Thursday, September 16, 2010

carl sagan

Saw this quote (on a luggage tag) and liked it, so here I'm puttin' it:

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the Milky Way

-Carl Sagan

Monday, September 13, 2010

artist statement 2

In my poetry, the body is key.  My branch of embodied poetics recognizes that silence stems not just from a lack of will or fear of being heard, but also from absence of tongue or vocal chords.  With modern technology allowing the poet to create at a rate of 85 word per minute, the fingers are forgotten in the creation of the poem.  We do not recognize the poetic experience as a melding of mind and body or a practice that obscures the line between soul and flesh but instead bow (figuratively, not literally) to our Muses.

I seek to obscure the line between mental and physical, artistic and scientific, word and music; my writing draws upon the suffering of one with continuous acute pain poetically referred to as the body broken, scientifically identified as myofascial pain syndrome.  Yet, as I traipse pen in hand through the world of medicine and medical fallibility, I become increasingly interested in its poetic nature, duality fades and powerfully diminishes.

As a graduate student, I study the ways in which words are used to describe the experience of pain.  Interestingly, the scientific community has a list of terms compiled for the understanding of a patient's pain, what is referred to as the McGill Pain Questionnaire.  Pain can be "sharp" or "splitting," "sickening" or "suffocating."

I wish to do away with the dualism which so permeates our society.  Pain, for me, is not simply bad.  There are certain advantages.  Poetry allows the pain to speak for itself and allows me, my mind, my fingers, and my aching neck to scream out to be heard.  Rather than hide my pain from my subjectivity in the artistic process, I work to exemplify Lourde's one-breasted woman, the wounded figure who calls the other disfigured souls to her side in the creation of community.

Note-- probably should note something about embodiment of race too...  get some other subjectivity-ness in here.

Year of Books- Year Two!

From September 10, 2010- September 10, 2011.

Pinball, 1973

I Know this Much is True

Dance Dance Dance

One Day

Dick of the Dead

South of the Border, West of the Sun

Super Sad True Love Story

Howl

After the Quake

Antwerp- Roberto Bolano

My Life- Lyn Hejinian

Fledgling

Criss Cross

Hear the Wind Sing

Savages- Don Winslow (apparently, there are a lot of them out there...)

Wild Sheep Chase

Norwegian Wood

Give Us a Kiss

Turtle in Paradise

Moon over Manifest

Sputnik Sweetheart

Tomato Red

Woman Hollering Creek

On Hundred Demons

Pedro ParĂ¡mo

Something Borrowed

Homer's Odyssey (about the cat, not the dude)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

The Black Automaton

[one love affair]*

d/Deaf and d/Dumb

Mockingjay

Catching Fire

True Grit

When You Reach Me

Winter's Bone

Beezus and Ramona

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Thirteenth: The End

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Twelfth: The Penultimate Peril

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Eleventh: The Grim Grotto 

Clementine

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Tenth: The Slippery Slope

Lullabies for Little Criminals

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Ninth: The Carnivorous Carnival

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Eighth: The Hostile Hospital

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Seventh: The Vile Village

How to Train Your Dragon Book 7: How to Ride a Dragon's Storm

The Mysterious Benedict Society Book One

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Sixth: The Ersatz Elevator

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Fifth: The Austere Academy

How to Train Your Dragon Book 6: A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons

How to Train Your Dragon Book 5: How to Twist a Dragon's Tail

The Lichtenberg Figures- Ben Lerner

How To Train Your Dragon: Book 4: How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse

How To Train Your Dragon: Book 3: How to Speak Dragonese

How To Train Your Dragon: Book 2: How To Be a Pirate

Dreadnought- Cherie Priest

Boneshaker- Cherie Priest

Fever Pitch- Nick Hornby

High Fidelity- Nick Hornby

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth

Train Man

About a Boy

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Nature's Perfect Food- DuPuis

Poverty Capital- Ananya Roy

Waiting to Exhale- Terry McMillan

Ruined- Lynn Nottage

Chronicle of a Death Foretold- Marquez

Remains of the Day- Ishiguro