NEWS!

i FINALLY bit the bullet and ordered my 100-copy run of "prayers of calcitrant" - my little self-published chapbook project vial Lulu. so, yeah, i'm HELLA excited to have it in my hand and to put it into the hands of others.

gonna sell it for $10 in-person and $15 if i have to mail it off to you (to cover shipping). i'll put up a pic of it later. i just wanted to shriek about having actually paid the money and ordered the copies more than anything.

triple arruh

got my rejection letter from Rattle a few minutes ago.

i need to take my redbox movies back before they end up costing me a fortune - yep, one dollar at a time.

rice krispies at 1 am are better than rice krispies in the morning = scientifically proven FACT.

just like the fact that any sandwich consumed after midnight becomes a SAMMICH. and chicken becomes CHIGGEN. these are important facts about the universe that everyone needs to know.

c'mon, mary, let's SKYPE!

day. care?

here's what i'm listening to right now:

just submitted to the cortland review.

i also submitted my child to an hourly drop-off daycare while i worked my five hours for the day, teaching a strategies class. she was wearing a white veil and a tutu over her sweatpants, and i was afraid. visions of mysterious bruises on baby brown skin danced in my head. tearful exits. fearful screams. soiled "big girl panties" and disoriented blank stares. all that rot. yeah ... i'm one of THOSE moms.

right. like anybody could punk THAT kid. hard to believe i almost named her "lotus." gentle flower she ain't. she enjoyed the drop-in place. when i walked in to get her, she was wandering about, singing her favorite paramore song, still in her tutu, drinking a capri-sun.

thanks to the following people for talking to me about poetry and bullsh*t: scott, mary, self. scott: i promise i won't drive myself crazy. mary: find me a poet to marry, ok? please and thanks in advance. self: clean the kitchen tomorrow before you get any more agitated than you already are.

"failing better' update 04-12-10

there are too many literary journals in the world! can you say "overwhelming"??!!

everyone's coming back from the AWP Conference in denver. my facebook is rather flooded with status messages from people boasting the fatigue of having "done" the conference. i feel like such an outsider. dammit, i'm gonna be there in 2011!!

i just sent five of my poems to Innisfree Poetry Journal. i don't know how to feel about that submission, but it's just one of many. and that's not even a journal from my FAILBETTER list!

and speaking of ... CHECK OUT THAT LIST!!! it's dwindling down to nothing (yeah right)!

i'll be sending off my submission to the Barrow Street book contest tomorrow.

there's coffee in queue in the coffeemaker. the baby will have instant oatmeal, fruit and possibly a little cheese (if she wants it) for brekkie in the morning. but i'm NOT cleaning that kitchen tonight. i've decided i should learn to appreciate the banalities of life as something more closely resembling a normal person. i'll never get rid of them, after all, but my time draws near ... i'm going back into the circus tent with the rest of the artist-types. meanwhile, refusing to clean the kitchen at 2 am is no small act of rebellion. i'll take what i can get.

trying to get back what i lost, maybe.

i am, as of about 15 minutes ago, reading Nota by Martin Corless-Smith. he put it in my hand several years ago at a poetry reading (i think i paid for it. either way, he signed it.) but i never actually tried to read it until just now.

why do i wait so long to do things? this poetry is difficult and wandering and musical and PEACEFUL somehow. martin was one of my professors at boise state, where i got my MFA. when i say that he was brilliant, what i mean is that i couldn't understand a fucking word he said, and even that isn't true. i understood some of the fucking words he said, and it was at those times (within my moments of grasping, even for a split second, the densely abstract thinkymadness with which martin tried to enrich me/us) that i KNEW poetry was about so much more than whatever was going on inside a head or a heart at any moment.

i could feel things outside the greedy realm of selves (students and a prof in a cramped classroom, let's say) converging and conspiring to create a moment of almost random purity i couldn't even articulate, let alone try to capture. i don't think i ever got to thank him for that, or for wine, or for food, or for crashings at his house, or for humoring me in any of the million ways in which he MUST have humored me during my three years under his tutelage. i'm bad at thanking people for things, and (sometimes) that's a shame.

all this to say, martin, i loved your classes and i dig your book. and thank you.

-m

"failing better" update 04-08-10

i haven't updated in a while, but i SWEAR i've been thinking about it!

i just found out today that i have slightly elevated blood pressure. i'm about to start taking something called a "water pill." gonna have to ask my grandmother about that one. wow.

i got a brochure in the mail from California Institute of the Arts. their poetry mfa looks pretty interesting. i'm still seriously considering applying for my second mfa.

and i STILL have no desire to be in a poetry slam. *bangs gavel on that one*

so, i'm going to send my most recent poetry manuscript, "getting (her) born" in to the Barrow Street Press 2010 Book Contest. the deadline for submission is june 30, 2010.

there's nothing that should stop me from having MY submission in the mail by MONDAY. if i lollygag even a little bit, it just won't get done. soooo, here's the plan:

- look through the MS tonight

- type up the necessary cover pages, etc. tomorrow and email a copy of all that stuff to myself.

- print off the MS and cover pages at work (don't judge me!) on saturday afternoon.

- get me a manila envelope from the wally-greens saturday after work.

- put the MS and such in the padded mailer and address it.

- take it to the post office by my grandmother's house on monday afternoon before work and mail it off.

no one should have to write bulleted lists like that to themselves. whatever. no one should procrastinate the way i do. i know myself too well. anyway, i'm gonna see if i can also submit some of my poems to Barrow Street's journal tonight. wish me luck.

check out the updates on the failbetter list! i'm making progress!

the "fail better" mission, update 03-29-10

*yawns*

i submitted three of my poems for Adirondack Review's 46er Prize for Poetry just a few minutes ago. they've got a neat little system, too. your entry fee is based on how many poems you submit (1 is $5, 2 is $8 and 3 is $10). AND you pay the fee via paypal. talk about convenient!

i also corresponded with a very intelligent novelist on facebook, who told me i should be prepared to perform at the drop of a hat. good advice. i wonder what that MEANS in terms of fiction, though ... do people walk up to fiction writers and say, "hey, spout some prose for my kids!"?

it's probably WAY too 1:30 to ponder this. but there's my update. thanks for the comments, friends. invite your homies to my blog! hell, i dunno why. maybe so i can feel famous?

m.