Some out-of-contexts quotes from my mom

It's like a friggin' Jenga puzzle. 


Who wants to be haunted by a decision you made 25 years ago?


You guys were both experiments.  [about me and my brother]


I prefer to eat like a snake.

News

1.  I'm reading in the Stain of Poetry series in Brooklyn on Friday March 30th, with some lovely people.  It will likely be my last reading in NYC for a while (at least a few months?) because I'm going underground to work on a couple projects.  So come on out.  It would be nice to see you.

2.  Don't forget to look at the hawk cam.

3.  I'm heading to Florida for a visit with fam.  I may post dispatches from there.  Stay tuned.

Ten for Friday

1.  According to the show "Life after People," ten thousand years after people, wild horses will wander the shoreline of New York City.  They will be shorter in stature, though, than their equine forebears.

2.   Today I listened to Marc Maron's interview of Maria Bamford from a couple years ago on the WTF podcast.  Maria!  Bamford!


3.  I read Diane Keaton's memoir, and now I want to watch Reds, but you can't stream it, so I might have to watch Baby Boom.

4.  This is a look that is now called "ombre."

 
5.  At around the same time Diane Keaton looked like that, I looked like this:

6.  Then later in college, I too had ombre hair.  But not on purpose.  That was just my normal hair.

7.  I have updated my cv.  Also, I'm also thinking of calling my next book either Vita or News about My Plasma.  (A friend's suggestion after hearing this poem.)  Or maybe that's two books.    

8.  There are also one or two projects in the works for this summer.  Stay tuned.

9.  Meanwhile, I've been taking a lot of pictures of the sky.

10.   I am working behind the scenes, weaving together the narrative threads.  Spring ahead.

March 6th Occasional Poem

I'm back from my travels and they're just beginning,
so I'll leave my suitcase on the floor like that.  I'm feeling
ripple effects,  finally becoming most like myself, this
totally different person.  My own sunshine.  My own
Clementine.  A good witch, with activated
charcoal, memory cells all seeping into my gut
and all around me people are magic for real, making
humans out of their own cells or making me tea
or waking me up all wrapped and baroque in the middle
of a dream to shake my hand goodbye and tell me the weather
outside.  Goodbye. Meanwhile the sky is faraway light blue,
a distant smoking father.  Meanwhile March pauses, holding
still and making eyes at us.  Pretending to be an Olympic
sprinter, waiting on the block.  Pretending to be a ballet person
showing up early to put on eyelashes and sew the toe shoes.
A Broadway person, bouncing at the knees like that,
about to do a tune, with all the appropriate gestures.

Word cloud

Here's a wordle of what's currently on my blog.  Word cloud.  I got the idea from poetrycrush.

Chicago highlights

Well, I went to the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference, after having avoided it for several years.  Here are some of my highlights (many of which were "off-site").

1.  Pasta at Francesco's and conversation about movies, art, and Italian pop music.
2.  Hearing of Maria's adventures in Malaysia and hearing her poetry.  And she had the best t-shirt.
3.  Lunch with Tayve and Dorinda.  Talk of Staten Island, haunted places in Florida, and their new press-- Trio House!
4.  Seeing Joe Pan at the Brooklyn Arts Press table.  Their books look great.
5.  Resting for a moment at the Ping Pong table (not a literal ping pong table-- the book fair table for the journal Ping Pong), talking to Christine, and admiring their posters.
6.  The two older ladies at the reading who were like the judges from the Muppets.  They approved of my reading, apparently.
7.  Seeing long-lost friends from St. Paul (John!) and Kansas (Kate!).
8.  jubilat tote bag.
9.  (Free) dinner with friends.  Scallops and wine.
10.  Seeing Malena's beautiful face.
11.  Kind words from J. and M. in the Hilton lobby.
12.  Codeine cough syrup, homeopathic cough syrup, decongestants, lozenges, tea.
13.  Falling asleep to Marc Maron interviews.
14.  Ditching the conference for some off-site quality time on the South Side with poet mama friends, Lauren and Annmarie.
15.  Seeing Kari, who I've known since age 15 (or 16?), and how some friends are deeply familiar, despite years apart.
16.  Stopping by Dancing Girl Press open house and buying a laurel leaf tiara-headband, instead of more books.
17.  How entering the Fine Arts building is like stepping back in time.  (That elevator!)  That building must be haunted, right?
18.  Meeting Facebook friends and being greeted with, "Hey!  Facebook friend!"
19.  Reading Jen's chapbook on the plane and loving it.
20.  My good deed of the conference: Talking nonsense to a fellow AWPer as we descended back into NYC to distract her from a bumpy landing.
21.  Oh, my friends.  What would I do without you?  Really.

Chicago reading

I will take part in the New England College Tenth Anniversary reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago on Thursday March 1st, along with Ilya Kaminsky, Katie Farris, Malena Mörling, James Harms, J. Hope Stein, Maria Garcia Teutsch, Steve Halle, and Francesco Levato.  


Here are the event details: 
AWP Conference Off-Site Event: Poetry from New England College Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 5:00pm

Poetry Center of Chicago Office, 78 E Washington St., Pedway East, Chicago, IL

Evening Reading - Take the Cultural Center elevator to the Pedway level, and turn left. Poetry Center office is on the left.


Reader bios are here.    

Early collaboration

The Age of Wonders

(by Todd Colby and Joanna Penn Cooper)

Well, I guess I'm abject or whatever, waking up at night to study my leg
in the mirror. Telling myself there are no great storm flags, only cloth
and dye. Only impersonal wind and small electric feelings in the spine
and skull, where a body can get some work done and then sleep.
One of us would go, "Do you know how many years I've been hearing
you say that?" Like almost as mysterious as not saying it anymore
which is when you curled into a ball and bloomed. In our spare time when we're done terrifying ourselves we cultivate our breath in separate rib cages, triangulating birdsong from our locations across town. But what is such math and theory in the face of extinction? I'll have the food from a tube a bath with salt and some rapid release narcotic wipe for my brain. I'm trying my best with this figurative gardenia in my hair, these earplugs nesting like shrimp in my canals and all the likely moods that pertain to my enigmas. No one will ever figure me out.

[published in Lungfull in 2009]