Blast from the Past

July 27, 1974: Impeachment Debate

The first step in preparing for rejection each year:

I've begun again to send out mss to presses and groups of poems to magazines.

Last year I sort of let the mag submissions fall off.

Oops.

Potter, You Rotter

Like, I suspect, a bunch of other people in the world, I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows tonight. Was it satisfying? Yeah. It was ok.

Wonder if George Bush has read it yet. Wonder which character he fancies himself to be most like.

Wheee!

Al Maginnes wins the 13th Annual White Pine Press Poetry Prize.

Rejection is a ship that never sinks

Prairie Schooner Book Prize goes to Mari L'Esperance. Second place to Craig Arnold.


In the rejection letter, Hilda Raz says:
"...we hope you will submit again in 2008. We were pleased by the high number of quality submissions received...."

I think what she really meant was:
"...we hope you will submit again in 2008. We were pleased by the high number of ... submissions received...."

Tough Talk on Impeachment

I've been trying not to think about it, but these guys--Bruce Fein and John Nichols--on Bill Moyer are convincing.

Bruce Fein's recent Slate article, "Impeach Cheney," is here.

One of John Nichols' articles is here.

Screw the polls. I've written letters to my Senators and to my Congresswoman. I've also written to Nancy Pelosi.

Poetry Home Repair Manual

Kooser says a poet should have an intended audience in mind for every poem.

Who's yours?

***

Last year at the Loveland Public Library, James Galvin said, “Have somebody in mind that you’re talking to. To have a focused and vulnerable or tender voice, you have to have someone in mind that you’re talking to…. The point of making art is empathy.”

Two Have Not Been Never a Number

I feel like I owe Lorca an apology.

Pequeño Poema Infinito

Equivocar el camino
es llegar a la nieve
y llegar a la nieve
es pacer durante veinte siglos las hierbas de los cementerios.

Equivocar el camino
es llegar a la mujer,
la mujer que no teme la luz,
la mujer que no teme a los gallos
y los gallos que no saben cantar sobre la nieve.

Pero si la nieve se equivoca de corazón
puede llegar el viento Austro
y como el aire no hace caso de los gemidos
tendremos que pacer otra vez las hierbas de los cementerios.

Yo vi dos dolorosas espigas de cera
que enterraban un paisaje de volcanes
y vi dos niños locos que empujaban llorando las pupilas de un asesino.

Pero el dos no ha sido nunca un número
porque es una angustia y su sombra,
porque es la guitarra donde el amor se desespera,
porque es la demostración de otro infinito que no es suyo
y es las murallas del muerto
y el castigo de la nueva resurrección sin finales.
Los muertos odian el número dos,
pero el número dos adormece a las mujeres
y como la mujer teme la luz la luz
tiembla delante de los gallos y los gallos
sólo saben volar sobre la nieve
tendremos que pacer sin descanso las hierbas de los cementerios.

I ran Lorca's "Pequeño Poema Infinito" through a simple computer translator a line at a time to see what would happen.

Small Infinite Poem

To mistake the way
it is to arrive at the snow,
and to arrive at the snow,
it is to graze during twenty centuries the grass of the cemeteries.

To mistake the way
it is to arrive at the woman,
the woman who does not fear the light,
the woman who does not fear the roosters
and the roosters that do not know to sing on the snow.

But if the snow is mistaken of heart
the wind can arrive South wind
and as the air does not pay attention to the moaned ones
we will have to again graze the grass of the cemeteries.

I saw two painful wax ears
that buried a volcano landscape
and I saw two crazy children that they pushed crying the pupils of an assassin.

But the two have not been never a number
because it is an anguish and its shade,
because it is the guitar where the love is hopeless,
because it is the demonstration of another infinite that is not his
and it is the walls of the dead and the punishment of the new
resurrection without end. The deads hate number two, but number two
induces sleep to the women and as the woman fears the light the light
it shakes in front of the roosters and the roosters
only know to fly on the snow
we will have to graze without rest the grass of the cemeteries.

I apologize, Federico Garcia Lorca. A much better translation, a real translation, is here at Spanish Poems.

Something to Think About

Williams, Joseph. "The Phenomenology of Error." College Composition and Communication 32 (1981): 152-68.

EAP

Tales, Sketches, and Selected Criticism

Tupelo Time

Sounds like a title for a Lowell George, posthumous, come-back tour. Or maybe Elvis. Or hell, let's bring them all back. Anybody who's ever picked a lute or hummed a bar, and then passed into the great beyond, get on up. Arise. It's Tupelo time!

The question is, without the promise of a "curtail your orphic utterances" form letter signed by Jeffrey Levine, should I submit to Tupelo during their open (but not free) reading period this year? Is the promise of rejection a big enough incentive?

My manuscript is now better, tighter, a little more ambitious. I don't know. Getting something better rejected is always a good feeling. A rejection from Tupelo or thirty cups of coffee? It's truly a hard call. I don't mind supporting Tupelo, but I do like my coffee.

Anybody have any real advice for me?

What will we do now that foetry has laid down the reins?

Rejection Pending

The AWP web site shows that Sharon Dolin has won the Donald Hall Prize for 2007.