Perhaps I mentioned that my husband got a new job some months ago working for a start-up web company. Well, after all of their hard work they launched their product yesterday. It's called "naymz." It's free, yippee. It's also could prove to be very, very helpful for poets who want to "professionalize" themselves, get their name out there, and make sure that people searching for them on the internet see what they want them to see. What it does is create a central web page that links all of your tertiary and associated pages together, so that a link to your blogger account, your resume link, links to your poems, links to your photograph accounts, etc all show up on the same page. Also, you can subscribe (like $5 a month) and when people google your name, your name appears as a sponsored link in the right margin. That link connects to your naymz page, which has all the information you want people the see. Pretty cool if you ask me. It only takes a minute.
In other news, I officially began compiling and adding to my dissertation on Tuesday. It's pretty exciting and I'm loving what it's looking like so far. My first official task of the dissertation process is to write a prospectus. . .but this is a new requirement for creative writers, so I'm shooting in the dark here. As far as I know, noone has written a prospectus yet at UIC for a poetry dissertation. Lucky me. I get to be the first. If anyone has any insightful advice about this process, I sure would appreciate it. I don't really know where to begin. It's one thing to be able to talk abotu a collection after it's finished. . .it's another to be able to talk about it before you've started! I'm sure I'll figure it out, but an example sure would be helpful.
My husband, son and I were in Colorado for a week attending the funeral of Brian's grandfather. He was a much loved member of the Denver community and will be greatly missed. I've never seen so many old men crying. It was very moving, and the images have already crept into the manuscript. So much death in such a short amount of time (my own grandfather passed only two months ago). So much mourning.
3 comments:
I would keep the prospectus simple. State where you are coming from via inflences, what you are trying to do with your book (i.e. discuss the narrative arc of the manuscript if you have one; et., etc.) Discuss your touchsones and what your key poems will be as they relate to your overall vision.
My guess is the people who will be reading this will be from your department, so they will be speaking your language.
Or were you asking a rhetorical question?
That Naymz idea is pretty cool...
no, not at all rhetorical, Justin. Thanks much for your reflection. I'm having the most difficulty with describing poems I haven't yet written, as it is completely antithetical to my process. I think my plan is to BS my way through it and make sure the munuscript is good enough to surpass the prospectus.
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