tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22236958523589103012024-02-18T18:12:48.138-08:00This Thing Needs A TitleKath Hubbard: Writing, Reading, Writing About Reading
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-83401001554162583652017-05-01T07:30:00.001-07:002017-05-01T07:30:02.791-07:00I've Moved<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDlNxpR7A4sdsCF5yiWS-I_9PuzDiJj_IH7SiVuYfOs-QdTqa9u6PZEvZRyKjQ5R_JPqUN4lSCrD9QN-LMp8D0YNG1piffCydd_WUsnAKAw4qIxILt8CuR-lzPxt34R9FNJReZLEN8ioM/s1600/kid+in+box.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDlNxpR7A4sdsCF5yiWS-I_9PuzDiJj_IH7SiVuYfOs-QdTqa9u6PZEvZRyKjQ5R_JPqUN4lSCrD9QN-LMp8D0YNG1piffCydd_WUsnAKAw4qIxILt8CuR-lzPxt34R9FNJReZLEN8ioM/s1600/kid+in+box.jpeg" /></a></div>
I'll say it again: I've moved.<br />
Now blogging (still intermittently) at<br />
<a href="https://thisthingneedsatitle.com/">https://thisthingneedsatitle.com/</a><br />
<br />
It's a new all purpose all-in-one-blog - look for writing about writing, books, but also cooking. Pretty sure I'm going to cook and write things about that. No promises.Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-29377265484248135332016-03-19T14:51:00.003-07:002016-03-19T14:52:24.641-07:00You Never Know What You Need Until It No Longer Blooms In Your Backyard<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSqSCbf1TS04a80_J87enP7fV87Hz-H1GOTuh4fazseFuJiVfeQK7-h8_0Wq9FN9LcgOPGIaa12hvcCcEfmvogYAbNkfS_89_CuuAnaHGDF0L6BXf03nLmuQswAJkcPCE-VrL2eT9lSFs/s1600/forcythia+spring+2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSqSCbf1TS04a80_J87enP7fV87Hz-H1GOTuh4fazseFuJiVfeQK7-h8_0Wq9FN9LcgOPGIaa12hvcCcEfmvogYAbNkfS_89_CuuAnaHGDF0L6BXf03nLmuQswAJkcPCE-VrL2eT9lSFs/s1600/forcythia+spring+2015.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
If my husband hadn't had to chop this down last fall, this is what would be blooming in my back yard right now.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately this nasty grape-vine thing has taken over the yard and the only way to get rid of it was to cut everything it was clinging to and wrapping itself around down to the ground. Forsythia is pretty hardy - I think it will come back, but I miss this bit of yellow spring which usually shows up this time of year.<br />
<br />
And although it hasn't been much of a winter - very little snow, very little cold - I'm still looking forward to that release spring brings. I'm needing the surge of energy I get when the air turns warm and the daffodils are up.<br />
<br />
<br />
Right now I'm in my little messy office with noise canceling earphones listening to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHdsoNewFdU" target="_blank">The Decemberists</a> and trying not to be annoyed by the family of squirrels who've taken residence in our attic. They are the most persistent squirrels the pest control guy has, apparently, ever come in contact with. He's been here 3 times to block the hole and create an "out" door (a door that lets them out but not back in). Each time the squirrels have managed to either rip out the door, or have chewed a new hole right next to the old one. On Thursday the pest guy came again, blocked the new hole and strengthened the door. All the rest of the day I heard them frantically skittering across the roof and over the gutters trying to figure out a way in. It was like a Hitchcock movie except squirrels, not birds. Kinda freaked me out. This morning they got back in, and now I'm trying not to hear them rustling through the insulation and cracking walnuts against the wall. I hope that when it's finally, thoroughly, warm they will leave and allow us to fix all the soft soffits and repair the bit of siding they ate through. I seriously need spring and forsythia and daffodils and wild animals outside where they belong.<br />
<br />
For the first time in five years I had a full spring break. Since I started adjuncting, I have taught at at least two different schools (once three! - that was too much) But now that I'm only at one school I was able to take a full week off to think, and write and do a little grading catching up. It was amazing. I actually sent several stories out - got one picked up! - wrote and edited stories that have been sitting around since last summer. For one week the only stress I felt was the usual stress within my family - as opposed to that anxiety compounded by the anxiety I feel for students and my work with them. I didn't realize I needed this. I'm one of those people who do what I'm supposed to do - and if you ask me to do more, why then I'll do that too. My husband is always saying that my future time has no value to me and so I give it away for free. I think a lot of women do this. I have to fight my tendency to mother everyone - take care of everyone other than my self.<br />
<br />
When I was a kid, my dad always said we should do the unpleasant tasks first, before moving on to something we want to do. This is a disastrous philosophy for people like me. Unpleasant (or less pleasant) tasks are never ending. They are like the tide, they ebb, but come back full force and without ceasing. I'm trying to learn that it isn't a zero sum game - that it's not that I <i>can't</i> do fun things until the unfun have been completed - rather, I have to make sure I alternate what I want to do with those things I have to do. I always want to write - therefore I don't write because it's what I want to do. Ridiculous.<br />
<br />
So, this past week I put writing, thinking, reading first. I read short stories I hadn't read in years - Sonny's Blues by Baldwin, Everything Rises Must Converge by O'Connor - and flipped through <i>The Leaves of Grass</i> - which I return to whenever I'm feeling out of control. (Bless you Whitman.) Someone gave me this collection of poems by Han-Shan translated by Gary Snyder written in calligraphy and illustrated with simple line drawings reminiscent of Japanese ink paintings. I stink at memorizing, but this one four line poem, not quite a haiku has been rolling around my brain all week and I'm going to just set it down and leave it here for you. :<br />
<br />
Spring-water in the green creek is clear<br />
Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white<br />
Silent knowledge - the spirit is enlightened of itself<br />
Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness* <br />
<br />
K<br />
<br />
<br />
*Cold Mountain Poems: Twenty four Poems by Han-Shan, Translated by Gary Snyder. Counterpoint Press, Berkeley 2012<br />
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<br />Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-65120728023186937842015-02-20T12:31:00.001-08:002015-02-21T08:09:02.074-08:00Three Lives, NYCRecently, I dashed up to NYC with my daughter and coerced her into a brief visit to my <a href="http://www.threelives.com/who.html" target="_blank">favorite bookstore. </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.threelives.com/where.html" target="_blank">Three Lives</a> does everything right. It's small - so small that you almost always bump butts with some stranger who is, like you are, nose deep into a book and looking for a place to sit, or lean and read. It's jam-packed with books - really well selected books - Art, novels, poetry, biography, history. It's low tech. If you want a book you ask the bookseller sitting behind the high counter. I'm assuming there's a big computer behind that counter - but I'm short, so it's hard to tell. And it's really, really friendly. Every chance I have, I go to that bookstore because I know I will discover something I want to read, or a writer I have never heard of, or, that a writer I love has a new book. <br />
<br />
I know I should read the New York Review of Books, or the NYTimes Book Review, or the many blogs out there where new books are announced - but I don't have time. For instance, today, should grade papers, update the syllabi, and make a stab at vacuuming. That's what I have to do - what I <i>want</i> to do is write a bit, add to this and my other blog, give the dogs a good long walk. Read a good book. It's only 8:30am and already I feel guilty. And reading book reviews, like browsing Amazon, is not nearly as exciting as walking into a bookstore, poking around, picking books up, putting them down, reading half a chapter and tucking it under your arm or leaving it at the registrar to go hunt some more. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTgHtVPtCargcokBeLsPa3B5E2xQJC7ZhgKWYjqEE1UpRQ-9MT7uT72BemlUCFVdNAJqbi-WSqTQdahvA1hrzyh3XN2XvXD7mPMiLBi0zhbSs-VMIgs-lb2deykYBoqzdmYDNyYjqA92Y/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTgHtVPtCargcokBeLsPa3B5E2xQJC7ZhgKWYjqEE1UpRQ-9MT7uT72BemlUCFVdNAJqbi-WSqTQdahvA1hrzyh3XN2XvXD7mPMiLBi0zhbSs-VMIgs-lb2deykYBoqzdmYDNyYjqA92Y/s1600/photo.JPG" height="320" width="280" /></a>I came home with <i>Someone</i> by Alice McDermot, <i>My Brilliant Friend</i> by Elena Ferrante (everyone has told me to read this)<i> </i>and <i>How Music Works </i>by David Byrne. Ok, I came home with more books than that - but these are the ones I'm reading right now. I'm not going to check email, I'm not going to grade papers and I'm certainly not going to vacuum. Nope. I'm happily sitting here, by my new fake fireplace, with the dog asleep on the couch listening to the gentle hiss of the gas (it's real fire, gas powered, fake logs, <a href="https://instagram.com/p/zVgZo2vy1H/?modal=true" target="_blank">looks as cheesy</a> as it sounds. I care not, it turns on and off with a clicker). This is my favorite kind of day: sitting and reading, writing, occasional napping. Listening to the <a href="http://www.decemberists.com/albums/the-crane-wife/" target="_blank">Decemberists</a>. Later, I guess I'll go to the grocery store - but I'm gonna take a detour through Bryn Mawr, because, as fate has it, there's a <a href="http://www.mainpointbooks.com/" target="_blank">bookstore</a> there calling my name.<br />
<br />
By the way - if you want to read an excellent selection of short stories - purchase yourself <a href="http://www.authorexposure.com/2015/02/spotlight-on-short-stories-museum-of.html" target="_blank"><i>Museum of the Americas </i></a>by my fabulous friend Gary Lee Miller!!<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATE</b>: Had a friend ask how Three Lives rates next to the <a href="http://www.strandbooks.com/" target="_blank">Strand</a> - also a great NYC Bookstore and institution. I have always preferred Three Lives over the Strand simply because Three Lives is cozy and edited. It is in no way overwhelming. The Strand has got EVERYTHING - I love browsing the sidewalk carts - and there is a wonderful outpost right on the corner of 57th and 5th at the bottom of Central Park which reminds me of the booksellers along the Seine in Paris. If you are looking for something that's been out of print a while - go to the Strand. If you are looking for discounted books - the Strand is also your place. I love the Strand for it's sheer volume - but Three Lives is my <i>place.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-57946835988016673452014-05-27T11:25:00.000-07:002014-05-27T11:25:59.141-07:00The Highly Personal Art of a Professional Procrastinator
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I'm having a difficult time getting started this morning.
Actually, I have to amend that because it’s afternoon already. Damnit.</div>
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I got out of bed with excellent intentions – but because I
couldn’t fall asleep last night, my alarm woke me out of the kind of dream that
seemed so real it was as if I was in the middle of another life. These types of
dreams are disorienting and I while I remember getting out of bed, and waking
Emma up for school, I think I then stumbled back into bed and slept again
because the next think I knew Smith was waking me up and handing me a cup of
coffee (bless him). Every one else was out of bed by then, dogs fed, Maddy almost out
the door for the bus, Emma was dressed and wearing shoes (a miracle), and I was
still groggily drinking my coffee. Everyone left. I sat down to my laptop.
Right here, in my crowded and messy office. But I couldn’t get anything going.
I wrote one sentence. Here it is:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The other day I was my
friend Nathan and I were having a working lunch – which means we brought work
we were supposed to have rea</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s not even a finished sentence. It’s not even
grammatical. It sounds like a two-year-old wrote it. I don’t remember where I
was going with it either. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I got up and went downstairs to the kitchen because the dogs
were barking at the joggers and women walking along the sidewalk with baby
carriages. This happens a lot. Dogs tend to take things personally. I checked
for mail even though it was, at this point, only 9am. The mail carrier rarely
shows before 3. I made more coffee and went outside to sit on my small deck. I
brought a notebook and Lydia Davis’s novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
End of The Story</i>, which I’m obsessed with right now. I’m also obsessed with
her short stories, which are truly short and almost perfect. I read a few pages
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The End of the Story</i> but <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my eyelids begin to tremble so I closed them
and instantly I was dreaming because I believed myself to be baking bread with
oatmeal raisins and apricots. I woke when I felt my jaw release and my mouth fall
open. My notebook was on the table next to me so I made a list of all I wanted
to do today. Here it is:</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWopxUbgMfgxCf3oxpUcA8X7GqTlwsri3IRWr7Jm6iOpJHoUBNS-KaN5Pyy_cpK20iwT0FlOaOUOzJjA8-oMB0U9POqzMoGHYUXOu92lb-6V1W940qfEsdijPDXXTj6Eq2YyOF2zWFalY/s1600/photo-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWopxUbgMfgxCf3oxpUcA8X7GqTlwsri3IRWr7Jm6iOpJHoUBNS-KaN5Pyy_cpK20iwT0FlOaOUOzJjA8-oMB0U9POqzMoGHYUXOu92lb-6V1W940qfEsdijPDXXTj6Eq2YyOF2zWFalY/s1600/photo-7.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is just a partial list. It goes on for a few pages and includes categories such as <i>Teaching</i>, <i>Personal Hygiene</i> and <i>Do Immediately!</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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As you can see, up near the top of the page, no longer in
the lines, is a note to make bread with raisins oatmeal and apricots – so that
nap was not exactly a waste of time. So far, however, I have completed nothing
on that list. Nor have I written or read much. After writing my list, I got up
and lay down on the couch next to my dog and fell asleep. This time I didn’t
even have useful dreams. I slept about twenty minutes with the dog curled
beside me like a coda. A truck hitting the manhole sized pothole in front of my
house shook me awake. At this point, I was even more groggy. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Part of the problem is that list. How many of us are taught
as children that one must do the unpleasant things first before allowing
oneself to do things that are fun? As you can see from that list above, there
are fun and unpleasant things (fun=bake bread, buying geraniums. Unfun= doing
the dishes, making doctor’s appointments, cleaning out the fridge.) But today I
woke up with a groggy two-year-old’s frame of mind. (I don’t WANT to do the
dishes!(stamps small foot) Well, ya can’t bake the bread if you don’t do the
dishes. (fists on hips)) There are things I SHOULD do before I can undertake
those things I WANT to do. Unfortunately for me, writing is both fun and
unpleasant; it is both something I SHOULD DO and something I WANT TO DO (Stamps
small foot again), and so on days like today I find myself in this weird limbo,
caught between the stubborn child and the admonishing adult, almost completely
paralyzed ,unable to do much more than write lists and fall asleep.</div>
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I have days like this more often than I want to truly
acknowledge.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Back I went upstairs thinking getting dressed and dabbing
some makeup on my face might succeed in tricking my brain to getting down to
business. Feeling more awake, I opened my laptop. Feeling peckish, I went
downstairs and made popcorn, which always makes the dogs happy. I don’t know
why the air popper’s funnel doesn’t funnel all the popcorn into the bowl –
there’s always popcorn flying around my messy kitchen. But this is what dogs
are for, so at least my floor is clean. Came upstairs and re-woke the laptop.
Opened a fresh page in Word. Decided to write on a yellow tablet instead.
Couldn’t find a pen with a satisfying enough scratch to it. Returned to the
laptop and the blank Word page. Wiped the popcorn oil and salt off my laptop
keyboard. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Wrote: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I'm having a
difficult time getting started this morning. Actually, I have to amend that
because it’s afternoon already. Damn-it.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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Damn-it.</div>
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(stamps small foot)</div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-8666710265210387672014-05-22T06:55:00.002-07:002014-05-22T12:27:55.544-07:00Form And Function<style>
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I’m thinking of completely abandoning some of my flash or
micro fiction and rethinking them as poems. In the past I’ve tried to do this
by dividing up work that has already been written and reconfiguring it. But
this is a kind of cheating, particularly if I want to think about form and
whether the form makes emotional sense when connected to words. So rethinking
these stories is going to be important, because, according to my last post, the
new work must somehow resonate for me in a way that it didn’t in story form. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The form needs to bring some emotion to the work and the
work needs the form to be almost secondary to the meaning – yet crucial to the
meaning – but in an effortless way. I’m not even sure I’m making sense here.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Let me try again: I have to live in the form before I can
write the form – </div>
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<br /></div>
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Poetry forms such as villanelles, sestinas, ballads, were
sung over and over again both by the person who made it up, and by singers who
heard the songs and then started singing it themselves. Someone would make one
up, another would hear it, memorize it and sing it somewhere else until the
form, the rhythm the rules of the form, would become embedded, physically embedded,
in the singer’s body. Sing something enough, you change it. Change it and it
begins to become your own. And reading is not the same as singing. Which means,
I guess, that I’ll need to memorize some poems – get them into my head in a
permanent way, the way troubadours used to and sing them to myself. Quietly. So
as not to embarrass my daughters. Sigh. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The problem, of course, is that I stink at memorizing.
Always have. Well, except for my American Express Card number – I’ve got THAT
down. (Also thanks to my daughters’ addictions to Etsy) (Ok, that’s a partial
truth. I too am addicted to Etsy)</div>
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<br /></div>
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And the other problem is, which poem to memorize? Which
form? After reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Making of a Poem*</i>,
I’m kinda drawn to the sestina. 39 lines, though. THIRTY NINE LINES. </div>
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<br /></div>
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But I like the non-rhyming aspect of the sestina – because
rhyming is hard – and if it’s not done well then the poem is a slave to the
rhyme rather than the rhyme being a way of adding to the poem’s overall meaning
and emotional strength. “The Raven” would not be “The Raven” without that
building intensity of the rhyme scheme. It would lose that heart pounding
quality. (Here’s my absolute most favorite reading of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLSmhpwLdEQ" target="_blank">The Raven EVER – read by Christopher
Walken.)</a></div>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLSmhpwLdEQ" target="_blank">
</a><br />
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<br /></div>
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What I like about the sestina is the way words are repeated
throughout the poem which gives the illusion of rhyme without actually having
to look every third thing up in Webster’s Rhyming dictionary. And it also
builds the intensity of meaning. Each time the words are repeated they change
in meaning, building in meaning. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which words though!? Which words??? See how these things can
go? This is why I think the form needs to be embedded in the body and mind
before one attempts to go writing in a poetical form. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Song writers do this. My older daughter is a
singer/songwriter. But she doesn’t just make up songs, she sings other peoples
songs. And while she is pretty discriminating in what she listens to, she isn’t
discriminating at all in what she chooses to play and sing. Because she knows
that even some of the worst songs (or the worst seeming songs) have an
intricacy and rhythm that is useful to learn. (Here is her <a href="https://soundcloud.com/emmaragsdale" target="_blank">soundcloud</a> account where she is singing
Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus, just to prove my point. I think my daughter’s
version is fantastic.)
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, in order to write, I need to memorize. I need to sing
sestinas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll let you know how it goes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Making of A Poem</i>, here is the sestina form:</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>It is a poem of thirty-nine lines (THIRTY NINE
LINES)</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>It has six stanzas of six lines each</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b>This is followed by an envoi of three lines.
(Gonna pause here for a minute and talk about the envoi. An envoi, according to
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/" target="_blank">The Poetry Foundation</a>’s poetic terms is “<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The brief stanza that ends French poetic forms such as the </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-term/Ballade"><span style="background: white; color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ballade</span></a></span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> or </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-term/Sestina"><span style="background: white; color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">sestina</span></a></span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">. It usually serves as a summation or a dedication to a particular
person.” This is different from an envoy, a person sent by a government to
represent that government but there are similarities I think – because the
envoi at the end of the poem is the thing that sends it off – it’s the part
that might get most stuck in your head because it is the last thing you hear
and in this way it becomes the messenger or even the introduction. Here’s what
Webster has to say about it: </span><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b><span style="color: #c3857a; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><b><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Definition of ENVOI</span></b><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">:</span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> the usually explanatory or commendatory</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
concluding remarks to a poem, essay, or book; <i>especially</i> <b>:</b>
a short final stanza of a ballad serving as a summary or dedication. <span style="background: white;">Middle English <i>envoye,</i> from Middle
French <i>envoi,</i> literally, message, from Old French <i>envei,</i> from <i>enveier</i> to
send on one's way, from Vulgar Latin <i>*inviare,</i> from
Latin <i>in-</i> + <i>via </i>way</span></span><b><span style="color: #c3857a; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I like the way it comes from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">via</i> – way, and that the envoi because it
ends the poem, actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sends you on your
way</i>. It’s saying, ok, off you go, take this out into the world now. It’s
yours – go on, take it!) </span><b><span style="color: #c3857a; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>All of these lines are unrhymed.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The same six end-words must occur in every
stanza but in a changing order that follows a set pattern</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>This recurrent pattern of end words is known
as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“lexical repetition”</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Each stanza must follow on the last by taking a
reversed paring from the previous lines</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The first line of the second stanza must pair
its end-words with the last line of the first. The second line of the second
stanza must do this with the first line of the first and so on.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The envoi or last three lines must gather up and
deploy [another messenger word!] the six end words. *</div>
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<br /></div>
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Also, here is a <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2013/04/why-write-sestinas/?woo" target="_blank">very nifty blog post by Camilla Guthrie </a>on
the Poetry Foundation’s website called “Why Write Sesitnas?” in which she says
what I’ve just said only better and more poetically.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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* Strand, Mark and Eavan Boland. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Making of A Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms</i>. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Print.</div>
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<br /></div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-33588186131507122432014-05-21T09:23:00.000-07:002014-05-21T09:24:44.422-07:00The Making of a Poet...?<style>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My daughter claims I use an injudicious number of dashes and
ellipses in my writing, but I say it’s because I’m a secret poet and I’m trying
to create space. Or maybe I’m just a control freak and want to force people into
acknowledging space… I don’t know. Either works.
</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The thing about poetry is that I </span><span style="font-size: large;">truly</span><span style="font-size: large;"> don’t know how
to write it. I love poetry, I read a lot of it, but when I write it, is it
real? Is it actually poetry? My mother cut this out of the paper for me a while
ago:</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Poetry is awareness
heightened to the point of love,” Mr. [Paul] Roche wrote in 1970 in an essay
for the reference work “Contemporary Poets.” “It is a way of apprehending the
intensity of being. I try to recreate experience more intensely, reduce it to a
luminous whole, render intuitive the meaning and metaphysics of the universe
and so feed myself and others with the kernel of being.”</i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Quite a bit of hooey isn’t it? And yet…</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don’t know why some poetry works and some poetry doesn’t.
I don’t know why I read highly acclaimed poetry and find it so enigmatic that I
can’t, just, <i>can’t.</i> While other
poetry, equally enigmatic, is thrilling. I think it is about heightened senses.
Mr. Roche up there was quite the hedonist – apparently calling himself a satyr
– and in that passage above, the “<i>awareness
heightened to the point of love” </i>and <i>“intensity
of being”</i> is possibly about poetry =orgasm.
It’s a burst (to push this metaphor beyond taste) of reality, pure and
completely in the moment. Well, some of it is. Some is epic. Some poetry is about
story, truth or language.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I’m reading the Mark Strand/Eavan Boland book, <i>The Making of a Poem</i>, * and in the first
chapter “Verse Forms,” they write, “ Verse forms do not define poetic form:
they simply express it…poetic form is not abstract, but human…To understand
them fully it is necessary to see how distinct their histories are…And this
distinction in turn is the reason that each poetic form has been rediscovered”
(3). They go on to say that the sonnet hasn’t had the same resurgence in
contemporary poetry as the villanelle because today’s poets like the way a
villanelle refrain can shift from light to dark, something that speaks to the
overall voice of poetry today. “This is the charm and power of poetic form,”
Strand and Boland say, “It is not imposed; it is rooted.” </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This may seem really obvious but rootedness is why I think
some poems speak to me while others don’t. A poem has to take hold of me with a
long tendril that may take root in my ear, but grow through brain and blood and
finally set up in my heart. It has to be something that is reminiscent of
something I understand almost bodily, as opposed to intellectually. The
“meaning and metaphysics” of <i>my</i> universe.
In the preface to <i>The Making of a Poem</i>,
Boland writes that Blake’s poem, <i>The
Tyger</i> had a particularly strong effect on her as a child because she first
encountered it when her father read it to her. But not only that; when her
father read it to her she was instantly transported to the summer earlier when
she was separated from her father at the zoo and while searching for him ran
past the pens of the lions and tigers. She was finally found when she heard her
father calling for her using a stern almost angry voice. The same voice he used
while reading Blake’s poem. Suddenly for Boland, there was a connection, “Form
waited for me: waited for more than a hundred years on that page. Waited in
cold print and cool and changing paper shapes. Waited to find the child, rather
than the other way around.” </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">“Waited to find the child” – it’s metaphysical – but I do
think there is that aspect of a poem lying in wait to find me. It’s crouching
there, ready to spring in the perfect moment, that moment when past experience
and present reading of the poem merge – no more than merge – recreate
experience. And I’m back to Roche: </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Poetry is awareness
heightened to the point of love … It is a way of apprehending the intensity of
being. I try to recreate experience more intensely, reduce it to a luminous
whole, render intuitive the meaning and metaphysics of the universe and so feed
myself and others with the kernel of being.”</i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Without my own past, there is no poem. Without my experience
of the world right now, there is no poem and even, at least according to Boland
and Strand, no connection to form either.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I’m not sure I’m any closer to understanding poetry today,
or even how to write poetry. The only way for me to understand anything is to
read and then write about what I’ve just read – and I hope that my
understanding of how poetry was/is written will increase this way.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">* Strand, Mark and Eavan Boland. <i>The Making of A Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms</i>. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Print.</span></div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-40552867067762776582013-11-09T06:22:00.002-08:002013-11-09T06:22:14.664-08:00VCU BlackbirdThey published it in the November issue - I'm thrilled!<br />
<br />
Find the link here:<br />
<a href="http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v12n2/fiction/hubbard_k/confluence_page.shtml">http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v12n2/fiction/hubbard_k/confluence_page.shtml</a>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-5510240700115030402013-11-01T07:52:00.002-07:002013-11-01T07:52:36.988-07:00So You Can Find Me...<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11172091/?claim=mzv4gs7uvyx">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-77955459469685157912013-10-13T19:36:00.000-07:002013-10-13T19:36:28.195-07:00MONEY (Grab that Cash with Both Hands and Make a Stash...)<span style="font-size: large;">This summer, the VCU Journal Blackbird accepted one of my weirder little stories - which was incredibly exciting, and kind of a happy ending after one of those publishing stories I'm starting to learn are pretty common. I'd gone to a conference last year that offered a "speed-dating" session with editors of literary magazines from the Philly area. Showed my story to one guy who said he loved it, said send it to him and his colleagues with a note saying we'd met and he'd publish it. Which was amazing! I was really excited! I sent it off and didn't hear for six months when I suddenly got a generic rejection from them. ARGH. Total depression. I had a bit of a wallow, then I looked the story over, did a little editing and sent it to Blackbird. Which I knew was a stretch. But they took it! Hey Mikey! And I did a little dance, and I updated my CV, and I had my daughter take a pretty decent picture of me for the because they requested it and sat back to await the publication which the editor said would be in either November or May of next year.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And I'm feeling <i>good</i>. It's a great journal - highly respected and to be honest I kinda can't believe they wanted my weird little story and so even though I'm excited, I have to admit, I'm still waiting for someone from Blackbird to send me another email - something like - we're so sorry we got your story confused with that of a much better writer and we're actually passing on this - </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">THEN - I get this email: <span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Thank you for your contribution to Blackbird. In order to process your payment of $200 for the publication of...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">WHA!? They're <i>paying</i> me?! I didn't even know that was a possibility. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm pretty used to being paid in contributor's copies. Come to think of it, I'm pretty used to being paid next to nothing for just about everything - I do a lot for free. And adjuncting isn't exactly making me rich. I've never been a girl with particularly high self esteem, and so I've never really questioned what I've always considered to be my value. Right there - I had to resist writing value as, "value" - you know? As if I don't even deserve to write about myself and value in the same sentence. And it's stupid. It's stupid because it keeps me down, and it keeps me from working, and it keeps me from having fun with the work when I'm doing it. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's not going to be easy - but this week, I'm willing to raise my value from nothing to $200 bucks. That seems manageable, at least until the next set of story rejections.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">While I write I've been listening to:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpbbuaIA3Ds" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Pink Floyd </span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp7ellTcR2I" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Every Minute in Paris, David Cohen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O-WHevzCR8" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Olafur Arnalds</span></a>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-61639545483423298322013-09-03T06:23:00.000-07:002013-10-05T09:12:42.983-07:00VCFA Post Graduate Conference And Everything After (Walter Benjamin)So, I took a trip to the land of mountains and cows.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rUG0XjIG7mZQHhxRN_KH2KeuGf2uLda4fwpuV0ub_VrUKEPk55PzYRyNCAkuAgKaRjNriY06e4bIhV-XnpQJRve8ZLKL8Nm4pmKABwf9i6l0dmlGfvv_QjrfhFobw1_HIuW6w36um5s/s1600/IMG_1329.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rUG0XjIG7mZQHhxRN_KH2KeuGf2uLda4fwpuV0ub_VrUKEPk55PzYRyNCAkuAgKaRjNriY06e4bIhV-XnpQJRve8ZLKL8Nm4pmKABwf9i6l0dmlGfvv_QjrfhFobw1_HIuW6w36um5s/s320/IMG_1329.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
I haven't really processed my time there yet - but let's just say the experience for me ran the gamut from intense to fascinating to (as usual, for me) somewhat embarrassing. I'm terrible in groups and always manage to freak out a little and embarrass myself over something. Plus, regrets. Didn't go to enough of the talks, didn't work on new stuff, should have spent more time mining the huge brain of Michael Martone (my new favorite writer ever), should not have read the Zombie story (wrong audience) should have read the Mother story (audience of mostly women that day). <br />
<br />
bla bla bla.<br />
<br />
Mostly good old fashioned self-defeating stuff about my failure as a writer and a person. Good times.<br />
<br />
Perhaps I should force myself to look at the good: Met some amazing people including Michael Martone (my new favorite writer ever) and workshop leader whose brain moves faster than a speeding train* and is larger than all outdoors. Plus there was Radhika, and Justin and Nathan (who lives close by) and Esther and Jerry - supportive and killer smart workshop participants. And Amy and Jen and of course, and the best surprise of all - my dear friend Kabi who I didn't even know was attending until I got there. We haven't spent that kind of time together since our NYC salad days - which is crazy since we get along so incredibly well. I'm pretty much going to stalk her and go to every conference she signs up for from now on. The level of accomplishment at the conference was also impressive (although as usual, a bit draining on my self esteem) (oops - self-defeating girl snuck in damn you S-DG!) And I forced myself to talk to people including several of the famous writers - which is no small feat for me.<br />
<br />
And best of all - I came home and wrote hours and hours and have thousands of stories to show...<br />
<br />
oh.<br />
<br />
argh.<br />
<br />
Today is the first day of school for my youngest, and tomorrow is the first day of school for the eldest, and I feel time opening up before me like a flower filmed in slow mo - And because I suddenly have all this time today (7:30am until I have to leave to teach my class at 2:30pm) I turned on my laptop and went immediately to the interweb and started perusing. <br />
<br />
This is what I found:<br />
<a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/04/15/the-writers-technique-in-thirteen-theses-walter-benjamin/">http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/04/15/the-writers-technique-in-thirteen-theses-walter-benjamin/</a><br />
<br />
I've always had a crush on Walter Benjamin - in grad school I used a quote from <i>Illuminations</i> in almost every paper. <br />
<br />
This tip might be my favorite:<br />
Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.<br />
<br />
Now that's some advice! Be governmental about your notebook! Be like the dark suited, aviator sunglassed, passport and visa checking Immigration dudes - be tough! and implacable. Yes.<br />
<br />
I'm going upstairs to dig out my aviators, put them on, then look in the mirror and give myself a hard stare.<br />
<br />Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-86007647903009977492013-06-03T18:22:00.002-07:002013-06-03T18:31:38.849-07:00Wrote This One Too:Thanks for checking it out:<br />
<a href="http://www.frontporchjournal.com/230_Fiction_Hubbard.asp">http://www.frontporchjournal.com/230_Fiction_Hubbard.asp</a>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-89716396608455504922012-10-21T17:59:00.003-07:002013-06-03T18:23:14.824-07:00And one more thing...Hey - new story published! See, sometimes it's not all rejection...<br />
<br />
Check out my story "Queen For A Day" published by <a href="http://www.diversevoicesquarterly.com/queen-for-a-day/" target="_blank">Diverse Voices Quarterly -</a> (just click on it-)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-70355582928941843572012-05-13T06:49:00.002-07:002012-05-13T06:49:22.243-07:00"Just Read One Chapter..."<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The book was so thick, I couldn't hold it in one hand without my wrist hurting. The print was tiny. So tiny the words mashed together on the page and made my head hurt. But it was on the summer reading list, and I was starting a new school, and I had to read it. I'd been putting it off the whole summer.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I didn't want to read it. I really, really didn't want to read it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It hadn't been all that great a summer. Actually, it had been a lousy year all together. Sixth grade could easily have been the worst school year of my life - I'd been bullied, lost most of my friends, all of my confidence (which wasn't exactly in abundance to begin with), and I'd spent that summer alone in my room, or on a blanket in the back yard reading and re-reading Archie comics. And when I wasn't reading, I watched reruns of The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch on TV. I did not speak to members of my family unless it was completely necessary. I was starting a new school in less than a week, and in order to go to that new school, I'd had to take math - <i>MATH</i> - in summer school, and now they expected me to read a book that made my wrist hurt. My brain was tired, and, let's just say, I was feeling more than a little bitter.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The book was <i>Great Expectations</i>, and it astounds me that the school I was about to go to had that book on their required reading list. Later, I think we learned that it was optional, but what I remember that summer was that the book hung over my head like the sword of Damocles. I think that book hung over my mom as well - it had been such a tough year - so much was riding on this new school, a new life, she wanted me to be successful, to make friends, make good impressions on the teachers there, more than anything, she didn't want me to walk into the new place, already behind. Every day, she asked, have you started that book yet? Every day, I said I had, but she knew I was lying.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">One night, after dinner, my mom had had enough. Earlier in the day, she'd found the book outside gathering dew in the yard. When my sisters retired to the TV den, my mother caught my arm, dragged me to the living room, away from everyone else, sat me down in the big uncomfortable wing chair and said, look, just read one chapter. I don't care if you can't read more, she said. But don't walk into school without a little of it being read. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So I cracked the cover, and I fell in love with Pip, and Miss Haversham and the beautiful Estella, and Wemmick and Herbert and all the scoundrels and heroes of Dickens. I read more than the first chapter that night. And in three days I'd finished it. And it was the best book I'd ever read.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I have thanked my mother for this before, but I cannot thank her enough. My mother gave me so many books - <i>Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Black Beauty, Misty of Chicoteague, A Wrinkle in Time, Rebecca, Gone With the Wind, A Secret Garden, The Little Princess </i>- I don't remember all the books she introduced me to. Some she read to me, some I read on my own. But that moment, that moment when she asked me just to start the big-fat- tiny-printed book - has stayed with me. She had confidence in me. She knew I could do it. I went to that new school with a tiny bit of confidence restored. I had read a huge book - a daunting book - and I'd <i>LOVED </i>it - I'd understood it. It was the first time in my life, where I thought I might actually be smart. I might actually be able to handle a new school with it's private school people and it's <i>math.</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I love my mom. She and my dad are my best champions. They have all sorts of confidence in me and their confidence gives me confidence as a writer as a reader and teacher.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-8831521900735186112012-04-28T17:57:00.001-07:002012-04-28T17:57:16.575-07:00Reject Me - I love it!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">I got a rejection today. Actually two rejections. The first one was just your generic rejection - here it is:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Katherine,</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />Thank you for your submission. Having read it carefully, we don't feel it's the right fit for XXXX. Although we will not be publishing this piece, we appreciate the opportunity to read your work.<br />Sincerely,<br />The Editors</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Do I think it was read carefully? I guess. Ok, yes, probably. I don't know. Sure.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">In my darker moments, I think that my story was probably read by a few undergraduates who have nothing in common with the middle aged me and liked nothing about my story because it wasn't about drinking or suicide or having anonymous sex.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">In my lighter moments I think someone read it who appreciates good writing but it wasn't, as they said, a right fit.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">bla.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">The other rejection - this is the one I like a little better, although, well - still a rejection.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Here it is:</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dear Katherine:<br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thank you for sending your work to <em>XXXX</em>. We are always grateful for the opportunity to review new material, and we have given "Wonderbread" close reading and careful consideration. We found many strengths to recommend your work and, overall, much to admire. We regret, however, that "Wonderbread" is not quite right for us. We encourage you try us again in the future, and we hope that you will.<br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sincerely,<br />The Editors</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">First, you'll notice there's no name. Won't somebody take responsibility for dashing a struggling author's dreams? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Secondly, Do they mean it? Do they really encourage my submitting again in the future - do those editors really "hope" I will. At least here they mentioned the name of my story. I have so many stories out to magazines right now, I have no idea what the first Journal is rejecting. At least they let me believe the fiction that someone actually read my story and enjoyed the way I used language </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thirdly, the second rejection is better written. It actually reads like a story. And they are polite - Jane Austin polite: we are always grateful for the opportunity to review new material...So, there you go. But, once again, no one taking responsibility for breaking my heart.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">I'm clearly being a melodramatic. But I'm a writer, you know? - Supposed to dramatize...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-5986012609559247212012-04-16T18:39:00.000-07:002012-04-16T18:39:59.401-07:00End of the Semester<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In two weeks my students will hand their portfolios in to me and I will sit down and grade them. It is my least favorite thing about teaching. I love working with my students, I love discussing literature and essays and how to craft sentences and paragraphs and finally, ideas. I love working with them one to one, listening to them suddenly see what exactly it is that they mean to write about. But grading sucks. I get museum head when I read so many papers. I stop being able to look at things objectively - was that really a run on sentence or did she actually have the right amount of commas? Is his argument incomplete, or am I missing something? I doubt myself when I have to judge - thank goodness we grade our gen-ed writing class though a grading committee. It provides me the checks and balances wiped out after a day of reading on my own.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Sadly, though, I feel just as judgy and lost when I go to revise my own writing. Recently I wrote this nifty little flash fiction, that I then proceeded to edit the crap out of until it was nothing but a shell of it's former self. Now I can't seem to get it back. I liked it, but I became enamored with my red pen. The problem is that I am in love with eliminating the excess, with paring my stories to the point where it is more like the scaffolding of a really elaborate house. I kinda want my reader to figure things out on their own, to bring their own floorboards and wallpaper to the story, to, when they are reading, live in two places at once: my reality and the reader's reality. Unfortunately this desire also leads to unnecessary editing.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I don't know if this scaffolding idea is weird, and also impossible. I've read writers like this. I think Virginia Woolf did this in novels like The Waves - where it's all stream of consciousness and shifty from one narrator to the next, and you cannot find your footing in it at all, rather it sweeps you along just like a big wave with a big undertow. And a lot of Eudora Welty stories are the kind you get to the end of and say, did she write what I <i>think</i> she wrote? And then you have to go back to page one.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But I will say, revision can be exciting and kind of fun, maybe a little bit transcendental - in the way a worksheet that you know the answers to or a set of math problems you really completely understand and so have fun working on - can be a little transcendental. Even if one (i.e.:me) tends to get a little carried away -</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There's an art to it, I tell my students. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Step one, you need to divorce yourself from your work. Have someone else read it to you. Pretend to yourself that you didn't write it - that in fact that person who lives down the street from you, who you don't really like all that much, and who has been claiming to write the next great American novel for the last ten years, wrote it. Prejudice yourself against your work. That sentence you thought was so gorgeous, is it really just pretentious? Or is it as lovely as you thought? While you are listening to your work, listen for sour transitions, or the places where you need to reiterate your argument (even fiction has an argument, a thesis, in my opinion - I'll write more on that theory later) so that your thought drives the work. My students often repeat themselves because they know they have to have a certain number of pages - and because they are either completely overwhelmed by how much work they have to do for the final weeks of the semester, or because they are sick of writing or because they are just not feeling it - I get this way about my own work, so I listen for that. I listen for those moments when the scene has gone on too long - like an awkward, beery, conversation when you should have left the bar an hour ago. Take notes on all these things.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Step two: fix the easy things. By easy things, I mean the grammar, the spelling, the run-ons. This is busy work, and it is very satisfying.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Step three: go over your notes and fix the difficult things. Take the bad stuff out. That's actually pretty fun - it's like cleaning your closet of the clothes you wore when you were 20 lbs lighter and young enough to wear them. It feels good to have space in that closet. Then, move things. Nine times out of ten your beginning is at the end of your paper, or you need to switch a couple of paragraphs for things to make sense. Review your argument - is it moving forward? If it isn't, then make it so. Yes I did invoke Captain Picard there. He is sitting on the deck of your work in that big captain's chair and he is looking through the window screen thingy at the stars before him and he is saying, "Make It So" and pointing toward the the rest of space with a little forward motion of his arm. If he did not do this, nothing on that starship would get done. They'd all just be hanging out in space, static, waiting for the Borg to come assimilate them. Which is why I could never get behind Deep Space 9, despite how much I liked Captain Sisto. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Anyway, I'm getting away from things here, which is exactly the kind of stuff I tell my students to take out of their papers. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Your next to last step - look it over again. Read it to yourself, I say to my students. Out loud. Don't feel weird about this, although you probably will. Listen again. If you stumble over something, then it needs fixing. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Finally - let it go. I have students who are still revising as they hand the paper in. I've heard stories, probably apocryphal, about authors who have found their books on the shelves of Barnes and Noble and edited them even after they are in print. At some point, you just gotta let go. Send it out into the ether - not to get all '70s on you, but if you love it set it free. Only in writing, if it comes back, it might actually be crap. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I received 3 rejections today. But who's counting...</span>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2223695852358910301.post-27724504062010336922012-04-09T20:38:00.000-07:002012-04-09T20:38:28.117-07:00This Thing Needs A TitleI teach writing at a local university and at a GED prep class and I say that phrase to almost every student about their first papers. "This thing needs a title." I love titles - even if they change. Titles get everything started - literally. <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/my-lifes-sentences/?scp=2&sq=jumpa%20lahiri&st=cse" target="_blank">Recently Jumpa Lahari wrote this wonderful essay for the NYT</a> about sentences - sentences that roll around you head like a pop song. She says, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The best sentences orient us, like stars in the sky, like landmarks on a trail."</span> - and I believe a title does the same. It starts us out - it is the first breadcrumb on the trail, it is a handshake, the how-do-you-do. Without a title it is difficult to take a piece of writing seriously even if you're the one writing it.<br />
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Another thing a title does, is get you out of your pajamas.<br />
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I don't mean that the way you are thinking I mean that. <br />
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Years ago I was a follower of flylady.com - a housekeeping website for the messy marvins of the world who secretly wished we weren't quite so- messy. Sadly, I couldn't keep up with it and my home remains a disorganized, cluttered, disaster. But flylady had one piece of advice that I took with me and continue to find valuable: put some shoes on. Her belief was that you would not be able to take your day seriously if you stayed in your slippers. For us writers and work-at-home types, this is an important message. If I get up in the morning, drive the kids to school, come back to write, but am still in my pajamas (yes, I <strike>often do</strike> have done that in the past), I get bupkis written. Why? Because when I'm in my p.j.s, or even slippers for that matter, I am not taking my day seriously. Work involves pants, shirt, shoes. Even if I'm staying home all day. You know I'm right. If I want to be comfortable, I'll put on sweats and tie my sneakers. But I get dressed. <br />
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A title does this for writing. It gets it dressed. It makes it real. Even a first draft. You don't have to marry the title you start with - you can kick it to the curb once you figure out what it is you are writing - but flirt with it for a while. Buy it a drink, take it to dinner - love the one you're with - You won't regret it - I promise.Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10629741817917614953noreply@blogger.com0