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Future schmuture
No NEH grant again, a magazine acceptance, a solicitation of poems from a magazine I’d never cracked (!), several poem rejections, some drafting and revising, lots of Shenandoah work, a vague but persistent headache, short days and blustery cold–hello from a mixed-blessing November in Sabbatical Land. I hereby mark the sixth-month birthday of my novel […]
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Gossip, news, & poems
Gossip is a derogatory and strongly gendered word for how nonpowerful people share information. I have only been called “a gossip” to my face once–by a colleague–but it felt like a mild slur with a smelly pile of patriarchy behind it. I mean, we all know mean-spirited people of various genders who are delighted to […]
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Rainbows, snakes, and book launches
Among my latest thrills: nearly stepping on a hissing snake; a double rainbow over an empty Main Street; a frisbee arriving by mail; and, oh yeah, publishing my first novel. On launch day for Unbecoming, I was shut in my house responding to student project proposals; my March launch for The State She’s In came […]
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Live from the surface of the moon
Live From the Surface of the Moon The landing leg (porch) jets a web of shadows across lunar powder while brilliantly bleached astronauts lope across the frame On Sunday July 20th 1969 I am not yet two : : do not divine how the moon mirrors the sun and the magnificent desolation […]
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My mother as live-in nurse, 1962
Numismatics, 1962 Strange to feel inferior, but that was the job of live-in European servants: to confer shine for a pittance. English nurses, Scottish maids, Estonian women doing laundry, German POWs pruning roses. Out through glitter, back to the dock. Mrs. Anthony motored around town in a humble Ford wagon, but in her garage, […]
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Good reads
One of my 2014 resolutions was to track my reading via Goodreads, and I’m here to say I hated it. Record-keeping in itself is a good thing. It’s interesting to know I read or reread at least 95 books last year (a few weren’t in the Goodreads system and I can remember a few more […]