and need so much of
for some reason

Sleeping on the Wing, an Anthology of Modern Poetry edited by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell

A guidebook for reading and writing poetry. I was going to take a class with Heather Thomas this summer, but it was cancelled, so I bought the suggested book anyway, did some of the exercises, and learned more about poetry, which is always good.


Plays

Fat Pig, by Neil LaBute

Great dialogue. One of three plays by the playwright all on the theme of body image.

Reasons to Be Pretty, by Neil LaBute

I didn't like this as much as Fat Pig. Opium Magazine has an excerpt from this play in their current issue.

The Shape of Things, by Neil LaBute

See the movie too, but after reading the play of course. Helen and her friend Grayson watched it when he was visiting recently. Helen read the play as well.

Kimberly Akimbo, by David Lindsay-Abaire

I loved "Fuddy Meers" which a friend gave to me. This one is just as brilliant. I really like the absurd/real in his writing.

Baby Food, by David Lindsay-Abaire

Where would I be without my theatre friends? Reading less plays, which would be a travesty. I want to produce this collection of short plays. A group of us read this at the studio recently and laughed a lot.

The Faculty Room, by Bridget Carpenter

Hilarious description of setting, funny characters, heavy ending. A little expected, actually. I enjoyed the characters a lot though.

Crave, by Sarah Kane

Like reading poems that are all cut up and thrown up into the air. Wherever the lines land, that's the dialogue. Disconnect, but also some places where there was narrative going on - an intention. I have a collection of her plays to finish now. Helen's reading this play now, and she said the non-naming of characters makes it tough to follow. I agree with her.

Fresh Kills, by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder

A loaner from Dei, who is home from London on Christmas break. Eddie, a middle aged married man, becomes strangely obsessed with a teenage boy named Arnold, who takes an overactive interest in him. Really terrific dialogue, but there are some places where Arnold is a little unbelievably prosaic, and the end kind of reminded me of my friend Mike's old joke about writing for the theatre: "Don't know how to end it? Bring in a guy with a gun!" That's not a total spoiler, by the way. Worth reading, still.


The Mistakes Madeline Made, by Elizabeth Meriwether.

I read this over and over. Memorized lines. Played a part in a production of it this summer, which was just what I needed. It's a play that is wildly open to directorial interpretation and I'm glad our direction had good vision.

Fiction

Until I Find You, by John Irving

Took me two months to complete. Retitled in my head as "Until I Finish You." It was worth the time. I can't imagine how long it took him to craft this. Beautiful, lush sentences. This copy was a gift from my friend Bob, and Dan loaned our copy to our friend Jack.

Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn

This was recommended by Dan, and I'm not sure where it was purchased. I had to read the first sentence several times before it sunk in entirely. I read this in conjunction with several plays by Neil LaBute, and all of the story lines deal with body-image. This book put me in strange mood whenever I read it, but I enjoyed it. My friend Chad has it now, since I put it in the book box at the studio. He snapped it up when he saw the title.

Falling Sideways, by Tom Holt

Holt has a quirky, twisted, and funny writing style. This gist is this: humanity's ascent to civilization has been ruthlessly guided by a small gang of devious frogs. I'm not done with this book yet. I'm a slow reader of "quick-read" fiction for some reason. This one was loaned to me by Dan, who I think got it from Dave.

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

Helen was reading it for school, so I read it too, since I've never read it before. I cried, cried, cried at the ending.

Non-Fiction


Not Quite What I Was Planning - Six Word Memoirs by Famous & Obscure Writers, edited by Smith Magazine

Smith Magazine launched a call to their readers based on Hemingway's famous super-short story: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn." The concept was deceptively simple - distill your life down to six words. The result is a collection with entries that span from the heartbreaking to the hilarious. Since reading the book, I've used this concept in various writing workshops, and have written a few myself. A great lesson in reflection. Another Anthology purchase.

Reading Like a Writer, A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them, by Francine Prose

Loved it, and now have a collection of books that I love for their sentence structures, musicality, and meaning on a shelf next to my writing desk - a tip I took from reading this book. I can't remember where this book came from...might have been an impulsive Barnes and Noble purchase.

A People's History of the American Empire, a Graphic Adaptation, by Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, and Paul Buhle

After slowly reading A People's History of the United States, I picked this book up and read it swiftly. Every high school history teacher should use both books. From the prologue:

"We can all fell a terrible anger at whoever, in their insane idea that this would help their cause, killed thousands of people. But what do we do with that anger? Do we react with panic, strike out violently and blindly just to show how tough we are?"

Zinn reflects on 9/11 in the prologue and then begins in Chapter One with the Massacre at Wounded Knee. The graphics include drawings, photos, and snippets of newspaper headlines, and all throughout Zinn is silhouetted as if he is giving a lecture, or writing at his desk. I enjoyed this book so much I tried to get Helen to read it. Maybe she will someday. Sadly, this was a B&N purchase as well. I probably had a Scubrats coffee with it too. *sigh*

Literary Journals

Opium Magazine, edited by Todd Zuniga

Subscribed last year, I think. Opium Magazine is a fun combination of the visual and the literary, and the editors add "approximate reading times" to entries, which makes it perfect reading for the bathroom, doctor's office waiting room, or, well, anywhere really. I always find something I really like in the issue.

Short Fiction, edited by Anthony Caleshu

Issue 2 of Short Fiction showed up in my mailbox, and I don't remember ordering it, but I'm glad I did. Margaret Irish's story "The Searcher," grabbed me and wouldn't let go, so I wrote a letter to the editor thanking him, and subscribed for a year.

Sprinkles

Yesterday I needed a pick-me-up while helping my husband with his Christmas shopping, so we stopped in at a local ice cream shop called Sprinkles. It's at the end of a local shopping plaza (a.k.a. "the strip mall"), past a store called Tuesday Morning, that does not sell mornings, but sells all sorts of off-loaded junk from stores like TJ Maxx. I wanted ice cream, probably because I saw the ice cream parlor. Forty minutes earlier I wanted hot chocolate because I saw a sign for it. I was already deep in the "must have what I want now" spirit of holiday shopping, weakened by every advertising scheme. I was fatigued. I NEEDED a dusty road sundae.

Sprinkles is owned and run by a friendly retired couple, who I like to imagine always liked ice cream and wanted to share their love of frozen treats with the public. It's a small shop, with some hand painted murals of giant slobbery ice cream cones on the walls that seem so happy they have shivered all their sprinkles off into confetti. The signs for specials are all hand-lettered with sharpie marker, they sell juice in cans, and a few lonely hot dogs spin on a warmer. A small TV sits on top of the soda cooler and lazes out a Sunday football game. A Christmas tree takes up valuable real estate at a four person table near the window.

I ordered a dusty road sundae, with no nuts, and Dan had some chocolate peanut butter ice cream while he read the local arts paper. The malt reminded me of Farmer's Dairy Ice Cream Store. Dan was done with his ice cream. "You ready?" he asked.

"Don't you like it in here? Don't you want to stay?" The hot dogs continued their spin to nowhere behind me.

I wanted to stay. Sprinkles and the malt in my dusty road reminded me of Farmer's Dairy Ice Cream Parlor in Hazleton. When my dad first got his job in Pennsylvania, and we were still living in New Jersey, he stayed at Genetti's Best Western on Rt. 309 in Hazleton. I remember visiting him, eating at Genetti's restaurant, playing a few rounds of Asteroids on the game in the lobby, and then going across the highway to the ice cream parlor together.

I can't find a photo of it on the internet, or I'd post one here. It's design was a tribute to the orange kitchens of the 1970's. I remember orange and white rectangular tiles on the front underneath a wall of windows, and a large sign that said "Farmer's Dairy Store" in a script that no Postscript typeface matches. Was there a cow head? I think so. It was a brown and white one. Through the windows you could see the counter with spinning stools and the giant white globe lights that hovered above all of it like eerie spacecraft. Ah, I see my sister and her braids. My dad and his hornrimmed glasses. My mother in her turtleneck and Sassoon haircut. Me, still waiting for two front teeth. Dusty roads.

A Sudden Bedtime Story

There was a wind. It was a pushy gust of a wind that plowed through the trees. This wind made the sky rattle and the trees all pray to the ground that held them. The mushrooms, once snugged in dead leaves, were stripped of their blankets and left with their pale legs showing. Twigs crackled. Birds were tossed on the whims of this sudden air, and squirrels chattered and barked. There was a wind that forced its way through a forest, and as if it had a really good cry, it swallowed and gulped, then slipped away. The trees stopped praying to their mother, the mushrooms went on trumpeting, and the story ended with a whisperwoosh.

An Open Letter of Warning for My Beloved

Love keeps a detailed record of being wronged, because love loves making lists and always being correct, spot-on and in the right. Love is irritable after long drives alone, when love likes to get into her own head and stew on the immeasurable universe of being alive. Love occasionally rejoices at injustices – little ones of course, like when the kid she didn’t like much got yelled at by the third grade teacher even though he wasn’t chewing paper. I think you already know that love is NOT patient. Love can’t wait for you to come home even as she watches your heel lift off the last step, love wakes up at 6 a.m. and expects you to have a long conversation about her strange dreams, love nicks mushrooms as you are cooking them. Love will give up if she’s dehydrated and overheated. Keep her temperature level, please. Love is kind and also bitter, love likes to boast about her waist size, her score at Scrabble, and her ability to guess who is going to call the house next. Love is rude for writing this, and demanding for making you read it, and because it is getting late into the night and love has an early bedtime, love is now irritable. Love just wants to wake up early and tell you everything she saw in her dreams.

Shoeboxes Under My Bed

I've been on some kind of weird organizational wave lately. First it was the kitchen pantry, then the studio closets. Last week I tore down the curtains that hid all the old craft items in the guestroom and cleaned off those shelves to make way for books. Yesterday I really tucked into that project, and one cleaned area opened up an entire other cluttered area - shelves led to closet, closet led to under the bed, under the bed pointed to the bedroom, bedroom cried out living room. What better time to sit in the middle of the guest room floor and sift through a thick strata of old photographs, cat-chewed artwork, notes from second grade, and computer parts? I mean, my wedding is only two weeks away.

I have always had odd timing when it comes to projects like these. If it's 90 degrees outside, I get a wild weed to rip up all the carpeting in the hallway and paint the floor. Wedding soon? Major events to host in the studio coming up? Phoo. Rearrange the furniture, fill up trashbags and reorganize all your books according to the Dewey Decimal system.

Man With an Infallible Memory

No, I don't remember the walls of the womb that carried me. But the cut of her hair, the way it looks like rainy pavement today, and how in 1978 it was autumn birch leaves - I remember that. On February 20th, the kitchen floor had a sticky spot near the refrigerator. My wool sock picked it up through its fibers and played tacky tacky all day as I walked. The scent of vanilla on Wednesday, May 6th 1984. I sat behind a girl wearing a red t-shirt. She drew spirals and cubes in the margins of her notebook and chewed on the end of her pencil. When she turned around to ask me for my notes, she half-smiled in a way that made her look like a sagging jack-o-lantern. I told her I don't take notes. The room was humid and the teacher's chalk squealed on the board. September 17th, 1998. I remember what you said, the timbre of your voice, tilt of your hip. The door sealed shut with a fwip, didn't slam like in all the novels. It was autumn so many times, spring, summer, winter's empty page for everyone else, but I remember everything.