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Printed from https://p15.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1794711-oh-bother
Rated: 13+ · Book · Biographical · #1794711
hoping for a honey pot on a blustery day

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okay then...


think, think, think...


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January 22, 2018 at 2:19pm
January 22, 2018 at 2:19pm
#927571

...And speaking of hoping for a honey pot on a blustery day...this gal's Flash Fiction "Burnt Springs, Alabama" is shortlisted for the VERA awards at The Vestal Review. The polls show me in the middle of the pack, duking it out with the boys--may I please have your vote? --

Read the stories here and click on Part 2 of the poll. http://www.vestalreview.org/vestal-review-flash-fiction-2014-award//

Thank you!

Sl'inte agus S'och'in,
Health and Peace,

NOVAcatmando


Come visit my Plog: "Invalid Item

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February 15, 2012 at 12:07pm
February 15, 2012 at 12:07pm
#747133

I just finished reading "Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry" by Jane Hirshfield.

And I’m attempting to synthesize what this talented writer shares about the “kind of poetry which resonates.” She opens the book’s preface with a hint, “Poetry’s work is the clarification and magnification of being.” This is both wonderfully encompassing and frighteningly broad to me. I honestly experienced a sense of feeling weighted while I was reading this book. Is that a burden or a gift? Too soon to tell. I have much thought to be made with the material in this book.

For now, I found wisdom about "being" at each gate. There is much to cull through since Hirshfield’s deft hand moves for philosophy to art to sociology. What follows is a summary of elements presented in regards to what constitutes a good poem. I think the quotes relate to all good writing as well.


Every good poem begins in language awake to its own connections – language that hears itself and what is around it, sees itself and what is around it, looks back at those who and what we are.


But good poems always hold more than one knowledge.

Poetic originality appears not only as new content or diction but also in the development of new techniques and forms.


Every great poet leaves the landscape of poetry altered by his or her passage through it.

The mind of poetry makes visible how permeable we are to the winds and moonlight with which we share our house.


Good poetry carries broad information within brief speech.

What a good poem hears, sees, and speaks is what can only become perceptible when inner and outer intertwine.


Good poetry begins with seeing increasingly clearly, in increasingly various ways; but another part of poetry’s true perception is found only in relinquishing more and more of the self to more and more of the world.

But one of the laws of poetry is that no good poem can be wholly pure. A good poem’s blessing are mixed, as love poems, for example, live best in the knowledge of love’s transience.


And the art of poetry remains a daughter of Remembrance – of our wish to feel joined to some fabric that both gives meaning to and is made meaningful by the part of it we are.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

January 25, 2012 at 12:32pm
January 25, 2012 at 12:32pm
#745534


While in angst over writing an “Artist Statement” I came across a cool blog on the subject which also included a gem of a bad example. The tour-de-force crappy sentence was generated by using the CRAP Generator - touted as a grad school “must-have.”

http://www.pixmaven.com/phrase_generator.html

Here is the Critical Response to the Art Product (or CRAP) I generated today:

“I find this work menacing/playful because of the way the disjunctive perturbation of the Egyptian motifs threatens to penetrate the distinctive formal juxtapositions.”

*Laugh* I love it…

“With regard to the issue of content, the optical suggestions of the figurative-narrative line-space matrix brings within the realm of discourse the larger carcass.”

Voilá… new career as an Art Critic here I come…
January 21, 2012 at 8:59pm
January 21, 2012 at 8:59pm
#745264
As I look closely at the title of this blog, I think it would make a great title for my never-to-be-written memoirs (I call first dibs).

Extended metaphor is, of course, a comparison between two things that continues throughout a series of sentences, or lines in a poem, or paragraphs in a story.

Classic examples include "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes where a poem about stairs is an extended metaphor about life, or Robert Frost's famous “ The Road Not Taken” which is about choices and decision-making.

Both of these examples are easy to glean and in my opinion rather predictable. How different is the less natural metaphor, the one that wakes up the brain, the one that becomes memorable.

An EE Cummings extended metaphor poem opening:

she being brand
-new; and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her


In the early 1900’s, Cummings wrote this poem which is all about driving a new car for the first time, but is also about the first act of love with a new lover. Today, in the sex-sells advertising climate of auto sales it may seem 'done'. But at that time this was unique, a mechanical machine embodied as a living being, and it still joyfully invites a proper read.

“The deliberate conjunction of disparate items which we call metaphor is not so much a way of understanding the world but a perpetually exciting way of recreating it…” from James Dickey’s essay, “Metaphor As Pure Adventure.”

How true, and as he notes, author William Blake said, “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”

In Dickey’s own poetry he can be a master at extended metaphor. I was introduced to his poem “The Hospital Window” in class at UT. In this poem, the sterile environment of a hospital, where biological life ends, is likened to a beautiful cathedral of spiritual transformations.

The poem opens:

I have just come down from my father.
Higher and higher he lies
Above me in a blue light
Shed by a tinted window.
I drop through six white floors
And then step out onto pavement.


later the metaphor continues:

Each window possesses the sun
As though it burned there on a wick.
I wave, like a man catching fire.
All the deep-dyed windowpanes flash,
And, behind them, all the white rooms
They turn to the color of Heaven.


then it beautifully moves through the narrator’s story and ends:

High, still higher, still waving,
My recognized face fully mortal,
Yet not; not at all, in the pale,
Drained, otherworldly, stricken,
Created hue of stained glass.
I have just come down from my father.


It takes a skilled writer’s hand to extend a metaphor and not overplay the thing. I hope to achieve such results. Tomorrow will be all about re-writes for me.

* sharpens pencils*



***********
That Dickey poem is “The Hospital Window”:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171439
December 14, 2011 at 3:39pm
December 14, 2011 at 3:39pm
#741782
30. Document the trends in your career field as well as the impact on women's employment in your chosen occupation. Discuss your professional aspirations as well as personal, family, or work needs that motivated you to seek further education. Assessments of need for specific occupation from instructors, colleagues, or professionals employed in that field may also be cited.

I have been looking at this last essay question (above) for the AAUW grant now for over a month. During that time, my responses have ranged from...

wow...

huh...

humm...

and today on the eve before submitting the grant proposal I came up with the following (below). Then re-reading it, I thought it sufficiently controversial to add here and see if it can stir up the very still pot o'bloggsville. Maybe not, but I do hope you read on and feel free to comment *Smirk*.





In the literary canon which is culled into most teaching curriculums there are few minority voices. Unfortunately, even in today’s literary field that imbalance has not changed. As VIDA: Women in Literary Arts documented, numbers reveal the truth of publishing disparities (http://vidaweb.org/the-best-american-count). In the first of her annual counts, 2009, Amy King tallied the gender distribution of major literary awards and “best of” lists, finding that men out-honored women 592 to 295.

Other revealing numbers include:

* In a study conducted between March 2008 and January 2010, 13% of the authors and reviewers in the New York Times and 31% of the authors in C-SPAN'S After Words were women. Since its inception in 1923, Time Magazine has never had a female editor.

* Of the 102 Nobel Prize Winners in Literature, only 12 have been women, and only 3 in the last decade. Since 1948, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has gone to 42 men and just 16 women.

* In the history of the National Book Awards, only 22 percent of the winners have been women. This number has gone down by 7 percent in half a decade and since 2005, only 2 of the 16 National Book Award winners were women.

Those who own the narrative own the culture.

Are we simply to accept the disparity solution suggested by Julianna Baggott? “The key to literary success? Be a man -- or write like one.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122902292....)

With indie and self-publishing technologies developing at such a rapid pace, access to publication for women writers is a’changing. However, we must have educated and well-practiced women writers to gain a voice in the narrative. Unfortunately, easy access publishing has given rise to poorly written materials and a stigmatism for self-publishing. I, myself, have hesitated to go down the self-publication route because of quality and acceptance concerns.

Like many women, I have written about unique life experiences coupled with the added stress of motherhood, dreams-deferred for family, and making a living wage in male dominated professions. I struggle with how to encapsulate that individual expression into literature without losing the female voice. And how to convince a male-centric publishing world that this “different” voice adds to the literary tradition and should be part of the narrative culture.

I believe the answer to these issues, and where in my chosen profession I can play a role, is in mentorship. I’ve seen endeavors that address this disparity by creating forums for women with conversations emphasizing mentorship and building multi-generational communities. Such as,

the OpEd Project Mentor-Editor Program where experienced writers and editors committed to expanding public debate provide a forum to support new and promising women op-ed writers.

and Girls Write Now a space of creative expression for at-risk girls which provides writing and mentoring opportunities to empower the next generation of women writers.

Amidst my own life and writing struggles I am reminded of an early mentor’s authentic teaching - that there lives an essence of real moments, like still life, inside each poem. So, in order for my writing to be authentic it must resonate with my real voice. It is what I hope to achieve for myself and then for others – literary expression in the voice of a woman.


December 10, 2011 at 1:43pm
December 10, 2011 at 1:43pm
#741457
Almost 90 days since I have written anything on WDC – I never thought I’d see this day… but it happens doesn’t it?

Then comes the list of excuses… *RollEyes* the office is an asylum where crazy people are harassed by an even wackier Governor and they are all driving me nuts… true enough… but hey, write anyways.

umm… I have been caught up in a passionate love affair *Heart* that wrenches every brain wave away from my usual dream pattern… eh, get over it, write anyways.

well, my kids have hit a string of catastrophes including a hit-and-run by a Florida black bear… rendering car totaled, nuisance bear deceased, and mom back into kid taxi mode… *Shock* whatever, write anyways.

Anyways, I have been writing… just lacking time to post. I am now matriculated into the University of Tampa’s MFA program for Creative Writing and shortly after the surf and turf dinner remains hit the trash and the empty bubbly bottle clacked inside the recycle bin – the fat hit the fire.

In November instead of my usual NaNo NaNo booboo, I completed 25 pages of poetry due in – it will be analyzed and work-shopped at the January residency. This weekend I have a contest short story to create and a grant application to complete and submit....

(please take a moment to pause and wish me luck on the grant – it could mean $5,000 in tuition $ ;-D)

...then on to 130 pages of workshop materials to review and three books to read...

So with all the heat and sizzle in my world right… I am ready for a large snow storm, *Snow1*
, a loss of power, and a large flashlight to go along with my pen and pad… happy winter writing and stay warm everybody!

*Reading* NOVAcat
September 11, 2011 at 6:19pm
September 11, 2011 at 6:19pm
#733868
I chose to NOT turn on the TV today because I feel as though I've seen the images of the falling Twin Towers too much. The once terrifying images no longer evoke emotion from me, and this is very saddening. Have the hate-mongers won because I am numb to it all?

Instead, I simply prayed. I prayed for the souls lost that day. I prayed for the souls lost in the two senseless wars that followed. I prayed that hateful hearts will not prevail.

*Peace* to you all...



September 10, 2011 at 9:59am
September 10, 2011 at 9:59am
#733749
the essays and applications I mean... not horses...

I have received confirmation from both universities that all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed. Now my fate is left to the admissions review boards... who will scan devour my wonderful manuscript and essay. THANK YOU to all who helped with either, or both.

Speaking of horse racing, though, that is an event I have never seen outside of television. My parents never dragged me to race tracks as a child - I should sue them for a wholesome childhood - so my vision of the tracks looks like a black and white gangster movie filled with fedoras and pug-nosed faces.

Recently I have noticed the delighful new princess Catherine attending races in her fabulous hats and I think this is something I want to do. To spend a sunny afternoon at the races cheering on a horse, carefully selected by the coolness of their name... sipping mint julieps. Who knows, I may make enough money at the tracks to pay for graduate school? *Bigsmile*


August 30, 2011 at 12:11pm
August 30, 2011 at 12:11pm
#732798
“I have a scribbler in my house. She spends her mornings sitting by the window and writing thoughts.” my mother shared with her poetry teacher.

“Really?” the retired dramatist smiled, “bring her next time, she may sit in the back, and scribble.”

In the mid-seventies my family belonged to Cranwell chapel in the Berkshires where a famous playwright and several published writers attended. An author of plays, fiction, and criticism, William Gibson is best known for his drama “The Miracle Worker.” What most people don’t know is that he was first a published poet, and he continued to write poetry through his life.

He invited me to participate and there I sat, quiet in anxiousness, having just turned double-digits and the only child in attendance; overwhelmed and in awe. The first assignment was the deceptively simple haiku. He showed us how mindfulness must exist and how to capture a simple dramatic conflict, of blossoms clinging to branches in the breeze. Tall, gray-haired, and imposing, his forehead furrowed behind the thick black glasses and the heavy eyebrows, Mr. Gibson asked me for a new poem each Sunday. He read them, he sat, smiled kindly, and he talked to me about them; with each reading was an authentic observation spoken in quiet baritone. He gave me a new way of seeing the world around me - filtered through the lens of poetry.

Today, although I am published and currently active with writing projects, it is this powerful command of presence that I miss in my own writing of late. I feel the urge to slip under life’s river surface, delve into a stillness where the senses are heightened. Somewhere deep below the turbulent top where I have tread currents of parenthood, cancer, and divorce; each wave of experience was an opportunity to write because my real conversation with life is through poetry. Yes, writing sustains through these currents, but a Master’s program I believe will provide a reflective environment where I can dive into a deep quiet consideration of my poems.

I aspire to broaden my publication audience and have a poetry book of my own published. My current projects include a couple of photograph and poetry books, where I am collaborating with other artists. My most recent accomplishment is the acceptance of “What exactly does an oncologist do?” by Ars Medica, a biannual literary journal that explores the interface between the arts and healing, and this is the first of my ‘cancer’ poems published.

This past winter term, I was teaching a poetry class I have taught for several years, and one student stood out above the others. We held a long conversation over particulars of her writing and how to move to where it brought both the delicacy and the impact she sought. At the end of the term she expressed her appreciation and shared a truism that I have found in the teachers of my past who truly mentored me. She said she had felt an immersion in her writing that allowed her to deepen the experience and emotion of her poetry. As gratified as I was to read her compliments, I realized I wanted what she received.

It is with sincerity that I say, with all resume building goals aside, I’d like to feel a measured heartfelt participation in writing and to be very present in my poetry. The student’s comments reminded me of William Gibson, and how authentic his writing was, no matter its elegance or the polish of language. Somehow I knew the importance of this person in my life, without even understanding his biography. That memory in itself has a presence which lives in me like a poem. It is the beauty of those simple significant moments that gives me pause, which I breathe to capture, and that brings me to a Master of Fine Arts program.


***************************************

So, version one or version two?
new intro - changed some in the text - think it is ready - ? *Worry*
August 25, 2011 at 9:03pm
August 25, 2011 at 9:03pm
#732461
2 1/2 pages double-spaced.... but does it cover what they want? will it set me apart get me in a MFA program? *Worry*

         A gaggle of giggles followed by shushes. We, ten little angels, scrunched tightly to the hallway walls waiting. The netting of my skirt caught on the neighboring girl’s cardboard wings, “Hey watch it,” I whispered to another wave of nervous giggles which ceased as the director walked by. Tall, gray-haired, and imposing, his forehead furrowed behind the thick black glasses and the heavy eyebrows. He stopped, smiled kindly, and spoke in quiet baritone, “You angels will be next and I want to hear those lovely singing voices in the back row.” Resting his hand on my shoulder in an encouraging pat, he directed a reminder to me, “follow the shepherds at an easy pace,” then slipped silently away towards the altar doors.

         In the mid-seventies my family belonged to a church in Massachusetts where a famous playwright and several other published writers attended. At this little parish, we put on religious theatrical productions; I remember vividly participating in the plays of parishioner William Gibson’s “The Body and The Wheel” and “The Butterfingers Angel, Mary and Joseph, Herod the Nut, and The Slaughter of Twelve Hit Carols in a Pear Tree.” An author of plays, fiction, and criticism, William Gibson is best known for his drama “The Miracle Worker.” What most people don’t know is that he was first a published poet, and he continued to write poetry through his life.

         When Mr. Gibson offered a poetry class at Cranwell chapel, my mother told this dramatist and writer that she had a scribbler in her house. He invited me to participate and there I sat, quiet in anxiousness, having just turned double-digits and the only child in attendance; overwhelmed and in awe. The first assignment was the deceptively simple haiku. He showed us how mindfulness must exist and how to capture a simple dramatic conflict, of blossoms clinging to branches in the breeze. Mr. Gibson asked me for a new poem each Sunday. He read them, he sat, and he talked to me about them; with each reading was an authentic observation. He gave me a new way of seeing the world around me - filtered through the lens of poetry.

         Although I am published and currently active with my writing projects, it is this powerful command of presence that I miss in my own writing of late. I feel the urge to slip under life’s river surface, delve into a stillness where the senses are heightened. Somewhere deep below the turbulent top where I have tread currents of parenthood, cancer, and divorce. Each wave of experience was an opportunity to write because my real conversation with life is through poetry; it sustains through these currents, but a Master’s program I believe will provide a reflective environment where I can dive into a deep quiet consideration of my poems.

         I aspire to broaden my publication audience and have a poetry book of my own published. My current projects include a couple of photograph and poetry books, where I am collaborating with other artists. My most recent accomplishment is the acceptance of “What exactly does an oncologist do?” by Ars Medica, a biannual literary journal that explores the interface between the arts and healing, and this is the first of my ‘cancer’ poems published.

         This past winter term, I was teaching a poetry class I have taught for several years, and one student stood out above the others. We held a long conversation over particulars of her writing and how to get to where it brought the impact she sought. At the end of the term she expressed her appreciation and shared a truism that I have found in the teachers of my past who truly mentored me. She said that she felt an immersion in her writing that allowed her to deepen the experience and emotion of her poetry. As gratified as I was to read her compliments, I realized I wanted what she received.

         It is with sincerity that I say, all resume building goals aside, I’d like to feel a measured heartfelt participation in writing and to be very present in my poetry. The student’s comments reminded me of William Gibson; somehow I knew the importance of this person in my life, without even understanding his biography. That in itself has a presence which lives in me like a poem. It is the beauty of those simple significant moments that brings me to a Master of Fine Arts program.

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