Mary Biddinger's Blog, page 22

Frostscape.

So winter arrived.
Here's a little proof.
I realized I spend a lot of time taking pictures of the ground. I wonder if it's because I look down a lot. Somebody has to, right?
I haven't quite celebrated the new book yet, in the usual ways. It's kind of still sinking in, and I am busy with a variety of tasks.
There are so many things I love right now.

A Sunny Place with Adequate Water

A while back I started thinking about coin-operated machinery, and that made me nostalgic for payphones and laundromats. So I wrote a book and named it A Sunny Place with Adequate Water. It's about disappearing childhood neighborhoods, the desire to recreate things in order to understand them, and the feeling of a pocket filled with quarters.
I am excited to tell you that today this book was accepted for publication by Black Lawrence Press today, home of Saint Monica and O Holy Insurgency , which is forthcoming this September. A Sunny Place with Adequate Water will be out in May of 2014. By then, vending machines might be obsolete. All the better.
I want to thank all of my friends and poetry readers for taking an interest in these poems, and for letting me be my (wacky) self. Here are a few poems from the book, published in Diode a while back.
Looking forward to the work day ending so I can celebrate.

Open book.

How much of this month has gone, and how much is left? Have I really not updated since January? Did I just help myself feel less chaotic by making a spreadsheet more chaotic? Is it true that I only have 4 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days of being an administrator? Whose phone keeps vibrating offices away, and why can I hear things like that? Is the photocopier/printer combo thing trying to send me a message? Can the rest of this winter please be like recent weeks (and why didn't I realize how much I love sunlight)? Does the dog think of me when I'm not at home? When will I start serious work on my paper for AWP? Will there ever be one standard grant format for everything? Is it time to eat my clementines?

Triumph over Evil.

Three men tore apart the danger furnace and hauled it out of the basement in pieces, and now we are safe. This week is dedicated to the work of last week and this week. I'm doing okay but never done.
I have been writing poems but feeling more prone to hacking away at them as soon as they're on paper. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's a 2012 thing. The year of the machete.
Seriously, enough of the January already. Let's go.

The week of the monster.

I am a fan of all things retro, and generally I hold the belief that things were made much more sturdily in past eras. That said, I learned this week that even a meticulously maintained old furnace can be churning carbon monoxide into your basement, and that beneath the attractive teal painted metal may lurk an inner hull of corrosion.
So this has been the week without heat, and the week of feeling constantly unsettled, the week of freaking out about not being able to afford even a fraction of a new furnace, the week of celebrating that our home warranty covers much of it, and now the day of staying home, freezing my dupa off, huddled in my bedroom w/ pb&j and diet pepsi, bundled up next to the space heater, able to do nothing but look out the window and look at the interwebs as the workers tear down the old and install the new.
On Monday I was thinking, wow, I am getting quite caught up. Then the universe started laughing hysterically.
I am very happy we are safe, however, and glad that living without heat is not a regular thing for us. I am hoping to at least get some reading done later today, before the kids get home. We may all want to spend the afternoon in snowpants. Right now I feel like a sulky teeenager moping in her room. When the heat goes on (fingers crossed) later today, we'll rejoice.

Sticking-to.

It took me several tries to photograph this crime scene. It's a super windy day here in Akron, OH, and I had to get the best angle (meanwhile, my car was running and the driver's side door was open, etc). Anyway, I'd like to jump out of the car more often (figuratively) for pictures and poems. Impulsive, but in a good way.
So far I'm doing well at sticking with my modified routine of giving everything its own time and day, and not allowing myself to be coaxed into one office when I've vowed to be in another. I am also succeeding so far in breaking up my annotations rather than doing a marathon. Next year I'll be teaching full time and thus having a full teaching load again, so it's important to start that now.
Last Thursday was a little complicated due to my kids having a holiday on Friday, and my daughter's spelling bee on Thursday afternoon, but I did accomplish things in my home office (new poem, new book review) and dang did that ever feel great.
All the snow melted. But they say it's coming back. Every day without harsh weather is a gift, as far as I'm concerned.

Saturday evening post.

Yes, we have snow now, and yes, I am freezing my ass off, but you know what? The poems are back in town. The POEMS are BACK IN TOWN. Spread the word around. The poems are back. I've written three this week. I will write another tomorrow. I'm having some fun with it. So what if it's a polar waste land out there? The poems are red hot poems, and they are back.

Final mark-up.

We are working on edits for BOR #5, and wow, this publishing thing does get easier with many years of experience. So hooray for that.
Two days into the new semester and I am really tired. On Monday I was suddenly hit with a massive urge to un-clutter my office, so that set things off, and now I am determined to execute the same plan at home. Some time. Maybe tomorrow or Thursday. Now my office looks bare and boring. But you can see the floor.
Teaching two poetry workshops = my ideal semester.
Hey, so AWP isn't super far away, and I am doing three readings and a panel, and hosting the BOR offsite on Friday. Already starting to plan for these various things. Exciting!
Suffering from a very angry shoulder (or two, really). Bad, bad posture.
Still waiting for First Poem of 2012.

Watch me now. Hey.

I almost feel like I'll jinx myself by writing this, but I would really like to work this semester's schedule out so that it includes some regular "writing time" for me. Seriously, I spend more time cleaning my house than I do writing. I still write, of course, but I've never made time for it.
We'll see how this plan goes. I have yet to write my first poem of 2012.
In other news, tomorrow is the first day of spring semester. I am SO EXCITED, and not just because I have an orange pilot precise V pen, but that certainly helps. This is my last semester as an administrator, and I am looking forward to all the cool classes I am going to be able to teach now that I'll be only teaching.
Yeah.
Off to organize those pens, and to admire my new owl folders a little more. Speaking of owls, I typeset issue 5 of Barn Owl Review on Friday. It's a real show-stopper. I'll show some peeks once it's baked a little more.

It's too late to turn back now.

That's a stray rose petal, not somebody's blood, but you have to look really close to be sure. Today I have made progress. I still have a long way to go, but it's progress. I thought I would get so many things done over break. I got a fraction of them done. But that's okay, because now I have motivation. I am triaging. Checking things off the proverbial list.
I did manage to get some housepainting done over the past few weeks, and I finished my third book of poems. Shouldn't that be enough, after all? If you'd like a peek at some of the new manuscript, check out this feature at Escape into Life, where the editors paired my poems with some bright, compelling artwork.
Super grateful that Saint Monica made Michael Meyerhofer's No Tell Best Books of 2011 list, and Kyle Minor was so kind to mention Saint Monica here.
Now I have to get ready to call it a day and pick the kids up from school. I was both sad and gleeful to send them back today.
I hope this new year brings new poems.