More reading.

As a note, apparently one of my top search terms is “fuck papyrus.” Why though? What’s wrong with it? And why does it lead to here, my weblog?

So, today I felt super groggy and gross (Did I mention I had knee surgery just about a month ago?) so I did not read much philosophy. Instead, I read:

Karla Kelsey: Into the Eyes of Lost Storms
Donald Hall: Without

So I was eating cous cous for lunch and saw Narwhal, a collection of chapbooks, which I never got a chance to buy because the website was confusing, sitting on the shelf, and read Karla’s immediately. I’m not a good judge of how good it was because, quite honestly, when I see Karla walk it looks like she’s float/gliding and she could rhyme pain with rain and I’d still think, “oh my god, these words are as beautiful as she is.” But anyway: I loved it. And might read it over again at lunch later on.

I ordered Without because he wrote letters poems to his dead wife, much as I am writing letter poems to my dead, dream child. I ILLed this book, read it under the maple in front of the library, cried so much the tears made it to the back of my neck, returned it. Straightforward, sad, but not melancholy.

I just don’t care about Foucault anymore, sorry L.Skitz. But it will get done.

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AWP Day Two

Yesterday: The FUSE panel with all my SU folks went very well. I was very proud of Melissa and Silvana, everything went smoothly! Afterwards, Nadia, Silv, Melissa, and I went to Einstein’s Bagels for lunch and then saw Vanessa Place and other’s read about the materiality and immateriality of words which was absolutely wonderful. Nadia went home, and Silv, Melissa, and I went to the book fair, where I got a bunch of copies of Sonora Review for five bucks. I also purchased a subscription of Gulf Coast for ten bucks because Joe Scap got published in it and because they had an awesome T-shirt with a flying lizard on the front. Then, got Karla’s chapbook published by Pilot Books, 3 Movements, which is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever held in my hands. Last, I was given a free copy of Booth. I’ve read the whole thing already–it was amazing and also the first print issue. Seriously awesome.

Tried to go to this panel about what Editor’s want from writers, but the motherfucker was so packed there wasn’t evens standing room, and people were standing outside of the door craning their necks. We were going to look at all the artisan chapbooks then, but THAT was canceled (Srsly, the TWO things I wanted to see that afternoon), so we went back to the hotel room to read and sleep and etc. Walked all around Denver in search of food (I’m a goddamn trooper), and finally settled on Noodles, which need to exist everywhere (maybe where the old writer’s house was). Went to the George Saunders and Etger Keret reading which was absolutely incredible–I didn’t get tired at such a long reading with only two people! Okay, that’s a lie–I was exhausted and falling asleep, but I was very interested when awake.

Then, talked to Melissa, stumbled to the train. Slept. Now still exhausted.

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Write.Fail.

I’ve tried to write the same poem three days in a row now. Melissa already has a packet coming my way. I wish I had a little Karla Doll that I could pull a string on the back and it would give me writing exercises.

Murderboatin’ in Philly tomorrow. Let’s hope I can sing.

All my affections,

Liz

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Now…to hear from RiverCraft

So, feeling a little better about fiction, at least my naked pictures story.  I wrote a solid two pages of dialogue yesterday and plan on re-writing the first couple of pages today giving context to his daughter and shit.  You know, you know.  Okay, so maybe I’ve decided that the Grandfather story will have to be in third person and that I haven’t even started the re-write yet, but whatever.  At least I’m getting something done.

I met with Karla on Friday about the first super rough manuscript of Girls from the River School, the chapbook I’m hoping to self publish by the end of the semester.  Which is ambitious as shit, considering I also have to do this whole fiction portfolio thing as well as the poetry portfolio thing.  Day-yum.  However, Karla gave me some really good feedback about making my chapbook cohesive and told me that I should consider that my level of writing makes me a real poet that people outside of SU might want to read!  She didn’t use those words exactly, but I walked out of there thinking, “Oh my God, Karla Kelsey respects me as a writer.”

I then went straight to the library and checked out a bunch of books on typography and book making that I don’t have time to read. Neat!

All my affections,

 

Liz

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Karla Saves the Day

So today in Adv. Poetry we read a poem called “fuck” that was mostly about how everyone should say fuck in three haikus.  Karla made us say fuck over and over to see if it would lose its meaning.  Karla looked me in the eye and said fuck twice and believe me when I say that that word can not lose its meaning if it is coming out of the mouth of Karla Kelsey.  She could speak purely in pronouns, and it would be beautiful.  Nevertheless, I think that any word will use its meaning if abused.  The word “nice” is an example.  Yeah, it means something, but not much.

In contemporary poets, we watched a 20 minute thing on John Ashbery and I can’t decide whether or not I hate or love that guy. It started with this clip:

Ok, so yeah, dude’s old and retired and won some ridiculous shit, but seriously.  He writes poetry  for two hours and then sleeps? And later, when he talked about his revision process, he essentially said that he trained himself to be lazy so that he could write poetry without editing it.  The poems he doesn’t like he just trashes.  His poems, at least the ones I’ve read from Some Trees are, as I explained to my class, “why my mother hates poetry.”  Their language is conversational, but their meaning is foggy.   Their lineation seems to purely be for lineation.  At the same time, he seems like a nice dude who just wants to write poetry, and I’m okay with that. 

Anyway, there are plenty of things that I should be doing instead of this right now, the first of which is drink Hot Chocolate with Cornelius.

All my affections,

Liz

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