Catching Up (sort of)

Okay, so my last post dealt with the five hour delay at JFK on my way to Chicago for AWP. Finally got there and spent a few hectic days. had the chance to catch up with some folks--Pablo, Bill Z., Don Bogen, Joseph Lease, Greg Orfalea, got to meet Rusty Morrison who has expressed some interest in the Hinojosa translations.

But the hectic quality was worsened when my hard drive died halfway through the conference (fortunately the folks at the Genius Bar on 14th Street were able to save my data) but it was disconcerting all the same. Was able to use my iPod touch but not the same. Had a good time in Plano, workshops, sold books, met some good people (hello to Lisa Thibedeaux).

Back in NY,getting the computer repaired, teaching, took a fall, seem to have bruised/broken some ribs (still painful). Taxes to do.

But check out the new bandoftheland.com website. Nicely done.

A poem:

Tubing

As we started my son
Jesse talked about technology
how the people who invent things
never know all the things
their inventions will eventually do.

After one small stretch of rapids
into a longer stretch of calm
we shifted to what was there:

the sky, dazzling
the river, cool
a blue heron sailing high
purple and blue dragonflies coupling
flowers emerging from the rock
and trees and green all along
the river’s side:
Queen Anne’s Lace
Joe Pye weed
and something
whose name I couldn’t remember.

Yellow Jerusalem artichoke
Jesse said, telling me
how a friend of a friend’s father
had started a company
that made pasta out of the roots.

abrazos a todos,

Mark

helpless at Kennedy

Okay,so I thought I'd be on my way to awp by now, but am waiting for a flight that will be delayed by at least two hours. No fun. Have not blogged in a while because I've been busy with school, working on Hinojosa, new poems, all the usual. But the semester has started well--a good intro poetry class (some good poems, interesting readings of poets, strong conversations including one yesterday around identity that came out of the essay by Rich, "Split at the Root."

Pitchers and catchers report tomorrow, so spring is not too far away.

An old poem to remind me:

Snow, late March, in Brooklyn

here it comes
sideways with the wind
racing down this street
and everything is dusted by it
cars, trees, ground
but it’s the end of March
for God’s sake
spring is here
so of course it melts
and it keeps that up
snowing and melting
all afternoon
and everyone
and by this I mean everyone
even the little kids who in November
would have been oohing
dreams of sledding and snowmen
just wish` it would stop
and finally leave us alone

this was one long winter
it was cold and snowy
and it’s time for it to be over
we have baseball bats and gloves
in the hallway
waiting for their turn
let winter come
at its time again
but for now, for right now,
let us move on



Saludos,

Mark

Passing days

It's cold outside and I've been inside most of the time, working on Hinojosa translations, working on new poems, all to the good, I think. Yesterday read Toni Morrison's A Mercy which was very Toni Morrison--beautiful writing, interesting characters, nothing actually new except for the setting in the 17th century. But that in itself made for something to think about, the layers of slavery, indenture, freedom, the nature of a country before it is a country, the question of the spirit of a people before they are a people.

These ideas about being a people seem important these days. I think to the Democratic primaries and how I was always intrigued by Obama's use of we and our and Clinton's use of I and me and how I was drawn to that in Obama (note Frank Rich in the Times today talking about how in his inaugural speech Obama did not say fellow Americans but fellow citizens. This reminds me of how Dewey, when he talks about the role of education in American society is not to produce workers but citizens, people willing and hopeful of being a part of the democracy.

School starts tomorrow. Looking forward to the strange early chaos of the first days, never as fun as when the work is started but there is a newness. I know hardly any of the students in my intro poetry class and in my Poet in New York classes. So meeting and greeting. More on this, of course, as we go along.

And here's a poem:

Tú Quieres Saber

de pronto entiendo es una pregunta
y yo contesto nada
as in
suddenly I understand it is a question
and I answer nothing
the days are too streaky
running into each other
without good reasons
which is why memory always seems
so relevant and present
no difference between
a short time ago and
a long time ago
when I use one phrase
say, are we there?
I might as well have used the other
where are we?
even though
this seems to confuse
anyone I talk to
then I’m confused too
weren’t we just in Mexico
or Costa Rica
or Nicaragua
Colombia? Ecuador? Peru
didn’t we just drive to Nova Scotia
didn’t we talk
aren’t you dead
and you
and you
can I have another drink
aren’t I already drinking
así es: so it is
una cabeza llena de preguntas
a head full of questions
a month full of questions
hello, this is September
sometimes for thirty days
sometimes forever

abrazos a todos.

Mark

checking in

So being on break seems to have meant more work than I'd have thought, in part because of having to turn in grades (no easy task when you have have to evaluate 63 final projects, think about things like participation, earlier assignments, and oddly enough, grades are due on the 30th of December but university offices are closed until 5 January, there's some planning), the discovery that the PEN Translation grant application deadline is this week (and not at February 1), and the realization that if I didn't get through some other work (for work I'll be doing later this year) I'd never move forward.

Happily, I got the grades in, finished the application and have started working on some new poems. So the complaining ends. Next week I do have to go into school to get readers in place for two classes I'm teaching in the spring.

But here is a poem I'm pleased with:

Music Central

on this one F train
on violin and trombone
two men are playing
Those Were the Days
a song from when
I was young
about a woman growing older
I remember watching
the singer sing the song
on television
I think, was it the Ed Sullivan Show
now someone is
playing an accordion
something sweet
and just as familiar
though I can’t put
a name on it
at the next stop
Delancey
he’s off the train
but like
Those Were the Days
a song from when
I was young
when really there weren’t any days
to remember or regret
the way there are now


abrazos a todos

Mark

working days

Lots of work today, some rather banal (grocery shopping, taking the vacuum cleaner in for repairs) but also a good deal of work on the poetry manuscript. Editing, thinking about how to organize it in the way that makes the most sense, and I think I put something together worthwhile. Will know more when my editor gets to look at it (soon is the hope).

A poem that comes from spring:

This Belongs To

the tree frog sound today
sounds the same as
last night’s cricket
though I’m sure this isn’t true
cricket tree frog same
still my ears hear
what my ears hear
I am not confused
by crow call and blue-jay caw
I can tell the difference
between passenger train rattle
and freight
though if asked
to describe
I’d have no good response
beyond the shoulder shrug of
“oh, you know…”
a dog barks
dogs bark more
sound of pick-up on a half-paved road
bee drone
fly buzz
from the radio float
spring training baseball voices
I turn the sound off
and the game isn’t there
the rest of the afternoon

abrazos,

Mark

happy new year (how original)

Okay.

I've been off the blog for a long time and I can say why (long hard days of teaching, writing, book tour traveling) whatever. I thought it would be an easy thing to just sit down every day or so but I was wrong and so (mea culpa) I've been a bad blogger.

New Year's resolution: to blog more.

So let me start by simply wishing all my friends a good year. This last one has been interesting, hard and wonderful ( Poet in New York, the economy, and Obama, in that order), and I've had a chance to travel and meet with old friends, make new ones, as the Poet in New York readings took me all over the country.

I'll have more to write in the next day or so.

But here's a revised poem from the new manuscript that the wonderful Donna Brook has been editing.

How Nice This Is

blue jays in the yard
scare other birds away
then come squirrels
and the jays retreat
cawing in the clouds

the day goes like that
arrivals, departures
I go to the couch
and think how nice this is
how it’s how life should be
looking ahead I think
the whole house needs cleaning
all the walls need painting
I decide instead
to get outside

it’s cold
which is good
breathing deeply
my eyes catch the eyes
of a small girl walking by
with her mother
she looks at me
eyes and eyes
she looks at me and smiles


abrazos,

Mark

long time passing

Okay, so it's been a long time since I've blogged but that doesn't mean that nothing is happening. In fact, the opposite of course. So much. Teaching: I really love the three classes I'm teaching this semester: Intermediate Poetry (new for me, and the students have done some wonderful writing, we've read Whitman, Pound, had student reports on Dickinson, Crane, Amy Lowell, tomorrow one on Eliot), Arts of Sport (again, a new one, which has allowed us to read some really good writing, Hunter Thompson, David Halberstam, Williams, Berrigan, Koch, Clampitt, Dean Young, William Rhoden's Forty Million Dollar Slaves, as well as watch the movie Glory Road; right now we're about to move from issues of race in sport to gender, which will culminate in seeing A League of Their Own, then on to case studies of various sports in the U.S.) and Spanish Surrealism (which it seems like I taught last semester but the number of students has gone from 27 to 38 and this changes how I have to think about it--tomorrow we look at the last of Poet in New York and then move on to Alberti's Sobre los Angeles).

And writing. Trying to get in four or five hours a week of poetry. Of translating. It's hard but worth the effort. The Hinojosa translations are out there (some). Go to tinhouse.com and the lost and found page and you'll see a little piece I did (which also appears in the magazine) but also has three translations. Waiting to hear back from a press on a proposal for the whole book. Cross your fingers.

Busy October:

Reading October 10 w/Pablo from Poet in New York at Teachers & Writers. Go to twc.org for more info.

Panel: October 16, ALTA convention (Minneapolis) on Poet in New York (chaired by Doug Unger)
Reading: October 17, ALTA Convention (Minneapolis) from Poet in New York 3-4.

Panel: October 29, UNLV on Poet in New York, 7:30 (check UNLV University Forum Series)
Reading: October 30, Las Vegas, from Poet in New York (will update).

November: Miami International Book Fair. Details forthcoming.

Okay, so that's the quick return to blog land. Jesse is cool, Katherine the greatest and Cannonball a woof.

Saludos y abrazos y l'shana tova.

Mark