t a t t y c o r a m

Dorothea Tanning, 1910-2012

2012-02-02T18:31:00.000-05:00

Wislawa Szymborska, 1923-2012

2012-02-02T18:27:00.000-05:00

I have written a short appreciation of Szymborska for the site poetrycrush.

Here is her poem "A Few Words on the Soul."

This Poem Is Written in Code

2012-01-28T11:27:00.014-05:00

by Todd Colby and Joanna Penn Cooper

I'll sit at my desk eating tangerines until you remember

the true meaning. Meaning: I've had it with low blows

& pop wagons. I need a county I can call "My Own." But I'll

write things down from there to tell you later, a selection

of my private behaviors. Me studying cheerleaders on tv—

their hair, their leaps, the shutters on their eyes. Me

smoothing my hair down like a Mormon and giving myself

a secret handshake. My ocean is a crushed bird. Let me sterilize

a bit and handcraft these wing clips with all the razzle dazzle of

a person who has made friends with death. Death is a man

with the loveliest face, a face as open as a child's. He smells

of lavender. He wears a fez. Damn, burnt from bitter orange tweed

jacket set aflame with alcohol and matches. He taught me this:

Whatever you need, whenever you need it, come into my establishment

and take it. I would like nothing more than to sail straight for that grip.

Pumping my fist at the skin on the oar. Your head is bleeding.

I value your patronage.

Weekend

2012-01-22T23:46:00.002-05:00

My weekend was pretty relaxing. Maybe a bit too relaxing. (Note to self: leave the neighborhood next weekend. Maybe.)

Among the non-activity: some making of lentil soup and apple crisp, some watching of Dr. Who. There was also the forcing of the boyfriend to pose for Instagram pictures, which I made up for by making hot chocolate out of half a bar of dark chocolate with peppermint.

I also did some thinking about genre. The idea of literary genres and what that means to me . . . tumbling about in my head. I'll get back to you.

Meanwhile, here are some photos.

Somebody

2012-01-10T22:47:00.003-05:00

1. Somebody found my blog by googling "poetry about elves." Huzzah!

2. I have somehow already lined up five readings for the new year, and I've already done two of them-- at the New Year's Day Marathon at St. Mark's Church (appearing with Secret Orchestra and J. Hope Stein, as one of 140-ish readers raising money for the Poetry Project) and at Upstairs at Erika's, my friend's poetry salon, along with some brilliant and soulful people. There are some photos here.

3. My next reading is for the Earshot reading series on Thursday February 16th at Lolita Bar on Broome Street, appearing again with J. Hope Stein. I read a couple of newish pieces at Erika's, but I'll try to have even a couple more new ones by February. Poems. Or prose poems. Or these things I'm thinking of as "vignettes." Huzzah, again!

4. I thought about putting my blog on a hiatus after my last post-- my 500th! So, if I blog less, it is because I am working on other writing. Or if I blog the same amount, then never mind.

5. I am leaving tomorrow for a visit to my dear friend W. in the city of Boston. HOPEfully I will not miss my bus this time due to a strange confluence of protests, Comic Con, and Q train flakiness. (But here's a thing about the lovely view from the Q train. It is lovely. It makes me happy.)

6. What else? I recently watched the Spalding Gray documentary above, which I was reminded of by this person's cool blog. Oh, Spalding Gray. I miss you, too. [Also: Liz's blog is one of those blogs that gives you a sense (however constructed) of a life narrative, a life's setting and characters. Should I blog more like that? More-- I don't know?-- coherently? Consistently? Maybe I will. Maybe one day.]

7. Dear people. Dear all of us. It's almost mid-January. Take a breath. Sail on through in your way. Be somebody.

First Poem

2012-01-04T19:54:00.005-05:00

Oh, my descendants: life is strange when

you are still alive. --Todd Colby, “Last Poem”

Oh, my descendants:

I write to you from the cusp

of a year when everything turned

like a movie in a primitive cave

with a German narrator

like a marketing genius

turned wandering mystic

[ . . . . ]

Oh, my sister:

You’re ok. You’re human—

a transforming creature

sharpening your gaze

drawing out swords

[ . . . . ]

This year

let your eyes focus

then let them go wild

Eat the air

Three for the New Year

2012-01-01T12:52:00.000-05:00

38th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit Reading

2011-12-30T02:00:00.001-05:00

Sunday, January 1, 2012
3:00 pm
The Poetry Project
at St. Marks Church
10th Street & 2nd Avenue, Manhattan
poetryproject.org

The 38th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit will feature over 140 Poets & Performers:
Ace Mcnamara, Alan Licht with Angela Jaeger, Alex Dimitrov, Amy King, Ana Božičević, Anne Tardos, Anne Waldman with Ambrose Bye & Daniel Carter, Anselm Berrigan, Ariana Reines, Arthur’s Landing, Barry Denny, Basil King, Betsy Fagin, Bill Kushner, Billy Lamont, Bob Hershon, Bob Rosenthal, Brenda Coultas, Brendan Lorber, Brett Price, Bruce Andrews & Sally Silvers, Bryn Kelly, CAConrad, Charles Bernstein, Christine Elmo, Christopher Stackhouse, Church of Betty, Corina Copp, Corrine Fitzpatrick, Daniel Kent, David Freeman, David Henderson, David Shapiro, David St. Lascaux, Denize Lauture, Dgls. Rothschild, Don Yorty, Donna Brook, Dorothea Lasky, Douglas Dunn, Douglas Piccinnini, Drew Gardner, Dustin Williamson, Edgar Oliver, Ed Friedman, Edmund Berrigan, Eileen Myles, Elinor Nauen, Elizabeth Devlin, Elliott Sharp, Emily XYZ, Erica Kaufman, Erica Hunt & Marty Ehrlich, Erin Morrill, Evan Kennedy, Evelyn Reilly, Filip Marinovich, Foamola, Frank Sherlock, Franklin Bruno, Genya Turovskaya, Gillian McCain, Greg Fuchs, James Marshall, Janet Hamill, Jess Fiorni, Jim Behrle, Joe Elliot, Joe Ranono, John Coletti, John Giorno, John S. Hall, Jonas Mekas, Josef Kaplan, Judah Rubin, Judith Malina, Karen Weiser, Kathleen Miller, Katie Degentesh, Ken Chen, Ken Walker, Kenny Goldsmith, Kimberly Lyons, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Lee Ranaldo, Lenny Kaye, Leopoldine Core, Lonely Christopher, Macgregor Card, Maggie Dubris, Marcella Durand, Mariana Ruiz Firmat, Mark Nowak, Martha King, Matthew Abuelo, Miguel Gutierrez, Mitch Highfill, Mónica de la Torre, Nada Gordon, Nathaniel Siegel, Nick Hallett, Nicole Peyrafitte, Pamela Sneed, Patricia Spears Jones, Patti Smith, Paul Mills (Poez), Paul Legault, Penny Arcade, Peter Gizzi, Pierre Joris, Reuben Butchart, Rickey Laurentiis, Robert Ashley, Secret Orchestra with Joanna Penn Cooper & J. Hope Stein, Shafer Hall, Simone White, Sinan Antoon, Stephanie Gray, Steve Dalachinsky, Steve Earle, Steven Taylor, Susan Landers, Susie Timmons, Suzanne Vega, Taylor Mead, Ted Dodson, Thurston Moore, Todd Colby, Tom Carey, Tom Savage, Tony Towle, Tracey McTague, Tyler Burba, Valery Oisteanu, Wayne Koestenbaum, Will Edmiston, Will Yackulic, Yoshiko Chuma, Youmna Chlala, Yuko Otomo, Yvonne Meier with Aki Sasamoto, Nicole Wallace, Arlo Quint and Stacy Szymaszek.

Admission: $20, $15 for students and seniors, and $10 for Poetry Project members.

Returning to the place of origin

2011-12-30T01:39:00.001-05:00

My mom and I visited my grandmother in Salisbury, NC. Above: College Q; quilt by my great-grandmother Eva (Mamaw); Uncle Joe; Grandmother's yard Buddha; tree.

Something my grandmother said

2011-12-30T01:32:00.002-05:00

[after knocking over a container of rubber bands]
Look what I've done! I'm an infidel! You can't trust me.

Another picture of me in a hat

2011-12-30T01:30:00.000-05:00

This one's pretty good. (I think this was my second birthday?)

Things Mom has said so far

2011-12-22T22:30:00.001-05:00

Oh, she's Swedish. That's why she looks bizarre.

I wish someone would just show a close up of Elizabeth Taylor's eyes. They're supposed to be violet, but you can never really tell.

I don't know if I like that cheese. The only cheese I like is cheddar. I'm tired of pretending.

Yeah. I don't even see 'em because you have to, like, kind of be paying attention.

Are sports and politics the same thing to these people? It's not about winning at all costs. This is what makes me want to move to Sweden.

Elves and poets

2011-12-20T13:46:00.001-05:00

Well, December has me feeling a little like my eyes are pointing in two different directions, but at least Clif let me take a picture of him wearing an elf hat.

In other news, check out my friend J. Hope Stein's stunning new chapbook, Corner Office, up at H-NGM-N.

Semi-Festive

2011-12-16T17:22:00.002-05:00

I found some Snoopy lights at the Ace Hardware. They are a new LED kind, but Liz will be happy to know that the box was still dusty, as it should be.

Also, Andre Dubus III and yours truly-- authors of House of Sand and Fog and the chapbook Mesmer, respectively-- get our chocolates from the same place, apparently. Except I guess he pays for his, while I get mine from my sister-from-another-mother for free. Well, I barter with friendship + poems, which is my way.

December and Tolerance for Ambiguity

2011-12-14T13:09:00.000-05:00

Last night I taught my last American Poetry class at Montclair State. I brought some homemade chocolate chip cookies for my students, and we discussed Terrance Hayes's book Lighthead. We should have perhaps discussed this book a bit earlier, before everyone was so end-of-semester tired. But I think the class was a success, overall. (One student said, "What degree do I need to get to be you?" Oh, gosh. Who knows.) I still have to go pick up take-home finals next week.

Here I am about to take New Jersey Transit, my nose looking like the full moon. But that's just poetry.

Currently, the radiators in our duplex are not working, except for the one in my office/spare room. Luckily, this is the most artsy room in the house, and the one where I like to think about book manuscripts and collaborative projects.

There's a lot of art in this picture, if you know how to see it. (For example, the throw on the bed was one of my birthday presents, and it was made on 100 year-old looms in Maine. I'm not even kidding.) But we are hoping the radiators get fixed today.

In other news, I've been watching Dr. Who before bed, and I've also started watching Downton Abbey. Clif and I watch Dr. Who together, but Downton Abbey makes him fall asleep, so I watch that alone. But I enjoy that, too.

And now that my post-doc at Fordham is over, I'm on the job market for professorships. If I don't get one for next year, I'll be a freelancer. Like the Doctor. My mother says I "get high marks for tolerance for ambiguity." Yes, I've become good at that.

Also, Merry Christmas! I'm liking the idea of Christmas decorations this year, but still lacking the follow-through. I want some of those old-fashioned lights with the big bulbs. Do you think they sell them at the Ace Hardware down the street?

The Joy of Weird Friends

2011-12-07T11:13:00.001-05:00

(for T.C.)

You're in my hall of fame room holding a ginger seal pup with a fabulous mullet. You have the mullet, not the seal pup. I'm in your hall of fame room going all post-apocalyptic child star, killing and roasting my own venison and wearing glorious deerskin gaiters. If I had news about my plasma, you'd be the person I'd write to about poems to take my mind off the news about my plasma. If you needed someone to hold the sides of your head to keep your mind ok, I'd totally write you a poem that metaphorically held the sides of your head. In our previous friendship back in time, we were some of those proto-human toddlers who took painting lessons in a cave ritual about painting lessons. As a middle-aged man of 15, you invented dung sculpture, blowing everyone's mind. I had my own project, blowing on fiery twigs to create shapes like those little brass angels that fly by the heat of candle flame at Christmas, but nothing like that at all.

December

2011-12-06T16:58:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted in December yet (until now).

This week so far, I:

1. Saw my mom and stepfather. They got some special deal to stay at the Hilton in midtown, and as my mom and I rode the elevator, we talked about how she had a stain on her shirt and how maybe she was one of those super-wealthy people who dresses in an eccentric way. Because you just never know.

2. Rehearsed with J. Hope Stein, Clifton, and one of Clif's trio-mates, Yuko. We're doing a collaborative piece for the New Year's Day Marathon at the Poetry Project.

3. Rode New Jersey Transit to teach in Montclair. Class hasn't started yet. Hi from Montclair!

Some other things I might do this week:

1. Work on one of my other collaborative projects. (Poems with Todd, or poems and drawings with John, or poems and drawings with my brother.)

2. Maybe I'll think some Christmas thoughts. Mostly for me this involves listening to "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and baking something and buying a ticket to visit Florida. And every year I imagine buying a Charlie Brown Christmas tree of my own, but then I just skip it and skip off to Florida.

3. Oh, and who knows what else. I might do some yoga and take some vitamins to fortify myself for the coming adventures.

Goodbye, Goodbye

2011-11-26T12:04:00.004-05:00

by Joanna Penn Cooper and Todd Colby

If you put in three to four hours per day of deliberate practice,

within ten years the air around you will become firmer, making it

easier to stand upright, even in a wind storm. Many friends accuse

me of being from Oklahoma, so this is something I know something
about-- wind and survival, funnel cakes and gas station tacos, a strong

core. And the people, I forgot about people: How each person I met

seemed to hold a message of some sort that I would decipher years

later while scribbling in a notebook, the code revealed as quickly
as it was extinguished. I love myself sometimes in my love for

the people, how noticing is like the whole world sitting up straight
and giving you a sad smile, or like taking off your own shirt and loving
your animal warmth apart from yourself. But you can't just say that.

What? I didn't say that. Together we can envelop the news, and I do

mean what we read in the papers, what is sprayed on the walls,
or whispered in paneled dens over a sleeping sibling. Brother, I'll be
over here, like Thoreau on a stalled Q train on the Manhattan bridge,
scowling at the wondrous implicated sky. Sister, let me illuminate

the electric green muck of the Gowanus Canal. I am all about

forgetting, even when memory comes trudging up the stairs in the form

of a poem I shall never write in order to simply say goodbye, goodbye.

OK, fine-- I remember you. Goodbye.

Thanks

2011-11-25T17:46:00.000-05:00

Brother

2011-11-21T16:34:00.002-05:00

My little brother used to be this guy (with me as a teenager in a portrait from Sears).

And this guy (with me + antenna).

Now he's this guy (with the mayor of Orlando, receiving an award for his photo of the historic district).

Three

2011-11-21T16:27:00.000-05:00

There is a light that never goes out

2011-11-21T11:13:00.000-05:00

I think this person was about 14 years old when she made this video. What would it have been like to be that cool at 14?

Also, this person is the daughter of this person, who has a very cool blog.

Wings of Desire

2011-11-18T10:16:00.001-05:00

I’m thinking of becoming a full-time flaneur, moving

through the city at dusk or just before dusk and just after

dusk to notice things. Thus, I cultivate the most angelic

eavesdroppy parts of my personality. Exhibit A:

A young woman at the sushi place near St. Mark’s sets

a metal thermos next to her water glass, tells her friend,

I like to use this thermos to drink vodka in public

and also sometimes to drink tea. I mark. I bend to

my notebook and record. This is my benediction, you

can tell by my large, shapeless overcoat and slicked-

back hair. I mean the business of listening to the music

of the spheres, tilting my head like that, doing that most

difficult and beautiful job between light bouts

of bemused habitual scowling. You’re welcome.

Bless us all.

A film by Joseph Cornell

2011-11-17T22:16:00.000-05:00

. . . with music that sounds like it's from a David Lynch movie . . . can be found here.

Bear

2011-11-11T00:10:00.000-05:00

"He puts his paws on the table, waiting, like a gentleman, another boarder-- but more polite, actually-- for his food to be served. He's wearing his bow tie, bright red, and an oversize fedora with a matching band. He eyes the apple core, but he knows better than to reach for it. He's a well-trained bear, delicate, refined. And old, too. He looks especially frail today, his chest sunken, and an extra huskiness to his normally labored breathing. His eyes are weak. He sniffs at Alma with his flared nostrils, a polite inquiry as to how she's faring."

from The Madam by Julianna Baggott

New collaborative poem

2011-11-06T09:50:00.003-05:00

Human Resources

by Joanna Penn Cooper and Todd Colby

When last we saw our hero, she had taken up residence

as a manufacturer of good vibes. Her methods,

while outwardly sound, gave off a sheepish, though powdery,

glandular scent. The kids loved her smell. By kids, we mean

guys she met at poetry readings who followed her home

and mooned at her through various apparati. She had

graduated from the Bergtraum School of the Business of Veils

and Hunches and Improvised Esoterica, where her attempts

at being graceful met with laughter, but where all found her

realistic way of showing emotions to be soothing in the cramped

quarters of her single room. Like the small woman from Poltergeist,

she was mockable, but you wanted her around when ectoplasm

started messing with your shit. Short and magical was how

she described herself in personal ads, when in fact

she was rather tall and ordinary, and sometimes rumpled

and perplexed. But Xanax made her feel wrapped in cotton batting,

so she reverted to her practice of pretending to be a shaman who

gave psychic makeovers in the subway. She lived with ghosts,

laughing at the people who warned of their inability to clean

up after a tirade or a party. She'll tell your fortune at her

discretion, for barter only and by appointment.

It will make you sleepy. It will change your life.

Maine

2011-11-04T22:11:00.000-04:00

If you thought I never went on a day trip to Portland, Maine around 1999 or 2000 with my friend Wendy, where we took overly-serious pictures of each other dressed in black-- you were dead WRONG.

Nervous cells

2011-11-04T15:22:00.004-04:00

“Everything around us is radiations . . . luminous radiation, caloric, electric, sonorous . . . . Why doubt telepathy, the influence from a distance of thought on thought? The rays which escape from the nervous cells are most capable of exciting other nervous cells from afar.”

--Henri de Parville, writing about the Curies’ Nobel Prize in Le Correspondant [quoted in the Marie Curie biography, Obsessive Genius by Barbara Goldsmith]

Two prose poems I wrote several years ago and just found on my computer

2011-11-03T16:01:00.002-04:00

Closure

They sit at a table next to a painting of a chimpanzee wearing a ballgown and a tiara. They begin talking about how there aren’t very many good restaurants in their town, but how in the past two months, they’ve gone to almost every mid- to upper-range date-type restaurant. How he’d done her that service, at least. They briefly touch on whether they should really break up. Then her salad comes. She puts her fork into the salad dressing that she has asked for on the side. He dares her to drink the salad dressing straight. She thinks for a few seconds. Says it would take $500 for her to do that in this restaurant. He says he would do it for $40. Then they begin talking about butter eating contests they have seen or heard about.

No Languages

Sometimes the languages enter my consciousness, though, the ones I don't speak, as when I say, "Is it free?" meaning "Is it clear?" when I'm driving.

Or when I stare at the word "die" one day, not knowing what it says for the longest time.

My cat reminds me of the times I woke up late, lying on my alarm clock, frantic to realize that I had only been dreaming that I got up and got ready for work. Seeing Andy curled up beside me, I blurted out, "What time is it?" before remembering that cats don't speak or tell time. I did this twice.

What do we fall through in those moments when we forget how the lock on the front door works, forget the name of someone we know, wake up in the dark and can't figure out where the door to the bedroom is or which wall we're facing?

One of my friends loves the feeling of being lost in the week, no idea which day it is. I get panicked then, turned around.

This same friend, though, is scared by my favorite falling in-between: at dusk, the twilight tingle of voices with no words in the head, wondering will you turn down an alley and out of your body.

Posture of Victory

2011-11-03T12:35:00.002-04:00

(after Todd Colby)

Flame
Garrison Keillor tells a nice story

in his red shoes. But don’t talk to him

at the cafe. He doesn’t want to be bothered.

Mint Green Pants
It’s true your brother would never get on board

with the dark clothes you tried to buy him.

You break down and buy him colors.

Provoking Animals with Political Buttons
The student who uses the word “swaggerjacker”

also calls Audre Lorde “ballsy,” causing the mind

to stop, a minor fit of staring into space.

Hibernation System
Who among us are great animals?

You call the cops about your missing property.

They are unhelpful, but do not beat you up.

Vanishing Point
Dream of the lady poets

like Macbeth witches, standing around

being supportive of your progress.

Poem written for me in 2009

2011-11-03T01:45:00.000-04:00

3 lines for Joanna

by Todd Colby

when I look at fine women's boots

I think the air must be nice in Florida

& do people skip much in Italy?

Happy Halloween from Malfeez!

2011-10-31T11:08:00.000-04:00

My brother and I have another collaboration up here.

A Poem of Personal Excellence for Halloween

2011-10-30T14:09:00.003-04:00

[image: http://dreamsandvisions.squarespace.com/]

I'm excelling at vibrating at all the different levels of consciousness
all at the same time, the level where I plan a Stop Making Sense
zombie costume, but don't have a huge suit and so don't
follow through, the level where I scowl out the window at red
leaves and think deep thoughts about the academy, and also
the value-added level where I wake up to a ghost twitching
the bed and it's the sleep-hiccups of a boyfriend sleeping
in his jeans and flannel shirt because he fell asleep halfway
through scary movies about hypnotism night. Personal excellence
means putting on your glasses to make sure a ghost in a Stop
Making Sense suit isn't watching you wake up to sleep-
hiccups over by the bookcase. Happy Halloween.
Don't worry 'bout me. Don't you worry about me.

Storm King

2011-10-28T00:20:00.003-04:00

Two years ago, not long after Clif and I started dating, we went to Storm King Art Center.

And Clif disappeared into this portal.

This past weekend, at the appointed time, I journeyed back to Storm King and greeted him as he re-emerged from the portal.

When he is ready, he will tell the world his story.

Chicago School of Poetics

2011-10-21T16:35:00.003-04:00

I'll be teaching online community poetry workshops through the Chicago School of Poetics starting in January 2012. The two courses I'll be teaching this winter are Poetics: Level II and Documentary Poetics.

Here's my faculty page.

Right Mind

2011-10-17T23:41:00.005-04:00

I ran off to Boston this weekend. (Well, "ran off" after missing the Bolt bus due to subway construction and waiting for the next bus in midtown for two hours while thousands of people occupied Times Square several blocks away and a bunch of people dressed as comic book characters walked by to/from the Javits Center, where Comic Con was going on. One really good Edward Scissorhands walked by, but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture.)

I have many October thoughts on my mind, including but not limited to:
1. How I'd like to write something that is a comfort to someone somewhere.
2. How there is all this constant "becoming."
3. The time I talked to Emma Goldman on the Ouija board (TM, Parker Bros.). She said, "The revolution failed. Even I failed." Then she said some things about free love. Then she said, "Jesus is love," and I had to wonder.
4. "Right livelihood."
5. How it's good to have a friend I've known since we were 17 who knows when to encourage me to ride bikes by the Charles and when to encourage me to get in bed with a book because I might be getting sick. At one point, W. came into the room as I was bundling myself up in her Hudson blanket and fashioning a recovery turban out of a scarf. She took in the scene, then laughed at me and walked back out again. And that was just what I needed.

Lately

2011-10-14T10:40:00.005-04:00

Lately:

Moon over Montclair; what my hair doesn't look like after my haircut; low-key show by Secret Orchestra, including a couple of beautiful new songs-- it's amazing to me that people can do that, play music; I'm telling my fortune in coffee filters. Or I'm just drinking a lot of coffee.

New blog

2011-10-12T17:55:00.001-04:00

My brother and I have started a blog for our collaborative drawing-poem pieces. The name Malfeez comes from a German board game, Malefiz, an archaic word that means "misdeed." We also had in mind Max and Moritz, pranksterish forerunners to the Katzenjammer Kids. Our "misdeeds" mostly have to do with existential questioning, though . . .

Here's a peek:

A Set of Questions

2011-10-09T18:36:00.001-04:00

Have you ever teared up at brunch when you were supposed to be deciding what to order?

Was it due to all the uncertainty of life, the way things keep changing? How nothing is fixed?

Did you enjoy your mimosa anyway? The carmelized apples? Were the carmelized apples a blessing, even though the man to your left kept talking about renting a hotel room to learn all the three-letter Scrabble words?

Afterward, did you sit in the park and watch a little girl with straight posture and a braid do a dainty run back and forth to fetch large rocks and hurl them with force upon the flagstones? Like this: run run, hands out at sides, run run, THROW the rock down to see if it breaks?

At one point did she come back with a walk that involved lifting her feet high, as if stepping through fairy dew from a ballet recital? Step. Step. Step. THROW the rock down.

Have you had this line in your head for a while?: to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. Is living is like that, also? Luckier and more painful?

Suppose we embrace it? The dream-like rhetorical bent? The rocks and the stepping through dew? What then?

Some Things That Have Been on My Mind

2011-10-07T23:40:00.000-04:00

[source: lulublick.com]

People who write "awe" when they mean "awww." People who say "wary" but mean "weary." People who say "anyways." People in vests. Pigeon-toed people. People with cowlicks. People with an ink smear on one cheek because no one told people all afternoon. I have been one or more of these people. I'll give you some other things to think about: The other middle-aged lady sitting alone who also ordered a small plain frozen yogurt with strawberries. What's her story? She was a kid, right? She had a mom. What was that like? Now think about the different things "middle aged" can mean. Now think of a horse and those pointy-outy hairs around its mouth. Think of its soft nose. Where is your horse? In a field, right? Maybe by a two-lane highway, or something? It's like one of those horses from a James Wright poem, but more wary. Wary or weary. It looks at you out of its side-headed eyes like, "Whatever." Like, "Whatever. Fine. I love you."

Found

2011-10-07T23:18:00.002-04:00

Tranströmer

2011-10-06T15:28:00.000-04:00

Tomas Tranströmer has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Yay!

I have an appreciation of him up on poetrycrush.

Things I Found

2011-10-02T21:30:00.001-04:00

1. This list of seven items from a visit my brother made to NYC in April 2009:

Top ten

The light at 8:10 and the way those water towers look

Brother's story of trading a crucifix for a chocolate pie

Stopping at various points in central park to sit on benches

Descrip of the renaissance youth on audio tour.

Portrait of the blacksmith's daughter

"that French woman just touched my hand by accident"

Sheep meadow

2. This poem I wrote in a poetry workshop in Kansas with Luci Tapahonso in the early '90s. Well, my friend Wendy found it and sent me this photo. (Dig the Jane Austen epigraph.) I think I'm better at line breaks and stuff now.

3. I also found a notation in my phone from August 1, 2009: "Deanie Loomis." It was meant to remind myself to get another cat and name her Deanie Loomis. Later that month, though, I would begin dating Clifton, who is allergic to cats. Cliftons are all well and good, but I still want a cat, too.

4. And there's this Levertov poem called "Aware" in which she talks about "the vine leaves/ speaking among themselves in abundant/ whispers." Here's the second stanza:

My presence made them
hush their green breath,
embarrassed, the way
humans stand up, buttoning their jackets,
acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if
the conversation had ended
just before you arrived.

Love Is All Around

2011-09-28T12:38:00.001-04:00

Brooklyn morning, 10 a.m. writing project
a car alarm somewhere on the block behind
a quasi-desperate tiredness

I look at the job ads and think

"If I carry me off to Iowa," I think

Here's the pie chart of my mind:
big slices of I'm sick of your insane demands
of gratitude gratitude shakti shakti

I'll rest my mind upon the vari-colored
terra cotta tiles
brick-red painted house shingles
white trim, green leaves all light
and dapple dapple through the window
opposite

(Since I was a kid, if I let my mind go quiet:
particles moving in the trees)

What is this realm I've come to,
its leaves, its constant jostlings?

Spells

2011-09-25T16:31:00.005-04:00

I have been following the blog of Bhanu Kapil. She says things like this on her blog:

Teaching has a lot of shakti. Writing has shakti. September is for balance, the mediation of all this voltage, and the pleasures of the color gold. I invert myself, with others, above the river in early Fall, or the first day of Fall, then go home. Last night, I dreamed of a tree that was filled with eight or nine mountain lions; they were three-quarters mountain lion and one-quarter hawk.

I thought I might have a dream like that last night, but I only remember dreaming that I told some man that I needed to lose 10 pounds and he said, "No, you need to gain 10 pounds." So, there's that.

One image that came up when I Googled "Poet Headstand."
[http://tantricpirate.com/wordpress/]

But there's also this: I woke and thought, "A book called Spells." Like, "Here are some magic spells," but also like, "Joanna's having one of her spells again." The thought pleased me.

At brunch, C. and I talked about serving the poetry/art/music, instead of using the poetry/art/music to serve your ego. Tapping into a water table of poetry, etc. We kept extending the metaphor until it became pleasantly absurd, and C. ended up telling me not to make poetry smoothies that would poison people. (I won't. Hopefully.)

I'm feeling the need to invert myself. I will work up to that again.

New York Penn Cooper

2011-09-21T12:42:00.000-04:00

Last night as I came back out of Penn Station after teaching poetry in New Jersey, I saw Jesse Eisenberg ride by on a bike. Where were you going, Jesse Eisenberg?

Weekend

2011-09-21T12:38:00.000-04:00

[Under the High Line is where I ate lunch with some of my family; my brother met up with a "couple friends," and I walked them through Prospect Park; David Byrne put this globe here; my brother made a plum cake, and I made a cake with the leftover plums, which sunk into the cake, but were still good.]

A. R. Ammons

2011-09-19T23:39:00.001-04:00

I tried to read Ammons years ago, and didn't get it. But just today, I get him, like him.

This is just a place.

J. Hope Stein

2011-09-15T23:52:00.000-04:00

My friend J. Hope Stein, a wonderful poet, has a blog here. Be sure to read About her and to watch the excerpts from her short film, "The Inventor's Last Breath." It is all very wondrous.

Quiet weekend

2011-09-12T16:19:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I took a cab to a 9/11 memorial poetry reading (because the two subways I needed to get there weren't running), and everything just seemed so quiet in Brooklyn. Very quiet. The reading had entrancing moments. My former teacher Malena Mörling read her poems in English in her Swedish accent. I've heard her read several times now, and in my mind the voice of her poems is so tied to the lilt of her accent, the way the English runs over it so that it's plucked at in a lovely way. Nicole Peyrafitte started her performance piece by saying something like, "Remember. Reflect. Mark." And then she rubbed a bunch of charcoal across a huge sheet of paper. It went on from there. There was chalk dust on her head and French lilting singing and marking on her body and more singing. And, of course, given her presence and her voice, we marked and reflected. It's amazing to me when people can do that kind of thing and pull it off. And Dorianne Laux held us all. Rapt.

What else? Clif and I ate Tibetan food on Saturday.

On Sunday, we sat in our offices for most of the day, and still I have more to do on my syllabus for tomorrow's class. Well, I've been mulling it over and making notes on possibilities for about three days. Yesterday I read some poems and thought about them, the kind of poems that lull you and knit you into them. The lulling and knitting distracted me from finishing culling down the list and fitting the poems into categories and boxes of time on the syllabus.

We also finally got my tall bookshelves upstairs. They wouldn't fit up the stairs when we moved, and we (well, mostly he) had to take them apart and put them back together. Now I have a tiny library room attached to my office, in addition to the built-in bookcases downstairs. Yay. But, you know, I still need to arrange the books. Here is the Collected Frank O'Hara looking lonely.

Clif says our upstairs reminds him of the Millennium Falcon, and that he likes how we can both lean back in our office chairs and look at each other down the curved hallway. That hulking black case there is a double bass.

I have seven things to tell you

2011-09-11T14:17:00.006-04:00

1. Ten years ago, it was a beautiful day in Philadelphia.
2. The tv in the English Department hallway at Temple. Lyn Tribble saying, "This is bad." Knowing DC and New York had been hit. Thinking at first Philadelphia would be next. After teaching, a skittish drive through Philly with my friend and former student Walter, on our way out of town to be with other friends. Feeling waves of grief and shock up and down the eastern seaboard.
3. I guess I moved to Minneapolis after that? In part because of that? To be near family? I was in Minneapolis when the U.S. declared war on Iraq. The war is ongoing. The grief of the Bush years. The numbness. Eric saying something like, "That is how they want you to respond. Don't succumb to the numbness."
4. A Facebook friend posts, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace." Yes, do that.
5. Another thing: I am remembering the atmosphere in Nova Scotia, where I got to go for a week two years ago. Where I was, the air had a lightness, but the atmosphere was also heavy enough to hold you. That is what I remember or what I was feeling at the time, lightness and weight, the air and a holding. May I be grateful.
6. This morning's email from my mom: "If u were little I would buy u these PJs and talk u into wearing the hat w them." For the fact that someone sees me this way, may I be truly grateful.

7. And: grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.

Everyday Genius

2011-09-09T09:38:00.000-04:00

I am pleased to have a piece of writing up over here. Thanks, Everyday Genius people!

Perhaps

2011-09-08T00:35:00.001-04:00

Perhaps this drawing parodying pre-Raphaelitism will have a cheering effect.

(Punch Magazine, 1866)

Today

2011-09-08T00:20:00.001-04:00

Today I ~~wrote~~ ~~road~~ rode the bus to Montclair, NJ to fill out my HR paperwork. I am teaching one class there this fall. (American Poetry after 1945.)

Today I was very sleepy all day, and I ate dumb foods, like a croissant for lunch.

Today it rained and rained a lot at night just now, which is tonight.

Today I ordered Indian food from the place I like now, near me in Brooklyn now. Gandhi Fine Indian Cuisine of Flatbush. I have lived in my new place for a month and ten days, and I have ordered food from there four times, I think. (Once for a visiting friend.) The man who brings it said to me the second time, "I have been here before. Do you remember me?" and he gave me a very sweet smile. Yes. Yes, I remember you. Today we smiled sweetly at each other again, and I thought, "Please be careful on your way back." Maybe he heard me think it. It wasn't raining at that point. Maybe a little ~~miss.~~ mist. Careful.

The rice pudding has a little tapioca in it, which I guess that sounds a little weird. But so good.

This is how I sound at night after I was sleepy all day and it rained, and a croissant for lunch and a bus that sat there in the Lincoln Tunnel for a very long time (a short time, but an hour ride instead of twenty minutes, part of it in the tunnel).

This is what I look like when I'm tired like this. (You don't want to see.)

But there was seafood korma and a salad we made at home, which someone cut up the vegetables for me for. A few bites of rice pudding and the rest for tomorrow.

All of which sounds better if you think it over while you listen to this:

News and recent endeavors

2011-09-02T11:59:00.003-04:00

1. I'm excited to have a poem in the recent issue of South Dakota Review.

2. Another piece is forthcoming (next week!) in Everyday Genius.

3. I realized that Bernadette Mayer and Donald Revell will be the Visiting Writers during my four-week writing residency at the Vermont Studio Center next May. Hey!

4. I've picked up some poetry teaching for fall, in addition to the research work I'm doing. (I'm doing some paid research work for another writer, as well as some research of my own into late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century spiritualism.)

5. Keep me in mind if you need someone to do paid research, editing, or writing work. I'm hoping to get a simple website up this fall about the services I can offer along these lines. Meanwhile, you can find my resume here and academic cv here.

6. Some of my research/celebration of the season change involved going to the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp with my little brother last week when I was visiting Florida. It was the site of a community of turn-of-the-century spiritualists, and now it's an isolated small town filled with psychics. It is also, apparently, filled with spirit orbs that show up in photographs! My brother and I tried unsuccessfully to photograph a spirit orb (see above).

7. Oh, dear. Summer is ending. But oh, my-- how I love fall.

More exchanges

2011-08-29T20:39:00.002-04:00

source: http://ibc.lynxeds.com

Me: Look at that person. That ibis. That egret thing.
Mom: That's a sandhill crane.

Me: I feel like my recall hasn't been the same since I hit my head.
Brother: I just haven't been the same since that roller coaster car jumped the tracks . . .

Me: [reading People magazine] Why is Shiloh Pitt-Jolie such a little cross-dresser?*
Brother: I don't know, Joanna. Some of your questions are beyond the scope of my knowledge.

*FYI, I actually think little kids should be cross-dressers. It shows character.

Quotes from Mom

2011-08-28T15:17:00.001-04:00

"Another one of Bill's weird birds. Bill likes birds. [shrug]"

"I'm glad you're getting old. Otherwise you'd be dead."

"Why didn't you bring me spirit orb candy? I didn't want to eat it. I just wanted to set it on my desk and look at it."

"Here's the quote from Groucho Marx at the beginning of part 2 of my book: 'I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.' "

"I know I'm charming. You don't have to state the obvious."

Florida again

2011-08-28T15:09:00.000-04:00

Today

2011-08-22T20:49:00.003-04:00

I got a few things done in my new office. Here it looks like that shrinking hallway from Willy Wonka.

And I bought this minimalist bouquet (freesias) because I was told that fresh flowers would make the house spirits happy. I got this vase as a going away present the year I taught 10th grade English in St. Paul. I like the vase, but I may put the flowers in something else.

My little brother was featured in this German newspaper article. The article is about his biculturalism-- he was raised in Germany and the U.S.-- and it was written by his best friend since kindergarten, Anika. I'll have to post this funny picture I have of them on the first day of kindergarten when I can find it. They have those huge square backpacks German kids carry and the traditional huge cone of candy. Now she's writing newspaper articles and he just started a graduate program in urban planning.

Also, Clifton is back from his trip up north. Here he is doing the ritual pantomime re-enactment of his travel. (And don't worry-- I'll hang some stuff on the walls at some point. Maybe in September.)

Top ten things that freak me out about ghosts

2011-08-21T00:52:00.002-04:00

(for Todd Colby)

1. Todd Colby goes, "I read an article in the New York Times that there are more ghosts reported in Brooklyn than anywhere on the planet!"
2. Great. Haha. I didn't say anything about GHOSTS. I just said I couldn't SLEEP because Clif's in BUFFALO.
3. But now I'm thinking about the ghosts again.
4. The first night we slept here, I had a dream about the people who had lived here before. I discovered all their old clothes from the '40s. The woman, especially, was happy that I knew who they were.
5. But the attic still felt sad and unsettled.
6. Until we unpacked our stuff and vacuumed. Then it felt ok again.
7. Until Clif went to BUFFALO. And left me here with the GHOSTS.
8. Sometimes it's just trapped sadness, like the feeling of Elizabeth Bishop's mother that wells up at dusk in her childhood home.
9. My other friend goes, "Poor Joanna. Every place you live turns out to be haunted. Must be hard."
10. Anyway. Ghosts don't like to be talked about.

I Hear You Sometimes from a Veil

2011-08-20T20:51:00.008-04:00

I have since childhood been sleepy and loved
and trying to work it out

A friend calls
and I report on my eye circles
He says, I thought I could count on you
to take care of yourself
But we have a project
A proposed collaborative project
something about crossing dimensions
something about a veil

I will leave the attic door open
listen for you in a dream
if I can sleep tonight
I'll call to let you know
what you said

Watching the Basquiat documentary again

2011-08-19T23:58:00.000-04:00

Radiant child.

Semi-arranged

2011-08-15T15:56:00.004-04:00

The new place is starting to get arranged.

If you ignore those two end tables that don't go there. And the lampshade with no base. And the empty basket that doesn't go there. And the fact that my tall bookcases are still in the entryway because they wouldn't fit up the stairs. Etc.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the two small attic rooms in our duplex after we moved in. They seemed haunted and/or overly womb-like. Now I like them again. Here is my office/garret/guest room. My friend Wendy and her brother made that small painted table in high school. That Marimekko pillow was my gift to myself when I first moved to New York three years ago. I thought, "A pillow of jaunty mystery. Just the thing."

I just noticed that this closet has a glass doorknob. You can't see it very well, but this painting is by my friend John. It's called "Setting Out." I'm always setting out.

Recent news

2011-08-15T15:48:00.000-04:00

1. I have been accepted for a month-long residency at the Vermont Studio Center for May 2012. Hopefully I will have a good start on my second poetry manuscript by then.

2. Nic Sebastian has read one of my poems in that wonderful voice of hers for her website Whale Sound.

3. My friend Wendy, who I've known since we were 17, is visiting. Usually I visit her in Boston. But this time she is visiting me in my new digs in Brooklyn. And she brought her talismanic travel object, a smirking Canadian doll. It's Bonhomme, the mascot of the Quebec Winter Carnival, and he only scares me a little. Middle Ellie seems fine with him.

Today I Discovered

2011-08-12T20:21:00.001-04:00

A button painted onto the windowsill.

A bunch of old photos of old friends, looking ten to twenty years younger.

Why there are so many books and movies about old houses that hold secrets.

The necessity of slowing down, in order not to walk away without your money or hit your head so hard it leaves a dent.

There has been a turn toward autumn, and breeze, open windows, and cicadas remind me of Kansas, even though I am in Brooklyn.

I am in Brooklyn.

I still want to go to Coney Island. Lawrence, Kansas and Coney Island.

Wise Up

2011-08-11T17:14:00.001-04:00

Talent

2011-08-07T01:17:00.003-04:00

1. I am re-reading that book of letters between James Wright and Leslie Marmon Silko, even though (because?) it makes me cry every single time.

2. I read in the Boog Festival today. It was a day of much changing weather. A highlight for me were the poems of my pal J. Hope Stein. A low point was having to leave after five hours due to poetry over-satiation, not getting a chance to see some of the poets who followed me, and leaving my red folder of poems somewhere!

3. Oh, also I went to brunch with my pal and her friend Ambrose after her reading and before mine, and we talked about how the world is apparently ending, or how New York is like The Plague or Death in Venice this summer, or how Gary Shteyngart wrote a novel last year that predicted some of our present state. (I'm teaching the Shteyngart novel, so I contributed that part. The best thing I ever learned from Gary Shteyngart was when I asked him a question after a reading of his, and he made some comment about how his iPhone makes him feel less human, and how we shouldn't cross streets in New York and look at our iPhones at the same time, or something. It is true. I almost got run over while crossing the street and looking at my iPhone at the same time. I am not cut out to be a cyborg.)

4. What's a poem again? What's the difference between a poem and a story and a memory of something that happened to you when you were a kid and an email you write to a friend and a blog post? Emily Dickinson is looking at me from my Kindle screensaver with this look on her face like, "What?" (I'm reading the Shteyngart on Kindle but the Silko and Wright in actual book form.)

5. Go team.

Here Comes the Sun

2011-08-05T10:24:00.001-04:00

Almost everything

2011-08-01T11:56:00.005-04:00

Almost everything is still in bags and boxes, and I’m constantly walking around thinking things like, “Where’s my green cup [the one I didn’t break]?” and “Where’s my Oil of Olay?” This morning I woke up thinking, “Where is my last bike that got stolen? I want it. Where are the Tretorn tennis shoes I wore in ninth grade? Where is the slim gold watch my mom bought me that year?” That was the year my mom had finished her degree and had a good-paying job, and I could pretend to be solidly middle class in public. Or, well, maybe I could pretend before that. When I was in fifth grade and she was still in graduate school, she worked as the assistant director of an outpatient rehabilitation center, and she somehow bought me the good kind of stylish Levi’s, two pairs of Nikes, and two or three of the Izod polo shirts I had been coveting. But my style still vacillated back then, and I also had barrettes with long leather strings with feathers attached. I remember visiting the rehabilitation center and going on the swings with an autistic boy who was suddenly in love with me, my leather stringed feathers trailing out behind me as I swung. Sometimes I would wear two different Nikes to the mall because I thought it was funny. I had a button that said “Why be normal?,” and I wore it for Halloween, along with a few different shirts layered weirdly on top of each other and a cardboard toilet paper roll covered in glitter as a ponytail holder. I went trick-or-treating with Angela Lowery among the nice houses between my apartment complex and the pool. I’m not sure anyone understood my costume. It was 1980, and I was in Knoxville, and all the other “Why be normal” people had gone to the Lower East Side of New York, but I was only ten and I didn’t know about that. And, anyway, I was with Angela Lowery, who never had to try to be weird. Everyone knew about Angela. She was kind and remote and really sort of otherwordly. She lived with her mother and grandparents on Flenniken Road, and her face and her mother’s face and her grandmother Polly’s face were all the same Cherokee face. She was one of those complete-unto-herself people. She knew how to clog dance. She was lovely and inviolable and, at times, a little unsettling. One time the teacher asked her for her homework, and she said, “Homework cramps my style.” Where is Angela? Last I heard, she died young in a car accident. I want her back.

Muse Magazine

2011-07-31T08:46:00.002-04:00

I have eight poems up here.

Notes from packing my books for the move to Brooklyn

2011-07-26T10:09:00.002-04:00

1. I used to be so careful. Tiny handwriting. Blank sheets of paper folded into exact fourths and stuck into books to be found ten or eleven years later. That trick.

2. Dear American authors of the nineteenth century. Dear Whitman. Dear Poe. Stop calling people "half-breeds."

3. "Bolt upright in my bed that night/ I saw my father flying;/ the wind was walking on my neck,/ the windowpanes were crying." --Stanley Kunitz

4. You once sent me a large shoe box of poetry books you were finished with. Most of them were creased and smudged and had receipts stuck in them because you used to carry poetry books everywhere in the large pockets on your shorts. In one you had written a note to yourself: "The exalted calm."

5. Now in my author bio, I can be like all those other people and go, "Joanna Penn Cooper was born in 1980. She lives in Brooklyn." Part of it will be accurate. The Brooklyn part.

To Whom It May Concern

2011-07-15T11:59:00.003-04:00

I'm writing to inform you of my qualifications on this sunny day inside
wearing silent headphones, a small white feather stuck to one foot.
I can hear that tree clearing its throat outside my fifth floor walk-up.
I can see all this packing and half unpacking of boxes as a compulsive
metaphor for how we're all of us always moving, always learning
it all the freaking time: How to lose how to lose how to lose.
How to know the dark leather gloss of July leaves and let them go.
How to wear the crown of love and fresh pita for lunch and let it go.
My life is not a plastic hamster ball. My life is not that refugee song.
Not any more than anyone else's. I've cured myself of being
so meta, or else I've embraced it. Either way I'm wearing
the crown. Either way, we're all wearing the crown.

Happy birthday, Linda Ronstadt

2011-07-15T09:33:00.001-04:00

Authors I Am Not (2)

2011-07-13T12:17:00.001-04:00

Hemingway never actually ran with the bulls in Pamplona.
But I used to ride my bike along a somewhat busy street in St. Paul
to get to the smoothie place.

Authors I Am Not (1)

2011-07-13T12:14:00.001-04:00


[Image source: Poets.org]

If I were H.D., I'd be all
mythic oracular and Woman.
Today I feel more like a worried cat.

Mid-July

2011-07-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

Mid-July and here I sit looking up "scrimshaw" to write a not-great metaphor about an 18 year-old Nantucket sailor from the 1830s and this tree next to my window. Both of them in full sail, wind in hair. Anything could happen-- fog and white-shrouded figures; tea; scrimshaw. All this blue.

Loving Cup

2011-07-09T22:40:00.000-04:00

Poem Partly Composed While Half-Watching Wimbledon

2011-07-04T12:43:00.004-04:00

[Image source: Reuters]

You are prone to good streaks when you let the racquet do the work,
prone to a landscape of secret suffering in other languages,
followed by bird wit and eucalyptus. Your youth and stoicism
the best kind of wasted youth, everyone on the edge of their seats
to see if you remember what comes next. Now it's all, "Have I
made the finals? Is this really the game? What is the salary
of the ticket-taker on the commuter train? Who is she later
at home when she takes off that hat?" You've glided through
on your metaphorical Raleigh bike, unaware of the forces
surrounding you, keeping you upright. Getting to the finals
is encouragement enough. Beginning to feel your dark night
of the soul is a bit silly is encouragement enough. You can
make up a new game in the middle of their game. Call it
"art." You're all jacks and sack cloth. You're a fighter.
Your'e a doll.

Other Flowers

2011-06-29T13:55:00.000-04:00

My short review of James Schuyler's Other Flowers: Uncollected Poems is out in the current issue of Pleiades.

On or around my birthday

2011-06-29T13:38:00.003-04:00

Drove up with my pal Douglas from NYC to Henniker, NH, where we read at New England College as alumni readers for our former MFA program; stayed with friends Mary-Catherine and Adam in Henniker; had zombies and crab rangoon with my poetry mentors Paula McLain and Malena Mörling; took the bus to Boston to see one of my oldest friends, Wendy, who had made a homemade cake for my birthday (her first!-- it was delicious); went for a walk in Brookline, Mass. and bought these books; realized I had a huge welt-like spider bite on my leg [photo redacted]. Hello.

Solstice Activities So Far

2011-06-21T14:00:00.000-04:00

1. I did a ceremony involving arugula, blue cheese, strawberries, and a Blue Moon beer. A lunch ceremony.

2. I read some poems by Elaine Equi. One of them starts, "The name Equi means horses in Latin." Then I thought of something I recently learned: "The German word for Cooper is Fassbinder."

3. I thought about the idea of renewal. It came to me like a Joseph Cornell box-- something with a ballerina looking sad but determined. Maybe some string representing the trajectory of thoughts; an old postcard with new writing across the old image; and a plant from under the ocean that looks like lace made of clay. Maybe it's a plant, and maybe it's an animal. The point is, once you've made an art box assemblage, you're free to get on with things.

4. I'll offer you this service, in the form of a summer incantation: "Take it easy. Let it go. Just go ahead and let it go."

I Feel Spooky, Tina

2011-06-14T11:03:00.001-04:00

(after a line by Peter Davis)

The only person named Tina that I remember knowing was from 4th or 5th grade. She was small with a cute doll face and fine curling hair. She looked very fragile with a strawberry birthmark on the side of her face, a sad, unsettled look about the brow. In truth, my main memory of her is one day when Tina, Tammy, and I were taken down to a basement classroom to begin learning the flute. Maybe the unsettled look only happened on that day. Maybe her name wasn't Tina.

Tammy was one of the middle-aged fifth graders. There were a few girls who looked like 47 year-olds in shift dresses. I imagined that they were required to do all the housework and bring their dads beers while their moms worked overtime at crap jobs. These middle-aged kids had a resigned look about them, and it was both creepy and comforting to be sitting there learning long-division with them wafting preternatural competence and brokenness out into the room.

I hope that Tammy hasn't worked too hard in her life. I hope that she is now a teacher of the flute. And, Tina, if that is her name . . . I hope she owns a condo and drives a Cadillac. Maybe a vintage MG.

We all lived at the base of some mountains. This meant different things to each of us. That was the year I was a complete latch-key kid unto myself and I skipped a month of school to stay home and watch I Dream of Jeannie. One day I missed a field trip to the bread factory, and someone kind who I didn't know very well-- Tammy?-- brought me my free sample of bread, a miniature loaf, all perfect and small in its cellophane. For the rest of the time I lived in that town, whenever that baking bread smell from the factory wafted my way, I felt an unaccountable longing.

Granola

2011-06-14T10:13:00.007-04:00

How worried are you about a continuous notion of “I”
and whether the you who did whatever thing ten years ago is
the same you today, and what this has to do with character building
or absolution or how people in different geographical locations imagine
you when you come to mind for them, if you do, given what you may
have done ten years ago? Do you think about this often? Sometimes?
Rarely or never? Do you think things when you’re pouring granola
onto your yogurt like, “What if it’s all a lucid dream, and if it is, what do
I choose next? Why did I choose the granola with the vanilla if that
wasn’t the granola I wanted? Why didn’t I lucid dream someone
coming to restock the kind of granola I did want?” The granola, then,
proves it isn’t exactly that kind of lucid dream. It’s a different kind,
where you might end up trying a different kind of granola or moving
back to the Midwest or adopting a tiny animal that comes out from
under a car at the laundromat and naming it Andy Garcia, and having
it narrow its green and crazy eyes at you in love and partial devotion
for the next fourteen years before it leaves this body, changes form,
becomes some next thing you don’t even know about,
that you can’t and don’t even want to control.

Good News from Sunday

2011-06-13T10:20:00.001-04:00

1. Sitting in a window eating sushi and udon noodles.
2. Two ten year-old boys eating at a table by themselves, a serious look about them.
3. On a bench in the evening eating plain frozen yogurt with blueberries. (That good, slightly sour kind of frozen yogurt.)
4. The Upper West Side couple who walked by with their toddler perched in that high kind of stroller (the kind for running?). The toddler's face lit up by the iphone he was looking at.
5. The Argentinian cab driver who asked me where I'm from and then asked if Myrtle Beach is in North Carolina or South Carolina.
6. A "small-boned woman dressed as a jackal" on a movie set in my friend's apartment.
7. Getting in bed with Carrie Fisher's memoir. She had famous parents like me, except mine aren't famous.

Malena Mörling reads Tomas Tranströmer

2011-06-11T19:25:00.001-04:00

Thoughts at the NYPL

2011-06-08T11:35:00.001-04:00

I should have been a librarian. I've always liked the smell, even though the summer when I worked at the college library taking ancient bound journals off the shelves to be re-bound, the ancient decaying dust (and mites?) got into the skin of my hands and made me feel like a drug addict with itchy hands. Mostly, though, the decaying smell is a comfort to me. Is intellectual home. The smell of decaying books, I mean, not decaying flesh. But I learned this recently: There's some chemical that our bodies need, that we're basically made of, that is found in meat that is just starting to rot. Scientists and French people have found that the food that appeals to all palates is food that mimics this just starting to rot taste. Like Parmesan cheese. I'm not being fanciful. This is a nonfiction musing. I learned this from a student of mine who is a ballet dancer. Some people drilled a hole in her bones to repair the fracture she'd been dancing on all those months. One thing I've learned: I like knowing a person in one context, and then going to see them in their work context and realizing, "My God, that person can leap about!" I have also learned that most people have a compelling story if you stop complaining about your haircut long enough to notice. For example, since I moved to New York, I've met the guy from the radio who convinced himself he had a British accent when he was a teenager. I've met a woman from Kentucky who flew over Kansas in a prop plane, surveying it all. Also, my physical therapist has family in Argentina and co-owns a house on Fire Island. He likes the quiet out there and sometimes finds it hard to get up on Monday morning and take the train back to Manhattan and press on people's backs on the 12th floor of a building near Macy's. I've learned all that and more.

New York Public Library

2011-06-08T11:08:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I went to the library. The NYPL was built during the Progressive Era to "establish and maintain a free library and reading room in the city of New York." Public spaces like this make me feel ok about life. Optimistic even. Currently the library is facing a budget cut that would close many branches, cut community programs, and could cause the library to be open only four days a week. Speak out.

Twilight

2011-06-06T22:12:00.000-04:00

"I have talked to them about this and that, I have explained the twilight, admittedly. But is it enough, that's what tortures me, is it enough?" --Waiting for Godot

Morning list essay

2011-06-04T11:32:00.002-04:00

1. I don't think consciousness lives only in the mind. All your cells know it. Or-- how do we say it? Mind is everywhere?

2. I should spend the summer re-reading Emerson.

3. Reading Reznikoff, Niedecker. Who else? Poetry isn't just in the poets. [And do I even mean "poetry"?]

4. I love Americans and their solitary hunkering down into ideas. Esp. Americans of the 19c who wrote wild and tortured books. Dickinson. E. Stoddard. Thoreau. Even Poe. In the 20c, Jean Toomer does it in Cane, this hunkering, letting the material get almost out of hand. There's a slipshod gracey genius running amok.

5. Eudora Welty had it. Found it funny. Dressed it in gloves and set it on the steps for us to see before it tore off its coat and bonnet and ran away, out of frame.

6. An extra-social social act.

7. What's that thing at your shoulder, just out of frame? Feel it?

[photo: Elizabeth Stoddard]

Poem for my birthday month

2011-06-01T12:46:00.001-04:00

Recently and Soon

Twice this week the feeling of someone sneaking up on me. The feeling a ghost got in.

Conversations with friends about whether we are more used to “penis” as a reference or “vagina.” Or, rather, who is punished more for having sexual feelings and parts and talking about them? Whose feelings and parts are co-opted more?

What if I were to introduce “vaginal slickness” into a poem about lawn furniture or clowns?

A feeling like a joke buzzer, but not in my hand. Somewhere else.

I can’t stand how beautiful things are. So I neglect to dust or throw out old papers. This helps a little.

All morning the mind drifts, gentles, then turns and does a dizz-wax thing before gentling again. Yard work, irises, the sadness of Vincent van Gogh, cash prizes, the physical beauty of others as something to be withstood like, you know, the ocean. Cash prizes (again). Inner beauty like a winding spool in the sternum. Then a far-off feeling like a joke buzzer, but in another area.

I have to say it: The blessing of having had friends with whom to discuss organs. Breath. Shapeshifting. Note modulation. The buzzing in my ear.

So much drifting of the mind and body. I’ll be 40 soon. I’ll be over here reading Thomas Merton and doing leg lifts to get in shape in time.

The sun swinging back and forth on its string all month every month like a slowly turning crystal in some hippie’s window, until later we’re not even the ones here anymore and it’s all people not even born yet.

Goodbye, Gil Scott-Heron

2011-05-28T21:38:00.000-04:00

I hope you're new, wherever you are.

The Reader

2011-05-28T21:30:00.000-04:00

So, when did my everyday face start looking like Kate Winslet's tortured face in The Reader?

There's my poem right there.

I just received an email about how I'm supposed to be doing this:

2011-05-26T10:22:00.000-04:00

Fine.

John the Revelator

2011-05-26T10:09:00.002-04:00

The Devil is beating his wife

2011-05-21T20:00:00.002-04:00

A couple years ago, I found out that people don't say that "devil's beating his wife" thing outside the South. That's ok. It's kind of creepy, anyway.

I Made the Wigleaf Longlist

2011-05-19T17:19:00.000-04:00

According to Wigleaf, my short short prose piece Andy was one of the top 100 pieces of very short fiction in 2010. I'm in good company with writers like Nin Andrews and Kate Lorenz.

Thanks, Wigleaf! And thank you to Opium for publishing it.

I Bet You Didn't Know I Had This Superpower

2011-05-19T12:51:00.000-04:00

by Joanna Penn Cooper and Todd Colby

You are probably more special than even they remember, too,

letting me breathe on your elbow for luck on my way out to fight

time you can't figure out time, so you might as well join it,

but this is all I have, the heading out, the mechanism of doubt

like Leave it to Beaver, waiting for Ward to come home, facing

the abyss, and so putting on pearls and a corsage

to vacuum the house. I will never have you all to my own,

he says through crumpled leaves the lemon sun receding

the smell of lilacs assaulting our faces like tiny elfin
slackers. I will build you something sweet and rapturous

like a pillow full of soft dice and peanut butter. I love

the look of surprise you get when I build you things like
that, then eat the whole thing with Nutella before you

get home from work. Watch the nut butters, hon,

your heart is faint, will break were the last words ever,

or at least the last words I heard before the Rapture.

Two events

2011-05-08T12:04:00.000-04:00

I'll be participating in two events this week with some brilliant musicians and poets. Come out and see us, if you're interested!

Monday May 9, 2011
8pm

Secret Orchestra
with special guest poet Joanna Penn Cooper
Yuko Fujiyama - piano
Clif Jackson - bass
David Gould - drums/percussion

University of the Streets
Muhammad Salahuddeen Memorial Jazz Theatre
130 E. 7th St.
2nd Floor
NY, NY 10009

$10 admission
Alcoholic and non-alcoholic refreshments available

http://www.universityofthestreets.org/
http://maps.google.com/?q=loc%3A130+E+7th+Street+New+York+NY+10009

Friday May 13, 2011
7 p.m. sharp

Stain of Poetry Reading series

MEGA WOMEN'S READING

@Goodbye Blue Monday – Bushwick, Brooklyn

with

Joanna Penn Cooper ~ Claire Donato ~ Farrah Field ~ Molly Gaudry ~ Hailey Higdon ~ Anne Cecilia Holmes ~ Brenda Iijima ~ Julia Story

For bios and photos, please visit the website:

http://stainofpoetry.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=171817919538834

Ram fountain

2011-05-05T23:37:00.000-04:00

Goodbye, ram fountain.

Five for Thursday

2011-05-05T23:33:00.001-04:00

1. Last day of classes at Fordham.
2. A Handmade Museum by Brenda Coultas
3. Meetings with students. They always look different up close.
4. There's always one student on a laptop in the Poetry Room at the Fordham library, and she's always wearing really strong perfume, and always frowns and looks puzzled when you come in to look at the poetry books.

5. Rehearsal with Secret Orchestra. At their next performance, I am reading a poem by S. Tanigawa as part of a composition by the trio's piano player, Yuko Fujiyama. At one point, Yuko was like, "Here you can just improvise some sounds." And I was like, "Improvise? Sounds??"