krystal teaches

2012-01-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

A new poem is up at EOAGH, along with with a few other poets, including Michael Leong who is always such a snappy dresser. The rest of the issue is under construction!

Spring 2012 Readings

2012-01-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

February 5- New York
POLESTAR POETRY SERIES
THE WHITE ALBUM
4-7pm, with Melissa Broder, Hanna Andrews, Lily Ladewig and others
CAKE SHOP
152 ludlow st

UPDATE:
February 9, New York
The Renegade Reading Series
8pm-11pm (readings start at 9)
LaunchPad
721 Franklin Avenue

March 2- Chicago, IL
AWP Off-site Event: Editors of Bone Bouquet, Noemi Press, Belladonna* Series
7-9pm, with Emily Skillings, Carmen Gimenez Smith, and HR Hegnauer
Danny's Tavern
1951 W. Dickens Ave.

March 9- New York
BlazeVOX Books Authors
7-10pm, with Barbara Henning and others
Sidewalk Cafe
94 Avenue A
cross street: E 6th St.

March 19- New York
Poetry Project Monday Night Series
8pm, with Lindsey Boldt
St. Mark's Church
131 E. 10th St.

April 26- New York
KGB Bar Thursday Night Series
7-9pm, with Camilo Roldan and others
85 E. 4th St.

Universities I Knew About When I Was 17

2011-12-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

Following up on a claim I made in class this morning, in which I said, "When I was 17, I only knew about like two colleges," here is a list of universities I was aware of when I was 17:

Notre Dame: I grew up in the adjacent town.

Indiana University (Bloomington and South Bend campuses): This is where I ended up going to college, in Btown, which is where my aunt went as well.

Purdue University: In Lafayette, where I visited as a high school student when I won a poetry prize. I met Seamus Heaney. Otherwise, I knew of IU and Purdue because of the Oaken Bucket--the annual televised football game in which the two schools compete for, you guessed it, a bucket.

Ball State: I attended some kind of journalism conference here when I was in junior high. Most notable for its catchy jingle in TV commercials. "Everything you need!"

Southwestern Michigan College: A friend went here for graphic design for a semester and a half.

Ivy Tech Community College: Indiana's community college. My dad took a math class here when I was in high school.

Bethel College: is a Christian school in Mishawaka (IN). One of the smartest kids in my class went here, which was widely regarded as a tragedy.

Taylor University: is a Christian school outside Muncie (IN). A friend of mine went here, which was widely regarded as a tragedy.

Antioch College (Yellow Springs, OH): My good friend Mike took me along when he went to visit this school. I applied, was accepted, and went to IU instead.

Princeton: I knew about Princeton from watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and vaguely wanted to go there as a result. (Did not apply.)

Brown: We read a book by Scott Russell Sanders in my senior AP English class, and I learned that he went to Brown. So I wanted to go based on his example, but I backed out of applying because the fee was too high.

St. John's College: The book school! I wanted to go here but was intimidated and didn't turn in the application.

Borderline knowledge (information absorbed during the application process)...

Mt. Holyoke: A friend went here. I'd never heard of it and had no idea where it was.

University of Chicago: Two friends from high school applied here. I didn't know anything about it.

Northwestern University: The girl who got our high school's nomination for the in-state full scholarship ended up going here; this was a point of frustration on my part.

Sarah Lawrence: I knew about this school because of Ten Things I Hate About You.

Brigham Young: The Mormon kid's parents made him go here for a year.

Late-breaking knowledge (information acquired after the age of 18)...

Columbia University: I learned where Columbia is from watching The Sopranos on DVD in college.

Rutgers: Same.

DePaul University: That same old friend, Mike, transferred here from IUB, which is when I learned that it existed.

2011-12-06T16:18:00.000-08:00

I have some bad habits, prejudices you might say. One is manifested in my inclination to say "I told you so" or its close cousin "you did that to yourself." It is HARD not to have these thoughts. One of the reasons I am glad for Kate Zambreno's blog (FF) is that she shows herself being imperfect. This makes me feel better about being imperfect myself.

I am working on managing some feelings about the status quo that are not nice. I see these trends among others: hetero-normative marriages and families, endorsement and participation in 1950's-style American gender roles, a desire for respect for motherhood/parenthood, and a great deal of bitching and moaning by educated people about all of these things.

Life is constructed by choices that are constantly modified as time passes. Do I wish for people not to be free to talk about their hardships? No. But it's difficult to sympathize with complaints that are based on choices that can be revised.

It's even more difficult for me to contain my vile instinctual responses when the scenarios I sometimes see friends in are fucking offensive. I'm talking barefoot and pregnant, oppressive cult-like church leaders, isolation. Stockholm Syndrome. You can't shake someone out of it. I can't shake her out of it. I cut plenty of people out of my life between ages 18-22 for all the usual reasons, but the last few long-distance people I care about are now on the chopping block.

When you gather all the circumstances of your life together in one moment and it's all controlled and planned, if you are unhappy you need to put up or shut up. If I ever claim to have everything figured out, AND THEN I bitch about my life, please repeat this paragraph to me.

This is such a very undergraduate blog post.

2011-12-05T07:40:00.000-08:00

The video for Def Leppard's "Photograph," eat chorizo, help friend find a temp job, confirm proposal submitted, take the message, forward the message, drink some water, give up, start again, Destiny's Child lyrics for "Bootylicious," confirm details of 2 poems accepted someplace I R-E-S-P-E-C-T, think about my reading on the coming Wednesday night, I don't think you're ready.

I do a lot of things all the time, everything. I don't think you're ready for this jelly. My body too bootylicious.

2011-12-04T14:54:00.001-08:00

My JWOWW poem is online at InDigest here. I recovered my contributor's copies of Spring 2011 Roger (published at Roger Williams University) at a party at my old apartment this weekend.

I'm mailing out review copies of my book. If you think you'd like to write a review of it, please get in contact with me!

2011-11-17T09:28:00.001-08:00

From a little bit back in time. Sean Lovelace says this about a poem of mine (that appears in my book):

"You have that shoebox of things inside you we call lovely. You are that first/first/first/first taste of vodka."

He's talking about this poem.

And his blog is here.

Thanks, Sean!

not waving but drowning

2011-11-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

The blogs I used to follow daily either haven't been updated in weeks, have grown dull, or something else negative so I will write a blog post myself to combat this negative blog karma.

I'm, I think, nearly done with the second grant application on behalf of Belladonna (with help from other board members) in two weeks. This is a lot of projecting daily thoughts, efforts, concerns into marketable or at least palatable language. Oh, there is also a conference proposal to be done this weekend. All this proposing. It boggles the mind.

Also, I took the GRE Literature subject test this morning which was exemplary suffering. I did well on the general test; and yet, I don't really know what I'm doing. Here's hoping admissions committees don't Google applicant blogs? Or here's hoping they do and that they're human beings who recognize the human being-ness and uncertainty of others, including program applicants. I'm smart. I want to do some (more) good stuff. And on and on.

Been writing new poems thanks to taking Rachel L's Poets House workshop, which only meets one more time and then is over. I've been told for years that I'm approval-seeking and damn if it doesn't make me a good student, but it also makes the prospect of again being without paid mentor daunting. I have some new work. It is not necessarily of a piece with the work I had been collecting previous in hopes of assembling a full manuscript in the foreseeable future. This is fine. I repeat: this is fine.

I'm reading in Providence tomorrow night in the Cousins Reading Series along with Kate Schapira and others. The event starts at 6:30pm.

2011-10-09T06:50:00.001-07:00

I'm observing that the city is changing. People have been saying all year that the homeless and downtrodden are more visible than they've been since before Guiliani, and now I've seen it too. I keep pretty conservative hours most of the time, so I know I miss a lot of weird behavior and shenanigans. But this morning on the train I saw a whole short story's worth of weird interaction. A girl falling asleep hard enough that no one was sitting on either side, tired of getting a sleepy head on their shoulders. Then a drunk scruffy guy drinking a 40 out of a plastic bag getting on and looming over her until she woke up and got the hell away from him. And finally a bystander giving the drunk guy a little lecture on respecting people and not staring in women's faces--I wanted to thank this guy, but he seemed so agitated himself that he might not have appreciated the props.

At 9:00am on a Sunday, folks! Surely there is something in the air. Meanwhile, I was reading Judith Butler's Precarious Life throughout this observation, rereading the same paragraph on bodily vulnerability.

Other news: My book is now available! If you'd like to buy it you can do so here directly from the publisher or here on Amazon (which is the option I least advocate for, but I understand if you need the free shipping perk), OR you can send me an email and buy a signed copy directly from me for $12.

It'll be available from SPD soon as well, and when it is I'll also post that link.

If you are interested in reviewing the book, contact me as well! My email address is klanguel at gee male dot com.

2011-09-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

Dear readers! My first book of poetry is now available for pre-order at the BlazeVox website. Please show your support, not just for me, but for small press publishing by pre-ordering my book! I'm thrilled about the cover (as well as the contents)--it's so charming with the collage by Sofia Barão. Physical copies of the book will come into existence in 4-6 weeks.

I'm so beyond thrilled. I'm very proud of this book. Contact me if you want to write a review!

2011-09-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

I have a full roster of 25 students at York, and agreed also to a Saturday morning class (the same schedule as last fall) at BMCC, which has 28 students enrolled. Fifty-three students. I'm happy about this. I feel like these courses, introductory and general education college writing, are important academically and socially as a point of intervention as students enter college. They're "how to do college" as much as they are "how to write a paper."

I bemoaned the Saturday morning class last year as limited by its logistics, but here I am at it again. It bears repeating that I don't have any intention to write about my students here--I'd like to report on the success in the classroom of specific activities and lesson plans, both as a record for myself and for any teachers who happen to read this. No identifying information will be shared about any individual.

I have a poem in the current issue of Diagram, which is newly debuted. I hope to have further poetry news to share soon.

As poets we all fill so many different roles. In just this post, I am teacher and poet and self-promoter. I'm many other things too. Which is the primary identity? Does there have to be one that is core?

2011-08-15T07:53:00.001-07:00

Enrollment is solid at 21 students for Fall 2011! I expect to be employed as an adjunct professor. Now I just need to re-confirm my university email address so I can get another free trial of Amazon Prime.

2011-07-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

Oh, whoops, a PR slip-up: last night was the inaugural reading in the HOT TEXTS reading series, co-curated by yours truly and Emily Skillings. It was great! You should have been there! The next one will be the end of September. Stay tuned.

A poem from my forthcoming book has been accepted by Fairy Tale Review, which is so thrilling. I've sent work to FTR several times, and all of my poetry professors from grad school have had work appear there so it's an especially rewarding bit of news. Cheers!

2011-07-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

A poem from my forthcoming book will appear in an edition of DIAGRAM soon.

2011-07-06T07:37:00.001-07:00

Let me get this straight. From the NY Times:

"The prosecution must also consider whether it believes the case is strong enough to proceed to trial if Mr. Strauss-Kahn refuses to plead guilty."

So prosecuting someone accused of a crime only works if you arrange ahead of time for them to admit their guilt?

I've followed the story as closely as my nausea will permit. So maybe I've missed a pivotal detail. But it seems to me that lying on your immigration papers, associating with drug dealers, and whatever else the victim is accused of are not circumstances that result in it being okay for someone to rape you.

*You were wearing a short skirt?
*You were drunk?
*You lied on your immigration papers?

Let's progress beyond all of these as excuses for attacking women. I don't know what really happened. But I do know that it's not the mark of a healthy culture to instinctively attack accusers, with the goal of dredging up unsavory information to color the interpretation of their character. Are we still talking about Strauss-Kahn's unsavory history as a sexual predator? Why or why not?

Good News

2011-06-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

BlazeVOX is going to publish my first book, Call the Catastrophists. It will be an early 2012 release. Feelings lots and lots of joy about this.

2011-05-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

Baseball is truly wonderful. I can watch any game and get emotionally involved. Either I'm about to get my period, or I just love the game. I cried during the Astros-Pirates game a couple nights ago. (Well, there was a very touching Mother's Day themed audience shout-out to a soldier with his family on his way to serve in Korea the next day, and his mom started crying. It's not so much my sensitivity as it is baseball's complete lack of scruples when the opportunity to be sentimental arises.) Was it the same game when some guy proposed to his gal? Tip: propose to me at an MLB park on the jumbotron.

I'm broke. When I experience any extreme, I always make it worse for myself before I can make it better, so I've been being frivolous. Did you know there is city income tax here? Dang. I was so naive and all "how hard can it be?" when I moved here, but now I've been convinced--it's expensive to live in NYC. Oh well.

Working on launching into a new writing project before June comes, when I'll have to devote a lot of time to getting the next Bone Bouquet issue out.

2011-04-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

Landing on the return flight from Budapest, I popped one ear and opened my eyes, drunk. I couldn't see straight, but wasn't dizzy. My equilibrium was off, I guess, but I had never experienced this before. I thought, if I feel like this when it's my turn to get up, I won't be able to walk out of the plane. It passed.

I'm on for teaching 8am T/R in the fall, pending enrollment and other uncontrollable variables. I've been promoted to editor-in-chief of Noemi Press: exciting. Experimenting with time away from the internet, sometimes by choice and sometimes not, and feeling like it is a very important thing to sit alone and not stare at any screen.

Stormy today. My favorite kind of weather. A couple snippets forthcoming in Lingerpost online.

2011-03-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Spring is in the air. Baseball starts in two days.

Around the world, women and girls are being gang raped and at least now we hear about it right away? No, nothing about this is something to be grateful for. The NY Times ran a follow-up article on the Cleveland, TX child gang rape, but it's still totally inappropriate and contained no apology for the overtly rapist-sympathetic prior coverage. Why have the editors permitted the emphasis on the victim's growth spurt? Her sneaking out of her house? Have you ever been a poor girl in a dysfunctional household? We sneak out. Our lives suck bad, and sometimes older men lure us into their cars with candy and references to freedom (i.e. "let's go for a ride," as one rapist 'allegedly' said to her). Fuck yeah, she wants to go for a ride! Her dad sleeps on a trampoline in the front yard. I'd link to the article, but fuck the Times and their paywall and their editorial practices.

People I know and respect are reproducing and bringing joy into the world. I know about two brand new baby girls in the world--and received into beautiful, intellectual families that will make them safe, and this is good news. Because we need beautiful new lives. But we also need to start protecting each other, and I don't mean walking home with a buddy or taking a cab because you're afraid of your own neighborhood.

Furthermore, back to Texas, it's an especially heinous crime, but were the victim 21 or 30 or 50 years old gang rape is still a crime, so why why the emphasis on whether the victim was sexualized?

I don't usually write blog posts about anything but myself. What's my objective? I want to express my anger. What else do I want? A lot.

2011-03-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

I have a couple of poems forthcoming from Roger, a magazine out of Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. I first became interested in this magazine when my graduate school advisor told me it was the only other national lit mag aside from our Puerto del Sol with a Latina editor in chief. I thought, I want to be part of that. A good journey.

A few excerpts from a longer poem that will become my chapbook for Dusie (titled "many lost cause creatures could form a very sad list") will appear on Everyday Genius this coming Monday. I'm unsure of the punctuation or grammar of publishing series excerpts--do I declare that this is the publication of three poems? It's not, but it's also not a complete individual poem. Episodic narrative: one of my favorite terms to teach comp students.

I read in a super secret reading on Tuesday night. A few Belladonna co-collaborators and I are starting a word-of-mouth only reading series. No Facebook invitations, no listserv announcements. Kind of a speakeasy vibe, underground.

2011-02-23T16:20:00.000-08:00

Surprise! I'm not teaching this semester. At the last minute, there was an opportunity to scramble for a class and I opted out of the scramble. So far, it's going well--I'm devoting more time to Belladonna and Noemi Press, as well as my own work. I'm currently working on a chapbook for the Dusie Kollectiv. The link goes to the previous year's collection.

2011-01-03T16:40:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I popped up on the I Am A Natural Wonder site. Check that out!

Bone Bouquet's first print issue is going to arrive in my open arms in a little over a week. It is beautiful and sexy. You can pre-order it right here.

The issue's contributors are: Jennifer H. Fortin, Arielle Greenberg, Leigh Stein, Emily Skillings, Carolyn Guinzio, Kara Dorris, Becca Klaver, Claire Hero, Dawn Pendergast, Jennifer Firestone, Tamiko Beyer, and Dana Teen Lomax. Help to launch our print effort by buying copies of this sweet magazine, with cover art from Sofia Barãos.

We're celebrating with a contributors' reading on January 15, 2011 at Unnameable Books. See the Bone Bouquet website for details.

2010-12-25T08:27:00.000-08:00

Delirious Hem's Advent Calendar is complete, and includes an optimistic poem from me. A rare thing indeed.

I'm going to teach one class in the Spring semester. The idea is to write a lot, and also leave the house more often. Those early mornings really kept me from staying out past 8pm. No more!

More of this optimism in 2011!

2010-12-03T09:30:00.001-08:00

I have some poems I would normally be hustling to send out to new places, but I'm kind of tired of doing that. I think I'm going to relax on the submission battlefront and try to focus on writing new work. People often express this exact desire, but I think I'm taking a turn at it anyway.

The semester is winding down and there are very few sessions of my classes left to hold. I'm ready to move forward, though the end of the semester is always a little bittersweet for me.

The widget says it's 38 degrees RIGHT NOW which means that when I was freezing my tail feathers off at 6:45am it was actually very cold.

2010-11-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

Tuesday is a great night of the week to spend teaching for 4.5 hours, right? This is my plan for Spring 2011 as of today.

The lit class was changed back to freshman comp, which is a better deal for me financially as it's a 4-credit class rather than 3. I am sad to see the lit class go, but it's good to have a steadier plan.

2010-11-07T05:30:00.000-08:00

Better sleep, but bad dreams. Yesterday I made my students write the rough draft of their next paper in class. I haven't read them yet. The atmosphere while they were working on them was... tense and resistant.

I don't think I've mentioned here that I'll be teaching a section of Intro to Lit at York next semester. I'm really pumped; it'll be my first lit class. I'm still hoping for a second class somewhere, and hoping against a Saturday morning section... if it were my only option, though, I'd feel the need to take it. We shall see.

Also, I had a reading Friday night. It went well. It was fun and I treated myself to a cab ride home.

What's next, everyone?

2010-11-04T05:33:00.000-07:00

I had to cancel my Saturday class last week because my cat was pretty violently ill. He's all better now, but more relevantly it came at a good time for me. Aside from sitting up all night with a sick animal and spending time and money at the vet, in terms of the course it gave me a much appreciated break that helped me get some perspective on the class.

I've lamented this class here before. The need to cancel this session has just driven home the point for me that there is a finite amount of work that can be done and progress that can be made in 13 Saturday mornings (plus a final exam period). So we are only doing what we are capable of doing. And there's time enough to write the remaining papers and prepare for the final exam--a timed essay, for better or worse. More on that in the future, as both my classes must perform this task.

2010-10-29T19:17:00.001-07:00

If my semi-anonymous midterm evaluations are to be trusted, my students love me. They enjoy the class, they think I'm funny (weird), and they feel like they're learning. I was reminded that I should call on students who don't raise their hands to participate. Otherwise, for the most part, their comments were so positive.

I would recommend doing what I just did--making up your own midterm evaluations for students to complete--to any teacher, particularly adjuncts. Often it takes universities a long time to process their official evals, so if you are applying for a position that requests "evidence of effective teaching," these can come in handy. Also, it's wise to check in and find out about any problems before they are reported on the end-of-term *official* evaluations that will go into your record with the university you're teaching for.

2010-10-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

La Petite Zine and horse less review are now viewable online. I got my copies of Denver Quarterly as well; links to the left. Check these things out. They are good because they like me, or they liked me for a moment.

2010-10-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

Really psyched to be planning to reread The Portrait of a Lady starting tomorrow.

Reading with EARSHOT on November 5 in Williamsburg.

2010-10-22T11:13:00.000-07:00

Remainland, Aase Berg, trans. Johannes Gorannson
Attempts at a Life, Danielle Dutton
Bad Bad, Chelsey Minnis
The Bad Wife Handbook, Rachel Zucker
Museum of Accidents, Rachel Zucker
The Wide Road, Lyn Hejinian and Carla Harryman (forthcoming from Belladonna*)

2010-10-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

Actual email to students:

If you don't write the papers, you will fail the class.

Overheard during lifeboat exercise:

"A life coach ghost? That's just confusing."

2010-10-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

Bone Pagoda, Susan Tichy
Emperor of the Air, Ethan Canin

I love grading A papers. Such a breeze. This week, I'm doing one of my favorite activities--the lifeboat exercise, in which each student is given an identity that has some value based on a rhetorical appeal, then in groups of 5 decide who's allowed in their 3-seater lifeboat based on their rhetorical value. It's such a heartless exercise, and yields really fun arguments.

2010-10-01T19:04:00.001-07:00

Oh, and books update:

Inferno, Eileen Myles
The California Poem, Eleni Sikelianos
Undersleep, Julie Doxsee

2010-10-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not here to complain. Just to think out loud.

So why do I have 50% participation in one class, and 95-100% in the other? I'm convinced it's because the one session per week course model requires a sophisticated level of time management that does not come naturally to the first-semester student. Most of the students in this class have so many other obligations going on in their life that it must seem logical to deprioritize the one that only occurs once per week. It's vital, I think, for first-semester students to be conditioned in the routine of attending class regularly and this course model makes the development of that habit awfully slow. Save the one session a week courses for at least sophomores or above (I didn't have one as a student until graduate school.). It would go well if both teacher and student performed perfectly, but that's not going to happen--not at any college/university.

2010-09-30T16:56:00.001-07:00

Planning class the night before. Trying to be sure I make sense of the course guidelines and requirements I was provided with via email, and it turns out I need to make some changes. Last-minute adjunct hiring: this system ill-serves essentially all its participants. I like teaching, and this is a supplementary part-time job for me. So I'm happy.

I have some comments to make about the concept of a once-a-week first semester freshman course. Basically, it has a lot of limitations. But I need to plan my class now instead of talking about that.

2010-09-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

Doing my grading and getting frustrated that either my students don't understand how to avoid plagiarism, or they are deliberately engaging in it. At least I know for sure what part of this week's time will be devoted to.

2010-09-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

I know, it's weird that my link categories break apart "friends" and "poets/poetry." I am friends with poets and poetry, but sometimes not in real life. Sometimes both in real life and on the internet! Some of my real life friends are not poets/poetry, and some of them have turned into internet friends over the course of time and cross-country moves. Like all things, this division is arbitrary.

Tomorrow I will buy a grade book at Staples and commence acting like a real teacher because starting next week, there are no more days off from school until Thanksgiving (except Nov. 3, but it's a Wednesday so it doesn't really count. unless you're celebrating the holiday that it commemorates, in which case Best Wishes.) so it's time to get serious.

It looks like I'll be reading in the EARSHOT series in early November.

And we're energetically preparing for the Belladonna* Fall Fundraiser at Dixon Place. For info on advance ticket sales, go here and if you have a crafty or otherwise delightful item you'd like to donate to the silent auction, email [belladonnaseries at gmail dot com].

2010-09-03T16:06:00.001-07:00

Don't tell my students, but I just realized I can actually make .pdfs of each of their readings using the equipment at my day job (at no cost to employer!). How cool is that? Pretty cool.

2010-09-01T19:23:00.000-07:00

Holy shit! Reading list interrupted for:

Bring Down the Little Birds, Carmen Giménez Smith
The Importance of Being Iceland, Eileen Myles

I need to order Myles' new book, The Inferno, as soon as I get paid, too. Love it! She and Dodie Bellamy get me right in my working class childhood heart. Which is awkward, but I like it.

2010-08-28T10:42:00.001-07:00

Three cheers for the new issue of DIAGRAM, in which three short poems from an ongoing series of mine appear.

I taught a three-hour class this morning! I kind of feel like a champion.

2010-08-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

Listenlight's new issue is up. Also, following the Best of the Web reading here (and the weird, snotty review of that event that was posted online), I hereby declare BotW completed. Victory.

I am also going to teach English 101 via BMCC at the John Jay College campus. Saturdays, starting tomorrow! I'm busy getting ready. Krystal does, indeed, teach.

2010-08-23T20:05:00.001-07:00

Two poems accepted by Listenlight and I get to teach a section of composition at York College this semester. My birthday week is going swimmingly, thank you.

2010-08-17T13:28:00.001-07:00

Woo! A poem each accepted by horse less review and La Petite Zine this morning. Auspicious, on this, my parents' anniversary and anniversary of a friend's death (9 years ago). I don't know how long my parents have been married, and it doesn't matter because they were together like 8 years before getting hitched. Oh, plus I had existed for maybe 6 years? Also, tonight is the Best of the Web reading.

One time, maybe 2 years ago, I submitted to La Petite and didn't realize until I tried to withdraw a poem that I'd spelled it wrong and submitted to lapetitzine, which doesn't make sense and I minored in French and should have known better.

2010-08-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

New Reading List:

Meadowlands, Louise Gluck
Some Maritime Disasters This Century (chapbook), Rosa Alcala
Macnolia, A. Van Jordan
Point and Line, Thalia Field
Sleeping with the Dictionary, Harryette Mullen
The World at Large, James McMichael
The Dream Songs, John Berryman (again, this time as a non-student)

2010-08-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

DIAGRAM proofs! So fast! And the same day I sent back my chapbook proofs to Tilt. The Mean Particle should be available in, according to my own speculation, about 4-6 weeks. See Tilt Press for info on ordering.

And I'm going to leave the word "groan" next to Eat Pray Love in the previous post, though for a little while I thought I should remove it. There are really beautiful moments in the book, but also a lot of flat jokes, sour notes, and cultural bias, indulging in and relying on stereotypes.

My manuscript, Call the Catastrophists, was a semifinalist for the Akron Poetry Prize.

Tomorrow night is the Belladonna* / Dusie Summer Reading at BookThug Nation, where I'll be introducing one, maybe two of the poets. BookThug is located next door to The Levee, a bar with Frito pie and beer/shot combos. I haven't been in a bar in maybe a month. I'm probably forgetting something, but I think that's right.

I'm reading at McNally Jackson next Tuesday with other contributors to Best of the Web 2010. And before I know it, it'll be my birthday. Really.

2010-08-03T06:35:00.000-07:00

Summer Reading List Consolidation:

Gurlesque, Ed. Lara Glenum and Arielle Greenberg
Sea Change, Jorie Graham
Shoulder Season, Ange Mlinko
The Mothering Coven, Joanna Ruocco
Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip
Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (groan)

I'm about halfway through this little list. I've slowed down--a trip to Indiana and moving to a new apartment got in the way for a little while. Onward.

2010-07-12T15:09:00.001-07:00

Facebook makes me sad about life. I'm phasing it out of my routine, so will be relocating my ongoing summer reading list here.

So far:

Area, Marcella Durand
How to Mend a Broken Heart with Vengeance, Leigh Stein
Objects for a Fog Death, Julie Doxsee
The Hounds of No, Lara Glenum
Necessary Stranger, Graham Foust
Selected Stories, Alice Munro
When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother, Melissa Broder
A Mouth in California, Graham Foust
From Old Notebooks, Evan Lavender-Smith
Undetectable, Brent Armendinger
The Wonderfull Yeare, Nate Pritts
I Is to Vorticism, Ben Mirov
Maximum Gaga, Lara Glenum
Figment, Rebecca Wolff
Black Life, Dorothea Lasky
Feminaissance, Ed. Christine Wertheim
Tracer, Richard Greenfield

2010-07-04T18:59:00.001-07:00

And the new issue of Bone Bouquet is now live here.

2010-07-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

I started taking yoga classes here. It's so positive--a big change from how I've spent my free time in the past.

I've started working with Belladonna* Books.

Otherwise, just doing the things one does in a new city. Opening accounts, waiting for mail to be forwarded, inquiring about things to get involved in.

BotW

2010-06-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

Dzanc Books' Best of the Web is available here, but I'm leaving it in the "forthcoming" column because I don't have my copy yet, that list is a little short, AND there is a promotional reading to look forward to that will include 5 other contributors and me on August 17. Details:

McNally Jackson (google map it)
NYC
7pm

Readers are:
Sasha Fletcher
Elissa Bassist
Leigh Stein
Krystal Languell
Rachel Bunting
Brian Baldi

2010-06-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

Things are good. The rest of June is filling up with events and fun. Next Saturday I am volunteering at this event. I encourage you to click and donate a few dollars to curing diabetes!

Otherwise, there's something going on almost every day. I'm a judge in the NCTE Norman Mailer writing contest and need to finish up my selection of essays by Wednesday. The new issue of Bone Bouquet is on schedule to appear online July 1--with appearances by Kate Schapira, Sandra Doller, and many others. I've started working with Belladonna* Books and hope to learn some things about data management for both Belladonna* and BB.

Oh, and I have a home through 2010! That's a relief.

2010-06-14T17:24:00.001-07:00

Not much news. I'm sending out my poetry manuscript to presses. This coming weekend, I'll be attending CLMP's Lit Mag Marathon/ Book Fair events. Saturday, I'm reading from our latest issue as a representative of Puerto del Sol--my last Puerto event!

2010-06-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

See you there.

2010-05-16T19:28:00.001-07:00

2010-05-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

AWP panel proposal submitted! Best of the Web available for pre-order here! Teaching poetry to high school kids this afternoon, and then there's nothing left but packing up.

2010-05-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

This week at No Tell Motel, me. A poem each weekday. Visit and enjoy.

2010-04-30T09:13:00.001-07:00

It's time for something more positive now. I decided with certainty this week that I am moving to New York. I will miss my friends a great deal, but it's definitely time to move on to a bigger pond. I have a perfect transitional living situation lined up--in short, everything is all set to go really well. It's scary because I'm going by myself, but I have some friends there to help me adjust. And it would be far scarier to stay here--with no disrespect to the people who have stayed or might stay in the future after completing the MFA, now that I'm done with school the fact that there is nothing to do here (but party) has lost its romance.

2010-04-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

It MEANS SOMETHING when you only publish writers of one sex. It is not arbitrary that I exist as a woman. It means something too--like, for example, that you don't want me in your Boy Magazine. Fine. But when you publicly declare that you are unconcerned with the matter of women's less frequent representation in publishing venues, I become less interested in whatever the fuck it is that you do. Touché!

Yes, all publications should publish "good" or "the best" work. But, as many intelligent people point out many other places, humans are disposed to biases that should be pondered. This does not mean that quotas should be instituted. It means you should rigorously think about the stuff you do and the decisions that you make.

2010-04-16T10:26:00.001-07:00

Holy shit, I've been gluten-free for five days and I no longer feel sick after every meal. If it's psychosomatic, that's fine with me.

2010-04-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

I have a review of Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker's Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections in the new issue of Puerto del Sol. See sample pages of the magazine and order a copy at the link!

2010-03-29T11:17:00.001-07:00

H_NGM_N's new issue is up--with seven glimmers of Hungarian goodness from yours truly in the FROM section.

2010-03-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

I am 90% sure I'm moving to NYC by July 1. (This is absolutely not about teaching [unless you stretch it], as this blogs purports to be.) I always get hung up on logistics, like how will I transport my fussy cat so far away? But the bottom line is that I have a job in NYC and nowhere else, so, duh, I better go there. Is it that simple? Probably not.

2010-03-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

Got my copies of the new 32 Poems this week. Huzzah.

2010-03-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Lately, I am sitting on the couch all day staring at my poems. Sometimes I revise a line. Mostly, I eat candy and watch Buffy. I am finishing my thesis, which I must turn in at the absolutely latest on Monday March 22. My thesis defense is April 1 (ha, ha).

I look at a poem I thought was done, and I find four things wrong with it. It takes an entire afternoon to resolve those four things (maybe because I know I have the luxury of the entire afternoon?), and at the end of the day I'm in the same place I was at the beginning, thinking this one poem is okay. But then I sort of feel like celebrating.

I'm in this situation where I am dramatically revising work that has been published in magazines. It makes me feel like I'm not making progress because I'm not writing NEW poems. Not to mention the requisite sense of utter failure, which is compounded by reading stuff like articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education and Craig Santos Perez's blog entries at Poetry all about the job market and the practical/essential uselessness of advanced degrees (at least so far as securing stable, related employment is concerned). I wonder what I expected I would be doing now when I decided to go back to school three years ago...

Batting Order

2010-03-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

Spring 2010 No Tell Motel lineup.

Love from NewPages

2010-02-15T13:50:00.000-08:00

Long time, no post!

Bone Bouquet gets some love at the NewPages blog today in their thread called New Lit on the Block.

Krystal Languell gets some love from Dzanc Books as (ok, must switch out of third person) my poem "Wife to Magritte," which originally appeared in DIAGRAM, will be reprinted in the Best of the Web 2010 anthology. It should be available early this summer.

2010-01-12T13:04:00.001-08:00

Here is a review I wrote over winter break. I'm not sure if it sounds like me since I was with my family when I wrote it. I think it does.

First Issue of Bone Bouquet Online!

2010-01-01T15:24:00.000-08:00

Jump right into the action here! Featuring amazing new work from thirteen woman poets including Jenny Boully, Susan Briante, Sarah Vap and others!

I am so excited to have this online on schedule. Though I have big plans for upgrading the website and developing the appearance of the content, at this point everything is just right! Humming right along, as planned. And I'm delighted to be able to edit the work of such talented poets.

Happy New Year.

2010-01-01T15:23:00.001-08:00

Goal for 2010: Get self in a position where I need to buy patio furniture.

2009-12-31T08:09:00.000-08:00

Most important lesson from 2009: Compromise is not always a good idea.

2009-12-30T08:53:00.000-08:00

"he felt my long-stemmed rib as if
to gather a bone bouquet"
-Kristi Maxwell

Watch out, internet. BB issue 1 is on the way to you...

(The quote is a coincidence.)

2009-12-25T12:44:00.001-08:00

"She felt like the kind of retarded person who's smart enough to know she's retarded." -Mary Gaitskill

2009-12-07T18:21:00.001-08:00

I need a lesson in how to make something actually happen during my final exam periods at semester's end. I've tried a few times to have something relevant and fun and it has never been a success. All of my students said they would come to our meeting this afternoon, at which they were each going to read a couple poems to the group. It is a small class anyway and not enough showed up at the same time for it to work. I guess the obvious answer is to make it a graded requirement rather than a fun option.

2009-11-16T23:31:00.001-08:00

Definitely Denver. AWP in April is a go for me.

2009-11-02T14:21:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a review I wrote of An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on their Poor and Working-Class Roots, edited by Lorraine Lopez.

2009-10-26T00:16:00.001-07:00

Time flies when you're busy. No news is no news.

2009-10-13T23:00:00.001-07:00

Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You.

2009-10-12T08:09:00.000-07:00

2009-2010 chapbook series subscription now available for pre-order at Tilt Press.

2009-10-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

Busy lately. Still having fun, but that takes time too. I'm working on two reviews of anthologies. Today, I completed an ad for Puerto del Sol to appear in a forthcoming issue of the Writer's Chronicle--my first graphic design project, 1.5 years in the making.

You should go here and listen to Alice Notley read "Love Song."

Poetry Teaching Philosophy

2009-09-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

The prerequisite for the course I am currently teaching is first-semester freshman composition. The poetry workshop I teach is a 300-level class. I run my class with this in mind. There are 200-level creative writing (and composition) courses, but students aren't required to take those before my class.

I could be more demanding of my students, but that isn't how I learned when I was at their level. They could be, through no fault of their own, 200-level students in a 300-level course. At the very beginning of the semester, I had to try to win them over to keep at least 10 students enrolled--that's what I thought I needed to keep the class open. At this point, though, it's time to turn the tables and be a little scary. But not TOO scary. Because beginner poets need to be nurtured. They need someone to encourage them in writing creatively and to nudge them along when they discover something new, to cultivate excitement about poetry.

And that's why I don't required typed endnotes. I'm going to swoop in and check up on everyone's effort in a midterm evaluation type way in a couple weeks, but for now I'm relying heavily on the discussions we have in workshop to teach everyone how to talk about poetry, which I believe leads to better thinking about poetry and finally better poetry.

Now let's do some grading/commenting. Yesss.

2009-09-17T12:51:00.001-07:00

Three rejection letters in one day is remarkable.

2009-09-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

Back to discussions on teaching. I'm not sure what we're doing in class tomorrow, but I can tell you that so far it's going pretty well. The only other time I've taught poetry was last semester when I was a visiting poet in a 9th grade English class. This is different, and not just because I don't have to yell at my students to stop talking constantly.

The enrollment number has settled at 12. For the first time, I do feel a little weird writing here about teaching--it's a small group and the students are older, so I've bumped into a couple out in public already. I don't intend to talk here about specific students, though I think I've done so anonymously in the past. There's a big difference between 27 students and 12. It's more personal now.

And how fabulous! Yesterday I gave my Noble Rock Star lecture, in which I described how great and satisfying it is to be a poet even in the face of a culture and an economy that don't always value art. Tomorrow I suppose I'll give another motivational speech, this one on being receptive to each other's comments and suggestions. We start doing formal workshops next week.

2009-09-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

New work up at Suss.

Chapbook Forthcoming from Tilt Press

2009-09-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

My chapbook, The Mean Particle, is one of five recently selected by Tilt Press for their 2009-2010 series. It should be out sometime in early 2010. Soon you will be able to pre-order the entire series of 5 for a mere $30. Individual chaps are $8 each.

That is the big news.

2009-08-23T01:33:00.000-07:00

Good news is on its way from me to you. Keep an eye out the next couple weeks. I'll let you know as soon as I get the green light...

2009-08-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

I am back home again in southern New Mexico. I've opened all the mail and am situated, which means I finally saw the handful of magazines I appeared in at the beginning of summer. Good looking all-around, people.

I'm finishing up the syllabus for my poetry workshop. The enrollment cap is 22 students, which is unusually high according to my experience. On the plus side, it means that once the semester gets rolling I won't necessarily have to do a lot of planning since it'll be a time crunch to get everyone workshopped. On the negative side, with my current numbers I'm at 10 minutes per poem per participant in terms of rationing class time. Though I don't remember with clarity how much time was spent on each person's workshop in the classes I took in college, I think classes were limited to 15 students. I'll know if the class fills to capacity in the next few days.

Activities

2009-08-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

I am polishing a chapbook manuscript, cranking out a full-length manuscript, writing a syllabus/schedule for my poetry workshop, and trying to get inside the city limits of Chicago. I am also drinking diet soda and watching the Cubs lose all too often. Hello, Cubs? Please remember to play the game of baseball while you're milling around out there on the field.

2009-08-06T12:44:00.000-07:00

Issue 7 of Eleven Eleven is alive and kicking! They have a website, but the best place to view the cover and list of contributors for now is at Goodreads--you can take a peek here.

And you can stare at me while reading my poems at Splinter Generation effective immediately.

Look out, look out

2009-08-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

The new issue of SUB-LIT is up-- here I am. Splinter Generation is scheduled to appear Thursday. Mark your damn calendars. It's my birthday month; somebody must have told some editors.

2009-07-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Being a stickler for accuracy is a lot of hard work.

New work forthcoming at SUB-LIT, Splinter Generation and Sous Rature; see your handy sidebar for further information about each site.

2009-07-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

courtesy of YELP regarding Roberta's Pizza in East Williamsburg:

Goat Cheese Cheese Cake with rhubarb and graham cracker crusts on the side. The best way to describe it (bc it was such a new flavor for me) was like dating a guy and you feel comfortable with, but hes always surprising you-- bc you eat the cheese cake and it tastes like a normal one, but at the end the kick of the goat cheese came in.

Um, I'm interested. If I'm not back in a few hours, I've eloped with a dessert.

2009-07-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

Unintentionally poetic line of the day:

A fire captain who was at the Pepsi commercial filming blames the director, whom he overheard tell Michael: "Stand [under the sparks] longer, you'll look more majestic." [TMZ]

via Jezebel.

Stand under the sparks longer.

And with that, I away to explore the Roosevelt Island tram.

2009-07-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

This interview with Justice Ginsburg in the Sunday NYT Magazine is an important piece of journalism. What struck closest to home for me was this:

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I always thought that there was nothing an antifeminist would want more than to have women only in women’s organizations, in their own little corner empathizing with each other and not touching a man’s world. If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

Something to mull over, for sure.

2009-07-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

Just home from Boston. I had an amazing weekend--food and baseball. Rain, walking, art.

2009-07-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

Gander Press Review has also arrived at my home in the desert, in which appear my pieces "Rodeo" and "Estate Sale." In addition to the print issue, this magazine is also viewable online as a .pdf download (and has been available online for several weeks).

2009-06-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

Copies of the latest issue of Santa Clara Review arrived at my house recently! My poem "from 56 Etymologies, #5" appears there. Unfortunately, I don't get to see/hold the magazine until August since I'm here in Brooklyn. And their website does not (yet?) contain images or info about the issue. Still, happy news!

2009-06-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

I solved a mystery this week. A magazine published a poem that I withdrew (it had been accepted elsewhere), and did so without informing me and the issue is already in print and distributed. I tracked down this information this week and this afternoon communicated with both editors. The situation is effectively resolved for me. The fact that a publication is adequately flawed to not only miss my withdrawal request, but neglect to inform me that a piece has been selected for publication speaks to the difficulty of effectively running a magazine, I suppose.

It's sometimes difficult for poets and writers to truly serve as editors for magazines, I think. Meaning no disrespect to anyone, involved or not, it takes business sense, clerical dexterity, and if possible a photographic memory to run a well-oiled magazine. Consider this the latest in my ongoing argument for each and every publication to make space on its masthead for a technical communication expert! Outsource what you do not understand.

I'm not naming either magazine here out of a desire to respect the kindnesses of both editors in helping to resolve this situation. It's not my intent to start a smear campaign. But this is what I spent one workweek of my life sorting out, so it belongs here.

2009-06-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

I'm famous. Just kidding. But NewPages does have a link to this blog here. Cool, huh?

2009-06-11T19:22:00.001-07:00

Advice (dispensed) for the day: No one rides for free.
Advice (absorbed) for the day: Sometimes lying is the best response.