ME! last nite after pedi & dinner w/ ma & dad at danny's, packed down with a 12pk of daddy's mich ultra (the only thing round bridgetown other than moonshine & muscadine wine), my friend sean came down to the cottage & good god we had so much fun catching up. sean's one of those high school friends where nothing changes even if you havent seen each other for 4 or more years. we had a lot of fun just talking nonstop about everything. it's important to be around good folks after hard times & then my largely hermitic beach summer.
on the way to dinner at the fern bank w/ EVERYBODY in town it seems--exciting! ima eat a whole lot & then for dessert, when i get back home to the country, im going to have some of mrs emily's friend chicken. big ole thighs a-coming!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
i believe in some sweetness
and friends. not keeping enemies. and better understanding. and working it! and being giving most importantly.
[thanks april, roomie, for photo]
today is a hellfire of thunder but no rain. the ponies grazing the field would love a little rain.
[thanks april, roomie, for photo]
today is a hellfire of thunder but no rain. the ponies grazing the field would love a little rain.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Poets for Living Waters
Hey Yall:
I have three poems up at Poets for Living Waters.
Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico begun on April 20, 2010, one of the most profound human-made ecological catastrophes in history.
The first law of ecology states that everything is connected to everything else. An appreciation of this systemic connectivity suggests a wide range of poetry will offer a meaningful response to the current crisis, including work that harkens back to Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing regional effects.
This is a movement I believe in. I submitted three things that deal with water, which was easy cause I lived by the sea for part of the summer. The second piece is actually not a poem but a paragraph from my novel Belen--which is cool they took it as it's not really a stand alone!
~
In other news: I said yes to the Tucson Festival of Books in March. The organizers had Jim Harrison listed on the bill as another poet involved, so I immediately emailed him about reading with me. Uncle J hasn't read in Tucson since 1972 but says he would read with me. So I hope this will happen! It would be a big ole dream come true! And would make me the happiest grl in the world!
I have three poems up at Poets for Living Waters.
Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico begun on April 20, 2010, one of the most profound human-made ecological catastrophes in history.
The first law of ecology states that everything is connected to everything else. An appreciation of this systemic connectivity suggests a wide range of poetry will offer a meaningful response to the current crisis, including work that harkens back to Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing regional effects.
This is a movement I believe in. I submitted three things that deal with water, which was easy cause I lived by the sea for part of the summer. The second piece is actually not a poem but a paragraph from my novel Belen--which is cool they took it as it's not really a stand alone!
~
In other news: I said yes to the Tucson Festival of Books in March. The organizers had Jim Harrison listed on the bill as another poet involved, so I immediately emailed him about reading with me. Uncle J hasn't read in Tucson since 1972 but says he would read with me. So I hope this will happen! It would be a big ole dream come true! And would make me the happiest grl in the world!
Monday, July 26, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
ouch. rioja headache.
[dancer: pretty boy]
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cheenie & i had a ball last nite, drankin wine & talking about men & stuff! im so going to miss her when i vacate this lil paradise!
i am kicking myself in the ars for not going to key west. ma & dad's room is ridiculous! she's sent me 20 pictures so far & im so jealous, it's beautiful!
i am currently trying to catch some of that bear root smoke that mm blew my way from tucson in hopes my headache goes away. she says with her sense of direction it prob went to canada instead!
excited i am for abraham to visit georgia. i am gonna pack up the beach & leave im guessing on sat or sun--which means i'll miss true blood but hell im ready for some ga dirt under my feet. yep.
& im gonna try to ride dancer as much as i can. & give sissy all the sugar i can (she hates sugar!). & visit with everyone before heading out westward!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
before i begin my writing day i sometimes read online journals to see what's new going on out there
today is the first day ive done this in awhile.
i know it seems altogether dramatic, but i got literally upset. im not going to name the journal or any folks (perhaps i just ran into a not-very-good/filler-type issue--not sure), but i can tell you i was literally upset. the writing was pretty dreadful. of course im finding problems in my own writing or else i wouldnt get to this point so easily.
i thought: i'll write fiction for awhile until i find my love/my rhythm again for/in poetry (not that ive lost it really)--i might be under the weather with it, im not sure. i went one poet to the next in the journal so upset with the state of poetry, until i came to Abraham Smith, which of course makes sense that he would be my good friend [:)], & so i got to feeling okay again. i was still disappointed scrolling through the journal, but i had little glimpses that poetry was still sound thanks to writers like Andrew Zawacki & Allison Titus & Michael Rerick & Mara Vahratian. and so i continue on with the poetry.
and so i take myself down to the beach! and talk to my sister-Rooooouch for a good hour--she & budz & g are fresh back from 3 weeks in england & scotland. and now i make dinner for one & prepare for top chef! i looooove me some top chef! with a nice brouilly.
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photos: [my beach house writing area] [sunflowers. every time i think about them wistfully from past connotations & growing them, i will buy one to make myself smile]
i know it seems altogether dramatic, but i got literally upset. im not going to name the journal or any folks (perhaps i just ran into a not-very-good/filler-type issue--not sure), but i can tell you i was literally upset. the writing was pretty dreadful. of course im finding problems in my own writing or else i wouldnt get to this point so easily.
i thought: i'll write fiction for awhile until i find my love/my rhythm again for/in poetry (not that ive lost it really)--i might be under the weather with it, im not sure. i went one poet to the next in the journal so upset with the state of poetry, until i came to Abraham Smith, which of course makes sense that he would be my good friend [:)], & so i got to feeling okay again. i was still disappointed scrolling through the journal, but i had little glimpses that poetry was still sound thanks to writers like Andrew Zawacki & Allison Titus & Michael Rerick & Mara Vahratian. and so i continue on with the poetry.
and so i take myself down to the beach! and talk to my sister-Rooooouch for a good hour--she & budz & g are fresh back from 3 weeks in england & scotland. and now i make dinner for one & prepare for top chef! i looooove me some top chef! with a nice brouilly.
---
photos: [my beach house writing area] [sunflowers. every time i think about them wistfully from past connotations & growing them, i will buy one to make myself smile]
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Today is TUESDAY / I am pleasant!
sister dolly p as truvy jones is one of the best characters ever. "you know i'd rather walk on my lips than criticize somebody...but," i love the southern beauty shop gossip. i love clairee & ouizer in this scene:
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Florence + The Machine - Dog Days Are Over
i love florence + the machine. ive loved her style for years. this song is being used on the trailer for eat pray love, which i dont know much about. but i love the song.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Poetry folks hopefully seem to be finally figuring out what I've known for such a long long time about Uncle Jim Harrison & his Yesenin. Bout time,
& I'm so delighted to see this book regaining attention here lately. It deserves it. It's one of the best poetry collections ever.
Jeffrey McDaniel gives nod to Yesenin @ Harriet: a blog from the poetry foundation.
Jim Harrison’s Letters To Yesenin
I’m teaching an ambitious, one-semester poetry workshop entitled The (So-Called) Confessional Poets. We’re about halfway through the syllabus. For this week, we’re reading Jim Harrison’s Letter To Yesenin, (originally published in 1973 by Sumac Press, and re-published by Copper Canyon in 2007). The book is a series of 30 letter-poems to the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, who committed suicide at the age of 30 in 1925. The speaker, seemingly Harrison himself (the space between author and poetic speaker is collapsed), confides to Yesenin his own desire to leave the planet, so, in theory, as we move through the book, the author’s life hangs in the balance. Harrison (in epistle 29) calls the project “a suicide note to a suicide”. An endeavor like this runs the risk of being overly depressing and self-involved. Luckily the author does a good job of cutting the darkness with blasts of self-deprecating humor: “I have the limberness of a man twice my age.” The reader senses Hemmingway, maybe some Richard Hugo in the hard-drinking, lustful, semi-crude speaker that Harrison projects, but the book that most comes to mind for me is Anne Sexton’s Live or Die, which operates from a similar premise: an author trying to decide whether or not to commit suicide. Harrison’s book strikes me as tighter, more compact. The letter-format gives him a lot of room for digression and association, and the direct address to Yesenin serves as an anchor, giving Harrison a focal point to aim his poetic gaze. When writing the book, Harrison was a new father, at the beginning of his writing career, and was having a hard time making ends meet. Maybe this nothing-to-lose predicament allowed him to be searingly honest, showing the reader his struggles with alcoholism, his perverse desires, his anxieties. Harrison, in fact, went on to become a successful novelist; the movies Wolf and Legends of the Fall are based on books he wrote. I don’t know much about Harrison’s other poems; what I’ve read hasn’t grabbed me. But this book is worth cracking open, because even as the speaker plunges face-first into his own vinegar pit, he also gives us plenty of the physical world, often rendered in captivating language, such as “dawn in bleary Paris with a roll tasting like zinc and a girl in a cellophane blouse staring at you with four miraculous eyes”.
Jeffrey McDaniel gives nod to Yesenin @ Harriet: a blog from the poetry foundation.
Jim Harrison’s Letters To Yesenin
I’m teaching an ambitious, one-semester poetry workshop entitled The (So-Called) Confessional Poets. We’re about halfway through the syllabus. For this week, we’re reading Jim Harrison’s Letter To Yesenin, (originally published in 1973 by Sumac Press, and re-published by Copper Canyon in 2007). The book is a series of 30 letter-poems to the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, who committed suicide at the age of 30 in 1925. The speaker, seemingly Harrison himself (the space between author and poetic speaker is collapsed), confides to Yesenin his own desire to leave the planet, so, in theory, as we move through the book, the author’s life hangs in the balance. Harrison (in epistle 29) calls the project “a suicide note to a suicide”. An endeavor like this runs the risk of being overly depressing and self-involved. Luckily the author does a good job of cutting the darkness with blasts of self-deprecating humor: “I have the limberness of a man twice my age.” The reader senses Hemmingway, maybe some Richard Hugo in the hard-drinking, lustful, semi-crude speaker that Harrison projects, but the book that most comes to mind for me is Anne Sexton’s Live or Die, which operates from a similar premise: an author trying to decide whether or not to commit suicide. Harrison’s book strikes me as tighter, more compact. The letter-format gives him a lot of room for digression and association, and the direct address to Yesenin serves as an anchor, giving Harrison a focal point to aim his poetic gaze. When writing the book, Harrison was a new father, at the beginning of his writing career, and was having a hard time making ends meet. Maybe this nothing-to-lose predicament allowed him to be searingly honest, showing the reader his struggles with alcoholism, his perverse desires, his anxieties. Harrison, in fact, went on to become a successful novelist; the movies Wolf and Legends of the Fall are based on books he wrote. I don’t know much about Harrison’s other poems; what I’ve read hasn’t grabbed me. But this book is worth cracking open, because even as the speaker plunges face-first into his own vinegar pit, he also gives us plenty of the physical world, often rendered in captivating language, such as “dawn in bleary Paris with a roll tasting like zinc and a girl in a cellophane blouse staring at you with four miraculous eyes”.
Friday, July 16, 2010
mrs dalloway at the beach
So she would still find herself arguing in St. James's Park, still making out that she had been right--and she had too--not to marry him. For in marriage a little license, a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house; which Richard gave her, and she him. [...] But with Peter everything had to be shared; everything gone into. And it was intolerable, and when it came to that scene in the little garden by the fountain, she had to break with him or they would have been destroyed, both of them ruined, she was convinced; though she borne about with her for years like an arrow sticking in her heart the grief, the anguish; and then the horror of the moment when someone told her at a concert that he had married a woman met on the boat going to India! Never should she forget all that! Cold, heartless, a prude, he called her. Never could she understand how he cared. But those Indian women did presumably--silly, pretty, flimsy nincompoops. And she wasted her pity. For he was quite happy, he assured her--perfectly happy, though he had never done a thing they talked of; his whole life had been a failure. It made her angry still. --I loooooove Virginia Woolf
Thursday, July 15, 2010
it is thurs/ thurs / officially a full-on rain week
i got the best sleep of my life last nite. round about 5am tossing & turning cause my head wouldnt calm down from trying to figure out my new writing--i recite old poems of mine in my head from start to end, start to end without wanting to, but not being able to stop myself. it really really kinda sucks--i mean i'd much rather quote frank o hara's, you know...so anyways, i got up & went to mama's bed, which is one of those huge huge huge 4 poster beds you need a ladder to get in & five big men could lay easily shoulder to shoulder across. ah, the mattress is divine. even the pillow. i so did not want to get up today. the outside is dark, more rain. i really feel brilliant today. writerly.
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World Breaking news, yall:
Morgan Schuldt & I (Shelly Taylor) will be doing a chapbook collaboration together starting when I get back to Tucson in August.
Morgan just loooooves me, so this is really going to be fun for him. :)
I had but one stipulation: you don't edit my ass & I won't edit yours.
We'll see how well that one works out! I am so excited about this project--so excited!
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I drove it out yesterday to Jacksonville, & I got me a pair of Wayfarers. Yeah!
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World Breaking news, yall:
Morgan Schuldt & I (Shelly Taylor) will be doing a chapbook collaboration together starting when I get back to Tucson in August.
Morgan just loooooves me, so this is really going to be fun for him. :)
I had but one stipulation: you don't edit my ass & I won't edit yours.
We'll see how well that one works out! I am so excited about this project--so excited!
---
I drove it out yesterday to Jacksonville, & I got me a pair of Wayfarers. Yeah!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
I received Chelsea's book in the mail today!
And it's amazing writing. Thank you so much for sending it to me, C, I am so proud of you; what a wonderful first collection!
I'm re-posting the trailer she made for BEACH CAMP (Swill Children) because it's really neat:
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In other news: I got offered another section of 101 at Pima. Looks like I may not have to get behind that ole bar after all! This makes me really smile. I mean really really really smile.
I'm re-posting the trailer she made for BEACH CAMP (Swill Children) because it's really neat:
Beach Camp Trailer from Chelsea Hodson on Vimeo.
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In other news: I got offered another section of 101 at Pima. Looks like I may not have to get behind that ole bar after all! This makes me really smile. I mean really really really smile.
tarballs, dead crabs
just got back from jog on beach. picked up a couple pieces of what im guessing are tarballs after doing online research. also, hundreds of dead crabs on the beach. this is the first ive seen of this & it's definitely upsetting. when you live by the beach you are able to notice every subtle change. im just saying, it wasnt like this yesterday...
sons They got angelic tendencies Like some boys tend to act like queens If every angel's terrible Then why do you watch her sleep?
I am almost 100% sure that I have a new home--a new home in the Barrio. And this time, finally, a legit, actually cool landlord who is straightforward, friendly, & will get things done--plus we know the same people town, all good people. Exciting! What more could a girl ask for?
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I write a lot but I forget how to edit. Pages & pages & pages but with no order.
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Family's in Scotland: I wish I were there too!
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I used to watch The Hills way back in the day, & tonite is the series finale. I think Im going to watch, heehee.
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Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah Tues. Im so bored I feel like dressing like a man today to hide my face. I cant go out in the sun. I lost my Oliver Peoples sunglasses in the ocean recently cause a stup wave took me under when I didnt expect it, & I need some new ones. I'll never spend that kind of money on shades again. I wants some RayBan Wayfarers real bad.
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Laura: calllllllllllllllllll. pick up the phone mija.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
bigtime saturday yikes
im in some serious need of alone time.
im in serious need of writing time. i feel like holing up for a week & doing nothing but writing & that still may not be good enough for time missed the last couple weeks. folks like to visit the beach it turns out & stay & stay some more--which has been wonderful--but i gotta get to work. i keep saying yes to solicitations from journals, so i have got to get on it. i also want some chinese food. and a horse.
im in serious need of writing time. i feel like holing up for a week & doing nothing but writing & that still may not be good enough for time missed the last couple weeks. folks like to visit the beach it turns out & stay & stay some more--which has been wonderful--but i gotta get to work. i keep saying yes to solicitations from journals, so i have got to get on it. i also want some chinese food. and a horse.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
WED / It's that time of the week again...
Big dangerous animal holding spotlight with LaRue. Or, this week, LaRue's hunting friend whose name I do not know. In this here pic that Larue took of his friend who is sweating up a storm from the hard hunt, is the 300lbs southern wild boar. Wild boar is hunted by curdogs. I'm not exactly sure of what that is just yet cause LaRue was busying doing his job (buying pipe from Coley's) & didnt have much time for mama's interview via me on the phone. I'll get the details later. Anyhow: that wild boar severely wounded 4 dogs in the hunt to the taxidermist as one bigass stuffed hog, & he got those 4 dogs with his tusks. None of the dogs died. On top of all LaRue's skills, he is also somewhat a vet. LaRue stapled them dogs where the hog's tusks dug in & all of them lived. Thanks, LaRue, for sending the picture.
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one of the most special things of yesterday was mama walking around the farm early in the morning before she went to work & taking lots of pictures of all the best flowers, & then emailing them to me. I woke up to many many pictures that are home. This one is my favorite.
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thank you, il guerncino. great depiction of my head this after-birthday day. leave it to the italian baroques. et in arcadia ego gone dark as all hell, which i love. i love gooooood shephards.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
it's my birthday--i'm officially twenty-nine
i slept ridiculously well.
i woke up and turned on npr as i do every day, and magically, terry gross is doing a complete program dedicated to emily dickinson on her fresh air series. i think how wonderful emily's lifelong predominate solitude sounds to me at this point in my life. i could def be hermetic. yep.
today is frida kahlo's birthday too. beautiful beautiful frida whom i love.
im gonna write and hang out with ms cheenie today.
then peacock is coming. whoop.
more later.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Poets House Annual Showcase
was last nite in Battery Park, & Im guessing my lil Heifer was there because the lovely Tim Peterson mentioned it in his blog [http://mappemunde.typepad.com/} today, among some of the other new books out this year. Here's what he said:
Tarpaulin Sky Press has two notable new books this year, The Stars of the Night Commute by Ana Bozicevic and Black-Eyed Heifer by Shelly Taylor who writes as if she has a direct line connecting her to the duende itself.
Makes my day all kinds of sparkly! It's hurricane weather here. Writing and reading on the couch, can't even get a jog in. But that's quite fine by me.
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So we have taken the name DUENDE in order to honor Lorca’s dark creative force. Duende is there to challenge us to keep our ears open to the ‘dark sounds,’ to keep our touch with the earth and with the ghosts of those who have come before, to never refuse the struggle which is needed to keep the spirits working on the side of truth.
Tarpaulin Sky Press has two notable new books this year, The Stars of the Night Commute by Ana Bozicevic and Black-Eyed Heifer by Shelly Taylor who writes as if she has a direct line connecting her to the duende itself.
Makes my day all kinds of sparkly! It's hurricane weather here. Writing and reading on the couch, can't even get a jog in. But that's quite fine by me.
-----
So we have taken the name DUENDE in order to honor Lorca’s dark creative force. Duende is there to challenge us to keep our ears open to the ‘dark sounds,’ to keep our touch with the earth and with the ghosts of those who have come before, to never refuse the struggle which is needed to keep the spirits working on the side of truth.
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