Collage No. 3

Collage No. 2

Collage No. 1

My Favorite Poetry of 2011

Chronologically speaking, and a couple more than 2010.

1. One With Others: [A little book of her days] - C.D. Wright
2. Broken World - Joseph Lease
3. People are Tiny in Paintings of China - Cynthia Arrieu-King
4. Human Rights: Poems - Joseph Lease
5. Before and After: Poems - Charlie Smith
6. The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems - Sherman Alexie
7. One Stick Song - Sherman Alexie
8. World Comix: Poems - Charlie Smith
9. Lighthead - Terrance Hayes
10. American Prodigal - Liam Rector
11. Don't Explain - Betsy Sholl
12. Ordinary Sun - Matthew Henriksen
13. Destroyer of Man: Selected Poems - Dominic Owen Mallary
14. In The Surgical Theatre - Dana Levin
15. The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems - Robert Hass
16. Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair - S. Jane Sloat
17. Ruby for Grief - Michael Burkard
18. Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry - Jim Daniels
19. Our List of Solutions - Carrie Oeding
20. Oh Dear Deer, - Linda Dove
21. In the Next Galaxy - Ruth Stone
22. Polaroid Parade - Paige Taggart
23. On Happier Lawns - Justin Marks
24. You: Poems - Frank Stanford

Sleeping In

Happer & Jo

Today's the day I've been waiting for. Tonight, actually. Gene and I will drive up to Michigan and collect our Jo. She's been riding the train since Monday, viewing the great northern tier of America, from Vancouver, Washington to Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, to Chicago, and then, finally, the little town of Niles. 50-some-odd hours on the Amtrak, something she's always wanted to do. She texted in the night to say she and her partner were kicking butt at euchre. Kindred spirits. I'm dying to hear her tales. It's been six months since we've seen her, a year since she's been home. There is a new dog waiting to greet her, a rescue mutt that I brought home Monday. We think he is somewhere between one and two years old. He's a loving fellow recovering from a nasty case of mange. His fur is a little patchy. We're calling him Happer.

The Hearth Readers and Writers Series

The poets and writers will be doing their thing today, Dec. 18th, at Fiddler's Hearth. What exactly is "their thing"? Hell if I know. It's an engima wrapped in a mystery. Come see.

2:30 Neil Kelly
2:35 Chad Forbegd
2:40 Charmi Keranen
2:45 Roger Chrastil
2:50 McKenzie Tozan
2:55 Sue Barnard
3:00 BREAK
3:05 Jeff Tatay
3:10 Kristin LaFollette
3:15 Jordan Eash
3:20 Becky Pelky

3:30 - featured reader Steve Henn

Hospital Approved Poetry

(If only we knew which one.)

The N95 respirator needs to have a proper fit to be effective. It has to have a tight face fit. And then we do what we call a fit test, which is the employee dons the mask, presses the seal tightly all the way around their nose and mouth. Then we put the large -- we. The employee health nurse is who does this. They put a large plastic hood on top of the employee's head. There's a small hole and there are squirt bottles, if you will, that aerosolize a saccharin solution in different concentrations. And they squirt that saccharin solution and aerosolize it into the hood while the employee is reading a poem. And the words in that poem mimic different facial movements. So the premise is that if they can taste that saccharin at all during that test, they don't have a proper seal.

The Christmas Card

It's Christmas card season. Do you do that thing? We do, usually late, but nevertheless... If it was me, I'd completely shirk the duty. But Gene always comes through and gets them out. He has a good sense of tradition and community. Later this week he'll take this photo and have it made into a card. I'm thinking about the text to go with our faces. It's tricky. We all have that one friend who is completely over the top. But that's okay. Each year we wait anxiously for that letter, dying to see how this year can possibly top last. That letter came last week at our house. It was a little disappointing. I've come to expect too much, I suppose. I was primed for the announcement of a Pulitzer or the like. Alas. There's always next year. None of that has helped me write my tastefully understated lines, however. Maybe something along the lines of "The Happy Couple Tours A Distilllery. And many happy returns."

A Contest

And it's better than Publishers Clearinghouse. Truly.

Big Wonderful Press is offering one free copy of The Afterlife is a Dry County over at Goodreads. But you gotta go now to enter and maybe win. I mean now. Today. Get over there.

And Another Thing

Hot Metal Bridge is up! It looks pretty spiffy.

From A Window

Boredom was not
the reason.

The body reels.

Catches.

A mind floats

down.

The Many Paths To Enlightenment

Too much? Nah...

If you are so inclined to purchase a copy of The Afterlife is a Dry County, you can pick your method of madness:

Support the small press: Big Wonderful Press. After all, they've made this all possible!

Shop at Amazon: The Afterlife at Amazon.

Shop at Barnes & Noble: The Afterlife at B&N.

It's Out There!

So it's Cyber Monday and you've just gotta shop. Or not. But look, you can do this: Big Wonderful Press has The Afterlife is a Dry County available for pre-order, shipping Dec. 6th! Go there. Do that. Please, please, please!! It won't feel slimy or shoppy or commercial. It will feel good and wholesome. Very good.

Of Poets and Musicians

Or musicians and poets. I love them both. If it's a question of which came first, who knows. I'm open to hear your views. Maybe we could smash them together and call them posicians. Or muets. It could get messy.

However...

Joe Robinson has a better idea that you might want to check out. Over at Ham Kicker he's inviting musicians and poets to do some collaborative work. Check it out. Get in touch with him. Submit a few things.

Whaling Poetic

I bought a pile of dusty books for three bucks at my grandparents' auction. This week, Chris O. was thumbing through one of them, an 1879 edition of The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore. She found four-leaf clovers and various slips of paper, including this ad to see The Monster Whale. We're doing some research, but we think it might be from the Chicago World's Fair, 1893. Nice bookmark, but the reader only got through about one-third of Mr. Moore. I wonder if he/she went to see the whale.

Hearthside

Naoko Fujimoto reading @ Fiddler's Hearth
A duet with poet David Dodd Lee
David reading his poem Self Portrait
Naoko reading her Japanese translation of same

David Dodd Lee, Naoko Fujimoto, yours truly,

and featured poet Alessandra Simmons

Lilith

(Drafting again - ekphrasis)

----------------After John Collier, 1892


The Garden is dark

---------The Nude luminous

Breasts pubescent, slightly upturned

Head atilt
Hair aflame

Her hips suggest a motion
-----------The memory of sway

The Snake is coiling

Comprehension around
A perfectly formed leg

Her sex is encircled
(Dark shadowed)

Her arms play a variation

------------Upon The Grande Pose

She’s holds aloft a Creature
That hasn’t been named

Her chin rests upon the Serpent

She is smiling

Her eyes might be adoring

Her eyes might be closed

The Hobbyist

Q. Do you have any limitations on things you can do right now because of this accident?
A. No. I do all things more carefully.
Q. What kind of hobbies do you have? What do you do when you're not driving?
A. Do you really want to know that?
Q. Yes.
A. I better don't mention.
Q. I'm sorry?
A. I better don't mention. It's a really personal thing. It doesn't have anything to do with drugs or -- but it's very personal. I do sports. I like dancing. I don't drink. The other thing is a little bit ugly but --
Q. Okay. I need to know what sort of hobbies you have.
A. It might not be a hobby, but I'm a swinger. I didn't want to tell you guys. It's kind of not normal.

Auctioning The Memories

I'm bidder No. 1
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Come On Sugar

It's been a good couple of months. Poems, poems everywhere. You Can Use The Colored Pencils Any Way You Choose is a sample bite of sugar at Sugar House Review. Check it out, along with all the other delicious goods.

Gently Read Dough

Hey, mista, have you got a dolla? Just one? So there's this cool site that does book reviews, Gently Read Literature, and they're trying to raise some dough to, gasp, pay their reviewers! I know, I know. You can go here to get the fundraising details, or here to read reviews, or here to see a review I wrote for doggone free! Okay. You've probably already seen that last one, but you get the point, no?

American Lager

(Been fussing with this for a while. Maybe it's done. Maybe not.)


It’s a casualty of the mind
To think death before sunshine

The Amish horses, for instance,
Aren’t dead in the fields

They’re dreaming

I could have been a Budweiser

Big Wonderful News!

Big Wonderful Press has accepted my chapbook The Afterlife is a Dry County for publication! Okay, so if I've seen your face, this isn't news. But it's news here and I'm quite pleased to be able to say so. I like them like them. You'll be the first to know once it's available. After me.

You may now return to your previously scheduled life.

Sunsets & Toy Guns

These last couple of weeks of fall have been out of this world.

If you can't be happy now...

Mary's first auction was a junky one, but she did score this toy gun.

Dangerous woman.
Later, everyone was out at Silver Beach. Again.

I guess there's a little sadness in the knowing the colors won't remain.

I know people, several of them, who are thinking of blizzards. I'll give the blizzard its due.
When it's time. Not quite yet, please.

A Moment of Inter|Rupture

I have a poem up at interrupture, (blogger refuses to let me format the name correctly) which is gorgeous and full of great works all around. Read, read, read!

And then, oh, yes, go out and play. This weather is amazing and, as everyone is saying, it won't last. The snakes know it, too. I keep tripping over them in the woods.

Sunset Atop Mount LeConte

Just as scary as it seems.
But completely worth it.

Hush Puppy

& BBQ
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The Grove Park Inn

We didn't see F. Scott, but the table linens are being spread.
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Asheville

Street performers. I'm in love.
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12 Bones

Was unfortunately closed.
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Tupelo Honey Cafe

Waiting for sweet potato pancakes and goat cheese grits.
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Woodford Reserve

Fermenting.
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Hunter's Louisville

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Constant Spring

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Up and At 'Em

My poem Native America(n) is up at A Clean, Well-Lighted Place! Please to enjoy and all that nonsense.

Making Out With The Mailman

Poor Claudia, Finishing Line and Dancing Girl, oh, my!
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Memories of Heat

For L.

Back then we climbed
a split rail fence

shinnied sixteen-year-old
limbs onto a tarred black

porch roof, stripped naked
and laid our fulsome bodies

down until the heat drove
us elsewhere. It was 1980.

We both had decade old
domestic skin melting scars.

The coffee. The ironing.

Accidental warming
beyond our control.

We took physics and learned
that heat is an entity.

There is no such thing as cold.

Bonneyville

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Grave

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Hunger

My lone goat Bud is growing a garden, pumpkins, tomatoes, mint, a gourd or two. Various things I gave her that she didn't feel like eating. She keeps everything nicely weeded. Last night Sylvia came to the back door with half of a ripe cantaloupe in her mouth. This is all true.

Hello My Pretties

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I Knew It!

Duck weed is not fond of full sun.
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Come and Gone

Closing night for Tom @ The Wagon Wheel.
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The Mailman Cometh

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Come Hither

Another summer is poised to close. My mind is so low on the horizon it's making inappropriate gestures to fall. Come hither. Quickly. I'd like to talk to you. In fact, I'm making arrangements for hikes and bonfires and Deep As Lake Superior Apple Pie. My poems are lining up for migration into a chapbook. My offspring are polishing their shoes for school. I'm falling into silly rhyming. Oh, do come hither. Do, do, do.

Hop Harvest

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Nectar-ing

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Out Of The Blue

A text from Jo came buzzing.

I saw a dead guy yesterday.

What!!!!

There was a car accident in the park and I happened to be driving on the Avenue (of the Giants) before the ambulance got there. It was a motorcylist. It was pretty bad. His brains were over the road.

What did you do?

I directed traffic for a few minutes until calfire got there. Then I went to a birthday party and ate blackberry pie.

She's come a long way from the girl who wouldn't mow the lawn ever again after running over a bull frog. She is traveling deep into her own life and I wish I could see her face, although I don't know what I'd say.

Black Butterfly

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Voir Dire

(Working too much, but still seeing the world. Picking a jury for a "bad baby" med mal case. The attorney wants to know how the potential jurors will feel if they see the child.)

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Would it be hard for you not to make a decision before you hear all the evidence?
VENIREWOMAN: Like right now I'm impartial, but seeing something like that it could. I guess sometimes your feelings, you know, give out on you more than your mind.

Rain Barrel Days

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Silver Beach

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What To My Wondering Eyes Should Appear

The Koi in our rain barrel are a mite shy, staying down low, deep beneath the surface, until it happens to rain. Then the water ripples and four golden, swirling fish spiral air-side to sample the duckweed. Or check the forecast. I don't know. I rarely feed them. Their job is to keep the mosquito larvae under control. In between showers I often wonder if they've starved to death or succumbed to the heat, in general whether they're still alive. Apparently they're doing fine. This morning eight fish came swirling, four 1-inch darklings from the four 5-inch golds.

Battlefields

There's something to be said for a little battling in the extremes. Gene prefers his battles to be fought in the winter at 10 degrees with a snow shovel. Bah. I'm more of a summertime, goat shit-shoveling battlefield girl. When our engagements with nature are over, he builds a fire, I spray myself off with a garden hose.

Heat & Memories of Heat

It's 9:00 p.m. and 90 degrees here in Indiana.

I'm steeping sangrias. No one wants to move.

I'm doing a little scanning in the comfort of air conditioning.

This is me oceanside, in all my blurry glory.

I imagine I was about 13.

It must have been hot then, too.

Signs & Symptoms

Q. Is pain a sign or a symptom?
A. Pain is purely subjective. So it has to be a symptom. It cannot be a sign. A sign is what a physician sees.

Full Immersion

I've been in the full family & friends immersion program for the past week, a funeral, a wedding, a first birthday party, a trip to the dunes. Solitude and I are now dating, on the sly. I dig his beaches, the shifting sand.

In the meantime, though, interrupture has taken The South Shore. The next issue will be out in the fall. Check it out.

Passing Time

Grandpa Rex Anderson @ Jo's graduation party June 2009

March 18, 1925-July 6, 2011

Tongue In Shoe

(Some defendants are more interesting than others.)

THE DEFENDANT: Yes. Your Honor, for the record, provisions for a JOA (judgment of acquittal) have been established by what was brought forth prior to the testimony of the shoe.

THE DEFENDANT: Your Honor, before the jury comes in, I would like a jury of my peers, that is to include those that have been arrested or convicted.

THE COURT: Okay.

THE DEFENDANT: Those that are not arrested or have not been convicted are not a jury of my peers.

As You Go Through The Tears

(Do I have to fix it? Really?)

Q. And what is your weekly unemployment benefit that you received?
A. It's 311, I believe.
Q. $311 a week?
A. I believe so, but then it was reduced a little bit after that and it keeps getting reduced as you go through the tears of unemployment.

Boy It'll Be Gone Soon

Sent away.

Low Ceilings

Sent away.

The Afterlife is a Dry County

Sent away.

The Well-Tempered Clavicle

Sent away.

Another Opening

Waiting for Tarzan (and Tom) at The Wagon Wheel
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A Serious(ly) Working Environment

Jo - keeping the wild camper in line.
Tree action.

Hugger.

I don't know a thing about western flowers.

Looks like wild iris.

Our Indiana trees seem a little puny now.

I imagine the west coast is in our future.

But maybe Oregon.

Nope, I haven't a clue.

@ Michel Schlumberger Winery

Jo has a car, we have wine. All is well.
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Bull Creek Pioneer Cemetery

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Albee Creek

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@ Albee Creek

Jo loves her job, but she's been biking ten miles every day through the redwoods, and bear and mountain lion territory, to get there, and then another ten miles home. She's okay with that. Me, not so much. We're going car and bear spray shopping.
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