Other Projects

Puerto del Sol just accepted two of my erasure poems from Strike Out--the first two to be published! It makes me want to revisit all of those sheets I went through, circling words. Something to work on in January.

Also, my 90's poems! I want to write more, but I am nowhere near being able to watch the films again. On hold until 2019.

Day 70

The day before Yesterday was a wonderful day as I had had good discussions with great people. One thing I'm thinking about that Jericho had mentioned is the idea of flow, the psychological condition to be able to do work easily. This is a really interesting idea with Building Concept Concepts as well as being ready to write at a certain time, allowing that energy to hold and you know that you will be writing at a certain time on a certain day and that's what you end up doing easily. It's more difficult to just pause and think okay I'm going to write something. It's really hard to do that. So maybe that is something to think of for classes, not to ask a student to do writing before the next meeting but to tell us student to be ready to write when we meet the next time and tell them what they will be writing. To let that stew and congeal so that it comes out when it's ready.

With that said I could not get any writing done yesterday. I felt the Blues. It often happens this time of year, but on the good side the good stuff follows.It's like today I was ready to write this morning and I wrote five poems one of them more of a revision to not so well but the other two are going to be great.

Day 69

Today was another day for epiphanies. After feeling so rotten about my writing and feeling like it wasn't going anywhere, I had a good break through. I think this is good to know for the psychology of Poetics course as well as beginning poetry writing. Maybe any poetry writing? We're just going to feel bad about our work. Jericho's one of the people I met today and she said what a relief it was to hear that I could be working on a project for 4 years and just getting to where I was feeling I could get things published. I'm referring to strike out. Also I met with Denise and she's moving to California which is great. However, she wasn't really happy with the recent reception for her latest book. On the other hand, she's sold 1000 copies of her memoir. So these are all good things to include.

So with the Dilemma and poetry writing I do one of my favorite things which is go to the Topeka Shawnee County Public Library and go to their new poetry section and just start perusing books. They have someone there who knows how to order just the best of what's coming out. I was amazed that they even had Julia cars new one that I thought I would need to buy and I did but that they had it. When I was looking through the books it dawned on me looking at Lake Michigan by Daniel borzutzky that I could do the very same thing with my Gage Park Book. It looks like a palm he has is based on a photo. That very poor my turn to and I thought of Gage Park photo of the person who was digging out a trench. Now in this photo it happened to be a black man in the hole digging and a white man supervising. This was a very telling photo to me and about the class and race intertwined and what it means. This is similar to what Barbara and I discussed that we had the privilege to just have time to go to the park to write. It's very intertwined with class race gender. So getting back to the poem from Lake Michigan it is on page 52 Lake Michigan seen 11 this is wonderful to see how I will finish this sabbatical out. This will be the process of deciding what goes into the past the present or the future.

Day 68

Am I scared about this cento? Yes. Am I scared about climate change more? No. Is this scary? Well, people will be critics about Two Ponders when it comes out. People have already accepted climate change is going to get worse. Ah, well.

I decided to use the articles for wherever "climate change" appears, I take the next few words. Taking two phrases from each.

Also, I have the films ready.

Greek deluge myths, we'll see.

[

 https://s3.amazonaws.com/cot-wp-uploads/wp-content/uploads/utilities/CCR.pdf

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for tomorrow, use Google Books
and find articles
look up names (see previous blog entry)

Day 67

After this Thanksgiving Break, I am ready to finish the rest of my two week sabbatical with Part III of my first Project and to send poems out for publishing.

I just had two poems accepted for Lagom: A Journal.
https://www.theparagonjournal.com/new-intern-lit-mag
"Post-Memory & Field"

Oh, while I am here, Taproot has taken "Kansas Highway, Hidden Tallgrass Prairie" for Issue 31: Revive. 

Both of these are honors!
 
I also revised "At the Movies with the Predator" based on the notes Jericho gave me and am submitting now.

Working on cento, went through my library books. Now it is on to the online articles, movie synopses, etc.

Climate Crisis

Mark levinson, The Box
Paul Beckwith
Peter Wadhans, A Farewell to Ice
Roy Scranton
Dahr Jamail

Atomic number for water

One website implied that atomic number for water could be 10, because hydrogen 1 + 1 with oxygen + 8 equals 10. But maybe it is 118? I will look through my books on page 118 for any sign.

After sabbatical planning

After going to mmla I realize I should really continue with my strikeout project. It's something that I haven't really received a lot of feedback on but I feel is the best use of Poetics, of Erasure. I will also continue with the lyric things for it, but the use of the Pentagon papers is really vital. Also, I want to add the idea of using the movie posters to create new kinds of posters of texts.

Day 66

Out of the spirit of CA Conrad, I should be able to do some writing even if I'm sick. So here goes from the inspiration of Beth Ann fennelly book Heating and Cooling 52 micro memoirs, pick something from your house each day and December and write a micro memoir including that object as figured for a poem. I also just wrote A Small poem based on the Captain Marvel trailer.

Being sick

I am bedridden, feeling helpless, but also feel Clarity of the things around me. I love hearing the boys playing downstairs, and all the people who are willing to help us move understanding that this day that we were supposed to move ended up not being a day because of me being sick. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, in the holidays will be here soon. I want to just Embrace what is special about this time having it with family and to get to our new house where things will be better for us.

Formula for chento: equal parts water Crisis books, climate crisis articles, my own scrying, Deluge myths.

Plans

So the update what needs to be done, I have the text for Parts 1 & 2 for project one that I need to figure out how to create, IE Letterpress. Part 3 I mean to go through the books and myths and create an Excel spreadsheet of those sentences to make my chinto. I need to revise the at the movies piece for project 2, as well as get the poems I wrote the last week into a file. I should also send out work soon too. One final thing, I should read through my blogs to see what I've missed. I noticed I was going to do something for the strikeout project using movie posters. I would like to revisit that as documentary Poetics became the Hot Topic at mmla.

Day 65

For the last day of the conference I attended three panels to I chaired, too I served on. It was a lot of good writing that happened. I wrote a kind of invocation about going to the movies and there's a lot of Hope For That. I was thinking of a poem I read in poetry magazine that led me thinking about hooking myth us with humor with underlying Terror. Thinking of fairytale elements creation myths and such. I met a new poetry friend Ryan Clark. So I hope we can stay in touch.

With the topic of documentary Poetics being at the Forefront of the last panel, it reminds me I should revisit strikeout in my erasers of the Pentagon papers as soon as I finish with my project with Barbara.

Day 64

It's day two of the mmla conference and I'm having breakfast at the Roasterie Cafe at H&R Block. I'm drinking the holiday blend and it's wonderful. I'm also reflecting on how writing is a type of divining and scrying of one's mind. Sure as someone's beginning poetry writing their often prompts or trying different parts of the tools, but there's something to be said about allowing the freedom to explore someone's emotions or the difficulties when is facing at the time. I know I've said before that poetry is a way to explore a problem or a bear barrier that one can't find an answer but it's in the representation that something is found. Poetry itself creates the meaning of the moment. I'm realizing there's a lot on my mind about feminist issues at the moment so I'm writing about that.

It's almost lunch time and Kevin and I are riding in the lobby at the hotel. I'm realizing that a lot of my writing is taking on defensive Ness, being at defense about myself or for others. I'm guessing that it's my psyche being triggered because of the panels of someone I know here.

I wrote poems based on what I heard at Jericho's panel and at Vanessa's panel. I also wrote tonight.

Day 63

Kevin and I are in KC for the MMLA Conference, visiting Thou Mayest Coffee in the Crossroads district. Jericho gave me AMAZING feedback for At the Movies, and I need to up my game! Maybe we can use her feedback for our course?

I am collecting Greek Myth flood myths, safer to appropriate for my cento.Also, scifi films--disaster films. I will want to go through the water books, too.

Writing the Highlander essay has led me to working on a biopoem about geek culture. Hidden artifices to deny my depression.

Day 62

Yesterday was a meditation on writing just as it was on a day of not writing. When I was watching the boys as Carrie went to a Fiber Fest, I didn't know how to handle the excitement of five boys doing different things at the same time. It's not one of my strengths and it's something I should develop, but it makes me think about writing and this idea about finding your voice. It's true we find a voice which means finding a better way to use language and writing and developing from the tools of each discipline. However, finding your voice actually means finding your strengths. Like I am still never likely to publish a short story even though I've been writing fiction for a long time. Carrie like some of my stories and I do too, but nevertheless I know my strengths are more in poetry than they are in fiction. Frankly, I can think of Life as a measurement of what we decide to use our strengths in. That goes for whatever occupation we choose, whatever we do we follow that cliche accentuate the positive. Find your strengths and focus on those. Likewise, after having a couple of days of painting with primer I was very ready to paint. Writing can be that way that you've had a couple of days to write, and then if you tell yourself you will be writing at a certain time while longing to write you are going to be riding at that time. For example, if you can't write on Saturday but tell yourself I'm going to be riding Sunday morning, you'll be doing something like I am right now, finding a way to write that you wake up wanting to write and you do it.

I've realized that the teacher in me, knowing I will be teaching to poetry courses next semester, has turned my blog into a meditation about writing. I thought about Bloom's book the anxiety of influence, and for me it's the influence of anxiety.

I'm an anxious person and sometimes my poetry reflects that so people don't like my poetry if it's too fast. Isn't there a place for poetry that is too fast?

About teaching and writing it's true that when someone who would be a creative writer I'm practicing writer is teaching in the middle of the semester they find little if no time to do their own writing. However, the flip side is when a writer takes on that really negative View and I've heard what the people have said like forget about the students. I could give you the number of stories about this but all I can say is I know that my work ethic

It's not that view that I put the students first. The sabbatical is taught me yes I need to reserve a couple of hours for my own writing and meet myself there but it's horrible to think someone accepts a teaching job just as a glorified position. But this happens all the time! Even a certain poet from Topeka who went on to make it big was let go from Indiana University because he refused to teach even though horses were assigned to him and that was the job he agreed to do. Okay I'm going to stop there with my stories, but the point is how do we do others how do you see other people do you see each person as a sacred being or do you slip back into the notion that you should only care about your own writing and maybe some friends poetry and everyone else is just a waste of time.

About the Poetry Wars I totally understand about teaching poetry out of a certain movement that one feels strong about again going back to writing out of your strengths and maybe teaching out of your strengths, but putting down a certain poetry movement doesn't help anything. I've had the joy of going through different types of

And modes of writing like starting with lyric freeform going to the traditional forms figuring out how to break those and use those forms and contemporary ways yes I would say I was post confessional, and going to a school that put down language poetry and going to another school where I could focus on language poetry. It's about understanding just like everything someone doesn't like what they don't understand but it's about how is figure out why someone uses a certain technique or form or movement in writing

Julia Cameron in her book The Artist way talked about morning pages that you wake up in the morning to write. It's a really good process and I think the reason why that book is still popular after decades.

 

Thinking about the overall sabbatical part 2 where I was going to write about toxic masculinity, it has really shifted with a recent Revelations I was given this summer and I now see that the poems about my son's will still be part of it but the overall emphasis will be about toxic masculinity and being at the movies. I think the title at the movies with The Predator will be the working title now.

I think this is also telling about the creative process because if it was just a research project I was working on I would be doing the research it would be clear-cut oh I'm writing about this and maybe Revelations would come later but with creative writing the revelations are always coming on

Days 60 and 61

Sometimes you get your laptop out and there's nothing to create you look at screens and you're in a haze so do not try to push it. It's the same with a page maybe something you wanted to ride is not there sometimes you just allow yourself to write something what you want at something silly whatever you're moved in. The reality is there's something in your subconscious wanting out and it's causing your creativity to not go in the direction you wanted to this is where cymatics and help and having a plan like movie watching. Write about something you love doing and see where it goes

I simply moved places and felt like I could accept failure as a part of life that we're going to have off times and I found that by accepting that failure and positioning myself into a different space I felt successful and writing past that failure and even writing about failure could get me to the next poem

Because you're not going to write the best poem you could possibly right at that time even though that would be the ideal that you're going to write the best poem you could possibly right and you want to work on that best poem but there are going to be so many failures but it's likely only said we can accept the failure poems we should be happy with a failure poems because they are poems and we somehow gathered even the notion of putting a word down on the page can you just start with one word even start with the first word that comes to mind or turn to a page and a book and write that word down anything to think about how beautiful our failures can be

Today, I am transcribing many of the poems I wrote in my notebook. Some of them are for the collaboration, While others are for the other part of my sabbatical. I made a breakthrough with looking at writing both a chinto and the quatrain project.

Muses

The hierophant, Hermes Galactus, The Muse of poetry

Day 59

So did I mention the dream that I had the other night, where I wrote a poem that started with one line and had branches out? I realized I can use this technique to write 100 quatre ins that begin with the same line. I want to look at that making up form book again to see what quatrains can do, but I have a pretty good idea using the first line borrowed from what Brenda Hellman wrote in big energy poets. I also wrote a poem with the same title, it's an absurd situation.

The thing I'm finding out and experimenting with this is I wanted to read both ways both left to right up and down and with the trees. The way to do that is 2 right out of the tree perspective then you have a whole column of lines to change to switch around so that you can finish both

Has a fan of index cards this is where the index cards will come in handy to start with 100 cards and putting them on a board so I can move them around change them Etc then all I have to do when I pack up is to put the cards in order and it would deck again. Long-term plan would be that everyone could leave with their own poem as index cards

With instructions of how to spread that out. Wow I'm thinking of Travis and Jenna Marie McDonald as people to submit this to

Today is the first day of snow and with the snow in Awakening. It Dawns on me I'm trying to use the chinto form. To make Quan trains. I need to just go through energy poets book and use fragments to write this poem. I also wonder about using the water books too. For those I will want to specifically find passages that include Pond or water. These are my constraints. So assembling a hundred index cards with spare ones to throw out some of them I don't need will create this poem. This will be perfect for the future project project 3

Maybe this is something to include to that as I'm painting today something my brother-in-law calls menial I am letting go and these ideas just come back to me in my brain as I'm listening to music. By ignoring the project the project comes to me.

3:26 PM

If a poem is imagery and wallpaper patterns I remove poem after poem off the wall, getting to the source, while retaining all the poets who came here before me placing their work up on the wall

Poem scattered on the floor

4:43 PM

So my brother-in-law said painting is a menial job. People Se poetry as the same. When I tried painting it sucjed. Then he showed me tips, and I got better at it. However, he said he got as much wallpaper off the wall, and when I tried I could do it. He put bare effort I to it, got a barely clean wall. I put all into it, found the wall and accomplishmebt. It will take time to write a great poem. You still will need to patch up with spackle.

it happened again this is how you can tie your creativity in as in the back of your mind you have a project you are working on. Here I am using a flat scraper to peel off three to four layers of wallpaper off of the wall and I think of how therapeutic it feels in order to be tearing up in order to build again

Then I think about the destruction myths and before I know it I'm reminding myself about my current chento project and that I need to turn to the destruction myths aka the flood myths  and drought myths to incorporate in my project for today. Appropriating appropriate sources.

My brother-in-law See's poetry as trivial as a bare wall and writing poetry as menial as painting the ball. Still I could paint better once he showed me some tips. And what about the four layers of wallpaper that need removed. He said he removed what he could but when I took up the scraper I could remove everything that was left. It took a while to scrape that all off it took some time to spackle and revise that wall then I could set out with my roller set out to make something shine because I had to make a difference to that wall

Drywall 39 X 23 for hallway into basement

7:37 PM

Bohemian Rhapsody as a project about Highlander the movie Queen soundtrack my mother Topeka eggs depression

Highlander on VHS with all the faded colors is the perfect movie for a depressed teen to fall in love with. We want to believe in the ideas of chivalry before we learn part of the patriarchy is the perpetuation that women need saved. It's actually the older boys we need to save themselves from falling into masculinity

About Queen's Greatest Hits when I was in elementary school about Queens greatest hits when I was in elementary school and I listened to Queen all the time trying to get the Highlander soundtrack until finally a kind of magic was released

The Show Must Go On as a song I'd listen to

Days 57 and 58

Bohemian Rhapsody: It's not just the performance of Freddie Mercury at Live Aid but the performance of the actor playing Freddie Mercury at Live Aid during the film and the Final Act the day new Ma and what was it that the critics did not like the movie as this movie held energy the energy of performance that the actor performing as a performer and what does that do for poetry

I finished for rubbings this morning and what I noticed about them after they were finished is that they are taking a Mythic quality something I want to continue doing that some of them speak about creation and others about Mythic existence. Barbara and I worked at Studio 831 and she was looking at them playing with watercolors trying to decide how to approach each one. I worked on some a project 3 right throughs and just playing around with incantations for looking at ponds. The last day this week I'll work hard on this project will be Friday, reserving all the day to work. With the conference coming up next week and the plumbers coming next week, we want to get our whole house ready. It would be nice to be able to move in right after I arrived back from the conference. However, I will still find ways to do the trickster couplets as they rely on watching movietrailers and that's something I can easily put in fit in the day

After seeing the film last night I do want to tap into those Mythic things even destruction myths might be something to look at flood myths borrowing from the flood myths to create a documentary Poetics approach

God isn't casting judgement this time it's the scientists and the scientists are right and their judgment

Today I was working on a poem about my mother's girlfriend and working on the Boswell house

Widowers who are retired

Still get a life

Day 56

It's raining, so Project Two plans are on hold until tomorrow.

I met with Jericho to discuss plans for next semester, as well as share poems to workshop.

I am also working on Project Three things, with the books I have (see previous post).

Water and Climate Crisis books

from TSCPL

Blue Future - Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever - by Barlow, Maude	Book - 2013	333.91 BAR 33247026588515	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
Cadillac Desert - The American West and Its Disappearing Water - by Reisner, Marc	Book - 1993	333.91 REI 33247026679736	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
Dry Spring - The Coming Water Crisis of North America - by Wood, Chris	Book - 2008	333.91 WOO 33247022233538	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
The Price of Thirst - Global Water Inequality and the Coming Chaos - by Piper, Karen Lynnea	Book - 2014	333.91 PIP 33247026574739	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
Water 4.0 - The Past, Present, and Future of the World's Most Vital Resource - by Sedlak, David L.	Book - 2014	333.91 SED 33247026601714	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
Water Planet - The Culture, Politics, Economics, and Sustainability of Water on Earth	Book - 2016	333.91 WAT 33247028318598	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
Water Supply	Book - 2008	363.61 WAT 33247022585507	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
Water Wars - Drought, Flood, Folly, and the Politics of Thirst - by Ward, Diane Raines	Book - 2002	333.91 WAR 33247015294257	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
When the Rivers Run Dry - Water, the Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century - by Pearce, Fred	Book - 2006	333.91 PEA 33247020037980	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
Whose Water Is It? - The Unquenchable Thirst of A Water-hungry World	Book - 2003	333.91 WHO 33247017053131	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0
Your Water Footprint - The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products - by Leahy, Stephen	Book - 2014	333.91 LEA 33247026949352	Due: Nov 16, 2018 Times Renewed: 0

Poem a Day submissions

How do you submit poems to Poem-a-Day or have a biography added to Poets.org? 
The poems featured in Poem-a-Dayare written by poets who have at least one book published or forthcoming. While the Academy of American Poets does not accept submissions, it encourages poets with forthcoming books to send a galley to Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038, so that it might consider previously unpublished poems for publication. Poets.org features full-length biographies of poets who have published three or more books and have received recognition for their poetry. Short biographies of poets whose poems have appeared in Poem-a-Day are also featured. Unfortunately, we are unable to consider unsolicited biographies at this time.  

Day 55

This weekend was a work-on-the-house weekend. Tomorrow is my turn at painting,  etc. I want to knock out as much as I can.

Before Carrie left, I revised my At the Movies piece which I am showing to Jericho on Monday for feedback.

Monday's plan: meet with Jericho, rubbings.

Tuesday: Studio 831 work with laptop.

Day 54

Happy November!

This is the phase of action. We have done planning and creating--now comes the making.

My At the Movies project is ready for revision. Then I will send to Bennington Review and Bat City Review.

The rubbings at Gage Park are another priority. That will happen Monday or Tuesday.

Checklist for today:
transcribing and moving to google docs
the new series of trailer poems, now called Trickster Film Couplets (TFC)
moved first two scrying poems over


try to write a few more TFC