april poem-a-day challenge ~ day 12

Notification

So we decided to live our lives according
to the results of our Facebook quizzes, because
it seemed as good a method as any
to hoist ourselves out of the midlife rut of banality.
Never mind that the questions were written by 18 year olds
living in their parents’ basements; polls have shown
that those are the people scoring highest in happiness.
We started by moving to Florida, because we
like the sun but not too much and the “less many monuments,”
we embraced the famous persons we were in past lives --
your Picasso to my Queen Elizabeth, we became Sylvia Plath
and Courtney Love, we sent gifts of Pentagram Pizzas and
Smurfs and Albino Squirrels. We narrowed it down to our five
favorite everythings – five albums, five movies, five
breakfast cereals, all else became extraneous, unworthy
of mention. We joined the Freemasons, we allowed ourselves
to Say Anything. We accepted that our auras were most like
the color blue (or orange. or yellow.) and began to dress
accordingly, in our Blanche Devereaux outfits, with our red
high heels, and Keens, driving our Smart Cars to the
restaurant chains we were the most like, your Tim Horton’s
to my Chili’s. Now I know that Jesus thinks you’re a
sanctimonious prick, and now you know which crazy bitch
I am most like, so let us go forth.
Let us live our lives as though
we had truly been
Superpoked.

[I've been doing the poem-a-day challenge and using the prompts posted on Robert Lee Brewer's blog at Writer's Digest. Today's prompt was to start a poem with the words "So we decided to ..." ]

a visit with jack gilbert

A friend shared a link to this great piece about the poet Jack Gilbert who, at past 80 years of age, recently won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his newest collection Refusing Heaven.

photo by Kate Davidson, NPR

You can visit the NPR website by clicking here and while there, be sure to click on the links provided to hear the inspiring interview with this reclusive poet who has spent most of his life outside the usual literary circles, stages, and spotlights, and whose poems speak poignantly to the two sides of the love and grief coin. Also included are clickable links that will allow you to listen to Gilbert reading several of his most lovely poems, "Infidelity," "Refusing Heaven," "By Small and Small," and "Getting Away With It."

I love Gilbert for his unabashed refusal to play the literary "game" (in the interview, he asserts that he is not a "professional poet," he's a "real poet"). I love Gilbert for saying there are just things about this life he doesn't like ("I don't like that my hair is thinning. I don't like that two of the women I loved died.") I love Gilbert for talking about how he is fond of making lists, including lists of things that he loves and wants to accomplish - a kindred spirit! I make lists too -- lists of things I love, things I want to do. Sometimes I have made a list of things I'd already done, just so I could cross something off of a to-do list. I am sure that Jack Gilbert (a man who once listed "to be in love before I die" on a list of things to do), would understand.

diptych of the wreckage

"Wreckage 1" c. '08 annie farnsworth
8.5" x 11" mixed media collage & original poem
on recycled pasteboard




"Wreckage 2"
c.'08 annie farnsworth
8.5" x 11" mixed media collage & original poem
on recycled pasteboard


These are meant to be displayed side by side as it is one poem in two parts. But I couldn't figure out how to post them that way in the blog. Which is fitting, I suppose, since the two people involved in the poem couldn't figure out how to integrate their separate selves into one whole either. And that's a bigger tragedy than i could ever do justice to with paper and glue.

AEDM, Sat. 11/15 & Sun. 11/16

perfect day to see the pain specialist

"Having to Wing It" c. 2008 Miz Annie
7.5" x 10.5" mixed media collage for AEDM

There's this saying about time. That Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once. You have good days, you have bad days. You have time in which to enjoy the joys and then for contrast you get the dark nights of the soul. The yin and the yang and all of that. Which is great in theory but every once in a while I think the works get gummed up and you get a day like I was gifted with today which seemed to be both at once. First the good news; I have a new job! I was told that I probably wouldn't hear until next week but I got the call today that I had been selected. I also saw my *Pain Specialist* today and it looks like I have a great plan in place for treatment that does not involve invasive surgery. My back is going to be just fine.

Right now it just feels like something else is broken.

wabi sabi with b.h. fairchild

(From an ancient and much-loved copy of Black Warrior Review, circa '86 or '87, this is one of my favorite poems. It has always brought me much comfort, so I offer it here to anyone who could use a bit themselves.)

 

The Tuesday Report: Hoagland, SKIRT, and National Treasure (xpost from my myspace blog...)

One of my very favorite poets, Tony Hoagland, is the featured poet on Writer's Almanac this morning. Go check out "A Color of the Sky" from his book What Narcissism Means to Me (which also wins my vote for most awesome poetry book title of the decade). 

In other poetry news, I just received my comp copy of the January 2008 issue of SKIRT magazine. They contacted me last summer, requesting permission to reprint one of the poems from my chapbook Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light. I had nearly forgotten they were going to print it!

 
January 2008 issue of SKIRT
(cover art by Mayumi Oda)

I'm thrilled with what they did with it – gave it a whole page and lots of fancy squiggles for decoration. I am all about the fancy squiggles. I like it so much, I'm going to bribe the Chairman to bring it to SexyCopy & make a big color copy for me and laminate it so I can hang it on a wall as decoration. Okay, fine, decoration and a little bit of horn-tooting as well. But hey, that's what narcissism means to me.  I'm going to drop a note to SKIRT and let them know how happy I am with their treatment of my poem, and ask permission to print up a few broadsides. If you are interested in a nice big blue squiggly poem about Buddha's mom and what I imagine her parenting concerns might be, you let me know.

Have an amazing day, all. I'll be here at the magic cottage studying and making art and tweaking the Sheltering Pines website and taking care of my still sorta-sick little boy, who is currently on the couch with his friend the Puffs Plus Kleenex box and watching "National Treasure"(1) (again).

___________________________
(1) Have you seen that movie? If not, you must put it on your list. In brief, here's why: Nick Cage, Harvey Keitel, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, a conspiracy theory, lots of cool historical details, smart cute boys solving mysteries and hacking into security, the Masons, the Knights Templar, and treasure hunting! Stuff gets blown up and there's kissing. What more can you ask for?!!