Artist's Statement- attempt 1

Initially, my thought was to compose an essay explaining my poetry in the most concrete of terms in an attempt to draw upon the logical mind of the audience.  Poetry can be logical, mathematical, scientific; if I want I can write a fourteen line ababcdcdefefgg sonnet in iambic pentameter.  I can write something so beautifully precise in meaning, a tribute to the mental process of solving for x, pristine and leaving nothing up to interpretation.

Then later, I can sneak back in, break into the CEO-esque mansion of a wordwork with a ski mask over my hair, wearing all black and feeling like a ninja, though I hear ninjas really wore blue.  I can spray paint harsh words over the perfect white walls, "cock," "motherfucker," "whore."  I can break all of the fine china and use the pieces to tear the curtains.

Sometimes, it can be fun.  What isn't interesting about limiting yourself so severely only to break free, pumping your fist to the skies and screaming "liberty!"?

Often, there is no time for rules.  I don't need to be the Übermensch to feel iconoclastical.  I must have pen and now or the words will burst out of me like a non-verbal Tourrete's, fingers scraping the verses into the walls.  Words divined in a purposeful order; subjectivity is dead.  How can I take credit for something I did not create but that has been created through me?  It is a wonderful way to be objectified, not by men but an ineffable something we so lovingly refer to as inspiration.  Oh, for a muse of fire!

Experimentation is nice, so juicy and sensuous.  To wake up at 3:15 a.m. for an entire month, pouring one's sleep thoughts onto a smeared page in an unreadable print.  Waking up with the tell-tale blue or black or gray or purple poet's pinky.  Such a happy insomnia.  Then to compose lists of words and phrases from the touching creations of others, "puedo escribir los versos mas tristes esta noche," "it is not your pen you are looking for," "you soothed me like cake and milk."  Your pen can sooth me with the saddest lines.  Tonight, you are looking for cake and milk.

Often, I want to get a point across, want to make my words rile the masses into a 100,000+ anti-war rally.  Let's march on Washington because I'm queer, Latina, in chronic pain, and I am mad as hell!  So many things I am so pleasantly uncomfortable describing with poetry; let me describe for you the importance of the purple pen I stole from a college recruiting event, it makes such pretty lines.  But to incite, yes, that is where I am.  My purpose as creator or medium for creation.  Let me create empathy.  Who will love this poor brown girl, I want to ask.  I will ask.  I am asking.

Wikipedia tells me that my artist's statement must explain, justify, and contextualize my body of work.  My work is an extension of my body, and isn't work at all, but a serious play.  Explaining myself seems like something a naughty child ought do, justification feels like something for which to strive-- I will one day justify myself on this earth and then I will die, and my context is as fluid as this earth and my body - "I was about to slip down the sink like grease."  Multiple subjectivities, striving, oozing.

I am a malleable poet/ess playing with canon and neologisms, dreaming of successfully lulling the "I" to sleep, one day.  What further peace of spirit can be desired?

Six-Word Memoirs 2

Some more of these.  Because I don't have any posting ideas.

Aspiring lady pirate, disillusioned,
sells boat.
-Diana White

Wasn't noticed so
I painted trains.
-Mare 139

Angry guy gets law
license, sues.
-Bryan Gates

With three cats
  I'm never unloved.
-Cynthia Macdonald

Left a desert for a
wasteland.
-James Shore

The image was large with silence.
-Elizabeth Raab

He left me for good eventually.
-Audrie Lawrence

Mistook streetlight for
   the moon.  Climbed.
-Zack Wentz

Wanted to live forever,
died trying.
-Syona Luciferina

Revenge is living well,
without you.
-Joyce Carol Oates

Artist's Statement

Okay, so I need an artist's statement, both for the Hedgebrook application and MFA program applications.  So I'm going to follow the "How to Write an Artist's Statement" suggestions, free writing it up here.

1. Take five minutes and think about why you do what you do. How did you get into this work? How do you feel when work is going well? What are your favorite things about your work? Jot down short phrases that capture your thoughts. Don't worry about making sense or connections. The more you stir up at this point, the richer the stew.

Writing poetry is the decluttering of the mind.  Without it, thoughts would be so crowded as to begin seeping out the pores.  Words symptomatic of a raging mood would escape the lips at the most inauspicious of times.  "One shot or two?" "The glowing nightlight of her teeth lulling me to wake!"  It is the only science that makes nonsense in such a liberating manner; poetry is not math.  It is the art of conveying a two-thousand page tome thought into a 14-line emotion.

2. Make a list of words and phrases that communicate your feelings about your work and your values. Include words you like, words that make you feel good, words that communicate your values or fascinations. Be loose. Be happy. Be real. Think of these as potential seasonings for your stew. You don't have to choose which ones to use just yet, so get them all out of the cupboard.

• illumination
• freedom
• necessity
• lifeblood
• clearing
• echoes
• clarity
• dreams
• raw emotion
• catharsis
• healing
• conversations with God
• cleaning
• honesty
• reconsidering

3. Answer these questions as simply as you can. Your answers are the meat and potatoes of your stew. Let them be raw and uncut for now.

1. What is your favorite tool? Why? 

NA

1. What is your favorite material? Why? 

NA

1. What do you like best about what you do? 

The feeling of creation and inciting emotion in others, empathy-building. 

1. What do you mean when you say that a piece has turned out really well? 

I mean that someone has read it aloud as I imagined it to flow in my head.  They have demonstrated a true reaction, whether pleasant or unpleasant.

1. What patterns emerge in your work? Is there a pattern in the way you select materials? In the way you use color, texture or light? 

NA

1. What do you do differently from the way you were taught? Why? 

Sometimes, I purposefully choose to crowd my poetry with words, let them run over each other messily, capturing, I hope, the multiple voices in a three-dimensional crowd.

1. What is your favorite color? List three qualities of the color. Consider that these qualities apply to your work. 

NA

4. Look at your word list. Add new words suggested by your answers to the questions above.

•  evocation
• provocation
• voices
• multiple subjectivities
• capturing
• releasing
• empathy
• reaction

TBC!

Weird Day at the Y

It was a weird day at the gym today.  Many reasons.  I suppose they were all smaller things, but together it added up to a strange sort of occasion.

First, for the past few weeks pretty much three-four people show up for Tai Chi.  Because of that, we've been able to play with SWORDS.  Okay, they aren't real swords but canes, but still, they're meant to represent swords.  Anyway, today, there were about 12 people!  Everyone seemed to return from vacation all at once, and there were three new students.

Then, when I got out of Tai Chi/Qigong, I went to the locker room to change into my real work out clothes, and I not only skipped over my usual row (the first one) altogether, but skipped the second and went straight to the third row.  I wasn't even thinking!  Why would I subconsciously do this?  Any deep insights?

In the locker room, two little girls were singing a really random song we used to sing in high school, the Weenie Man Song, which goes like this (if it's wrong, just chalk it up to changing times):

I know a weenie man
He has a weenie van
he sells most everything
from hot dogs on down down down down
Someday I'll join his life
I'll be his weenie wife
Hot dog, I love that weenie man!
Break it down
Weenie, weenie, weenie and a bun bun bun
and mustard too (repeat)

I ran into not one but TWO people I haven't seen in a while.  One is my friend S, with whom I was able to practice Japanese- hurrah!

I also read poetry while working out for the first time, and burned way more calories than usual.  How can this be?

AND my usual shower had a broken soap dispenser (le gasp!), so I had to switch.  Not that it was such a big deal-- the usual shower had a hot/water faucet that wouldn't stick.  Always had really hot showers, which are not ideal after a work out.

Plus, I was randomly stopped in the lobby on my way out by a lady who watches Big Bang Theory.  She was very amused by my new Bazinga! shirt (pictured below).  I wonder, if I keep wearing this shirt, will all of my fellow nerds come out from the woodwork, let their freak flags fly?

I can think of nothing else.  Good night!

Not Quite What I was Planning

So, it turns out there's a series of books called Six Word Memoirs.  I talked about six word stories a few posts back, and thought there might be a book of them.  Anyway, hurrah for successful search engine-ing.  I am including my favorites here (I might have to post more later, for it grows late!).

Watching quietly from
every door frame
-Nicole Resseguie

I still make coffee for two.
-Zak Nelson

Forest peace, sharing vision, always optimistic.
-Jane Goodall

    Danced in
    Fields
of Infinite
Possibilities
-Deepak Chopra

I'm enjoying
    even this
downward
    dance.
-Colum McCann

  Found true love,
married someone
    else.
-Bjorn Stromberg

Hedgebrook

How could I not know that Hedgebrook is located on Whidbey Island?  Honestly, all these years living in the Seattle area, and I have to hear about this in passing from a woman at work?  Hurrah for wonderful colleagues!  In any case, where are all the hard core feminists?  Gloria Steinem's a part of the project, for goodness sake!

End rant.

Anyway, in case you don't know, Hedgebrook is a writer's "retreat" (according to Steinem, it is isn't a retreat but "an advance."  Oh, Gloria, you are always so beautifully eloquent) for women.  It sounds just lovely.

Taken directly from their About page, because these are writing ladies, and if they wanted me to terribly paraphrase in a late night blog post, by golly, they'd've not spent so much time making their description so gorgeous:

Mission: Hedgebrook supports visionary women writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come.

THE ALCHEMY OF TIME & SPACE, SOLITUDE & COMMUNITY
Located on beautiful Whidbey Island near Seattle, Hedgebrook offers one of the few residency programs in the world exclusively dedicated to supporting the creative process of women writers, and bringing their work to the world through innovative public programs.

The gift of time and space in solitude cannot be overestimated. It is essential to a writer’s process and difficult to carve out in daily life. Having her own cottage, with meals provided, enables a writer to give full focus to her work and go deeper into her writing process.

Hedgebrook was founded on Virginia Woolf’s belief that giving a writer a room of her own is the greatest vote of confidence in her voice. What we’ve discovered in the ensuing decades is the power of community: bringing women together is equally important in nurturing and informing their voices, and emboldening them to speak.

At the end of a day of writing, all six residents come down to the farmhouse kitchen and share a meal, their stories, histories, breakthroughs and roadblocks. They give advice and feedback, and challenge each other to take risks. A community forms around the kitchen table, bonds deepen through conversation, and writers leave knowing they are part of the larger Hedgebrook community in the world.

I am going to apply to be a writer in residence, because I figure, the absolute worst thing that can happen is that the ladies say "no" (well, it could be Ruth Forman, that might be the absolute worst just because I love her so insanely much).   Anyway, getting admitted would mean that I could stay at Hedgebrook for two to six weeks for free, and just work on my poetry.  Doesn't that sound absolutely perfect?  Having an opportunity to create in unity with a bunch of talented women?

Ah~

So let's think, what do I need to get together (here's hoping it's similar to an MFA program).  Oh, wow, this looks a lot less intense than I was expecting- hurrah for saving trees by not having seventy page applications :)

So, I will need a writing sample- 10 pages all together of any genre or mixed genre or multiple genres.  I'm thinking one short story (3/4 pages) and some poetry.  Then I'll need an artistic statement- oy.  I am always bad at making myself sound good-- just say no to self-flagelation of the two-dimensional variety!

The website says that they judge submissions based on three criteria: 1) quality of writing, 2) originality of voice and strength of prose, and 3) "an eye toward diversity in all areas."  Well, anyway, it won't hurt to try-- hopefully I can at least get some feedback on my writing.  I think I better focus on my artist statements this week.  Let you know how it goes!

Due date: September 23rd!  Don't let me forget!

Reading Books!

Gah!  I am so far away from my goal!  I vowed last September to read one book a week for the whole year, adding up to 52 books for the year.  At the end of July, I am only at 39!  Yeek!  I did not count books for school, because that seems cheat-y, nor did I count picture or comic books.  But still!  This is what happens when you start and never finish too many books!

The post is here: http://mandyofthesea.blogspot.com/2009/12/well-reviews-just-wont-happen.html.

Anyway, my vacation leads straight into the end of this goal period, so I'd better get kicking while I'm gone!  August needs to be a big reading month as well, luxury-wise.  Oh dear, but I've got so many books to read for school, capstone, GRE prep, oy. 

I definitely didn't come close to the movie thing- but it wasn't a year goal anyway.  Tra la?

Free Rice.com

Studying for the GRE (again) is a hassle.  Honestly, no one wants to pound random mathematical formulas and vocab words into their head.  It isn't a healthy way to learn (or re-re-re-learn).  The vocab portion in particular is annoying, because certain words (i.e. polemics, hegemony, pedagogy) really have a lot more implications than can be summed up in a few phrases.  In any case, I am flash carding my way through the vocab list, so I thought I'd share this great site someone pointed out for me back in undergrad.

So this site is called Free Rice.  Essentially, the page shows a word, and you click on the synonym.  For each correct answer, 10 grains of rise are donated to the United Nations World Food Program.  Apparently, there are other question games up now, but the original vocab game is the most useful for my purposes, and easiest to get to, as it just pops up when you go to www.freerice.com. 

Studying vocab is a pain, but it's nice to feel like you're helping someone, even if it is with a minimal amount of effort.  So, if you're feeling like becoming more educated, why not support the UN WFP?

cat poem- attempt 2!

the cat at night

lioness on the hunt
for sneaky poltergeists
slipping in the windows
while mistress is asleep

how she protects her cub
(asleep and unaware)
chases out the demons
corners them and pounces


then goes to sleep at dawn
woken by the loving hand
and purrs to please her child
ignores the mockery

... I need to work on this more-- good night!

Poems about Cats

I love cat poems-- love love love them.  It seems to me, if you can't find the true beauty of life in the presence of such an unconditionally loving creature, a creature so ill-capable of evil, then your happiness is beyond redemption.  Honestly, I feel that my cats are such wonderful, supporting friends, and while they can be naughty, their small destructions (and sometimes a bit bigger >.<) are never meant.

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite cat poems, in light of my terrible failure to capture the loveliness of Eloise, my gorgeous white kitty.

Christopher Smart, the 18th century English poet, wrote of his cat Jeoffry in the religious poem Jubilate Agno (Rejoice in the Lamb).  Smart reflects on his sweet companion, and considers Jeoffry in terms of his own Anglicanism, seeing Jeoffry as a far better Christian and servant of God than he.  Without further ado, I give you the "For" section of Jubilate Agno, as published on PoemHunter.com:

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually--Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep

I really love the joy and thanks given that the poor cat has healed.  I'm not really much of a religious person myself, but I do believe in giving thanks, if only to a possible loving presence or the idea that the love of our neighbors for ourselves can lead to magick.

Another poem I came across more recently (though it is even older) relates to the lovely film The Secret of Kells, in which one of the main characters is a white cat named Panger Bán.  Just because I loved the scene so much, I'm including the clip of Aisling singing to Panger Bán and making him a spirit, temporarily, to help Brandon escape his room:



It is really impossible not to have one's soul touched by that film.  Lovely animation, music, store, and both a cat and faery as main characters.  What more could you ask for?  Anyway, have fun playing the video over and over, it is so beautiful.

The poem from which the cat's name comes is from 8th century Ireland, composed by a monk.  He compares the kitty's daily activities to his own scholarly endeavors.  Which I think is very much like Buddhist mindfulness-- it is not so much what you do but how you do it.  This is W.H. Auden's translation from the Old Irish:

Pangur, white Pangur, How happy we are
Alone together, scholar and cat
Each has his own work to do daily;
For you it is hunting, for me study.
Your shining eye watches the wall;
My feeble eye is fixed on a book.
You rejoice, when your claws entrap a mouse;
I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem.
Pleased with his own art, neither hinders the other;
Thus we live ever without tedium and envy.

Now, let me think.  I know there must be at least one more.  Apart from the whole of T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.  Oh, here is a whole website of cat poems :)  and it looks like both of mine were included.  I'm trying to think, I'm pretty sure there were some Heian-era poems about cats.  Anyway, I will try to think of some more!

In the meantime, I will also be trying to capture cat whimsy into words!

The Witching Hour

Just to clarify and make some admissions regarding my own silliness in regards to the recent 3:15 Experiment post, there is a very distinct reason I call the time at which participants will wake up "ungodly."  While it is rather early and a terrible time for one with nighttime pain, there is also the superstition factor.

The Witching Hour or Devil's Hour refers to, alternatively, 3 a.m. or 3:33 a.m., and is a Christian-based belief.  Essentially, the idea is that Christ died at the age of 33 at 3PM, so the opposite time, 3AM (or 3:33, factoring in his age) is seen as belonging to the devil, the time of day directly across from the Passion.  My basis for this fear, however, is pretty much just the scariness that was (and is...) The Exorcism of Emily Rose. 

I typed in a query online, and did get a Wikipedia response:

In European folklore, the witching hour is the time when supernatural creatures such as witches, demons and ghosts are thought to be at their most powerful, and black magic at its most effective. This hour is typically midnight, and the term may now be used to refer to 3am -6am, or any late hour, even without having the associated superstitious beliefs. The term "witching hour" can also refer to the period from midnight to 3am, while "devil's hour" refers to the time around 3am.

It is believed by some in England that the witching hour begins at 11 pm and runs through to midnight. This hour before midnight is also used for the practice of witchcraft.

Anyway, it can be scary enough being awake at night.  As one who does tend to believe in all things "supernatural" and has had hallucinations as a result of bad reactions to medications, I definitely do believe in the power of the dark.  Tonight, for example, there is a full moon, and I feel it hard not to be drawn in by its power.  It feels so likely to draw me out from the comfort of my room and into the middle of the road.  I want to go howl with the dogs.

Here is an old poem, in which I tried to explain the feeling, that is simultaneously horrifying and liberating:

Untitled 1

As I watch her plans fall through
I think of her and me and you
And how we’d stare at starry skies
And dream those lights were demon eyes
And hear those devil screams as song
And have ourselves a sing-a-long

We’d howl and pump our chests and spit
And, oh, your mother had a fit
On seeing you with tattered skirt
Muddied up with phlegmy dirt
I’ve never seen your face since then
And her and I diverge again.


In any case, I'm sure that watching too many horror movies has taken away the magic of the dark quite a bit.  I recently posted this video to my other blog, but it is high time that it be repeated:

Night Light - More free videos are here

Just something to think about- how, while the things or people we fear in the night can hide from us in its depths, we too can hide ourselves away.  I always love this short film, scary as it is.  Though I have seen another short film in which blindness is used to display the horror of being stalked.  Anyway, that was a silly tangeant.

Nonetheless, you now know some of why I am worried to wake up at 3:15 for a whole month.  I wish I could believe wholeheartedly in its magick, but the superstitions run deep.  I find myself wondering why it couldn't be 2:15, so that I can be safe in my dreams at 3.  But that, I suppose, is an even more ridiculous thought, for if something wicked is to attack, I'd be much better off awake than asleep.

So many strange things within the human mind.

3:15 Experiment

I love grand scale writing experiments and collaborative projects.  I really want to get involved in a collaborative poetry project, but I really need to read more about them to come up with a project that actually produces a pretty final product.  Wow, I really am prone to random alliteration...

In any case, I'm going to be taking part in the 3:15 Experiment throughout August.  I actually just stumbled upon this gem of a collaborative writing project-- am doing a presentation on Lee Ann Brown as part of my summer poetry writing class (which in turn is part of my directed Capstone research- how confusing!).  Anyway, Lee Ann in herself is fascinating-- it is nice to study poets who are alive and producing, but the project itself is really exciting.

From the lovely 3:15 Experiment website (the Facebook site has informed me that the website will be updated in September with August writings of this year added), a description of the project:

HOW TO PLAY:

• Begin at 3:15 AM on August 1st (so set your alarms on JULY 31) . Continue each day until August 31.
• You may write any length, style, form, content, voice, rhythm, etc.
• DO NOT EDIT your work. This is raw stuff, baby. That's part of the experiment. You are welcome to edit, collage, break apart the poems later for whatever purpose you choose, but please SHARE THE RAW STUFF with the rest of the group here or on the website once the experiment is over.
• (Optional) Do not read what you have written until the month is over, except to skim the work to make sure everything is legible.

TIP: do not use a felt tip pen unless you don't care about ink stains on your bed. Many a poet has fallen asleep in the middle of writing.

If you can help it, don't even get out of bed! The point is to ride that dream state, that precarious point between sleeping and waking and sleeping.

I love the "playful" tone.  It actually reminds me of my Tai Chi/Qigong instructor.  Every time a new students shows up for class, he asks, "have you come to play?"  It's just such a lovely word, whimsical and with the idea of a child playing in the freeness of summer.  Anyway, the sigh in those thoughts is audible.

I think sometimes I need to focus more on doing things because they're fun (or, as they say in Kamikaze Girls, 楽しいから！).  If you are passionate about personal projects and academic efforts, they will inevitably merge or somehow tightly interrelate.  Remember Richard Feynman playing Frisbee with a plastic plate led to the thought-turned-equation that won him the Nobel Prize.

And so, I will be writing some presumably very short free-thought pieces throughout the month of August at the ungodly a.m. time of 3:15.  We'll see how it goes-- being an insomniac, the idea of purposefully disrupting a possible sleep seems very much on the verge of self-flagellation.  And the cats may pounce me to death :)

In any case, I'll be putting up a counter marking days gone, to go somewhere about on this page.  Those sorts of things are insanely ridiculous, but they motivate me nonetheless. (speaking of which, I should probably update my book count.  The movie count remains the same :S).

Skirt - Other lengths

Oops.  Apparently, for the assignment, we were supposed to go from a long free write to a long poem to a short poem.  I just kinda wrote a long-ish poem.  (So I went back and pretended it came from something longer- sh!)  Anyway, I kinda like the prose piece.  Not sure about the short piece ^^*

1. Prose

A Beauty Marred

Oh, skirt, I remember when you were new, so lovely, so perfectly fitting, and so affordable. I think, even on a student’s budget, I would have brought you home, put you on my credit card, bought you at full price. You were such a delight, dancing across the irises, catching the sun and shimmering, softly gracing the thigh with your silken touch. Your swish sang out in a sweet soprano, reminding me of Spain, the grandmother land, skirt. You said vulve and almost sent me across the Atlantic. Another month would have been enough, regardless of so many deterents.

Skirt, you supported me, for one glorious year you were my self-esteem. I wore you, and because you were special, more than special, because you were exalted and desired by all fortunate to see and hear and feel your soft cloth, I felt exalted and desired. Together, we would be young and beautiful forever.

But, my wonderful skirt, my beautiful, perfect skirt, I blew it. I single-handedly dimmed out looking straight at the sun future. I was too trusting, and my naïveté was your ruin. With one spin cycle, I spun your saffron, sanguine, sepia shades into the most horrible salmon color that ever disgraced a piece of fabric. You bled out, your lifeblood escaping so quickly. If only we’d had more time! I held you, and the world around me blurred into non-existence, what had been full of kindergarten reds and yellows and blues.

And now? And now an amethyst remembrance is all I own.

---

2. Longer Poem (secretly original)

skirt
Amanda Martin Sandino

skirt sitting sadly in swollen sack skirt
skirt stuffed aside inside the closet skirt
skirt stitched with strands of stunning somethings skirt
skirt sprinting splendid across iris skirt
skirt sixty-percent off sold at first sight skirt

skirt stained by someone's careless mistake skirt
skirt specked with salmon-colored smudges skirt

skirt, still skirt, spoiled, worthless, useless skirt
skirt so treasured, such an exalted skirt
skirt showy, a self-esteem building skirt
skirt so pleasing, Spanish-spun design skirt
skirt sweet memories of summer days skirt
skirt swishing softly in the spring breeze skirt

skirt, it wasn't someone else's fault, skirt
skirt such slanderous wash instructions skirt
skirt machine-soaked on a cold setting skirt
skirt safflowers spin-cycled to smear skirt

skirt unreplaced by Nordstrom’s customer service skirt
skirt absent from so many store stocks and store racks skirt
skirt sitting sadly in swollen sack skirt
skirt stuffed aside inside the closet skirt
skirt safe sepulchered in my closet skirt

---

3. Short poem (9 line limit)

A beauty marred

Saffron
Summer
Sunsets

Streaming
Smear
Stained

Sepulchered
Shrouded
Song

small irritation

small irritation

sipping my latte
the uneven leg
of the cafe chair
tobbles me forward
while reading the end
of an old romance
on a sunny night
in mid-September

Short In-Class Writings

1. Write what you hear now.

I am hearing these words as thoughts, as though they existed externally, outside of my head.  The fidgeting noises and running, dragging, tapping pens/pencils of other people's thoughts drawing across the page.  The actual sounds of thought, not some neuroscientific action of the silly brain, some electrical impulses becoming all, gods to which we all must submit.  Thought as action.  Reality of the now existing somewhere between words and gestures, the actions of entering the words, the thoughts, into the physical realm.  Pen sweeping across paper is thought, electricity a mere excuse.

---

2. Write about a toy you had as a child.

Pound Kitty, later found out to be a Pound Purry, the industrial branding tattoo on his thigh, the "PP" to match the Pound Puppy line.  But who in their right mind would want PP to be their initials?  Poor Peter Pan.  Pound Kitty has lost his head twice, and while I would like to say he's quite the romantic (he did, in fact, have a wife for a few years, before I lost her), I mean it literally.  Once, when he tried to jump the fence.  Once, when my mom made me put him through the wash.  Twice, reattached.  NEver washed again.  Since, he smells old, dusty like an ill-read novel, though he remains on my bed to this day, even traveled to Japan with me.  Not as soft as he once was, but still nice to the touch.  He looks scornfully at my real cats, so disobedient, so destructive.  Perhaps he thinks how much longer they'd last, head or no, if they too were stuffed.  After all, he remembers Charlie, ten cats ago.

---

3. Write of a time you said your name and felt extreme pleasure or sadness/disappointment. (OR write of a time someone else said your name to the same effect).

Don't want to.  Don't even want to speak.  Don't want to be here.  Don't want to be.  If only you'd just let me sit silent, listen, act as spectator, not actor.  Let me sit as wallpaper, clinging to the corner, maybe peeling off a little in interest from time to time, but mostly sticking, still.  Thinking of the t-rex in Jurassic Park.  If only I am still enough, they will not see me.  Try not to breathe.  Do not blink, but then, the tears are motion too.  And, of course, the settling and unsettling in my chair, and the eyes of hte companion I've come with, so encouraging, and such a nice, such a friendly smile.

That eventually, when it's my turn, I have to wave out at the circle around me, to which I am meant to belong, and say, "Hi, I'm Mandy, and I'm a chronic pain sufferer."

---

4. Write about a rainy day/night.

I hear the call.  One, at first, a single drop.  Then others, so quickly and so large.  The landscape swept, no, blurred, turned into a Monet painting.  The trees run, the houses and the streets run, bleeding into the sewer drain.  The infinite vase emptying on the land, that smell of rebirth, and the wonderful thought of becoming a boat culture.  Let me live upon the waves.  "Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water."  I must be free to have it join me.  Ignore the bodies huddled into coffee shops and the reality of a thin white shirt.  Stand beneath the sky of clouds and let the gods of thunder make love to my body, take my exposed nipples into their mouths, run their hands upon my thighs, and enter me in a thousand different places.  The cold so quickly warms, and we are joined, my hair me, my clothing me, my tears me, and my rainy day me.

short short short story

Short short short stories, I mean.  Ten words or fewer.  I always wish I could do it adeptly, thinking on the effectiveness of Hemingway's For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Looking about for this exact short short short story, I came upon an interesting post from Wired, which included stories in six words or fewer.  Here, I include my favorites, with a strong recommendation that you go see the Wired article.  (by the by, I want to say Wired.com, but they say wired quite distinctly on their page.  So perhaps I've been confused all these years.)

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
- Joss Whedon

Automobile warranty expires. So does engine.
- Stan Lee

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.
- Vernor Vinge

It cost too much, staying human.
- Bruce Sterling

I’m your future, child. Don’t cry.
- Stephen Baxter

TIME MACHINE REACHES FUTURE!!! … nobody there …
- Harry Harrison

K.I.A. Baghdad, Aged 18 - Closed Casket
- Richard K. Morgan

Batman Sues Batsignal: Demands Trademark Royalties.
- Cory Doctorow

Nevertheless, he tried a third time.
- James P. Blaylock

Three to Iraq. One came back.
- Graeme Gibson

Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back.
- David Brin

Deadline postponed. Five words enough...?
- David Brin

Clones demand rights: second Emancipation Proclamation.
- Paul Di Filippo

Corpse parts missing. Doctor buys yacht.
- Margaret Atwood

Starlet sex scandal. Giant squid involved.
- Margaret Atwood

He read his obituary with confusion.
- Steven Meretzky

Steve ignores editor's word limit and
- Steven Meretzky

Leia: "Baby's yours." Luke: "Bad news…"
- Steven Meretzky

By the way, it's funny, but Berger's sticky note from Sex in the City ALMOST works:

I'm sorry, I can't.  Don't hate me.

Anyway, so I've been thinking about short short short stories a lot, and have been slaving to write my own.  I gave myself a ten word limit though, so I guess I'll have to... edit?

Bad attempts-

Dear Ellie,
Good-bye. 
Love forever,
me

She sighed as it re-began again.

Wanted: vampire bite.  Soon.


...  I guess I'll have to work at it more-- come up with some later!

Cheers.

poem

because you
would ask me
why i slip
japanese
words into
my poetry


i studied it
for love

and what sort
of poet
would i be
if i ignored
my lover
in my poetry?

why has bodhidharma left for the east?

don't forget

the mind

rotting away

hallucinogen

consumed

in an effort

to understand

the nature of

the mind

the loveliness of eloise

foot extends
sweet vibrations
tickling
the rough tongue
not for release
but simple joy
soft and moveable
curling and stretching
happiness
so simple

annabelle

(Edit)

As much as it is possible for one human being to own another wholly
I belong to you, Annabelle

You were always so devoutly Catholic, you prayed for me each night
You gave yourself to something big
You asked for my salvation, spread holy water on my forehead with your fingers

I went through the motions—that is love.
They asked me, do I belong to God? and I said yes
I belong to you, Annabelle

I try to capture a strand of your windy, cloudy, stormy hair
I pounce on it with ink-stained hands,
To contain your essence, to share your wilderness with the uninspired masses

Words looped in cursive across the sky
Speaking only of the moonstruck poetess, beguiled
I belong to you, Annabelle

If you wanted to, you could bottle up my soul -- a green glowing spirit
growing and diminishing, drawing shadows across your dusty floor
I would make shapes for you, a rabbit, a giraffe

And, if you asked, I would snuff myself out just to let you sleep
I belong to you, Annabelle
and only, only you

Xavier

Xavier is the not-so-little black cat that mom and I see (almost) every time we go on a walk through Lake Forest Park.  He is cute and chubby-- even bigger than Maynard (though you should know that Maynard has lost a lot of weight)!  Xavier not only comes when called, but also rolls on his back and lets me rub his tummy.

I like to think that Maynard is someone else's Xavier (though I don't like the idea of Maynard walking close to the road!).  I know that M. has been called "Maynard's daddy" by our neighbors.  I like to think of him bringing a bit of big black kitty sunshine into their days :)

Here is a picture of the lovely Maynard to cheer you up!

skirt

skirt sitting sadly in a swollen sack skirt
skirt stuffed aside inside the closet skirt
skirt stitched with strands of stunning somethings skirt
skirt sprinting spendidly across iris skirt
skirt sixty-percent off sale skirt
skirt sold at first sight skirt

skirt stained.  stained by someone's careless mistake skirt
skirt specked with salmon-colored smudges skirt

skirt, still skirt, spoiled and worthless skirt
skirt so appreciated, such exalted skirt
skirt so ostentatious, so self-esteem building skirt
skirt so Spanish spun design skirt
skirt sweet memories of summer days skirt
skirt swishing softly in the spring breeze skirt

skirt, it wasn't someone else's slip up skirt
skirt such slanderous washing instructions skirt
skirt machine-soaked on a cold setting skirt
skirt safflower shades spin-cycled to smear skirt

skirt unreplaced by Nordstrom's customer service skirt
skirt absent from so many store stocks and racks skirt
skirt sitting sadly in a swollen sack skirt
skirt stuffed aside inside the closet skirt
skirt safely sepulchered in my closet skirt

editing- version 10!

Version 11- much edited

Femme Fatale (a love poem)

her accent indecipherable,
emphasizing syllables never touched by tongues less gumptious
words foreign-sounding, secretive
"décolletage" "turpitude" "equipage"
breathing out the final letters
smoke escaping from her Virginia Slims
innuendoes and sweetly meant mini ridicules
our surreptitious flirtation
she speaks in a carefully jarring metered manner
occasionally pausing as though overheard
mistaking our conversation for the opening chapters of an American noir.

But her blackbird hair casually whispering anachronistic plagiarisms
her chapped and over-lipsticked 1940’s mouth
swaying opened and closed in the breeze of a humming electric fan
with the constant tattattattattat of her red nails on the metal table
muffled by dark satin cocktail gloves-
they rub me out, intrigue, and lure me to another era
where no one refused a femme fatale
though she would bring me ruin

--


Smoking Gun (a love poem)

her accent indecipherable,
emphasizing syllables never touched by less gumptious tongues.
she uses words from some other time or place
"décolletage," "turpitude, "equipage."
breathing out the final letters
smoke escaping upward from her Virginia Slims
innuendoes and sweetly meant small ridicules
our surreptitious flirtation
she speaks in a carefully jarring metered manner,
pausing as though overheard at awkward moments

she sat down at my table -
a femme fatale,
mistaking our would-be love story for an American noir novel
this prelude to a premeditated homicide
solved by a misanthropic gumshoe
his success attributed to the local D.A.
(well-promoted in his reelection campaign)
but her blackbird hair
casually whispering plagiarisms
her chapped and over-lipsticked 1940’s mouth
swaying opened and closed in the breeze of a humming electric fan
with the constant tattattattat of her red nails on the metal table

she rubs me out
and she can be the smoking gun
otherwise known as Exhibit A

stranger

(words in bold are from the list)--

EDIT (version 2!- I'm keeping version one for reference)--

(a love poem)

her accent indecipherable, seductively mauling common words
emphasizing syllables never explored
by tentative tongues
ser - endipit - ous, she calls our meeting
she uses words from some other time or place
like
"equipage," "turpitude, "décolletage"

her blackbird hair
casually explaining
in whispered plagarism
I was only waiting for this moment to arise
her chapped and over-lipsticked mouth
swaying open-close-open-close in the breeze of an electric fan
the constant tattattattat of her red nails on the metal table
rubbing me out with their symmetry


innuendoes and sweetly meant mini-ridicules
the softened laughter of flirtation
she speaks in rhymes and claims
they are mere repetitions of somniloquies
screamed by the unconscious mind
and echoed for the conscious one to hear

she sat down at my table like a femme fatale
mistaking our love story for an American noir
in which our hunger was a crime
to be solved
by a misanthropic gumshoe
and attributed to the local D.A.

--
original- stranger


she mistook my face for one familiar
and sat at my table
making me retract the many curses
for my oversized nose and drooping eyes
the shadows apparent in even the most flattering of light


her accent indeciphrable
emphasizing syllables never previously explored
by less audacious tongues
ser-endipit-ous, she calls our meeting
using words I don't understand
"equipage," "turpitude, "décolletage"


her blackbird hair
casually explaining
I was only waiting for this moment to arise
her chapped and bleeding lips
swaying in the breeze of an electric fan
the constant tat-tat-tat-tat of her nails on the table
seducing me with their symmetry


innuendoes and sweetly meant mini-ridicules
the shoes, too bourgeois
buying into neo-patriarchal misogeny
with their height
and stabbing heals




again to be a stranger...


(I can't figure out how to end it... v.v)

common knowledges

word experiment for class... words/phrases in bold are from a list

edit- version two

Common Knowledges

The rain will give you cold
the sun will give you health, mostly
the snow will come in the winter and
the winter will always come, and always after fall

to be the common man with common knowledges
you must always pay your taxes on time
and never incur any late fees,
or if you do, you must pay those as well.
the common man does not go to prison for tax evasion,
and winter always comes
and always after fall

his common knowledges are used for good -
what good is, for him, need not be questioned.
it is the predicament of a less common man
an exceptional man, or a woman, perhaps
but not common, not for the common man
though the good is not common knowledge winter
always comes, and always after fall

common knowledges come from what we all can see.
he, of course, must see it too -
the apple falls not far from the tree
the squirrel must collect food for the winter
the winter will always come
and always after fall

there is no door the common man cannot open
it is common knowledge, every lock must have a key
and every key must have a lock
and the common man is commonly welcomed
as winter always comes, and always after fall.

but the common man is boring
and common knowledges are boring-er

he has no agency, no recognition of absurdism-
ridiculous, miraculous, unscrupulous realities
no feeding-two-birds-with-one-seed complex
but buying into the military industrial complex
while straddling an Oedipus complex
not complexity really but with complexes many
and winter always comes, and always after fall

common knowledges,
make way for complex knowledges,
uncommon understandings
and uncommon, knowledgeable women

who know that the winter will always come
and, sometimes, after spring.



Common knowledges

The rain will give you cold
the sun will give you health, mostly
the snow will come in the winter and
the winter will always come, and always after fall

to be the common man with common knowledges
you must always pay your taxes, on time,
and never incur any late fees
or if you do, you must pay those as well

the common man does not go to prison for
tax evasion
and winter always comes
and always after fall

his common knowledges are used for good
what good is, for him, need not be questioned
it is the predicament of a less common man
an exceptional man
(or a woman, perhaps)
but not common, not for the common man
though the good is not common knowledge

common knowledges come from what we all can see or hear or sense and know
he, of course, must see it too
the apple falls not far from the tree
the squirrel must collect food for the winter
the winter will always come
and always after fall

there is no door the common man cannot open
it is common knowledge, every lock must have a key
and every key must have a lock
and the common man is commonly welcomed
as winter is
after the fall

but the common man is boring
and common knowledges are boring

he has no agency, no recognition of absurdism
ridiculous, miraculous, unscrupulous realities
no feeding two birds with one seed complex
but buying into the military industrial complex
no complexity at all but complexes many

common knowledges,
make way for complex knowledges
uncommon understandings
and uncommon, knowledgeable women

who know that the winter will always come
and, sometimes, after spring.

also- less kindly

I' not sure if I should just settle down and take it as a compliment, but another student with whom I was partnered in Poetry class today spit out my words to the class as her own comments.  What can be done?  Not only were they my thoughts, but they were even more jumble-ized as she regurgitated them, making me sound very silly indeed, though also very genius-y, because they were, after all, underneath all that mess, well considered and studied.  However...

Let me share my own considerations of poetry that resembles the orgasmic experiences of the divine host by medieval nuns, if I want!  Which I didn't- because it is too sexy!

There you have it.  Here is a picture of a statue depicting divine ecstasy of St Teresa:

(it isn't working on my screen, so here's the link)

Now take a closer look at that face- that's what we did in medieval lit. Now you can enjoy it too?

a bit of nonsense

The other day, I, full of shame, returned to Barnes and Noble to return to Barnes and Noble some books I had shamefully bought but not needed.  The trouble is, I will have no time to read them, though if I had read them, they would have been Immortality by Milan Kundera, Embers by Sándor Márai, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, or Nesmrtelnost, A gyertyák csonkig égnek, and Le Petit Prince, whichever you prefer.  Why I did return them and have not nor will not read them as they came from Barnes and Noble is simply that I've got too much other buying and reading to do, mostly for school, as it were.

So instead of keeping and reading them, I exchanged them.  Instead, I procured copies of three books for one class in one quarter that is Fall Quarter or Autumn Quarter of 2010 that is Power and Practice and also BCULST593B and also also Topics in Cultural Studies.  Those books which I have bought and will read (eventually) are Killing Rage by bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom  also by bell hooks, and Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault also known as Paul-Michel Foucault also known also known as Foucault that is in French Surveiller et punir. 

Of all these books, I've only read one, which is The Little Prince, also, 星の王子 in Japanese, I have read it.  You've probably read it in some language or another though, so I feel not the need to tell you about it.  As for the others, I have little to say-- I've read the first chapter of Immortality which was of a narrator reflecting on viewing a woman in her sixties swimming in a pool, recognizing the younger figure of the lady from whence this older woman sprouted.  I've read bell hooks' Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies which taught me about the "oppositional gaze" and how to enjoy while critiquing.  I've read Foucault's The History of Sexuality Volume 1 but am too irritated still that the three volumes were so expensively published that I can't think more about it now.  I've written a poem, which you can read, but why would you want to?

Finding Cultural Studies books in the bookstore is a mess of work.  Really, you ought to just go to the help desk straight off.  I knew they had my books, but it took so long to find them.  I have located bell hooks books in Essays, African American Studies, and Cultural Studies (that dubiously name section also known as "things we can't figure out where to place" dear me).  Foucault seems to usually be in Philosophy.  Gertrude Stein seems to be nowhere- I have yet to find a single of her books in a Barnes and Noble, or Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude by Jonah Winter.

Though I should be happy just to find my "textbooks" in the bookstore, I guess.  I was lucky to find some very rare Transgender Studies texts in the North Gate store last year.

Anyway, this nonsense has gone on long enough.  Suffice to say, I've had a lot of reading to do, and will be reading and writing (hopefully non-nonsense) for a while to come. 

Magnet on the White Board

The magnet on the white board

Ecuadorian long-stemmed pink offsetting black and white Chanel classic magnet
With the hand-drawn Perpendicular-style gothic, stained glass, golden-framed windows magnet

And text that disregards the deuteranopic, myopic, dyslexic, dysgraphic, etc. magnet
Should be taken, studied in secret under a 45 degree binocular-headed microscope magnet

Advertising a product, service, or economically-stimulating something or another in this recession magnet
On which every dilated pupil in this aesthetically displeasingly drab classroom focuses innocuously magnet

Plucked by some shoddy, shameless wannabea poetess but can't get a non-grey thought magnet
Slipped surreptitiously into the front skirt pocket/sorta stolen/mostly necessary magnet