Monday, January 25th, 2010
This weekend I returned the proofs of My Imaginary to Dancing Girl Press. Yipee! To celebrate, I’d thought a little John Stewart on caulk would be fitting.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Most Immature Montage Ever – Cash for Caulkers | ||||
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Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Things I’m thankful for:
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Sometimes when you do research you find stuff that is cool. And sometimes, you find stuff that is really cool. The band The Lonesome Sisters put out a self-titled album in 2006, which includes the song “over the sea” They note:
Chorus Lyrics written by Mrs. L. Matilda Fletcher, found in an 1871 hymnal.
Too cool or what? And the song itself, is lovely.
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
I just received my contributor’s copy of Lavanderia: A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Word published by San Diego City Works Press. It’s such a great anthology! My poem “Chanticleer,” in this amazing book, is also included in my forthcoming chapbook my imaginary from dancing girl press. Lavanderia includes such writers as Tatiana de la Tierra. I met Tatiana when she spoke here at the 2007 No Limits conference. (The call for the 2009 conference is here).
Also, Poemeleon’s just released their special issue on gender, which includes three of my poems. It’s such a great issue! Check out the work by Davi Walders and Jeannie Hall Gailey.
Illuminations nominated my poem “Wife Brand” for the 2010 Pushcart Prize.
Sure makes for good news.
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Here are a couple more audio versions of poems from my forthcoming chapbook my imaginary.
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
I’ve just sent Dancing Girl Press the final version of my forthcoming chapbook My Imaginary. I’m so excited! For our anniversary, A. got me a mp3 recorder. I’m still getting the hang of it, but here’s a poem in the collection:
Monday, October 5th, 2009
I’ve just returned from Spearfish, South Dakota where I presented in the 2009 Western Literature Association Conference, “Lecturers, Matriarchs, Writers, Outdoorswomen: Voices from the Placeless Women of the West.” Joining me in the panel were two great writers, a poet scholar on “The Yellow Wallpaper” and a prose writer on gender. I read poems on Matilda Fletcher, the 19th century lecturer and suffragist from Iowa. She too spoke in South Dakota, over a hundred years ago. It was a fantastic panel. Thank you all who attended and who stopped by to say hello after the talk!
Because the conference was in the beautiful Black Hills, I did spend some time site-seeing. I made it over to Devil’s Tower, to Mount Rushmore, to the Bad Lands, and a few other spots, here and there. Even driving through South Dakota I couldn’t help but to think, what an amazing country.
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
Wonderful news! Pudding House just accepted my chapbook manuscript Ghost Girl. Yippee! I’m so excited. Pudding House is such a well know and respected press. I couldn’t be more happy. They’ve published some amazing authors in their Greatest Hits series like Annie Finch, Carole Simmons Oles, and Peggy Shumaker, to name a few. Melissa Tuckey is among their authors, a poet I was able to meet at Split This Rock in 2008. There’s also Jeannine Hall Gailey, JP Dancing Bear, and Ben Vogt, over in the deep middle.
And, poemeleon accepted 3 of my poems from another series I’ve been working on which is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press later this year, My Imaginary. Poemeleon has some great poems up, check out Dorianna Laux’s “Olympia” for example.
All this sure made for a good weekend.
Friday, August 28th, 2009
With the first week of classes done I want to thank all my new women’s poetry students and intro to lit students for starting off the semester wonderfully!
And while I’m at it, I want to thank my fantastic students in my women and poetry class I had last spring and my amazing students I had this summer in women and popular culture. Each day the latter group arrived ready to discuss and contribute insightful comments. My favorite day was an activity in which I asked them to work in groups to design the cover of a girl’s or women’s magazine that some how interrupted and challenged the majority of magazines aimed at those gendered female. Here’s a picture of their work on the whiteboard:
You can zoom in here. Some of my favorite features of their ‘zines included, “How to Dress Your Body,” “Girls Night In,” “Guide to Healthy Living: How to Love Your Body,” and “Sexuality Vs. Sexualization.” It’s classroom moments like these that remind me why I love teaching.
Monday, August 24th, 2009
prairie flowers in west branch, iowa
After a brief hiatus in Iowa, I’m back in my snug corner of the Midwest. For three weeks, I was the artist-in-residence at the Herbert Hoover Historic Site in West Branch Iowa, a growing artist-in-residence program directed by Adam Prato and one in which I was one of two artists for 2009.
(one of the beautiful trees in the park)
Prior to my three weeks in West Branch, I’d never done a residency, but I’m glad I did. I wrote oodles in the mornings when I worked in the Wright House. In the afternoons, I found an inspiring spot in the park and wrote there–the birth place, the prairie, the presidential museum, the friend’s meeting house, etc. The park itself is breathtakingly lovely, with enormous trees and abundant wildlife such as catbirds, groundhogs, goldfinches, and swallows. The people, from the park rangers to the visitors to the folk who dress up in living history garb to the multitudes who visited during their annual festival, Hooverfest, were friendly, nice, reminding me again how great Iowans are.
birthplace
And if all that wasn’t enough, I did a poetry reading in their theater attended by locals and the requisite family members. I had a booth at their festival where many stopped by and asked about my work (How great is that?). My 3 and 1/2 year old nephew became a junior park ranger after doing various activities in the park. (The pledge alone is adorable. I watched several kids, after completing their activity book, take the pledge to take care of national parks while adults beamed with cameras). Finally, the local paper even interviewed me about my work as an artist-in-residence and took some photos of me writing in the one-room-schoolhouse. The writer posted the article, and a brand new poem I wrote while there, on their online newspaper. In the print version of West Branch Times, the story takes up an entire page (!).
sign
With the gift of time to write and research, it was a lovely and productive way to spend three weeks of the summer.
