Greetings from Exam Week, Spring 2008. Woooohoo! As you can see from the above, faculty are dressing like shameful slobs this week (though so far it isn't having a positive impact on amount of grading done). The unidentified white object in the upper left corner of the pic is my grande nonfat, sugar-free vanilla latte, though the lid thereof is now messy, since I tripped walking up the steps on the way out. Give me a break. It's my first coffee of the day.I usually get inspired to write poetry during exam week, since I'm procrastinating. But lately I've been writing more poems than ever before, i.e. 3-4 new poems within the last week. I really hate it when people complain about their surprising bounty. (OMFG, like, I'm so beautiful the boys won't stop staring at me, and it's, like, sooo annoying. Or, I have so much extra cash I just don't know what to buy next; wah.) But at risk of sounding like that, I have to admit that this feels strange, and I'm rather suspicious.
Typically I'll write somewhere between five and ten, max, pages of poetry each semester. I'm busy, and only getting busier. But this semester I've written 21 pages of poetry in my cheating-on-St. Monica-series ms alone, not to mention the Monica poems. I'm definitely going to write one more poem this week, before the semester is over, to make it a nice 22 pages.
That's creepy!
I wish I could get Lowell's foreword for Ariel out of my head: "In these poems, written in the last months of her life and often rushed out at the rate of two or three a day..." On one hand, it's comforting, because the poems in Ariel were written in rapid succession and they aren't total shite. But on the other hand, they're the poems in Ariel.
Don't worry. I'm feeling quite balanced. But it's still a strange phenomenon. I'm just going to ride it out. Maybe some of the energy will spill over into my grading, but I doubt it somehow.
The fun part: sending new poems out into the world! Editors, watch your mailboxes.
10 comments:
Worthington has written 222 pages of poetry this morning alone. All of them are Odes to Lu Lu Barnes disguised as Odes to Cordelia. And perhaps as many as 220 of them are very untowards.
That's great Mary. I've written a lot this semester and I hate when I come done from my writing highs where I write five poems in a week.
Oh no! Maybe when I come down from my writing high I will trash my office, looking for inspiration.
I came to your blog today to leave you an off-topic comment, being that I just finished reading through the Barn Owl Review I ordered from you and wanted to say thank you for starting such a lovely little magazine!
And also, I love those hyper-motivated writing periods, though they always make me suspicious as well.
Happy writing (and grading!)
I find that when my brain is really cranked up is when the best stuff comes out. All those neurons are firing! Hence our addiction to being busy!
Such a shame to let that kind of energy spill into grading: "Forsooth! This paper I liken to tar / A gooey read at first, intractable / Until the end doth harden to a shape / Atop the feathery nuisance of the fluff / You disgracefully call a thesis."
...because I know of your impulse to begin every poem with "Forsooth!" Don't deny it.
Mary,
I need to be grading exams, too, but notice what I'm doing instead -- blog-surfing. :)
Since you're generating so much new stuff, will you consider submitting something to NZPR? Keeping my fingers crossed that something will land in my box....
Angela
Angela, thanks so much for stopping by! I'm going to send you something next week. :) I'll pop it in the mail on Monday.
Yay!
Woo hoo! That made my day.
Could you zap me with some of that energy to finish my very late paper for the mad genius? My brain is mush. See you tonight!
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