Peg Duthie's Blog, page 69

discoveries

A nifty thing about publishing poetry is that you sometimes get to learn things about your friends that you wouldn't otherwise find out.

Last night, my minister's husband and I were chatting after choir rehearsal. He talked about getting a kick out of the sestinas in my book -- he's written some as well, so he appreciates how tricky it can be to find keywords that really click. He also mentioned being just one degree of separation from Niels Bohr: a friend from his Massachusetts days worked on teams with Bohr during World War II.

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John Mellencamp, observer

I was looking at this month's Nashville Arts Magazine while waiting on a delivery this morning; it has an interview with John Mellencamp that I really enjoyed. His paintings frankly aren't to my taste, but his observations about math and baggage and hypocrisy all spoke to me -- I like how grounded he is.

Math? you ask. From the mouth of Cougar? Why, yes:

As much as I hate to admit it, math is very important in everything, in music and in painting. If your math is incorrect you're not going to get the results you're looking for. ... I'm not saying you can't make a beautiful painting without math or without certain rules, but I couldn't get the results I do without following them.

And on spectators who don't take his painting seriously because he's a rock star:

I get that. I do the same thing. I'm human. I'm like, what is this actor doing with a guitar in his hand; he can't even act. I totally understand, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter to me. ... people who know nothing about art say, "I could've done that, but the point is, they didn't. It's like someone walking up to me and going, "Hey, I could've written 'Pink Houses,' but you know -- they didn't. I did. Same with my paintings.

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interview at Ophelia Unraveling

Carol Berg interviews me about my book at her blog.



Check out the other posts this month from Couplets: a multi-author poetry blog tour.

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Mondaying along

THIS. (Wendy McNaughton's "All the Things I Over-Think.")

And this, via Lori-Lyn:

Perhaps the most important lesson I took from the film was from a moment when Gotham and his father are in a train station in India. They are looking at a newsstand with several books and none of the more than 60 titles that Deepak Chopra has written are there. It is a brilliant reminder that even when you have amassed millions of followers and become a spiritual leader to the most famous and influential people alive, you can't take yourself too seriously.

Seven good things:

(1) The woman at Sears rejoicing in her daughter completing chemo.
(2) The nurse at the Occupational Health Clinic drawing blood on the first try.
(3) Yellow roses in bloom.
(4) Soup on the stove.
(5) My book's on Poetry Daily's Recently Arrived list.
(6) Cherry blossom stamps.
(7) Carol Berg's draft (up for just a day or two) of The Ornithologist Places A Bird Bone In Her Mouth. (About an owl pellet -- that will speak to some of you.)
(Bonus: 8) I love that I just typed that last sentence in complete earnest. You, my readers, are wonderful. :-)

(Side note: speaking of owl pellets, there are twenty or so teachers who could use some help obtaining them for their classrooms. No amount too small...)

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Kristine Ong Muslim on Arlene Ang's "Living Without Water" (guest post)

Today's post is by Kristine Ong Muslim, brought to you by Couplets: a multi-author poetry blog tour. It is part of Kristine's daily series during National Poetry Month on poetry she likes.


On Arlene Ang's "Living Without Water"

Arlene Ang is one of my favorite poets. She has an amazing eye for turning the most innocuous of objects to menacing things, and vice versa. That, in itself, is a unique skill. She has a remarkable sense of humor, too. Her early poems, which I've read and reread, exhibit wit, sensuality, and grace.

So, for this Couplets post, I will share with you an Arlene Ang piece. It was a toss up between another Ang poem called "Want" and "Living Without Water." I chose the latter.

( Here's why )

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the sticky and the starry

Apparently the theme of yesterday was "stickiness." The gearshift of my car refused to go into reverse. The gunk in my eyes from hay fever, and the unremovable specks and streaks of nail polish from my toenails -- argh. Pieces not yet written -- double argh. The angst of dealing with old paperwork. The mess of dealing with aging fruit -- but I now have a Mason jar of spiced grapes. I hope that will be worth the multiple swabbings of the kitchen counter the process required.

The starry: Kristine Ong Muslim awards five (at Amazon and Goodreads) to Measured Extravagance.

(Also, the book is currently #26 in Asian American Poetry at Amazon.co.uk. Whee!)

Also, there were cute and comfortable shoes on sale yesterday. (This is perhaps magnified in my mind after this week's mail order debacle, where one pair of shoes was unacceptably flimsy and the other way, way uglier in real life than in the catalog, and worse, poky in the wrong places.) Just in time for the garden party I need to get ready for. (I'm told it got moved up a week "to accommodate the wisteria blooms." That sounds like a story waiting to happen -- but, admittedly, that's true of pretty much everything I see and hear.)

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"just a breath / blown on the pane and dissolved"

The subject line is from Adrienne Rich's "Night Watch" (1967). I met Rich once, at a dinner hosted by the resident masters of my dormitory; I mainly remember someone asking her how she felt about her son getting married and she responding along the lines of "Why would I have a problem with that?"

I also remember reading Sylvia Plath's diary entries (mentioned in the Independent's obit) and feeling guiltily soothed by her seething jealousy of "Adrienne Cecile Rich"; it was so reassuring to glimpse the great ones wrestling with petty emotions (especially with my then-partner repeatedly deriding my "competitiveness").


( thinking Catholics and abortion making sense )

On a more cheerful note, Physicians for Reproductive Rights has updated their curriculum for "physicians who want to teach other medical professionals about the best practices for adolescent reproductive and sexual health." And I've met people who speak of my church's sex ed programs (yes, I really did just type those four words in a row) as a lifesaver -- that it truly helped their children make the choices that were right for them during college and beyond.

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"We talked about our mothers too damn much"

The subject line is from my poem "Leftovers," which is (at the moment) in second place in the current contest hosted by the Goodreads ¡POETRY! group. (Voting is open to members of the group until March 31.)



Also newly afloat on the net: "A Multitude of Sorrows" and "Good Morning," over on Houseboat .



I recently came across two oosts on e-readers and privacy within a day of each other. Nashville's Shopping Diva lamented that she could no longer "casually glance" at the books her fellow travelers were reading, whereas Sam observes that e-editions are a godsend "to people who like to read romance novels but are ashamed of the stigma attached."

As I promote my own book, it's been fascinating to learn about the current reading preferences of my friends and acquaintances. I don't myself own a dedicated e-reading device (although I have the apps on my laptop), and it's been gratifying to hear that Measured Extravagance is the first poetry e-book (and in at least one case, the first e-book of any kind) some people have been willing to take a chance on.

The downside, of course, is not having a physical book right at hand for people who prefer that format. That said, I'm willing to send signed postcards of the cover (isn't it pretty?) to anyone who'd like one -- please just send me a request (and your address) via PM or e-mail.



Unrelated to the rest of this entry, except that they live in Nashville: baby clouded leopards.

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"fur-shod shadows can't be heard"

Subject line from Osip Mandelstam's The Necklace.


From my walk home from hot yoga Saturday night

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some days it's the small coincidences

I am catching up on last Friday's NYT over breakfast. It doesn't mean anything, but I am nonetheless amused that the obituaries for Murray Lender (of Lender's Bagels fame) and Samuel Glazer (a co-creator of Mr. Coffee) are side by side on page B13.



Lori-Lyn Hurley is welcoming submissions to Spirit Voyage; the theme is "birth, nurture, and the Divine Feminine" and she's seeking "poetry, prose, visual artwork, or works that defy genre." The deadline is March 31.



Nathalie Boisard-Beudin: Things you do not expect to find in a cemetery

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