Friday, December 24, 2010

christmas in seattle

did i tell you i live with a heavy metal band now? they are called night shirt. they play loud screeching music for many hours at a time. sometimes they chant and sometimes they become banshees. everyone in seattle is a musician. when you meet them they begin, immediately, to play all of their music for you.

here is what it's like here for christmas
pont and i ate egg salad sandwiches, tomatoes and cold mashed potatoes for dinner. it was gross. our dining room table is a radiator box.
now i'm going to read mary ruefle's selected poems:

i realized i was becoming
impossible, more and more impossible,
and that one day it really would be true.

(from: how i became impossible)

if you were lonely
and you saw the earth
you'd think here is
the end of loneliness
and i have reached it by myself.

(from: the tenor of your yes)

i want to spend new year's eve here
"La Push above, 12 miles from Forks Washington is home to the Quileute Tribe. According to legend, the tribe was created from wolves by a supernatural transformer. The tribe's lineage stretches back thousands of years to the Ice Age, making them possibly the oldest inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest."


Monday, December 20, 2010

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

one of the very best things that has happened to me is this 24hour coin-operated art gallery
another of the best things is that ts and i walked ellie to the water

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Monday, December 13, 2010

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Monday, December 6, 2010

a week

a and i went to nederland, home of bredo morstøl  

roger played at lost lake--you can hear the best song here
someone slept a little
one more thing:


Saturday, November 27, 2010

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

guess whose book is now available.

julia's!

you should get it.

one thing it says is:

noon is lakewater exploding over the leaves of your face
noon's wooden saw splits its slender carcass in half
noon composed a sonata with cloudcover, a storm that brilliantly breaks the field

some things said about it:

“The poetics enacted in Triggermoon Triggermoon is rare in its exuberance and delicate humanity, its wistful acceptance of imperfection as the human condition, imperfection as a kind of pet we grow to love and depend upon. I have grown to love and depend upon this book.”—Bin Ramke Triggermoon Triggermoon


“Julia Cohen’s poems will knock you out with their fresh logics like some moon-governed dream... this collection is half in the world and half in the 'non-world' that 'occasionally rolls over you,' utterly grounded in the domestic and wildly transformative.”
—Elizabeth Willis

Sunday, November 14, 2010

i became sick.

the last time i was sick i bought a television. i don't really use it. although, during comps. i watched tcm nonstop.

this time i subscribed to netflix. i just finished watching my first netflix movie: happy accidents: vincent d'onofrio plays a man from the future.

and then i had to pick out movies i like. i picked four. i can't remember them.

netflix said its top pick for me is jo jeeta wohi sikandar.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

there is snow now.

one thing jess sent me says,

mae'r dirwedd yma'n wag.


this landscape is empty.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

chapbooks

brave men press made this chapbook. it's about what happened when i went to california. it's very beautifully made.

other chapbooks i've received:

jeannie hoag's new age of ferociousness from agnes fox press:

the weather today: supernatural.
and babies: babies everywhere.

zachary schomburg's from the fjords from spork press:

i am working in the ticket booth of the
movie theater when you come in and take
off my pants.

phil estes' gem city/fountain city from rabbit catastrophe:

hannah  used to be a power lifter,
so she has these strong legs and thighs.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Sunday, October 31, 2010

d'count met the pips last night

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Friday, October 22, 2010

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

tuesday

i'm thinking about egg noodles

and eggshell tea

and these two books:

1. a cabinet of roman curiosities: the word for "sky" and "heaven," caelum (which is the origin of our word "ceiling"), was sometimes thought to be derived from the verb caelare, meaning "to engrave." all stars were believed to be fixed in the vault of the sky equidistant from the earth.

2. popular beliefs and superstitions (we were using this the other day for friday): if you speak to an animal, and it answers you, you will die at once.

now i will tell you the story of my arm:

want to listen to this song over and over with me? every four or five years it's the only song i can listen to.


Friday, October 15, 2010

many good parts

the new horse less review is up. it says things such as this:

There are two worlds inside them: the world and the sky. (andrea rexilius)

and

Dear Gretl: You are walking to a city that is the city within you. (richard froude, from his book fabric that is coming out very soon)

and the new denver quarterly is out:

                      there was, inside the
memory, the rumour of a dollhouse;
all the furniture in immaculate order.

(j. mae barizo)

and the new octopus, which has these beautiful things (and it has my story of wind):

Tumors bud on the branch.
Pearling holly. Bruising plum.

(j. michael martinez)

and:
In Massachusetts the sun of winter
is disappearing behind a fragile field
of cloud like Emily Dickinson
rising from the bedclothes to fasten
                        her corset and stay inside all day.

                        (katie peterson)
this too:

joanna ruocco's man's companions is something you might consider purchasing. it's so good, you might consider purchasing it twice:

my husband is a librarian. the overwhelming majority of librarians are females. they give my husband a lot of attention, some of it critical. my husband never criticizes his co-workers. there is a pecking order and my husband is at the top of it. he only complains about the pencils. i've seen them scattered on the tables, for the borrower's convenience. short pencils, diamonded by incisors, lipstick-stained. i never pick them up. they look like cigarettes in an adultery. i write call numbers with a pen from my purse.
 


i should be reading gulliver's travels.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

it's happening

colorado is becoming cold. the lake in wash park had steam coming from it this morning.

Friday, October 8, 2010

boo

my halloween costume is this 

and this

my fingers will be the pips and i can be gladys. but i have to make paper suits and find a microphone.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

school, again.

bin told us he has a theory of columbo.

he also says:

"the poet has to be implicated in the poem"

and

"yeah, but you still have to trust them" (on peanuts in restaurants)

for workshop we're looking at:

the image of the city, kevin lynch
bird lovers, backyard, thalia field
let the words, yona wallach
for anatole's tomb, stephane mallarme

the swift class:

engravings by hogarth
essential writings of jonathan swift
the fable of the bees, bernard mandeville
i'm doing a presentation on an introduction to the classics by anthony blackwall and a dissertation on reading the classics by henry felton

a tutorial on beckett with brian:

more pricks than kicks
first love and other shorts
the unnameable
fizzles

teaching:

fugue state, brian evenson
the dollmaker's ghost, larry levis
in watermelon sugar, richard brautigan
autobiography of red, anne carson
madeline is sleeping, sarah shun-lien bynum

this is what my life will be like now.

mg came

i got wrecking crew in the mail. i've been trying to purchase it for some time but it was always too much.

now i have it.

here is a poem about running, which is my new favorite thing:

long distance runner

i never know how i'm doing; i just
run it, past
the stilled elm leaves.
once i saw my
shadow in water, and

glanced back, but i was gone.
only the ponds flashed blankly in the sunset,
stagnant with summer.
and so i run
into the mute acres of stones,

hurrying, deaf under the sky,
becoming so isolate
i could be scraped off on a fingernail--
but i slow into shouts,
into the arms that are holding me up.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Dear Students,

The results are in from all of the Faculty, except for Doug.  Doug is currently in NYC and will return to Denver Tuesday night.  He will send his evaluations to me on Wednesday.  If Doug is one of your readers, I'll be in touch w/ you ASAP on Wed.

In all of the other cases, you have ALL passed ALL of your PhD Comprehensive Examinations . . . ! 

Congratulations . . . !!!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

have you seen this movie?

at the end he says,

there is more than just a simple collapsing and arrival of material. i struggle to say these things and i can just about get them out but there's a world beyond what words can define for me.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

marin trees:

alder
eucalyptus
redwood
bay
california white oak
california live oak
california black oak
madrone

marin wildflowers:

trillium
douglas iris
shooting star
fetid adder's tongue
sun cup
columbine
sticky monkeyflower

marin birds:

marbled godwits
avocets
long necked egrets
great blue heron

Monday, August 30, 2010

today

i spent the day here:

this i sang, and lykidas laughed
again pleasantly, and gave me his stick
in fellowship of the muses,
and turned left, taking the road
to pyxa, but eukritos
and handsome amyntas and i
turned off at phrasidamos's
and happily laid ourselves down
on beds of sweet grass and vine-leaves,
freshly picked. overhead, many elms
and poplars rustled, and nearby
the sacred waters splashed down
from the nymphs' cave. brown cicadas
shrilled from the shady branches,
and far off the tree-frog whined
in the heavy underbrush.
larks and finches sang, doves crooned,
and bees hummed about the spring.
everything smelled of rich summer
and rich fruits. pears lay at our feet,
apples in plenty rolled beside us,
and branches loaded down with plums
bent to the ground.

and here:

my head's aching, but you
don't care. i'll sing no more,
but lie here where i've fallen
and let the wolves eat me.
and may that be as sweet to you
as honey down your throat.

and here:

and soon, in a hollow,
he spied a spring where thick rushes,
and dark celandine, and green
maidenhair, and sweet parsley,
and creeping deergrass grew.

and here:

come to me, then, and you'll lack
nothing. leave the gray sea
to beat against the shore. you'll pass
the night more pleasantly with me
in my cave. there are baytrees
and slim cypresses nearby,
and dark ivy, and sweet grapes
in bunches, and cold water
that tree-covered aitna sends
trickling down to me from her snows--
a drink for gods. who, before these,
would choose the sea and the waves?
but if it's my rough looks
that put you off, i've oak-logs
and banked fires, under the ashes,
and i'd let you burn my soul out,
or my one eye, most dear to me
of all things that are mine.