Worked seriously hard all evening on a new poem and a new Hinojosa translation. Did watch some of the Olympics but was very good at sticking to a plan.
Thanks to the many people who wrote about Tourist on Poetry Daily. Many thanks.
Mark
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Sunday, February 28, 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
Saturday, October 20, 2007
20 October 2007
Day two of blogging, what does one say--worked/revised two poems (measuring, power play--still need some work) but happy with them--it's a funny thing to write about the poems without showing them but if they're not ready? And since what they're about is themselves (one is about travel? about understanding and not understanding? the other is about how to see those who one doesn't want to be affected by as powerless?).
Long walk with Jesse and Cannonball, Jesse helping out because I think I bruised or broke some ribs a week or so ago and they really hurt if I exert myself (a sneeze when we got back doing me in).
Also wrote to Jonathan Mayhew jonathanmayhew's blog because he sent me his chapter on Koch and Lorca and it has some very good work in it. It reminded me of the work that Pablo Medina is right now doing on Octavio Paz, Paz's idea of the problem with North American poetry being that it lacks a certain quality due to the loss of (the eradication of) Native American culture. Williams and Crane, I think, try to do something about this, but it does suggest why North American poetry owes so much to European poetry (despite Whitman?) and why there's a different kind of rootedness (secretas raices, as Paz puts it) in Latin American poetry, though less so in places like Argentina which has a similar problem with Native American culture.
Here is something that makes me happy (it arrived yesterday):
Long walk with Jesse and Cannonball, Jesse helping out because I think I bruised or broke some ribs a week or so ago and they really hurt if I exert myself (a sneeze when we got back doing me in).
Also wrote to Jonathan Mayhew jonathanmayhew's blog because he sent me his chapter on Koch and Lorca and it has some very good work in it. It reminded me of the work that Pablo Medina is right now doing on Octavio Paz, Paz's idea of the problem with North American poetry being that it lacks a certain quality due to the loss of (the eradication of) Native American culture. Williams and Crane, I think, try to do something about this, but it does suggest why North American poetry owes so much to European poetry (despite Whitman?) and why there's a different kind of rootedness (secretas raices, as Paz puts it) in Latin American poetry, though less so in places like Argentina which has a similar problem with Native American culture.
Here is something that makes me happy (it arrived yesterday):
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