One of those days when you think or know that winter really is over. Walking around Brooklyn, something warm and slightly achy in the air, the streets crowded with people, every people, and the sidewalks so full to get by takes patience and patience and everybody knows and nobody minds and folk are smiling, shyly, as they acknowledge that we, yes, are all just strolling (not striding, not hurrying) but strolling along together.
So revisions this early afternoon and they were good and lazy and then a long walk in Prospect Park with Christian McEwen who is in town for a few days and we criss-crossed and zagged, Cannonball pulled and pulling, and Long Meadow was so full it was hard to know where to walk so it was step here step there. And Christian and I just talked about the usual kinds of things, lives and poetry, selves and friends, the different kinds of nostalgia, the different kinds of hope. We talked about the book she's writing on slowness, a possible new book together on walking (hard to believe we did Alphabet of the Trees a decade ago). And it was fun to return home and sit at the table drinking iced tea after having walked and wonder what a book about walking would look like.
Then Christian left and I sort of worked. Revisions again but this time in early evening. Some reading over student work (the short day left until school starts again). Katherine came home from the studio. Jesse played music, wrote. Black beans and veal with lots of secrets for dinner. Then some writing, revision some more. NCAA Basketball on the tube with the sound off a good deal of the time. Another walk with Cannonball. More writing. Now this. And then to Melville and to bed. Not so bad a day at all.
Showing posts with label Brooklyn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brooklyn. Show all posts
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Friday, July 17, 2009
Moleskin Finished
In the past several days I've been feeling like I haven't been getting any work done--in part this is because the days have seemed slightly stressful and out of order. Early in the week we dropped Katherine off to do wash and went hunting for this state park which is supposed to have some wonderful views and by the time Jesse and I got there (getting lost, it seemed, several times, our map made no sense given the way the roads really went) we realized we had to leave to get Katherine. On the drive back (a switchback road that was kind of fun) there were some beautiful views and we stopped three times so Jesse could take photos and the day wouldn't seem a complete loss.
And Wednesday I had to drive back down to Brooklyn, run some errands, come back Thursday. City traffic and construction made the trip less than fun to drive. Getting back to the cottage I felt so out of sorts, out of myself, all the little things to do having piled up to make me feel like my time had been wasted (except I have to admit for Wednesday night, when some friends came over and one, Peter Wallace, who runs the Brooklyn Artists Gym--a very cool place- stayed until 1:30 or so in the morning and we talked about some good stuff, his upcoming trip with his son to Alaska to kayak, which led to parenting in general, then art, teaching, the spiritual life that no one really wants to talk about and so on).
But today, with Katherine and Jesse going off to a state park much closer by, I wrote for a long time and finished my most recent moleskin, which suggests to me that I have been doing things--it has 41 first draft poems in it, with 18 of them having been written since the beginning of July. So with that, and the translating and the typing of translations, it seems to me I've done a lot more than I thought.
There's always something about finishing a moleskin, the sense that you've accomplished something. It's full of notes, poems, lists, phone numbers. Some of the notes are for classes I teach (Spanish Surrealism has three moleskins of notes). Part of me wonders if I should go through them and collect the notes in a central location except that I like going back for the notes not only for the notes but for seeing what I was writing about/thinking about at the time. I like how it makes me remember.
An e-mail from Dick Lourie with suggestions for three poems that will appear in the fall Hanging Loose most of which seemed pretty dead-on. I've incorporated those into the Tourist at a Miracle manuscript which he now has and which he begins copy-editing. He's good at this, very good, in fact, and I'm interested in what happens next.
Tonight, dinner at a friend's in Willow (who just this second called to give directions to her house--mystical moments). Sunday a barbecue with some other friends. I have a better social life in Woodstock than I do in Brooklyn. Amazing.
Saludos,
Mark
And Wednesday I had to drive back down to Brooklyn, run some errands, come back Thursday. City traffic and construction made the trip less than fun to drive. Getting back to the cottage I felt so out of sorts, out of myself, all the little things to do having piled up to make me feel like my time had been wasted (except I have to admit for Wednesday night, when some friends came over and one, Peter Wallace, who runs the Brooklyn Artists Gym--a very cool place- stayed until 1:30 or so in the morning and we talked about some good stuff, his upcoming trip with his son to Alaska to kayak, which led to parenting in general, then art, teaching, the spiritual life that no one really wants to talk about and so on).
But today, with Katherine and Jesse going off to a state park much closer by, I wrote for a long time and finished my most recent moleskin, which suggests to me that I have been doing things--it has 41 first draft poems in it, with 18 of them having been written since the beginning of July. So with that, and the translating and the typing of translations, it seems to me I've done a lot more than I thought.
There's always something about finishing a moleskin, the sense that you've accomplished something. It's full of notes, poems, lists, phone numbers. Some of the notes are for classes I teach (Spanish Surrealism has three moleskins of notes). Part of me wonders if I should go through them and collect the notes in a central location except that I like going back for the notes not only for the notes but for seeing what I was writing about/thinking about at the time. I like how it makes me remember.
An e-mail from Dick Lourie with suggestions for three poems that will appear in the fall Hanging Loose most of which seemed pretty dead-on. I've incorporated those into the Tourist at a Miracle manuscript which he now has and which he begins copy-editing. He's good at this, very good, in fact, and I'm interested in what happens next.
Tonight, dinner at a friend's in Willow (who just this second called to give directions to her house--mystical moments). Sunday a barbecue with some other friends. I have a better social life in Woodstock than I do in Brooklyn. Amazing.
Saludos,
Mark
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