Where the Writer Things Are

Is unrhyming, unmetered poetry anything more than slow prose?

Are there more people writing poetry than there are people to read it?

Are we writers if we're not writing?

Is white chocolate really chocolate?


p.s. Chris Lydon's series of "Proustian" interviews with poets: http://www.radioopensource.org/
My favorite is C.D. Wright.


p.p.s. New spew on google dox (not that anyone but me remembers how to access them). Also long-overdue comments (soon) for Colin's latest story post.

First Post in a Month, Apparently

Hey all,

Posting a new story to Google Docs. I hope everyone's having a good summer!

-Colin

so it's been a while

and i figure the best way to crack back in is to drop a poem or two and run. But I'll be back soon -- i'd love it if someone could give me a refresher as to how to access the g-doc posts w/ comments. Powell525@gmail.com

Ars Poetica

Through the 66’s line,

the rain-fog persisting

its glaze on my glasses

and beard, first in my bag

then my calves

the inexorable lightness –

until my heels lose

their soggy click, the asphalt

an oil-slick of offhand

metaphor subjected also

to this inexorable lightness –

I recall poems of a woman

gone wholly into the air

and report them now

with a journalist’s deadpan

I will be another casualty

another police report: a rather

conspicuous man broke

into an abandoned cinema

2:00 am Saturday

and now floats

in self-imposed stasis

over the pike

bridge without the presence

of mind even to light

a cigarette. He is sentenced

thus far to rearrange the faces

of rush hour commuters

into a more reasonable expression

of collective regret

and expectation.

Agreed?

The Voyeur in Love

A siren in the rain. The pacing thread

of a neighbor cleaning.

Water in pipes,

running its white music,

drowses you.

Screen door, a yellow-lit

frame two floors up.

A woman in pig-tails

instructs a child. The child

has ironed her hair.

Your room has one bed, and one desk,

and one window.

They leave and return,

cradling baskets

of linen. You rub your chin.

The pig-tailed woman

unknots her hair.

You scratch your scalp.

She inches her skirt up.

You’ve been told you have a heart

for nothing

and believed it. The girl

has thrown darts

and hit wall.

The neighbor has finished

cleaning or fallen asleep.

You are alone again, surrounded

by more books

than you will ever read.

The women have taken

the child and the light

remains on. They fill

cereal bowls, somewhere –

they coddle one another

to prime-time TV.

Suppose you’d have anything

and for that will

have nothing.

Suppose the window has opened

and you’re lost

to the breeze. Suppose

you’re being watched.

I Wish "Nouning" was a Verb

Writers,

I've plopped some comments on your nanos/short shorts/micro-duel-number-ones, or whatever we're calling them these days. Actually I plopped them in a separate document in your respective folders.

Plop is a funny verb.

Verb is a funny noun.

Okay, bye.

Key Largo

Recognize a hurr’cane first / by the absence of birds

Sudden forgetting what / s’already been forgot

Do limes color branches / does moss cover manses

Can the trees and stonewalls / keep them, their itching palms

Til the storm smothers dawn / blacks out dusk, splits the yawn-

-Ing world back on its jaws / hinging there on its aw

Ful moon, uvula ball / “It’s your head and your whole

Life against you, McCloud” / the weepers are low-bowed

Seminoles on your porch cry / for someone other than you

Sheltered shivering in the white cold eye.

Here's the deal...

I simply don't have time for the visual poetry assignment, which is a shame because Tom's stuff is great. As I type, I'm procrastinating a paper.

I was wondering if you lot could help me with something. I endeavor to get into a graduate-level writing workshop here at BU for the fall. The professor is the head of the creative writing department at BU, Leslie Epstein. (He has a Wikipedia page and everything.) As the class is mostly for MFA students, I've been informed that someone like me is admitted into the class "ONCE IN A BLUE MOON," pending review of a forty-page manuscript. So, I want to get feedback from as many fellow writers as possible. Basically, you're it.

Please comment on this post if you can see yourself reading and responding to a couple of stories in the next couple weeks. I'm posting them to the Docs page now.

Thanks in advance!

Quick Draw

Short Shorts and NPR

NPR has announced a new feature called "Three-Minute Fiction." It's pretty much just what it sounds like; they're looking for works of fiction that can be read on air in the span of three minutes (they suggest 500 words or less). So I thought to myself, Hey, I know some people who have short shorts (the microfiction, not the clothing--though more power to you either way). Here's a link to a longer description of the feature: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105685925 The deadline is July 18th.

Feedback and the Hook Up

Hello all. After dabbling in Google Docs for sometime trying to figure out a way to post flash fiction comments there, I've raised the white flag. I'll post some comments here shortly.

On another note, if any of you are interested in reading fiction and/or poetry for Post Road Magazine (now published by BC), let me know and I'll contact the new Assistant Managing Editor.

Visual poetry? Hmmm .... This will take some thought.

Better Blogs & Gardens

How about some summertime sprucing up?

1) Is it possible to post audio files? It would be awesome to hear the works read by the authors and by the readers.
2) Let's set another micro-duel deadline. Let's also give feedback. Though I've already read the wonderful posted micros, I'm going to re-read and post comments this week.
3) Here's my micro-duel idea: visual poetry. Post any combination of words and images and interpretations by next Monday, noontime.

Did anyone else celebrate the summer solstice?

How about West Coast Time?

I decided to take a day trip to California. And if you don't believe that, I'm late for the showdown. On the bright side, if I'm to keep the wild west metaphors going, that probably means the rest of you are dead or injured already, which is good news for me, since I'm a terrible shot with a revolver.

Bam! Pow!

Posted my lunchtime short. If only every other lunch were so productive.

Can't wait to read yours. Hurray for playing!

WWST

I'm unfamiliar with Wild West Standard Time. If I'm a few minutes late, I'm sure you'll pardon me, sheriff.

I've uploaded my nonsense to Google Docs. It says 12 PM. Success?

High Noon

Okay, so it's not quite the moment of atonement yet. But let it be known that I've loaded my quick fiction onto the googledocs account. I'll be on the lookout for yours. Bring on the literary shootout.

Re: The Penultimate Post

Katie Moulton,

I don't know a lot about doing readings, having never done one myself. However, I do know one really important thing about this reading in particular: You'll be just fine.

You've got material. Even if you revert back to some tried-and-true lines from your days of Gasson Hall glory, so what? And hey, slip in a few new lines and see what happens.

Tell your anxiety to shut its filthy mouth and ask your gut a few questions. Is this poem ready? If yes, ask it where it thinks the poem should go. If it says second-to-last, don't ask it why (or even lecture it on expanding its vocabulary with "penultimate"). Just trust it. And if it gurgles in response, that's still the anxiety talking. Take a Tums and try again.

And the bio is just a nano about yourself. If you were a nano, what would you be?

Writer Power,
Tom

About the Author:
"Tom Forsythe, born in a land of deer hunters and pregnant teenagers, has since escaped to Boston where he writes and does 50 pushups each day. Embarrassingly, he has no upper body strength and consistently lies about his ability to do push-ups."

Performance Anxiety

I just got asked to fill in at a reading tomorrow night put on by the lit journal River Styx. It's my first time reading in St. Louis, which now seems very, very far from dear old French Press, Gasson Hall, and Brookline Booksmith. ...and I may be freaking out. Just a little.

I have ten minutes, and now, suddenly, it seems, no material.

How do you decide when your work is ready to be read to an audience, if ever at all? How do you order them? How do you write a two-sentence bio, including one sentence which reveals some tragic or embarrassing element of your nature? (Seriously.)

Please help. S.O.S. (Save Our Sonnets?)

Ok, so it's not Poetry...

I just got a piece in my first paying publication, and wanted to share:
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/atoz/

(Yay!)

The Quick and the Read

Today, for only the third time in my life, I received a submission response within 24 hours of initially sending my work. It was a rejection, so I'm batting .333 on short turnarounds at present, but I'm not bitter. Instead, I remain in awe of the efficiency and pizzazz of these quickdraw editors. Therefore, in honor of speedy reads, I hereby declare a showdown. I challenge all of us to complete a short-short story (let's say 500 words or less) by no later than this time a week from today (okay okay, we'll say by high-noon on Tuesday for good measure). Bring your six-shooters and your spurs.

Hell Week

An example: my car has broken down every day for four days. And that, friends, is one of the better things that has happened to me this week.

I too had photos to share, but needless to say, the powers that be wouldn't let them upload, no. While thwarting my attempt, the powers that be also erased them and the hundred or so other pictures stored on my camera and noplace else. To me, they are now the powers that be-otch.

I've been thinking about my very-recent writing under the term Living Expenses. I will now spew some barely-formed poetry into the blogabyss.

What kind of karma do you think that will warrant?

Shelter

If we are always in danger
Of being No one, No where,
Then why are our Selves so
Inescapable, like waves spiking the lifeboat,
Towered and internal as nausea,
While we cling to the closest huddled body:
A pink face in a yellow slicker, a finger curling for ours,
Our finger providing the placehold in space
For a Some one who might be Any one, but is
Beside us, for now.



Service

This is what I am talking around.
The pile of speckled ice and the plastic cup
Around it. Another example: the stewardess’
Hand on the lip of aluminum, and yours
On the other end. How her eyes don’t
See yours, how you notice.
Though you keep the window shade
Pulled open, its oval slot of light
Her eyes stay wide
Buttons unbuttoned down her front jacket panel,
While you have always found it hard
Not to blink in others’ faces.
Look again, look harder
When she sweeps the aisle soundless
In recycled air, and just so,
Just so, reproach yourself
With remembering how she harkened
To every ding of every blue vinyl-back seat. For two hours
She is your mother overhead
And don’t you think she gave you all
She could? After all
Ginger ale
is fine, please,
Thank you.



Misplaced Rib

I handle the baby like I’ve caught him
mid-fall. Fingers spread like
a glove, careful with his right
half-shoulder, the tiny red patch
where they told the mother
she’d broken his collarbone.
Careful not to touch, to protect
without touch, to circle the memory of
Your deep-creviced shoulder
blades, fingerholds
in the wooden fence.
He’s lived through four days now.

My palm cradles his skull,
soft as old peaches you’d
toss for impromptu batting practice:
a branch, your gathered hands,
juice streaming over the backfence.
I held your head this way
and tried to feel us growing,
that first April, in borrowed beds.
Fingers mapped the pitch of bone,
walked the chalk lines inch by inch,
traced curves through your dusting
of hair, tried to feel where I’d fit.
I was new. And then

I was new again.

The baby’s not mine
until I hold him, then
I’m ready to steal
anything he cries for
over the wall, through the stand
of pine to the opened-up ground
where I hear they play ball now,
and his little up-down chest
cleaves into mine. There between us
is your breath falling and your breath
rising, your pleated canyon,
your misplaced rib
(did you give it to me? did I lose it for us?)
and baby, the sun is shining
on all the scars we were born with.

My writing Desk. Bother.

Greetings, Attic Office.

I've tried countless times to upload a video tour of my writing desk. Those attempts being fruitless, I thought to myself, "Hey dummy--this blog exists primarily for writing, does it not? And this desk is also, potentially, designed to be written on, yes? So, why not write a poem, or some such thing, about my writing desk?" I bet you all wish you'd thought of it. But you didn't. Or maybe you did, and were too lazy; or maybe you actually wrote a piece, but determined that it was mediocre and, in defiance of Kim's impetus to share everything, kept it yourself; or maybe you simply decided that such self-indulgent behavior was frivolous and not worth anyone's time. Well, the first describes my delay; the second, a road (evidently) not taken; and the third--well, that one never occurred to me in the slightest. So, here it is.

The Desk: An Arrangement of Wood and Metal, or the Crux of All Man's Creative Endeavors? (Probably Somewhere in the Middle.)

This room--this one, right here--

Used to be wallpapered

In typical juvenile fashion

Germane to a time of fluff

And the deeply unsettling knowledge

That there is something wrong

First with pink and blue toy soldiers

Expressions: vacant

Mouths: nonexistent

Then with athletes and non-sequiturs

(RUN! STRIKE! HIT!)

Outlines: Indistinct

Logos: Unfamiliar

But how rude of me

The desk is what concerns us

I guess the afore(was)mentioned

Because that's how things used to be

But not how they are

No NOW

The walls are khaki

The comforter: also

And the desk: black as two coats

of semigloss can get

Except where daylight comes through

On chipped corners, worn edges

The things that call it home

(Now this is where it gets mundane 

But also enlightening

That's what I hear this poetry bunk

Is about, after all)

Are as follows

An unpredicated list

Of objects collected and acquired

(That's what I hear this poetry bunk

Is about, after all)

A cork board

(Well it isn't made of cork

But you get my meaning)

Supporting a framed facsimile

The good ol' family crest, Ryan

The silvery disembodied heads

Of three griffins

Malo mori quam foedari

A motto suited

For my pelt-clad ancestors

Though more of a novelty to me

A calendar, free

In some anonymous issue

Of a not-quite-girlie mag

Some hardworking latina miss

Or maybe just pretty

In elaborate stilettos

I'm not sure how she's helping here

(But hey, want is want, m'I right?)

And, obeying gravity

The device on which I "write"

A tool of versatility

Both in use and in cause

Of headache

An IKEA lamp

Adjustable angle and brightness

A necessary evil

Or perhaps just inescapable

And, ah, the cup of pens

With a souvenir letter opener

From Toledo, where Spaniards once went

For all their decapitating needs

And pencils, let's not forget them

After all, there was a time

When we were encouraged

To say what we felt

Until we said what we meant

(That's what I hear this poetry bunk

Is about, after all

[Hey, it works here too])

To our right, a stack of yearbooks

Taking care of nostalgia and regret

Seventh grade timid and pencil-necked

Eighth grade bolder

Though with even less fashion sense

Ninth's an odd one

Snapped hastily in front of a white wall

And apparently none too excited

(But I won't bore you

Suffice it to say

I grow handsomer and handsomer)

There are other books, too:

Man's Search For Meaning

Outdated travel guides

Novels by Vonnegut and some guy

Who went to Princeton

And here's one I don't recognize

101 Best Cover Letters

A pinch, a prod

From my mother

Who wants the best for me

But is still lousy at subtlety

There's stuff in the drawers, too--

But that's another poem, people

Did I mention my desk talks?

If not I should have

He says and I quote

In an acidic baritone

(Perhaps unbefitting its appearance

But what do I know about that)

"My name is Colin's workspace, desk of desks!

Look on my hard, flat surface, and despair!"

He's not very original, you see

With any luck

I can help him with that

Though you'll forgive me

For being skeptical

-Colin Ryan

Going to Bed and Writing: No Longer Mutually Exclusive

My desk is actually a bed, with a deceptively desk-looking table next to it. That sentence, much like spinning quickly in a circle, makes me dizzy. My bed is red, unmade and has lots of stripes. This is key to the writing process. As is my backpack, which somehow found its way beneath a pillow, since my notebook lives inside.

My deceptively desk-looking table holds my computer, where I type things I have written in my notebook. Having two monitors is the opposite of stripes with regards to their usefulness to the writing process. They allow me to do many things at once to distract myself from my Word document. Though, I could make a fortune in monitor real estate. Anyone looking for a few extra square inches? Or perhaps a monitor timeshare?

Having spent so much time in previous apartments writing in closets, bathtubs, behind couches, etc., I also have an actual writing desk. It lives behind the camera and is not included here because it is entirely barren and I've not written at it once. It feels too conventional. And not the good kind of convention where they give you yogurt parfaits and keychains/letter openers/polo shirts sporting various corporate logos. There is no swag provided for being normal.

I know this is all mind-blowing information. But, please, don't take notes. You can come back and read this post whenever you want. Over and over and over again, I expect.

Where do you write?

Arabesque Rejection Fish (aka My Desk)

Looks like I'm the first one to try this. So here goes ... my desk. I'll start at the top. You probably all recognize the work of Jackson Pollock (it's called "Number 13A: Arabesque"). Below that, framed in black, is a series of photographs taken by a close friend centering around books. The hodgepodge below the photos is comprised of rejection letters I've acquired over the years. I used to keep these hidden away in a folder, but Stephen King has a rather interesting take on how to handle rejection letters in his memoir, On Writing. When he was just getting started, he nailed a large metal spike into his wall and impaled every notice he received on it. Not having quite the same violent urge, and not wanting to hammer a metal spike into the wall of my apartment, I decided to turn my rejections into a collage of sorts. Airing them out has several benefits: it helps keep me grounded, balancing the successes (there's a much smaller collage featuring those outside the left edge of the frame); it deflates the significance of the rejections (when you see them every day, you tend to forget what they are; they just become pieces of paper again); and it means that even failures are productive because they contribute to my decor. The majority of things on the actual desktop are fairly common: speakers, lamp, letter holder, etc. I keep some reading materials handy; in this case, it's Pablo Neruda and Poets & Writers to the left and the last two issues of Poetry to the right. On the far right side, there's a clock that produces a very soothing ticking and a photograph taken after a fishing trip with my father and grandfather when I was five years old. These remind me that 1) time passes whether I'm ready or not, and 2) I'm not a blank page even when I sit in front of one.

Responding to Katie Moulton Responding (This will get old quick)

There were no silences. Only pauses shaped like dinosaur pancakes.

Things of import (not in chronological order):
-We must focus more heavily on posting crap/bad writing
-Everyone responds to Katie Moulton
-Katie Moulton is the homecoming queen
-Have you heard of sporcle.com?
-Why aren't you eating more ham?
-Frank wants you to eat more ham.
-Did you know TAO had a kitchen? Shocking
-Andy Goldsworthy is everywhere (personal observation)
-Shana wants to be Katie Moulton's Facebook friend
-A brontosaurus had two brains, one in its butt
-Manila envelopes don't go bad or breed to make more
-Get insurance, pay your taxes, and then write until your eyes fall out
-Japan has internet in the bathroom
-Sometimes old men running lit journals from shacks get grumpy, but it's acceptable
-Shana laughs a lot
-Polish writers were powerful because they stuck together
-It's not Tom's fault when Shana laughs a lot

And you know what comes next: everyone posts pictures of their desks. And then their notebooks. And then they are hooked.

Katie Moulton responds to everyone

Yesterday afternoon, my mother was playing Eight Miles High by the Byrds on vintage vinyl. Delirious from no-sleep and the folk-psychadelia reverberating through my house, I drifted up to my laptop and found this surreal blog entry addressed to me eight times over.

I thought, if I were on acid, this would all make sense. TAO, you freaked me out, man.

Tom, Shana, Alex, Colin, Luke, Alex, Heather, Sean:
I can't believe Kim made you write notes to me, but thank you. Like little virtual postcards. Now if someone could send along a transcript of the meeting, complete with silences, light falling on the kimono, and any other Zen that transpired...

Kim:
Thank you. I'll be knocking on your door May 22.

So, guys, what now?

Everyone responds to Katie Moulton

Hi Katie,

We are all sitting around the attic office (the real one) and talking about you. I bet you wonder what we're saying. Perhaps someone else will fill you in. Wish you were here!

-Tom

Hi Katie Moulton,

Let's be Facebook friends. I hope you are doing well in St. Louis. Kim says you're working at Wash U? Her husband made really delicious rolls and there are a lot of about to graduate BC students who are here just like you were last year! Full circle.

Wish you were here to keep us focused!

Shana

Hey Katie, 

Sorry you couldn't be here. Can't wait to graduate (maybe) and start on this blog.

Best, 

Alex 

Katie,

Ditto, except I could wait plenty of time to graduate. Probably something on the order of years or decades. I am, however, excited to contribute to the Attic Office, and to get to know you and your work a bit better. (I actually spoke to you via email a couple years ago regarding the creative writing concentration, I believe. Not sure if you remember.) Anyway, looking forward to it. Take care.

Cheers,

Colin

Katie,

I could just stay in college forever, but moving on is good too.  I think this blog will be a great way to mix the two, keeping some part of college and moving on as well.  Really excited.

Best,

Luke

Katie,

Hi.  You don't know me and I don't know you, but I've heard some great things about you already, and I'm looking forward to being part of this whole blog/community of writers thing.

Your New Pal,

Alex

Katie,

I remember listening to your stories in the CWC meetings, when you were a senior and seemed so far ahead of me and anything I could create.  Now I'm graduating and I can't believe this feeling.  I hope it gets easier.

Heather

Katie,

I hope you are writing and well in St. Louis.  I'll look forward to reading your work again in this virtual world.

Best,

Sean

Attic Office in the (surprise!) Attic Office May 9th?

Hello Invisible Officemates!

It's been a whole year, and it's time for a party. Okay, a brunch. With doughnuts.

Time for Katie to fly in from St. Louis, and Kyra and Stacey to catch a camel from NYC, and all the prodigals to return.

Invite any new graduates (and how did Sean Keck escape our net, incidentally?) to The Attic Office May 9th 11-1.

If you're not there, we'll blow kisses towards your last known location, but please come if you can!

And tell new folks to start thinking about that desk. Remember those days? Yes, it's our little welcome ritual.

I've missed you all!

Kim

Word Cloud

Hi Writers,

I found a fun website (wordle.net) that turns a chunk of text into a "word cloud." The more frequently a word appears in the text, the larger it appears in the cloud. Not only is it fun, but you can see if there is a word you're subconsciously using over and over. And did I mention it's pretty? Some wallpaper designer should snap up the rights to this immediately.

This is a cloud for a story I've been working on. The character's names are all bigger, which makes sense, but I've no idea why I used the word "back" so many times.

Thoughts on American Writing . . .

Found this fairly interesting - it would certainly be worth reading through the comments. Flash fiction is even mentioned - wonder if anyone can find nanofiction?

Winners

I'd like to submit a new post category for your consideration, called "Crap That Wins." To avoid bitterness as we send work out there into the world, we need to have our eyes open. After all, writers can be as much united by what they hate as what they love.
Exhibit A:
http://www.artsintransit.org/PIM09.html

Nano on a Mission

Need something to do with your awesome Nanos? Try sending them here:
http://www.pw.org/content/nano_fiction_4

Nano Book Report

a.k.a. Lit-Crit.

The Savage Detectives, Part 1

Restless innocent adopts himself to confederation of poetbums in Mexico City. He becomes schoolquit, lovemade, pimphostage before escaping with Ulises, Arturo, and the little prostitute.


...Thought I'd let you guys know: a lit journal based out of an STL uni is still seeking poetry submissions for their next issue. You don't even have to waste postage since they want all electronic submissions. They've got a Missouri slant, but I'm sure you all could find one of your pieces that's vaguely midwestern (think meth and thunderstorms, winds that carry cows and hops from someplace over the rainbow). Maybe some of us aren't into seeking publication, but I'm all about seeing your works in print. SO here's the link: http://www.lindenwood.edu/untamedInk/

Nano "Inspired By True Events" Fiction ???

"The Prairie Fire"

I followed the smoke to the rim of town, where it bruised the sky, where snowflake ashes dusted the windshield. Where saltwater splashed the dashboard.

"Pregnant Pause"
'I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong,' she chokes. 'I don't either, but I have to go,' he tells her, pressing 'OFF' on the keypad.

Some dearly beloved devices

Hi all, 

Great nano-pieces! I will try some over spring break, but for now am scrambling to complete even a single piece that's remotely coherent. Been in quite the writer's slump lately, but I think a recently discovered literary device might be the safety net I'm looking for. I recently read "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass" by Bruno Schulz (very compelling semi-autobiography focusing on the mythical aspects of this Polish man's childhood, completed right before he was shot at the age of 50 by a German officer), and during our class discussion, my professor raised the issue of Zeugma, which then spurred my curiosity into the discovery and attempted usage of Syllepsis: 

So I'll direct you to this page which gives a brief outline of each: 

http://www.drbilllong.com/EvenMoreWords/Zeugma.html

How's everyone doing with their writing these days? Perhaps the upcoming spring weather will rev our creative engines a bit more. Let's hope!

Til then, I will go to the coffee shop and then insane. Ha, get it? eh? eh? Oh dear...

Nano iTom Version 2.0

I'm sitting in the laundromat, watching strangers' clothes spin around in the dryer--what better time to feed my nano addiction?

“Radio”
B moves to LA on Monday. She’s packed her cassettes, her vinyl. Now I have more time for D and her cherry red iPod.

“Cookies”
Grandma left, died. Her kitchen’s filled with cookie jars, collected. I take Garfield in a chef’s hat—her favorite and only I know. Money’s inside.

“13, Remembered”
Braces at 13, lipstick and cleavage at 20. Donald loves her. Brad and Grant love her too. She remembers Larry Botts, seventh grade, and cries.

“Last”
Matt’s in Iraq, second tour. Gray under-eyes, she joins the PTA, wishes it met more often. His last letter’s torn and smells like peppermint.

Nano Fiction, 1-2-3

Owing to the fact that I have written approximately ZILCH since . . . I can't even remember when, I decided to write some nanofiction. You can tell I haven't written in awhile, but if nothing else, it reignited the creative flame.

To all who have preceded me in doing this: I'm impressed. Tom, I hope that coming from a stranger, the fact that your nanofiction blew me away means a little something extra to ya.

The Smell of Fear:
As they leave under a blackened sky, the boy wipes a red river from his nostrils and says, “I get nosebleeds when I’m nervous.”

Garages:
She’d kissed him twice before today in the same stagnant parking garage, when her eyes prickle as he pushes in too far.

Month-to-Month:
December, he coughs blood into the Kleenex she keeps in the glove box. February, she leaves her keys in an envelope on the mantel.

Nano Sequence 2: Cosmic Jokes

"The Contest"

Rattling drinks, they agreed love was about power. She thought herself good, and waited for him to call her name. He called the lawyer instead.

"Vegetable"

Before the Corolla swerved, she bit her tongue biting the carrot, teeth peeling off the tip, and flinched thinking, "God, are my senses so dull?"

"After Brock Died"

An unlucky birdling remained dropped on the stoop.
It baked for a week.
Finally the cat died in guilt, and I picked up the shovel.

Nano writing is the new not writing

Katie, what a great exercise! I love yours - so poetic. Tom, again, I'm not surprised by the awesomeness of these. When you're both famous, I'll say I knew you when.

Here's my attempt. I think, for me, it doesn't matter if they suck or not, but that they managed to break me out of my moratorium on all things writer-rific (that's what taking classes, applying to grad school, and working full-time does to a person, apparently. Actually, Tom can attest that yesterday I spent the better part of an hour trying to win a time trial in MarioKart. Yes, my priorities are in order).

Thanks again, Katie, for this excellent exercise.

“The Nurse”

The deed, indeed, left something to them. But on his deathbed, he had looked at her ankles, and decided something else.

“Science”

His face lit up with cancer. Half the town had died. And left with it, he had to wonder, was it something in the water?

“Probability”

The airport was that way. She cried anyway. You never know, sometimes the plane just doesn’t land. Was it love, afterall?

Nano iTom

“Hunched”
Sunset in the grass; Aileen’s hunched, crying. I decide to leave. Standing, I remember her hair matted with rain, her wet lips kissing her husband.

“Chores”
She left yesterday, dresses stuffed in two red suitcases. Today I mowed, clipped hedges, chatted with Chet across the fence about dogs. It’s my fault.

“Sunday Morning”
I woke in a cold, empty bed, her pillow smelling like strawberries. She’s left a rose on the kitchen table. And a note, “Love you.”
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Here's my stab at it. This is a great exercise, Katie. Along with all the things you said in your email, I feel like the 25 words also force you to lay claim to your voice in a way long works don't. There aren't all those paragraphs to muck about in.

Katie, your first two are highly poetic and almost surreal in the way they reveal the moment and the plot. Your third also reads like a poem, but instead of surreal, feels grittier, more grounded in the conflict and character

This reminds me of a 6-word memoir site I saw a while back: http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords But let's be honest: unless you're Hemingway, there can be such a thing as too short.

Nano-Fiction (25 words)

Little Violence


"Drive-by Paintball"

Remnants of a redhead, widowed optimist, she waits for a friend. Slow car, half window, pop. Her temple blasted green: At least it happened to me.


"The Pitch"

Stunted boy, outgrown his brain, cocks his arm, kitchen knife clutched. Babysitter, nurse, all-time pitcher til now, freezes for the snap.
She doesn't blink.


"Rodeo"

At the wall, he stamps his brother's cigarette to dirt.
He'll take her from him.
This is what it means to root for the bull.

Lovely, Fulfilling/Gangly, Awkward

I have been very writing-busy as of late. There is an odd aspect of attending a writing workshop: they give you deadlines and then you write to meet them. It is a lovely, fulfilling way to live. I highly recommend it.

Actually, I've mostly been shirking my deadlines because I like to use the word shirk so awful much and don't get a chance in my non-writing life. I am supposed to be writing fiction, so I have been writing poems, obviously.

In fact, I will head over to Google Docs right now and post a poem or two (posting directly to the blog makes me feel gangly and awkward). It''ll just be a silly little first draft of a thing, but it is evidence that I am a writer.

There's a voice in my head, but I don't know if I like it just yet...

Hey all,

     So as we try and pick ourselves up and get back into the swing of writing (by any means necessary, including a swift kick to the arse, as Tom suggests), I was wondering how everyone is feeling about their ‘voice.’ Yeah, yeah, you hear it time and time again, but I am beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable with this alleged character I’ve developed. Do you ever find yourselves in a slump not over material, so much as the way in which a story is told?

     Well, I’m taking a literature course with the infamous Shelley Jackson (she’s totally mind-blowing, do some googling and learn all about her crazy hypertext projects and tattooing of novels on volunteers, etc), and basically we’ve been prompted to respond to each work we read with not an analysis or critique, but rather just something ‘creative,’ using one or more of the author’s techniques for inspiration. Perhaps we like the structure of the piece, or the subject matter, or tense usage, tone, whatever. Well, this week, as I mentioned in an equally blabbering email to all of you, we have been tackling a Samuel Beckett trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable. And I’m totally hooked. Generally, I prefer my authors to still be breathing, or at least lukewarm in the grave (how morbid, my bad), but I’m definitely connecting to Beckett’s style more so than anything I’ve recently read. I think the guy’s absolutely hilarious, totally immersed in his characters’ own heads, so much in fact, that many of them don’t even have fully developed bodies, or exist in a space and time that’s real. But who cares, because their inner musings are so damn good! So I tried my hand at writing in a style similar to his, and thought that I’d leave you an excerpt of a longer piece I’m working on (this too, is still in very rough form…I thought it and then wrote it, and haven’t spent much time editing/looking it over just yet). It sort of goes along with Molloy’s obsessive thought process, as he oftentimes goes off on tangents about his own bodily functions. And while Kim is probably sitting there, shaking her head, I must give my little ‘self-saving’ speech. I don’t actually think/believe a lot of this (Keep that in mind when you reach the final bodily action…I’m not that bitter or gross or overly emphatic, haha), but it fits with many of Molloy’s discussions about himself; he’s a fan of discussing his urine flow, lack of hygiene, and the unending assortment of awkward things he does with his penis. Oh, and the ending is not a cry for help; Molloy and most of Beckett’s characters are always sort of on the verge of death, or at least not being alive in the typical sense, so that’s where the last line is coming from. I’m totally up for not being on the verge of anything outside of living. So it’s a little gross, maybe a bit crude, and not like anything I’m used to writing. But hey, here’s my mound of clay for the week…

The Push-Pull

     My body is a network of give and takes. Look at my hand, the left one for certain, of which I write, among other inviolable acts. It begins by pushing the pen, trying and yet almost always failing to lasso the thoughts from the skull’s centrifugal mess onto the tablet. It tenses (of ‘it’ I refer superficially to the hand at stake, though it is inevitable to keep the mind from following suit), forcing itself harder and rougher upon the utensil, which in turn drives onto the page, carving out brail-like imprints of cursive. Each press hurts more and more, my hand resisting acknowledgment of such force’s origin, (likely stemming from the depths of my not surprisingly self-afflicted entrails) until it hurts just so that I must throw the pen, shake and shake and shake my hand, an almost cathartic exorcism (aren’t all conjurations liberating, you ask? Surely not, but my story is of particulars, and time forbids me from expiating). Soon, the blood reemerges from hiding, knuckles lose their precarious egg-shell hue, and all that’s left to do is inhale. I must reel in the perspiration that has formed on my brow, swallow the words on the page, or perhaps at this moment, only smudges remain. It matters not. Hell, I even gorge on the luscious trail of black ink stains, from the pisiform to the tip of my pinkie finger. I sit up, look at the physical evidence of yet another expulsion, and pull it all back in.

     So, too, does the push-pull phenomenon occur with my sneezes. At first, the nose departs from its routine, obedient nature atop my face, setting off a slight twitch. It is a warning sign, but one in which there seems to be no preventative measure for what shall unavoidably ensue (Though I do encourage you to take note of the fools who mistakenly believe to hold the cure: bright-light-seekers, tongue-biters, nostril-spelunkers, and screamers of ‘pineapple pineapple pineapple!’). Then, like a sudden rip current along a jetty, frenetic inhalations suck the rest of my body into the moment: ribs becoming irresolute, bottom lip repelling downward from its superior, eye sockets hosting an exorbitant measure of emotional juice. Time stops. Well, I’m lying, and you should be grateful that earth revolves around the sun and not my bodily functions. But I stop—doubtful that my heart does, as the myth would have it, for in this moment alone, I am nervous, powerless to the will of my booger canals. But before I can ponder, I am hurled into the throws of release, an expulsory action of air and bioparticles. When it’s over, I survey the damage (never consistent from one act of sternutation to the next), and suck back in whatever gelatinous remains dangle near my septum.

     And why, how can I come to speak of this push-pull experience without the most obvious of them all? Yes, the love button, tucked away under layers of skirts and nylons and undergarments—should one choose to be so dress-code compliant—a place where men’s fingertips magnetically repel, though they have been told time and time again by their health teachers (and partners, female friends, magazine articles, television shows, blogs, surveys, specially designed condoms…oh, what’s the use) of its finely enervated composition. The clitoris, the beacon of release amidst an underworld of retention. It is apparent on the female fetus, just fourteen weeks after a mother’s missed menstruation. And speaking of blood, how it flows, right here, engorging this glorious protrusion until it stands firmly at attention. And so it is pushed—more accurately, touched and rubbed and stroked—until the rest of my body cannot continue to function properly, thus directing every ounce of focus to this fleshy nub. And then. Much like the sneeze, burp, bowel -movement (must I go there now? What shame), a release overtakes my very being. The aftereffects leave me with a frost-blue tingle running the course of my femoral veins, halting only after my toes have cramped; I become the victim of erotic paraplegicism. But recovery is a must, and after minutes of cunt-clenching, skin-quivering bliss, I pull back into reality, and let the sexual flatlines of everyday life carry me along.

     And so why discuss my most intimate bodily occurrences in such depth? Because with each expulsion, I leave myself. Or my perception of what most think is a self, a fully composed and functioning human being. At times, the escape is exciting; at others, it begrudgingly sucks me in. Nevertheless, it is during these moments of self-examination that I am able to look upon the body which holds me in tact (though not without glitches), and see it for what it’s worth. Its worth, you ask? Why, I fear, that like a close friend, I am on the threshold of being no more.

Public Transit Poetry

So there's this poetry contest here in St. Louis where they pick 15 poems to be displayed inside local Amtrak cars. I'm going to submit a few un-critiqued poems, which I'll probably have to hand-deliver since they're due in the office on Monday, and I only just went over some potential poems to turn in and made sure they fit the maximum 15-line limit...Is it just me, or is hand-delivery border-line creepy? I get to be almost-late and pseudo-stalkeresque. Story of my life.

FYI: Sean Keck, BC '07 was one of the winners last year.

Here are the poems I'll probably submit. (Posting them here instead of on our G-Docs account is so in-your-face.)


Covered Bridge

You made yourself a covered bridge:

Red walls, white roof, beams flaked with sawdust,
Weather-scraped, painted like seasons
Of rainstorms have rolled down upright panels,
And stood: soaking, drying, standing.

A steepled roof, scent of hay can trick the mind,
Red lumber can still the heart:
Shelter to take us over the stream, and over, on.

But I can hear the whitewater stones,
Tramp the grass, feel it rise in the soil.
I know the creak of air through floorboards,
The absence underneath. Please

Don’t build me a barn for passage.
I’m four legs, one mouth in still drowning water, and
The river’s home to me.



Toasting the Flood

The flood comes for frittatas and stays to wash in the sights.
To work for once, the Venetians walk through water.

Meanwhile the gondoliers docked
At half-submerged café tables
Toast the morning off, glassfuls
Scooped from the waist with well-
Tuned wrists, gray water high
Over taut ankles, and stones
Over more water, spilling the flood
Into itself:

Alla salute di Venezia, the floating city!
To our Atlantis, may we go down together—
When the world turns over,
They’ll need boatmen below, they’ll need
Those men that know the way.



Inauguration Day, Hampton Overpass

To the man made of January ash
Standing in the crushed-us dust cross
Roads, at night, the gaping
Hole where old Hampton Bridge used to be, a question—

Him foot prints freezing as a Polaroid
Turns to focus, the lamplights go out
On the town, this stretch of midtown
Where the overpass went under and came down—

Him at the imploded span, deserted
To the search for lightning conductors
Amidst concrete cylinders, almost praying
For dissolution—oh, let bulbs overrun their rims,
Whittle us to our central spinning—a question—

Does the breath, waiting to be breathed, have to ask:
How do we get there from here?



...So, let me know how you all are doing with writing, jobs, life, etc. And if you think I should adjust these poems before Monday at 5 p.m. Any advice welcome.

Single White Male Seeks a Writing Career

Whoa. It seems that I have gravely misled you. I know almost nothing about freelance writing.

The only thing I can say is that I am a fan of Craigslist for many reasons. It's not only the ads for free beige toilets that have won my affection; there are also two sections that list writing jobs. One lives under "jobs" the other under "gigs." This is where I found my one ill-fated writing assignment. Coincidentally, I also found my real job, my last 3 apartments, and my beige toilet on Craigslist.

Free-style (what what)

Hey Tom --
Can you post some tips for beginning freelancing?
I want to start submitting to local papers/websites while I'm working my 9-to-5 (which is, thankfully, no longer Borders. I'm in the Biomedical Engineering department at Washington University now, yeehaw).

I know I addressed Tom specifically, but don't be shy, feel free to join in everybody.