Drill

Jess has been at work for twelve hours now.

Two days ago she had to drill into some guy's brain. Late last week she had to operate on a woman's husband, and when the doctor was telling her what was going on in the waiting room, she was screaming hysterically.

Though I'm proud of what I'm doing and all I've accomplished, I'm starting to have more respect every single day for people who work in the medical field. The true people in the medical field I'm starting to think are destined to do that work. I don't think there are many fields that can claim those words.

It makes talking about poetry seem, well, not that important. But alas, I do it anyway.

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I brought in two poems from the new manuscript into workshop last time, one which is published, and one which is going to be published in the next issue of a journal.

Before you say or think anything, keep in mind I understand that turning in a "finished" poem into workshop makes everyone a critic.

However, my goal was to hopefully prove something, and after a few weeks of thinking about it, I did.

I've mentioned before that many of the poems in this new manuscript have been seen by no one thus far except myself and the editors who (somehow) decided to publish them. That's certainly not dangerous, but it should make you realize that you need to show your poems to others, especially others who may know what you're going for. Or not.

At any rate, these two particular poems also lead off the manuscript. I've changed them up, and I think they're much better. And a lot of the specific advice for those poems I've been able to use as I've been revising other poems.

So each day I'm happier, it seems, to work on this manuscript, with hopefully a much keener eye.

A handful of contests I'm sending it to in a week or so.

I decided that if I end up sending to about 15-20 by the end of 2009 and I don't get even a pull on the poetic line, then I'm going to get restructuring and writing again.

The first time I sent out Ghost Lights over two years ago, when it was, quite honestly, a pretty horrendous "book," it was a finalist. I think this one's better, so we'll see if I have any clue in the least.

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I started reading for Harpur Palate today. Considering I'd only met three PhD poets in the program officially before then, I figured it was time to meet others and get involved with our graduate journal, something I really didn't do at VCU.

Already, after just two hours of reading today, I want to make a How To Not Make An Ass Out Of Yourself When You Submit Poems To Journals list...

Here are a few things I'd mention to folks, in no particular order:

1. When you clearly haven't read over your cover letter, and there are a bunch of repetitions and misspelled words, you're not going to get someone excited to read the poems.
2. When you name the journals you've been in (of course that's fine, and I think editors like to see that), 6-8's a decent number, and some may even say more than enough. But seriously, 19? 19! I kid you not. I wondered if I should write down her name and call her out on my blog, but I decided not to. Not cool probably.
   
3. No one cares about "anthologies" you've edited (or "interned" for).
   
4. No one cares about residencies you've been to (especially if you have to name way too many of them and still don't have a book to your name).
5. Under no circumstances should you include a long blurb from an "established" author about your work as the bookend of the cover letter. You shouldn't do this even if you have four books out. Seriously, I was absolutely blown away by this, and never thought I'd see anything like this. Ever.
6. The more your build yourself up, almost always unnecessarily and inexcusably, you're giving readers and editors more of a reason to immediately shut down your work. If readers and editors don't like your work, most of the time it doesn't matter who you are or what you've done: you'll be rejected.
7. If your work's good enough, it'll find a home. Read more journals. Send out more. Take advantage of the journals who accept submissions electronically. Etc, etc, etc.
   

I've been sending out for a while, and as someone who hopes to be an official editor of a small magazine someday, this is what I adhere to, and this is what I'm looking for on a cover letter:

• The date
• Name and contact information on every sheet
• Titles and number of poems
• A handful of the journals who have published you
• Books you have out or books that are forthcoming
• Briefly: what you're up to now

That's it. And then you don't waste ink either.

Considering this has already been a learning experience, I'm looking forward to getting more involved, and I'm also looking forward to meeting and hanging out with more of my fellow classmates.

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Finally, if you read this blog, you may also read my First Book Interviews blog.

I've been thinking about this during the past few weeks, and I decided to ask some questions here and see what people think.

I've had some poets with great books recently get a hold of me and ask for an interview, and the books are, of course, piling up at this point, especially when you add in the ones I've received in the last year or so.

Considering the semester is not getting any easier with time constraints, here's my question to potential readers: Would you be opposed to seeing more "stock" questions in the full interviews if that meant they were posted more on a regular basis?

As much as I wish I had the time to sit down and read through these first books, while giving them the attention that every single one deserves, I have a lot of reading I need to do while I try and keep my funding here and whatnot, which is at least slightly more important. The books will be read, but I feel like the more time I spend trying to gather questions and hone questions to each particular book, the less interviews that are posted. And I'd rather have more for people to read. That's what I continued Kate's project in the first place.

Not to mention that four poets, who have all the interview questions, still haven't given me their interviews, and they've had plenty of time to get them back to me. That frustrates me at least a bit, because I did spend that time reading their books and getting questions ready for them for nothing at this point, when I could have four additional interviews posted right now from four other poets.

I think the point of First Book Interviews is to ask about the first books. The site isn't dedicated to Third Book Interviews, after all.

I guess I'm wondering if you trust me to trust the poets to answer even the questions which go out to everyone with care and attention and not clipped and one-sentence answers. I'll still read through the books, and there will be questions tailored to each book, but I just won't have as much time, and I really do want to keep them going and start getting them posted again on a regular basis.

Please please please let me know your thoughts if you'd be willing to share them on any of the points above.

Thanks in advance.

Check Signal Cable

I was going to wait until tomorrow to write what will most likely be lost to you in my own incomprehensibility, But Seth Abramson's words, as related to the MFA and beyond, always make me want to put my own experience and thoughts on the table. And most of my words are a springboard from what he says, mostly, I would imagine, completely off course from his initial statements.

This was from a link on a recent Facebook post of his: Thinking of getting your MFA?

You have to pay for it, but if you're interested, $4.99 probably won't break the bank. It might also be in the new Poets & Writers, though.

There's also this link, which gives you the "top 50" programs. And there's an extended link too, which names, I think, every "other" MFA program.

I guess what I'm most interested in is a comment made by someone on his Facebook thread: "Read the article 'Confessions of a TA' and had a visceral reaction, realizing that since I have zero interest in teaching, I can't spend half my time in a traditional MFA program doing something I don't like and don't plan to use (even for funding)." Now from what I gather, this is not someone in their 20s, 30s, or 40s (this person said something about their age that would make me think this). Maybe 40s, but maybe older, so that's the first thing, since this person alluded to the fact that they're not your average 20-something wanting to explore the MFA option.

But I feel like there are many others who are 20-somethings and are saying the exact same thing. Maybe the Rhet Comp class I'm taking right now—which I have to take before I can teach composition, even though I've taught nearly 25 sections of composition classes in the last five years—is making me realize that it's also an issue with the Rhet Comp programs regarding TA positions, wages, "low pay," etc. Meaning that since TAs usually teach composition to earn their stipend, this is why there are so many essays regarding TAs these days, and all those issues like wages and "low pay."

Wait a minute, people, I'm not complaining here. I'm really not. Because I understand something: this is how it works at most places if you want to get your MFA or PhD and want the TA gig. Would I rather get free tuition and get paid X-grand a year for just taking classes so I can write all the time, get out in three or four years, and try to get a job and support my family and all of that? Why yes, wouldn't we all in some Utopian society that doesn't exist?

Maybe it was good I went into VCU when I was 22—I was more naive (if you can believe it) than I am now, and I kind of had no clue what was going on. They could've told me I had to teach four sections of composition comprised of thirty students each for my stipend, and I would've said, "Seems a little much, but OK!" And yet for what I had to do at VCU, which was two English 101 sections of 25 students each, it still doesn't even seem that bad right now, and it wasn't then either.

This is what happens when I write these "posts": I don't really go anywhere.

But I guess I would ask you, as a fabricated and wraithlike future MFAer, is all the money in the world going to help you write better poems? Is it going to help you learn about becoming a better writer? Is it going to help you develop indispensable relationships—if you're lucky—with friends in your program who will become your go-to readers, the ones who can take your awful fifteenth draft and make it into something worthy because they, somehow, seem to know your work better than you after a while?

I come back to asking, "Where was all this stuff when I was applying?"

I say that because I'm beyond exponentially ecstatic that this information on MFA calculations, rankings, etc., wasn't available then.

I'm not sure about the rankings or calculations or legitimacy of programs anymore (not that I ever was to begin with), but I think, like many now, that I would've been bogged down with so many questions at that point of the application process, so many questions that would've led me to try something else, and I wouldn't be sitting here in Vestal, New York, of all places, a few months into a PhD program, with an amazing woman who somehow decided to say yes when I asked her to marry me, and a first book of poetry coming out next year.

Sometimes it pays to suck it up, live on what you can, and be passionate about something. Sometimes it might be better to leave those other questions for later.

But doesn't it always come down to passion? Or, better yet, shouldn't it?

Rush

I keep forgetting that it was probably halfway through my second year, but really at the start of my third year, when I actually wrote a decent poem (or draft, maybe) at VCU, something I felt good about reading at workshop, something I felt good about writing.

That really hasn't happened yet in the Binghamton workshop setting. No matter how the poems are received, I really don't like what I'm writing at all.

That said, we're not even halfway through the first semester. I need to chill out, and I think that's one of the problems.

I was inspired by this recent post from Oliver, who always seems to write wise blog posts. I guess I put myself in a weird position right now, because I feel like if what I'm writing isn't furthering this second manuscript, or going onto a third project, then there's no point in writing it. Clearly I shouldn't be thinking like that, but if you know what it's like to put much time into big projects, then you know how hard it is to break away from that mode. And that's what I've spent the last three years of my poetic life doing (though you also have to include all the PhD applications I suppose).

Or not necessarily that certain mode, as much as feeling like I need to move on, and since I don't have a new project, and all these workshop poems seem to be rehashing former, better poems, or they're this nebulous mess of words that I would never want anyone to see. If I don't like the poem, I don't care who does. And if I really like a poem that I write, I usually don't care who doesn't, because that's always another step in the hopeful ladder-climb of building something better. That sounded horribly clichéd. Oh well.

I guess what I'm telling myself is that I don't need to rush right now, and hopefully for good reason. I have to write poems for workshop, and so they're getting written. Even poems I don't like hopefully and eventually get me writing poems that I do like. And though I feel like all my energy right now (aside from course work of course) is best spent in trying to get this second book out into the world, there's no harm in letting the new project, whatever it may be, come to fruition as it presents itself, instead of trying to force something that just isn't there right now.

Mesh

An interview with Brian Teare, one of my favorite young poets. Still need to get Sight Map. Maybe this post gives me an excuse to order a few books I've been wanting for a while.

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I found seven more journals I'd love to be in, somehow, that I haven't sent to already. Those are journals, however, that accept submissions online or through email.

I'm saving the cash right now for the second manuscript. And there are five more contests and open reading periods where that will be by the end of October.

Three poems from the manuscript have yet to be published in its current state, and I think it'll be nice this time around to have a small batch of three, since I usually have the number of poems make them into four or five. Like Ghost Lights, I really didn't expect to have all the poems published this time around either, and even though my new manuscript will undoubtedly change, because that's the way things go, it's always a good feeling to know that editors are liking your words.

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New Tunes Worth Spinning:

Richmond Fontaine - We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded like a River
Qwel & Maker - So Be It
Lisa Germano - Magic Neighbor
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - White Lunar
Califone - All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
Built to Spill - There Is No Enemy

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Weekend-intensive workshop this weekend with Maria Gillan. Second of the semester.

I was going to go with Jess to a wedding (her freshman roommate from college), but there are only three workshops a semester, and I can't miss one. (Sorry, Celeste!)

Since I've been doing a ton of work with my second manuscript over the last year or so, it's been tough for me to get out of the, for lack of a better term, complacency I've been in while writing these poems. Stylistically. Thematically. Structurally. Everything.

What I'm saying is that I need to move on, or the same thing's going to happen in workshop, and I don't want to take all this time for granted I have to discover some new things in my writing, not to mention working with a new crop of talented writers. I guess we'll see what happens this weekend...

The Marble Game

I'm not going to deal with a lot of corrections here, or going back. This is a post of excitement, vicarious excitement, which usually should be the case anyway.

I found this post from almost a year ago, and if you look at the folks mentioned at the bottom, it should also get you excited. And if it doesn't, well, that's OK too I guess.

Here's the deal.

Blake Butler has signed a book deal with Harper Perennial, and Shane Jones is having his first novel made into a movie. And it's being reprinted by Penguin. Oh yeah, the dude who made things happen: Spike Jonze. Check out the link. Big things around the corner.

It would be easy to cry a river and say, "I work hard. Why not me?" And that's what annoys me about many, many folks writing poetry these days (because I can't take the term "poet" seriously, and probably never will be able to). It would've been easier to get an MBA if you wanted to rack the greenbacks.

This isn't a post bashing poets, because I myself, if you didn't know, am a writer of poetry. And I'm guilty of being frustrated by writing poetry also. See my last post. Or many of them before that. But come on, people.

Let me finish by saying that I'm thrilled for Shane and Blake (if you couldn't tell).

If you've read their blogs, you know that they're indefatigable writers. They don't fuck around. They made these things happen for themselves. And it's completely inspiring. Because people are reading, and people do care about art. We're in this horrendous economy right now, only composition jobs seem to be available for PhDs, and people are getting guns and murdering each other, so it's easy to bitch and moan and want Vinny Chase's life. Or you can work your ass off and get people to read your work. It's not "bragging." It's believing. It's about hope. It's about inspiration. Effusiveness required.

Lift

Jess calls a kind of malaise that sets in during periods of moving and transition, fittingly enough, "Transition Keith." I can get irritable, depressed, and annoyed at stupid things. I'm usually not like that at all.

And it gets worse because I know I'm acting like that and have a hard time combating it. I think it was delayed this time around; it's almost been two months since we got here, and I think it set in at the end of last week.

I also keep forgetting that there's been a bit of a whirlwind the last three months, so the delay makes sense I suppose. I guess I had too much to think about, so much that there was no real rumination.

But the first semester at a new place is always tough. And considering I remember how awful my first few months at VCU were, that alone is able to take me away from the funk a bit, because things have been much better than that here.

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The Giants are 4-0 for the second year in a row, but the injury bug seems to be biting again. Here's to being healthy and the streak continuing.

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I'm looking to work on a new project as far poems go, but right now I'm not sure what it's going to be. Sometimes when I'm not writing I feel, probably unnecessarily, guilty. It's silly, but it happens.

There was a period after I felt Ghost Lights was completed where I pretty much knew it was either going to get published in a handful of years or I'd burn it and forget about it. I knew that because I wasn't writing poems that would fit in that particular book, and I felt like I couldn't write poems that would ever fit in that book. Poet maturation? Not sure.

But the same thing has happened now. What I mean is, once you start parodying yourself unnecessarily, or you're writing watered-down versions of better poems that you immediately know are better, that seems like a good sign that it's time to move on to a new project. I'm repeating what I did for Ghost Lights, though I don't think I'll burn this one if it eventually keeps floating in the poetic void. I have more faith this time around.

At least it seems to be my litmus test so far. But there's nothing wrong with relaxing and letting stuff swim around in your head. I feel like forcing words right now will just make me lose a little zealousness, and I don't want to do that. But I say things like that a lot, and then the poems seem to arrive. Maybe I just jinxed myself.

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Thinking about the job market also has me a little crazy. I know I have four years until I really have to think about that, but there's still a lot of pressure. Hopefully good pressure.

There are folks that have many more credentials than I do, and there are barely any 5/5 teaching load non-tenure track composition jobs available that pay less than $40,000 a year. Would I do that if I had to? Of course. I know I'm not going to get something fantastic right out of school, if I get anything right out of school.

And though I do tend to be pessimistic, hopefully things are on the upswing in academia and the economy and the tandem of both working together. Four years, though not a long time really, tends to be pendulous in the ways it can swing in a small amount of time, especially in academia.

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A lot of music. A lot of movies. I'll try to post something coherent about what you should be listening to and watching next time.

Kansas City

Big Blue is 3-0. Things, despite the many injuries, are looking good. I'm confident. Strong corps equals strong core, or it may be the other way around, which should equal more wins.

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New poems from this second manuscript will now be appearing in future issues of Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Portland Review, and Phoebe.

There are three poems still in the manuscript that haven't been published, and though I don't know if they'll ever be published, they're currently out to many places right now, so we'll see.

I've asked the question in many First Book Interviews about that before: Was there a need to get all the poems published before your book was accepted for publication? I feel like I'm with many of them: when I have stuff to send out, I send out. If I luck out and get some hits, cool, and if not, I keep writing new poems, work on the ones that may need work, and send out again.

I didn't know I was writing a new manuscript two years ago when my MFA was over, but now I know that I was. I've gotten work accepted this time around much more quickly than the poems taken from Ghost Lights, which makes me feel more confident that there's more of a unified whole here, a poetry book rather than a "book of poems," to reference this awesome piece from the Harriet blog by Joel Brouwer.

And a wise and talented poet said to me recently that you should be able to answer the question, "What is your book about?" if asked. I won't give my personal opinion here, but I will say that it's much easier for me to do it this time around than it was last time around.

Regardless, however, it's currently, like many floating around in the world, still just a manuscript. Hopefully that will change eventually.

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Trick 'R Treat was a pleasant and weird Halloween surprised. I'm not sure I'd watch it again, but it's a fun genre / horror movie, especially for one that I'd never heard of.

Away We Go had the potential to be great, but I found too much stuff forced in the script. It got better as it went on, though. It's still hard to see John Krasinski, not matter how much he tries to wear glasses and a beard, as someone different than Jim Halpert.

Also saw The Last 15, the most recent short film by Antonio Campos, whose Afterschool looks like it could be really, really good. He's both young and ballsy, and we need more filmmakers like that these days. Not to mention poets.

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After about a month and a half, we're finally getting close to that completely settled point in New York. Jess changed her name. We've figured out bank accounts. We're both getting regular paychecks now. We know where all the stores and shortcuts are around the area. We still have to explore more of Binghamton, though, and get off the Pkwy, and we still have to get to Ithaca more often, which I imagine will happen when it gets warm. And of course I've been busy busting my ass with this second manuscript. And making sure I'm keeping busy with my schoolwork and everything I need to do to familiarize myself with the English Department and the like.

Soon enough I hope to play catch-up on the First Book Interviews, so we'll see how that goes. With my own second book and my own family unit now to attend to (since I'm married now of course), I know have to take time for other things that I wouldn't have before.

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I'm sure we'll be turning the heat on soon. Goodbye summer.