what must be met

the ADA is 21 today

2011-07-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

friends, i'm sick. and i'm really sad to be sick today, too, because i had grand hopes of writing a big, fat, juicy blog today about the anniversary of the americans w disabilities act, and instead, i am full of snot and just want to go to sleep. instead, i will make a partial list of why the ADA is important to me:

1. because the people i work with at ILRCSF are wonderful folks, most of whom have disabilities, and if it weren't for reasonable accommodations legislation, i probably wouldn't have them as co-workers.
2. because in the last year, my sister has been diagnosed w rheumatoid arthritis and, having been previously immersed in the independent living movement thru my work at ILRCSF, her diagnosis took on a different feel, i believe, in both of our lives - one more hopeful than would've previously likely been the case.
3. because i like being able to go all over the bay with my friend, amber, on her little scooter. i like the curb cuts and ramps and elevators that keep us moving, together.
4. because i am an activist and i love civil rights legislation of every stripe.
5. because i live in a human body, and will most likely be disabled at some point in my life, as will most of you reading this.
6. because we needed to start somewhere.
7. because we have lots and lots of places to go.

happy anniversary, ADA!

2011-07-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

i'm reading the new critical edition of the narrative of the life of frederick douglass, including angela davis' lectures on liberation as well as juliana spahr's well then there now, which came in the mail today. just finished james baldwin's the fire next time and am put on motion , , have been spinning. rainbow arc, fish-fin, tail. circled orb/electrons: in greece. 15. this is how you do it. (self)

for instance: "the slave is actually conscious of the fact that freedom is not a fact, it is not a given, but rather something to be fought for; it can exist only through a process of struggle. the slavemaster, on the other hand, experiences his freedom as inalienable and thus a fact: he is not aware that he too has been enslaved by his own system." -angela davis

and: "togetherness of the lesson and the splitting" or "when my mother was saying we were middle class she was saying something less about our house and more about our location on the block and about our location on the globe at the same time. i was trying to think about what was right about what she said." -juliana spahr

these women are talking about some holes. are talking from parts of oakland, from female lips.

these women. these women.

the 26th of july will mark the 21st anniversary of the americans with disabilities act. i work for an independent living center which is a disability rights organization that functions on the basic premise that people with disabilities deserve to live in the larger community and to not be pathologized to death or lonesome all the time - another nod to freedom, split, touchingness.

i am going to call 2 hours worth of wisconsin voters tomorrow in an effort to help recall their republicans. i live across the street from a motel and the government wants me to pay them $313 a month for my $93,000 poetry degrees which i never intend to pay (entirely) off. i deserved those years reading and writing, god damn it - everyone truly does. this world is better off that i did that for my self and for my mind and it should never have cost that much, besides.

wine or orchids

crinkled iridescent foil

in my comments section, please humor me with answers to these questions:
1. tell me about where you're from, who your people are.
2. talk about language, as it was experienced by you, growing up where you did, in relation to family, place, being a worker, your mom teaching you how to work--etc.
3. breifly/ your perspective (divinatory/psychic) on where we are at, as a society in capitalism - we writers who use the art of invocation, as all language must be said to do.
4. a sentence on liberation.

***

ILRCSF (the organization i work for) is hosting a commemorative reading for the anniversary of the ADA at the san francisco public library (100 larkin), in which i will be a featured reader. you should come. 7/26 - starts at 6pm in the koret auditorium. it's accessible and you're welcome there.

2011-04-17T19:42:00.000-07:00

fyi, my grand prize-winning poem, "made flesh" appears in this online anthology, just out from the poetry ark! download it and check it out!

http://www.poetryark.org/

working [class] reading series

2011-04-10T01:36:00.000-07:00

:working [class] reading series

* Amee Puckett Boswell in conversation re: working, illness, property, management, momness and more
* Mg Roberts as featured poet
* and David Brazil, Steve Farmer, Sara Larsen, Lauren Levin, and Suzanne Stein - some of the organizing members of the Poetic Labor Project - filling us in on their symposium and blog (http://www.labday2010.blogspot.com/)

bring a covered dish or beverage. bring some pomes or almost poems. bring your curiosity about poetry, your thoughts on work or class or access. also, think christmas lights, driveway, old couches, kids and dogs, barbeque, after party.

:first fridays beginning may 6, 2011
:8pm at michelle puckett’s house
:702 w. macarthur blvd
:oakland, ca

with this series we aim to soften things up. we are thinking of people who interest us and then asking them what poems or thoughts they might have about work, bodies at work, working class perspectives on the world, stories of capitalism, commonality, and the millions of offshoots poetry allows us to consider given these things. we want to mix scenes and get comfie. we want hot dogs.

what we are looking for:

any work, on any topic, by people who identify as raised-poor or working class.
work from people from other classes, granted it considers deeply the plight and dignity of working people and casts them centrally in the writing.
also, we want to facilitate a short dialogue with a worker – most often one who does not identify as a “writer” – each month. we will look at poetics and the work of words through a loose lens of labor and the body that performs it.

it is important to say that this series consciously considers physical bodies. the venue, a garage, will have space heaters and blankets and fans if oakland nights get hot. it is also completely wheelchair accessible, though we really regret to say that bathrooms are upstairs. assistance will be provided to anyone who needs it and there is a bathroom at the gas station across the street and at macarthur BART.

we think just by talking about couches and kids and bathrooms we are making for a new tone as far as reading series go. we hope you’ll join us. hot dogs will be provided but BYOB.

:michelle puckett & amber dipietra

working.class.reading@gmail.com

2011-03-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

New Philadelphia Poets present readings by Michelle Puckett, Tai Amri, Kim Gek Lin Short, and Cheryl Quimba! Saturday, April 2, 2011 Fergie's Pub 1214 Sansom Street Philadelphia, PA 4-6pm Followed by Con/crescent readings by Jamie Townsend, Rob Halpern, and Julia Bloch at 6pm. COME DRINK BEER ALL DAY AND LIVE A LIFE OF POETRY WITH US! love:m

arcos iris

2011-03-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.logosdictionary.org/sound/es/363031_n.wav

i want to stay here & i'll be glad

2011-03-06T23:17:00.000-08:00

hallo. it's been a while. again. oh well, i'm back. and since my last post i have: written a thesis, graduated, moved my sister and nieces from dallas to berkeley, gotten into and out of a relationship, gotten a full-time, union job (!) at a non-profit, moved myself from one part of oakland to another, and, most recently, found out that i won the GRAND PRIZE of $1,000 in the poetry ark competition for my poem, made flesh.

holy shit! no wonder i haven't been on this thing!

so now i am settling into my new home and job and i am coming out of the winter, as i know all of you must be also, and the world smells fresh. i smelled it today. all of this, turning. i am falling in love and the world is filled with hummingbirds, chuparosa, flowers. daylight getting longer.

from my journal, last entry before before akilah died:

while this tumult
random shots
penoptigon, or what have you
permanent disregard for revolt
straight
lybians refusing to fire on libyans

plus, love
there is love
lazy eye and tongue
gruesome and staggering
shock, baby
information
pissed, and wrapped
monarchy, armchair
putty
what we do with power
that stuff - its'shapes
what we make
dream . negotiate

then, after she died:

there are sirens in oakland at your memorial
the shaking of change
the day after knowing

we spent nine days uplifting akilah, thanks to lou florez. i could feel the work happening. and i have loved her so much this past week and i've felt grateful to have just spoken to her before she passed. we were planning things. paris in the summer, and i was to stay in her apartment at the end of march. she was happy, had been following news of the revolutions going on in egypt and tunisia. she was giddy about it, we both were, and imagining things. she told me she was still looking for her lover.. and i told her about the working class reading series that amber dipietra and i are starting and i asked her if she would read and she said, in the most tender and delighted voice, "yes, michelle, i would love to read at your series." we talked about having her in the fall. all of these things, not to be. just believed in by us for that night, and a few days after. i will miss her forever.

and now she is uplifted and it is time to tend to the business of spring, all of us left here. it is time for loving. and it is time for revolution. it is time for what is tender, for what i love most.

p.s. i'm headed to philly & NYC at the end of march and, thanks to debrah morkun, i'll be reading at molly's bookstore in philly on 4/2 with my beloved tai amri spann-wilson, kim gek lin short, and prolly one more person. come out, if you can! this don't happen every day!

xx

Two Upcoming Readings

2010-01-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

Hi folks,

I know it's been a while - grad school blackhole got me - but I do have two readings next week. I hope you'll come.

Works in Progress Reading Series @ Mills College
Michelle Puckett, Susan Gevirtz, Shelly Gomez, and Nathan Jones
5:15 in the Bender Room, Mills College
5000 MacArthur Blvd
Oakland, CA
Free and open to the public
Light refreshments provided
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=259860614086&ref=ts

and

Kelsey Street Press 35th Anniversary Reading

Michelle Puckett, Susan Gevirtz, Kathleen Fraser, Francis Phillips, Dale Going, Laurie Reid, Laura Moriarty, Elizabeth Robinson, Thaisa Frank, Jocelyn Saidenberg, Norma Cole, Nellie Wong, Rena Rosenwasser, Hazel White, Pat Dienstfrey, Tiff Dressen, Ramsay Breslin, Amber DiPietra, Val Witte & Lauren Levin read.

Come celebrate 35 years of innovative writing by women with snacks and bargain KSP books!

7:30 @ Books and Bookshelves
99 Sanchez Street
San Francisco, CA
Free and open to the public

http://www.kelseyst.com/news/

new moon

2009-10-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

so i just finished a tarot reading which told me to slow down, go inward, and be less social. it basically said nothing would work unless and until i do that. and so i am going to try getting up at 6 in the morning, folks. gonna try to meditate and write and drink coffee, alone in the blue/grey mornings, and then to go to bed early and just generally follow the rhythm of autumn (despite the fact of warm weather out here in california). i've been planning my birthday party at which my guests and i will watch "wolfman" and eat caramel popcorn balls. i have covered the house in spiderwebs. i made some soup. i have to say - perhaps u can "hear" it in my "voice" - i feel a little melancholy right now. i'm struggling to not feel bad about myself as i ride this wave i'm on. the tarot cards said i am in need of quiet and alone time and that i am virtually breaking out of my shell (picture of an egg with a tiny person inside) in preparation for the "revolution" that is in store for me. they warned me that i wouldn't feel ready. they spoke of vulnerability and tenderness. and they insisted on darkness and struggle as the condition upon which these changes will take place. it certainly does feel like that's where i am - i just don't want to be, dammit.
hoping ur all safe and warm tonight.
xo:m

because it doesn't rain in cali like it does on the plains...

2009-10-16T01:39:00.000-07:00

check out my piece on the kelsey street press blog

2009-10-06T00:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.kelseyst.com/news/

Friends on Etsy

2009-10-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

folks, i have really talented friends. u know this (i'm sure) because u are probably one of them. well i have two particularly enterprising friends who have begun hawking their wares at etsy, so have a look. i bet you'll find something lovely and u will be supporting art and the people i love. as the holiday buying extravaganza begins, consider bookmarking these two etsy shops and using them liberally.

http://www.merredyth.etsy.com

&

http://www.rebeccacaridad.etsy.com

love and kisses:m

back again

2009-09-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

so i am into my last year of my MFA and i am doing a bit of frantic rearranging of my life in order to make room for all that writing i am supposed to be doing/ want to be doing. i am making big cuts in the amount of socializing i do because i am feeling the need to just go deeply inward and into my creative space and really see what this book wants to say. juliana spahr is my thesis director and leslie scalapino is my reader, so i'm set up with some truly fabulous female minds to work with. things are going really well tho, as always, i do believe i have been assigned more work than is humanly possible (if one works, which i do) to complete. i have been doing big sessions on feeling good about myself despite the fact that i never seem to finish all of my homework. that said, i LOOOOOVE my classes! queer poetics w rebekah edwards makes my brain bigger every single week. i have a poetry workshop w juliana spahr and a lot of other talented people. and cynthia scheinberg's theories and strategies of teaching writing sounded boring to me but is actually quite political and thus FASCinating to me. i feel pretty damn certain i am on the right path - i'm gonna be a teacher, folks!

i am tutoring in the writing center at mills which is challenging and terrifying in all sorts of yummy ways. i love helping a student get her thoughts down on paper but the grammar aspect is more daunting than i can relay to u in a single blog. i'm working really hard to not feel stupid all the time; putting the rules of grammar into words is more difficult than i had imagined. my swimming class is a nice contradiction but is challenging in other ways, too. i am noticing just how little body awareness i have cultivated in my life and it is really hard to get my body to do what i tell it to! but when i get frustrated, i just flap around like i did as a kid and do a couple of underwater handstands and i feel much better. i love being in the water. and it has been great for my still-healing ankle, too.

i am doing part-time work with blue shield of california foundation again, on a temp assignment, as well as a touch of nanny work which i am thinking i need to drop due to the low pay and time commitment. it works out to less than $10 per hour when i subtract travel cost and time. i'm thinking that 6 hours a week would be much better spent writing.

oh, and i am reading in the "soulful series" at mills this tuesday evening at 5:15 in the bender room if anyone is able to make it out.

that's about it for now, but i will be making much more frequent use of this blog, i promise, so please do check back often. big love:m

2009-02-28T18:45:00.000-08:00

i feel like i don't know how to talk to this blog right now. have been sucked up in school and the poetry blog and writing and wanting. have been writing about the sea. i came out here, after being landlocked my whole life, knowing something would have to happen, wondering what the ocean would do to me. what is happening? water. all of it, everywhere.
that's all for now. no earth, no border, no centered edge. i'm ready.

fucking grammar

2009-02-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

damn, i really let this go for a while. ah yes, the blog...how are you?
what to do? when u feel it all? can't type when typing is breaking. clap of cowbell. if i am obtuse, forgive me. i was only going to stay a small while. nonsense for no reason, isn't it? oh so often. soften. this one in that.
try this: make it fast. begin at the top of my syntax, loop fingers like pocket-holes, stay in close contact, full out rebellion. the light that hurts to see. i cannot tell u what i mean. bending the corners to fit a different place where my concerns are apparent. i curl at the edges. fins of transparent red fish. a gill, breathing.
walking in the evening, a similarity is countering. a wall is hardening. mortar and spackle. semi-soft appetite. the star-like light of fireworks. the ripple of reflection and trying to make sense. the failure. the repetition of slight water. a most constant ringing, a welcome lie. to turn in a circle: telling the thing from the inside, out. eye against eye. sucked into water-funnel, funnel-cloud, tornado, maelstrom. after effect, on the avenue, the way the sun shines now.

"The time is always ripe to do good"-MLK, Jr.

2009-01-20T22:57:00.000-08:00

How will you say you spent this day? Whatever happens, a day to remember.
I woke up at the wee hour of 7 and washed my face and brushed my teeth. I was on the 3rd day of my period. I ditched work. Meg came to pick me up and she and I watched the inauguration at Cafe Pena in Berkeley. There were tears and gospel and latte and JOY! Then we were on to Revolution Cafe in West Oakland to meet up with Shelly. We sat in a circle, computers on laps, and half-watched the inaugural coverage (parades, etc) and half-wrote poems. Later, we decided to go for a walk. And when Meg suggested we walk in my neighborhood, I thought she must be joking. But she wasn't and we did.
I swear, I don't know if I can get tired of those two. And I can't really think of a more wonderfully luxurious/deeply challenging way to have spent this historic day. From dramatic firsts and songs of triumph, to poems for the dead and mandates for the living, I do not think I could have served my country better than I did today. I took up my duty, as I see it, as I have accepted it, with a full-bodied engagement. I sat in community with my colleagues and we thought, long and hard, about what it all meant. We chatted and scribbled and asked questions. We attempted to notice what was happening and how. I am a poet, amongst poets, and today, I say it proudly, we did our Job.
I will never forget the way he smiles, o dear, and throws the ball right back at us - this 44th president of the United States. And while he is proud that we have chosen him, he is working hard to remind us that it only implies that we have chosen ourselves. This man with the deepest appreciation of service is bound to lead the way, in boldness, and with the courage to change what isn't working. May his example infect us all with an unshakable sense of urgency to carry out the ends of justice and unfettered joy in this world. Now is the time.

2009-01-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

Mercy, Raining Down?

2009-01-14T20:56:00.000-08:00

My fucking goodness, it's a strange world. I am NOT listening to the Chet Baker station on Pandora, as I often do while sitting in my room. I am listening, for once, to the "silence" of West Oakland. There are helicopters and many police sirens. I'm watching them, like bright dragonflies above downtown. The fan I sleep with (for, holy fuck, "white noise") is called "Hawaiian Breeze". It is a silver-ribbed, squat R2D2 of a fan with one named eye.
Colorado was quiet. Was snowy winter.
There is a protest going on. I am not there because I feared violence. I am here, on this white computer. I am retyping what I misspell. Delete. Delete. I am fond of short sentences, strung together like a garment of lace. I am not ashamed. Can you see my ass? From where you're sitting? Can you?
Sat in Revolution Cafe today. Went to the post office. Drank $2 wine. My mother says my writing ( the work I recently gave her) is unclear. "I must confess sometimes I miss the point when it reads so poeticly. Seems pretty abstract sometimes, but it was good."
She loves me. Still, how does a writer lose her own mother, you may be asking. Fuck if I know.
I found out tonight that I am getting another poem published in another magazine called Monkey Puzzle! SO strange to write. Do you all understand that you are obliged, as I said to Paola today, to read my shit from here on out? I have a lot more to say, I assure you. This is only the beginning.
Today, they arrested Johannes Meserhle, the young, white BART officer who murdered Oscar Grant, in Tahoe. My fucking goodness. I saw graffiti, two days ago, that said "arrest Johnnes Meserhle". Now what/
Helicopters. oh, polarized state! I like the notion of ending with a prayer: In name of the things that connect us. In name of the things that don't. Like the howl of a train, at night.

2009-01-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

For Oscar and Others

2009-01-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

Wow. Blogging is intense. Can't really stop once you start. Or reading other people's. It kind of feels like going up to your rooftop and yelling your news into a big black megaphone that you are sure all your people can hear. It feels like a big ol' relief a lot of the time. An unbound journal.
All my roommates are out of town right now. My phone is cut off. I am broke. It's weird to be in this house all alone, and kind of scary. I cleaned up, had a session with my beloved Georgia Rose, and went for a long walk up and down Mandela Parkway, singing my head off to the workout mix I made for Angie. Then I came home and cooked a pot of pintos and some basmati rice. I was about to eat, but I really wanted some tortilla chips to go with my rice n beans. So I decided to walk up to the 99 cent store on the corner. I considered not going because it was already dark and shit has been crazy in my neighborhood lately, but it's only 2 blocks, so I went for it. I got: sour cream, chips, half & half, and pasta sauce. The woman in front of me in line was taking a really long time, flirting with the cashier until she found out he was married and then he asked to hold her baby and finally she paid and I wasn't in a hurry, so I just waited patiently. By the time I walked out of the store, I could see police lights in front of my house. I was like, oh damn, not again. As I got up to my house I asked one of the several cops what had happened and he asked if I lived here, pointing to my house. I said yes and he told me there had been a shooting. Apparently, the bullet ricocheted and only hit the guys' ear. Too fucking close for comfort, man. He was sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house, surrounded by cops. They hadn't caught the perpetrator. It was a drive-by. And I had only missed it by a couple of minutes.
I am numb, by the way, as I write this. It begins to feel like TV when this stuff happens so often. I mean, just last night I watched the video of the BART police officer shooting Oscar Grant in the back at the Fruitvale station on New Years Eve. It's just too much to take in. Too much to let be real in a bodily way. I mean, I HAVE to leave the house. I HAVE to go places. I can't be terrified all the time, so it feels like all I can do is shut down. I know that's not true though, and I am resolving to keep on putting my mind on this terror in session so I don't stay numb. But right now, I'm alone. I can't thaw out now. And it's like, who do you trust? The fucking cops are the ones who shot Oscar Grant. The fucking cops are the ones who shot the guy Meg saw killed. And then there are drive-bys. Utterly random murders. People dying. Just getting ticked the fuck off as though they were already on a list. The After-Thanksgiving-Shooting was in the middle of the day, same exact spot as this one, at night. That spot is directly out my bedroom window. That window is right above my bed. That bed is where I sleep and write and hope to one day fuck. It's where I am right now.
I took that OK Cupid "dating persona" test and was really bothered by the question that asked whether you would rather 10 people die, or die yourself. Tai Amri was laughing at me for getting so riled up, but I was like, no! fuck this shit, I don't want to know this about myself. I was gonna skip it. But then I read the next question, which was the same question, but with 10,000 people instead of 10. So I went back and answered as best I could under those artificial circumstances: me over 10 people, 10,000 over me - now I ask you, how did that math get worked out? Who formulated and executed that equation in my mind? What do we do when we don't like the answers we give, but don't want to change our answers, either? How THE FUCK do you calculate that kind of a question? On what criteria? It is just absurd from the very get-go. I want to live. And I want all of you to live. (The particulars eating away all semblance.) Oh heavy, heavy head.
It shouldn't be a question, doesn't have to be. ALL people deserve to live. Could we just say that, and then go from there? Wouldn't that be alright? But "deserving to live" is a highly interpretable statement. For me, "deserving" must demand a practical way for that living to find existence. There is too much of everything for there to be not enough. Capitalism, won't ya come down already! I'm about ready for the wealth to start getting spread around like John McCain was so afraid of. Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace? Friends, I'm numbed out, but really pissed off way deep down.
I came home from Texas with a zip-locked baggie of my grandmother's "ashes". She is little calcium pieces and gravel. It looks like a bunch of stuff that came from a beach somewhere. Shells, beat to roundness on the shore. Bleached and ashen. The skin is gone. Dried and drying. A hole, closed back up. I don't know what that means. That I used to rub lotion on Gramma's dry skin, that Oscar Grant's mama used to kiss his real head. And now, rocks. Rubble. Stones. And if that kind of change is possible in one body, soft to hard, why not also for our hearts? I pray, oh god, for melting.

I'm Reading (in public, no less!)

2009-01-04T00:26:00.000-08:00

I love that I get to begin the new year like this: Tonight I was invited to read in San Francisco's Bang Out Reading Series. Holy shit. Friends, I have never read anywhere but at school and a couple of open mics. Open water, indeed. I hope you all realize that if you live within a 100 mile radius of SF, barring dangerously contagious illness, you will be required to attend this event. Mark your calendars if you love me at all. It will be at Amnesia on Valencia starting at 7pm on Saturday, January 17th, 2009. Come give me the moral support I so desperately crave. Come hear me do this thing.

More info on the venue: http://www.amnesiathebar.com/Amnesia/Amnesia_-_Home.html
and the Bang Out Reading Series: http://bangoutsf.com/

Open Water

2009-01-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Ooh, new year. Everything starts again. Great talks with my girls last night (Syd and Selah) and today (Heather and Sarah). Folks, I am a bumbling fool. I mean, what do I do with myself now that I am back from Dallas and not in school? Write, I guess. Shelly is coming over in a minute and we are having a writing date. And tomorrow I have a writing date with a new friend, MG, at her house. Um, isn't this exactly what a Writer's life is supposed to look like? Check, check. Meg suggested we get published in 2009, and I quite like that idea. No roadmaps yet, only just ideas. Just wishes and hopes. Pure desire.

I am thinking about not having kids. I know it may sound a little crazy right now because I haven't got a partner or anything approximating financial security or a career or any of that stuff that is "supposed" to come first. But I think it's a really important thing, I was telling my Ma, for every feminist to consider. I mean, it was such a given for so long, such a non-issue, that I think it must really become something for women to really study and prod into. Being with my nieces this past time reminded me of exactly how deeply in love I can be with children who are not my own (barely). And it always feels so good to go back to my own life after my trips to the Big-D. I am considering how much more time I want. See, I spent so much of my younger years sad and trying to make things work out in a chaotic family that (and everyone who knows me knows this) I didn't get to start figuring out what I really wanted or needed until I was in my mid-late twenties. When I consider needing to have a baby by the time I am in my mid-late thirties, I get squeamish. I don't know if 10 years is enough for me.

Undoubtedly, if I could live to 150, I would have a child from my own body. The thought of not doing it feels like the worst thing in all the world to me. Almost. But not quite. So I am trying to let myself luxuriate in the mere consideration of not having children. I am trying to feel what that feels like. Trying to mine that space for the answers it wants to give. Some first impressions are: weightlessness, void, sorrow, and a seamless sense of possibility. I mean, what if I truly decide to never put a bookend on my own self being at the center of my own life? I am getting too wise to not see that children need FAR more than they are getting, as is. If I decide to have one, I am bound and determined to figure out something completely new. I promise to keep ya'll posted.

In other news, I watched a movie, "Open Water" with Zoe last night. It is one of her terrible, guilty pleasures. Bad shark movies. It was really bad. But, I did find it fascinating to consider the open water. The dangling of legs into nothingness. The way creatures come up to nibble or bite at what floats on the surface. The utter vastness and unmappability of all that ocean when you are just floating in the current. In the end (and I don't feel bad telling you this because it truly IS that bad), the couple who had been left behind by their scuba tour get eaten by several sharks. The guy had been bitten earlier and had bled to death. The woman kisses his dead face and relinquishes him to the school of sharks surrounding them. He begins to bob up and down, getting yanked apart. She silently, calmly, slips out of her tank and gear and goes under. Goes right for them. Into the feeding frenzy. After 24 hours of trying so hard to fight it, she goes right into the thick of it, right toward the bite. That image of open water is gonna stay with me for a long time to come. It just feels like the best metaphor for the things I am trying to confront in 2009: my sexual/desirous/desirable self, my opulently open-ended future, my fat-ass mind and all the things it wants to think up and say, and the unbearable excitement and anticipation I feel when I even *try* to imagine what I will write this year. Loves, I don't know when Ima come up, but I have GOT to see what is down there. I have GOT to let current carry me. I bet Ima get bit. There might be blood.

I had a session with Syd

2008-12-26T22:22:00.000-08:00

or something approximating a session, and am feeling much better now. Eating powdered Alfredo patsta and watching Sex and the City before bed...XO.

X-mas in Dallas

2008-12-26T20:09:00.000-08:00

AH, the blog. Perpetual home of my loneliness. It is embarrassing how I come here when I haven't another place to go. I am stuck at my sister's house - alone. This is a strange place to be when no one is around. The electricity went out in the kitchen for about 8 hours and so I had to unplug the microwave from the kitchen and move it to the hallway so I could cook scrambled eggs for dinner. Plus, I scrapped my bare big toe on the concrete of the driveway as my sister left to go out of town to visit her friend. It took a big chunk of toenail and skin off and it still hurts like hell. I left toe-blood on the hood of her car before she pulled out and left me with no band aids and no car and my youngest niece who cried because I had promised to take her to the park up the road. I wanted to go for a walk so badly. I need those endorphins today. But my toe is fucked.
I was supposed to be going to my high school reunion tonight, but my old friends were all too drunk to pick me up from the suburbs by the time I got my niece off with her dad. My older niece is at her friend's lake house and now I am alone here after a week and a half of constant family time. I am in for the night, make-up done, new Christmas clothes on, a box of wine for company, and I feel like shit. My toe hurts. I can hardly remember who or what I am.
Two weeks is a damn long time, friends. Not having the money to pay rent is on my mind. I forget how much work there still is to do in Cali. I feel like a particularly large failure right now. I mean, I don't even have a car, much less any savings. I am single. I've never been published. I am overweight and too reliant on feeling intoxicated. I picked up and left all the people I love in Colorado. My phone doesn't work right and so phone conversations suck on so many levels. Yes, this is the after-Christmas blues. This is the "feeling sorry for myself" post. This sucks. Plus, my grandma's dead. And I miss her. It feels like Dallas isn't mine anymore. I feel like a fake. But I'm no Coloradan or Californian either. How did this happen?
I had the most wonderful day with my mom and sister when I first got here. We went to the movies and they paid for me, without even arguing about it. It was like heaven. I kept wondering what had changed. No fights. Just generosity and relaxation. Folks, it lasted one whole day. And while Amee and I have had more fun together than any time in recent history, it has all gone to hell. My mother is pretty much the most depressed person I have ever known. My friends here don't seem to give a damn about me anymore. Correction: not in a way they can show. And everyone drinks so fucking much. I'm drunk right now, for God's sake! Oh, I am a miserable Dallas bitch right now. I cannot wait to go home and be in my own room with my own journal and my own altar and my own bed. My life feels pretty silly from this spot here. I don't know what makes sense, is worth while, counts for anything.
More wine now. And the cuddly kitten my sister recently adopted. I try not to watch cable. Please get me home quickly! Christmas *cheer*.
Michelle

1/4 down, 3/4 to go

2008-12-11T00:26:00.000-08:00

Hi, my people. I just finished my first semester of grad school. (little booty dance). I turned in 55 pages of writing in the past week. I'm rockin' in a way I ain't ever seen myself do. It's, kind of cool. But now, after all that work, I feel crazy not knowing what to do with myself. I feel lonesome for my classes (and classmates!) already. My poetry class would've been tonight, but it's over. I was telling Meg in class yesterday that I was always crying on the last day of school when I was a kid because I was gonna miss my teachers and friends. Yep. I was born to be a student. I don't think I've ever liked anything as much as school in my whole life. Except, of course, for the bodies and minds of the people I love. Nothing can beat that. But OTHER than that, well, it's no question. I'm glad I've realized that I wanna write and teach. That was a smart decision. Is one.
I am also watching another year come to an end in which I have no partner. I don't like this one bit, but I'm STILL not exactly sure what to do about it. I know ya'll think I'm crazy, but dammit, this shit is hard for me! And I'm not just talking about some ass. That's not how I roll. I think Ima do some hoodoo on it. I have been so far away from my spirituality this semester. But I did get a dressed love candle from Miss Cat Yronwode for my birfday so I suppose it's a good time to get all up on that. I try to be patient, and then I wonder if that's the very problem.
I'm heading to Dallas next week for Christmas. Gonna see those baby girls I fuckin adore. One is twelve. Bordering on having a boyfriend. The other is seven. There will be no more Gramma and that is just strange in every way. My sister bought a house. I'll see some high school friends. I hope it rains while I'm there. I miss the rain. THAT'S what I want for Christmas. A big, Texas thunderstorm with a bunch of lightning and thunder and wind and a grey-black sky. Please, oh please.
And I gotta send a shout out to my Boulder peeps. I miss ya'll in that snowy mountain town! Shit, who'm I kidding? I miss all ya'lls asses, all over the world!!! Happy Advent, fuckers. xoxo.

Guns and Butter

2008-11-30T15:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was in my kitchen cooking mashed potatoes, on the phone with Georgia Rose, chilling with the back door open and then, all of a sudden, I heard BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! Directly out my door, there was a shooting. I cannot tell you how loud, terrifying, and confusing it all was. The police found no blood, though witnesses saw a man on the ground who then disappeared. The cops found bullet shells (or whatever they're called) across the street in front of my neighbors house. And last weekend, I walked outside to find 15 cop cars on my street. I counted them. They said it was safe to leave the house, and I did, warily. I heard they found bullet shells in front of my next door neighbors' house that night, as well.

I keep getting mad at myself for feeling afraid. Like it makes me weak or something. Like I am not allowed to notice how tenuous life really is. In the past month I have had two friends have cancer scares (one is not out of the woods yet), one friend's father died, another friend survived a suicide attempt, another friend is dealing with being left by his long-term partner, and at least 2 shootings have occurred on my street. Looking even further outward, I notice the unspeakable tragedies of the attacks in India, consumers trampling a Wal-Mart employee to death, and fast-growing joblessness. Indeed, the Buddha had it right: Life is full of suffering.

And yet it is full of wonderful things, as well. In the midst of all of this, in the past month I have not only sat with the suffering, and suffered my own self, but have seen the exquisitely beautiful. We have elected Barack Obama. I have reached 32 years of age, in one piece. I worked hard on and sweated profusely during my project to teach a class on Myung Mi Kim's gorgeous book, Commons. It went really well. I presented my work in my fiction class on Lee Harvey Oswald on the 45th anniversary of his public murder. I began working on a syllabus for a community writing workshop I will teach next semester. I met poets who work "on the margins" of the writing community, outside of academia, and I have remembered that the human heart can survive, be fed, and be central to the writing I pursue. That, while I love my mind, as well as the minds of others, it remains necessary to come out of our heads and into our bodies. To tend to the living we must do. And finally, I have eaten the most delicious and buttery foods in a house full of lovely people on Thanksgiving day. Have been surrounded by people who fascinate me.

My friend Shelly called me up frantically the other day to tell me about a radio show she had heard called "Guns and Butter". It had been on the anniversary of the JFK assassination and she thought it might be of interest to me because, not only am I writing about Oswald, but also because guns and butter are recurrent themes in that writing. It was eerie. I looked it up and found that "Guns or Butter" is a common term used in economics to point to the necessity of governments to prioritize its needs. The theory says a government cannot have both. That, instead, each administration must decide to spend on military or civilian causes. That effective government chooses which to do when, wisely. And I read an article that accuses George W. Bush of choosing both, thus putting us in this terrible position we are in. I quite like the analogy and am fond of appropriating it to talk about things beyond economics. My life, as always, is filled with both. And while I prefer butter and hope to keep the balance tipped to that end, how does one measure? Upon which system shall I calibrate my devices? Which instrument can I use? Ariel Goldberg, my classmate, asked the other day whether having had Oswald's life tangled into my family history had been a blessing or a curse. In that space, I search. How to measure?

I am not in favor of suffering for Art's sake, but it continues to exist - despite Art. Perhaps Art is an expression of the Middle Way. A reach toward appreciation of "what is", while hoping for "what might yet be". Bhanu Kapil talks about wanting a book that "suffers" with the reader. I think that that book would only need to sit in the moment, feel the rubbing of two things beside one another. Explore the electrified sliver of space there. Bashfully, I admit to, like George W. Bush, preferring Guns AND Butter. After all, Butter alone makes one fat, slothful. Guns alone make the world unbearable and hungry. And though it began with bullets, I suppose this is my Thanksgiving blog of gratitude. Kahlil Gibran says children are the "sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself". I grope around, amongst you all, longing for this life.

why are my friends so fucking great?

2008-11-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

wow. 9:39, sunday, the 16th of november night. had a haircut by syd. had a poetry reading, had a dinner with amber. had several wines. had a funn time. have (currently) several star-gazing lilies, a brown candle with fat flame. sound of roommates.

how does one spell it?

"jesus". i say it out of respect.

what shall we think when we have been given so very many directions/instructions. (let this critique sweep far). i had lion for supper. had bad bread and smooth Southern talk. i forget to forget. i really hear people being ferried, all day.

quoting, like exercise, is aerobic - mirrors lungs. what happens then? how does it sound? who is responsible? sometimes, we don't have to explain. sometimes, u get mad because i always talk politics. quit this. be serious. cuddle up for the cozy.

To the Blessed 44th President of the United States

2008-11-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

So we are supposed to record it. To remember, forever, that this thing happened. To remember that I was eating soup from a can and that I was really, really broke at the time. To remember the sound of cars honking and people beating pots and pans and blowing whistles. To remember how, when I wanted to cry, laughter came up instead. To remember stone-cold sobriety and uncontrollable laughter. To remember the look of so many black faces on the television crying because something so good had happened. To remember that his face reminded me of James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" because he looked "so touched, I think, that he could have cried, but neither hiding it nor showing it, riding it like a man" he gave his speech and kissed his family. To remember that people can claim dignity even after they've been led to believe they had none. To remember the moment it all changed. The motto remains, is not finished: Yes, we can!

Most Regular Autumn

2008-10-21T22:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I hardly expected this to be a journal of despair on death and dying, but we have truly entered the fall. It is all over my mind. I turn 32 in ten days, that's how old my dad was when he died. It is a strange habit of the living to rely too heavily on the information of the lives of the dead. or too little is also often the case. I am thinking about dying. Not suicide, but instead that it will happen some day. Always, in the fall, I think like this. My mother just had some skin cancer removed. This, after having had breast cancer 4 years ago. It was on the anniversary of her mother's death. My whole life needs changing.

I want to talk on the phone right now to one of my old friends living somewhere else in world, but it is later everywhere than here. It leaves me alone, in the middle of the night, calling around to leave messages for sleeping friends. I am being dramatic. I am being for real. I felt terrible (sad, cramps) all day and then I wrote this tiny, two-part piece about stitches on the dead bodies of my father and Oswald. This is Scorpionic; almost there. This is practice for what one says in public.

I heard a cricket in a tree tonight. He was quiet while I went past. I walked up a huge hill and could see the water (I don't even know which!) and the sky was purple and orange. I smelled rose today, out of nowhere, while writing about kissing my father's dead cheek. That is how he smelled. And felt. I always think about who I miss in the autumn. See, it is like this: so chilly.

Meg, you keep asking, and I have found a quote. "In creating, you create the origin that swallows you" --Edmond Jabes

Sure, I'm going down. But like Jayne Cortez said, "and just what the fuck else was she supposed to do?" I kick and scream. I write a blog. I look toward winter and act fluent. Behave verbose.

2008-10-01T22:23:00.000-07:00

My heart went thru its usual breaking as I left Texas. I moved slowly the first day back. I worried whether writing is frivolous. I thought about how far away my family is when I am here. And then I wrote three poems. And then I cried. My grandmother's Virgin Mary is set upon my altar. My chest is weighted with prayer and thankfulness and vertigo. According to Bhanu Kapil, "Vertigo is a symptom of profound attraction. An excess of desire." Yes.

I am back in the Bay after covertly digging a hole at the cemetery in Dallas where my dad, uncle and paw-paw are buried and depositing part of my grandmother's ashes there. We poured water on the ground and used trowels. I loved on my nieces and went thru my grandmother's things. I came home with a suitcase full of pictures. My assignment for Truong Tran's poetry class this week is to look at a family album and write about the pictures and the narrative that they beg to tell. That man reads my mind.

I have pictures of my father as a small baby, complete with infamous dimple. I have pictures of my uncle Mike in the hospital after being knifed; you can see the track marks in his arms. Ghostly hollow of his dark eyes. I am being given a gift. I get to sort through these things. I get to follow it back to deep baby humanity. I get to love and love and love.

I have a bit of homesickness for Boulder as the days get shorter but remain fair in California. I began my period (quite early) the day my grandmother died and I know there is a serious newness to my life right now. Each part of me is beginning something. Each of my "homes" have shifted. I don't know how to anchor.

I will be 32 in one month, the age my father was when he died. My birthday is Halloween, my uncle Mike's was November 1st, and the next is the Day of the Dead. I am mad with numbers lately. I wonder who is pulling these strings.

Tonight I made a thick fried dahl and have crawled into bed. I am listening to songs that have accordions or yodeling in them. It is clear that Fall has arrived: days like cinnamon, nights like clove.

Her Obituary

2008-09-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2008/09/fay-puckett-daughter-of-woman-who.html

A Public Face

2008-09-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

In the foreward to From the Book to the Book, Edmond Jabes wrote:

To take the wrong door means indeed to go against the order that presided over the plan of the house, over the layout of the rooms, over the beauty and rationality of the whole. But what discoveries are made possible for the visitor! The new path permits him to see what no other than himself could have perceived from that angle. All the more so because I am not sure that one can enter a written work without having forced one's own way in first.

Yesterday I attended a discussion that was hosted by the Nonsite Collective and facilitated by Bhanu Kapil on architecture and a poetics of disablement. When I arrived, the door was locked. I was late and I was going to have to buzz my way in. I almost walked away. Then, by some sweet watchfulness, someone saw my shadow pass the milky window and came to let me in. Thru all manner of hesitation, I forced my way in the door that I have been banging up against in my mind for years; I showed up as a writer.

Soon, I began talking about my grandmother. I was remembering her house. I was telling tales of the legendary Phaedra. I went public by going private.

I have the journal my grandmother started the day she found my father's dead body on a mattress in the house she owned. She had wanted to be a writer. And so I think it only appropriate that I begin this blog today.

I think my grandmother must have been waiting for me to get to have that experience yesterday. And, despite so many layers of misunderstanding between us, I believe she must have felt us talking about her. I think that her body had been lying there in a nursing home while the rest of her went about calibrating the variables, trying to choose the "right" time to die. She died today at 2:30 in the afternoon in Dallas while I lay in my bed in Oakland reading a draft proposal for the Nonsite Collective. It happened while I was feeling sure (even for a moment) that I am where I am meant to be.

And so I send your soul, Ms. Fay Puckett, into what must be met with the assurance that I have loved you, and that through that love I have learned to love myself and that through that love I will love the world. Today is the last day of summer - no further autumn for you. I hope that you feel free, whatever that can look like. I hope you feel bold, and loved, and shiny. I cannot imagine what every new day will be like without your body in it. But I will never be without you. I am wearing your onyx on my index finger, as you always did, as you instructed me to. I will use it to point. And, like you, I am after the beautiful.