england vs. america

today i am off to teach/take part in a panel discussion on the differences between american vs. british contemporary poetry. considering the rest of the panel is composed of much more established writers, i'm a bit nervous. in any case, i'm sure it will be quite the experience. wish me luck! (p.s. tomorrow i will be getting just a little older, a handful of days closer to thirty, & 366 earth revolutions away from twenty-eight).

{image via cambria}

pop couplets

here's a sugar-poppy tune for you this sunny bank holiday (in england)--i've been listening to it quite a bit since reading this article. who knew lily allen & poetry would end up in the same space?!

tying one on

i may have tied one on last night after my reading (it went well & it was incredibly fizz-filled to have J here to support me). so today i'm feeling a little, well, like i wish i was being wheeled around & that i had a paper bag on hand at all times. tomorrow we are off to stonehenge. nothing like trains & prehistoria to counteract a wild night.

{image via retrofuture}

wednesdays have gone to the words

it's been a while since i followed through on my wednesdays. but now seems as good a time as any to pick it back up. here's a water-lyric by annie finch:

Gulls at Todd's Point

Shivering, knowing how lines of the tide

use seaweed, and sea-drift, and sea-touch (and bone)

to etch with, I wait to be marked on the sand

(a dragged sag of rockweed, a bulbed grace undone),

moved each way like feathers, slipped slow like a hand,

or whitened past breath. I’ve been moved till I’m gone

and nothing is ready to hold me inside—

following gull-shadows back over the land,

hiding myself. But there’s no place to hide,

whitening my hair in the wind or at dawn;

seagulls are whitening too, and they mourn,

turning and turning.

firenze

Z & i arrived in firenze after a bit of the usual ridiculousness of traveling (though the training was wonder-lovely, complete with the delicious crumblings of italian cookies) . & seriously, what a spectacular city! in a minute we're off for a day of research & wandering & tasting. i'm sure we'll be beat when we return, but i can't wait to sit on our hotel balcony & unwind. after three years of planning for this trip, i'm actually exhilarated & anxious in equal measures. so wish me luck!

ringing in spring, dream jobs

some of the best parts about spring: the return of ballet flats, light-weight jackets, & less layers (there's nothing better than throwing on a dress & being all set to go). the ever-rocktastic 13 bees is at it again, with some killer new spring-ing pieces just-added to her shop (& the extra delight of now offering international shipping). this criss-crossed dress makes me want to hop on a ferry to france & have mid-afternoon cocktails on the beach. sigh. someday i'd love to combine my obsession with books & vintage dresses, and open a well-curated shop with in-store tailoring. what could be better than writing poems surrounded by language & beautiful pieces of history--leather spines, metal zippers, & buttons oh my! just imagining racks of dresses next to color-blocked books makes me swoon.

celebratory naps

i received news that my manuscript is a finalist in a prestigious book contest. i won't know any more until may (!) but i am honored just to be considered (& it won't hurt the old cv either). in mini-celebration we had light-filled mango-orange mimosas & there was a little low-key jumping around. but since we both have another round of big deadlines due this week, and such long days ahead of us, we've decided to put off a more wild celebrating until this coming weekend. after making this decision, we took a serious nap. good news + nap = pretty awesome afternoon.

{via timwalker, unknown}

waking up is hard to do

this morning feels a little like going to the dentist. another one of my deadlines is tomorrow. so today will be jam-packed with decisions & re-workings & of course, the procrastinating post or three!

(the poet lucille clifton passed away this weekend. her poems are such indelible languages, such intricacy, worlds. please check some of her work out here).

{image via carabaas}

london sundays, stillness

this morning the clouds are stitched over the city-sky in a sheet. it already looks like evening and the day has just started! Z is off at columbia road flower market (if in london on a sunday, go!) while i work on an important deadline (feel free to cross your fingers). i'm a bit jealous--we've made a ritual of going every week to grab some flowers to spring-ify the flat & i know i'm missing out on: color-pops, criss-cross yells of two for a fiver! any two flowers for a fiver!, delicious pain au chocolat, the round smell of dirt, the rush of a small crowd, the lure of spools & fabrics & french buttons. on the other hand--the flat is fizzing, like radio static, in a type of morning stillness which i also love. and finishing life-important deadlines? pretty sweet.

{shots from last weekend's market}

flea market wonder-cabinet

you can find nearly anything in the paris flea market--its vendors an archaeology of wild & beautiful items, a cabinet of the city's curiosities. sadly, i forgot that it's mainly a saturday event and as such we'll be missing it this trip. in any case, i have been re-collecting the market's incredibles & excavating images for poems. one of the things that i dig most is that despite the oddity of items, there are often duplicates! for some reason i love the look of multiples (the repeated object makes me a bit giddy). i also admit that i have a little obsession with diving bells--their shining heaviness, their bubble-gum-machine proportions. i'm gearing up for our travels, though i still feel shy of getting totally excited just yet--the whole eurostar freeze-ins have me waiting a few more days for full-on thrill.

scotch tape lightning

random (poetic) fact: not only does scotch tape emit light when peeled (i fully intend to check this out), but the emission produces electrons energetic enough to create short bursts of x-rays. in 2008, scientists discovered they could harness this microscopic tape-lightning and use it to take x-rays bright enough to capture finger bones. we live in a phenomenal world. read more here. (yes, this is the type of random research involved in writing sometimes).

taste of spring (i)

today the freeze & darks of london are making me feel static & over-contained (even the swans on the canal next to our flat are floating like slushed grocery bags on the filmy iced-over water). i miss the smell of dirt and grass and the air just before something (winter for me smells like a just-lit-match, like the air just after something). with a deadline looming tomorrow, i'm procrastinating by eve-dreaming of spring. this tiled dress & these bright 50s shoes are just the thing a gal needs for a proper warm weather reverie.

{images via anthropologie & deargoldenvintage}

a jimi hendrix experience

tonight we're off to a poetry reading held in the basement of a pub known for hosting some rather famous rockers (jimi hendrix, joni mitchell, bob dylan, elvis costello). i'm thinking it will be pretty kick-ass.

the last iceberg

these photos are part of an incredible series by camille seaman, the last iceberg, which came out a few years ago. while at a bookstore this week, i stumbled upon an elizabeth bishop poem that reminded me of their starkness, their strange ache. so, in the shiver and snow of the city tonight, it feels like the perfect moment to share a bit of both artists' renditions of this frozen drifting.

first stanza from bishop's The Imaginary Iceberg:

We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship,
although it meant the end of travel.
Although it stood stock-still like cloudy rock
and all the sea were moving marble.
We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship;
we'd rather own this breathing plain of snow
though the ship's sails were laid upon the sea
as the snow lies undissolved upon the water.
O solemn, floating field,
are you aware an iceberg takes repose
with you, and when it wakes may pasture on your snows?

(read the rest of the poem by clicking on the title)

happy weekend everyone! i hope you are all knitted-in and keeping warm.

as if my brain had split

i am working on a piece that borrows a line from an emily dickinson poem as an epigraph. and right now, what with my own brain feeling a split & tired thing, the poem feels rather apropos. today was long and involved many many tube rides, buses, and transfers. but...i have officially been offered some guest lecturing for the spring. and a reading. what luck! so in celebration of poetics, i offer you dickinson's difficult beauty, her intense technical play and word prowess.

937

I felt a Cleaving in my Mind —
As if my Brain had split —
I tried to match it — Seam by Seam —
But could not make it fit.

The thought behind, I strove to join
Unto the thought before —
But Sequence ravelled out of Sound
Like Balls — upon a Floor.

{image via maggietaylor}

dates for things to be due

my friend J is due today. and she is so (!) ready for that baby to head on out into the world. since first babies tend to be late, i'm sending good waves her way. i can't believe in just a couple weeks Z & i will get to see two of our favorite buddies and meet their little owlet! he's sure-to-be super sweet and rebellious, just like his parentals.

{image via tobyotter}

the art of being there

yesterday i spent some more time at the tate, staring at a piece i want to write about (it will be my first ekphrastic poem). the only clue i'll give is its materials: oil, lead, dust and varnish on glass. it's the closest i've ever felt art come to a piece of poetry (on the page)--my brain clunk clunking as i try to unpack its images, to find some way to see and then connect its separate parts into a conceptual whole. but like poetry, i'm not trying to understand it. i want to get the feeling, to capture it at full speed. but i need more art vocabulary--words which suit the format. so i'm doing research inbetween the bore of applications. if there's any down time before tomorrow's deadlines (the evil-secretarial half of writing) i plan to watch this. it's one of my favorites. more later!

professional quiet.

this morning feels almost slow-motion in the freeze and crackle of our flat. i'm turning up the heat and digging down into writing (deadlines, deadlines). sometimes, writing makes for a pretty lonely profession (especially in a place where we know so few people). but most of the time, i thrive off all this quiet--the still of a snowscape, an empty city, stretched out in my mind.

{image via thisisn'thappiness}

sneaking down staircases.

right now, amidst serious stresses about recommendations and applications, i have moments of thinking woohoo! the time difference is sort of on my side (for instance, it's still only 1pm in the states). and this all works quite well until i realize that i've been working since 8am and will continue working here until midnight or later, because it will only be 8pm across the ocean. then i start to wish i was sliding down staircases in paris. anyone else having a monday frazzle?!

worrying.

sometimes i worry that Z will feel sad that he married a writer instead of a fancy neurologist or someone who will make loads of moneys. or maybe that he wishes he married someone who was less heart-wild. i know this is ridiculous. because writing makes me me and money is not at all important compared to so many things. and being heart-wild is why he loves me in the first place. but still. today (especially because of my own good news) i feel like i need to be a better partner to Z. not in the least because he is so very good to me.

(for the record, even if i'm not a neurologist, i'm sure it doesn't hurt that i am super handy with a hammer and power tools and problem solving. and with paying our monthly williams. and things like that.)

{image via ffffound}