another word for bleed

It might be a page.
Suffocated or torn.
Black boxes indicating stop.

I gather my own white garments against my chest
and picture butterflies falling from the rafters.
Drawn there, speckled.

Catastrophe. What of the orchestra?
Their attempt to blur light
with each vibration,

tongue to reed,
bow to string?
Not forgiven.

But I am careful to say who I am
because I fall too quickly out of mind.
Could I be slipping now.

It's hard to say no.
To bleed,
to come to light.

Said of blood.
Said of moving out,
plentiful flow,
a shape never taken shape.

For Tabitha

Tabitha Dial, a fellow blogger and poet, has asked me some intriguing questions and requested that I post the answers on my blog. Here we go.

How do blogs and social networking sites like MySpace and EveryDayMatters inspire you?

I'm not a big myspace fan- I think it's a place more suitable for 14 year olds looking to hook up with sex offenders. . .I prefer facebook myself, and it seems that several poets with whom I align myself aesthetically dig it as well. It's allowed me and other poets to create communities and more firmly establish groups of poets who have similar poetic ambitions. I'm a firm believer in community as an essential part of a poet's professional development. I have to say, though, that I had most of the "connections" that I have now on facebook before I registered on facebook. . .but it's still good, clean fun. Well, mostly clean.

How does this technology educate you?

I'd have to say that the social networking stuff doesn't educate me much at all. Blogs, on the other hand, are a definite source of education. I like to poke around, read Ron Silliman's daily sermon, visit my friend Mary Biddenger's blog, see what Scott Glassman's up to, and see where that may take me for the day. I do that probably once a week, if my schedule allows. I learn a lot there, especially because those blogs usually take me to other places, which take me to other places, and I never know where I may end up.

How do you use these technologies -- for networking, publicity, honing your craft, broadcasting news, etc.?

I use my own blog mostly for posting my poetry. Barely anyone really reads it, but that's OK. There's something about putting it out into the world, making it public, adding it as one grain of sand to the infinite dunes of cyberspace. There's a vulnerability to it that is enticing to me, and most of the work I post there is actually created in the blog space itself- it's NOT a polished work at all. It's as rough and unfinished as it gets. But it's THERE, committed to existing, committed to speaking whatever it has to say to whomever might happen upon it.


Do you feel the Internet is a helpful media for artists and poets?

I guess I would say that I don't think the internet can be characterized as a "media" unto itself. When I see, for example, what an artist like Geof Huth does with the his space on the internet compared to what I do with mine, it's really not the same thing. . .though there are obviously some connections there. The internet is full of dozens of different forms of media, and I would say that the internet both helps and hinders serious artists who attempt to use the internet to promote their work. At the risk of sounding like some kind of artistic elitist, the internet doesn't discriminate between hack artists/poets/musicians and people who have actually committed some genuine thought to their artistic endeavors. All artists are treated equally, allotted as much of cyberspace as they feel the need to fill. The cup, perhaps, is overflowing.

Have you made new contacts with like-minded people through the Internet? How has this changed your identity as a creative person?

I made one very special friend through my blog that has resulted in many wonderful projects and publications. Scott Glassman found me one day a few years ago and we hit it off immediately. It was a wonderful collaboration and pushed my poetry to an experimental place it probably wouldn't have otherwise gone. My work with Scott was, in fact, the point of origin for my newest and yet-unpublished collection of poetry. The prose poems that make up the majority of the collection came from an experiment with him, and I just kept writing them.

It also allowed met to reconnect with a teacher I had as an MA student, Lorna Dee Cervantes. She's an amazing poet whose sheer energy acts as an inspirational force.

How would you define your blog -- as an archive, a letter to the world or something else?

My blog is, at present moment, a mess. I have not, in the last year, given it as much time and attention as needed. It's definitely intended to be a commentary on poetry through both prose and my own poetry, but it's been lacking as of late. This is, in itself, a commentary on my blog, though-- that I feel some sense of obligation to it, that I take it very seriously, and that I am very concerned about it's present state. I definitely see it as a reflection of myself, and as my recent slip into the bowels of corporate america had sucked my slate clean of any real inspiration (a cliche, I know, but extremely true), my blog and lack of postings reflected this. When I moved to Colorado and found myself completely poetically and geographically displaced, i was confused both about who I had become and about what to post to my blog. While some people would use their blog to air their frustrations with these situations, I have retreated and hung back, as they say. In this sense, my blog is, to me, a sacred space of clarity.

Do you think poets or visual artists make more use of these media? Why and how?

I don't really feel informed enough about the visual world of the internet to answer this. . .sorry.

Who are some bloggers that you think exemplify the potential of blogs?

I will answer this quite bluntly- I am jealous of many blogs that give the time and attention to the world of contemporary poetry that I wish I could give. Ron Silliman's blog is quite esteemed and reputable because he does a good job at being Ron via blog. Lorna Dee Cervantes has a great blog which also conveys Lorna very well-- her commitment to certain causes, her passion and verve for life and poetry, her overall positive energy that she channels into real change. K Silem Mohammed has some amazing things to say about poetry and the world.


More to come . . .

& if I can find my pen

The summary was a new type of writing. They splintered as they swam, swollen like a humidity-injected plank of cedar. I began to word so hard it came out as a word, which was unexpected and trite. Bearing down, they peeled the pieces, the pages, the awkward dust from the book, which may as well have been a dictionary. He does not know how to use the phonebook and is lost in its heft. None of them look at the camera. None of them put their names at the top of their papers. None of them list their satisfactions, their new ability to define.

& what weighs

Could have been goblet, sulfur stink, the antelope's porous antlers. Bifurcation. In the new chill of morning, she noted how the roots of that flower were lifting themselves from the ground and sprouting new shoots, blooms. As it also grows deeper. But the geranium's second bloom is now shriveled and scab-like. A different interaction with the season. Your name, like an emblem, across the spice garden. We are saving the system, lifting our roots. With this, we will grow lighter and crawl.

Aside from the garden, I notice her weight distributing in the middle. Pooling around her wrists and hips. Inside the book, someone else's dedication, dripping with intention. The "y" as big as my pinkie. "L, to the one I'm loving. Yours. C." It is a gift, it is a death. The man on the phone knew my grandfather, and was sorry for his passing. Then he sold me a newspaper, which will come only on Sundays.

Fall and 31 are close at hand

Well, I'm not quite back into the swing of daily blogging, but the first few weeks of the semester have hit me harder than I expected. My new job as a part-time faculty at Metro State
is going very well, but even though I've only taken on two classes, I'm swamped. Tying up loose ends from the old job, working on the dissertation, being a mom, finishing my chap for the Dusie project (yes, it WAS supposed to be done in June. . .) I feel like I've been hit by a train. I'm not the spry twenty-something I used to be, and alas, 31 is literally right around the corner. For god's sake. Make it stop.

I'm loving being back in the classroom again, and although it's been a sink-or-swim reentry into academia, I think I'm swimming strong at this point. After reading Mary's lament about having 17 uncirculating poems, I'm astonished at the fact that I must have at least 30 that I've never even printed out, no matter sent off for someone else to read. I guess it's about time to do this. I feel extremely out of practice, having not really submitted anything in nearly a year. And my printer is out of ink. Hmm. That's not a good enough excuse, is it?

The good news is that the dissertation is nearly done and is awaiting one more final approval from my main faculty advisers and I'm pretty much good to defend sometime in October. Yes, that's next month. Probably early next month, too. Um. . .did I mention that my printer is out of ink? Yikes. What did I get myself into.

And in the interest of not being completely self centered, September also marks another big birthday-- my little Eliot, pictured here with me. He'll be three, if you can believe it. I can't.