Sunday, September 30, 2018

notes & things | 09/30/2018



I'm calling it Octoberish, though technically the month does not land until tomorrow. I have a busy week ahead, starting with zine night on Monday, hanging the art for Beautiful Monstrosities, and the artist panel on Thursday.I am also trying not to leave everything for Indie Press prep til next week, so there is some of that. The past few days, things have been fallish, cloudy and cool, and it seems to have suddenly shortened the days  by increasing increments.  It happens suddenly each spring and fall, the daylight lengthening or shortening, gradually, then all at once.

I've closed all my windows and last night, curled up on the couch with a blanket for the first time in months to watch some old American Horror Stories (Murder House, Season 1).  I've been digging season 8 so far in all it's apocalyptic glory and figure I'll binge  as many seasons while I can while waiting the interminable weeks between new episodes. (I bought the season pass on Amazon streaming last week.)  Now that it's officially the witching season, I also intend to dig deeper into my own personal horror marathon (last week's exploits were re-watching Hell House, LLC (really good), some Alicia Silverstone/Jeff Goldblum movie from the 90's (really bad), and the original Piranha (so bad it's good.)

I am still making my way through the new submissions and playing catch up on orders.   I have a couple new titles almost ready to go that will be unveiling this week.  I am at the point where I inevitable fall a bit behind on new releases, but actually need the lull to get some other things under control.  I am excited about the new things I am choosing from the submissions for next year, as well as what is still coming down the pipeline. I'm hoping to make a little more progress this month on the anthology and getting an issue of wicked alice under wraps soon.


I am getting closer and closer to the end of taurus and am feeling pretty good about it.   I wanted to finish it out before the end of the month, but there is still some more work needed, some holes yet unfilled. The serial installments will continue until I've exhausted everything that needs to be there. My Tiny Letter project, however, is pretty much wrapped up, so I will be switching to a new series over there and putting exquisite damage aside until I have more of book #10 (which also includes taurus and the slender man pieces), and for which I am already tossing around a title for that I hope will stick. After that,  I'll likely be moving onto really digging into automagic, which is just a few pieces at this point, but promising ones.  I'm hoping to continue the productivity into the fall and have both full-lengths in the works ready to start submitting next summer or fall.  There is also the ever stalled out unusual creatures artist book project and the zodiac poems, whatever will come of them as I work on more.  I did manage to get the science of impossible objects up for sale in the shop (and will be talking a bit more about it in depth in a week or so.)

I am in the process of a studio tidy and things are looking much more orderly there.  Right now with library things scheduled for the second Friday, the plans for opens studios remains every elusive, but might be able to swing the holiday one in December if I can keep my head above water.  

Friday, September 28, 2018

friday obsession | jacket season




We are stumbling into jacket weather the past few days (or least thicker sweater weather) and I am excited about some of the ones that I'll be finally pulling out of the entryway closet (if they have not all been eaten by the moths that are a continual scourge in my wardrobe.)  A few weeks ago, I was gushing about fancified demin possibilities, but I am obsessed with a few others:


* Corduroy

I have a few different shapes and colors (teal burgundy, green, brown, tan) , and a few different cuts (cropped, hip length, knee length) but only one is fully lined and heartier (a basic brown)  so as the tempratures dip, there's only  a sliver of a season to wear them before I have to switch for something heartier.  I'm always on the lookout for more though, as whisper thin as the time for wearing them is.

* Leather

I have one knee length basic black trench and another older reddish brown one (both real, both ebayed).  The tragedy is this beautiful light tan one I bought off of Poshmark but was in no way plus size and no stretch to it. I'm torn over whether to sell it back into the wilds or keep hoping my arms get a little thinner than they are because it's so pretty. I also procured a fake black moto cut one last spring after the one I had (also fake) started to disintegrate and flake away in places..not even from wear but just hanging on the hook by my door..) It's a more masculine in style than I usually wear, but pairs well with super girl floral dresses and lets me live out my 90's fashion dreams.

* Velvet.

This is probably my newest coat obsession, but it's really hard to find them as long as I want in plus size.  I managed to hunt up a couple of blazer cut jackets, one a gorgeous teal, but I've been bust on anything longer with the exception of the leopard print one I snatched up last spring that I want to wear pretty much every day.





































*Knits

 Years ago, my mid-temp jackets were mostly long cardigans in a couple different colors that were warmer than most jackets if you layered them over long sleeve tees or lighter knits.  Most of them got old and worn out and I never replaced them and moved onto other kinds of jackets. Last week I spotted a girl wearing a long crochet duster and I wanted it badly, so it might be time to revisit those urges. I have also fallen a bit in love with shorter ponchos and capes, and have a super soft black one that works as long as it's not too cold out, or if I wear it over long sleeves.



*Suede

I've bought a couple colors of suede hip length coats, but would love to find a knee-length in my size but not too boxy. They work well as something falling between the thin corduroy ones and the much warmer actual leather ones. They also make me feel super posh when I wear them becuase they look quite a bit fancier than the cordoroy.

see links @ pinterest...

Thursday, September 27, 2018


Monday is our first zine night of the semester and I am looking forward to making some lady monster collage zines in honor of Beautiful Monstrosities.  We'll also be doing a similar workshop in late October suring the college's open house and hopefully luring some freshman our way with scissors and fancy markers & pens, god willing...

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

off the wall and onto the page



 Amazing discussion tonight at our On & Off the Walls Panel about the importance of community in artmaking and getting your work in front of audiences. Also the importance of boldness and persistence, especially if you are working outside the gallery system. Also, what struck me very much was that all of the artists had found success without waiting for any sort of magical permission stick to bop them on their head and make them acceptable or legitimate.

I came to visual art kinda late, so my exploits are a little different and definitely not at all gallery-driven -though things do occasionally wind up in group shows.  I made my first collages after I took a workshop down at the Book & Paper Center, one of which still hangs in my dining room. At first, my visual exploits were driven by neccessity for cover designs with dgp, later by retail purposes for the collages and paper goods I was making for the etsy shop, where I was a big hit with shadowboxes and simple collages. All along, I was mostly exhibiting in the library's shows which always needed more work (much as I still do now). I began doing more art for arts sake--many touched off by design work I did for the press.  Some were totally random, some were just ridiculous goof-offs, but by the time the late 2000's rolled around, I was creating work, much of it in cooperation with written work by then, so soon there were things like the shipwreck series and radio ocularia, sometimes created in tandem with the written elements, as well as other image-only series like strange seed that would manifest as books or book-like in some way.

I had come out of the 90's with a rudimentary knowledge of zines and zine making, but had never indulged myself.  My sister worked on a zine with her high school friends and it seemed like fun, and while I was swimming in the culture that made zines big, I didn't have have the vision or resources to make something of that culture.   By the time I landed with the sort of creative drive to do something, everyone was making online zines, thus wicked alice was born,  but I somehow missed the golden age of the saddle staple, well, at least until I started making their kissing cousin, chapbooks.

I was also beginning to become familiar with the slightly fancier cousin of both, artists books, and was interested in the possibilities of going that direction with some dgp projects (thus things like at the hotel andromeda and billet-doux).  For a Woman Made Gallery show, I created the book of red, which was a one-off collage retelling of little red riding hood.  I was really inspired by Aussie artists Gracia and Louise and their beautiful books and zines, which sort of showed me what was possible and so began issuing the bulk of my work in zine or artist book form, both the written and the visual, sometimes separately, usually together. I liked very much how it felt like I was creating much more wholly working in both, and I still do this for most projects.

I guess sometimes they are chapbooks (havoc, the inventions of the monsters), sometimes they are zines (/slash/, honey machine), and sometimes I get a little fancier and would consider them artist books (lunarium, radio ocularia), but all of them feel like a way to present my work in the most unified way possible.  Many of the shorter series go on to be published in books without the visual elements of course, and stand alone nicely, but offer another layer in their original form.

It also feels good to be able to distribute work in a more direct way and interact with other artists.  You can sell copies of a traditional book and never know where it lands , but I've met so many poets and book artists by more direct audience cultivation. I remember those early chaps I made and how much I liked swapping them and giving them away which isn't always economical with full-length books. A few years back, I started offering the yearly zine series as a way to get everything at a discount, plus other printed goodies.

Things do occasionally wind up on walls around the city or in the library, or books wind up in shows, but these happen sort of haphazardly (The Krampus Show, Words|Matter) since I don't have the bandwidth to pursue them all the time (also logistically hard given transportation and schedules for pick-ups or drop-offs )  But I do like exhibiting in the library in the themed shows we do (mostly since my co-curator, Jen, and I share many of the same obsessions that dictate our subject matter.) This way, the art show sort of comes to me instead of me to it.  I also used to do sort of general library exhibits and the occasional alumni show. And then things like Zine Fest and Indie Press and such are also good (as will be the mythical open studios I plan but never seem to have.) I'd also like to work more at getting visual work in other venues like lit and art mags in the future, since I feel like they are a very high impact way of generating interest in your work at large.


Monday, September 24, 2018

trees




I finally got around to scanning some of the more recent botanicals--in this case, trees--that may or may not eventually be part of florographia. See more here..

Sunday, September 23, 2018

even the coyotes have lost the scent of her


 Every once in a while I will pop one of my older projects down off the shelf while I am thinking about current or future ones--today it was that very first offspring, the fever almanac, one which I have had a tumultuous relationship from the moment it was publshed (or probably even since it was first put together in its earliest form.) There are so many bones in that book of later projects, of later obsessions. Especially in light of taurus taking shape even now.

Mostly with a few exceptions, these seem to have a certain over-wroughtness about them.  I'm pretty sure one of my MFA profs called them "baroque" and it's true, I see it now even if I did not see it then.  But they are also very rich and lush with language in a way I probably have not written since. There are good parts, good lines, and even a few good entire poems that I would feel really good about had I written them today. But a lot that seemed necessary at the time, but less so now. It's complicated by the fact that some readers really loved these poems, and I love them for it, but I find it hard to find the place from which I wrote them.

My feelings might also have a lot to do with when the book was published, how my work was changing even then--how my whole means of constructing a poem was changeing vastly over the years in which those poems were written.  I started moving in new directions as early as late 2004, so the poems that later wound up as part of in the bird museum  are more satisfying to me somehow when I read them now. I can look at the book entirely and with a few missteps think that I would write that poem exactly the same now.

And yet, of course, that book needed to happen.  I remember back when I was so desperate to have a book, any book, so many poets talking about being "ready" to publish. In truth, you are only as ready as you are at the moment you put it together. You are only the poet that writes any given poem, any given book, in the moment and then most likely that poet has re-invented themself with subsequent books. the fever almanac is sort of a time capsule of my styles and obsessions from about 2000-2004, and also, even in its own pages, the shifts that were happening (noticeable greatly from the pieces in the first section and pieces in the last.)

My favorite pieces in the fever almanac are probably the more bare-bones ones-"sangria" and "night drive" and "predictions"--all written in 2004. But I am nostalgic about some of the poems nearer the beginning "after the flood" which always went over really well. "nebraska" of which numerous revisions exist between the journal publication through two chaps, and then here. I spent a lot of time obsessing over these poems, maybe in a way I never have since, trying to get them right.  Trying to get the book manuscript right.  Other books have been easier, but much less hands on , sort of like your first doted upon child and others that more or less raise themselves. 

Also that shiftiness of self--the self I was who wrote this book was barely even the self who existed when it was published. Certainly not the self that opened the book up this morning over coffee. Perhaps moreso than children, books are monuments (in my head, I just said "graves" but that seems terribly glum)  to the moment they were written in, to the person who was writing them,which is probably the lens through which all books can be viewed with.

(note:  the title of this entry is a line taken from "sangria" ...the book is long out of print and the publisher no longer exists, but you can read a pdf version here..)

Saturday, September 22, 2018

notes & things | 9/22/2018

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It's been a busy week and upcoming weeks about to get busier. We're now on that  slick slope into October, when all the good things we've spent time planning in the library will be happening. All week, I've been eyeing the submissions for the Beautiful Monstrosities exhibit and yesterday sent responses and prepared for drop-offs this week. We wound up with a good span of mediums and styles that should be interesting. Preparations are also under way for the attendant programming--the film panel, the reading, and such, as well as the Indie Press Festival, which falls earlier in the month than usual. This week's first Book to Art Club meeting of the year was likely the most successful yet, with a bunch of participants and some amazing collages created  for our final project devoted to War of the Worlds.

This week brought warmer weather that has since cooled off nicely, as well as beautiful mail, including my copy of Ethel, which has a piece from exquisite damage as well as a copy of  Jen Rouse's dgp / bone & ink press  collab Riding With Anne Sexton.  Jen did a gorgeous job in the book's production, which included some design elements from all of us and an awesome cover from Arielle Kwestel.

I am working on pulling together copies of the science of impossible objects, which is the August/Sept. zine offering. Hopefully, I will have them finished up by the end of the week..I would love to have unusual creatures on deck for October, it being the requisite amount of spooky, but there is so much to do and track down in terms of supplies, it may have to wait til winter.  In the vein of spooky, I've been idly doing some early research on HH Holmes and the Murder Castle. I've always had an interest in the Worlds Fair anyway, so it might be useful.  Holmes was one of the rare Taurus serial killers on one of those zodiac lists, and I find it amusing, like all Tauruses who occasionally are a bit much, he wound up building and entire hotel to do his killing in..lol..nothing like over-planning ahead.

Otherwise, I plan to continue my weekend horror movie watching on Amazon streaming.  A couple weeks back was my my first caramel apple of the season and we'll soon be into hot chocolate territory.  I am eyeing November warily, not sure where my mental state will be given the first anniversary of my mom's death, and another round of horrible holidays,  but as for October, I am locked and loaded...



Thursday, September 20, 2018

#postcard







https://channillo.com/series/taurus/

curious little books



I devoted a little more time to dgp manuscripts today and sent out some more responses and was thinking about the subjectivity of the editor's task. I always laugh at the editors (usually men, weirdly or not so weirdly) who talk about accepting "high quality" work and "the best" of the submission pile (what's sad is when they use this to justify their lack of diversity, their tendency to only publish well-known names or their friends because of course they're the"best" )  This is the same "best" historically leveled at me (again by men) when they criticize the press for only publishing women.  Don't I want "the best" no matter their gender?  I have to explain to them that mostly the press was started as a way to balance out the scales of publishing as much as I can--that, of course, I'll publish what I deem "best", but even that qualifier is totally subjective.  And that's okay, but it's foolish to pretend it's anything else.

I sometimes think I have strange tastes in writing (probably because I have strange tastes in many things.) I've often heard from authors that their chap was this strange little creature that other presses weren't into.  I also love it when poets purposely send their strange little beasties my way because they know I like that sort of thing.

I tend to error toward not sending away anything I wished I could publish, so of course, we publish a lot of titles in a given year between what I cull from submissions, what I solicit, and new books by returnng authors.  Of course, I admit to shameless publishing people I know, who also are people's whose work interests me (obviously, usually why we are friends).  I also want to make sure the year's haul it's a good selection of various backgrounds, cultural identiies, thematic concerns, ages, etc. (it was more difficult at first, but now we naturally get a lot of diversity in the inbox.)   I have various other things I am looking for--new writers who have never published a chapbook--writers from Chicago or the midwest.  Writers whose work I am familiar with from journals and such.  I also like some style variation (traditional lyric, epistolaries, prose poems, vispo).  I am most excited by the poets who just appear, having never seen hide nor hair of them, and somehow have written a book that is just perfect for dgp. I found a couple of these today just waiting there in the to-read pile.

In ways, it's exhilarating.  Moreso than the slushiness of other mss. contests I've helped judge, moreso than the work we have always gotten for wicked alice (which is a lot of people who have obviously never read the journal, and sometimes apparently even our guidelines), dgp submissions, even the ones I end up rejecting, are not that far off the grid.  Usually most are pretty sound, though somehow they do not appeal to me as much as another batch, and since I have to make a cut, I wind up throwing back some things that will no doubt eventually find homes elsewhere.

Things I'm looking for?  Things I like? I like a tight focus or at least cohesiveness to a manuscript rather than a mish-mash.  I like a certain authority of voice, a certain intentional-ness, even if you're going to go really far out there, a certain tenor to the mss. and I will willingly go along. I like a good story, as well,especially if it's delightfully fractured. I like darkness, strangeness, both thematically and stylistic. I like humor, and quirkiness, and a certain off-balanceness for me as a reader.  I really do like fairy tales and myths and mermaids, so we probably publish too many of these (but bear with me) . I also like pop-culture things, ghost stories, texts in conversation with other texts.  I love visual text mash-ups (obviously). I love poems in the forms of other things,--- lists, letters,  abcedariums, indexes, instructions, dialogues.

I could go on an on, I suppose, but these are the things I am looking for everytime I open up the "under consideration" folder in my e-mail, and the sort of things that get an enthusiastic yes. Other things of course, have to be released back into the wilds, but I usually ask that writers try again, maybe with other projects that might be exactly what I'm looking for.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

singing into the void




This article and it's giant, sad whale made me think not of solitude and loneliness, though those are a very clear distinction (especially if you're the type of person, like me, who sometimes feels lonelier in crowds than I ever do alone) but more so poetry and audience and maybe even this blog a little bit. Since the days of commenting on blogs are long gone, sometimes blogging over here when everyone has moved onto the greener pastures of social media feels a little like that whale.   In a way, it's freeing, to write when you feel that no one may be reading at all.  Or maybe someone will read it because of some weird search term on google for "sad whale" and find it years from now.  Or decades (I'm assuming the internet's memory may outlast all of us unless there is an apocalypse.)

Poetry feels this way too sometimes.  there's sharing work--there's publishing in journals and the like--there are even book publications, but it's hard to guage how much of what you put out there actually reaches it's intended audience. Or any audience at all.  Books sell, sometimes you get feedback, but for the amount of stuff that goes out into the world, so much lands in silence. I think about my ideal reader sometimes, and he/she is a fuzzy construct.  Maybe he/she doesn't exist except in my head.  Maybe I am always just slinging things into the void and hoping they hit some sort of mark.

It's also amusing to me, and a little sad, to think of this giant thing, a very obvious thing, gigantic in size moving through ocean and going pretty much unnoticed, which is how poetry in general feels sometimes. You somehow have to know where to look for it, but there it is.  Very obvious and very immense.

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

war of the worlds



Image result for war of the worlds illustration

One of my first great book love affairs (after my pre-literate raggedy black checkered Mother Goose, my kindegarten Beatrix Potter set obsession, but before I discovered Judy Blume or horror novels) was a pink-covered Children's Illustrated Classics version of War of the Worlds.  Like the Potter set, part of this was the tactile bookness of the set--their compact little squareness, the way they fit tightly in a box.  I believe there were two sets in my possession, most likely Christmas gifts from my parents. I loved they way they felt to be held--so grown-up after years of Little Golden Books.  And I devoured most of them--Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Swiss Family Robinson (though admittedly I remember finding Tale of Two Cities boring enough to abandon--not much has changed, my dislike of Dickens continued through grad school.)

I loved the way they looked lined up on the shelf headboard of my top bunk bed of the room I shared with my sister. They were the first books I owned that were entirely mine (my sister being not yet old enough to read,  so no sharing was necessary.)  In my 6 or 7 year old head, it seemed important to have bookshelves even just one, especially since after my Dad's bookshelf in the living room always seemed so grown-up and mysterious but which was really just half-filled with  a lot of books about hunting.fishing and my mother's cookbooks. My dad is still a big reader, but the books usually wind up in piles of newpapers, magazines, and other ephemera and never on the shelf.  Probably genetic. 

But War of the Worlds was the only one I kept steadily re-reading,kept coming back to.  Lying on that top bunk on weekends, I distinctly remember the pinkness of the cover how it felt and smelled, but the actual illustrations are murky in my memory.  Even then, apocalyptic visions fascinated me.  It elicited the same frisson I get re-reading The Stand or watching Cloverfield.  I'm not sure how to explain it.

In doing a little research for our Book to Art endeavors this term, I uncovered some amazing illustrations done by a Brazilian artist in 1906. Apparently HG Well's wasn't happy with the original first complete edition and had commissioned a second artist for this edition (it had been serialized initially, in America, in Cosmo of all places. )

Image result for war of the worlds illustration


I also did not know that Edward Gorey had illustrated a version in the 1960's.  One of the great things about the book is that it has been retold so many times--so many movies and comics and artistic renderings that it makes very fertile ground as a Book to Art choice--especially since it appeals to artists in so many genres--film, tv, writing, illustration, and, of course, radio. I have a book coming through ILL about the ill-fated broadcast and the controversy over whether it was the mad panic that the media would have had everyone believe (esp. in this modern era of so much fake news.) I'm hoping our end result for the year will be some sort of comic book or zine with images and text, so we'll see how it plays out.




Monday, September 17, 2018

notes & things | 09/17/18



Throughout the afternoon, the cicadas are noisy enough that they are creeping into poems, including today's draft of a taurus piece. (there were already goats and a wooden cow, so I figured what the hell.)  But the fall light, I feel it, even though it was muggy and humid. Soon the trees will start changing and dropping and I feel like I am ready for it  Have been longing for it moreso than other years.

I spent some time Saturday while I was working sending out submissions from the Slender Man pieces and sending some other creative pieces I owed people. (including what looks to be an awesome tarot-inspired collab project from Jane Flett and for which the above is my contribution.) I was also finally able to scan in some of the botanicals that I've had sitting on the shelf behind my desk for moths--some of them part of florographia, some just for fun. (and florographia is still at this point, a loose miasma of text and image that is still just all over the place, so we'll see what happens.) Also, some new zodiac prints that are coming along nicely...(see below)

This week, we are getting ready for our first fall Book to Art meeting with this year's title, War of the Worlds (and for which I am determined to do some research on in the next couple of days (more on that soon.)  It will dovetail nicely with our spring focus topic on mass delusions and confusions.  We are also beginning to look through submissions for the Beautiful Monstrosities exhibit and sending out responses this week. So far, things look amazing and I am excited to work out what we can fit on the walls. 

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with Alice Bolin's DEAD GIRLS:  ESSAYS ON SURVINING AN AMERICAN OBSESSION and am loving it.  (more on that in another entry about writing and reading both dead and deadly girls.)  In the first 20 pages, though,  it mentioned not only Pretty Little Liars, but dgp-fave Khadijah Queen's I'm So Fine, so I knew it was going to be promising. 

Sunday, September 16, 2018

the lives of the poets

Image result for mother movie poet desk

Last weekend I spent my time watching that Aronovsky film MOTHER!, alternately laughing about how overblown the biblical allegory was and how unrealistic and ridiculous the depiction of the writing life. The husband character, just known as "The Poet" spends his time doing things like hopping out of bed naked to write, entertaining "fans" than show up at his door and basically destroy the house, and being completely oblivious to everything but his art and celebrity while a terrified Jennifer Lawrence looks on. (I would actually argue that her plight, trying to protect the house and build a home (or interior world) and people keep intruding, is far closer to my creative experience than anything the "The Poet" does.)

Historically, poets wear flowy shirts and maxi dresses and cavort around the countryside waiting for rare inspiration to strike, whereupon we scribble our brilliance into our notebooks secretively. Maybe later on we publish it, but rarely do we show pursuit of an audience lest it distastefully smack of focusing too much on the career and not enough on our aesthetics. I was reading an interview with a poet recently who talked about how she only wrote longhand and then typed everything on a manual typewriter. How detrimental it was, at least for her, to keep any sort of dogged writing practice, how poems just occasionally happened  Nevertheless, she was a poet with quite a bit of published work under her belt, which made me expect some of the talk was more metaphorical than actual. (ie, someone was doing the work of submitting and audience creating).

Since I mostly came into my own as a poet of the internet --in terms of publications and connecting with other writers online through various means--first listservs, then discussion boards, then blogs, then social media--I've always been curious about other people's lives as writers--the triumphs, the disappointments. I've always considered it a bit of literary voyeurism. It's probably the same impulse that leads me to all those fictionalized biographies I so love.  Also a certain curiosity about what goes on behind the scene of someone whose work I am interested in.  I was far more fascinated when I was 20 about Plath's letters and journals than I was her poems.. Since I barely knew a single writer in real life, I wanted to know HOW to live this sort of life. What to read, when to write, where to publish.  What I should concern myself with as a writer.

Truth is, of course, my writing life is somehow neither as picturesque or ordered as fiction would have us believe. Mostly it's a kind of controlled chaos.  In past years, it would be months of hardly writing at all and then weeks of panic and trying to finish things before self-inflicted deadlines (mostly on weekends, one of the reasons I am so protective of them.)   I have memories of periods of solid productivity--the summer of 1996, the fall/winter of 1998, my MFA years.  Other years would be more fallow, or so it seemed, and yet I have books to show for many of those years so obviously I was writing, most likely in bits.  Add up lots of bits and you have a book. (why I make a good poet and a horrible novelist, like sprinting vs. running a marathon) My visual work, outside of  regular design projects for things like the press or the library,  is similarly haphazard and chaotic--odd bits here and there--an obsession then lull.  Then, occasionally,  a large amount of output when necessary.

I did once compose mostly by hand, usually on notebook or white paper snatched from the printer. Yellow legal pads or random scrap paper.  In foraging through files I discovered a poem draft on an RC student govt. flyer I must have grabbed in the office (I was once an officer and hung out in the basement amid scores of old paperwork and where I once remember getting very drunk trying to rewrite the constitution.)  Pages and pages of redrafting and cross-outs.  Half poems, harvested poems. Later I would type them on my electric typewriter or later, a word processor.  Then finally a computer.   Eventually, I realized the keyboard was friendlier to revision and now, with a couple exceptions, I'll compose electronically 99% of the time. I have a dropbox now that makes manuscripts accessible anywhere, but I used to use private blogs and e-mail to store poems on the fly and then put them together at some point in a word doc.

Up until a few years ago, for inspiration and prompts, I still kept hearty notebooks with fragments, though now, I tend more toward loose sheets or cheapie notebooks. (currently, it's a dollar store stenographer's pad.) I have a solid sketchbook/planner I use to organize my life, but usually another, more disposable one I carry in my bag, for writing purposes since most gets typed up and tossed out.  Since the spring, I've been good about writing daily and have scads of new work to show for it. The key seems to be prioritizing that writing, whatever is happening in the day, whatever else gets swallowed by work and the press and all the dailyness.

Now,  I open up whatever I am working on while I eat breakfast as soon as I get to the studio and start typing.  I do a little tweaking and revising as I go, but then I usually hit save and leave it alone for a bit.  It helps to get it out before the day drowns me in e-mails and press work and library tasks. Before I am swallowed up and exhausted.  Later in the day, usually at night before I go to bed, I will glance at it again, and if I am alone (which I usually I am most nights of the week) I'll go to bed thinking about it (though if I'm pre-occupied by other things, I fail in this often.)  The next morning I start again.

Every few weeks I will gather and polish and revise as needed. Occasionally I get a chance, like yesterday's weekend library shift quiet, to send out some poems over the transom and respond to invitations. Daily, though I try to do a little bit of work on the more business/self promo side, updating social media with poem samples, publication news, updating serial projects. I do this with art too, though I am less business-like about the visual stuff. I consider this less po-biz  and more audience cultivation, and I feel like it's important if you want, ya know, anyone to actually read the stuff you're writing.  For all of Emily Dickinson's isolation, the amount of work she sent to others, the conversations she was having, she was far from the isolated genius some would claim her as.

So no, it's not as the romantics would have you believe.  I do have some appropriately flowy dresses, but sometimes I wind up with toast or donut crumbs on the front and all over my notebook and keyboard.  Sometimes I spill my coffee all over my pages.  Usually the studio printer, which I will start up as soon as I get in the door, will jam or run out of paper mid writing session and I will have to stop to fill or fix it. At least once a week,  I will get immediately distracted by e-mail or facebook  and the writing doesn't happen.  If I'm working at home, a cat will walk across the keyboard at an inopportune time and delete something I was sure was brilliant moments before. For all my idyllic-cizing Paris in the 20's, I can't write in cafes or public places--too distracting and I feel self-conscious muttering things outloud to guage the rhythm of oa line or sentence.  You probably won't find me jumping from the bed running naked to go write, mostly because, Taurean that I am,  I never want to leave the bed once I'm in it.

 I do occasionally write things in my head--the shower, on the bus, waiting in line for my coffee-- sometimes I actually get to some paper write them down, but sometimes they just get lost. Sometimes I listen to music and daydream and it will lead, circuitously and unplanned to writing.  I usually read other poetry in print or online with a pen in hand or at least near by (or truthfully, sometimes in my mouth) in case someone else's words spark something.  You might sometimes find me staring into space or at my computer, clicking the top of my pen, and maybe I'm composing a poem (or maybe I'm just thinking about something random like whether I should dye my hair again or if there are new mothman sightings, or both.)




more zodiac prints




Saturday, September 15, 2018

spooky flick faves

Every year I plan to spend the entirety of my October watching horror movies and I never quite get in as many as I want.  This year, our Beautiful Monstrosities programming is nothing BUT horror movies so that should help, but last weekend I got a head start, mostly since my borrowed laptop has a dvd player, which my Chromebook does not.

In rifling through my small collection, it's mostly a lot of tv show box sets (Buffy, Lost, The Office, Veronica Mars) and all the rest horror (well except maybe a couple rom coms and that awful Gwyneth Paltrow Sylvia Plath movie). It's by no means exhaustive, most of it picked up on sale in the days before Netflix and streaming. I do have a good selection of asian horror re-makes from the early aughts, including The Ring and Ring 2, which I watched Saturday night.

The former is still listed in my horror top-10.  While it seems less scary than it did in 2002, I still love it for its atmosphere and cinematography (and why I like it better than the Japanese original).   There is so much artfullness to the visual aspects--how the original is  gloomy and unsettling in a way it's sequel is not. I think it also, way back in 2002, it not only struck the match on Americanized remakes (Dark Water will probably always be another favorite of these), but set a visual look that so many films were sporting in terms of colors and palletes and camera shots (I know nothing of how cinematography works, but I do recognize its effects on the viewer. )



Image result for the ring

Image result for the ring barn



I also watched the more  recent Trick R' Treat, which I think may have surpassed the actual Halloween in terms of movies themed on that particular holiday. This is a more Creepshow style anthology film, but there is an attention to detail that so thoroughly evokes that feeling of childhood Halloween escapades that is delightfully eerie



Image result for trick r treat bus

Image result for trick r treat movie


While I would probably refuse to rate top horrors since my favorites each have their own reason for falling in my top 10, I'd count the above 2 in that category along with the others below:



The Shining

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Kubrick's hand added so much to this story that wasn't in King's novel and the film is so much the better for it. I saw this at the drive-in when it first came out when I was like 6 and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep before the very end.  But the twins and that elevator full of blood imprinted on my brain and probably formed the fibers of my aesthetics.




It Follows

Image result for it follows

Maybe it's partly the  slow, creeping sense of dread, or maybe it's the gorgeous Crewdson-esque cinematography, but I am in love.


Insidious

Image result for insidious

This one snuck up on me and scared the bejeesus out of me when I decided to randomly start watching it on Netflix.  Excellent jump scares and a creepy atmosphere and it fast became a favorite, even though I'd never heard of it's release.



Skeleton Key

Image result for skeleton key movie


A lot of people would make fun of me for loving this, but I saw it the weekend Hurricane Katrina hit (twice), right around the time I was thinking that lush, creepiness of New Orleans would be amazing to live amongst.  Obviously a bad idea at the time, but I like the look and feel (and it has an amazing soundtrack to boot.)



Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil

Image result for tucker and dale vs evil

I am a great fan of the funny/scary combo, and this one pulls out just a little bit ahead of Cabin in the Woods (and even more ahead since Joss Whedon turned out be a creep.)  I also recently watched The Final Girls which a slightly more feminist film with a little more heart, that excels in this particular genre.


Image result for final girls



Watcher in the Woods

Image result for watcher in the woods

We had HBO at the house I lived in until i was 9 and this film was in heavy rotation.  We would watch it over and over again, but I've only come to re-enjoy it as I've gotten older (and it's pretty freakin dark for Disney movie.)



Jennifer's Body
Image result for jennifer's body

Probably also in the horror/humor category, this one just keeps on giving, whether it's the cheesy indie band scarificing "virgins" or Megan Fox unapologetically devouring high school boys...



Stir of  Echoes


Image result for stir of echoes

This came out right around the same time The Sixth Sense came out and it's so, so much better with a similar premise, a less hoky ending, and some better scares.. And also Kevin Bacon instead of Bruce Willis, which I'll take any day.














Friday, September 14, 2018

friday | 15 fall fashion obsessions

Image result for say pumpkin spice three times


Last weekend was the wardrobe switchout I look most forward to, putting away all the tropical prints and sundresses and bringing out the fall stuff. As mentioned previously, it's my favorite sartorial season, even though I consider spring my fave season over all (clothes in the spring here though might as well be winter clothes since I'm still mostly needing coats and tights, and then suddenly summer clothes in May.)  But fall, fall comes on fast, and actually, unlike spring, lasts usually through Thanksgiving--plenty of time to enjoy some of my favorite wardrobe pieces.


1.  fall florals
2.  sweater dresses
3.  corduroy skirts and coats
4.  black oxfords
5.  knits
6.  colors: mustards, cinnamon's, plums, sages, pumpkins, oh my..
7.  tweeds
8.  leopard
9.  mary janes
10. autumn plaids
11. blacks & grays
12. knit ponchos, shawls & wraps
13. riding boots
14. suede skirts
15. motorcycle jackets

check out my Autumn Wardrobe Pinterest board for some of the particular things I'm dreaming of..





soon...



"You are heavier than you look. Constructed of bone and air, you hook you fingers into the soft parts of my neck. Ride shotgun over landscapes filled with rusted out cars and rotting trees."



a sneak peak of this month's zine project, the science of impossible objects...


Thursday, September 13, 2018

library printmaking workshop highlights




I was unsure if Tuesday night's pursuits and experiments would yield anything in the way of a usable artwork--even if it was just  some backgrounds or scraps--but these string  prints actually turned out looking alot like birch trees and I kind of love them....                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           


Saturday, September 08, 2018

notes & things | 9/08/2018



The weather has dropped into fall cloudiness and enough wind that the fans keep tipping from the windows.  I am blissfully, entirely free this weekend,  so I am determined to haul out those fall clothes, work on some mss. critiques, and maybe some poems.  Also, some final plans for my printmaking workshop on Tuesday.  I slept in and had weird dreams about my mother where once again she was alive but did not know she was dead, or we did not know, and would suddenly come to that devastating conclusion. Even coming up on a year later, there is still an un-realness to it.  As if I could easily be convinced otherwise and maybe we were mistaken. I do not believe in afterlifes or ghosts as most people would think of them.  But dreams are different--a weird enough space for anyone to haunt.

Since it's cozy enough to stay in bed reading, I am working my way through a stack of interlibrary loans, including that other Gillian Flynn title, Dark Places,  Alice Bolin's Dead Girls:  Essays on Surviving an American Obsession, Jenny Boully's Betwixt and Between, and Ben Dolnick's Ghost Notebooks. I borrowed an old laptop from the library since mine is still non-functioning, but it's large and old and awkward and slow. So books are probably where my time is best spent.

Yesterday's board game night went off swimmingly--the fall one always seems to, with 30+ students joining in. We had that mad dose of panic when too many people show up, but it was enjoyable (especially since it always reminds me of that very first game event  four years ago when it was only library staff and one student, though that student eventually wound up working for us).  I am not even a solid gamer, but I do like some of the oldies, and developing the trivia nights and the semesterly murder mystery is always fun.

It's been a busy week with reserves processing and faculty requests, the kind that has be breathless by Friday with all the running to and fro.  We will hear Monday some news on the restructure plans and what the rehiring possibilities are looking like. I don't necessarily mind doing ILL duties, but it eats up time I could be working on more fun things like writing articles and promoting our A of R things.

I have started sending out some dgp responses as I read since I am just shy of inside the three month window on the very first manuscripts in the door.  So much goodness already in what I'm reading.  I am aiming to have responses out by Thanksgiving.

I am also working on indexing this blog better, back through the years where I wasn't labeling posts consistently.  In working my way through 2005, aad I am surprised how deeply unhappy I was with my MFA studies, though things in memory are much more soft focus now. There's many of those posts, but also the process of pulling together what would become the fever almanac.  My first book art endeavor, the book of red.  Finishing the pieces of what would become errata. Also, some drafts of poems that never made it anywhere else but the blog (here and here).  I feel like that second one may be the most definitely ME poem I may have ever written, so I'm really amazed it was forgotten.

          I fear I’m beginning             to loosen my bones back into the landscape.

        Soon I’ll be nothing but a ribcage
              filled with a half dozen sparrows.

Friday, September 07, 2018

friday obsessions | wishful shopping

While my bank account is very slim this month, it doesn't mean I haven't been coveting some new things for fall.  I got in a little thrifting last weekend that landed me the most awesome vintage jewelry box and a couple of really nice frames for collages, but nothing wearable, so I'm itching to pick up some new fall clothes.  (Though you would think, judging by large bin under my bed I'll be hauling out this weekend,  I have ALL the fall clothes any single person would ever need, but I beg to differ. ) I'm hoping to snag at least a couple of these once they are on sale though...


Perfectly Proper Knit Dress

https://www.modcloth.com/shop/dresses/perfectly-proper-knit-dress/159373.html

This came up in my facebook feed, and is proof that advertising on social media works. I've been purposely staying away from the Modcloth site because I can't buy anything for a bit, but they sucked me in nevertheless.



Women's Plus Size Long Sleeve Print Tuxedo Bib Shirt Dress

https://www.landsend.com/products/womens-plus-size-long-sleeve-tuxedo-bib-woven-dress/id_326908?cm_mmc=SocialMedia-_-Pinterest-_-ProductShare-_-LE

Somewhere on Pinterest, I pinned a similar straight size dress a while back. I love navy gingham, and though I have one from Eshakti that's a bit more twirly and wrappy, I like the cleaner shirt dress lines on this one. Plus tuxedo ruffles, which I adore...






https://www.pinterest.com/pin/275071489727270526/

I've had this pinned on Pinterest for awhile and luckily they seem to keep offering various color versions.  I think the neckline is super flattering if you're on the busty side, and judging by the material of the dress, which I have many Eshakti variations in, it probably feels really nice to wear.

Thursday, September 06, 2018

household printmaking 101


On Tuesday, September 11th, I’ll be teaching a little workshop devoted to printmaking with things you have in your very own home..from everyday items to artful trash and whatever is in your fridge. Join us!
All workshops are open to the public.

Tuesday, September 11th
Columbia College Library
624 S Michigan-1st Floor
7pm-9pm

sponsored by The Aesthetics of Research 

Tuesday, September 04, 2018

and then it was fall....






It doesn't necessarily feel like it outside, but I feel it coming.  After a weekend in Rockford, I landed back yesterday to some crazy storms and a day spent napping.  I am back to my usual 2-10, and already feel much more productive in terms of both studio tasks, which are much, much smoother before an 8 hour work day, and work tasks, where I have slower evenings to do them. Altogether, less draining on several fronts.  Though it's busier in general and the printers are being horrible, I love the buzz when the new semester kicks in and everyone's classes and plans are all new penny shiny.  And though we're technically shorter staffed temporarily (which impacts the day shifters more than me anyway) it's a much, much happier place to work than it was a year ago.

I am awash in ILL requests and reserve processing, but am moving at a steady clip. We have a  board game night coming up Friday, but I'll be teaching a Household Printmaking workshop next week that should be a lot of fun and kicks off this semesters A of R shenanigans.  We'll also be starting to look at Beautiful Monstrosities submissions in another week and deciding on artists for the exhibit, which debuts in early October.

Though it's been too busy to get much down on paper, I am still making notes for another library-related writing piece that I am hoping to get a bite into this week.