I submitted a packet of ten poems for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship. I had planned to apply, then planned to wait until next year (when I would hopefully have better material), then decided to apply after my dad said he'd been praying so hard for me and essentially he won't accept any reason I have for not applying. He reasoned that if they offer this every year, and it's free to apply, I might as well go for it. It's 15 grand, after all. So I scraped together ten poems, some old, a couple still in the revision phase. This is why I don't have high hopes. But, who knows. After reading a Ploughshares article by Christine Sneed about how long it takes to get any recognition as a writer, I realized I need to get started now. I have a long life of rejection ahead of me. Fellow writers will understand this as realism, whereas everyone else will think I'm being melodramatic and pessimistic.

I don't know what I want to be.

(what I want) I'm no longer clever.

Bloom

I just made my first poetry submission to Poetry magazine. This quote popped up after I made the submission:

"If you are interested in writing well, in working at being a better poet, then the most important piece of advice that anyone can give you is that you have to read recent poetry."

-Wendy Cope


I wish Emerson would put this to practice. No offense, Yeats. (Or Eliot, Pound, Plath, Stevens...)

That quote is keeping in line with a 2005 article I just read on the Poetry Foundation's website called "No Experience Necessary," by Christina Pugh (a 2000 Emerson grad and awesome poet). One of my biggest obstacles as a poet is recognizing/accepting/believing that I am a poet. I never feel like a poet. I don't look like a poet. I don't talk/read/act like a poet. I often feel like I don't have the experience to be one, and with my life revolving around work and classes that I don't give a shit about (i.e, Teaching College Composition), I also often feel like I'm not living the right kind of life with the right kind of focus that will get me any of the said experience I need to be a poet. But what I got from Pugh's article is that maybe all I need to do is keep on reading, keep on writing, and the rest of my life doesn't really matter. There's no right or wrong way to be a poet.

(Unless the "wrong way" is being self-deprecating, but isn't that also the "right way?")

Accidental Poetry: 5

From a couple things I proofed today:

"If answere was no known the answere said so."


"The fresh hello as I entered thedoor by the teller.
Then the personal banker stating that TD bank was implementing their products and telling me she some information and wss studying it closely before the June 1 final changeoverl She then loooked straight at me and said whe would honestly answer or not answer at all."

Dad's culinary legacy

Randy (my brother): I'm making my first attempt at meatloaf lol

Me: How's it working out?

Randy: It'll be done in 30 mins. Then we'll see.

Me (90 mins later): How was it?

Randy: Not bad. Not dad's though. I need to do some tweaking.

Me: Did he tell you how to make it?

Randy: No. All the times I made it with him he never measured anything. So there's no real way to mimic it.

Me: He should be able to estimate, though.

Randy: Nope, he goes by terms like, "a light coating over everything."

I have this way of glorifying Hell that makes me wonder why I ever stopped being friends with Satan.

Accidental Poetry: 4

By Alyssa, via email:

"Also, I just accidently clicked something & got a message about a pop-up being blocked, & it said Grr! & the whatever about a pop-up blocker."

Accidental poetry: 3

A thing I proofed for work today:

"I was helped right away with upstanding service like information provided to my inquire on a CD account and may take advantage of good service as a customer would do it with the customer service they provided."

Homesick

I remember you better than you were, and I remember me happier than I was. For no discernible reason.