Spring Break

It may be evident by the fact that I haven't posted here since the very beginning of the semester that I've been busy. That is certainly true. It's been a difficult semester. The first four weeks or so, I felt quite often that the only thing that was going well was teaching and sometimes poetry workshop. I was just not comfortable in my other classes, and I felt out of my element. I eventually settled into them and feel pretty good about everything right now, but it was a process and made for a difficult eight weeks and made me very glad last night to leave my professor's reading and say "I am officially on Spring Break!"

I'm not going anywhere for break, and I have lots of work to do over the week, but it will be very nice not to have any scheduled obligations, to sleep in and stay up late and drink wine, to go running during the warmest part of the day. It's also supposed to be about 50 degrees for at least part of next week, which might finally melt all the snow, which is super exciting. I am really looking forward to warm weather!

Break has been good so far. Last night after the reading, five of us went to go see "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" at the State Theatre downtown. It was a really quirky, lovely movie, and the theatre is nice - one of those old-fashioned single-screen theatres with a balcony and a stage so they can also host musical performances and other events. I got home around midnight last night, and stayed up for awhile. I woke up this morning with no alarm, walked the dog, drank coffee, ate a "penalty donut"*, worked on poems, submitted one set to an online journal, then did some lesson planning for the week after break. Went for a 3.5 mile run later and it was sunny but chilly, and windier than I'd realized so my eyes were watering like crazy. Ate leftover tofu curry and channa saag for dinner (M had stayed over on Wednesday and I'd cooked dinner), and I think I'm going to soon pour some wine and try to work on my next nonfiction submission.

I've been doing a lot of thinking this semester about what I want to do after the MFA. It's a two year program so once I got through the milestone of that first semester, I had to start realizing that I was already a quarter of the way through and should probably give some thought to what to do next. I'm still contemplating applying to Lit PhD programs, but now leaning more toward applying to PhD programs that offer a creative dissertation option OR just taking my MFA and trying to get a fixed term position at Penn State for the standard three years (or possibly four if I could swing it). The one thing I know for sure is that I want to teach. Like I said, my teaching was sometimes the only thing I felt good about earlier this semester, and I've been having a really good experience with this class. I actually had a really good day regarding teaching earlier this week. I'd applied to teach in the LEAP program this summer, and I got assigned to the section I'd requested. It's a section that's paired with a Photography class, so I'm really excited to work with some creative kids and plan cooperative lessons with the other instructor. Later that day, I also got my SRTE scores from fall (the quantified student evaluations) and they made me really happy. So I'm looking forward to an exciting, challenging, fun summer teaching assignment, and I should get to teach creative writing in the fall, and it's incredibly nice to know that at least this one thing consistently feels good and right to me.

*Oh, and to explain the "penalty donut" - a fellow instructor has a rule that if anyone's cell phone goes off in class, that person has to bring a snack for everyone on the next class. A student had to do this yesterday and brought in way too many donuts, so the instructor was giving them away afterward, and I took one home for this morning. I may institute that rule myself in the summer.

So, I am going to do some work now and hope to have a similar day tomorrow and most of the next week - sleep in, coffee, write, run, more work. Rendezvous with M at some point. Other social engagements as they occur. Yay, spring break!

A Long-Overdue Review

A Walk Through the Memory Palace
by Pamela Johnson Parker

Winner of the 2009 Qarrtsiluni Chapbook Contest

My apologies, first and foremost, to the lovely folks at Qarrtsiluni that is has taken me so long to getting around to reviewing this chapbook on my blog. It appeared in my mailbox during the chaotic end of fall semester and was ignored during break, along with all other things that seemed like “work”.

However, reading Johnson’s poems is not work, or at least it’s not odious work. The chapbook opens with the poem “78 RPM”, a beautifully observed narrative about summer, desire, and music. This first poem sets itself up in short 3 line stanzas, and many of the proceeding poems follow the same format. The second piece is a two-part poem called “Tattoos” (Johnson utilizes multi-part poems throughout the book), and while the poem feels rather list-heavy to me, the images are enduring and vibrant. The chapbook takes up themes of art quite frequently, whether in “First Anniversary: Reading Russian Literature” or “Reading Keats in a Japanese Garden”, a Matisse painting in “Engendering: For Two Voices”, or the speaker’s own poetry in “Unreal Gardens Without Toads in Them, or, Last Year’s Journal, This Year’s Yard.”

For me,the greatest beauty of this book is not in the poet’s academic intelligence (though it gleams fiercely throughout and enhances each poem) but in the equally profound intelligence she demonstrates toward the human mind and heart. The final poem, the long six-part “Breasts”, demonstrates not only an understanding of the body, but also of the speaker; as a prepubescent girl, she thinks “Some day I’ll need a bra, some/ Day I’ll sag like Gran.// Not me. Not now” while as an adult, and a mother, when faced with her sister’s diagnosis of advanced breast cancer, she concludes “Neither/ Of us will say cancer,/ Neither of us// Mentions our mother./ Daughter, I hold you tighter/ to my breast.” And my favorite moment of the chapbook comes at the end of "First Anniversary: Reading Russian Literature" -- after describing the poor young couple celebrating their first anniversary on a swelteringly hot day, the poems ends "You wish, like/ A child at Christmas, for snow; I loved you/ Hopelessly is all I remember of Pushkin."

While certain images and themes recur throughout the book - art, water, fish, flowers and plants, desire and death and change – I didn’t always feel that the poems connected to each other or came together as a cohesive chapbook whole. “Some Yellow Tulips”, about a Holocaust survivor, and the final long poem about breast cancer, are both wonderful poems on technical and emotional levels, but did not fit the same mood as the rest of the book. Overall though, the poems are strong and this is a chapbook well worth your time and money. It is available online or in print form. Also, be sure to check out the other cool stuff going on at .

Semester #2, Day #1

I taught my first class of the spring semester today. So far, so good.

I also have a grand total of 28 books on my coffee table which I had to purchase for my grad classes: 13 for poetry workshop, 3 for nonfiction workshop, and 12 for African American poetry. I have a LOT of reading and writing in my future!

I also have a very late schedule this semester. Both of my workshops run from 6:30-9:30pm, one on Tuesday, one of Thursday. My seminar runs from 12:20-3:20 on Wednesdays, and I'm teaching from 3:35-4:25 MWF. We're continuing our Writer in the Community group from fall, and that will be meeting from 11:00am-noon on Wednesdays, but that is the only thing on my schedule that falls before noon. I am pretty good at being a night owl, but it is going to be an interesting adjustment.

I have no idea what I'm getting into the with NF workshop, or the lit seminar, but I'm looking forward to figuring that out.

Done :)

Posted an end of semester wrap-up post over at The MFA Chronicles last night, if you want a nice neat summary of the semester.

This morning, M and I went to campus, he printed off his paper, turned it in, then we went for a celebratory lunch of beer and nachos. It was quite a lovely end to the semester, although I already know I'll miss him a lot.

My ankle hurts (drunk me slipped on the ice Friday night), and I still have to turn in grades, then plan my departure from State College, but I'm pretty proud of surviving my first semester of grad school, and it was fun to celebrate it today before M leaves town.

The end of the semester

It is hard to believe that the first semester of my MFA program is all but over. Right now, all I have left to do is teach one last class this afternoon, then grade papers and submit grades by next Wednesday, and then I’ll be free from school obligations until January 11th!

I started trying to reflect on the semester, and I still can’t make any sense. Maybe next week, after I’ve turned in grades, after I’ve gotten my celebratory haircut, after M has left.

Things I Cannot Say

Some days I feel stupider than I can ever remember feeling, frustrated with my lack of knowledge, my lack of language, my inability to join the conversation. Sometimes I question what I'm doing here, and what I will do next. Do I want the PhD? Do I believe, at any level, that I'm capable of it? Is it taking the easy way out by not even trying to apply? Do I really want it? Or do I just want to write and teach? Is teaching my calling, even more than writing?

The questions only breed more questions.

But I don't have to know right now.

---

Sometimes I don't know how I got so lucky, to be where I am right now, to have found what I've found, against my will, against all my expectations. Some moments are too beautiful to experience with my eyes open; the only way to keep from crying is to close my eyes and rest my face against your neck. Sometimes I want to say it too.

Happy Halloween

It's about 12:30am. I just cleaned the kitchen and I'm drinking decaf tea. I have so much I *should* be doing right now, but I'm mentally blocked.

It's been a busy week, and I have run into a couple of interesting teaching situations this week as well. Up until Wednesday, I had enjoyed a remarkably smooth teaching experience -- I like my students, they seem to like me, they do what I ask them to, they write well, etc. No drama, no problems, no complaints. I've heard from people in my teaching mentor group and in our larger teaching seminar about all sorts of issues that have come up in other classes, and I've felt really lucky. Well, Wednesday I had my first student try to argue a grade, and yesterday I got an email from one of my students with a whole lot of information about personal struggles. Just stressful things, added onto an already hectic week.

There are only five weeks left of the semester, plus the Thanksgiving Break. That's kind of terrifying, the thought of all I have yet to accomplish this semester! And I also made my Thanksgiving plans, which is always a stressful endeavor where my family is concerned. This year particularly so, as I will be attending my family dinner for the first time in three years. I've also been forced to make some tentative plans for the winter break as well; I say forced like it's a bad thing. Instead, it's a very good thing. I'm flying to San Francisco for New Years! But this did make me start thinking about the rest of break and mapping out the logistics of everything. More stress.

However, it is Halloween weekend, and that makes everything better! I got a fabulous 80s dress today and some hot pink tights to go with it. I need to get some jewelry and some lace gloves tomorrow and a tiara - I want a tiara - and I am really looking forward to the EGO party Saturday night! I've gotten a few things done tonight in terms of school work, but I have much more to do before the party.

Work hard, play hard, that's what MFAs do, right?