Thanks, but no thanks, but thanks.

Last week was a challenging one, to say the least. I guess 2010 isn't going to be a year of nonstop good news and happy times. That's had me thinking a lot about the subjects we choose to write about. Do we find them, or do they find us? Can we send them back, like a chicken salad with a grasshopper tucked under a leaf of romaine? If we can, should we?

I've been moping lately because I'm not sure where to go with my next book. Correction: up until Wednesday of this past week I was moping. After that, I had an epiphany, but I'm not sure I want to write those poems. My last book contained 45 hyperbolic love poems. Where to go from there? I made a resolution in that book to write about the good in the world. But I did that. It's in pdf format. So now should I get back to writing about the evils of the world? Is that my job? Who wants to read another book full of disturbing poems? (Well, me, but other than me?)

At least now I'm feeling inspired. Hoping for a combination of cozy and productive this weekend. I absolutely need to figure out how to comment on student poems while my kids are at home. I don't have enough office time this week, and didn't have enough last week, due to a rather unexpected problem with childcare.

I would like to take this moment to thank the universe for making me a resilient person. I would also like to thank the universe for giving me my sense of smell back. I was sick as a dog last week, and this morning had a Wow, this lotion smells really awesome, I am happy moment. Thank the universe, too, for that moment.

Heroics.

There have been a few times in my life where I felt a real kinship with my car. For example, during a hideous ice storm driving from Ann Arbor to Bowling Green in the dark. That machine was part of me. I thought slow down and it did. We were a lovely pair. However, such kinship could never compare to my affection for the snowblower that has helped me survive this very snowy winter. Back in the fall I hoped Mother Nature would take it easy on us, especially since it was my first year taking care of the house all by myself. Ha ha. This has been the snowiest winter in a long time.

BUT today it started to melt. The icicles were no longer so menacing (unless you caught them on the way to the ground). The snow wasn't so high. It felt like a miracle.

The poetic equivalent thereof: reading O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency at my hairdresser's today. It's for my MFA class. I know the book so well, especially certain poems, but had been away from it for a while. What a revelation! (That ! is for you, Frank O'Hara). At that moment I realized how important it is to read things other than student poems, and manuscripts I'm editing, and policy documents.

Hopefully I will be able to write something new again soon. A poem, not a memo.

Meanwhile, here's the latest in our BOR #3 process journal. Did the new issue withstand the curl up in bed and read it test? You'll just have to check out the BOR blog and see.

Transmission.

So here's something kind of new. Last night I was trying to go to sleep, and a poem started transmitting into my head. It was like when my elderly next door neighbor falls asleep watching those episodes of Sex and the City that they put on regular cable, and leaves her living room window open with the volume cranked way up.

I was trying to be good and go to bed on time, but as soon as I started drifting off it was there. Just lines of it. I'd had a few transmissions earlier in the day, but I figured they'd stop once it was bedtime.

I didn't want to get out of bed, since that would make me hyper. I have cold hardwood floors. I didn't want to type it into my blackberry, but it was there next to my bed, so I did it. I typed a couple of lines into the note pad, and discovered that some other (mysterious) time I'd typed a few other lines there, too.

Now: to get the time to finish the transmission. I wish it would start up again soon. It was a bit like the migraine with aura I had last week, only a lot more enjoyable.

A little roar.

The snowflakes in Akron, Ohio are no longer charming. Sometimes I wonder why on earth anyone decided to settle in the Midwest, given our horrid winters. It seems like everyone's getting hit with snow this year, though. I'm glad that at least we're well equipped. I am also very thankful that I have a solid, formidable 1930s house that keeps the heat in, and a thirtysomething furnace that still kicks out.

It's hard to believe that March is just around the corner. I've been reading admissions portfolios and commenting on student poems, and not writing much, though I did write a poem after my last post, so alleluia. I still haven't quite figured out google buzz, but I'm there. What's it for? To make my gmail even more cluttered and daunting?

Tomorrow I get up at the crack of dawn to bring my daughter and her bff to the Women in Engineering program's Career Day for Girls. I hope they don't throw me out for being a poet! I am good at science, though, so if they put me on the spot I'll just say something about the periodic table. Such as: it rocks, and I no longer have it memorized.

AWP is almost around the corner. Can you believe it? I have shopping to do.

When poetry pays the bills.

I have been taking myself to the woodshed lately over not writing enough new poems. My time management strategy is akin to how certain colleges schedule a gigantic lecture class of 350 students in an auditorium that seats 200. Unfortunately, all of the students who would usually skip are in attendance, in my time management strategy, instead of staying home with hangovers and lazing in front of reruns. Hence, this has not been a very productive semester so far, in the writing department.

I used to have a job making cappuccinos for people. I could make them with a lovely flourish on top, sometimes the eerie likeness of an apple in the foam. However, when I was not working, the last thing I wanted to do was make coffee, or hang out at the local java junction with friends and eat biscotti. I don't want my attitude toward poetry to reflect my past attitude toward coffee.

Mostly, it doesn't. Reading poems and talking about poems makes me spend an awful lot of time thinking about poetry, and loving it. I thank universe every day that this is what I get to do for a living. But the majority of my time is spent thinking about other people's poems (yeah, you know me). Sometimes I wonder if making coffee, or working a non-poetry related job, is easier on a writer's psyche.

I know that I should just make poetry a priority. I should send some of those 350 metaphorical students packing (in real life, I only have 28 students total, and I would never give them their walking papers). I have to feel it, though. I can't force myself. And sometimes I have to get all of the other tasks done before I feel okay.

Anyway, dear readers, those who pay the rent with poetry-related activity, or non-poetry-related activity, how do you keep going? What makes you channel energy into writing poems, rather than into vacuuming cat hair off the basement stairs?

As a final note, I took the above picture today and accidentally made it the wallpaper on my Blackberry. That must have some kind of significance. Probably to remind me that I need to write a poem.

Snow Report

This post does not like whiners. Thus, this post will contain no complaints about the weather, especially since many, many folks were hit with the snowtastrophe much harder than we were. Last night, when I went to bed around 11:30, it was a bit flaky out there, but nothing major. I thought the storm reports were yet another instance of misguided prediction. However, waking up this morning and not being able to get the doors open without serious force, it appeared that a winter storm did indeed descend upon Akron, OH last night.

Phase one of today involved snow removal. Lots of it. We probably got a foot-ish of snow, but in places it was up to my waist thanks to the drifts. There was also some frolicking, and a snow angel that looks pretty cool from the upstairs window. I'm exhausted. But that's mostly from phase two, which involved gathering and herding all of the poems of BOR #3. I've never done this part of the process all on my own before, and though it's a bit monotonous at times, it was a total blast.

I did wonder, however, how other editors feel about typesetting poems with a lot of white space (bless you authors who actually use tabs to do it), or other formatting quirks. Also, I thought a lot about prose poems. Some people make theirs skinny. Does that mean they want us to preserve that width? I typically don't care with my own poems, but I am very careful with other people's poems. Thank goodness for galleys. Here's what I did much of the day today.

Look at our wind chime icicle. Of course I had to play the wind chimes. The long, thin visitor didn't make much of a difference with the sound.

It was an insanely productive day, but also cozy.

In other news, if you missed them, here's my interview from this week on How a Poem Happens, and something fun I did as a guest prompt-mistress over at Read Write Poem.

Had another double-dose of good poetry news this week (one dose that was kind of a triple-whammy), which is confirming my suspicion that 2010 may be a very good year.

Spectacularities.

In the last day or two I've finally gotten my calm back. It's not because anything's easing up. That's for sure. But somehow I've been able to feel happy about doing things right, even little things like lining the boots up on the mat (no, this is not an OCD confession; I'm just trying to be more tidy). I've been enjoying writing comments on student poems. I feel like I'm in a dialogue with the poet and the poem. I have been a little dreamy, but not in an "oh crap, I am grossly unprepared thanks to distractions" kind of way.

I've also had a cold for the past couple of days, a real anomaly because I've only had two or three colds tops since January 2009. Years ago I'd have two or three colds a day, and then some strep and a side order of flu. I guess I've fortified myself. I'm feeling better.

Another thing I've been enjoying? Working on Barn Owl Review #3. Here's the lineup. We will be spending a lot of time together this weekend. I think there will also be some chili and high quality sleep involved.

Free copy of Barn Owl Review #3 (when it comes out) to the first person who can identify the location of the photo above. It's not that hard, if you know me.