2009

Dear All,

Since today is my last full day in the city in 2009, I wanted to think through some things, if you'll allow me. Wow! What a wonderful year this has been, what a ride! Some recaps:

This spring, around March, was exciting because I had what I called a "life transplant". I remember sitting in my first apartment in Harlem and trying to find a new apartment, and I received a phone call from an unknown number, and it was NYU telling me that I got in to the MFA program! The next week, I received my keys to my first studio apartment -- in Harlem. It was a dream of mine to have my own apartment, much less in Harlem. A few days after I moved in, I got a box at my door: first prints of my new book.

What follows is a whirlwind of a year: book tour with Raina Leon including readings in Chapel Hill (where I got to watch the NCAA basketball championships with some old classmates. a plus!), in Raleigh, NC, in Washington DC. And about 15 other readings in the New York City area. Summer came and I still had readings and chances to meet beautiful people along the way. Then a month in Ithaca just resting and thinking and dreaming about the projects I will write and want to write. I came back from Ithaca and hit the ground running again:

Book Launch party in Columbia, SC. This was especially great because I got to share my poems with my family -- the people that comprise 75% of the subject matter of my book. Then school started, and I was back down to SC to do the South Carolina Poet's Summit with Sharon Olds and Rosanna Warren -- a treat!

The rest of the fall was a blur with MFAing and working part time and interning at the New Yorker Magazine! I'm so grateful for solid friendships and companions that helped me stay grounded and sane in a potentially crazy period. Moreover, I'm super excited about my new poetry project, and can't wait to see what happens with it next.

So. 2010 has some big shoes to fill, but that's part of the excitement, right! Seeing what bigger and better things come around.

On the plate right now: I've been commissioned to write some poems for the Ackland Art Museum. This spring they're hosting Jacob Lawrence's "the Legend of John Brown" series. They want me to compose some original pieces and come back and give a reading and possible workshop. I'm excited for this exposure and opportunity.

other events in 2010:

Feb 21
Reading in South Brunswick NJ with Metta Sama

Feb 26-28
South Carolina Poetry Book Festival

April 16-19
Alabama Poetry Book Festival

April 23
Syracuse YMCA Reading

and sometime after that:
Reading and Workshop at the Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, NC.

Hope to see you around!

xoxo

It's been a while

I've been a bit busy with life in New York to post. I would look at my blog and think: man, I haven't posted in a long time....and then go on to do the various things that someone going to grad school and working two part time jobs and internship and fellowship has to do. yes. busy.

That is also to say, save for my two pretty big readings earlier this semester in South Carolina, readings in the city of my poetry have also come to a stop.

Just some information to pass along:

Constance Saltonstall Foundation: www.saltonstall.org for NY residents. A four week residency in bliss. Really.

First book prize for Asian American Writers: www.kundiman.org

Give to Soul Mountain: http://www.firstgiving.com/smretreat a residency in Connecticut, with the lovely, lovely Marilyn Nelson

And, I suppose, because I am an author, I must support giving books for Christmas presents. They're great ideas, really. You should do it. And gift my book. hehe.

Look for a better update soon. On the horizon. Also, maybe some glimpses at some writing and audio recordings!

Radiator rattles in the corner

Today, I was sitting in my apartment by my window that overlooks Saint Nicholas Avenue. Beside the table where I do some work, I heard a hissing noise. My window is open behind me -- I'm actually not facing the window, as sometimes I get too distracted by the goings on in upper Harlem. The cars and trucks and people provide an interesting background soundtrack to my work. The noise is unfamiliar to me. I realized, my radiator started emitting heat. I moved into this apartment in Spring, so I've never experienced the radiator music. But it is saying: Fall is here. Fall is here.



I want to write a more writerly post here, since that is what I sort of started this blog for. I mentioned last blog that I started this bigger project at school, and I'm most excited about it. Books I'm reading that are inspiring me:



Lorca's Poet in New York (and indirectly, Reyes' Poeta en San Francisco)

Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah (most of all the books)

Sanchez's Does Your House Have Lions?



I've done probably more prose writing around this project than I have poems. Here's a list of poems (titles are stand-ins, maybe. I might keep them.)



Gryphon's mother makes a promis to God

Gryphon & the flashing flames

Gryphon as a young boy

Gryphon's mother: dream one

Gryphon & Toby & Tutu



I recognize that these titles mean nothing to you right now. Who is Gryphon? He is a young boy coming of age in Charleston, South Carolina. He and his mother are fighting this battle, concurrently, against each other, with and against the world. It is about a house and a turtle and a young boy and his mother. The rest of the family is second to this storyline.



About the prose writing: I'm finding that because I sort of have a larger story that I'm trying to break into smaller poems, I do a lot of thinking. I decided to do my thinking in one journal, the same journal where the poems originate. So I have one journal that has my notes, my thoughts, my connections, my questions. It is serving very helpful to my busy lifestyle, also. This new life I've been given has forced me to stretch myself in new ways. No longer does my muse speak to me in whole poems in one sitting -- as it once has! -- rather, I am never really sitting around in one space long enough (in truth, I called out of work to have a few moments to sit down) for a poem to come. So I get glimpses and snatches and write them in this one journal. So all of my thinking that I would do in one sitting, I sort of dump into my journal and then when I sit down the night before my class to write the poem, I don't feel overwhelmed at the blank page, rather, I find I have pages and pages of notes to cull from, and starts and images. And a poem soon emerges.

Columbus Day

Today is a little bit of a holiday for me because my part-time work is so closely related to NYC Public schools. The students get the day off; I get the day off. So, I'm taking the little bit of time I have to update a bit on my life.

NYU -- I started the Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing program this fall. It's been an interesting ride. I came to the program on the heels of a month-long residency in which I sort of rested a lot, edited...and just dreamed about what I might start writing at school. I got in my workshop - working with poet Sharon Olds - and between being in her space and talking with a friend, I started this project I've been dreaming about for years. Years. I'll just say, it's about creating a family myth...and a turtle. and a little boy named Gryphon.

How God Ends Us -- the book is out in the world and circulating. Last Monday, I visited Adelphi University's Creative Writing program because one of the graduate classes read my book. It was my first time doing that sort of thing. Just the month before I flew down to South Carolina to give a talk on "The Art of Risk in Poetry" with poets Sharon Olds and Rosanna Warren. It's been interesting that my position in the poetry world is shifting: to one of teacher, to one of I have something to say, and folks want to come hear my say.

Internship -- so, as if I were not busy enough, I took an internship at a really cool New York magazine. I don't want to put my whole business out there, but it's a pretty big deal. I get to sit hours and hours and read slush and hope to "discover" a poet...although, who knows.

Gym & Life -- I am finding that the busier I get the more I need something to stabilize me. I've turned to the gym. I find a time to go at least 5 times a week, and that has been an important component to my survival -- just giving myself an hour at least to just do things for myself, where I don't really have to think about much except for maybe counting numbers of repetitions for crunches, or turning up the resistance knob on the spinning bike. Also, another mainstay for my stability is Sunday. I get up and go to the gym, then church, then come home and cook a Sunday dinner. Most times, I invite people over. Come and eat and break bread with me, and let's usher in a whole new week.

Updates!!

Hello out there in TV Land....



I am currently right in the middle of my residency here. Here are some pretty cool happenings:



Here's a review of my book by the SC Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth.



Metta Sama interviewed me for the Torch poetry blog.



ESSENCE Magazine published my poem "Lament" from _How God Ends Us_ in the September issue.



Upcoming: The State Newspaper will run a small story about me & the book & the official book party August 28 in Columbia, SC.

Forced reprieve

Last night I dodged a thunderstorm in the mountains. I heard stories from a friend who was here before I was who lost her laptop to the thunderous rains. She was trying to wade out the storm on her laptop. Her laptop is dead.

Thinking that I was smarter than that, I unplugged my laptop from the wall the two hours that the storm was passing through. You should know that my AC adaptor, for whatever reason, was already on the outs and I knew any extra electricity could possibly kill my computer or worse.

So, I tried to move my computer to a different part of my studio. This meant unplugging then re-plugging the laptop. My ac adaptor made a hissing noise then stopped working. Luckily the residency has a group computer for printing....but as of right now my computer is out of commission. I guess I am just blessed that it wasn't my hard drive.

30 days

Today is my first full day at the residency: The Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. I left almost immediately after I finished my summer program for my regular job. It was a whirlwind, really. And a lot of debriefing that needed to be done, but I couldn't really do because I was trying to pack and clean and get ready to uproot myself for 30 days.

I have no phone reception here. That can be either good or bad.

I've decided to not stress myself out on starting new things. But I am also not closing myself off on the possibility of something new. However, I've come to the conclusion that I need to really dedicate some time to revision, to re-visioning certain things: namely my two manuscrips of poetry...and I would like to see a more solid "draft" of my novel. So I will have my editorial hat on for the next thirty days.

Look for minor updates here and there.

Best,
DeLana.

_Cartographer_ edit #1

While my mom watches the MSNBC tribute to Michael Jackson in the background, I'm going to update a bit bout my progress on Cartographer.



I had two epigraphs. I cut one. I believe this one standing alone will mean more. I then proceeded to read each poem out loud in the coffeeshop, listening for wording and phrasing. Trying to capture line-breaks in the right places as well as punctuation.



Here's the breakdown of the manuscript so far. There are four sections in the 4 cardinal directions. One section is a long poem (hence the big difference between page count and number count):



Page count: 51 pages.

# of poems: 31.



I didn't take any poems out this round (that happenened in the previously mentioned post about manuscripting). I have one poem that I re-made drastically, I believe in an attempt to salvage it...to keep from cutting it.

Here's a look at an evolution. I'm still undecided if it's going to keep its place in the manuscript, however, I'm enjoying taking the stretch...recycling, if you will

draft (a)

A quarter's worth
"Let me say this to you before my quarter runs out" - man in nyc

It is dusk when I pace Broadway -
Spanish a backdrop of syncopated noise.

I curse myself for having no desire
to learn, yet yours is the first distinguishable

voice, inflected English a torch
against midnight. I see you, duffle bag

slouched over your shoulder, back arched
into the cubby-hold of the telephone booth.

Such urgency in your ocmmand. I pause
to let you speak - I want to know what

you can say here and now. What do you have
to say from a payphone where passersby

can eavesdrop, stop and listen? You slam
the phone down, let curses slip from your mouth.

I try to imagine myself in your place, try
to think how much time, how many words

can a quarter buy you after all?
------------------------------------------------
draft (b)

Analog

Your cell phone is lost and you dare search your purse for a quarter. Spanish a backdrop of syncopated noise, his inflected English your only torch against the night. Despite his huddle, you hear threats from the body of the blackened phone booth that holds the man like a hug. He screams into the receiver for his quarter's worth of time. You wonder how many words the silver coin can purchase. Evolution: You divvy up your allotted minutes among your dearly beloved; text messages taught you economy of language: fifteen taps to get the point. And the mouth never utters a word.

Manuscripting

I'm in Columbia, South Carolina. I've reached a place where I no longer refer to it as "home"...rather, my parent's house. Whenever I do come to South Carolina, I find being uprooted (interesting, returning to the South is now an "uprooting") from my dailyness of New York City life (or lack) gives me a certain perspective, and allows me to do a certain work. I came down with some goals in mind: editing.

I've got two "complete" drafts of things I wrote in 2008: my novel, a second book. I've spent a lot of time on others' blogs where they discuss their methods of revision. A lot to soak in; a lot to learn.

So. A couple of weeks ago, out of frustration and maybe a little bit of insecurity, I moved around my manuscript, Cartographer. I moved poems from the front to the back, from the back to the front. Took some out. Then, I let it sit. Now, I want to believe I'm ready to go back to it with a different eye.

Reading this book, is also helping me in a lot of ways.

Maybe, too, I'll chart my progress here.

Saturday afternoon musings

It's raining another day in New York City. I am a bit upset. I need sun, people!

So I've been thinking a lot about poetry lately. I suppose it's because I'm not really writing poetry, so I'm thinking about it at least, believing that I'm still being productive. What am I thinking? I'm thinking about several conversations I've had with other writers...most who are where I am, with one book out and another in-tow...and trying to figure out this world of book publishing in a world (the US, really.....why can't we be in the forefront here?) that could care less, really. But anyways, on more than one occasion have I heard someone say they were trying not to write the same book twice. One writer even went so far as to say he was holding his manuscript from publication because he doesn't feel he's been changed enough by it, or that it is different enough. I've been fighting with this. I have one full manuscript, and one that I believe is almost done, and they were all written in and around each other. In truth, some poems that appear in How God Ends Us could very well be poems that could work in this other manuscript. So, what does that say? That my writing hasn't changed enough? That I am writing the same book?

So then I'm thinking about the positives and negatives about this idea....I think a look at music could give us bigger ideas as to why this approach (changing our poetry game each book) could hurt or help us. Erykah Badu could be a good example. She came out with two albums that were similar in feel -- Baduizm and Mama's Gun. Though, without a doubt, in Mama's Gun, she had hints at a change, at something coming -- take the opening cut "Penitentiary Philosophy"....hard core jamming on the drums -- several levels up from "Rimshot", right?

But she still had some of that familiar. Some of that slow groove that everyone liked. Quite possibly my favorite song of hers, Green Eyes contains a lot of everything -- more bass & kick, slow and mellow....great vocals. Something for everyone.

She came out with World Wide Underground and folks were grumbling and mad and about ready to kick her to the curb. Folks bought it out of faithfulness, but I know many folks who don't know the album as they could talk about her live album or any of the other two. It was definitely a change, something different. She definitely didn't "record the same album" again. But at what cost? Folks just coming to her at this album would be taking a risk. Do they love it? Do they want to go back through her discography and see what else she does? If they love it and go back and want to hear more of it, they would be disappointed to find that because she changed her game so, she is not the same artist they fell in love with. Folks coming to this album from the start with E. Badu and with support for her growth would maybe understand that it is a door opening, that maybe, just maybe, whatever comes after this would be a nice balance. She was just going through musical puberty....

So then you get New Amerikah. And I think without songs like "Telephone" -- it would still be unbalanced...very much like a "better" World Wide Underground with heavy background stuff and not as much of Badu's vocals. She found her balance. A balance I think could only have happened because she remembered this past musician she was and gave herself room for this new musician she wants to be. I think if folks come to E. Badu with this as their first album and go back through her discography, they would not be alienated.

Back to poetry and writing and books, now. I am thinking about poets like Lucille Clifton. I am thinking about older poets, poets that we love, poets that we use to build canons and create syllabi for writing courses and literature courses and write whole theses about the arc of their work charting from beginning to end. I think the love of Ms. Clifton's work comes from this unchanging simplicity in her language and poetics...the constant that stays from book to book. Would we still love ms. Clifton as Ms. Clifton if she changed her game up every book? Would we still have the same feelings for her as we went from book to book, looking for those short, imaginative narratives, if she, say, were to switch it up and become a language poet? Would she still be Ms. Lucille Clifton? In name, yes. But maybe that's all.

Not to say something is wrong with becoming a language poet. I'm not going down that road. I've been reading some interesting poets as of late, trying to stretch (read: not change) my own strict-narrative bend. Matthea Harvey's Modern Life has been an interesting read, and only because I am coming to it with this open-mindedness about really trying to figure out what she's doing has it spoken to me in a most real and quiet way.

So there is this tug between wanting to do something different. I feel like I've told most of the stories I have to tell in my life, and find myself writing some of the same things in different ways. That is something I do not want to get locked into...There are some poets who tell the same story from collection to collection. That I am trying to avoid. But why re-invent myself each time I come to the gathering table for a collection or manuscript? What will I prove?

Any thoughts?

The Rest of My Yesterdays..

I'm listening to Alana Davis and trying to get motivated to start my week with a clean apartment.

I bugged my friend Mitchell Douglas to do a poetry challenge, thinking that I would be up for it -- that I would want to write a poem a day for a week and found that not to be the case. I wrote two and a half poems. The challenge ends Monday. I have been reading furiously. Does that count? Thinking about poetry instead of writing it?

My friend said something profound today that sort of eased my "I'm not doing anything productive" anxiety. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: i'm so not in the right writing space.
5:37 PM me: yeh, i hear you
5:38 PM Friend: lol
you hear me?
me: yup. loud n clear. i've not in the right anything space right now
6:07 PM Friend: maybe this is a season in which you are supposed to enjoy life & what God has already done
6:08 PM "How God Ends Us" really is a lovely, palpable, quietly powerful piece of work.
Bask in it!
6:09 PM Don't sweat the next thing. God will bring "Cartographer" and your Palestine project to pass. & whatever you're to do after them, well, it'll come, too.
Who knows how they'll coalesce & evolve at NYU.
Feel me?

--------

So that calmed me down a bit. And I should not feel like I'm not doing anything. I mean, since March 29, I've participated in 14 readings. This Wednesday will be the last appearance of the Spring and will top me off at 15 readings. I've been busy. It's been exhausting. But still, a part of me, the busy-bee part of me, the worrying-because-I-feel-like-I'm-missing-something part of me still feels unease at the pending lull in activity.

Here's a preview to the Fall, however: (this is in addition to going to school and working!)

**August 28, 2009 -- South Carolina -- South Carolina Poetry Initiative will host my SC Book Launch
**Sept 11, 2009 -- New York City -- Bryant Park Reading room with Cave Canem's Nehessaiu DeGainnes and Charles Lynch
**Sept 19, 2009 -- South Carolina -- SCPI Poet's Summit with other poets: Sharon Olds and Rosanna Warren
**October 15-17 -- Lowell, Ma -- Mass. Poetry Festival

I'm hoping to get a few more readings for the Fall and Spring.

Book Opening

May 31, 2009, I had a reading/celebration/opening for my book *How God Ends Us*. It was fun and nice and elegant. It was at this place called the cell in Chelsea. I had a friend from middle school and high school visiting and it was great to have new and old loves gathered under one roof.



I started the night with the poem by lucille clifton: "won't you celebrate with me". It is - as with a lot of other people i know - a favorite poem. Also, because I believe in the spirit of celebration, I wanted to open up my reading with these words:


won't you celebrate with me
by Lucille Clifton

won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

I had a chance to be a bit vulnerable at the reading. I talked more than I normally would have...but I knew without a doubt that those people in that room were there to support me.

What was really cool was several people came in off the street. Some women immediately bought the book.

Other people who celebrated with me on the mic: Roger Bonair-Agard, Patrick Rosal, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and John Murillo.

Here's a link to some photos:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2357310&id=2702460&l=ba30dc00a0

Also, my friend Saeed Jones did a little write up about the event, too: check it!
http://saeedjones.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/on-delana-damerons-book-release-party/#comments

Broadside!

Tonight was a reading with Matthea Harvey. The reading was organized by Thomas Sayers Ellis at the Center for Book Arts. The series is called the Broadside Reading Series. The Center brings in poets and they choose artists to create original broadsides of a selected poem. My poem, "Knowing the limits of the earth" was put into another art form, a beautiful broadside.

The picture does not do it justice. Eventually the broadside will be on sale on the website. It's 10 bucks, I believe, and worth it. You can also look at other poets featured in the series.

Exciting, indead.

Next up: Book Party/Launch on May 31!!!!!!!!

Then three more readings and my Spring/Summer schedule is over. Then, summer?

The reading, a poem.

Pictures from the reading.

a poem: (previously published in Inch magazine)

Oyster and Pearl

I am trapped

in my mother's house.

She cannot dislodge me

but finds ways to smooth over

the friction between us.

------

The set:

Opened up with Lucille Clifton's poem, Quilting.

Some Beastiaries (with regards to Ms. Anne Sexton)

1. Small-mouthed Bass

2. Io Moth

3. Oyster and Pearl

4. Beetle

From Cartographer

5. Knowing the Limits of the Earth (soon to be released as a broadside!!!)

6. Respect the Spaces

7. Palinode

From How God Ends Us

8. Ode to the Camel-Hair Brush

9. Closer to Knowing

10. Diving

11. The Last Touch

12. Backseat Savior

Mother's Day and a Reading

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. Again, another Mother's Day that I'm in New York City, and my mother is in South Carolina. I hope she gets what I sent her.

Also, tomorrow, I have a reading. It's in a garden. I'm praying for sun and flowers abloom. And, of course, poetry.

If you're in New York City, come, check it out!

http://www.6bgarden.org/

4pm.

Happy Mother's Day; Happy May

Come what May --

I realize I sort of sprung the essay excerpts on my readers. That is, if there are any readers out there! Allow me to explain a bit -- only a bit.

I haven't been writing poetry for a while. That's partly a lie. I was in a workshop with Tracy K. Smith, and it was hard to put myself in a position of both writer and promoter of my poetry/self when the book came out, and so I decided to let my promotion self step forward. However, writing largely focuses for me as a place I go to (it is a place in my mind) when I am dealing with difficult things, when I want to be in a different world for a while.

In tradition with a lot of events in my life, the last couple of weeks everything sort of came crashing down on me at once. And I had to (continue to) keep up this public persona, and I needed somewhere to escape, because there were little places to escape. Too, I've been wanting to write some of these essays for a while, and had been spinning them several different ways in my head, this way and that, and decided: what time is better than this to just write them? I wasn't interested in journaling the week's events. That becomes tired an old. I just wanted to not think about them, brood over them, so I do what I do in times of crisis: give myself a project.

The essays, even though excerpts only are presented here, are largely still unfinished. What I hoped to do was get to at least the heart of what I wanted to explore, to give myself a good running start for several essays that maybe can work their ways into something grander, can maybe even live together. What I discovered in the process is I am most ready to embrace my southern self than ever before. Maybe because I'm an ex-pat of sorts? I can't say that I don't ever imagine myself living in the South ever again, but I know there is a longing in this distance that is finding, sneaking its way into my writing -- an identity that I didn't have when I was in the South.

In other news, it's May. It feels like Seattle in New York -- it has rained consistently for the past week. We have seen a bad winter, one or two really good days, and now lots and lots of rain. I'll be happy for consistent sunshine. For walking the city streets without a jacket. Even -- gasp! dare i say it? -- a little humidity and heat. Oh, summer. Be with us now.

Writing, day 6

an excerpt:

Just black, then


An overheard conversation of three of my students:
A: Where are you from?
B: My family is from Ghana
A: Nigga, you ain’t from Africa – look how white you are! Really, where are you from?
B. Ghana. (he looks to the third boy) Where are you from?
C. America
B. No, dummy, where are your people, your parents from?
C. Down South. I’m not sure exactly where.
B. Oh, so you’re just black, then?

I am afraid that since I have moved (or escaped from) the South, that most of my stories begin or end or travel through there. Even when I don’t want them to. Even when I try to forget it, the City puts a mirror to my face. There it is.

I wanted to start this essay with this conversation I overheard while chaperoning middle schoolers Upstate to pick apples. This was to avoid starting with an obvious statement like I’m from the South or to start again the endless cycle of comparison between the City and what I am calling home.

Back home, we are not so much occupied (that is, anymore. It is the New South) with this idea of ethnic identity. Blame it one its history. I do. Rather, we simplify into broad categories capable of containing many exceptions. We identify as either: white, black or mixed (added post-Jim Crow to accommodate an idea of the “other”). You can tell a non-southerner by their need to create sub-categories to this filing system. They’ll say: “I’m white, but my mother’s family is from Ireland )or England – whichever European country will allow such classification),” or they’ll say, “I’m mixed: my father is Indian and Black; my mother is German.”

If I was in the conversation with those boy’s I’d be just black, then. I learned this label several ways: first, upon playing on my daycare playground and being told that I couldn’t play games with them because their parents said they weren’t allowed to play with “Blacks.” Another time I learned was when we were vacationing in Washington, DC and my father was looking for a parking space, and we had entered into this battle with someone who claimed to have seen it first, and my mother leaned out the window, and the woman leaned and said we should take our black asses back where we came from, and my mother – self-identifying for the woman – said we were taking our black asses and parking there. So the woman did not get the park. We were just black asses and the woman had said it and my mother confirmed. There were no other questions.

writing day 5

who knew i could keep this up?

an excerpt (it's not titled):

Though I hated it then, the best thing my sister could have done for me was assume her elderly sister’s role and pick on me. She took advantage of every opportunity – once I lost both bottom baby teeth while trying to pull a too-small thermal shirt over my head so we could play in the once-a-winter South Carolina snow. They were already loose, but in keeping with my tradition of holding onto things for too long – way longer than they should be held – I refused to let anyone pull them. I have a constant reminder of this truth every time I offer a wide-mouthed smile: one tooth is exceptionally higher than the others because it refused to wait for the dead tooth to dislodge itself from my gums. I remember specifically during those times of no-bottom-front-teeth that my sister would sit at the dinner table and laugh as she watched me negotiate an ear of corn my mother had prepared.

Too, around the same time, I was her maid. We inherited an elaborate kitchen set, complete with stove, silver (not plastic) pots and pans. We were playing house one day and it was tea time. I was to set the table, including getting water for the tea. I approached the bathroom and noticed the missing footstool I used in the mornings to wash my hands. The sink was too high for me to reach then. Perhaps I could have tried the bathtub. Instead, I reached into the toilet bowl with the silver kettle and returned. She took a sip. Maybe it was because the water tasted weird, or because she had not heard any water running at all yet I had come bearing the thing she sent me after, but she asked me where I got the water. Because I still had not mastered the art of lying with a straight face, I had mastered the art of delaying consequences. I told her simply: the bathroom. She asked if it was from the sink and I said no, I couldn’t reach it. The tub? No. Not the tub. House was over. She loves to tell this story as an example of how evil I am, but I defend myself and say resourceful. I was using what I had to get what I was supposed to get.

Writing, day 4

an excerpt:

Epistolary to the Woman Across a Continent

Dear Eula,

You should know that we do not know each other. Perhaps you know it. Still, I am writing with the best wishes for your well-being. I am well.

I am writing because I want to know if you believe in fate. I need to know this. Often, I find myself sure of this idea that we are locked in life like a maze and there is only one correct path, despite the allusion that we have choices.

Allow me to explain. Once, my sister and I were riding in my grandfather’s green station wagon. He had picked us up from our house so we could spend the weekend with him. It was one of my favorite things to do. Anyways, we were riding in the car and I noticed that we were not taking any of the routes I’d known to get to the cul-de-sac on which my grandparents lived. I inquired our destination from the back seat. My sister, older and up front, said nothing – seemingly annoyed she’d spend another weekend on my grandparent’s couch.

I asked why we were going this way, and my grandfather said something to the effect of there being multiple ways to skin a squirrel (maybe I’ll tell you one of the ways I know in my next letter), and that all roads lead home. My sister told him she was familiar with this route, and that he was going the wrong way. Imagine that: two girls having never held the steering wheel of anything giving directions. We reached a stop sign and my grandfather acquiesced – she said fine, which way should I go? We’d look left, look right, and chose a path. He listened. We’d hit several dead ends and would have to turn around, return to the point we went astray. He’d go back to the last turn, and we’d choose another path.

I don’t remember how long this went one or if we finally found our way on our own, or if Grandpa gave up on the game we were playing and just drove us to this house. It was kind of like that maze I mentioned, like life, wouldn’t you agree? We think we should go one way and we do and then we reach the dead end and either choose to cast down our reigns and give up or we turn back.

Writing, day 3

an excerpt:
--------------------------
Believe


I admit, I am more gullible than most. I am a cynic and skeptic, too. I don’t know how both sides of the dichotomy exist within me without some internal combustion, but they do. Most times, I believe what I am told.


I only knew my grandfather as a retiree. I’ve heard stories and seen pictures of when he was in the army or when he sliced open the dead bodies of mental patients. Maybe, looking back, these are selective memories, what I choose to remember or file away in the card catalog of memories and deceased family members. I am guilty of that. Choosing things I want to remember: mostly the positive things. Once, my family was reminiscing about him – noting his absence – at a cook out. Everyone was throwing around a series of “do you remembers” followed by nothing that sounded like the man I knew. I refused to believe that. Here is where my skepticism kicked in. I refused to believe that he was a drunk, or that one time he set his Monte Carlo on fire while driving down South Carolina’s I-20.


The James – we called him Papa James – I knew spent his afternoons turning his suburban backyard into a farm. For me. Everything he did, he professed, he did it for me.


In my grandparents’ back yard, around the magnolia that is positioned right in the center, were the following (not all at once, but some permeation of the following based on the season and availability): chicks; ducks; a pond with carp, goldfish and two small turtles (my sister named them Thelma and Louise; I named them Felix and Otis); rabbits; a “jungle gym”; a picnic table and grill made of cinderblocks; a storage shed; a green house; a house where he put a TV, bed, and rocking chair; cats named Tom and Jerry – none of the animals except the finches were allowed inside; Iguanas; a small garden with various fruits and vegetables; a barrel opened on its side filled with a strawberry patch.


Over the summers, I would spend weeks at a time there; my grandfather and I both needed something or someone to occupy those empty days. My grandmother was still working and would be up and out of the house before I woke up and I would hear in my sleep the faint sounds of some lawn mower or gardening appliance. I’d wake up and make my way to the kitchen where a ritual breakfast of fried eggs, grits and sausage were waiting.


Eventually, I’d make it outside. By then the sun was up and out and my grandfather was done with his work for the day. He’d come inside and take a nap. I’d romp around from sprinkler to greenhouse to chicken shed to rabbit cage to the strawberry patch.


It wasn’t until I entered the house one day – my fingers and face marked – to find Papa James reading his Bible, preparing for his Sunday school teaching. He looked up and asked me what I had gotten into. I was sure that he’d still be napping and I could wash my face and hands and settle down to whatever lunch he had fixed. I couldn’t lie; I told him I tasted some of the strawberries. That was a lie. I had picked all of the red ones and eaten them right there, hovering the barrel.


He closed his Bible and began to fix my lunch. I rushed to wash up. He entertained my desire to watch cartoons, and I remember this particular cartoon was an episode of Rugrats. The trouble-maker girl – Angelica (of whom I related to most at times) was tormenting one of the younger kids because they had eaten the seed of some fruit. Watermelon, I believe. She told them that they should know you never eat the seeds of anything. Ever. That to eat the seeds of something would surely mean that you’d have the whole fruit growing inside of you. And you’d die.


Papa James took this opportunity to tell me that it was true. You never, ever eat the seeds. You could die. He then asked me if I ate the strawberries. I said yes. He said, soon there will be a strawberry patch growing in my stomach.


Scared of what that could mean – that my small frame would expand to explosion – I wanted to give every strawberry back. It was too late he said. We sat and watched the end of the cartoon, and he cleaned up and went outside to tend to his garden.


How did one avoid eating strawberry seeds? They were outside of the fruit; countless numbers embedded in the red flesh. I contemplated the thousand seeds I had consumed. How each one would grow and grow. I hadn’t believed the cartoon. It was a bunch of moving pictures and voice-overs and extreme scenarios enlarged by childish imaginations. But my grandfather had confirmed its truth. I believed. I was going to die.

Writing day 2

an excerpt from yesterday's offering:

-------------------

Commitment Phobia

After the men delivered and assembled my bed in my first Harlem apartment, I sat on the bare mattress and cried.

Earlier that day I deflated the air mattress that I slept on for fifteen months: almost five hundred days sleeping six inches above hardwood floors. I had deflated and packed away this air matter my mother gave me when I left South Carolina for the Mid Atlantic. She asked me what I was going to sleep on. I hadn’t thought that far; most of my other housing situations came with some sort of sleeping situation already figured out. The day she gave me the air mattress, I had already packed my books first into my two-door Honda Civic; whatever room was left then got filled with clothes, my guitar and flute. I had no money to buy a bed as soon as I got there, so the air mattress would have to do for a few weeks or months.

I never owned my own bed despite having moved four times between two Carolinas over the course of two years. Priding myself on the knowledge my father bestowed me to be independent, I set out not to burden or inconvenience anyone. To acquire real furniture would be to have to coordinate and pay for movers. The easiest fix would be to keep my worldly possessions at a minimum. Could it fit in my car should I need to move tomorrow? I awaited the imminent possible displacement like some await the apocalypse, and like the believers, I had to be ready to go.

Writing

Yesterday, I set out to write an essay, and got it done. A first draft, at least. It's an idea I've been swimming around in my head for a while -- this idea that I do not have a history of oral tradition in my family. Being from the South, it is expected, almost -- at least outsiders expect it. But what I've discovered from writing and being able to write and be creative in that writing is that I have the freedom and the ability to create my own narratives based on the fragments of information I've collected along the way.
It felt good to write something. Even though it wasn't a poem. I haven't really been producing anything as of late, and I felt backed up. I can't really think of a poem to write, but I do have this desire to write a collection of essays, so I figured why not try that? At least, I mean, an essay.
Here's the first part: (there are 4 short sections) Oh, and the title is a working title.
------

Southern enough

“My family believed I’d have words for others.” Elizabeth Alexander

I.

I only know the truths they told me. My family isn’t particularly big on secrets, but hierarchies, we’ve got hierarchies. Age determines the amount of truths you get; I was a child when all of the good stuff happened.

I should clarify. By family, I largely mean my mother’s side. Most of my truths are one-sided.

When I was young, I never thought the truths I carried were sufficient. But because of the hierarchy, I was unable to ask questions for clarification. I was expected to take what I was given. But I was curious, and always found myself on the perimeter of adult circles snatching pieces of gossip or stories until I was discovered, admonished and told to go play. Even now, as I write this, I do not know if anything I have just revealed – that I used to snoop around like a truth-detective – is one-hundred percent truth, but I know I received information from somewhere and at some point. Perhaps they have told this to me too, and that is how I’ve come to know what I do – not experientially. I do not know which is true.

A truth I know: I’ve come to realize people in New York City expect me to have folklore ready on my tongue. This is outside of the fact that I am a writer – but maybe it is magnified because I claim to be one – but more because of the fact that I reign from the South. Upon identifying as a Southerner, the interested party will ask: “Will you tell me about The South?” And I suspect they want what I cannot deliver: some complete fable, rife with spirits and back roads, moonshine in mason jars, Klansmen and burned crosses, “For Whites Only Signs” above water fountains, a rural and backwards south, some romantic other-world.Most of these stories they expect to have been passed down orally from generation to generation – all the way back to Slavery. I tell them I can’t get my family tree past Georgia. Only four or so generations.

But I do give them the fragments that I have: my paternal grandmother attested to having seen several ghosts while working as a domestic on the waterfront mansions in Charleston, SC; my maternal grandfather performed autopsies on the mentally ill and would bring whole brains home in jars; my maternal grandmother washed and styled her dead mother’s hair the night before my great-grandmother Georgia Mae’s funeral.

Back in NYC

I'm back in New York, and not a moment too soon. Today it was so beautiful outside. I broke out the sandals and dress. I had some work that I had to do that was due today so I decided if I was going to have to work, that at least I should look cute. So, I did. I went to a coffeeshop to grade papers. I ran into a friend there and chatted for a bit.

Another friend of mine had a BBQ in Brooklyn, and I was determined to make it, so that gave me some incentive to get everything done and in early so I didn't have to worry about anything later tonight. So I went over to brooklyn for some Uno and grilled veggies and meats and then another friend called for a movie tonight, Sugar, about a Dominican baseball player. It was a good movie, but I think a little too much to see late night, b/c it was all in subtitles. Then we walked around the city to grab a cup of coffee and then walked back to the train and headed home. I was surprised when I walked into my apartment and my clock said 2am. I'd had a full day: running, grading, bbqing, movies, etc.

Monday I have to enter the world of reality again. I've been off from my regular jobs for two weeks. One week was my tour, the other week my students were on vacation and I had the DC reading anyways. I don't know what I did with the days inbetween, but they passed. Now I have to figure out how to have the book in the world and be a regular citizen. A whole new game.

Right now I'm working on some interview questions for a friend. It is interesting to think about my work in a critical way. I never really thought about my work in these ways, but it's healthy and good. It gives me insight. It opens me up and opens my eyes. Maybe we can land the interview in a magazine. If not, look for links to his blog, soon.

In other news, I'm interested in seeing reviews/comments/etc about the book. I'm a bit anxious, to tell you the truth. It scares me a bit that people are out there formulating their own opinions about my work, and I cannot defend it. Not that I should have to, but you know.

I'm all over the place. Maybe it's because it's 2am and I had coffee all day. I doubt that I'm going to be able to run in the morning. Maybe walk to church. I haven't been there in a few weeks, and I find myself excited to get back there, as well.

More thoughts on my take on religion and writing later. A question for the interview got me to thinking. It might be a separate essay all together.

On the Road, again

Today I got two phone calls almost in quick succession from two friends who teach full time down south. Being that I work part time, I definitely do not have to be up as early as they were calling me (first phone call at 7:30am) but, I got up and talked and figured it would be good to get an early start on my day.

When I got off the phone with them, I decided I needed to get my endorphines going, and decided to go for a run. There is a park about a mile long 2 blocks from my house, and if you run along the perimeter, the sidewalk is consistent, and there are no street lights. It's quite nice, to have almost like a track to run down. So I ran down and back. Two miles this morning.

Now, I face a day of grading and errands and getting things done. Hopefully. That would mean getting out of the house within the next hour for me to have enough time to do anything that means something for the day.

Tomorrow I head to DC to give a reading and have a discussion about the book. I am working on an interview for a friend, which is good, because it's giving me time to really sit down and think about these questions and formulate some answers that I had never really been forced to do. So it's good practice.

Too, I received a box from the press yesterday. It turns out they give you 500 postcards with the cover of the book. What on earth does one do with 500 post cards? Let me know!

To get from here to there

While on the road, I forgot to mention that I definitely bought loads of books. Too many. I bought them like I was buying souveniers. "Here's a book I got from Quailridge Bookstore" or "Here's a book I got from Busboys and Poets" or "Here's a book I got from the Bullshead Bookshop".

Here's the final count:

Elizabeth Alexander's "Power and Possibility"
Anne Carson's "decreation"
Saadi Youseff's "Without an alphabet, Without a land"
June Jordan's "Affirmative Acts"

Elizabeth's and June Jordan's books are strictly essay books. I am wanting to get back into essay writing. I would like a book of essays soon. I bought Elizabeth's because I admired her book "The Black Interior" and because (despite the fact that it worked out she chose my book!) I secretely want to be her in a way. This was pre-inaugural fame. This was pre "How God Ends Us" -- I just always liked her historical take on poetry and how history informed her poetry, etc etc. So now I'm looking at her critical analysis of poetry and people.

I bought June Jordan's book "Affirmative Acts" strictly because I knew it contained her essays on Palestine. I've been reading and enjoying all the other essays, but I remember encountering a few people who mentioned it, and I had the hardest time finding the book (even in NYC!) and when I walked into Busboys & Poets and it was just right there on the shelf, I had to take it home. Look for more essays and greater writings on Palestine and abroad.

Anne Carson will be teaching at NYU now. Many friends told me I should be most excited to work with her; they think we can be a good fit. I figured I should pick up something by her. Too, I've been looking around NYC bookstores casually, and have turned up empty-handed. What DO we have here?

Saadi Youseff was a purchase continuing in the tradition of buying non-western poetry. It feeds me.

This was supposed to be a post about what else I've been reading. Namely, this memoir: "Bitter is the New Black" I think I have 10 or so pages left. It's my subway reading. It what I do to create a buffer between home and work, work and home. It's like watching a soap opera. I get on the train and enter this world. It's pretty entertaining. I don't want to say it's "mindless", but it is, sort of, for me, because it's the only thing lately I've found that I can read without thinking it or making it feel like work. I've decided, I think, to keep this tradition up. I need to find the next book.

I almost forgot

my book is being featured as the book of the week on Kathryn Stripling Byer's (NC Poet Laureate) website. Check it out here.

How God Ends US

post-road update

I won't take the time to update you all on every single step of the rest of the tour, but I will say that I went on to perform at UNC's Bullshead bookshop, which was probably one of my favorite readings, and then to Quailridge Bookstore, then swept up to DC to read at Busboys and Poets. I had great, great food all around. Especially of note is the Ethiopian restaurant in DC - Dukem - that my friend from High school, Zemar, took us to. The lamb tibs were/are to die for!!

I'm back in NYC. It's Easter Sunday. I am thinking about John 3:16, and thinking about the capacity to love so hard. I'm a bit exhausted from being on the road, but I'm going to try and make it to the church I've been attending the past couple of weeks. I was supposed to play flute today, but I wasn't sure that I would be back in town.

But not for long. I have another reading in Washington, DC on Thursday night. I just booked my tickets for the bus ride down. This will be my first time traveling (outside of my train ride from SC to NYC) outside of the city on my own without my car. I'm a bit.....scared, to tell you the truth. I think it's a control thing. I cannot control a bus. I cannot say, "I will get off on this next exit and take a break, get something to drink or snack on". Either way, I'm thankful for the opportunity to share my words with others, so I'm going. I'm adventuring out.

So upcoming readings:

April 16, 2009
The Charles Sumner Museum School (Washington DC)
6:30-9pm
Reading/Discussion/Question and Answer

May 1, 2009
Adelphi University
Cave Canem Workshop Participant reading
7pm

May 20, 2009
Center for Book Arts
Reading with Thomas Sayers Ellis and Matthea Harvey
6:30pm
(there will be broadsides for sale for a poem that is not in my collection How God Ends Us).

On the Road

Yesterday was my first stop on the book tour with Raina J. Leon. It wasn't Raina's first stop. Sunday we were at Penn State. Monday morning we left to drive 8 hours to Chapel Hill. We got in just enough time to hang out for a bit. Raina had a reading. I still have some friends living here in Chapel Hill, so we parted ways and I was able to watch the Championship game with old friends. It was quite good to be home.

Yesterday I slept in late and did some grading. Raina had to be on campus, so I decided to go onto campus and walk around and continue to miss Chapel Hill. I made sure to stop at Cosmic Cantina (oh, oh oh), then the Daily Grind, then I went around and looked for my friend working at the Student Stores and we chatted for a bit, and I sat in the bookshop (the site of today's reading!) and read.

We got to Southern Village really early (if you know Raina, you know this is her style...like, hours early)...but that gave me an opportunity to figure out my set list and time some poems and chill out a bit. A lot of friends came. It was great.

Here's a set list (I suppose if you have the book you can "read along", haha)

1. It is Written
2. The body as a House
3. Body, an elegy
4. All Hallows Eve
5. Lament
6. Underneath the Brown
7. Backseat Savior (which is becoming everyone's favorite, I'm told)
8. This Sacrifice, This Love

I also read some poems from Cartographer. But those are top-secret now.

Today I read at the Bullshead Bookshop....so great to be back on campus.
Tonight in Raleigh at Market Steet Books

Tomorrow we leave for DC and read at BusBoys and Poets tomorrow night.

Cooling board: a long playing poem

Sunday I got to hang out with Mitchell L.H. Douglas for the day. He had a reading early in Harlem, which I had to miss, but he was really close to my place so I met him at the end of his reading and then we walked over to The Perch and hung out for a bit. We opened up some spirits and toasted our new books, and exchanged books.

It's been exciting living since my own book was released. It is even more special that I got to share the debut of my book with Mitchell, because I remember the night I sent it in I e-mailed him (or was it Myspace? ....oh how times change!) and told him about the prize I entered my manuscript in (he read an earlier version of the 'script) and mused: wouldn't it be cool if our babies were published in the same year??

And here we are!

Today I packed his book with me and read it on the way to have coffee with a new poet I met through the publication of my own book. That is probably the most exciting thing -- meeting new people. Mitchell's book is a long poem (a series of smaller, connected poems a la Kevin Young or Martha Collins) about Donny Hathaway. It's an engaging read. I'm always interested in projects and the long poem. I'm sure I'll be visiting the collection over and over.

Other than that...work and work. Sunday I leave for my spring tour!! It's so scary how quickly things approach. Look for details here later.

Bowery Poetry Club

Today/tonight was fabulous and amazing. I cannot say more about it. Well, I will. Just not now. I have to get ready for work. Thank you, NYC. Thank you Mitchell and Red Hen Press!

Here's my set list:

1. Lament
2. Backseat Savior
3. Underneath the Brown
4. To the Black Girl in Charleston, SC, Waving the Confederate Flag
5. The Body as a House
6. All Hallows Eve
7. It is Written
8. Meditation
9. Flame
10. This Sacrifice, This Love

Hopefully pictures soon, too.

In a week, I start my tour with my beloved friend Raina J. Leon!

Exhaustion

I can't remember if I've said it here, but I was talking to a dear, dear friend just the other day. They asked how I was doing, and not being one who simply says "fine" and leaves it at that (I mean, you did ask, didn't you?), I proceeded to tell them how I felt like I'd just had a life implant.

Let me explain: the beginning of the month all I was really expecting to happen in March was to hear from the grad school I applied to, and to hopefully get my book by April 1. I knew I had a reading at the end of the month, but that seemed so far away that it didn't register.

So then March 15 comes around and I get keys to my very own apartment. The same week I hear from NYU and my books come in the mail. When it rains...

Too, I think along with the analogy that I feel like I've received a life transplant, there's always this adjustment phase after the body has received the new organ. There could/can be rejection. There is change to the body because of the trama and trying to fit this new thing in. Not that I expect my body to reject this new life, but I can definitely feel the effects of the "transplant" of the "newness" -- all of this among an already pretty busy life with juggling two jobs.

Tomorrow, though. Tomorrow I officially debut my book to the world. I am not sure about my set list, what I'm going to say, etc etc. Maybe I'll decide on the spot. Maybe I'll wing it. Although that is not my nature....this is new territory -- holding a book up there in front of people, reading from it, saying, this is my work, this is my baby....take it or leave it. Somehow none of the poems feel sufficient, feel enough to be read aloud. And I know a lot of folks coming to support and i'm 100% thankful and grateful...but at the same tme, maybe I'd be more comfortable reading in front of complete strangers. And if I thought that was bad -- in a few weeks when I do my mini book tour with friend Raina J. Leon in PA, NC, and DC....that will be almost all friends and loved ones. Yes. It's pretty crazy to think.

Anyways. I'm going to go read a bit and think a little about possible poems. etc.

Subway reading

Alexandra Cespedes took the picture. She is also the artist.

I thought this picture was interesting to use for this post. This thinking about writing, and sending your words into the world. The yellow behind the book is the subway platform. The silver is a train. Which train? Who knows. I just know that my words are traveling, traveling into the world. It is a very humbling and vulnerable position, to think that my life is in someone's hands. That it can be in anyone's hands. Who knows who has bought the book and will pick it up and read it, and carry it with them in their bags, in their travels, to read while getting from here to there.

In other news, I am taking a writing workshop with Tracy K. Smith. Her workshop is titled: "Writing Across Cultures" -- it was supposed to be a cross-cultural writing workshop with poets from the Asian American Writer's workshop, but it's a nice colleciton of women of color who meet on Friday nights to read and talk about other people's poetry as well as our own. I am resistant a bit, if only because I haven't really been writing lately, but I hope the resistance wall will break open and I can take advantage of this opportunity. This week we're writing ghazals. I have a love/hate relationship with ghazals. I love the idea. I love them when they're done correctly. I don't always love the "write your name into the last couplet" section, as for some people with certain names can alter their name and not be so...obvious.

Okay...I'm trying to do too many things now. I hope your week ahead is fabulous!

Spring in New York

Today I woke up and looked out the window and saw snow. I should tell you that the past two days the most I've worn outside was a jean jacket. And now there's snow?? For real? I'm a bit upset. I'm ready to put winter and my heavy coats behind me. I've been excited to bring out my spring clothes and colors -- my bright pinks and greens and so on. This is not to say that I haven't worn them in winter. In fact, my favorite thing to do is wear spring colors in winter, because I believe people wear colors too dark and depressing.

I'm getting ready to head out into this snow, however. I need to go to the post office. Yes, I'm sending off 4 books into the world. My books. They came yesterday. Well, I almost missed them, but they came. I've been parading them around ever since.

One thing that I was very adamant about after a longish search for artwork for the cover was that I wanted a living artist. I wanted it to be a true-to-life collaboration. For multiple reasons: it would be fun to live and talk and laugh about the book with someone who is equally excited about its publication and because I'd have the chance to reach an audience I never would have touched before. Here's proof:

Alexandra Cespedes (the artist) -- photos up on her blog!

She was the first person I signed the book for. I was a bit nervous. You can tell in the way I was holding my pen. I went on to sell a couple more books that day and made plans for other sales.

Then I met up with a friend for lovely late night tirmasu and coffee (he had a canoli and cappuccino) in celebration of everything. I'm so blessed. And thankful.

You should help me get rid of these 50 copies in my studio. You can order through my website.

Special Delivery

Today I was informed that I will be receiving the advanced-ordered copies of my books in the mail tomorrow. I'm excited about that. I've also been told by other authors that the protocol for receiving one's first box of books is to open with friends/loved ones and a bottle (or few) of spirits. I've got the spirits -- my wine rack is generously stocked for such surprise occasions! -- now, I just need the friends/loved ones willing to come uptown and gather in/on The Perch (yes, capital T and P) with me and help me open it. Being the overly impatient one, I realize the last minute thing is going to be hard to coordinate, and I'm one to open immediately upon receiving....maybe it will be a solo celebration and bigger, better celebrations later.

I've unpacked practically everything except for my books. That is because I don't have real bookshelves yet. Those will be my next purchase.

I still haven't written my poem for this week's workshop. Maybe tomorrow the poem will come. I forgot how it feels to have deadlines that are not self-imposed. I forgot what it means to write under pressure. A lot has been going on in my world this week that, sadly, a poem is the last thing on my mind (although, apparently, updating my blog is not)....well, this is my unwinding. I'm going to settle in my bed in a few and read for a bit this book, "I was told there'd be cake" and then maybe dream a little more about my furnished apartment...and the box of books that will be arriving by the UPS fairy tomorrow. It's like Christmas, really. I'm anxious and can't sleep, but know that the sooner I go to sleep, the sooner tomorrow will come!

100th Post...

Who knew? I've seemed to keep this blog for a good minute. Not that 100 is particularly big, but yeh. Here I am.

I am sitting in a room of boxes and packed up things. Who knew that a tiny box could hold so much? Right now I've counted 5 boxes (though, surely one box should be split into two) of books. Books, books. They are usually the first things I pack when I'm moving. I have to ensure they have a place in my new life -- everything else follows. Is that sad? Perhaps. I'll give away three huge bags of clothes (I had to carry them on the train to the Good Will) before I'll give away books. Something should be said about that, I think.

Today I got my keys and signed my lease. Tomorrow, it's church and then the movers come at 3:30pm to transport this life into my new one. It's quite exciting. Exhilarating, even. After I got my keys, I went to the store to get cleaning materials (one should note: every apartment I've moved into, someone was already living there for a while and had everything I should need. I've only needed to take my own belongings, so buying cleaning materials should be documented, haha) and went back to The Perch to scrub everything down. I now have shiny hardwood floors, a sparkling kitchen and bathroom. Before I moved in, there was apparently some work done in the apartment, and so between that and just settling dust, it needed a good wash down. I was happy to do it (One should also note that I have a reputable hatred for cleaning). It is, after all, my place. I smiled before I closed the door and thought that in a few more days I'll be settled down and in. Somewhat. Then there's the unpacking packed boxes...which is the stage of moving I always hate. Once, I was so sure that I wasn't going to stay in the place that I moved into that I lived out of boxes. I unpacked one box of poetry books and hung up my clothes. Everything else stayed boxed up.

So now I'm down to the final stretch. I have some misc things that I have to find some way to put into a box for easy carrying (though we're not going too far!) and lifting.

Okay, I've taken enough time off....more news and stuff later.

Oh, yesterday was the first day of the 8 week workshop with Tracy K. Smith. More thoughts later.

Master of Fine Arts

Hello world.

I took a gamble and only applied for graduate school to the one place I wanted to go. Everyone who knew this gamble said it was a hard gamble to win. Oh well. I always go for the hard game. It's how I do.

I found out yesterday that I was accepted into NYU's Creative Writing Program.

Don't know that I can handle any more good news right now, but I'll certainly take it.

P.S. Book in 3 weeks!

www.delanadameron.com

Take the A Train

*hums the tune of the piano at the beginning of that song*

I get a lot of lip about not having a TV. From my students. From my friends who come over to visit. Too, I get lip about my music. For someone without a TV the second assumption would be that I *must* have a lot of music. While I have a good bit, I find myself listening to the same songs over and over. And I'm content with that.

I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Yesterday it hit me. The area of Harlem I'm moving to is called Sugar Hill. Everyone always talks about Sugar Hill, and of course there's the famous Sugar Hill Gang (Rapper's Delight)...and so on. There's even now a Sugar Hill Beer, which I have yet to taste. But it hit me what I will be living in, what tradition. There are variations of where the name Sugar Hill came from, but of course the most positive connotation is it was a place for the black middle class and artists during the Harlem Renaissance, referring to the sweet life they had above Harlem proper (namely, 125th Street) My building was built in the late 18, early 1900's so it's very well that some artist, some writer, some singer lived in my very same building!

Here's a list of some folks who lived and wrote and loved here:

Duke Ellington
Ralph Ellison
Zora Neale Hurston
Jacob Lawrence
Nella Larsen
Paul Robeson

Of course the story goes, someone asked Ellington for directions to Harlem, and he simply said, "Take the A Train" -- yep. That's how you can find me :). Writing and living. Maybe, loving.

the perch

So when I took the summer of 2008 off to write, I went to this residency called Soul Mountain. The room I was in was on the second floor of one of the wings, and it overlooked the pond out back. It was a nice view. In the room, the desk was situated right in front of the window that overlooked the pond. It had two windows, but only one over looked the pond, and that's where the desk was. I called the room "the perch"...because that is where I spent a lot of time those days writing and thinking and such.

I just got a new apartment. It's on the fourth (top) floor of a building. It's got four large windows overlooking Harlem. I believe I'm going to call my apartment The Perch. Yep.

I get my keys on the 15!

life comes at you fast

So here's the last month before the book is released. If you've pre-ordered it on Amazon, it should be shipped out no later than April 1. I should -- if everything is going to plan -- get early copies before then. Which is exciting.

I found out this week that the party I was planning on having on May 3 can't happen. That's a bit discouraging, but I believe it, like everything else, will work out.

I'm also in the middle of figuring out another move...I'm staying in New York City, but I have to move...probably also close to the end of this month.

Then....I am also waiting to hear from my grad school about their decision. All big things.

I have some really great, really big (for me, anyways) news...but I'll have to wait a while before I can share it. Keep an [eye] ear out!

What's going on in your world? Tell me good news!

Fat Tuesday

I suppose today is the only day that Tuesday has any meaning (ask me another day to talk to you about why I think Tuesday is pointless). But for me, in NYC, this Tuesday meant that I stayed at home in my pj's, mostly in my bed under cover.

I did engage some poets via g-chat in discussions about poetics and formal poetry (Pantoum vs. Villanelle or my hybrid form...). I submitted to some literary magazines thanks to the Submission Manager and online submissions, and created a flier that announces some of my 2009 upcoming reading dates. Don't ask me what I'm going to do with it. I guess it's just sort of confirmation that I'm capable of doing it. It looks quite nice, I must say.

What I'm reading

"The Simple Truth" by Philip Levine

I think this might be a close favorite poem, ever.

(this is an excerpt. the whole poem is mightly long)

Everyone knows that the trees will go one day
and nothing will take their place.
Everyone has wakened, alone, in
a room of flesh light and risen
to meet the morning as we did.
How long have we waited
quietly by the side of the road
for someone to slow and ask why.
The light is going, first from between
the long rows of dark firs
and then from our eyes, and when
it is gone we will be gone.
No one will be left to say,
"He took the stick and marked off
the place where the door would be,"
or "she held the child in both hands
and sang the same few tunes
over and over."

......and it continues.

Ipod Touch

Maybe this is writing related. Saturday - oh, doomed Valentine's Day - I went bowling and to play pool with a pretty good friend of mine. It was fun to just sit back and relax and just kick it for a bit. After that, I decided that I deserved to get myself a birthday/Valentine's gift. I wanted an Ipod Touch. I've been wanting one for a while. I don't care for my phone to be connected to everything like that, but I did just want an upgrad on my iPods (the last two I've had were hand-me-downs from a friend...) and I wanted to do something nice for myself on the day that someone else should be doing something nice for me (haha). So my friend and I pop into Best Buy. You should know these types of purchases cannot happen alone for me, nor can they be planned. I just have to be like "I'm going right now into the store to buy it". The end. If I'm saving up and saving up, then I'll talk myself out of it. I just have to go without for a while, then decide on a whim that I should have it. Best Buy was taking too long, and I was talking myself out of it. I waited in line for like 20 minutes for a manager to come and unlock them. The manager never came, and so I left. No Ipod.

After that, I met up with another friend to see this show at the Blue Note. It was all right. I probably won't ever consider buying the artist's stuff. Then........on the transfer platform at like 3:30am, I run into a friend from High School. He was just in the city and visiting...and we found each other in the middle of the night on a subway platform. So, we ride the train (going in the same direction, one stop after mine!) and talk, and decide that we need to meet up for brunch the next day. We do, and have a lovely time catching up. And then I say, on a whim, that I want to go to the apple store to buy an Ipod. He says he's down for riding with me....then we get there and he rememberes that apple gets a military discount, and so he buys it for me!

Anyways. So, I've been playing with my new gadget all week. It's a good diversion from work. It's a good diversion from life changes that also happen this week -- that will not be charted here. Today I downloaded a podcast "Coffee Break Spanish". I've decided that since I live really close to Washington Heights, that I should finally learn spanish. It's something that I'm putting on the list of things to do in 2009. Not that I expect to have it mastered, but I believe, knowing my capacity for languages when I really just immerse myself, that I can have a pretty good start by the end of the year. Plus, my kids -- so many of them are Spanish speakers. They can help me as I help them :).

Other things? I bought Phillip Levine's "The Simple Truth". I'm still believing in investing my money in what matters to me the most. I'm not "buying into" (no pun) this idea that the world is going to shambles on its own. I believe our fears and what we do with our fears (hoard our money or spend it lavishly) is also contributing. And I do believe - a small amount - in retail therapy. And well, life has been pretty crappy on some fronts lately.

Today it is 29 degrees in NYC. I am ready to peel off all of these layers. I'm ready to wear my summer dresses that make me so happy. Get me out of winter already!

Galleys!

This week I received my galleys from the press. It was a smallish envelope with two perfect bound galleys -- a little taste of what the book will feel like in my hands. It's all so exciting really.

A conversation went like this:

me: look what I got in the mail!
friend: wow! it's like giving birth to a baby, your very own book baby
me: yeh
friend: how does it feel?
me: I've decided I'm going to let it live in the world a few more hours bit before I start judging it
friend: I think you and it deserve more than a few hours
friend: congrats!

I carried one copy in my bag every where I went. It was a bit sad, to think, really. Then, a friend who is at AWP called me -- I missed her call -- and left a message saying that she was in the bookfair and had just walked past the South Carolina Poetry Initiative (the group that sponsored the prize) table and saw the poster and fliers about my book. Hopefully it will generate interest and people will buy the book.

I know that when I received the galleys, something felt different. It's something totally different to hold your poems in your hands and they're on something other than an 8x11 sheet of paper. It's an interesting feeling when you see a poem and it's split between two pages, and - because the galley looks almost exactly howt he book will look - you find yourself physically turning the page in order to finish reading a poem. It's interesting. I can't wait until people can hold all of this in their hands.

Magazine Watch and the Economy and writing

Rattle Magazine will be putting out a special African American poetry issue in June 2009. I just got word that a poem of mine "Cartographer" was accepted for publication. This is exciting news, because it is the title poem of my new manuscript....my new project. I am hoping to actually send it out today for the National Poetry Series competition.

I know of some really good poets who will be sharing the pages with me :). Be on the lookout for this zine.

In other news....all of my loves are gearing up (or have already arrived) for the AWP conference in Chicago. I decided to forego this year. I might have felt a little better about this decision if the weather was a blizzard and everyone was stuck in the airport or stranded, then I could think: "I made the right decision in staying home". However, it's supposed to be in the 60's...everyone is meeting up...and I'm missing all of it. But oh well.

I want updates from those of you out there who are going! If you ARE going...look for information about my book in the bookfair. The South Carolina Poetry Initiative has a table. On the table should be a poster and flier!!! Pick one up. Take a picture with my poster :). It's definitely sexy enough, haha. The cover art for the book, that is.

Any other writerly things? More layoffs in the publishing world. This makes me sad. But I'm still optimistic that we will persevere. We have to. I'm not saying that I'm concerned with the economy going as it is. But I am saying that it's not stopping me from investing in the things that I believe in. Like poetry and the arts.

This was a conversation I had with a friend, Aracelis Girmay (author of "Teeth"). We were talking about what we "need" and what we "want" and how we determine differences between the two, and how these two things should (or will or do) govern how we spend our money. This was an interesting list. I started thinking about "food" "transportation" -- you know..the basic needs. She began saying "I need to go to shows and cultural events". She said, "I want to eat out, but I don't need to eat out." And that put everything into perspective for me. I began to alter my list:

Needs: (and how I budget my time and money)
-Bikram Yoga/some exercise
-Poetry Readings
-Books
-Music (live and albums)
-things that make me feel good like cupcakes.
-Cultural events: museums, art shows, good indy films etc etc

Wants: (They can wait...my quality of life will not lessen because of this lack)
-new furniture
-trips outside of the city (Like Chicago for AWP. That was a want. I could not find a need.)
-new clothes

Of course food and transportation and rent and bills are necessities. Why should we list them off? What we should be thinking about is investing in what we need to keep us sane. To keep our heart going. To keep our mind above the valley of depression.

This week I went to see Medicine for Melancholy. I went on Monday. After a long day at both work places. I treated myself to spicy shrimp fried rice and diet ginerale. I walked over to the theater and bought the ticket and went in. This was a need. I needed some sort of creative stimulation that allowed me to rest a bit, while taking in beauty...in other creative acts. It was a good choice...and is keeping me going this week. What would I have done without it? Who knows. I just know that I can deny myself certain things (these shoes i really really _want_ that I walk by almost everyday) in order to provide myself the necessary things: a book for train rides, a movie, maybe a music show. And not only, do I believe this move keeps my sanity, keeps me alive....if we all invested in the things we "needed", and adjust the need based on what will keep us happy, then I think a lot less loss would be happening in the world. Writers would understand they need books. And would continue to invest some money there. Readers would understand that they ened books and continue to buy. Bookstores wouldn't see big losses because people wouldn't be scared to invest in their life, and layoffs wouldn't happen...and so on and so forth. Maybe this is widly optimistic. But, I can say that Strand and Barnes and Noble and Borders won't go under by my hands....

Writer's block (revisited)

I explore this a lot. This idea, this belief. I've argued with some who believe that writer's block does not exist. I believe it does, in some way, but it's what you do with the "block" that determines if the time off from writing was positive or negative. I think it's all about perception and frame of reference.

Outside of the two poems I wrote this week in rapid succession (Tuesday and Wednesday), I went several months without writing a poem. Now, this is significant for someone who rallies the troops for week-long poetry-writing challenges, or took three months off last summer just to write, and came out with 90 poems...so you see, to go several months without writing a poem could be considered writer's block.

I don't think I considered it a block as much as I considered it a Winter season of my writing. This is, of course, thinking in retrospect, and finding that the words come when they're ready, just as the buds come back to the bare limbs of the trees, and the flowers begin to sprout from the soil. (I assume. There is little soil here in NYC) What I did do during those months, however, was a lot of reading and preparing. Last year I wrote a first draft of a novel just because I had decided that I wanted to know what writing a novel felt like. Once I finished the draft, I was encouraged by some friends to think about next steps. I read this book, "the Artful Edit" and decided that I was excited to get the first draft done, b/c then I could begin editing, and watch it evolve into a real thing, perhaps a real book. So then I read a lot of other books --I spent 3 weeks in South Carolina during those months, and I also woke up every morning to read -- about drafting and editing novels. I bought these books about writing....and it felt kind of like a productive procrastination. Like, I wasn't writing, but I felt all right about it, b/c I was reading and meditating and thinking about writing.

I have noticed, though, that my writing productivity changes when my schedule changes. And my schedule has been afloat for the past couple of months as well. And not only that, a lot of things that were a constant in my life: Monday's = poetry reading, Wednesday = cupcake and jazz, Thursday = Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy, have been a bit disrupted, and so I find that my productivity is most comfortable in stable pockets of time. Like, I knew that I could write when I went to the Jazz spot on Wednesdays, or get some inspiration from the poetry readings on Mondays. So it's no surprise when some semblance of that balance came back to me this week with a poetry reading/conversation and a Jazz show, and I produced two poems on those days. You have to feed the muse in order for her to work for you. I guess that's my take home idea with reference to writer's block. The more creative energy I have around me, in the air, in the atmosphere....the more inclined I am to write.

February in full bloom

I am counting down the days until the book is published. April 1, here we come.

The other day I walked outside into the city, into my day and the sun was out. It was nice for NYC, for the winter we've had so far. I remember thinking: "Man, winter might finally break" and then, yesterday we got hit with a full day's worth of snow. Yep. And high temperatures this week won't even get near freezing. Thank goodness for crocheted scarves and hats and good coats. Thank goodness for hot drinks.

I have been on a hiatus as of late from most of my normal doings. Blame it on a boy. Blame it on the cold. Whatever. I finally stepped outside yesterday to see a friend, Myronn Hardy, read with Cathy Park Hong --who I saw read at Cornelia St. Cafe (where I hope to read, soon) back in 2007.... What a day to finally step out of a shell! Snow packed into my scarf, onto my coat. But alas, it was warm inside, and they had wine and cheese and crackers and fruits. It's the little things. Anyways. So the reading was this Cave Canem sponsored event called "Poets on Craft" where the poets do a short reading and the rest of the time is a moderated discussion and then Q&A. I felt like...the reading should have been a bit longer, the moderated part a bit shorter, and the rest of the time for audience engagement. Not like I was going to ask any questions. I know Myronn and his work. I know the answers he would like to give if not shy. Cathy's work is hard to hold onto in the ear, and I've not gotten her book(s)...so it was tough, really, to ask questions on her work, although she gave insightful answers during the discussion.

It made me think, though, about how I would answer some of the questions. Thinking about theory and poetry. Thinking about intersections of genre, genre-bending if you will, or what should come first the music/language or the meaning -- the famed chicken and egg quandry of the poetry world. And of course, the infamous I, and how the I factors into poetry...and what should the reader do in response to the I?

Now. Maybe it's because I read a lot of Sharon Olds when I first started out. Something about the poetry as confession helped me reach into a space for words to say everything I wanted to say. Then I turned to other conventions: musicality, form, line breaks, etc, to do the other work. With the exception of projects (say, Palestine, say the Ackland Art Museum works...) and maybe attempting to tell someone else's story, I find that poetry exists for me as an artistic expression. Read: the I is not collective. Now, I just wrote a review of a book where I felt that the I was....singular, that it belonged solely to the poet. And in that collection, I believed it, because the experiences were so...cyclical, so....circular. The experiences revolved around one or two incidences that connected a life-time of stories: a mother's death, a father trying to raise a daughter. I felt that the I belonged only to the poet, and we as readers could only read the collection as belonging to another voice. This is not to say that it is bad that the collection did that or to say that it was inaccessible, or that I couldn't enter into the work as an outsider. It was sort of just stating fact. I don't know where I'm going with all of this, except to say that I am almost sure that any "I" I write has some connection to me. The story the "I" is telling might not be mine. But the sentiments, or maybe, how I would deal with it -- because in truth, in writing from this "I" perspective, we as poets are imagining ourselves in that situation, no? -- so the actions given the situation are mine. And I'm all right with that.

The other question is on influences....how people expect you to just list and list and list poets for days, and your ability to list and name as many (famous) poets as possible shows that you're well-rounded and gives you credibility. Granted, I just said "maybe I read too much Sharon Olds" and that could be considered an influence, but she does not influence my current work, and didn't really influence my work when I started writing. I lived with a writer before I considered writing like I do now, so I spent days and nights reading and reading. I couldn't come up with a "standards" list. Instead, I'd argue that History is my biggest influence. That harkens back to my decision to major in History in Chapel Hill despite the fact that my career is largely literature and English-writing related. However, I believed that reading and re-reading the same British Literature models would do nothing for providing me something to write about. I did take the introductory-level survey to British Lit classes, and could have an intelligible conversation about major american authors and so on and so forth, but I think on a working, everyday level what matters is history, is current events, and if you can spin that into a poem, into a conversation, your ability to connect -- because isn't art about communication, about connecting? -- is that much higher.

Poetry Writing Workshop!

I will be leading a midday (for those slackers out there like me who don't have a day job, this is perfect!) writers workshop in a couple of weeks at The Cell Theater.

The Cell: http://www.thecelltheatre.org/?p=projects

Fridays, 2-5:30pm.

A description of the workshop:


Workshop Location: The Cell Theater, NYC
Workshop Dates: February 20, 27, March 6, 13, 20, 27 *
Workshop Time: 3-5:30 pm
*Final reading featuring participants from the workshop to be announced later

About the workshop:

This poetry workshop is designed to facilitate creative thinking about our own lives in a historical and cultural context. Our today is history, tomorrow. Participants will be given select poems each week and asked to react to each piece through annotation, notes, or by beginning to compose lines for their own poems. Each meeting we will discuss artifacts (documents, pictures, music, artwork, etc) brought in that speak directly to the week's topic. There will be occasions to take the workshop out of the meeting space and into the rich cultural and historical surroundings, and use the observations as a springboard for creating and writing poems. In addition to making several nods towards writers long ago working in this art form, participants will be introduced to several contemporary multicultural poets who deal in and out of form, who write poems that rhyme or are far from it, but whose focus is to tell a story for tomorrow. We will consider the role of poetry as not only a vehicle of expression, but of impression – how one can allow a piece of creative writing to make a personal (or global) cultural and historical statement.

The purpose of this workshop is to garner a critical and creative lens towards writing and reading poetry, with the hopes that it will push the writer/reader to demand more. The space created by workshop participants and leaders will be one of comfort and safety – no attacks made on an individual person, culture, heritage, orientation will be tolerated.

Structure of the workshop: The first half of the class will be spent in discussion. We will discuss artifacts, poems, history, culture, etc. The second half will be spent workshopping and offering constructive critiques to individual poems brought in. Participants whose poems will be critiqued must be e-mailed to the instructor on _______________, prior to the workshop meeting.

Not a poet?! Not a problem. This workshop is to use poetry as a tool, a way of seeing. It is for all levels of writers – beginners to advanced. Our aim is to build an appreciation for poetry – by both reading and writing poems – while enriching our literary lives together. Some techniques discovered in the workshop will be able to cross over into fiction, non-fiction/personal essays/memoir and playwriting. Come and build with a community.

Participants will receive copies of the selected poems.


Guidelines:
E-mail five pages of poems (or five pages of your own writing if you do not self-identify as a poet) along with a very brief statement (in a single Microsoft Word document) about what you plan to accomplish in the workshop. Include contact info. Deliver to: delanaradameron @ gmail.com

DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 15, 2009 11:59PM


Workshop Leader
A native of Columbia, South Carolina, DéLana R.A. Dameron is the author of How God Ends Us, a collection of poems chosen by Elizabeth Alexander for the 2008 South Carolina Poetry Book Prize (University of South Carolina Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, PoemMemoirStory, 42opus, African American Review, Pembroke Magazine, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review among others. She is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and Soul Mountain, and is a member of the Carolina African American Writer's Collective. A longtime lover of the intersections of history and literature, she holds a B.A. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dameron currently resides in New York City.