i have a sore throat and my car is kind of dead, so i needed something to cheer me up (other than the prospect of halloween friday, which is wonderful and exciting, but makes me really really really not want to get sick). so when i checked my email this morning, and read this lovely response from one of my grad school recommenders, it made me smile a lot. i'd sent her some poems and a draft of my statement last week, then yesterday sent a quick email to let her know i'd dropped the recommendation forms in the mail, and here is most of her response. the first line scared me, but then it got better:
I'm not going to lie to you. I hadn't looked at the statement and poems yet until today when I got your email and thought I'd have a look over so I'm ready to write when I get the info..
I just wanted to tell you how much I loved the poems. In particular, the river poem and the September 11 poems--I think they are done so well. Very moving. I mean it.
Anyway my little brain has begun drafting so there won't be any problems with getting them back to you in time. I'll confirm their arrival here and also let you know when I post them back so you needn't worry.
But really, Emily. I'm well and truly impressed by what I've read.
it just made me very happy! and it's interesting to me that all 3 of my recommenders picked out "the river that doesn't exist" as one of their favorite poems in my sample. makes me think i really should lean toward more of the prose poems. also, her response to the september 11th poem validates my decision to include something so new (the middle is heavily revised from the version posted here).
so, yeah, all good :)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Running
And something very new. A prose poem. Obviously. I may have posted the beginning of this here earlier, because the initial image popped into my head back in August, one day while I was out running.
Running
The weeds along the riverside path where you run in late August smell of pollen, of dust and exhaustion, a tired heavy sweetness like the lace on your grandmother’s wedding gown that crumbled in your hands when you cleaned out the attic after she died last year. Your heart was raw and stinging from a breakup then; when you cried at the funeral you were crying for them both, for your grandmother who’d spent 85 years giving herself to her family and for your ex-girlfriend who’d spent a year trying to give you what you claimed to want.
When you heard the story your aunt told, that your grandmother said the happiest times of her life were between moving to the city and getting married, and then the years after her husband died, the only times she’d been free, when you heard that story, you cried for yourself too, and you thought maybe that’s where you got it, that desire to be free above all else, the way you always run away from love.
Running
The weeds along the riverside path where you run in late August smell of pollen, of dust and exhaustion, a tired heavy sweetness like the lace on your grandmother’s wedding gown that crumbled in your hands when you cleaned out the attic after she died last year. Your heart was raw and stinging from a breakup then; when you cried at the funeral you were crying for them both, for your grandmother who’d spent 85 years giving herself to her family and for your ex-girlfriend who’d spent a year trying to give you what you claimed to want.
When you heard the story your aunt told, that your grandmother said the happiest times of her life were between moving to the city and getting married, and then the years after her husband died, the only times she’d been free, when you heard that story, you cried for yourself too, and you thought maybe that’s where you got it, that desire to be free above all else, the way you always run away from love.
"There Are No Bad Fridays"
Another oldie... Originally workshopped that same semester, but it started the semester before, fall of 1999, when Shannon died. She wasn't my cousin, or even an extremely close friend. She was just this girl I'd known since 2nd grade through church and private school. Her brother was one of my "boyfriends" in second grade; he and Brian used to fight over me on the playground. Brian died in a car accident when we were seniors in high school. I didn't go to his funeral. It's more complicated than that, but when Shannon died four years later, it through my world for a loop. I scribbled a few lines of this the weekend of the funeral, didn't complete it till months later, then added/changed a lot during that workshop the next semester. When I dusted it off again recently, I made some more drastic changes.
“There Are No Bad Fridays”
the man on the radio says, but I disagree
today as I drive through sheets of rain
toward my cousin’s funeral. She was nineteen,
her boyfriend was behind the wheel. He lies
in a hospital bed, stable, in pain. I was almost
afraid this morning to get in the car.
The radio plays on, a constant drone
of scripted words and recycled songs
blurring into a noise as nearly white
as the sky. I should be remembering her,
at holidays and parties, as a child
and a teenager, and a woman just starting
to grown into her beauty, but the radio
recalls last night’s conversations,
and the later kisses, and thoughts
flow through my mind as quickly,
as pointlessly, as the sound. I shake
my head to clear it and focus
instead on the rain.
This is a bad Friday, I think,
annoyed with the voice which said
everything is fine, and I glare
at the spray flung onto the windshield
by the truck in front of me. I realize
I am tense, that I keep tightening
until I am squeezing the wheel
with both hands, hunched over,
an old woman at twenty-six, straining
to see. I make an effort to relax,
uncoiling, pressing shoulders back
against the seat, and I try to look
beyond the tail lights in front of me.
Rain falls in waves, rolling down
the glass, splashing off. We are,
all of us, back in the womb on this highway,
securely wrapped in glimmering cars
while water holds us separate
from the outside world.
All I can see is the color of rain,
the pale grey fabric of clouds unbroken
by sky, and I know the weather won’t change
today. I feel the truth of the falling sky
as I navigate the slick pavement
that glows in my headlights. The truth
is that the radio tells lies, the leaves
change color and die, the rain
always falls downward, and all
we can hope for is to grow old someday.
“There Are No Bad Fridays”
the man on the radio says, but I disagree
today as I drive through sheets of rain
toward my cousin’s funeral. She was nineteen,
her boyfriend was behind the wheel. He lies
in a hospital bed, stable, in pain. I was almost
afraid this morning to get in the car.
The radio plays on, a constant drone
of scripted words and recycled songs
blurring into a noise as nearly white
as the sky. I should be remembering her,
at holidays and parties, as a child
and a teenager, and a woman just starting
to grown into her beauty, but the radio
recalls last night’s conversations,
and the later kisses, and thoughts
flow through my mind as quickly,
as pointlessly, as the sound. I shake
my head to clear it and focus
instead on the rain.
This is a bad Friday, I think,
annoyed with the voice which said
everything is fine, and I glare
at the spray flung onto the windshield
by the truck in front of me. I realize
I am tense, that I keep tightening
until I am squeezing the wheel
with both hands, hunched over,
an old woman at twenty-six, straining
to see. I make an effort to relax,
uncoiling, pressing shoulders back
against the seat, and I try to look
beyond the tail lights in front of me.
Rain falls in waves, rolling down
the glass, splashing off. We are,
all of us, back in the womb on this highway,
securely wrapped in glimmering cars
while water holds us separate
from the outside world.
All I can see is the color of rain,
the pale grey fabric of clouds unbroken
by sky, and I know the weather won’t change
today. I feel the truth of the falling sky
as I navigate the slick pavement
that glows in my headlights. The truth
is that the radio tells lies, the leaves
change color and die, the rain
always falls downward, and all
we can hope for is to grow old someday.
Photographing Ghosts
This is an old one, from my last year at BG. I went with with a friend to take pictures in an old house. Some of the images are real, some are made up. As old as this one is, it still feels somehow complete to me. It's been revised of course, several times.
Photographing Ghosts
I’ve heard the house is haunted
but there is no evidence
of ghosts, only empty rooms
and dirty shards of windows.
There is very little left
that has not decayed or been
stolen, but I finish one roll
of film and start another before
the winter sun starts to fade.
I focus on Mason jars lining a shelf
in what must have been the pantry,
a stained sink filled with dust
and crumbled bits of ceiling,
flowered wallpaper clinging
in faint strips to the stairwell,
curling at the ends as it tries
to pull free of the wall.
I hesitate before ascending,
not knowing what I’ll find
or if the steps are sound. Upstairs
a door with its flaking coat
of blue paint does no want to open
as though someone holds it shut.
I push a little harder, afraid it will
break, but it gives up and opens. A gust
of bitter wind shakes the second floor.
The door creaks behind me as I enter,
rust flaking from corroded hinges
and falling with a sigh. Inside the room
is a baby’s high chair, legs broken
off, a fractured piece of drywall
in the seat where the child
should have been. Sun comes through
the vacant window in harsh bright
angles. The room glows with pain.
I look away, find time in a closet
in stacks of newspapers, bundled
and tied with baling twine. The date
on top is 1951, just before an unknown
disaster, then emptiness, a myth
about some ghost.
And then vagrants sleeping on wood floors,
oblivious, teenagers breaking in
almost hoping to meet the supernatural
but seeing nothing, leaving broken
bottles glittering in the morning.
Their brown and green shards
are still embedded in the cracks
between floorboards and catch
light like tiny mirrors.
And after these invaders, the house died,
the colored tiles falling from the roof,
rain eroding carved stonework
around windows. And now, every
so often, people stop their cars,
pull into the cinders beside the road,
and take photographs of the house,
picturesque in its decay. The ambitious
venture inside, searching as I am for spirits
or for nuances of shadow, forms and
textures in the wood, the brick, the plaster.
But no matter how many rooms I examine,
the story escapes me, leaving hints
in washed out color, cold January rays
which can’t illuminate the past. I can’t tell
what color the flowers on the wallpaper used to be,
how the vegetables in the pantry tasted,
why no children took over the farm
after their deaths. The house alone
knows what happened between
the headlines in the closet and the broken
highchair in the attic, and its ghosts
won’t whisper into curious ears.
Photographing Ghosts
I’ve heard the house is haunted
but there is no evidence
of ghosts, only empty rooms
and dirty shards of windows.
There is very little left
that has not decayed or been
stolen, but I finish one roll
of film and start another before
the winter sun starts to fade.
I focus on Mason jars lining a shelf
in what must have been the pantry,
a stained sink filled with dust
and crumbled bits of ceiling,
flowered wallpaper clinging
in faint strips to the stairwell,
curling at the ends as it tries
to pull free of the wall.
I hesitate before ascending,
not knowing what I’ll find
or if the steps are sound. Upstairs
a door with its flaking coat
of blue paint does no want to open
as though someone holds it shut.
I push a little harder, afraid it will
break, but it gives up and opens. A gust
of bitter wind shakes the second floor.
The door creaks behind me as I enter,
rust flaking from corroded hinges
and falling with a sigh. Inside the room
is a baby’s high chair, legs broken
off, a fractured piece of drywall
in the seat where the child
should have been. Sun comes through
the vacant window in harsh bright
angles. The room glows with pain.
I look away, find time in a closet
in stacks of newspapers, bundled
and tied with baling twine. The date
on top is 1951, just before an unknown
disaster, then emptiness, a myth
about some ghost.
And then vagrants sleeping on wood floors,
oblivious, teenagers breaking in
almost hoping to meet the supernatural
but seeing nothing, leaving broken
bottles glittering in the morning.
Their brown and green shards
are still embedded in the cracks
between floorboards and catch
light like tiny mirrors.
And after these invaders, the house died,
the colored tiles falling from the roof,
rain eroding carved stonework
around windows. And now, every
so often, people stop their cars,
pull into the cinders beside the road,
and take photographs of the house,
picturesque in its decay. The ambitious
venture inside, searching as I am for spirits
or for nuances of shadow, forms and
textures in the wood, the brick, the plaster.
But no matter how many rooms I examine,
the story escapes me, leaving hints
in washed out color, cold January rays
which can’t illuminate the past. I can’t tell
what color the flowers on the wallpaper used to be,
how the vegetables in the pantry tasted,
why no children took over the farm
after their deaths. The house alone
knows what happened between
the headlines in the closet and the broken
highchair in the attic, and its ghosts
won’t whisper into curious ears.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Untitled for now
Your cat left scratches on my hand last night,
tiny red lines beneath the skin, dried blood
across my knuckles. It barely hurt, and I know
they will heal. I wonder if you'll still be here
or if the sting and thrill of a new love will fade
along with the marks on my skin, like every other love
fades away, scarring over, disappearing
into the geography of lines on my hands,
the creases that grow with age, the healed wounds,
the lovers that have been here before.
tiny red lines beneath the skin, dried blood
across my knuckles. It barely hurt, and I know
they will heal. I wonder if you'll still be here
or if the sting and thrill of a new love will fade
along with the marks on my skin, like every other love
fades away, scarring over, disappearing
into the geography of lines on my hands,
the creases that grow with age, the healed wounds,
the lovers that have been here before.
homework
Fools
drive everywhere,
drink Starbucks coffee, fail to
see beauty in dirt.
a cheap way out, to do a haiku for the prompt Stacey gave last night. I'll probably come up with a longer one too.
Just wanted to post a poem here cuz it's been awhile.
GRE is over now, half-marathon is over now (it was great!!!), and so I can focus more on poems now.
drive everywhere,
drink Starbucks coffee, fail to
see beauty in dirt.
a cheap way out, to do a haiku for the prompt Stacey gave last night. I'll probably come up with a longer one too.
Just wanted to post a poem here cuz it's been awhile.
GRE is over now, half-marathon is over now (it was great!!!), and so I can focus more on poems now.
Friday, October 17, 2008
GRE Update
Took the GRE yesterday.... I left work at 3:00, stopped at home and walked my dog, drank a Diet Dr. Pepper, then went to take the test. I'd wanted to be early, but because of poor directions and a really f'd up parking system, I didn't sign in to the testing room until 4:01pm. It was fine though; the testing center staff kids were all very nice and organized and relaxing. I was nervous and anxious to just get it over with. I sat down in my little cubicle, skimmed through the tutorial just to stop my hands from shaking, and then started the exam. The first essay was the long one (45 minutes, make an argument based off of one of two statements). I kept the study guide's suggestion in mind to keep things simple. I jotted down my basic idea on scratch paper, then typed it out. It seemed to work well. I finished with six paragraphs and about 5 minutes left, even after rereading it a couple of times. So I went on to the next one. It was 30 minutes, analyze an argument given. I liked the topic; it was easy to critique. Again, I jotted down an outline on my pretty pink scrap paper with the annoyingly hard scratchy pencil, then started typing. I finished with five paragraphs, after proofing, with a minute and a half left. Thought of taking the optional 10 minute break, but decided to just forge ahead. Verbal section was next. It was hard. It seemed harder than most of the verbal practice sections I'd done (which was only 3 or 4), but I read things carefully, took my time, paid attention to things like purpose and parts of speech and shades of meaning. Stared at the ceiling to visualize words on the page of the study guide. Finished with a lot of time left. Next up was the Quantitative section. It started okay, then got torturous. I'd say the first quarter of the questions were about the same types of things I'd dealt with in the practice tests, then I started seeing things I didn't even know how to interpret. I guessed. The questions got harder. I scribbled madly on my scrap paper, I drew diagrams, I plugged in numbers, I gave up and guessed an answer at random. Then the questions got easier, and I knew I'd totally messed things up. I got frustrated. I eventually muddled through. Finished the section with a bit of time left, but don't remember how much. I clicked to continue, and got another Verbal section. It was easier by far than the first Verbal section. I finished it quickly, making an effort not to rush, to think through everything. I selected four schools to receive my scores, filled out all the little questions at the end, and finally, after several confirmation screens, got to see my scores:
560 Quantitative (70 points lower than in 1999, but my goal was anything above 550)
700 Verbal (20 points HIGHER than in 1999, and my goal was between 650 and 700)
I grinned. I would've laughed out loud if it hadn't been so silent in the room. Clicked through to the end, signed out, grinned at the staff members, retrieved my bag and scarf from the locker, and left. I am satisfied with those scores, and I'm hoping for a good score on the Analytical Writing too. I would've liked to be a little closer to 600 on the Quantitative section, but the average score for all entering grad students in the humanities is 561 so I'm right there at the average (and perhaps slightly above average for MFA students? that's a guess). And I am thrilled with Verbal score. Really thrilled. Dave hates me, but that's okay ;)
I was comparing my goals on the GRE to my goals for the half-marathon. I'd set a minimum goal of 1200 (550Q, 650V) and a top goal, which I didn't really expect, of 1300 (600Q, 700V) for the GRE. In the half-marathon, my minimum goal is to finish in 2.5 hours and my top goal, which I'm not sure I can do, is to finish in 2 hours. So my GRE score of 1260 is equivalent to a time of 2 hours 12 minutes. I'll laugh if that's my time, but I'd be super duper happy with it too!
560 Quantitative (70 points lower than in 1999, but my goal was anything above 550)
700 Verbal (20 points HIGHER than in 1999, and my goal was between 650 and 700)
I grinned. I would've laughed out loud if it hadn't been so silent in the room. Clicked through to the end, signed out, grinned at the staff members, retrieved my bag and scarf from the locker, and left. I am satisfied with those scores, and I'm hoping for a good score on the Analytical Writing too. I would've liked to be a little closer to 600 on the Quantitative section, but the average score for all entering grad students in the humanities is 561 so I'm right there at the average (and perhaps slightly above average for MFA students? that's a guess). And I am thrilled with Verbal score. Really thrilled. Dave hates me, but that's okay ;)
I was comparing my goals on the GRE to my goals for the half-marathon. I'd set a minimum goal of 1200 (550Q, 650V) and a top goal, which I didn't really expect, of 1300 (600Q, 700V) for the GRE. In the half-marathon, my minimum goal is to finish in 2.5 hours and my top goal, which I'm not sure I can do, is to finish in 2 hours. So my GRE score of 1260 is equivalent to a time of 2 hours 12 minutes. I'll laugh if that's my time, but I'd be super duper happy with it too!
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