Lesley Jenike's Blog, page 5

Well, the disappointment came just as I thought it would....

Well, the disappointment came just as I thought it would. I've apparently been going through a period of high expectations and hard work with disappointing results. This is not a fun period. Of course I realize this also means I'm growing, learning, and getting tougher, blah, blah, blah, but man does it hurt.

I've also learned that hard work can get you near the top of a list but it's probably a weird combination of luck and timing that wins you the prize.

Oh how I wish I could send an elite team of navy seals into my future. But I can't.

In any case here are the positives:

1. My loony book about art and politics was once again a finalist for the Anthony Hecht prize (Waywiser Press) so that means somebody liked it. Twice.
2. I'm due to get a brand-spankin' new Mac laptop from CCAD next month.
3. There is only this week and next left in the semester.
4. Maine is waiting for us.
5. I purged my home office space of all unwanted/unneeded/unhelpful books and that means it's time to get serious again. This is similar to "unfriend-ing" on Facebook. I bet you're wondering if you made the cut.
6. Kate Bush's new album will be released May 17.
7. I recently discovered this gem (and give her a break on the lyrics. She's FRENCH):

Something to get off my chest (for whatever reason):First...

Something to get off my chest (for whatever reason):

First let me say I must be woefully out of touch with contemporary fiction. Wait. I am woefully out of touch with contemporary fiction. When and if I do read novels, I read the old guys and gals I'm familiar and generally happy with: Peter Carey, Alice McDermott, Cormac McCarthy, Kazu Ishiguro, Carol Shields, Philip Roth, etc. Yes. I know I'm boring and donkeys probably have better taste than I do, but affected,stylized and "gimmicky" fiction sticks in my craw in a way that I myself don't yet fully understand. Take, for instance, Jonathan Safrad Foer's book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I read the novel for CCAD's summer reading selection (we chose it and there's MUCH to admire here and ultimately I'm happy with the choice). Am I just too conservative? Too cynical? Too dumb? Unfeeling? The over-writing and over-thinking simply overwhelms the story and leaves us finally with a too-easy sentimentality I'm altogether puzzled by. So why does this kind of thing seem all en vogue these days among fiction writers? Why? Why is "cuteness" rewarded? How do fiction writers get away with masking weak material with lots of surface-level bells and whistles? Ok. So I'm not saying Steve Martin's book An Object of Beauty is Pulitzer Prize-winning material, and I have lots of problems with the narrative, but it's, for the most part, subtle, scathing social commentary. Its--let's face it--less positive view of New York City circa 1990s/early-Aughts, may seem dirty and disconcerting to some readers. BUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT? Who says literature is supposed to make us feel good about ourselves? I remember reading Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye when I was, gosh, quite a young girl, and I remember feeling so damn terrible, so implicated---it changed my life. Of course, Steve Martin is no Toni Morrison. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying there are certain kinds of depressing. Yes Foer's book is depressing because it deals with the terrorist attacks in NYC on 9/11 and a young boy's grief, but it's the kind of depressing that reaffirms instead of questions, that soothes the reader instead of making her feel uncomfortable. Martin's book is depressing because it suggests that in the face of national disaster, our culture continued (and still continues) on a path of materialistic self-destruction. Or maybe I just don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

(BTW, I haven't read Foer's first book but I've heard good things, and I very much respect his intellect and talent)

Something to get off my chest (for whatever reason): Firs...

Something to get off my chest (for whatever reason):

First let me say I must be woefully out of touch with contemporary fiction. Wait. I am woefully out of touch with contemporary fiction. When and if I do read novels, I read the old guys and gals I'm familiar and generally happy with: Peter Carey, Alice McDermott, Cormac McCarthy, Kazu Ishiguro, Carol Shields, Philip Roth, etc. Yes. I know I'm boring and donkeys probably have better taste than I do, but affected,stylized and "gimmicky" fiction sticks in my craw in a way that I myself don't yet fully understand. Take, for instance, Jonathan Safrad Foer's book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I read the novel for CCAD's summer reading selection (we chose it and there's MUCH to admire here and ultimately I'm happy with the choice). Am I just too conservative? Too cynical? Too dumb? Unfeeling? The over-writing and over-thinking simply overwhelms the story and leaves us finally with a too-easy sentimentality I'm altogether puzzled by. So why does this kind of thing seem all en vogue these days among fiction writers? Why? Why is "cuteness" rewarded? How do fiction writers get away with masking weak material with lots of surface-level bells and whistles? Ok. So I'm not saying Steve Martin's book An Object of Beauty is Pulitzer Prize-winning material, and I have lots of problems with the narrative, but it's subtle, scathing social commentary, it's--let's face it--less positive view of New York City circa 1990s/early-Aughts, can probably feel dirty and disconcerting to some readers. BUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT? Who says literature is supposed to make us feel good about ourselves? I remember reading Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye when I was, gosh, quite a young girl, and I remember feeling so damn terrible, so implicated---it changed my life. Of course, Steve Martin is no Toni Morrison. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying there are certain kinds of depressing. Yes Foer's book is depressing because it deals with the terrorist attacks in NYC on 9/11 and a young boy's grief, but it's the kind of depressing that reaffirms instead of questions, that soothes the reader instead of making her feel uncomfortable. Martin's book is depressing because it suggests that in the face of national disaster, our culture continued (and still continues) on a path of materialistic self-destruction. Or maybe I just don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

(BTW, I haven't read Foer's first book but I've heard good things, and I very much respect his intellect and talent)

I love April, but why can't Columbus be Paris?

I love April, but why can't Columbus be Paris?

I'm sad to miss Kelly's visit back to Columbus, but tonig...

I'm sad to miss Kelly's visit back to Columbus, but tonight I'm listening to this over and over (simultaneously charmed and weirded out) while dismantling and re-imagining two manuscripts into one (what Erika M. calls "frankenstein-ing") in order to ward off the inevitable crush of disappointment I know is looming at the end of the month. Don't ask. Yet.
Speaking of the manuscript, yesterday someone found me on Facebook via Weldon Kees. She friended me because I had "liked" Weldon Kees. Oh modernity! There are worse things, though, than being friended over a mutual love for Weldon Kees because if I hadn't met Kees, I don't think my poems would look the way they lately look. He's the butter to my bread, I tell you! All hail Weldon Kees!
And speaking of butter and bread, Josh's birthday is coming up. But before he reaches age 33, he'll have to go to prom (pictures forthcoming).
Aspects Of Robinson

Robinson at cards at the Algonquin; a thin
Blue light comes down once more outside the blinds.
Gray men in overcoats are ghosts blown past the door.
The taxis streak the avenues with yellow, orange, and red.
This is Grand Central, Mr. Robinson.

Robinson on a roof above the Heights; the boats
Mourn like the lost. Water is slate, far down.
Through sounds of ice cubes dropped in glass, an osteopath,
Dressed for the links, describes an old Intourist tour.
—Here's where old Gibbons jumped from, Robinson.

Robinson walking in the Park, admiring the elephant.
Robinson buying the Tribune, Robinson buying the Times. Robinson
Saying, "Hello. Yes, this is Robinson. Sunday
At five? I'd love to. Pretty well. And you?"
Robinson alone at Longchamps, staring at the wall.

Robinson afraid, drunk, sobbing Robinson
In bed with a Mrs. Morse. Robinson at home;
Decisions: Toynbee or luminol? Where the sun
Shines, Robinson in flowered trunks, eyes toward
The breakers. Where the night ends, Robinson in East Side bars.

Robinson in Glen plaid jacket, Scotch-grain shoes,
Black four-in-hand and oxford button-down,
The jeweled and silent watch that winds itself, the brief-
Case, covert topcoat, clothes for spring, all covering
His sad and usual heart, dry as a winter leaf.

-Weldon Kees

I'm thrilled to be included in the new, "Americana" issue...

I'm thrilled to be included in the new, "Americana" issue of the Southern Review, out now!

And thanks to Erika Meitner, who is just too kind and too amazing for words.

Onward!

P.S.: My notoriously picky husband said (just tonight) that THIS is one of the best songs he's heard in a long time. I concur. How can things get even better, you ask? Well, we'll hear more from HERSELF soon. And I'm not kidding.

Apparently I'm one for rituals--more than likely a result...

Apparently I'm one for rituals--more than likely a result of growing up among Catholics. But while Lent 2011 was a FAIL (I decided I needed to be kinder to myself instead of the opposite), National Poetry Month will be a SUCCESS if I approach it realistically. Lately my writing process has included collecting assorted lines and images in one, on-going document. After a time (usually once I hit page ten), I go back and see what I can shape into actual poems (if I'm lucky). So this month I'll be starting a new document filled with whatever I can manage each day. Wish me luck.

In other news-- the lovely, talented and awesomely generous Erika Meitner will be a part of CCAD's Visiting Artist Series this coming Monday April 4, 11 am, Canzani Center Auditorium. You really shouldn't miss it.

Thursday (April 7) Maggie Smith, Joshua Butts, and Sommer Sterud will be reading at Capital U. 3 pm, Kable Chapel.

Let the poetry (and the spring?) begin!

Prompt 1: Mini-tilting at bigger windmills

In happier news, THIS is where we're headed at the end of...

In happier news, THIS is where we're headed at the end of May.

I don't usually indulge in this sort of thing, but Elizab...

I don't usually indulge in this sort of thing, but Elizabeth Taylor was very special to me and she was very special to my mother and my mother's mother. This is from Ghost of Fashion. I know I have many other poems about her, but this one, I think, says what I want to say for now.
Three's Inheritance

I appear to you in this amalgamation, alive eternally

in that facet of myself not subject to fire, hovering

like grace over precious metal. With a gentle finger

unclasp the watch face I transformed with garnet,

amethyst, and diamond into a brooch, numinous,

my body alive again. And you, in your thirtieth year,

will hold it like a dead baby, old already, turn it

over to see, scratched with the point of a pin, 1870.

I don't remember. I only know. I asked a jeweler

to set pearls in a horseshoe on the roman numeral

which is lucky (three), and on the twelve and six,

enameled flowers meant to mean the hours I spent

blotto, a house and garden, divorce, a tennis court

all refracted in my menagerie of jewelry. I hope

skin has memory and your lapel is whispering

this legacy: the sun was once a vain and stupid girl.

I was once your mother's mother. Now metal,

my body's returning to ticking toward irreversible

fortune, ever closer to its conclusion: I'll not live

to see forty. I'll die having known you intimately

though we never held hands, never alone together

burned in the dark of the movie house, Liz Taylor

and Monty Clift, her dignity and his brokenness,

brilliantly manifest in their one-in-the-same face.

A CCAD alumnus is doing some brilliant work. Boy do I wis...

A CCAD alumnus is doing some brilliant work . Boy do I wish I needed some cover art.
And, of course, happy "driving the snakes out of Ireland" day!