30 January 2010

Wherein the author is almost asleep.

There's a really big, showy, obnoxious moon out there tonight, folks. I think it's making my cats crazy. The smallest cat, Klaus, was just apprehended while trying to steal a potato from the kitchen counter (the potato we're going to use to try that old trick with the broken lightbulb.... the joys of homeownership). I hear all kinds of other miscellaneous noise out there too, but whatever. Today I grocery shopped (at Marc's, land of the most narrow aisles ever, with both kids), washed tons of linens, took the kids to the rainforest at the Cleveland Zoo, changed shower curtains (unrelated to zoo trip), vacuumed entire house including basement, and washed all the floors excluding basement. Oh, and polished my daughter's shoes, and set up the coffee for tomorrow morning, and all kinds of other miscellany.

Tomorrow I am going to attempt, at one point, to do some annotations while the kids watch a movie. There's just too much to do. I'm still reading Ariel, and doing my dorky things like counting the number of poems and counting repeated words (and instances of repetition, and instances of repetition). I've found that I suddenly like the bee poems in the book, and I never did before. I'm looking forward to discussing the book with my students. I have to stop myself from photocopying even more "contemporary poems haunted by _______" for Plath. I already have a little bundle. I already have a little bundle. Will you marry it?

What else? Oh! Working on Barn Owl Review #3, that's what. This time I am putting the issue together myself, and we have a spectacular designer lined up. So exciting! I will update the contributors' list soon, I promise.

I say a few things about music here, on the Memorious blog.

Good night.

7 comments:

Matthew Thorburn said...

Hey Mary, I don't have the book here with me, to give you specifics, but I remember reading an essay Marianne Boruch wrote about Plath's bee poems that was pretty interesting. If you don't know it already, you might want to take a look. It's in her first book of essays, I think, the one from U of M press. --MT

marybid said...

Coolness, MQ! Thanks. :)

Valerie Loveland said...

Did the potato light bulb trick work?

marybid said...

I didn't even need it. Leather gloves and patience. :)

Lyle Daggett said...

The Boruch essay on Plath's bee poems is also included in the book "Poets Teaching Poets: Self and the World," an anthology of essays by poets, edited by Gregory Orr and Ellen Bryant Voigt, published ca. 1996 by (if I recall correctly) U. of Michigan Press.

In the essay (which I once read part of, though didn't finish), Boruch relates her own experience visiting a bee farm once, and hops back and forth between her account of that and reflections on Plath and the bee poems.

marybid said...

I've been stung by a bee before. Does that count?

Lyle Daggett said...

That depends -- did you immediately speak poetry when the bee stung you?

If so, then yes, that counts. In fact you get extra credit.

Word Verification is "struse," which sounds like it might be a non-denatured version of "abstruse." Like when you Twitter about War and Peace: "A long book about Napoleon and some guys with long Russian names. 6 on a scale of 10."

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