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
Monday, October 5, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
back again
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
Saturday, February 28, 2009
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.
that's all for now. no earth, no border, no centered edge. i'm ready.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
fucking grammar
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
"The time is always ripe to do good"-MLK, Jr.
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.
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.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Mercy, Raining Down?
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.
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.
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