Emily K. Bright

baking and poetry

2011-10-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Katie for passing along this article about Emily Dickinson's great love of baking. Roughly 10% of her poems mentioned food--the famed reclusive poet is a little closer to my heart knowing that we share a common subject (and love). Her original recipe for cocoanut cake is included here.

book review: Forest of Hands and Teeth

2011-09-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

Last spring, or perhaps it was the year before that, I attended the Loft Literary Center's wonderful weekend convention for writers of children's and young adult novels. The editor from Delacourte Press spoke lovingly about this book. Fast forward to the most recent issue of the Williams alumni review, which featured an interview with Carrie Ryan. Okay, I get it: the book was tracking me! And I'm so glad it did.

This book is hard to put down. It takes place several generations after the zombie apocalypse, though Ryan wisely avoids either of those words. 16 year-old Mary is growing up in a small, traditional village tightly run by the Sisterhood. Their world is surrounded by a fence, and beyond that, the Forest of Hands and Teeth, filled with the Unconsecrated who never sleep and wish only to infect. Mary dreams of seeing the ocean, though everyone else thinks it's a fairy tale. They believe they are the only survivors on earth, and that beyond the fence only death can await them.

I don't know if I would necessarily have picked up this book based on the above plot synopsis, certainly not based on the word "zombie." But, this book is so well written. There's something about the language that is just richer than many of the YAs I've been reading lately, and the action and suspense kept me turning the pages. Ryan's world-building abilities are fantastic. I feel that I'm in the hands of someone very capable, who has imagined every aspect of this world dating back for the last 100 years. This and her sequel The Dead-Tossed Waves are rare YAs that I did not read in a day, partly because they are a bit longer, and partly because I was savoring this world. While I prefer the main character in this book to the sequel, both are very good, and the sequel has so many more surprises that just keep making this world more wonderfully complex. Highly recommended.

A Point of View Challenge

2011-08-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

One of my mentors from the Loft Literary Center teaches an entire graduate course on point of view, and I can see why. It’s one of the big challenges my students in fiction deal with. If we are reading a story through Anna’s point of view—say it’s first person, meaning we’re reading a lot of “I”—we would expect to hear her thoughts, her physical and emotional reactions. If we suddenly get a paragraph of Johnny’s thoughts, and there aren’t two narrators in the story, then that’s a slip in point of view.

Philippa Gregory does this in all three of the novels I’ve read. I know, I bashed The White Queen pretty thoroughly, but I was waiting for other books to come in at the library, and the historical period was so interesting, that I picked up The Red Queen. I liked it better. The narrator is a childish, devout woman who spends much of her life separated from court and lives with the singular conviction that she is right: God is on her side: and that means the House of Lancaster, for which her only son is heir, must be king. There are fewer characters to keep track of, and those characters have more space to be developed. Dialogue is more natural, and the huge span of years that weighed down the White Queen for me, works here, because we are forever waiting for the great crowning of her son.

But, Ms. Gregory has a fascinating point of view challenge. She is writing history through the point of view of the famous women who lived it, whose voices we so rarely hear. Through their eyes, we are perfectly placed for court intrigue, scheming, secret messages, and all that great behind-the-scenes stuff. But, the ultimate test of who would be king is determined on the battle field, where the women could not go. This is why we hear so little of their voices in general. They did not fight. They did not publicly advise the king, if they did at all. They were not allowed to be involved in any of the important processes we focus on in history, other than producing sons. Both of the female narrators spend large portions of their stories in hiding; one has sought sanctuary in the church, and the other is under house arrest. We have messengers, yes, but how on earth does one write the battle scenes from their point of view?

If they can’t witness the battle, then in order to stay within first person point of view, the women have to either imagine the battle, which takes away the historical accuracy, or be told about it. But who would tell a woman an account of the battle, in the kind of detail we want to hear? And even if someone did, he could only tell what he saw. We would not get the strategy of troop movement that is so fascinating. Other than breaking the laws of history and placing them on the battlefield, there is no way to keep the women’s point of view and describe the battle scenes, which are my favorite parts. Her solution? Switch point of view to omnipotent for those chapters only. Structurally, it seems kind of an unfortunate decision, but how can we blame the author when what binds her are the unfair rules that bound women throughout history?

Emily recommends

2011-08-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

I have a new book on my must-read list. Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I read it in three delicious gulps, then wandered around for two days complaining of being bookless and wishing for more. It’s an epistolary novel, not a form you see often now, and the author pulls it off beautifully. The story begins in 1945 in a bombed-out London, recovering from the Great War. Juliet, who has written a lively, morale-building column all through the war, is looking for a new topic. She receives a letter from a man named Dawsey on the island of Guernsey, who obtained one of her old books from a used book store and is writing to say how much it cheered his heart during the occupation. I did not know that England owned a series of islands in the English channel, close enough to see northern France on a clear day. Said islands were occupied for five years by the Germans. Dawsey mentions the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which a group of islanders founded to keep themselves sane during the occupation. Intrigued, Juliet asks to learn more, and she soon begins a correspondence with a number of the members. This is a delightful, heart-warming book about the joys of reading, and each of the characters is unique and wonderful and fully real. Part of what kept me reading is that, as the letters continue, you learn more and more about the occupation: the lack of food, the small defiances, the forced laborers brought from Poland, the intricacies of life on a small island where one sees the occupiers daily and not all of them are bad. Those who love history and literature will love this book, and as the story continues I spy I hint of Pride and Prejudice in there. But what keeps me thinking about this one, a week and a full book later, is the sense that I have seen full, real lives lived out in this book, and I miss hearing their voices now.

book review

2011-08-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

I picked up Philippa Gregory’s novel The Other Boleyn Girl for some light summer reading. I’m quite drawn to the current trend of retelling history from the perspectives of women who lived them, though I wasn’t sure how historical this would be, and how much it might be, well, a bodice-ripper, as they say. I was very pleasantly surprised. Ms. Gregory is known for her historical research—she has a PhD—and it was clear that great study had gone into realizing the food, dress, and landscape of England. The story was hard to put down. We know of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, mother of Queen Elizabeth, beheaded to make way for wife #3 (of 6). Less known is that Anne’s sister Mary was the king’s lover first. Mary had two children by the king, one of them a boy. Ms. Gregory delves into this story of intrigue as the family schemes to capture and keep the heart (and power) of the king. The sisters are a tenuous alliance, often pitted against each other but tied by the bond of blood. At any given moment in time, either of them might be reduced to being the Other Boleyn girl, as the title so aptly names them. The political backdrop is fascinating, as is the decadent life of court. I found myself, out for Korean food with my husband, expounding on the fascinating details of the Tudor court. An example: Anne Boleyn began to fall out of favor with her husband the king when they had been married for a few years sans son. Anne always dressed in the French style, having grown up at French court, with a particular headpiece to match. The king’s new favorite was Jane Seymour (daughter of another powerful scheming household, who would eventually be queen and die in childbirth giving him a sickly son.) Jane adopted the religious house-shaped hat that the former Spanish Queen Katharine had worn. And so now the ladies in waiting were torn: which style to choose? The style of hat indicated loyalty, and loyalty would be rewarded or punished based on which woman won out. Fascinating.

I have to say, her first book of the next series on the Plantagenets, The White Queen, is nowhere near as good. The political backdrop remains fascinating: the book is set during the war of the Roses, when cousins battled for kingship while England suffered. Beginning in 1464, the novel is written in the voice of Elizabeth Woodward, who married secretly across battle lines and wound up queen of England when her husband won. She is best known—and this is the most interesting part of the book—as the mother of the two princes who disappeared from the Tower of London—a mystery that has never been solved. But, 20-year time period that the book spans results in a slow middle, and this book lacks that emotional center and tension of The Other Boleyn Girl’s battling sisters. The writing itself is not very strong. It’s rather repetitive, as though Ms. Gregory is afraid the reader has forgotten what happened two chapters ago. Some of the repetitiveness is necessary: there seems to have been about 5 male names spread among all the characters. Elizabeth had TWO sons, a brother, and a brother-in-law all named Richard. (Yikes!) To keep us on track, Ms. Gregory wisely always refers to characters by their relationship and title, but given that no one would ever say to her mother “my brother-in-law George of Clarence,” the dialogue is (for this and other reasons) stilted, even fake. I do have to say that I still read the whole book, and after doing so I certainly want to look up this fascinating historical period that the author has imagined so well.

Ah, the joy of books.

smile!

2011-07-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Brent and Joyia for recommending this fabulous video, "Validation." Enjoy!

book review

2011-07-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

This is the book that got me interested in comic books and superheroes. Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay follows two Jewish cousins in the comic book industry, beginning in the late 1930s. Joe Kavalier, a talented artist who trained as an escape artist as well, has just escaped Prague with his life and is desperate to earn enough money to get his family to the safety of America. He comes to stay with his American-born cousin, Sammy Clayman, shortened American-style to Sam Clay, who has grown up feasting on comic books. The story follows their creation of the character The Escapist and several others along a deeply researched, vividly written tour that brings them through a war and into the 1950s. The popular and national history of America shifts into context as the cousins struggle through pre-war Brooklyn, a cut-throat industry, war-time Antartica, and the stasis of 1950s suburbia. It's a series of escapes, of flights of Sam's imagination.

I first heard this book on audio book 4-5 years ago. I don't recommend that approach. The tendency of each chapter to start off as though presenting a whole new world, combined with the fact that it was unfortunately abridged, left me feeling pretty confused. Still, I kept thinking about the book and its comic book background--enough to make me buy the book this summer. I remembered so many scenes as I read them--vivid imagination and writing style at work. Enjoy!

split

2011-05-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm back to book reviews!

Nothing says "Day Off" better for me than to be able to read a whole book from start to finish in a day. Sunday's choice was the powerful debut novel of my friend Swati Avasthi: Split. The writing is edgy and vivid, perfectly in the voice of 16 year-old Jace. I was immediatley caught up in Jace's story beginning the night he shows up at his brother's door, having driven halfway across the country, not having seen his brother in five years--with nowhere else to go and a "re-landscaped face, courtesy of his father's fist." The book articulately realistically explores the issue of domestic abuse, both abusers and vicitms: how (and whether) they moe on. I admire her writing, the way each page moves the story forward with perfect speed, keeps rising to its climax, and then sets us on the road to healing. I did not want to put the book down, and so, with the immense pleasure of a day off, I did not. The book is winning scads of awards. Highly recommended. Her second book is due out soon!

Kafka's Metamorphosis

2011-05-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

I wonder what Kafka would think of this version of the Metamorphosis, where Gregor turns into something much cuter than a bug?

poem

2011-04-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

A poem in honor of National Poetry Month: "The Creative Writing Professor Sits Down to Write a Sonnet." Picture a professor trying to write, getting distracted by 4 other things at once...

bus

2011-04-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about the bus lately, now that I'm car-less: thinking about what makes a good bus route, how many people take it, etc.

I'm thinking about route: why the bus goes into the parking lot of one grocery store while zooming right past the other, why it stops in the Walmart parking lot and not Target's. (Though perhaps Target intersects with a different route.) Who planned this circuitous route? With what motivations?

In Minneapolis, you had to pay attention to which direction the bus was going. Here, the buses run their loops and meet up at a central transfer station. Which means that it takes me 35 minutes to get to work and only 15 to get home, based on where I am in the loop. I live 4.3 miles from campus, as measured on my bike. (which I do take when the weather agrees. Today, April 20th, it's snowing.)

I'm thinking about how many people take the bus. I like to count how many people there are, rooting for filled seats. Often the bus if half-full at best, although the morning bus driver, whom I've gotten to know a bit, says that in the 22 years he's been driving, Eau Claire (city of 60,000) has gone from carrying 300,000 people annually to over a million.

At the same time I'm rooting for more people to ride the bus, I'm also longing for a car. Because the truth is that, if I had one right now, I'd drive every day that I didn't bike and be happy about it. I'm grateful for the chance to think these thoughts and occasionally meet new people on the bus, but I'm also eyeing every Prius that passes by...

no more collective bargaining?

2011-03-10T09:10:00.000-08:00

I promise I'll get off Wisconsin politics soon and return to books and teaching. Two weeks-ish ago, the Democratic state senators left the state so that the budget repair bill could not be voted on, as the senate would not have quarum. It was the only way to avoid the vote going through, and it gave time for hundreds of thousands of people to rally in Madison. Rather than come to a compromise, the remaining 19 senators have sidestepped the need for quarum by creating a new bill; they voted to end collective bargaining rights this morning without the presence of 14 elected officials, as explained by this New York Times article. As a teacher of English, I'm horrified by the lack of communication (not to mention fair play) that's gone on in our state senate.

roadblocked wisconsin

2011-03-09T12:23:00.000-08:00

For an excellent article from WI-Sen. Jauch, click here.

rally

2011-02-17T09:36:00.000-08:00

There were student rallies at the U-W Eau Claire campus yesterday and today. (Today's followed a walk-out). Many schools are closed for today as public employees have called in sick. 10-12,000 people came to protest Walker's "budget repair" bill, that includes taking away collective bargaining rights of public employees in the state where unions were formed. I'm hearing reports that yesterday there were 30,000. The last time so many people descended on Madison to protest, it was the Vietnam War.

I am so proud of our students who are speaking up in front of crowds, celebrating their wonderful education at the K-12 and university levels. My whole building is abuzz with collective, angry energy. There is a feeling that we're all in this together.

See the article below, pointing out that the State had a surplus when Gov. Walker arrived a month ago. Now we have a deficit:

“Wisconsin is managing better -- or at least it had been managing better until Walker took over. Despite shortfalls in revenue following the economic downturn that hit its peak with the Bush-era stock market collapse, the state has balanced budgets, maintained basic services and high-quality schools, and kept employment and business development steadier than the rest of the country. It has managed so well, in fact, that the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau recently released a memo detailing how the state will end the 2009-2011 budget biennium with a budget surplus.” In its Jan. 31 memo to legislators on the condition of the state’s budget, the Fiscal Bureau determined that the state will end the year with a balance of $121.4 million. [evidence is provided in document] ... To the extent that there is an imbalance -- Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes -- or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues -- the “crisis” would not exist.”

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_61064e9a-27b0-5f28-b6d1-a57c8b2aaaf6.html

public employees

2011-02-14T08:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Governor Walker,

As you work hard to balance the state budget, please consider this:

In 2010 alone, I taught 216 University of Wisconsin students to read, write, and think critically and creatively. These were face-to-face, writing intensive courses. I knew every student's name and gave individual feedback throughout the semester. These students will soon be the new work force in the state, the next teachers and engineers and entrepreneurs.

How much is that worth to you?

speaking up

2011-02-14T08:08:00.000-08:00

I teach a course on human rights and another on women's literature that is themed "finding your voice." We look at writers who find their voices as they speak up about issues of importance to us all. We consider who does so more effectively and why. I love seeing my students engaged with issues of human rights. I love hearing how they've shared what they are learning with their peers.

I do not wish to be an armchair humanitarian. In graduate school I managed to keep a foot in both the academic and social justice (specifically, refugee resettlement) worlds. And while my current position has allowed me to speak about human rights to a wide audience of learners, I miss having that on-the-ground experience. I do not wish to talk about speaking out without speaking out myself. As a first step, in the last two weeks I've emailed or called 6 government officials on various issues. (As a side note, I had a lovely conversation with Sen. Kathleen Vinhout about the value of education in the state of Wisconsin--preaching to the choir, given her support, but important and pleasant nonetheless.)

In grad school, my refugee resettlement colleagues wondered why on earth I was getting a degree in poetry. My MFA classmates considered my work to be a more interesting side job than waitressing. Now I look back on these interests coming together and I keep recalling that wonderful quote in the biblical book of Esther: it may be for such a time as this that you are here. I have the tremendous feeling that I am preparing for something.

hope

2011-02-04T20:39:00.000-08:00

More hope: a picture of Egyptian Christians forming a human shield around praying Muslims during the protests yesterday.

February

2011-02-04T11:39:00.001-08:00

At the start of this week I had the pleasure of visiting Georgtown, Kentucky, which boasted friendly people, a lovely campus, and 45 degree weather. Even though my trip was work-related and I had to be mentally on-the-ball, I returned to Wisconsin feeling refreshed from having gotten away. My parents in Connecticut are getting blasted with snow; my in-laws in Chicago are getting blasted with snow; it was zero degrees here yesterday--and yet, despite all of that, I had my first glimpse of spring--

I heard a bird singing.

The first bird of the year! I have a witness, too: a colleague crunching with me across the sunlit parking lot, getting ready for another day of classes. We both stopped in our tracks and just listened. Joy.

Cleopatra

2011-01-30T17:10:00.000-08:00

I'm excited about the new biography Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. I bought it for my dad for his birthday, though after reading the first chapter I was tempted to keep it for myself. And my mom might take it and read it before he even gets to touch it. The prose is beautiful, and the fascinating subject is treated in a way that makes this hotly contested, much defamed more interesting rather than less. Schiff does an excellent job of putting the story into context (ie by her time the Sphinx had had to be renovated 1000 years ago...As a Ptolemaic pharaoh, Cleopatra was about as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor) while making her life feel relevant and immediate.

Looking forward to reading this one!

masterpiece classic

2011-01-16T20:54:00.000-08:00

One of the pleasures of January is that PBS's Masterpiece Classic returns, and their current new series is Downton Abbey. It promises the grand English manors, concerns about proper suitors for headstrong young women, and worries about inheritance of the beloved Austen novels (it's hard to match Austen's wit, but as far as themes and epic sensibility, we're in at least in the same ballpark), but what fascinates me about this one is when it is set: 1912. It opens with news that the Titanic has sunk and, with it, the heir to the grand estate of Downton Abbey. It can only be passed on to a male heir, of course, and the current heir, who only managed to save his estate back in the 1880s by marrying an American heiress, has only managed to produce three daughters. The choice falls to challenging the entail that guards the estate intact from male-to-male and passing the home and the whole of their fortune on to a third cousin whom he has never met and who, they learn to their horror, is common enough to actually work for a living. Horror! Brewing beneath the drama of this grand estate are burgeoning new possibilities: electricity, cars, women's rights, modern medicine, maids taking correspondence courses to become secretaries...the large serving staff that runs the home are as important to the story as the wealthy owners, all of which makes for fascinating storytelling. And of course, we "readers" know that we are only a few years away from WWI, which will change everything....

Watch the first two (of four) episodes on PBS here.

January

2011-01-09T15:38:00.000-08:00

If January were an animal, it would be a thick-furred mammal, oh-so-slow to get on its feet but long on endurance once it's up. In the middle of the semester, January is a promise: whole weeks free? What hope! What opportunities to complete myriad projects! I keep this expectation through the month, but in reality, January is a time of burrowing in, waking late despite efforts to the contrary to discover that there are only 4 hours of daylight left.

I heard that somewhere in central Minnesota a McDonald's was offering a great deal, buy one (whatever), get one at yesterday's noon high temperature. And no, they would not give you money back for negatives. Yesterday, I could have brought a second (whatever) for 7 cents. So I guess it's still somewhat warm out.

I keep trying to write poetry about January but stop because it makes me cold.

That said, the sun today was heavily, and I finally figured out where the county park is. I saw more people on the cross country ski trails this afternoon than I saw all week. And you simply can't beat the peace of it, the snow covered views.

Wishing you a cozy January.

sample poems

2011-01-06T12:04:00.000-08:00

Check out the winter edition of The Broken City Magazine for two of my poems. I'm on pages 4-5.

book review

2010-12-22T11:45:00.000-08:00

Matt and I read this book aloud to each other in less than a week. So immersing is this account of dogsledding and running the Iditarod that any chance we got, we'd say "how about another chapter?" The prologue and the first chapter reveal the danger and the majesty of dog sledding--of being outside in areas of the woods and wilderness that a person would not otherwise see, in all weather. It is clear that Paulsen is revealing his soul here, and reading (or listening), I feel as though I have glimpsed the awesome world of snow in his writing. Yet, the prologue and opening chapter are also misleading, because they lack one other aspect of the book that kept us turning the pages: Paulsen's fantastic sense of humor. The rest of the chapters had us laughing out loud as he chronicles his "appauling ignorance" in the world of running dogs. He sets himself up as the constant--and comic--beginner, and through his fumbles we see just how hard it is to do this right. It is not a good idea, for example, to hook half a dozen raring-to-go, half-wild huskies up to a bicycle. Or a light sled. They will run wild and drag you through the woods and swamp and you might hug every other tree in Northern Minnesota--all that before you lose the team and have to try to find them again. Running at night in the summer, prepare for your dogs to find and try to eat every skunk in the forest. And there are a lot of them. I feel like I have a sense of what it means to run the Iditarod--enough to know how little I know, and that I would never, myself, dream of going near it. A highly recommended read. We're giving two copies as Christmas presents.

hope plant

2010-12-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

This summer I picked up a huge plant with trumpet-shaped purple flowers from a table of free plants someone had put out. I kept it with my other ones, set it on the bedroom window sill where it got lots of sun. Over the course of the semester, I watched its big floppy leaves turn brown and crinkly around the edges. Then the flowers started to shrivel, leaving these sad-looking brown stalks left. I decided to get rid of it.

I felt bad throwing out a living thing. I would have left it for someone to talk, but it's December, and so last week I trudged out into the snow and set it out by the dumpster. Just perhaps, someone would see it and take it before it died, and then I wouldn't be killing it. I walked away, and almost made it to the door I turned around. It was crying. I brought it back inside.

I trimmed off all the ugly brown stems and the large, dying leaves. Underneath were tiny fuzzy new leaves unfurling. I fed it coffee grounds, set it away from the sunlight. In the past week, those new leaves have grown 3 inches, and a new flower, fuzzy stemmed, is just about to uncurl. It's my hope plant. Everyday I watch it grow.

a literary facebook!

2010-12-06T13:32:00.001-08:00

Check out this article announcing the unveiling of Figment.com, a space for teens with literary leanings to read and write fiction. Certainly, this is appealing to writers of YA as well...

a message of peace

2010-12-05T17:48:00.000-08:00

This morning in church I learned of an interesting example of peace that I'm going to be carrying around in my head this week. In 1944 German prisoners of war who were working on farms in Algona, Iowa--which in itself I find interesting, as I don't think of POWs really being in this country--put their downtime into sculpting an extensive nativity scene. The pieces are half of life-size. When they were able to go home, they left the nativity scene to the town, and a church keeps it up and open to the public to this day. When we talk of enemies at war, we don't think of them as people, let alone as worshipers of God, and certainly not as givers of gifts that remind us of peace. Wishing you all shalom this second week of advent.

Read more about the nativity scene here.

weddings

2010-12-02T13:54:00.001-08:00

Some of my students are reading a fascinating book by Asne Seierstad called The Bookseller of Kabul. Set in Kabul, Afghanistan, the book follows each of the family members of a man who has sold books throughout Afghanistan's changing regimes, many of which have rewritten their country's history and banned new sets of books. Fascinating as his story is, the book devotes its time to his family, focusing increasingly at the harsh lives the women in the family lead. (My students often comment on the author's decision not to include herself in the story, though she clearly makes her opinions known through her organization and choice of events--I love inviting students to consider the choices the writer makes in creating a book.) One memorable chapter describes preparation for a wedding, in which the author describes trying to follow two of the women of the family (dressed in burkas) through a crowded market filled with burkas. The descriptions of the following wedding shares some notable resemblances to this Uzbec wedding in Tajikastan that my friend Bethany Gustafson photo-documents here. For example, the bride must not smile, else it will be thought that she is happy to lead her parents' home.

Coming soon: a review of Gary Paulsen's Winter Dance.

Faces of Witness

2010-10-17T19:56:00.001-07:00

I am absolutely blown away by Faces of Witness, a gorgeous combination of art, testimony, and human rights activism created by my talented friend Elaine Denny. She conducted interviews about the human rights struggles in El Salvadore and composed pen-and-ink portraits of her interviewees--composed entirely of their own testimonies.

Check out the website and art work here.

poetry in world news

2010-09-02T08:20:00.001-07:00

Poetry strikes again:

Chilean Artist Bombs Berlin with 100,000 Poems

I'm back!

2010-08-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

It's easy to begrudge the start of school. No more vacation. No more unscheduled, pick-up-and-go summer. Time to write the syllabi. Prepare for the 8 AM class, knowing the students who aren't morning people are equally concerned/in denial about meeting that hour 4 times a week. After a summer of Tevas, back to closed-toes shoes that rub. Back to fitting more than you thought possible into a day--

BUT, yesterday I walked across campus and saw that the freshmen have arrived on campus for their various orientations. They walk across the green, hugging their new notebooks, checking their maps, standing near people they have just met who they hope will be their new friends, wearing the clothes they have carefully chosen to look just right. I remember walking past the English building and catching a glimpse of myself in the window at Williams and just being so incredibly proud, thinking, I'm in college now. You can feel that uncertainty and excitement out on the lawn today.

Leaving the office: the perfect reset button. I am excited to meet my students.

DRAFT 2 DONE!!!

2010-06-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

One ream of paper and an entire container of ink later, I've printed three copies (well, almost three copies, darn ink jet) of my "finished" novel, working title /The Violinist/. I have finished draft two and will be putting it in the mail tomorrow. (Which is a bit of a deal, considering it's almost an inch thick.) I say "finished" because there's always the chance my readers will point out enormous design flaws. But I've been writing 5-6 days a week all of June, and it has been joyous. It helps to be able to go for a walk before, after, and sometimes during writing sessions--especially after, when I'm trying to snap out of the written world.

Tomorrow Matt and I head off westward. Look for posts from me describing Montana and beyond.

sample poetry

2010-06-22T13:32:00.001-07:00

Check out the new issue of the lovely Pedestal Magazine, which features, among other things, a poem of mine titled "Monsoon." I wrote it on a writer's retreat 2 summers ago after reading a National Geographic special on India monsoons. It looks amazing to see water fill the streets, people rafting where they used to walk, but I tried to balance that with the reality of what it would be like to live with all that water. Enjoy!

15 miles on the Erie Canal

2010-06-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

10 points for you if you can sing the song with these lyrics.

My mother- and father-in-law just completed their sail of Erie Canal. They described the trip so beautifully, I thought I'd share it:

"Our trip through the canal took 13 days. We negotiated 35 locks and cruised 338 miles, plus 7 miles on the Niagara River from Buffalo to North Tonawanda. It might be fun to regale you with tales of our harrowing adventures along the Erie. However, there are no such stories to tell. For the last two weeks, our days have passed with uniform pleasantness. The scenery we’ve watched slide by at our cruising speed of 5 ½ knots has been varied and interesting. The weather’s been good. The people we’ve encountered are lovely. The captain and first mate - those roles, by the way, are interchangeable - still communicate in a cordial manner. Life is good.

For you history lovers out there, construction of the Erie Canal began in 1817. It opened for service seven years later. Its impact was immediate and overwhelming cutting the cost of moving commercial products substantially. Freight rates dropped from $100 per ton to $5 per ton. The travel time across NY went from 6 weeks to 6 days. The canal offered, for the first time, easy, cheap access to the interior of the continent. This opened the gate for uncounted thousands of settlers and tons of manufactured goods to stream west and agricultural products to flood east. The flow of goods and people to and from the interior transformed New York City into the largest, most prosperous seaport in North America. I might add that the Erie Canal did not benefit the Native Americans. In fact, the canal and its traffic hastened the destruction of the culture of the indigenous people.

On a map, the Erie Canal meanders east/west across New York State. It connects Lake Erie on the west to the Hudson River on the east. Any description of a transit through the canal can be conveniently divided into the western and eastern halves, with Oneida Lake smack-dab in the middle.

The western half, where we departed, starts in Buffalo. It took half a day to leave behind the industrial landscape of metropolitan Buffalo. Then, for the next eight days, we slowly cruised through rolling farmland and orchards. “Pastoral” is an excellent description. It even has cows! For many miles on its western half, the canal runs high above the surrounding countryside, sometimes as much as 70ft. We never tired of the panoramic views of rural New York.

Scattered along the canal are numerous old towns. They were excellent places to stop for the night. It was fun to walk their streets, admire the architecture of their old buildings, and talk to the local residents. It was also a bit sad. Once-upon-a-time, these towns were thriving commercial centers. Now, most of the industry is long-gone. Today, most of these towns rely on the vagaries of tourism to make a living. Real prosperity seems to be a thing of the past.

Eight days after leaving Buffalo, we arrived in Brewerton, NY, situated on the western shore of Oneida Lake. Oneida Lake is 21 miles long and 5 miles across. That makes it a considerable body of water and one to be crossed on a mild day. We crossed on a lightly overcast day with perfect conditions for a blunt-nosed boat that dislikes punching into big waves and for a crew that has already had too much sun.

East of Oneida Lake the character of the land changes dramatically. Farms become less frequent. Woods are thicker and more prevalent. Two hundred fifty years ago, endless miles of old-growth forest carpeted the area. Now, those great forests no longer exist, but up-state New York is still very pretty to look at.

As we continued our eastward journey, the land became rocky and hilly, almost mountainous. Here, the Erie Canal begins its increasingly steep descent into the Hudson River Valley. Within the last mile-and-one-half, five locks called the Waterford Flight dropped us the last 169 feet to the Hudson River. According to our guidebook, The Waterford Flight has the highest “lift” within the shortest distance of any lock system in the world. Waterford claims to be the oldest incorporated village in the United States. Walking through the town, seeing the old buildings, and reading signs about where George Washington rode past on his way to the Battle of Saratoga, we have every reason to believe that Waterford’s claim is correct."

Sail on!!

city day, country day

2010-06-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

Friday was a city day, Saturday was a country day. How fortunate I am to be at least slightly a part of both worlds.

City (Minneapolis): I felt like a hip urban chica hanging out in Minneapolis with my friend and former roommate Katie. The day included a walk to the new frozen yogurt bar Cafe Kem (Vietnamese for Ice Cream, I believe) on Nicollet and 25th-ish. There's nothing cooler, to me, than discovering a hole-in-the-wall gem of a restaurant. Located on Eat Street (aka Nicollet), this one was new enough that you had to hit the handicap button to get in through the sliding door, and it looks, briefly, like you're about to walk into someone's town home. But, turn right and there's a sleek, posh-looking cafe that sells espresso in its various forms, bubble tea, and soon-to-be gelato. The highlight was the self-serve frozen yogurt, which actually tastes likes yogurt and comes in such fun flavors, that week, a lychee and salty plum, as well as old standards like plain and mixed berry. The topping bar included candy and fresh fruit. At 46 cents an ounce, the pricing was about the same as a sundae, and the result was delicious. Check it out, those of you in the area.

Add to that experience a rooftop picnic, writing time in a cafe in the warehouse district, a jucy lucy for dinner from the famous Matt's bar, and a poetry reading at the Loft, with good friends included in all of those activities, and I was having a grand old time, missing the city life quite a bit.

Country: June is Dairy Month, folks, an in celebration we gathered our neighbors and headed to the family dairy farm in Elmwood that was selected to host this year's 17th Annual Dunn County Dairy Breakfast. We feasted on all-you-can-eat waffles with eight or so different kinds of syrup and fresh whipped cream, accompanied by coffee and four other forms of dairy: milk, pudding, fresh-fried cheese curds, and ice cream (if you could fit it in, which we couldn't). Add to that a car show (is it just me or are car shows often a big part of small town events?), a nice line-up of tractors, a church bake sale, a wagon ride, a petting zoo, and a man trying to collect enough ballot to run for...shoot, something in November. It was beautiful to drive through all the farmland in the drizzling rain and know that waffles awaited us.

Of course, what makes both days wonderful, when it comes down to it, was activity with good people, featuring good food. Hard to go wrong in any setting when you have that.

Memorializing / the writing life

2010-06-01T16:14:00.000-07:00

Feeling a bit tender around the edges after a plan to celebrate Memorial Day with friends resulted in us watching both /Glory/ and /Gettysburg/ in the same day. That's about 6.5 hours of fighting and dying. Both movies are incredibly stirring and highly recommended, though not on the same day. I think it's neat to know that the way /Gettysburg/ managed to have such huge crowds was have Civil War reenactors be extras in the movie. They came with their own costumes--that, though, is the reason why there is no blood and their uniforms are always clean.

Anyway, monthly writing total. The semester is over. (yay!) It ended mid-May, so I set my goal at double the in-semester writing total. I wanted to write 40 pages, topping off at page 100. Yesterday, I hit 101. Since the novel is 202 pages long, that's precisely half. Woo hoo! I'm hoping to treat the next two weeks at home as a writer's retreat and get lots more done. I'm loving having the time to write.

Speaking of the Civil War, tonight is summer's first Luddington Guard Band (formed during civil war) performance and pie sale at the park in Menomonie. :) Their playlist will include a Broadway review.

tennis and poetry

2010-05-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

I went to college with a guy who used to attend the debates and then sum up what he'd heard in rhyming couplets (composed during the event). I say, the more people are exposed to good poetry, the better. Here's a nice example of the same, courtesy of Yahoo Sports News:

WIMBLEDON, England (AP)—If Roger Federer’s performances at Wimbledon weren’t already the stuff of poetry, they certainly will be this year.

The country that gave the world Shakespeare and Wordsworth will have a “Championships Poet” at Wimbledon to write a poem a day about the Grand Slam tournament.

British comedian and poet Matt Harvey is the first bard summoned, charged with writing “on all things Wimbledon.” The All England Club said that includes everything “from umpires and racket stringers to the ball boys and ball girls; from the grass and its bounce to rain and the roof; strawberries and cream and all the unfolding drama of the matches and players.”

The raft of possible topics may well include Queen Elizabeth II, who is planning to attend June 24, her first visit to the grass-court showcase since 1977.

The poems will be made available on the Wimbledon website during the June 21-July 4 tournament and as an audio podcast read by Harvey.

Harvey, who regularly appears on British radio shows, said he was “delighted” by the assignment, “with a little bit of healthy anxiety thrown in.”

“It’s an honor,” Harvey said. “And I’m acutely conscious it’s the only time I’ll come first in anything at Wimbledon, unless you count the queue for strawberries.”

The idea of a Championships Poet came from Honor Godfrey, the curator of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum. He said it will “provide a novel and interesting way” of interpreting the tournament.

“It will be fascinating to see both Matt’s take on what we see year-in year-out, and indeed the public’s reaction to the poems,” Godfrey said.

Harvey has already written his first Wimbledon poem, called “Grandest of Slams,” which is available on the website of The Poetry Trust, a British organization collaborating on the project with the All England Club.

In “Grandest of Slams,” he writes of the tournament, “Where tough tennis cookies have cracked and then crumbled in/Top seeds have stumbled, have tumbled, been humbled in/Wimbledon.”

Online:

www.thepoetrytrust.org

world photography

2010-05-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

The New York Times had anyone with a camera in the entire world take a photo last Sunday at the same time (here it was 10:00 a.m.) Click here to link in with photos from around the world.

pet therapy

2010-05-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, this isn't our campus that's offering pet therapy...maybe an idea for the future?

UW offers stressed students pet therapy

MADISON (AP) - The University of Wisconsin-Madison wants stressed-out students to drop the books and pet some pooches.
University Health Services will offer its annual pet therapy session to help students cope with the pressure of final exams. Counselors will bring in their dogs for students to pet and play with to alleviate stress.
Counselors also will be available to listen to students' problems. Their advice includes setting attainable goals, striving for excellence rather than perfection, laying off the caffeine, deep breathing and maintaining a sense of humor.
The pet therapy session is set for Wednesday afternoon on campus.

writing life

2010-05-04T06:42:00.000-07:00

It's the start of another month, which means the posting of another month's writing total. It seems that 20 pages/month of revision is my rate, at least, during the semester. The last day of April saw me onto page 59 (and it took about 5000 words of writing to get there). It's nice to say that I'm now a quarter of the way through the book.

Also, this past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Children's and Young Adult Literature Writing Conference at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. When I went last year, I was trying to figure out whether I wanted to make the book YA, and all the names that came up were completely new for me. This year, it was nice to recognize the names.

Speaking of which, review of M.T. Anderson's /Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing/ forthcoming soon.

May Day

2010-05-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

On this day, May 1st, five years ago, I met my husband for the first time, randomly, at a May Day festival in Minneapolis. Five years sounds like such a long and short time to have known each other. This got me thinking about how much my life has changed in the past five years. In addition to meeting Matt, getting married, and settling into married life, I've
-started and finished my MFA
-supported my husband through his masters (almost done!!!)
-stayed in the midwest (and moved to WI)--2 things I would never have anticipated
-lived in community in a house in the city with four wonderful roommates (living in the city in community being a dream I had in college)
-moved to the smallest town I've ever lived in (16000 ppl)
-taught at the college level for the entire duration of those five years
-published a chapbook and written two books (one poetry, seeking publisher--one novel, in revision--monthly word count coming soon)
-introduced my dearest friends to Maine (via our wedding)
-been to Ghana, Panama, Amsterdam (twice), and Venice
-learned to bake both pie and cheesecake (and many of the other recipes I know)
-grown my hair the longest it's ever been, cut it short, and started growing it again

You make the time period long enough, and you're bound to come up with some impressive accomplishments. But seriously, it is amazing to think how much has changed from 22 to 27. I can't even imagine what this list will look like in a further five years from now.

What's on your list?

Earth Day

2010-04-23T07:23:00.000-07:00

Sad irony that I began Earth Day by accidentally sleeping through my carpool and had to drive myself to work.

In honor of the day, check out this site run by a woman who was in my class this semester. Green Girl Inc is devoted to living more sustainably. I learned quite a bit from reading her papers this semester.

In the News: Professor Removed for Being Too Hard

2010-04-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

In continuing my rash of article posting, this thorough article from today's Inside Higher Ed questions where universities really expect average grades to be. It appears that those in power listened to students complain and did not attempt to understand how her class was structured beforehand. I could speculate several ways, but given that I have no more information than this, I'll let the article speak for itself.

Who Really Failed?

April 15, 2010

Dominique G. Homberger won't apologize for setting high expectations for her students.

The biology professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge gives brief quizzes at the beginning of every class, to assure attendance and to make sure students are doing the reading. On her tests, she doesn't use a curve, as she believes that students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course. For multiple choice questions, she gives 10 possible answers, not the expected 4, as she doesn't want students to get very far with guessing.

Students in introductory biology don't need to worry about meeting her standards anymore. LSU removed her from teaching, mid-semester, and raised the grades of students in the class. In so doing, the university's administration has set off a debate about grade inflation, due process and a professor's right to set standards in her own course.

To Homberger and her supporters, the university's action has violated principles of academic freedom and weakened the faculty.

"This is terrible. It undercuts all of what we do," said Brooks Ellwood, president of the LSU Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and the Robey H. Clark Distinguished Professor of Geology. "If you are a non-tenured professor at this university, you have to think very seriously about whether you are going to fail too many students for the administration to tolerate."

Even for those who, like Homberger, are tenured, there is a risk of losing the ability to stick to your standards, he said, Teaching geology, he said, there are students who get upset when he talks about the actual age of the earth and about evolution. "Now students can complain to a dean" and have him removed, Elwood said. "I worry that my ability to teach in the classroom has been diminished."

Kevin Carman, dean of the College of Basic Sciences, did not respond to requests for a phone interview Wednesday. But he issued a statement through the university's public relations office that said: "LSU takes academic freedom very seriously, but it takes the needs of its students seriously as well. There was an issue with this particular class that we felt needed to be addressed.

"The class in question is an entry-level biology class for non-science majors, and, at mid-term, more than 90 percent of the students in Dr. Homberger's class were failing or had dropped the class. The extreme nature of the grading raised a concern, and we felt it was important to take some action to ensure that our students receive a rigorous, but fair, education. Professor Homberger is not being penalized in any way; her salary has not been decreased nor has any aspect of her appointment been changed."

In an interview, Homberger said that there were numerous flaws with Carman's statement. She said that it was true that most students failed the first of four exams in the course. But she also said that she told the students that -- despite her tough grading policies -- she believes in giving credit to those who improve over the course of the semester.

At the point that she was removed, she said, some students in the course might not have been able to do much better than a D, but every student could have earned a passing grade. Further, she said that her tough policy was already having an impact, and that the grades on her second test were much higher (she was removed from teaching right after she gave that exam), and that quiz scores were up sharply. Students got the message from her first test, and were working harder, she said.

"I believe in these students. They are capable," she said. And given that LSU boasts of being the state flagship, she said, she should hold students to high standards. Many of these students are in their first year, and are taking their first college-level science course, so there is an adjustment for them to make, Homberger said. But that doesn't mean professors should lower standards.

Homberger said she was told that some students had complained about her grades on the first test. "We are listening to the students who make excuses, and this is unfair to the other students," she said. "I think it's unfair to the students" to send a message that the way to deal with a difficult learning situation is "to complain" rather than to study harder.

Further, she said that she was never informed that administrators had any concerns about her course until she received a notification that she was no longer teaching it. (She noted that the university's learning management system allowed superiors to review the grades on her first test in the course.)

And while her dean authorized her removal from teaching the course, she said, he never once sat in on her course. Further, she said that in more than 30 years of teaching at LSU, no dean had ever done so, although they would have been welcome.

"Why didn't they talk to me?" she asked.

Homberger said that she has not had any serious grading disputes before, although it's been about 15 years since she taught an introductory course. She has been teaching senior-level and graduate courses, and this year, she asked her department's leaders where they could use help, and accepted their suggestion that she take on the intro course.

In discussions with colleagues after she was removed from the course, Homberger said that no one has ever questioned whether any of the test questions were unfair or unfairly graded, but that she was told that she may include "too many facts" on her tests.

Ellwood, the campus AAUP chapter president, said that his group had verified that no one informed Homberger of concerns before removing her from the course, and that no one had questioned the integrity of her tests. He also said that the scores on the second test were notably better than the first one, suggesting that students were responding to the need to do more work. "She's very rigorous. There's no doubt about that," he said.

Based on its investigation, the AAUP chapter has sent a letter to administrators, arguing that they violated Homberger's academic freedom and due process rights and demanding an apology. (No apology has been forthcoming.)

Cary Nelson, national president of the AAUP, said that the organization has always believed that "an instructor has the responsibility for assigning grades," and that the LSU case was "disturbing in several respects." He noted that "the practice of assigning tough grades in an early assignment as a wake-up call to students is quite common" and that "the instructor made it clear that she had no intention of failing that many students when it came time for final grades."

If administrators were concerned, he said, they had a responsibility to "discuss the matter fully with the instructor" before taking any action. And he said that "removal from the classroom mid-semester is a serious sanction that requires all the protections of due process." Nelson said that the incident "raises serious questions about violations of pedagogical freedoms."

Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke University professor who is the founder of GradeInflation.com, a Web site that publishes research on grading, questioned whether LSU was really trying to help students. "How many times has Dean Carman removed a professor from a class who was giving more than 90 percent As?" he asked.

LSU's public affairs office did not respond to follow-up questions about the statement it issued, and to the criticisms made by various faculty members.

Homberger declined to give out the names of students who have expressed support, saying that to do so would violate her confidentiality obligations. But she released (without student names) answers to a bonus question on the course's second test. The question asked students to describe "the biggest 'AHA' reaction" they had had during the course.

Many of the reactions were about various issues in biology -- with evolution as a major topic. But a number dealt with grades and work habits. One was critical: "When I found out my test grade, I almost had a heart attack."

But many other comments about the course standards were positive, with several students specifically praising Homberger's advice that they form study groups. One student wrote: "“My biggest AHA-reaction in this course is that I need to study for this course every night to make a good grade. I must also attend class, take good notes, and have study sessions with others. Usually a little studying can get me by but not with this class which is why it is my AHA-reaction."

best "news" I've read all week

2010-04-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

Below is an article from Sunday's New York Post describing real-life masked, costumed superheroes on New York--an article (and a group of people) who made me very happy about humanity. The best part of the article are the pictures and the video, which you can find by following this link here.

NYC's own superheroes

By JAMES FANELLI

With great costumes comes great responsibility.

“Kick-Ass,” an action movie opening this week, spins a tale of average Joes becoming masked crime fighters, but New York has been home to real-life caped crusaders for years.

Gotham’s legion of real-life superheroes includes a leather-clad martial-arts expert who battles drug dealers, a masked religious hipster who feeds the homeless and an engaged pair of relationship counselors, Arjuna Ladino, 42, and Shanti Owen, 50, who don star-spangled spandex as the “Transformational Warriors” to spread the power of love.

“We are just people who really care and try to go out and make a difference,” says Chris Pollak, 25, whose alter ego, “Dark Guardian,” strikes fear in the hearts of drug peddlers in Washington Square Park. “The idea is to be this drastic example of making change in your community.”

The Staten Islander has been patrolling city streets for the last seven years, frequently putting himself in harm’s way. A drug dealer flashed a gun at Pollak once, and he has almost come to blows with thugs.

“My fiancée is very supportive, but she gets worried if I’m doing anything that involves danger,” Dark Guardian said. “When I met my fiancée, I told her I liked to do this thing where I go out and help the homeless and patrol the streets. I didn’t get into the whole costume thing — I waited until a little bit into the relationship.”

Occasionally, Dark Guardian gets an assist from two fellow superheroes, Chaim “Life” Lazaros, 25, and Ben Goldman, 23, a k a “Cameraman,” who has videotaped the Washington Square showdowns. The plucky pair also hands out food to the city’s homeless at least once a week.

Lazaros, who shares a Harlem hideout with Cameraman, said it takes a certain type to don a mask and do good. “They all have extremely strong personalities and a desire to change the world,” he said.

That’s not to say all real-life superheroes seek change through crime-fighting.

“The Phantom Zero,” a 33-year northern New Jersey-based superhero, raises money for charities and donates to the homeless. He has also accompanied Dark Guardian on some of his patrols. “I was scared out of my gourd,” The Phantom Zero said, declining to give his real name.

But his 20-year-old masked sweetheart, “Nyx,” has shown some gumption. Before moving to New Jersey to be with her super man, she lived in Kansas, where she would secretly snap shots of meth labs and send them to the authorities.

“I used to carry weaponry with me. But seeing as how I’m in New York . . . I don’t,” Nyx said.

writers are always looking for good character names...

2010-04-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

Hello Mr. Death! Researcher finds rare Chinese names
(Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters Life!) – Unhappy with your name? Then spare a thought for those rare Chinese families who surnames mean "zero," "ghost" or even "death."

A man in China's southern province of Jiangxi has spent the last 20 years compiling a list of unusual family names, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Most Chinese people share a few common surnames, like Zhang, Wang, Li, Liu and Chen. The Chinese expression for "ordinary people" literally means "the old one hundred surnames."

But Cheng Yinglian's interest was piqued after reading a newspaper many years ago and discovering a person with the surname Gui, meaning "ghost," CCTV said.

Since then, he has scoured newspapers, books and other publications to find similar rare surnames, coming up with about 2,000 to date.

Those he has found include Ling, or "zero," Cu, or "vinegar," Miao, or "second" and Yi, or "one."

Superstitions related to names are still strong in China, and many parents go out of their way to give their children auspicious names which suggest they will grow up to be healthy, strong and rich.

While you can legally change your surname in China, the report did not say how many people had chosen to change theirs if they were unfortunate enough to be born a "death" or "ghost."

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Liu Zhen, editing by Miral Fahmy)

Poland

2010-04-10T21:38:00.001-07:00

I can only imagine what the country of Poland is going through right now after the plane crash accident that took the lives of so many of its leaders. Wars and genocides have begun with the plane-crash deaths of political leaders, and I am so grateful that Poland is a stable, supported country. But I can't imagine. Here is an article I found through the Poland News website.

March writing total

2010-04-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

March pretty much stayed like a lamb the whole time, and now we’ve coasted into April. My month as artist-of-the-month at the co-op is over, and it’s time for the monthly writing update. I had hoped, just for the sake of round numbers, to say that the first 40 pages were now solid, but in truth I'm only to the end of 38 (though that’s 1.5 spacing, so in double space it’s longer…) I keep waiting to reach the section where all I have to do is change a verb or two, and 50 pages are all set. That’s the problem with deleting characters...they just keep popping up saying important things that you have to put into someone else's mouth.

Anyway, I wrote 5575 words, which comes out to about 22 pages this month. PLUS on Monday, the first day of my spring break, I spent the whole day writing a 20-page short story from start to finish. It was glorious. I’ve never written that much in one day in my LIFE. Of course, when you set the standard like that on the first day of break, the rest is bound to look a bit paltry by comparison. It was like when I bought furniture out of college, and my very first piece of furniture I purchased (working for Americorps, granted) was a 99 cent couch. After that, my perspective was way off. What??? That tag-sale futon costs 20 couches!!!

I’ve spent most of spring break so far correcting papers and doing some writing, the latter of which makes me a happier person. I’ve decided that my ideal schedule would be 3-4 weeks on (teaching), 2 weeks off to write. Give yourself a whole summer, and the urgency fades. But goodness knows a second week of writing and no teaching sound amazing right now...

Green Bible

2010-03-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

I ended up sitting in the car for an extra ten minutes this morning listening to an interview with Dr. Matthew Sleeth, who has written several books discussing how the Bible focuses on caring for the earth. It's wonderful to hear people talking about how intimately connected being a Christian and caring for the environment are--I'd like to read his book! Find his website here, or read the write-up from his website about his new book The Gospel According to Earth below:

"As an emergency room doctor, Matthew Sleeth saw a disturbing increase in asthma, autoimmune diseases, cancers, and other environmentally related health issues. Although he considered himself an environmentalist, he lacked the commitment to do anything about it. One slow night in the ER, Sleeth picked up a Gideon's Bible in the waiting room. Although raised in a Christian home, he had long ago abandoned his childhood beliefs. Reading the gospels that night, Sleeth became a Christian, and to his shock, he began to uncover in the Scriptures an enormous wealth of environmental answers that he had been seeking. As a result, his family took an account of their lifestyle, drastically reduced their reliance on electricity and fossil fuels, and began sharing their inspirational journey with others. Here, Sleeth invites you on his family's journey as they realize that one cannot be a Christian without recognizing the Bible's call to care for God's creation.

"From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is filled with instructions on how we can demonstrate our love for the Creator by caring for the earth. Sleeth leads us on a highly creative journey through Scripture, visiting some of the most important characters in the Bible and discovering what they can teach us about issues such as stewardship, caring for our neighbors, and pollution. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden teach us the importance of physical work in relation to discovering fulfillment and a sense of human purpose, the prophet Daniel calls us to question our dietary habits, and the story of Noah addresses key issues for life on earth: how do we relate to the Creator, to others in the human community, and to the rest of the natural world? With passion and faith, Sleeth provides a new green lens through which we can read the Bible to discover answers to our biggest questions about the environment and how to care for it."

spring has sprung!

2010-03-24T06:03:00.000-07:00

Over the last week and a half in Menomonie, we've had 4 days that hit 60. I've seen a crocus or two, and the daffodils are up 4 inches. But, that's not the sign of spring around here. I'm now finally free to say it's spring, because

the clunker has gone through the ice!

Every winter the Lion's club parks an old car ("the Lions clunker"), stripped of seats and engine, etc., out on the ice. I hear they take bets on when it sinks through, but you have to be a member or know someone for that. Yesterday at 6 PM the car's tires had sunken in, and this morning at 7 AM it was gone. Hurrah! (They'll haul it out and use it again next year.)

So, let spring begin!

Speaking of, Govin's farm in Menomonie, which opens up its barn to visitors who want to see the darling new lambs, etc., just had goats born last night. Apparently, the kids were too weak to nurse that first night, but they still were trying to climb up the ramp in their pen. Adventurous...

a little Lenten contemplation

2010-03-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

The story of the final hours leading up to Jesus’ death (the Passion of Christ) is nearly always told as a story of suffering and sacrifice, of what Jesus allowed to happen to him, since arguably he had the power to prevent be handed over from mob to mock trial to mob to the cross. Our focus during Lent is encouraged to be on how Christ suffered for us and the world and how through all of that, sin was forgiven.

But, what if we looked at it the opposite way? What if we considered what Christ did? How even those last few hours extended what he had always been doing?

In the last few hours, he
• Shared a communal meal with the friend (Judas) who would betray him
• Prayed with others, including the friend (Peter) he knew who would deny him
• Prevented violence (rebuked Peter for cutting off a guy’s ear)
• Healed one of the soldiers out to arrest him (put the ear back on)
• Resisted the desire to fight back or even label the slander for what it was
• Told the truth
• Saved Barabbas’s life dying in his place
• Forgave a convict sentenced to death
• Prayed for the forgiveness of the world

Barabbas's story blows me away. Here is a man who was part of an insurrection, a violent attempt at freedom from the Romans. Many of the Jews were hoping Jesus would lead a rebellion, too, that his "new kingdom" went only to the extent of "Jewish land without Roman occupation." Here is a man fighting to free his people, jailed, sentenced to death...whose life is literally saved when the crowd decides to release him instead of Judas. Yet another recipient of Jesus' grace. And I love the name: "bar" (or ben) = son, "abbas" = daddy.

I have a poem in his voice in my chapbook. I'll post it here soon.

creative advertising, continued

2010-03-11T12:15:00.000-08:00

My friend Swati Avasti had her first young adult novel _Split_ come out today. Check out her description of book release day here.

And, as promised, here are pictures of my display at the Menomonie Market Co-op. :)

creative advertising

2010-03-04T12:03:00.000-08:00

I am proud to announce that I am the Artist of the Month at the Menomonie Market Co-Op. When you first walk in, just over the sample table and next to the produce aisle, you will find a series of seven original photo-and-poem pairings, mounted on lovely colored paper purchased at the local art store. It was a major project last week; hopefully it will sell some chapbooks (or posters!).

Here's what's fun about this town. I was trying to find flat thumb tacks for hanging my posters. The down town art store was out. I walked into the bead store down the street, who told me, as I feared, that my only in-town options were Walmart or K-mart. Another woman in the store told me to try an office supply store: clearly she was not from town, as the nearest non-Walmart office supply store is almost 30 miles away. But HERE's what's fun: as I was hanging the posters in the co-op, the woman from the bead store walked in and said "so that's why you needed the tacks." And the man from the art store said he'd look for my work--it's just down the street, after all. Hurrah for small down town where people talk to each other.

March!!!

2010-03-02T17:40:00.001-08:00

It’s March, and here that means snow on the ground, 12 degrees when the sun is down and high 30s by mid-afternoon. I am beginning to remember spring. Not that I ever entirely forgot about its existence, at least not the concept, but now I remember what it feels like. Specifically
• Birds. The way the two-note whistle of the cardinal interrupts whatever you are doing and makes you suddenly look around.
• Puddles. The big ones that block the side walks, forcing you to walk on the muddy banks of the sidewalk.
• Puddles, freezing and melting. The feel of a huge ice block under your feet when it has spent the whole day considering melting, at the top sheet of ice, just barely thick enough to support your weight, slides. How my car leaves frozen tire tracks in the parking lot ice.
• The sun. How it can beam you directly in the eyes, and not just because it’s bouncing off snow. How warm it is. How bright the windows are at certain times of day. Unlike in January, a bright blue sky does not mean it’ll be -20 out anymore.
• The sun, with us longer. It is already bright when I wake at six. I had forgotten that. For days I was confused that I was coming home at 5:15 and it still looked like day out. I thought, “how am I supposed to cocoon myself when it’s still day out?” I’m not out of my cocoon yet.
• 30-degree swing. There will be a point in spring where we wear coats only in the early morning and at night. Where I can tell whether I was last in the car in morning or afternoon based on whether my dial is set to hot or cold air.
We’re not quite to spring yet. The Lion Club’s clunker is still out on the ice, as are many people’s ice houses. We’ll probably get another snow storm or three. But after so much winter, I can remember spring. And that is the first step.

Word Count
February’s word count comes to 3,286, which is about 13 pages. A low total for the month, but we’re into revision rather than creation now. I deleted about as many pages. A more important measure at this stage is page number: how far have I gotten in the book? The first 20 pages are solid, and the beginning was one of the places that needed work. Twenty pages is about 10% of the novel, I rate, again, that I hope to speed up. Hopefully this month, if I can ever find my way out from under this pile of grading. 100 students is an overwhelming number when you teach writing(or, possibly, ever).

say SOMETHING

2010-02-25T12:18:00.000-08:00

Here is a wonderful link to a poem by Taylor Mali (animated with word art) that I'll be using in my comp. class when I teach about not using vague wording. Sneaking in poetry whenever I can...

blog poetry

2010-02-25T12:12:00.001-08:00

One of my students, reporting on poet Frank O'Hara, equated the kind of poems he writes to blogging. His poems tend to be personal, wandering, and not deeply edited. Decide for yourselves. Here's one I love:

HAVING A COKE WITH YOU

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

Here is a clip of Frank O'Hara reading it in 1966, shortly before his accidental death.

Olympics, real-time

2010-02-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

Something fascinating comes from watching Olympic events while at the gym: you're moving, they're moving, and a you get a new perspective on just how much faster they are.

For example, Wednesday night I was about to head home when I saw that the men's 5000m qualifying relay for speed skating was about to come on. I hopped on an open treadmill, plugged in my headphones, and started walking at a pleasant, normal pace. I started maybe 45 seconds before they did and stopped maybe 20 seconds after. In the time that the three-man relay skated 5000m--more than 3 miles--guess how far I went?

One-third of a mile.

True, I wasn't racing. True, they are Olympians. True, they were on a nearly frictionless surface. Apples and oranges, I know. But suddenly I understood physically rather than just mentally what the athletics neatly framed on the gym TV meant in real life.

I am in awe.

Olympic obsession

2010-02-17T12:27:00.000-08:00

The other day my neighbor said, "I heard there was this girl who spent the ENTIRE day at the gym, just watching the Olympics...that wasn't YOU, was it?"

No.

I've only seen about 50 minutes of the Olympics on TV, and I almost fell of the treadmill (walking) every time someone had a jump to land. Hadn't thought about that problem...

The internet coverage, provided you can sign in with your cable provider (tricksey, precious), is fantastic. You try to watch the pairs figure skating short program, say, and you get THREE AND A HALF HOURS of it. I still might only watch a half hour, but I get to choose who I see in that half hour, darn it.

-Did you know that when the skaters come out for warm-up, the speaker introduces them? So-and-so from Germany...when they're not skating, they like to hang out with friends...

I feel like I'm there. Kind of. There is something wonderful about having that shielding blanket of commentary (with commercial breaks) taken away, when you see the athletes waiting at the start because one of the competitors needs to fix his boot; when you see contestant after contestant in rapid fire coming in 14th and 25th, who are so incredibly skilled, having their 43.402 seconds of fame; when you have to figure out what exactly they are being marked for...it reminds me that this is a competition, one of hundreds that each person has taken part in. The highest of stakes, certainly. But seeing it all without the editing make the whole competition that much more impressive to me.

And I can do it from my couch. :)

two birds with one stone

2010-02-12T07:17:00.000-08:00

I'm really excited about the Olympics. I really want to watch it, but we don't get NBC with our bunny ears. I was determined to get cable for the month, until I learned that it would cost $30 to set up the cable and, I'm guessing, about the same to un-set it when we cancelled service. I don't want to spend that much on TV, but I was really feeling down about missing the Olympics. Apparently, there's supposed to be a lot online?

But, here's the happy news. Matt's been wanting to join the school gym since he started grad school, and this semester he actually has time to do so. I've been wanting to work out without having it be one more thing I discipline myself to do alone (all that energy goes into writing). SO, I happily went and joined the gym as well, yesterday. I walked in, and what did I see?

TVs. Lots of them. If I only go to the gym for the next two weeks and spend the whole time walking on the treadmill, eyes fixed on NBC, it'll be worth it.

Sweet!

Experiencing God

2010-02-11T07:09:00.000-08:00

In church on Sunday, the pastor mentioned Matthew Fox, a former priest who now runs a seminary in California that focuses on experiencing God over necessarily learning doctrine. It's a point you could argue back and forth for quite a while, but what I found interesting was a list of four ways that most people experience God. I've put his Latin terms in parenthesis, and I've given them my own names, because I can remember them better, all starting with the same letter. These appealed mightily to me as a poet. If nothing else during the day, I always say a prayer before I start writing...

Wonder (Via Positiva)
-and here is a way that poetry can be deeply spiritual. Or, if you're a friend
of mine, watching nature shows, or looking at images of space...anything to
slow us down, fill us with awe, reset perspective.
Wilderness (Via Negativa)
-for some, their most powerful experience of God is during the hardest times.
I think of when I've moved to a new city and been deeply lonely. God has seemed
more present, bigger...I found it easier to be grateful...
Writing/Creative Works (Via Creativa)
-okay, so this "W" reveals personal bias. Any act of creating fits in this
category.
World Transformation (Via Transformativa)
-social justice, environmental restoration, hands-in-the-dirt, feet-on-the-
ground, hopes-held-high world transformation.

We Are Your People

2010-02-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

It is such a pleasure when we come across a hymn in church that is beautifully written, that verse by verse nails the idea on the head, and I find myself, as they say, agreeing in spirit. This one, entitled, "We Are Your People" was new to me, and I copied it on the spot. Written by Brian Wren (1973) and John Wilson (1980). I love the way it talks about community. This song says what I'm trying to say (and then some) in my poem "Community," which was posted in December. (Also, the meter is kind of cool, not the 4-line melody you'd expect.)

We are your people, LORD, by your grace.
You dare to make us Christ to our neighbors
of every nation and race.

Called to portray you, help us to live
closer than neighbors, open to strangers
able to clash and forgive.

Glad of tradition, help us to see
in all life's changing where you are leading,
where our best efforts should be.

Joined in community, breaking your bread,
may we discover gifts in each other,
willing to lead and be led.

LORD as we minister in different ways,
may all we're doing show that You're living,
meeting Your love with our praise.

sheep as poetry

2010-02-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

Why didn't I think of this??? The border collie we had growing up could have written some terrific poems...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2541761.stm

imagine this

2010-02-02T06:41:00.000-08:00

If you are ever in Venice, seek out Il Gazzetino. It's a hotel/trattoria on the quiet Sotoporto della Acque, about 3 blocks from the Rialto (east side) and 5 minutes' walk from San Marco. If you don't plan on going, here's an image of the place, to snack on:

We found the restaurant because we were standing in front of it, trying to figure out where our B&B (Ca'delle Acque, also recommended) was. The owner came out, showed us where it was down the street, and when no one answered the door he got out his cell phone and called. And so, an act of random kindness began our stay.

Il Gazzetino seats perhaps 20 people, so it's cozy. The walls are covered with drawings on brown paper and messages in languages from all over the world. As we waited for what was to be the best risotto I have ever tasted, the waitress brought us a little story about how the place was formed and a thick guest book for us to sign. Venice is a place for the meeting of worlds, and again the number of not just places but languages in the book amazed me. The waitress also brought us a dish with a serving of sardines. We didn't order it. They just had some and brought it to us, a little antipasti on the house. Some might say there's no outstanding reason to treat tourists nicely; you'll likely only see them once. But that just seemed to be how they rolled, and on the second night when we returned, the place about 3/4 full with Venetians, I saw them going around giving out a scoop of extra risotto for people to try. Here, on the house, a little serving for the table to share. Everything we ate there was delicious, and at the end, when we said we were done, out came little Venetian "S" shaped cookies and some kind of liquidy lemon sherbet and a shot of what I'm guessing was homemade liquor (it tasted like cognac) with raisins in the bottom. Just because. Talk about hospitality.

Venice pictures

2010-01-27T14:55:00.001-08:00

Venice is a beautiful city, and I look forward to incorporating my notes into draft two. Here below are my pictures put together into a two-minute video using Photostory 3. It's a great new program, very useable, that I recently was introduced to, and you can get it through a free download from Microsoft. While the video does include some pictures of the famous Piazza San Marco, which is indeed beautiful, most of these pictures focus in on neat little details (windows with Byzantine influence, narrow passageways that lead off into new streets, the pink glass of the street lamps, the beautiful colors, etc.) that make this place so very beautiful. You can just imagine it 300 years ago...Enjoy

book review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2010-01-19T06:17:00.000-08:00

Barbara Kingsolver's new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle has, quite simply, made me rethink the way I do food. Well written with a sense of down-to-earth good humor, the book describes her family's decision to live for one year eating as locally and sustainably as possible; what they couldn't grow themselves, they tried to buy from people they knew (through farmers' markets), preferably eating things grown within a 100-mile radius of their Virginian farm. Honey took the place of sugar. Exceptions were made for free-trade coffee, olive oil, and spices--I would add chocolate to that list--but for the most part it is a book about abundance rather than "what we gave up." Kingsolver writes lovingly and persuasively about eating in season, and she kindly explains what comes into season when, for those of us who didn't grow up near a farm and are still working that out. Fruits and vegetables that spend a week or more in transport from California and South America (cost of transportation paid for out of tax dollars) have less taste and fewer nutrients than the same items eaten shortly after they were picked--and that alone is worth the wait and work in-season to do a lot of canning and freezing. That, plus the fact that eating locally and organically is better for the long-term life of earth (in both sense of the word). And, buying local stimulates the economy of the area in which you live--less money to the middleman, more to the farmer.

But she says it a lot better than I do, and it doesn't sound so preachy.

It's January in Wisconsin, and we just finished my last jar of homemade tomato sauce, so there isn't that much I can do until things start growing again around here. But it does make me think about where things are from. I live in DairyLand, in the western part of the state. Why on earth should I buy milk from Illinois (one of two options in the grocery store)? Why would I buy Vermont cheese, much as I love it, or eggs from another state? I'm starting to pay attention to this stuff, item by item, thinking about the trip my food took to get to me.

At the winter farmers' market, once a month hosted by local churches, I'm getting to know some of the people who sell there, including one family who specializes in organic heirloom vegetables. (Heirlooms are different strains of the same plant, often that have been developed naturally over time to do well in various areas. Did you know that 4000 kinds of potatoes used to grow in Peru? Did you know there are more than 3 kinds of potato? I didn't.) I bought 5 different kinds of potatoes, including red ones and blue fingerlings, yummy carrots, dried tomatoes, local ground lamb...it's been fun to taste test, fun to explore...

Venice!

2010-01-16T21:36:00.000-08:00

Academia tends to be either full-on or mostly off, and it was nice to be varying degrees of "off" for the last month. I've read three books and several short stories in the past week for my new lit class, but I got to do it at home on the couch, so it felt more like fun that work. I'm about to head out of town, so I'll combine two posts into one:

Writing
I totalled under 1000 words in December, which is how much I try to do in a single sitting, and I haven't worked on my novel in January yet, though I did polish up a short story I want to send out. (Any recommendations for where to send literary fiction with a contemporary teen narrator?) There were finals and course planning, blah blah, but actually I'm happy to have a bit of a break so I can approach draft two with new eyes. And I'll definitely have new eyes when I return to it in Feb because I'M GOING TO VENICE!! I returned to campus to find I'd received the professional development grant I'd applied for, and I'M GOING TO VENICE on Tuesday to research my book. I can't wait to see how contemporary Venice matches up with the 1700s Venice of my researched imagination, but I'll write about that next week when I get back. I'm going with my Mom, which is a complete thrill. I can't wait to travel with her. I'll still spend half my time jotting notes, but it will be wonderful to have another person to compare impressions with, not to mention someone to share dinner and hotels with. It's supposed to be 40s and rainy this weekend, which will feel warm compared to Wisconsin January.

Teaching: digital stories
I had the immense pleasure of team-teaching a one-week, six-hour-a-day course on digital storytelling. It's the first time one of my main jobs as a teacher has been trying to convince my students to take a break--the work is that engrossing. Everyone worked hard and learned a lot, to great results. If you'd like to see what digital stories look like, check out the StoryCenter.

Coming soon: review of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

heavenly host

2009-12-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

The "Shop Local" craft fair was a blast on Saturday, due in large part to the pleasant atmosphere of The Raw Deal (a mostly raw food restaurant, though I had a most fantastic muffin there) and the fabulous live dulcimer music of Debbie Peters throughout the afternoon. It was my first shot at a craft fair, and though I ended up spending more than I earned, it was still a nice afternoon. Here are pictures of my table, which I'm pretty proud of, along with these lovely little knit "dishrag angels," currently decorating our apartment for Christmas.They go well with one of the poems from my chapbook, ("Community") which I will put up soon.

Bookless

2009-12-14T13:39:00.000-08:00

Going through an old box of my elementary school writings, brought out, I think, to show my now husband on an early visit home, we came across a "book" I wrote in probably first grade. It was about a king and a queen, as most of my stories were, and they all stood pigeon-toed because I can't draw feet. I only remember the ending, because Matt and I quote it often:

"And they lived happily ever after, with books."

I am currently bookless. Oh, there are plenty on my list, including a number to preview before I start teaching a new lit course (American lit post 1945--woo hoo!) at the end of January. But last night, Matt and I finished reading the Prydain series. If you have never run across this wonderful 5-book children's series written by Lloyd Alexander and based on Welsh myth, find them. Read them. The second book The Black Cauldren, is the most famous. I first read the series through when I was in elementary school. I found the books at my grandmother's house, and I liked the colors on the covers. The Black Cauldron was a favorite of my mother's. These are high adventure books, filled with vivid characters who each have their own speaking patterns--quite a skill--and who live on beyond their pages. The second time I read them through was in high school, and when I finished the series, I cried. Then I wrote a poem about how that world (at least as far as it was written) had come to an end. I doubt the poem is any good, though I probably still have it somewhere.

Now, more than 10 years later, Matt and I have been reading them through at night before bed--and any other chance we get. We finished yesterday, Matt reading while I made supper.

And I cried again. I'm still sad. To be immersed in a world and have it end...to be bookless...sigh. I know I'll start another one soon. But I don't want to launch in just yet. Leave a little space to honor a beautiful creation which has been, deservedly, in print for decades.

You know you live in Wisconsin when...

2009-12-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

Sample Poetry

2009-12-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

Follow the link to see the new edition of on the literary journal Astropoetica: Mapping the Stars Through Poetry. Or, you can go straight to my poem "Beyond These Thin Apartment Walls," which appears there. Thanks, Ed Bok Lee, for giving the writing prompt that inspired it.

Film Recommendation: Into Temptation

2009-12-03T11:56:00.000-08:00

I never would have watched the film Into Temptation if my sister weren't an extra in it. Something about the title just didn't excite me.

But, duty bound, I did watch it now that it's available on Netflix, and I was impressed. Filmed in Minneapolis with several familiar scenes in the background (including the inside of the beautiful Mpls Basilica, the neighborhoods of Lake Calhoun, the outside of Chino-Latino, and the scuzzier parts of Hennepin Ave.), the film opens with a young Catholic priest (Jeremy Cisco) listening to a litany of rather mundane confessions and concerns from his parish. Through the confession box, a woman enters and asks if she can be absolved for a sin she has not committed. "I'm going to kill myself on my birthday," she tells him. "And I'm an Aries, Father, so I don't have a lot of time." The woman is a prostitute, and after she leaves--without really having received an answer from him--he cannot get her out of his head. He wants to find her, wants to help, but he does not know who she is and cannot break the bonds of confession. You can imagine the awkwardness of a priest walking downtown streets at night trying to find a prostitute--but not like that.

There are many ways this film could go wrong in a hurry, but it avoids them. The script is tight, the piano music interspersed throughout is lovely, and the make-up artist succeeds in making the beautiful Broadway star Kristin Chenowyth (the prostitute) look like a woman whose life has aged and emptied her beyond her years.

Bits of the priest's sermons and the characters' actions combine in a study of what it means to live a godly life. The ending, which, again, deftly avoids several pitfalls in order to strike the perfect note, emphasizes the importance of small acts of kindness. I've been thinking about the film all day.

If you are looking for the talented actress Stephanie Bright, by the way, she's the dark pony tail and blue scrubs that passes Kristin in the hospital scene.

First Draft Completed!

2009-11-30T20:18:00.000-08:00

November is National Novel-Writing Month, a month when crazily dedicated people who write far more quickly than I pledge themselves to completing a novel of at least 50,000 words. I make no such claims. But, I did write 10,386 words this month, which is pretty darn good for me. And, I'VE FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT OF MY NOVEL!

In the summer of 2007, I realized that the short story I was working on really wanted to be a novel. Crazy. I was pursuing a degree in poetry. But there Renata was, fairly fully formed and talking and waiting for me to write it down. From the start, I've figured I was on the 5-year plan. I wrote two-and-a-half chapters in the fall semester, then took a break that spring to write my thesis and get married, but I've been working regularly on it since August of 2008. It was my 2009 New Year's Resolution to complete a draft by the end of the year. Today, the last day of November, I wrote the last scene, linking (I hope) all the pieces together. It's rough in places, and in the second draft I'm going to be combining some of the characters and selling off their scenes to others. Dear Guisy, Renata's innocent, homely choir partner who wants to be a nun when she grows up, is getting written out, as is her rebellious older sister. Tired Sister Maria Clara and her nursury will both be gone. Too many characters. It does feel a bit like I'm shoveling them under. Sigh.

But that's for tomorrow, when I copy into a new document and label it Draft 2. Right now, I'm done! I've written 286 pages. I'm flying high...which is a bit unfortunate since it's nearly 10:30 PM and I have to get up tomorrow at 6. But nevermind that. Woo hoo!

pumpkin cheesecake recipe

2009-11-25T07:54:00.000-08:00

Check out this recipe for amazing pumpkin cheesecake here.

Hunting Season

2009-11-25T07:35:00.000-08:00

Michael Perry a wonderful writer and graduate of U-W Eau Claire, called this week "Holy Week" on his blog. Which is to say, shotgun and rifle hunting opened this week and continue through Thanksgiving. For at least one family I know, this overlap between the time you're supposed to be sitting down with family for turkey and the time you're allowed to be sitting in a deer stand is a big conflict--and hunting wins. Minnesota's hunting season does not overlap with Thanksgiving. I could draw all sorts of speculations about who wasn't thinking when they picked Thanksgiving week, but I'm sure there are others who would say this is the perfect time for family sport. I work with a woman for whom hunting time is family time.

(Don't let the picture throw you off: turkey hunting season isn't until spring. But, even though I'm preparing to eat turkey tomorrow, somehow the average non-hunting person is less bothered by looking at a cartoon turkey and talking about food than looking at Bambi...)

Fun fact: this blog is being read by people in South Africa, Tajikistan, and Panama. Four continents, baby!

down town Menomonie

2009-11-23T09:27:00.001-08:00

I am coming to love my small town's down down. The buildings are mostly brick and coordinated, with little shop fronts and rooms above. (Typical, perhaps, but I grew up in a suburb without a "downtown," so this is new for me.) I thought from the beginning that it was "so cute," but now I try to get different places to sell my chapbook, I am walking the area more and more, starting to get to know people. I love that there are six places within a 3 block radius that support local artists: two book stores, a theater, the co-op (which will have my poetry and photos on display in March--woo hoo!), and two cafes. What a privilege to be able to walk into town and say "I'm a writer and I live in town" and get a welcome response. The owner of the Rose of Sharon Christian bookstore cleared shelf space for me on the spot. I had a pleasant 10-minute conversation with the owner of the other bookstore, Book Ends. I only wish that customers had come in during that time, that the customers who flood Wal-Mart at all hours of the day would come flooding in there. But, Main Street continues along. Soon, there will be window decorations and lights in the shapes of Santa and stockings, etc, hanging from every telephone pole. In December, we'll have our own version of Minneapolis' Holidazzle Parade, with floats and free hot chocolate in the Mabel Tainter Theater.

Here are two things I love about down town:
-Last weekend I went to the winter farmers' market (churches take turn hosting this once a month, with vendor fees going to charity) to buy local veggies, lamb, and ground flour; I stopped in for supplies and/or to inquire about selling my book at the quilt shop, the book store, the theater, and the co-op. Then I went to the library. And I was able to do it all on foot, within view of the lake most of the time. (I did, however, pass up buying 5 pounds of apples or potatoes for precisely that reason.)
-There is a sign in front of the consignment shop that reads "Hours of Intent" 10 - 7, "For Sure Hours" 10 - 5. I don't precisely remember the times, but that was what the sign says. I love it.

feeling fortunate

2009-11-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

I would like to go to Venice. My novel is set in Venice, and I am determined to visit and absorb the atmosphere and make sure I imagined everything accurately before I publish. What's more, I am determined to be funded to go. Plane tickest to Venice are astonishly expensive, and I don't expect prices to drop once I show up in the city. Having been in academia in one way or another for a while, I know that there is always money floating around somewhere if you know where to look. I suspect it might hurt my case a little bit that in order to support my scholarly endeavor of writing a novel, I need to go somewhere so darn beautiful and fun. (Hey, wait: I think I've stumbled upon something. Maybe I should set the next one on a tropical island...)

Here's why I feel so fortunate. I asked if I could meet with the people at the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs to see if they could suggest funding sources I hadn't thought of. Three people met with me. They suggested three funds through the school as well as a few national foundations. They offered to do more research and get back to me. I am blown away. You sit there on your couch, chunking out your 500 or 1000 words, trusting that the dream of this book is beautiful and putting in the work to get there, and suddenly other people are willing to help you make it happen, just because you asked. Of course, I have to write the application and get accepted, etc. But still. I feel so fortunate.

Yogurt Making: Entering a New Culture

2009-11-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

Apparently, one of the things Matt has "always" wanted to do is make yogurt. Intrigued myself, we decided to give it a try. Hey, I figured, it's a new craft (science?) project, I like yogurt, and I like the idea of having half a gallon of yogurt for the price of half a gallon of milk. There are ample resources on the internet giving you instructions for how to do it yourself without a kit, though most of them disagree with each other. Our first batch came out better than expected, which is to say it was edible. Though it did rather look like viscous milk.

But here's what I've find intriguing. I suppose I'd already entered into a certain category of "like to bake, time to bake, frugal, homemade kind of people" because I make my own bread--in the bread machine, of course--and granola (less sugar). But once you start playing with cultures (beyond yeast)...my friend, you've entered a whole new realm. Since moving to this small town, I've met people who make their own kambucha, a fizzy, sugary tea that's supposed to help your digestion and possibly save the world; people who make a kind of fermented vegetable salsa, which involves sitting and fermenting on your counter for at least 2 weeks and has similar proposed properties; people--several people--who brew their own beer. I have yet to try those first two. Once you enter the world of foodery, you just keep going deeper and deeper, it seems. I find that delightful.

If you're interested in making yogurt, a google search is all you need. Here are the basics:
1) Heat milk without boiling it until it is 175-180 degrees. You may want to add milk powder or even gelatin to thicken it.
2) Cool milk down to 130 degrees. Add 3 or so tablespoons of plain, store-bought yogurt (for the first batch) that has live culture in it. Pretty much all yogurts do.
3) Stir it up, and place it somewhere that it can stay at 110 degrees for the next 7 hours or so, longer if you like more bitter yogurt. Every site has its own recommendation, from crockpot or oven (if you can keep it warm enough) to wrapping it in towels (which we tried and doesn't stay warm long enough) to setting it on a medium-setting heating pad (which sounds like a good idea but calls for lots of electricity), etc. A friend from Indian said you could just set it on the counter for a few hours. Then again, where he's from, it's a lot hotter. I'll bet, if you keep it in direct sunlight, it might be almost warm enough. November in Wisconsin, not so much.
4) When it's done, stir it up to stop to bacteria from doing their thing and leave it overnight in the fridge.
5) Eat and enjoy. Don't be scared of greenish liquid. Just mix it back in.

What a fascinating world.

Book Review: Strength in What Remains

2009-11-07T15:20:00.000-08:00

Tracy Kidder came to speak at the University of Minnesota about two years ago, while he was working on this book. He's a wonderful speaker, a very personable guy, and as I drove him to and from his radio interview with MPR, he told me he was working on this book about a Burundian refugee. One of the challenges he was running into, he explained, was that he did not speak French. I do speak French, and I worked part-time in refugee resettlement at the time. If I had not also been in graduate school, or if I had been less attached to finishing by the planned date, I would have followed my instinct to beg him to hire me on as an intern/researcher/translator. Alas, alas. Not that he would have necessarily taken me up on the offer. And, clearly, he did fine with out me.

Strength in What Remains, the final product, received the kind of New York Times review that writers dream of. It was a rave, and it was deserved. The book, particularly the first half, is hard to put down, as we follow Deogratis on his flight out of chaotic Burundi and into New York on a false business visa. He arrives with $200, little English, and no connections...and winds up homeless. Kidder artfully moves us between the despair of that situation--poor in a wealthy country--with the Tutsi genocide that erupted in Burundi 6 months before neighboring Rwanda. Why have we never learned of that? We read knowing that Deo, who was a third-year medical student in Burundi when the world fell apart, eventually does make it medical school (after first repeating his undergrad)...eventually heals and returns to his country to build a medical clinic in a remote area of his country. We read, wanting him to make it, unsure how it would be possible, yet of course this is a true story.

Kidder's storytelling is deft and moving. In the first section, Kidder stays out of the story entirely (after the prologue), allowing us to walk alongside Deo. In the second section, he reappears, and we see him revisiting with Deo all of those places where he almost didn't make it--Harlem tenaments, Central Park, Burundi--as well as the places that turned his life around: the home of the American couple who took him in, Columbia University, Partners-in-Health. It's impressive that we readers have nostalgia for these places, having only spent 100 pages there, though it comes close to being repetitive. But, Kidder has a reason, and we need to see much of that to feel the full weight of the final chapters, to understand how far, with loving help, a person could come.

Highly recommended.

writing

2009-11-02T13:55:00.000-08:00

I've asked my creative writing students to keep me accountable on my novel, and when one of them asked me for the first time on Thursday how the writing was going, I was proud to say that I'd written 10,000 words in October. That's about 40 pages. Draft one of The Violinist is nearly done, which is good, because I'm itching to get going on draft 2. The difference, you ask? Fewer characters and a hopefully more streamlined plot.

Speaking of writing, if you're in the Mpls area, I'll be reading with poets Luke Pingel and Francine Tolf at the Loft Literary Center this Wed. (2/4) at 7 PM. There will be chapbooks. There will be cookies. Fun will be had. 1011 Washington Ave SE.

book review: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

2009-10-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

When I was in graduate school, I read through my roommate's collection of children's literature. On nights when I wanted to read, but really didn't want anything above a 5th grade level, I had Rohl Dahl and Lemony Snickets to entertain me. It was wonderful. I ventured into the lovely children's section of our college library the other day, seeking young adult (YA) books that are required for an upcoming YA writing workshop. One of them was Sherman Alexie's recent national book award winner The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

I read it in a day.

Told in the insecure, flippant, observant voice of 14 year-old Arnold Spirit, Jr., this book is a perfect combination of funny and deep. When on the first day of school Junior receives a geometry textbook that his mother had used in school, he decides he needs to find a new school, not on the Spokane reservation where he lives, but 22 miles away, at all-white school called Reardon where, he says, the only other Indian is the mascot. His best friend on the rez, and many others, view him as a traitor for trying to get a better life, and at one point Junior comments that people confuse trying to make a better life (which involves being around white people) with trying to become white. He talks about poverty, racism, the high death and alcoholism rates on reservations, and being Indian in America--huge subjects, dealt with deftly and with humor--and often with illustrations. Junior is a cartoonist, and his drawings appear throughout the book to illuminate his life. Junior sees and reports all of this, but his gaze is loving, as when he reports of his parents "they didn't love me perfectly, but they loved me the best they knew how."

I can see why this book was chosen for the National Book Award. I didn't want to put it down.

Enjoy.

snow

2009-10-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

It's snowing. It's been snowing all day. Steadily. And sticking in some places. We haven't even reached peak foliage yet. Yikes.

I wanted to write a book review today of the fabulous Strength in What Remains, but something about the white stuff coming down prematurely outside (beautiful though it is) makes it hard to focus on the story of a man from Burundi who came to the U.S. seeking asylum. That will be coming soon. Instead, in reference to the way things do tend to, ahem, pile up, let me offer a bit of earned advice: do not make a credit card call from the airport.

I know this. You know this. But we'd just come from Panama, our cell phones were dead, and we'd told the friend who was to pick us up the completely wrong time. The cost of emailing would have been at least $10, and we figured a phone call would be less. Later, when we got the bill for $29.92, we thought perhaps we'd improperly hung up and someone had had a nice long chat with Aunt Marge on our credit afterward. Today, I talked with a very helpful service rep, who told me the bill was correct and broke it down as follows:

3 minute minimum phone charge at $1+/minute: $3.87
operator's fee: $10 and change
airport tax: $3 and change
not-normal-service-provider fee: $6
taxes: $4 (note that the taxes are more than the phone call)
and there was an aditional $2 for something else.
Cost of talking to our friend for 2 minutes: nearly $30. Cell phones look better and better.

So, next time you find yourself in an airport without a cell phone in need of making a call, you'd have better luck asking random strangers if you could borrow their phone. The cleaning woman, for example, later offered me hers without my even asking.

So there you go.

a taste of philips

2009-10-06T07:43:00.000-07:00

Below is the press release for a wonderful artistic event this weekend in Minneapolis. A taste of Philips, organized by the talented pastor-poet Patrick Cabello Hansel. I'm reading as part of it on Friday night.

Imagine a 122-year old congregation, founded by Swedish immigrants, where the halls are filled with art work and photographs by children from Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, as well as several communities in south Minneapolis. Imagine giant puppets that perform in street festivals alongside stained glass windows from the early 20th century. Imagine photographs of youth from the 19th century next to murals painted by youth from the 21st. That’s the incredible diversity of the arts on display at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Phillips the weekend of October 9-10.
“St. Paul’s has a rich history and a mission of engagement with its neighborhood”, says co-pastor Patrick Cabello Hansel. “Art has always been a way for people to express their deepest longings and hopes for change, as well as a way for communities to communicate across divisions of language and culture.”
For the past four years, St. Paul’s has sponsored “Arts and Music on the Corner”, which brings artists from the community together. In addition to hosting local performing artists, and visiting artists from countries such as El Salvador, St. Paul’s has sponsored community arts workshops in pottery, banner making, puppets and drama. During December, St. Paul’s co-produces La Natividad with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater and Mercado
Central, a production which tells the traditional Christmas story from the point of view of a poor family from south Minneapolis seeking shelter.
“We see the arts as a very vital way to help transform our neighborhood, and we work with community artists and organizations to utilize the arts for change”. Pr. Cabello Hansel states. “For example, our ‘Take Back the Alley’ project uses arts and gardening to enliven public spaces that have been places of crime and vandalism. Seeing a garage painted with a beautiful mural can bring a sense of both beauty and empowerment to people”.
The October 9-10 arts festival at St. Paul’s, located at 2742 15th Ave S. in Minneapolis, will include a guide to neighborhood murals done by youth programs from St. Paul’s, Waite House, Youth Farm and Hope Community. Neighborhood artists will display their works in the church building alongside traditional and contemporary religious art. Community visual artists include Greta McLain, Sandy Spieler, Paul Robinson, Bart Buch and Sharon Ulrich.
The weekend kicks off with an artist’s reception and poetry and spoken word reading on Friday, October 9 at 7:00 PM. Poets Emily Bright, Marion Gomez, Patrick Cabello Hansel and Spoken Word Artists Bruce Axelrod and Jeremy Little will read. On Saturday, “A Taste of Phillips” begins with Scandinavian pastries and café con leche at 10:00 am, followed by an art scavenger hunt and hands-on arts activities for children and adults. At 1:00 pm, participants will go to one of dozens of ethnic restaurants to sample some of the rich culinary diversity of Phillips. The art will continue on display each day from October 11-14, from 3-6 pm, or by appointment.
All events are free and open to the public. St. Paul’s is located at 2742 15th Ave S. , two blocks north of Lake, and one block east of Bloomington in south Minneapolis. For more information, call Pr. Patrick Cabello Hansel at 612-296-2231.

word count

2009-09-30T09:09:00.001-07:00

I am not a high-output fiction writer. Blame the poetry degree, if you'd like. I, much like one of my talented classmates in graduate school, "draft prose with the swiftness and grace of a tectonic plate." Teaching a full schedule, I have three chunks of time blocked out throughout the week in which I write. That's the goal, at least. Given that the first week of September I took off because I was getting classes settled and that I lost nearly another week from a cold, I'm happy to report that I wrote 25 pages in September. I'll be posting my page count at the end of each month. Celebrate the small stuff.

blog of note

2009-09-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

Wish you knew more about Tajikistan? Don't we all? Keep your eyes on the blog of my dear friend Bethany, who is spending a year in Tajikstan's capital Dushanbe teaching English (and teaching teachers how to teach English) through the state department.

Beloved on the Earth: a new anthology

2009-09-26T22:14:00.000-07:00

I know that poetry reading isn't the most popular pastime in America, but one time when most people seem to turn to poetry is for funerals or for comfort in grief. Back in May I wrote about the pleasure of receiving my copy of Holy Cow! Press's fantastic new collection, Beloved on the Earth: 150 Poems of Grief and Gratitude. I want to come back to it now. I had the privilege of taking part in the publication reading at the Loft in Minneapolis on September 11th. Here is what surprised me, and here is why I'm recommending this book: you'd think that a reading of poems about death would be depressing. You'd think after an evening of hearing those poems of "grief and gratitude" read, you'd feel like you'd been stuck listening to the same notes for far too long. Not so. True, several of the poems by famous and lesser-known authors alike brought tears to my eyes. But the poems I heard read by my fellow poets that night were gracious, original, beautifully crafted, and ultimately life-affirming. Consider the note struck Ted Kooser's poem "Father:" "Today you would be ninety-seven/ if you ahd lieved, and we would all be/ miserable, you and your children..." Or how, pages later, Mary Oliver concludes her series of metaphors describing how death comes with the sudden and beautiful call to life, "I don't want to end up simply having visited this world." There was such a warm and loving feeling in the audience that evening, and it was a full house, too. A highly recommended anthology.

On a related note, here is the epitaph on Ruth Bell Graham (wife of Billy Graham)'s tombstone:

"End of construction. Thank you for your patience."

If we're all works-in-progress...

storytelling

2009-09-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

I've just begun teaching Kao Kalia Yang's lovely memoir The Latehomecomer in my composition classes, and it's got me thinking about the act of storytelling. The Hmong language did not have an alphabet until the 1950s, and it remains a culture rooted in oral tradition. I found this when I taught orientation classes to new Hmong arrivals. I used all the pictures I could--so many of our handouts had writing on them, and so few of the adults in those particular classes could write in either language--but I found that the best way I could keep their attention through our 3 hour classes was through anecdotes. Health care, housing..."I have a story for you," I'd say, and they would listen.

And so, in attempt to get my students thinking about the forms that stories take, I told them a story in class. The Latehomecomer includes a story about a beautiful woman named Yer who is kidnapped by a tiger and later re-kidnapped by a handsome man in her village, to her chagrin. And so, I told the class the story of Beauty and the Beast--the late 1800 French version. None of them would say the last time they'd been told a story in that way, and I have to say it felt strange to me, too. It took me until the second class to get into a rhythm and let the story carry itself, and when I tripped over a word, I could feel the whole class thinking "hey, get back on rhythm." What a wonderful tradition, telling stories.

And yet, entertaining as they are, many of our old fairy tales served another important purpose that most of our bedtime books today do not: warning children. Even in Beauty and the Beast, which is remarkably tame when compared to, say, Hansel and Gretl or Cinderella, has a very stern warning about keeping promises. The beast allows the father to go home and bring one of his daughters to take his place; he must promise to return within a month or else be hunted down. Later, Beauty is allowed to return for two months to see her family, but she must promise the beast to return, lest he die. In the Disney version, on reflection, Belle charges off both times to save her father. In both versions, she is selfless, but in the Disney movie there are no promises made which carry consequences if broken.

Interesting.

If you'd like to read the original versions of some of these tales, with annotations, check out www.surlalunefairytales.com.

Book Recommendation

2009-09-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

Thorin Tatge happens to be one of the smartest and most creative people I know. Matt met him when they taught chess together, and over the past few years we've encouraged each other on our own creative projects. Thorin's are substantial: song, poetry, fiction, drama--you name it. I'm proud to announce the publication of Thorin's first book!

What is Best? is an interactive novel, kind of like the choose-your-own-adventure books that you read in one sitting as a kid and then kept rereading for weeks. Except in this, the choices are more substantial, and Thorin's creativity as well as his background in philosophy are clear. The novel opens with the opening of your existance, and Creator gives you a choice about what form of existance you will take. No mere "do you choose to open the door?" here--you are tasked with choosing from among animal forms, with being given life on earth, and with trying to discover, through your choices, the meaning of life. If, that is, you even remember that you were given the assignment once life on earth gets rolling. This well written and imaginative novel, which allows for 80 different endings, is full of pleasant surprises, from problem-solving challenges to poetry. It'll keep you going back for another spin. Check it out here.

And, Thorin's already working on book two.

shout-out

2009-09-10T09:01:00.001-07:00

I'm back to the blogging world after time away for vacation, brain-clearing and class-planning. Class is up and running, and experience assures me that soon, honest, I will adjust to waking up at 6 AM again.

In more important news: my sister is in two movies! Into Temptation is out now in select theaters and is getting good reviews for its complex characters. Steph plays the nurse who walks past Kristen Chynoweth in the hospital and gives her a funny look.

She's also in the trailer for the new Cohen brothers' movie A Serious Man. Freeze the screen on second 38 and look for my brunette sister sitting in between two brunettes to the left of the aisle. You can see the shoulders of her orange sweater.

Shucks, I'm so proud.

vacation

2009-08-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

Someone told me the other day that professors have very high levels of job satisfaction. I wonder what time of year they were asked to report. I like what I do, but I'm guessing if they asked them in, oh, July, job satisfaction was way up.

I like having two months off.

I could get used to this whole jet-setting thing, though it's coming to an end. I left for Panama hearing word of JetAmerica's incredibly cheap flights to mid-sized cities, like nearby Minneapolis and home-town Hartford. I return, full of hope and longings for home, to find out the airline went belly-up before it started. Which isn't surprising. But it is unfortunate. Particularly when you think "I'll just pop over to see my parents for the weekend," and then you look at airline prices. Oh yeah. That's why people work. Income.

My contract period starts two weeks from today. Already I'm in this weird state where I'm still on vacation but I'm coming to remember what school entails. And the other day, I found myself looking fondly toward fall weather and fresh apples...and a regular schedule. It is amazing how having four seasons always keeps you looking hopefully toward the future, even when it entails going back to work.

(But not yet.)

Now Featuring (More) Pictures!

2009-08-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

Please follow this link to see my pictures from Panama. Enjoy!

around the world

2009-08-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting around to reading Laurence Bergreen's fabulous book Over the Edge of the World, about Ferdinand Magellan's around-the-world voyage from 1519-1521 (drawing of his flagship Victoria above). Appropriate reading after a month in the country whose canal makes global shipping possible. I can hardly imagine what it would have been like: sailing beyond the limits of your maps, beyond where anyone you've ever heard of has gone before, when everything you've heard says that only sea monsters, cannibals, and the edge of the world awaits. Every time a storm hit, and there were many that hit as they neared the Antarctic, could have been simply a storm or the end of the world. Can you imagine running into an elephant seal for the first time? Given that my flight home from Panama was accomplished in a day and required nothing from me (get on, buckle up, fall asleep, watch this movie, have some peanuts, get off, repeat)...I can't even imagine what they went through. How this world has changed in 400 years.

Back on Familiar Ground

2009-08-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

We're back in the U.S.! After a month in Panama, it's surprising and completely pleasant to be in a place where you know exactly how things work. The customs officer greets you in English. You pick up background conversations and song lyrics without even trying. You know where to buy what you need, how much it will cost, and what's the best bang for your buck, food-wise, during the airport layover. You know where things are and how things work. This is amazingly comfortable.

Our cell phones were dead after a month of disuse (always remove the batteries from the phones if you're not using them), and we realized just how hard it is to manage a call home, or anywhere, if you can't suddenly whip a phone out of your pocket. How easy communication has become...if only you have the right gear.

We're in Michigan for another week or so, visiting Matt's family. If we can turn this visit, too, into a writer's retreat, we'll stay longer. If not, we'll have a nice visit and come back to Wisconsin sooner.

country mouse, city mouse

2009-07-28T17:09:00.000-07:00

I've gained a bit of an understanding on the country mouse, city mouse story.

In the countryside, in Boquete where we've been for the last three weeks:

There is one main street. There are shops for most of what you need, and the center of town is several blocks long.
If you want to travel anywhere or see a film or stop light, you have to go to David, which is 32 km away and 900 meters lower.
There are kids who walk up to 3 hours down from the mountains to get to school.
There are lots of Gnobe Bugle Indians in their traditional bright colored dresses walking around.
In the schools, which are made of cement and incredibly hard to hear out of when it rains, the desks are gifts from the Ministry of Education. (That's printed on each desk.)
The teachers have to pay for their own photocopies at the local internet cafes. There aren't copy machines in the schools. A normal starting teacher salary is $625/month.
Most of what Panama eats is grown. A number of people I met at the night school, trying to get their GEDs, work on farms during the day. Coffee is almost exclusively harvested by Gnoble, who are the poorest indigenous people in the Americas. I have heard several "reasons" as to why, flavored by various people's points of views.
You can get a huge meal for $2 at the local cafeteria, though even that is kind of pricey at it's at least half expats.
When you have to visit the big city, you say "I'm going to Panama." Even though the countryside is in Panama, too. The politicians are not very likely to speak to your issues.
If someone speaks English, they are either a) retired Americans b) visiting on vacation or c) working in tourism.

A mere 7-8 hours' bus ride away in "Panama," however:

It's hugely international. Most banks have a presence here. People live here from all over the world. Half of Panama's 3 million residents live here.
Prices are about doubled.
There are tons of sky scrapers built right up to the water's edge, and there are more being build.
There's still fresh fruit, but you don't know the grower.
There are the projects, built by the Americans to house the workers for the Canal. There is supposed to be a lot of drug selling in certain areas.
You can feel the former colonial presence. Our hotel is in the old American area, where those who oversaw the canal lived. It is tree-lined and lovely.
There's still fresh fruit, mostly shipped in from Boquete area, but you don't know the growers any more.
Tourist traps. Monuments. A mall to rival the Mall of America. The canal that funds all the projects in the country.
20 degrees hotter, way more humidity, and less chance of rain. When it rains, the water doesn't know where to go.

The presence of history, particularly colonial history, is strong here. Here are two fun facts learned from today's here-is-where-you-can-buy-more-stuff "tour" of the city:

Balboa, that famous explorer, gave the Pacific ocean it's name right here in Panama City. He was the first European to cross on land to see the Pacific ocean (1500s) and it's so calm (pacifico) that he named it "Pacific." Amazing to think that if you set sail straight west from here, you might not hit anything for 3000 miles. Lots of stuff named after Balboa here: beer, a district of town, a short-lived attempt at their own money system before turning to $. There's a statue of him citing the ocean, except just a few years ago they finished this huge landfill project that now has him citing water from some half a mile inland.

From Panama City the Spaniards planned most of their invasions of the Incas. Here they brought the gold, silver, emeralds, etc., back to the Atlantic (via donkeys) to ship it back to Spain. The rich Panamanians rented out the donkeys. There were so many pearls left over from eating oysters that the indigenous people who lived in this area used to cover their canoes with them. But wealth has its price, and Captain Henry Morgan, that famous English pirate, demolished Panama City and stole all its riches. They rebuilt. The ruins of the old are still visible and tour-able. For his great deed, Captain Morgan was rewarded with the governorship of Jamaica. Poor Jamaicans!

This may be all I'm able to write for the next week, as we'll be out and about. Thankfully all our time won't be spent in the city before we head back to the States.

eco tourism

2009-07-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

Generally, I'm not a fan of touristy stuff. I like museums and all, but in general, if it's carefully geared for the comfort of tourists, I get antsy to leave. I want to see the real stuff, the real daily life and food and points of view of whatever place I'm in. Nothing like a home-stay to accomplish that. But, eco-tourism. That, I could get into. So far this trip (whose outings were not planned by me, though I've been pleased with them) I've gone horseback riding in the mountains, zip-lining, and white water rafting. I'm in love with rafting. We got on the river in Panamá and got off in Costa Rica, and in between was 17 km of level 3 rapids with just enough of a pause in between each set for you to see the water water coming up and start to get worried again. And the entire time, when you're not timing your stroke with the guy in front of you or sitting in front thinking "we're going through that!?" you're looking up at the rain forest on both sides, with steep banks and vines hanging down into the water. I want to learn more about eco-tourism, which is kind of a new word for me. My thinking is that if it is supportive of the environment and gives people jobs while giving me a chance to really get into the countryside, that's a good thing.

Tomorrow hopefully Matt and I will go hiking up a trail called the Camino Quetzale that runs out of town up the mountain. We'll bring a picnic and our binoculars and see what we see. Only four more full days in Boquete. Yikes. Time flies, I suppose, when the mornings are filled with writing.

now featuring pictures!

2009-07-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

A house in Cerro Punto, Panama, tucked in by the mountain. I hope you can see how steep the fields are.

A primary school in Guadalupe, Panama, built against the mountain side. Note the Panamanian flag on the right-hand side.

Most of the food in Panama is grown in Chiriqui, the region where we are staying. (This region wants independence--they check your passport when you enter, and they have their own prominently displayed flag--but they're too valuable for Panama to let go.) Most of the food in Chiriqui is grown in Cerro Punto, a gorgeous little farming town on the other side of the volcano, whose name means, appropriately "near the summit." Every bit of available land is used to grow lettuce, carrots, onions, celery, strawberries, flowers--everything is fresh and beautiful. Oh, there are lush mountains on all sides. There's no way to really take a picture of that. Please imagine. This was the first place in Panama that has completely wowed me.

Of Fincas (Farms) and Fighting Cocks

2009-07-15T16:03:00.001-07:00

Over the past two days, we have been learning quite a bit about Panamanian life from our host father (C.). Fighting roosters is a popular sport here and in much of Latin America, and though C. retired 6 months ago from the fights, he still raises and sells fighting cocks for a tidy sum. He has, he says, a good reputation, and the backyard is alive with crowing. Yesterday at lunch he walked in with a rooster underneath his arm and said "This one's ready. Let's test him out!" The rooster held impressively still while C. tied protective pads around the long spurs on the back of its legs--so that it wouldn't hurt the other, younger rooster it would be pitted against. Then he simply pitched them both one by one out into the yard, and they went at it, flapping and pecking at each other´s heads. He did not let them go for long, and they were not hurt. Still. C. showed us his prize rooster who'd won 7 fights and now sires highly prized chicks. This rooster had lost both its eyes in the last fight, which he still won. Matt and I, both in sandals, sidled away as it went after any nearby rooster as well as C's jeans. "You're crazy," he said, laughing and pushing it aside.
Buy-in for a fight is $100, but there's not limit on betting. A good rooster (untrained) can be sold for up to $300, and the trainer takes 20% of winnings. This is in a country where $8 per day is an excellent wage. Fights last 15 minutes or until one loses by
a) lying down and refusing for fight back for a full minute
b) running away 3 times (smart bird)
c)dying.

So, winning 7 fights means defying death 7 times. This is a brutal sport. Don't get me started on the turtle-shell spurs they tie onto the roosters' legs for the fights.

Speaking of betting, the lottery is incredibly popular here. Numbers are sold on little stands on the street. I feel just a bit like I'm on the scene of 100 Years of Solitude.

On a more peaceful note, today C. took us to his coffee farm (finca in Spanish refers to a small farm) high up on the volcano next to the national park/rain forest. Three of us in the cab of his 18 year-old truck with his partner standing up in the back, we rocked (literally) our way up roads that not even an SUV add would feature--logs and rocks and partial ditches--up to his farm with a gorgeous view of the city. The coffee trees were planted in close rows on the hillside, their branches hitting at face and chest level as you pass. Tight green coffee beans (red or yellow when they ripen in November) clung to every branch. C. spoke of fertilizer and a fungus (imaginatively called "they eye of the rooster") that strikes trees at random during the rainy summer season. We trailed behind, noting how Washington orange, banana, plantain, and avocado trees grew mixed right in with them.

I am so impressed with people who speak the language of growing things, who see with their hands as well as their eyes.

bella vistas

2009-07-12T12:10:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered what it was like to go on a 2-hour horseback ride through the mountains of Panamá with 14 school psychologists? You spend a lot of time, basically all of the time, analyzing and discussing the personalities of the horses. Mine was on an eating tour of the mountain, and the grass was always greener off the path. The ride was absolutely gorgeous. I'll try to get pictures uploaded. The paths were steep, and the earth was deep red underneath the bright green grass and trees. A countryside of cows who looked at us curiously from across the fences, of streams, of more mountains in the distance and a glimpse of the Pacific ocean beyond that. If you stand on top of the volcano at dawn on a clear day, you can see both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Panamá is, as our host father says, "the center of the world" (or at least of the Americas.) I caught a glimpes of why people love horses. How amazing it must be to have such a connection with your horse. What magnificent animals.

After horseback riding came a visit to the hotsprings, along a gravel road that few tourists would ever find. Natural hotsprings...what a gift.

Finally, one more view of Panamá from the top. On Sunday we piled into a truck that, if it ever had shocks, doesn´t anymore, drove up more steep mountaint roads, and arrived at this in high up in the rainforested mountains where we went ziplining. What a thrill. I don't know how it is in other places, but after a short demonstration of do's and don'ts we drove farther up the mountain and came out to our first landing...next to a waterfall. The zip-line crossed that river, though you could barely see it below. This was the "baby line." Guess there's only one way to learn!!! It took me until about the fourth line to start looking down below the zip-line, and I wouldn't recommend this trip as a way to get up close with nature, but what a thrill to go flying through the canopy up to 90 feet in the air.

rainy season

2009-07-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Mornings dawn cool and lovely, announced at regular intervals by the rooster behind our house. First thing in the morning is the time to run errands, line dry clothes, walk to town. Picture it: the road goes straight for almost 3 miles with houses and shops spaced neatly on its side, then suddenly the road turns and you are surrounded by mountains, green and jagged on top, which drop off steeply into a red-roofed pueblo. Take a good look; by 10 or 11 the mountains start to disappear behind fog and gray clouds. You see it raining in the mountains first, then by noon, just as the day is really getting hot, the gray has covered the blue sky and thickened. Around noon it begins to rain, sometimes a drizzle, sometimes in a thunderclap that turns the hilly streets of town into rivers. There is a reason all the shops and schools have awnings. The university we´re attending for Spanish classes has no entrance or exit doors, only open hallways of classrooms, buildings connected by awning-covered sidewalks. If it never gets cold, why close yourself off?

And with guaranteed rain everyday, what better thing is there to do than take a siesta, or brew a cup of Panamanian coffee and write?

welcoming strangers.

2009-07-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am forming a list of things I resolve to do when situations reverse and I meet people who are new arrivals in my country. I will

offer food. It´s amazing how, with the uncertainty of the first few days in a new place-new schedule-new customs, etc., food is often on our minds. We eat well, don´t get me wrong, and our host family cooks delicious food--often meat with rice and some sort of salad. yum! But I think it´s safe to assume that new arrivals to a new place have food on the brain. If you can´t offer any, show them where they can buy some. Tell them how much it costs, what people normally eat, what time.
Show them where to find or purchase the essentials. (today I bought an alarm clock for $2.42. Yes, less than $3 including battery.)
Speak slowly. Enunciate. Use charades. In the U.S. I get so concerned about insulting someone´s intelligence, but when my host mom gestures and speaks slowly, I´m so grateful! It´s amazing how much you can understand through body language. I¨m becoming fluent in charades.

Check out pictures of Boquete here.

Boquete, land of poets

2009-07-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Boquete, the land, I´m told, that has inspired many poets. I can start to see why: rolling mountains, a dormant volcano, rainforest, coffee plantations, two rushing rivers with rapids. Chiquiri, the province in which we are located, grows most of the food in Panama. Oh boy. It´s the rainy season, which means it´s sunny in the morning, and just when it starts to get really hot around noon, it rains, and it stays raining on and off for the rest of the afternoon. It´s almost noon now, so I´m typing quickly at this internet cafe, racing the rain.

Back in Panama City, we drove up to the top of a large hill from which the Americans oversaw the construction of the Panama Canal. On top of said hill, there is a statue of a woman poet. She wrote of her love for the land and her sorrow that its people did not own it. A statue of a poet. Good country.

in Panama

2009-07-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

It's strange to think how simple travel has become. You wake up in Chicago, board a plane, sleep, board another plane, read, watch a dumb movie, eat your proffered peanuts, you go through customs which looks just like other customs you've gone through, and, a mere 8 hours later, you're in Panama, hungry but not at all worse for wear. Perhaps if you had taken a steamer several weeks over rough seas and gratefully found land, perhaps then it would hit you immediately that you had arrived somewhere ELSE. As it is, it will take you a few days to adjust, to really realize that you are in Central America, a part of the world where you have never been, and you will be here for a month.

There have, of course, been a few signs of somewhere new:

Everyone speaks Spanish, of course, and you're proud of yourself if you can conjugate "to be" and find enough words for a sentence. For now, this is enough. You managed your first successful exchange in Spanish by walking up to the waitress at breakfast and saying without preamble "Que hora es?" only to realize when she brightly greets you back with "buenas dias" that there should have been some sort of preamble along the lines of "excuse me, but..." if only you knew the words. You sound out every billboard you pass.
It's so humid, your glasses fog when you step out of the air conditioning.
There's a quadimundo outside the sliding glass doors at breakfast. It's like a raccoon but with less hair, and when eventually some man cracks the door to feed it papaya, it chomps that fruit with impressive teeth, holding the remainder with impressive claws. It does not chomp the man's fingers, and you figure this thing's got a great racket going, pacing and getting fed. It's got cute little swiveling ears and a long quivering nose. You'd like to pet it, but of course you won't.
Palm trees. Mango trees, the mangos on them green and the size of your fist.
The jungle is behind your hotel. Literally. The Panama canal is five minutes away. Later in the day, you will visit the Miraflores locks and watch, awestruck, for an hour as three freighter ships, each carrying uncounted loads of shipping containers (each the size of a semi) are moved through three locks, the water system raised and lowered with stunning efficiency. The length and width of every ship in the world (that does not want to venture around Cape Horn) is controlled by the size of these locks, built from Pittsburgh steel in 1914.

You know you're in a fantastic new place. You know you're seeing amazing things. But it will take a few more days before it really sinks in that YOU are HERE.

Until then.

Politics

2009-07-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

Lately, Matt and I have been watching through old seasons of West Wing. I just love the witty dialogue of that show and the way it addresses issues. It was one of many factors that brought me from "What's the difference between republican and democrat again?" in college to my current, more engaged state. But my point is this: last week, after I'd seen several such episodes, I turned on the radio on my way to work to hear President Obama giving a short speech speaking firmly to Iran, then taking questions. And the way he answered his questions, cracking witty jokes, identifying the important issues in each question, putting it all into perspective...it was as though I was watching West Wing. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have a president in the office who is as smart and compassionate and capable as one dreamed up by brilliant writers.

On a more regional note, Minnesota FINALLY has TWO senators! Franken's in, and any disagreement I might have with him is replaced by my relief of having Minnesota fully represented...8 months after the election. (And having 60 Democrats rocks, too!)