Days 30 and 31

One nice thing that is sabbatical allows is that you can write for yourself first. Often with deadlines, I find myself writing for an audience before I write for myself and what I mean is what would I really love to write for myself in about things? For example, my mythology and boys project now seems like it would be a project solely on baseball with submit those along the lines of the end of the season the end of summer The Boys of Summer leaving and what it means 4 things to become over. I took asmund to the baseball game last night the third-to-last game and found a few poems in our experience. I went the night before and found by myself that's sinking depression. So I'm getting these in poetry form in the overall project book would be something about that, maybe an extension of strikeout, about the difficult father-son relationships as well as friendships.

Today I also wrote three poems and response to Kevin ponds as well as wrote the final poem for Kelly painting project. And her artwork is worth $1,700 and I need to get it back to her right away because of that!

I can see that on Monday I will need to do lots of editing of all of this as I know I have some major poems from these last few days I need to get into Word document and get them sent out.

Day 29

Today was Barbara and my third meeting at the pond and Gage Park and it was so productive today. We are really enjoying this time together and collaboration and discovering our collaboration what it means. We simply sit together and we can feed off the energy from each other of just being at peace in the park, of looking. I will often look at what she is sketching and use that as a moving Force to discover when I want to write about next. She looks over and we have a talk and she decides what she'd like to sketch. For example, she was sketching the bridge and did this amazing sketch of it, while I was writing about the bridge about the phrase things being under the bridge while it's growing with ivy.

We then felt cold and went to Blackbird and we talked about her ideas of using black white and gray paper and that I hadn't even thought about how to present my poems yet. I've always wanted to learn how to use a Letterpress and this might give me the chance to learn, to reserve time to learn how to use Letterpress for using the press to make poems. Really, this sabbatical might be all about having time again to learn something new to write in the way I love writing to explore things that I haven't thought of. I'm writing a lot about carrying the children now too which is sometimes tough to think about how to enter those poems. I'm so close to them so how can I write from that distance that poets need? I've been using a lot of what my boys say as ways to enter poems, but now it might be the experience itself of leaving home of what it means to go to the park to the pond.

As far as the Letterpress there is that faculty member Michael Hager who has the Letterpress but I don't think it's working. There's another faculty member who has her own Letterpress and boy did I forget her name. The Lawrence Arts Center allows people to use their Letterpress. Also 712 Innovations has a laser cutter so having cut out poems might be a really interesting effect for what the poems look like black paper with a green background coming through to make the words.

We also discuss then a collaboration as installation as I told her about making a piece from different pieces to form the shape of the pond. This would introduce the element of time, a meditation, Assembly not just looking and moving on but being stopped asked to look at each piece read each piece look at the photos with a sketches throughout the pond just as we sat in front of the pond doing that, looking at each piece of the pond and as well as a whole. I'm going to start looking for leaves for Barbara to use for nature printing and it made me think of how my boys love leaves how I love doing sketches of leaves with crayon in that with leaf printing it looks so organic because you're not sure where the ink will go.

Finally, this is a time where asmond made a small canvas that said no and he let out his energy and feeling a frustration into a positive thing on canvas. How may I work with us for my own either in poetry form or an art. How can I have my children continue doing sketches and drawings for possible book?

I've been also quoting a lot of the things that Barbara says and that might be its own interesting thing?

One of our discussions today when she saw I was carrying around a book ironically called the carrying by Ada Lyman, that she looks at art for inspiration to if she feels stuck. I like to carry books around in the same way that I'm not alone in my writing. Today, this book served me well in my own creativity. This is just a reminder to pick up my books to about childhood writing as soon as they come in through interlibrary loan.

Day 28

I sent three ekphrastic poems to Cally Krallman based on her paintings. I will finish one more.

I am doing a lot of editing today. I've also sent poems out for publishing. It's even eaiser than it was just years ago!

This afternoon: send children poems and 
I want to edit the park poem, send to Pleides.

Venom https://entropymag.org/woven-as-they-walk-through-the-door/

Submit the predator and Venom essay to entropy Arts culture and to Bennington review.   https://entropymag.org/what-entropy-editors-want-to-publish-in-2018/

http://www.batcityreview.org/submit/


Copy over poem from messenger

At some point: compile all of the poems about the boys, mythology, toxic masculinity



PROJECT: Ritual of ____

Drive Ins
Comic books
singing
dancing

Day 27

Read through and ordered Napoleon Dynamite articles today. I am hoping to finish this essay first, as it is speaking to me.

I also want to mine through my writing. I need to get a lot of what is in my Moleskine typed.

The boys are doing their homework as I sit with them.

Day 26

Even though we use Sundays for day of rest we had a chance to do a lot of planning and getting ready for our house so I was on the computer and I submitted a few poems to different literary journals. I'm also looking at what other things to submit and where to submit when the time comes.

To work on this week
Napoleon Dynamite essay
The Predator and Venom essay

Cally ekphrastic
Type up pond poems

Royals poem

Days 24 and 25

I am getting past that worried that I'm not getting done what I want to get done into finishing these projects and seeing that the work has come to fruition.

When Victory is finishing the syllabus and course policy statement for the psychology of Poetics class. I submitted them last night.

Another Victory is the collaboration between Barbara and me. We are both finding it regenerative, allowing for 2 or 3 hours at as a space to create allows for a lot to happen especially as we return to the same space, the pond and Gage Park just close to the Rose Garden. I've noticed she starts with sketching a tree, something she said she never makes time for just to sit down and sketch. I noticed I don't allow for a lot of time for me just to sit down and write whatever comes to mind, that many of my poems are generated from prompts or impulses that hit me to write the poem instead of immersing myself into a space. Even when I did the poems for this removed Utopia, I didn't allow for enough time to truly immerse myself into each space I wrote from. We were also pleased to think we're not sure what this work will look like what it will turn out to be. I started imagining I 1 complete pond made of different parts of poems and her photographs and sketches. I really enjoyed doing the concrete poem of the pond, and I wonder if that is a form I could repeat to show that the same pond is not the same pond that it is a different Pond every time you visit. This is because not only something has changed in it and the water has changed and the landscape has changed but the viewer has also changed.

We do have a lot of yard work today, but I am marking today as another day of riding as I collect the books about childhood which can be found here: http://dennisetzeljrsabbatical.blogspot.com/2018/06/poets-writing-about-children.html

I will be doing some initial response writing, as well as sending Kevin the response poems for his Three Palms you recently sent me. Sure it's a lot of work I did

Days 22 and 23

I was able to do a lot of writing on my own and both Lincoln and Omaha. A visit to Madeleine's classes really invigorated me on one level but I did grow tired on another so we skipped the open mic night we were going to do and I am thankful we cancelled.

The Alamo Drafthouse in Lavista just outside of Omaha was truly amazing they had built their own theater and it was so incredible lots of people were there just even on a Tuesday late night I was totally floored. I got to see the Predator so I'm getting to work on my Predator sa a little more.

The items that need the most attention right now for me would be the psychology of Poetics class and getting the syllabus finished, sending work to some new literary magazines who would ask for work. Also there is the Little House s a I would really love to finish I am so close.

Day 21

Writing an ekphrastic poem on A Sunday Afternoon at the Park? Nope. The name even is disputable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sunday_Afternoon_on_the_Island_of_La_Grande_Jatte
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/27992
http://mentalfloss.com/article/63510/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-sunday-la-grande-jatte-1884
http://www.dailyartmagazine.com/sunday-la-grande-jatte-georges-seurat/

I'm realizing that memory you become such a big part of my work because there was so much my life where it was difficult to even think of memory to approach the past or even to hold memories in to remember things I sometimes still have difficulties on bad days what I call bad days where my mental health isn't and check and to remember even names or things and I'm sure many people feel this way too so maybe my work is a way to connect with others through this idea of memory

Another thing again that I see that Documentary Poetics has shown me is the past is still relevant when you've connected to the context of the present without calling it the past and our lives are this way and especially having children where time just seems to go by so fast yes these are all cliches but this is something we can use for our art and in my poetry I see this coming with the even sitting down to write about the painting Sunday afternoon in the Park which is actually a person painting with a different name that I had seen in Chicago a long time ago with my mothers so everything about the painting is not just the painting itself but all of the contacts historical personal familial about it the style of the painting with the painting was trying to do the zone contexts of interpretations and then what am I trying to discover in my writing process about what the painting has to show me

Ultimately I'm realizing that the theme of the park is going to become many of the poems. Also the ekphrastic books I'm carrying will help guide me to my own poems

Day 20

We made it to Lincoln okay, a wonderful drive, and are settled in Joy's apartment.  I was glad to have finished the start to a poem about the theme of assault or unwanted moves. I saw the Leslie at PT's during the Woodland meeting and got a chance to speak to her and she confirmed it.

In the world of Winnie the Pooh puffalumps don't exist in the real world but they actually do. They're actually elephants and no one wants to speak about them in the room so Winnie the Pooh in his friends are scared of the Hubble lumps they are not afraid to talk about Heffalumps.

Woozles and weasels
Lurk where you would not find them in the normal world

Day 19

Getting notes and fragments down: boys discovering they love each other, and even though boys can marry other boys they do not need to get married.

Good news on the house, so that's a relief. We are still going to Lincoln. Planning this trip to get away.

When I visit U of NE, Lincoln, I am going over how to make zines.

to do:
Edit existing writing
Gather books for childhood writing
Watch films for writing projects: Napoleon Dynamite, Predator

Revision is still the troubler
I am getting the words out with no problem

Day 18

I spent the morning in Gage Park with Barbara and our plein air project. 1 take away from today was how we both don't make time for just being, for just doing something without thinking about an audience. In other words, just writing for fun just playing on the paper. She said it had been forever since she just sat and sketched. And I admit I hadn't just spent more than two hours just writing whatever came to me. We decided not to really restrict ourselves and a timeline that we have to finish. She was actually relieved when I thought it might be too flexible. The Next Step will be transcribing writing in creating poems out of the fragments I wrote.


In other news we need to get a new lender.

However, I'm looking forward to our trip in my visit to Madeline class. Plus we'll be reading at the Crescent Moon on Monday night and imaginary Gardens reading series on Tuesday night.

Days 16 and 17

I am on the road with Parsons and Council Grove giving TALKs. However, I am not getting the inspiration I was hoping for. I can't find my flashdrive with my work, but will check the office when I get back. However, I will be able to piece together things as I have done a lot of boive to text writing.

There are other personal things, but they are driving a lot of my writing now.

I am switching to Google Docs to keep my work somewhere. Flash drives, not so much.

I wrote a poem to Anne PW Hawkins based on her experience on the road.

Week four, and I hope this can help me come back as a phoenix--to write out of more inspiration because I hit rock bottom.

Movies to see and write from:
How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days
Fried Green Tomatoes
The Predator
Venom

Day 15

I worked on a poem about my other mother, her gardening, what it means to write about gardening when gardens are found in so many patches, plots, poems.

Getting ready for my TALKs on Monday and Tuesday, too.

Days 13 and 14

Immersion project number 14 at the Boulevard Beer Hall where Beowulf meets feminism with a little Scalapinian alexia writing not as disorder but as writing the future via thesaurus work.

Immersion project fifteen at the up-down Barcade playing pinball games while poetically describing stream-of-consciousness. While recording voice to text.

Immersion project sixteen, at the Alamo Drafthouse,  writing poems addressed to my sons, alexia via Scalapinian approach.

Today, I worked on editing.

Day 12

We had a wonderful anniversary spent in Kansas City. We got to go to the drive-in at night with the boys and we saw Christopher Robin before everyone was tired and we drove home while everyone was sleeping.

Today is Labor Day, and I'm working on Gage Park poems. I have to now so I'm going to look at those and revise while I'm thinking of Leslie scalapino and her idea of the future and writing while scanning a dictionary. She is using a process of Alexia not as mental disorder but word blindness a trance-like screen stream overriding meaning choice and inhibition.

I may do that with the thesaurus for one more Pond poem today.

I am meeting with Jericho at blackbird at 11 a.m. to pass over the books her students will scan for PDFs for our psychology of Poetics class. I also want to design Flyers as well as plan or wrap up for the syllabus.

This afternoon, editing poems, designing flyers.

1 surprising thing about returning to the pond as a ritual is that how existential my writing is and maybe that what we think of as purposeful existential thought is actually natural thought if we are trying to line ourselves with something natural. I'm going to the pond and feeling it as real as I'm doubting if I am creating or imagining it. Maybe the ritual itself tells me that each time is new and there are two emerging themes , layers and time fullness I don't want to say timeless I want to say that yes there is no present or future or even passed but things are full of that.

It's interesting going through these books for the psychology of Poetics class looking at all of the case-by-case and written words of how to use writing to heal oneself and that how it took me a time to do this on my own knowing instinctively this would work not knowing that there were tools out there to find books to find this was very pre-internet so how could one know that someone was writing about this very thing