Friday’s Poem: Touching

Touching

          – After Richard Renaldi’s Touching Strangers photographs

If I ask, would you
lay your palm here,
calloused hand
to my shoulder blade,
the delicate armature, see
how my body hooks together
needle and eye?

Or finger
the pulse at my neck,
bird flower
beating its staccato
rhythm rat tat tat?

Cup the living cage
of my throat,
body’s breath,
the slipped passage
of corpuscles. Beneath:
My mother’s voice.
How, in the dark,
I startle awake.

Work in Progress: Swarm

Here’s a brand-new poem. I love it when friends “assign” me an idea for a poem. Keep them coming.

 

Swarm

For Ja’net

The girl’s vacant hands
beat the air, the stick thrown down,
stolid instrument to her impulse

to thump and rattle, thrash and shake.
The bees had their own music,
the dry husk rattle of the thousands

pouring out, their intent bodies
ululating a high-pitched warrior
cry. They descended, an angry mass.

They found purchase on lips
and eyelids, the delicate skin
between the girl’s shirt and pants.

She crushed them as she fell,
lumpen and dark-throated,
into the spoiling leaves.

Work in Progress: Boys on the Subway (revised)

It’s the fall again, or at least it will be if this damn weather stops pretending to be summer. It’s my favorite season. Something about back to school and the cooler weather, the leaves changing and the sky darkening earlier and earlier. The air smells of sharpened pencils and wool sweaters (I think I may have stolen this from You’ve Got Mail, which is one of those ridiculous movies that I can’t NOT watch when it’s on TV. I know. You’re thinking, “Meg Ryan? Tom Hanks? Sheesh.” But if you haven’t watched it, do so. You will thank me. Or we’ll discover that we might not become such great friends).

The wedding is finally behind us (or at least it will be after this weekend’s final celebratory dinner with CityBoy’s East Coast family), and we can both breathe a long sigh of relief. We made it. We’re still talking. We still like each other.

Which means that life can get back on track and we can refocus on the things that we love and make us feel human. For me, this means writing again.

CityBoy’s brother gave a beautiful reading at our ceremony, which of course I loved since he purloined some things from my blog as a jumping point to talk about marriage and relationships. I was compelled to admit that I have shamefully ignored this blog and done very little writing this year. Jobs, and proposals, and travel, got in the way.

So I’m recommitting (again). It’s time to get my ass back in the chair and do what I love best: form words into sentences into stories…”the best words, in the best order.”

My writing friends have been instrumental to the “best order” part. It’s amazing what another set of eyes, eyes you value and admire, can do for your own work. I found the idea of starting with a fresh, blank page a little daunting this morning, so I pulled a new poem out of my waiting-to-be-revised batch and I’m quite pleased with the result. You’ll have to let me know what you think.

*poof*

Ugh. Here it comes…

I have been a bad blogger (although that word still makes me cringe a little; I prefer to think of this as a compendium of thoughts, not always coherent or terribly insightful, but useful to me, and I hope at least a little interesting to you). I have definitely been a bad writer.

However, I have been a good worker, moving up in the job world from a part-time position to a full-time one…WITH benefits (cue the triumphant horns). I have also been a good reader. With my new Nook, I have been reading like a fiend, trying (and failing) to keep up with both my physical hold queue and my virtual one at my local library.

Books! Books!! BOOKS!!!

And I have also been a very, very, very good buyer of books, both e-books and book-books. Here’s just a sampling of the books I’ve bought in the past eight weeks:

Moving Thoughts

my little sister made these sweet cupcakes

The other day, a coworker, knowing that I moved from California to New York, asked me about my experience. He and his girlfriend are considering moving from New York to Florida, and he wanted some firsthand knowledge. This got me thinking. It’s been almost two years since my move (!!), but I haven’t really reflected too much, at least here, about how the move has gone, how it’s affected me and my relationships with others, and whether I’d do it again.

Since we’re all still thinking about the new year and what it holds for each of us (beyond the feverish, resolution-fueled exercising I see at the gym and yoga studio), I figure this deserves some attention. Here’s what I’ve learned in the past year and a half (not in any particular order):

Save up.

If you’re considering moving to a new city and you don’t already have a job lined up, wait. Stop. Save. As much as you can, but I’m recommending at least enough to cover your expenses for six to nine months. I’d never been unemployed for an extended period of time before I moved to New York, and I’d never really struggled to find work, so I naively thought that it would take me three to six months TOPS to find a new job.

Boy was I mistaken. It took me a full year, about a thousand job applications, and interviews with three companies (the only ones who responded), to find a part-time entry-level customer service job. Whose salary is not even close to what I was making at my previous job.

Of course my search was hindered by the worst national job market in decades, a failing economy, and an extremely competitive under-employed labor pool in New York City, but I wish I’d really heeded all those friends and family members who expressed serious reservations about my plans to leave a good job without having a new one in place. Especially since NYC is probably the most expensive city in the US.

Lights, Camera, 2011!

Fireworks over Central Park

Happy New Year, folks! We made it. This holiday season was a doozy – CityBoy and I spent an unexpected extra week (well I did; CityBoy had ants in his pants…more on that later) in Orange County, celebrating with my family and our friends and eating entirely too much good, good food.

Work in Progress: Boys on the Subway

I’m always checking people out on the subway, much to CityBoy’s chagrin, who maintains that no eye contact is good eye contact on the train. But I can’t help looking. There’s so much strangeness and vulnerability and drama on the subway.

The other day, I watched this young tough size up the young guy sitting next to me on the train. It was chilling to watch him. I almost felt as if I should escort the guy off the train and make sure he got to his destination alright. This is what came to mind when I was sitting my ass in the chair:

 

Boys on the Subway

It’s still the schoolyard, the toughs braced
against the chainlink, the outfits the same—
hooded sweatshirt, a shroud of menace
framing thrust-out chins, their just-cinched
pants straining at the nexus of their crotches ,
stubble pressing through their doughy faces—
everything oversized, unlaced, splayed.
They take up too much, spread their knees
wide across the bench seats, the tongues
of their spit-clean sneakers bright white
against a lunar background of logoed
blacks and grays.  Eager as untrained
pups, their eyes lap up every girl, dissect
their figures into breast sizes, hand spans
of waist, the canted arc of their jeans-
encased asses. They let them know
with licks and swipes of their eyes
which they’d take to a dim corner.

Work in Progress: Before Going to the Front, Hungary, 1916

I was at Strand Books the other day, waiting for none other than Andrew McCarthy (yes, that Andrew McCarthy) to read at a food and travel writing event, when I spied this little volume of photos: André Kertész: The Early Years. It’s a really beautiful little book, full of tiny works, about the size of contact photos. I’d never heard of the photographer before (I’m not that well-versed in the art world though I love photography) and I was struck by how clear and precise his images were. He later moved to larger photos (once he could afford it) but there’s something striking about these little pictures, like the cameos that the Victorians carried on their persons of loved ones. Each photo is like a little memorial. I’ve been flipping through it for inspiration.

Here’s one based on the photograph of the same name:

 

Before Going to the Front, Hungary, 1916

- After André Kertész

The cellist anchors his instrument
in the dirt, its tail spike finding a groove
in the rutted road side, and begins to play,
his finger pads hardened by years of this
action, the alternating bowing and picking, gentle
or savage depending on the piece,
the movement, the wavering pencil work
on his copy of the concerto.

Today he does not need to brush back
his coat tails, wing the twin swallows
of his black-polished tuxedo
before he sits. His soldier’s uniform
is utilitarian olive drab, the buttons
flat discs of wood, his shined boots
the only spangle of ornamentation.

The others, dressed like him,
their knapsacks full of rationed bread,
gather to one side, listen to the rise in his cello’s
open belly, the wild keening he coaxes
stoking their own throats.  Their swallowed
goodbyes blend into the trafficked air.

Submissions Time Again

Supplies at the ready

I just sent out a new batch of submissions the other week. The whole process is time-consuming and not a little tedious, but I’ve been using this new system for a while, which I borrowed from Kelly Russell Agodon, and while it’s not the speediest, it has stopped me from sending the same poem to too many journals. The process is:

Step One:

Identify your publication-worthy poems. These are always still in revision mode, but if I waited until each poem was perfect-perfect, I’d never send anything out. I firmly believe it’s a crap shoot anyways, at least in the beginning stages, until you identify your go-to journals.

Step Two:

Match your poems to journals with open reading periods.

Matchy-matchy

This is the hardest part of the process for me. I’m usually surprised by what journals take which poems, so I’m always just guessing. I try to read up on the journals, see if I can find some sample poems on their websites, and batch together 3-5 poems (the low end of however many the journal says they want) that I think they might like. I’ve found the Creative Writers Opportunities list on Yahoo! Groups (CRWROPPS) indispensable in finding out what journals are currently seeking submissions. The list (moderated by the tireless Allison) also is a great resource for poetry contests, job openings, and other creative-writing related interests.

Step Three:

Send out your submissions. Do not stop at Go. Do not collect $100. Just send them out.

I have all my poems listed on individual 3×5 index cards, one poem per card. As I complete submissions, I update my index cards to show which poem has gone to which journal, along with the date I submitted that poem. I really like this paper process, as it forces me to physically note where each poem has gone.

Step Four:

File your index cards. Poems that have been submitted to a journal go in the “Submitted” section (duh, I know, but you’d be surprised how many times I simultaneously submitted poems unintentionally before this system). Poems that haven’t been submitted go into the “In Progress” section. Keep working this section, poem by poem, until you’re comfortable moving poems into the “To Submit” section. This way, you’re ready with a new batch of poems to send out when you sit down to start this up all over again.

I try to submit a big batch at least every quarter. It’s very time-consuming – it usually takes me about a day and a half to prep five to eight submission packets – but you gotta do it. No one’s ever going to see your work unless you make the effort to share it.

And the joys of getting something accepted, as “Ice Water, Fever” was recently accepted by Cloudbank, is a high like no other.

I also wanted to share this bit of advice from Kelly’s blog: Submit Like a Man. I looked back at all my rejection letters (don’t worry, I’ve only been saving the ones since I moved to NYC) and found several notes to “send us more,” which of course, I never did. Talk about missed opportunities. So I’ve learned my lesson. If you reject me, but you put even one tiny note about having enjoyed my stuff, I’m sending you more. Not in six months or a year. Soon. Very, very soon.

So get out there, my fellow writers-in-arms, and submit. Like a man.

- Jho

You Are Here: On The Road to A Finished Collection

indeed...

I submitted my last round of entries for first book prizes this past month, with version 3 of Harvest (as it is currently titled) and immediately began rewrites. Such is my revision process. Unless I’m totally sick of a thing or I think it’s hit the glory spot (very rare), I’m constantly revising poems. And also manuscripts.

There was one last set of contests whose deadlines were Oct. 31st or Nov. 1st and I thought I could push through and get one more revision out, but it was not to be. On deadline days, I was (and still am) up to my elbows in versions of versions, cutting poems, putting others back in, changing poem order, moving lines around. One of the things I loved about seeing Sharon Olds read recently (other than her sheer awesomeness) was her announcement that she’d just been revising the sheaf of papers in her hand…on the subway ride over. I thought, wow, that is hard-core, I need to be that hard-core.

With the holidays coming up, I’m focusing on revisions, no submissions, tooling and retooling my great sheaf of papers, so I thought now was as good a time to reflect on a year’s (plus) hard work, mental tomfoolery, and the awesomeness of CityBoy’s workhorse printer.

In the past year (starting in January 2010), I sent my manuscript, in various forms, to eight book contests:

Colorado Prize for Poetry
Kundiman Poetry Prize
Main Street Rag Annual Poetry Book Award

Barrow Street Press 2010 Book Contest
Crab Orchard 2010 First Book Award
Pearl Poetry Prize

Kinereth Gensler Awards / Alice James Books
Philip Levine Prize in Poetry

…spending just under $200 in reading fees, and probably another $50 in postage and copying charges, and churning through at least three reams of paper.

I’m still waiting to hear from Barrow Street and the last three, since I just sent those in in September. I did not win any of the others (no big surprise), or come very close, though I did get a very nice mention in my Crab Orchard rejection that I was a semifinalist. Out of how many semifinalists, I don’t know. But knowing that someone liked the poems, even just a tiny bit, was heartening.

Oh, and I did get a few subscriptions to journals and the odd book or two from some of the presses, which was quite nice and much appreciated. I always love getting a thick envelope in the mail. I think it goes back to college admissions days, when a big fat envelope meant that all your dreams were going to be answered (you can figure out what a skinny form letter did -and does- to one’s ego).

There is another batch of four to six contests I may add to my rotation next year (I missed a couple of key deadlines) but I do feel like I’m getting the hang of this part of the po’ biz. Here’s a couple of things I learned over the course of the year:

1. You’re going to need a lot of paper. A lot, a lot, a lot.

2. And a very patient partner who doesn’t mind coming home to stacks of paper spread all over his very tiny living space which he can’t move or touch or even look at, under pain of death (did I mention CityBoy and I share a 500-odd square foot studio?). CityBoy is a good man, a prince among men.

3. And a lot of patience for yourself. There will be days when you hate everything you’ve ever written and, picking up the other beautifully published and much admired works you possess in your poetry library, lament the fact that you’re even trying to do this thing. Are you really as good as Dorianne Laux? Mark Doty? Marie Howe?

4. The answer is always “yes” or “I will be.”

5. You’re also going to need friends. Good, poetry-reading friends who don’t mind being sent some weighty tome of words and hounded for their feedback. Because they will see things you can’t. Or echo that niggling bit of yourself saying, yeah, this poem doesn’t really work, even though I like this line or that image. They will ask the dreaded question:  “so what?”

6. And something else to do or see or taste or feel on those days when it’s not coming easily, the poem or the rewrite or the poem order. You’re going to need to walk your neighborhood, see movies, look at art, ride the subway, go to the grocery store, eat that big salty bowl of ramen at your favorite place with the go-go dancer waiters. Because that’s where the next poem, the next image, the next “holy shit” moment is waiting. Right there.

7. And then you’re going to have to get right back to work. Sit your ass in the chair and think and imagine and form words and dream. I know, I said it, dream. But that’s really all this is. You distilling your best self into these dreamed-up words, these lines and images that make you smile and do the fist pump dance and make you love language again and again and again. Because, in spite of what you do to pay the bills, this is who you are and this is what you do.

So, I am here…with one manuscript in progress, currently 62 pages (with some creative margining), 46 poems, 3 sections. Even now, flipping through the pages to tally them up, I’m making mental changes (That poem’s still in there? Really?) (Three sections? Hmm…), but that’s part of the joy of being in charge. You make the calls, you say what goes.

Rock on, peeps, and wish me the luck of the wolf.

- Jho