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Verse Daily, Again

Congrats to Laura Heidy, whose poem, "To The Greek Girl on Forest Street" is today's poem of the day on Verse Daily. Side Note: this poem originally appeared in the Summer 2005 issue of Pebble Lake Review.

Poetry Super Highway & Ear Update

Good news, first: I've been selected as the Poet of the Week (August 29-Sept. 4) at Poetry Super Highway. How fantastic! These poems will be appearing: "Birth Poem," "Clyde Tombaugh on His Discovery of Pluto," "Variations on a Red Bell Bloom," "Dragonfly," "The Therapist Said to the Patient as She Left," and "Gutenburg at His Desk, Remembering a Dream." Be sure to check it out!

And now (drum roll, please), the not so good news: I had my follow-up with my ENT doctor yesterday and he said that while my ear does look better, there is a 90% chance that I will have to go ahead and have 1 or 2 (!) surgeries. I will have an MRI on my ear/sinus cavities in a few weeks to get a picture of what's really going on, but his suspicion is that there is impacted material (so gross) in the very back of the ear, near the eustation tubes, and it might be near the paper-thin bones by the brain. The first surgery would remove that and the second surgery would reconstruct the missing part of my right ear drum and the disintegrated "hearing bone." I said, "so, I'll have a bionic ear?" and he said, "pretty much." I think a poem or two about this is in order.

PLR in Verse Daily

I am so thankful to Verse Daily for choosing another poem from Pebble Lake Review for their poem of the day. Read Wendy Wisner's poems, "Ocean" and "Origins" here.

88 and VLQ

I got a rejection letter in the mail today from 88. I really enjoy that magazine, but it was difficult for me to determine which poems to send them for some reason. They border on experimental, but not in the way others do. However, I got a letter from Rae Pater over at VLQ today:

Dear Amanda,

Thank you for your interest in VLQ, and your recent submission. I very much enjoyed reading your poetry. They stand out from amongst the many submissions I have read. With your permission, we would like to use the following when we update our issue:

All poems

If you so choose, please send a short bio of yourself to accompany your poetry, and a jpeg photo of yourself if you would like us to publish one with your bio.

Hope to be in touch soon,
Sincerely,
Rae Pater

They accepted: "Once a Body," "Tooth Fairy," "Praying Mantis," "Tea," "Weather Forecast," and "1954."

I'll post whenever they update their online journal. So exciting!

Read and Reply

I got this from Francois. Respond as you will [fill this out & repost on your blog].

1. Who are you? Well, when I called Eddy tonight, he picked up the phone and said, "Hello, Poetess."

2. Are we friends? Define friends.

3. When and how did we meet? We passed each other for years until one day, there you were in your black sweater and pants, cigarette in hand.

4. Do you have a crush on me? No, sorry. I'm married.

5. Would you kiss me? No. See above.

6. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it. Frenchy Black Foot. You're a Frenchman living in Houston, TX, of course. Oh, and see #3.

7. Describe me in one word. Egocentric.

8. What was your first impression? Are you seriously smoking and wearing all black?

9. Do you still think that way about me now? Most of the time.

10. What reminds you of me? Darkness and John Ashberry poems.

11. If you could give me anything what would it be? A haircut.

12. How well do you know me? Not that well, when I think about it.

13. When's the last time you saw me? Probably outside of the UC Satellite last May.

14. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't? Name dropping is not becoming, unless you are an agent in L.A.

15. Are you going to put this on your blog and see what I say about you? Oh! Looks like I just did.

MFA Hunt

I'm applying for MFA program (as soon as I take the GRE). Here's my list:

University of Houston

Antioch

Bennington

Goddard College

Lesley University

New England College

Warren Wilson

I know a few people who have gone to/taught at Warren Wilson, so I know it's a great school. Of course, UH is ranked #2 behind Iowa (that's a sham, because UH is the BEST for poetry). Can anyone tell me about any of the other schools: what you know, pros/cons, etc? Are there other schools you would recommend? The bottom line: I cannot move locations because my husband and I own a house and his job with the FAA will not let him relocate. So, it's either UH or I have to go low-res.

I'm pretty nervous about this whole thing. I'm lining up my ducks and I feel confident about my writing samples and letters of recommendations (from: Nick Flynn, Matthea Harvey, and David St. John). UH is the only one of those schools mentioned that requires a GRE, and it's more a formality. I have good grades and am working on my honor's thesis in poetry. Has anyone out there gone through this process? Words of advice?

Caketrain & Reading

For about a year now, I've followed and admired these hip, slick journals like the Canary, Swink, Jubilat, Fence, Lips, Verse, and the like. I love the experimentation (or most of it) and the risks these writers take. I've also been madly jealous because I've always felt that my own poems were not like these poems and that I wasn't part of the "cool kids" table, or something. Silly, yes. Third grade? Probably. However, I've made a study of this type of writing and combined my own style with an experimental edge and am really excited about my new crop of work.

A while back, I submitted a selection of poems to the hip, slick Caketrain. Today, I got a response from them. That envelope was the last envelope I opened and oh, so worth it. They are publishing 3 of my poems in their forthcoming issue. They took: "The rocket's in the bottle on the cold night street," "Nothing We Do is Discovery," and "The Night Folds In."

My advice: read everything you possibly can. About a week and a half ago, I ran into an old friend, who was sitting on the patio at this bar with two of his female friends, one of whom I had met years before (when I was 22, I'm now 28). I'll call her (like I did back then) Jennifer Hollywood and him Harry Potter (inside joke alert).

So, Harry and Jennifer ask if I am still writing and I say yes, that in fact I have a chapbook of poems coming out in the spring and that I've been running Pebble Lake Review for the past three years.

----"Really?" Jennifer Hollywood asks. "How do you do that?"

----"Do what?" I say.

----"Write stuff. Publish it. I've been writing poems since I was 12 and like, um, I don't know how to send them out." Uh-oh.

I tell her that my advice to her would be to take a writing course or workshop, attend local readings, join a writer's group or similar, pick up a few literary magazines, and READ.

----"Read?" Blink. Blink. "Really?"

----"Um, yeah. Find a poet that you admire and compare what she's doing in her writing to your own. I read as much as I can. I'm always reading something." I explain.

----"I never thought of that. So where do I go find these, what did you call them? Literary magazines?"

Wow. Then, Harry makes a comment about how he doesn't write anymore, but wants to start a literary zine like the one he worked on in junior college (which is now defunct due to funding and school administration complaints). He says that he reads comic books and asks if that counts. I tell the friends I came with that I'm leaving.

So, the moral of the story is to read if you want to be a writer. Comic books, Glamour, Maxim, Field & Stream, what have you, fine for the toilet, the bathtub, the couch with a bag of pork rinds or tofu ice cream, but seriously folks, just buy a book, a journal, and have at it!

Smartish Pace

I just got my contributor's copy of Smartish Pace (issue 12) and I highly recommend that you order a copy or get one from your local bookseller. It's humbling to see my work with such writers as: Denise Duhamel, Bob Hicock, Eric Pankey, and others. There are also several Pebble Lake Review poets included as well: Barry Ballard, John Grey, and Marian K. Shapiro, to name a few. If you haven't read Smartish Pace before, get your hands on this one!

I Can't Hear You

Gross Alert: Over the weekend, my right ear started to bleed a little. I've had ear problems on and off pretty much my entire life, so this was nothing out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, it freaked me out. I mean, when blood is coming out of your ear, it's a cause for concern, no matter how you look at it. On Monday, I went to see an ENT specialist, who cleaned out my ear with a scary suction wand. He then said that I am missing the back half of my right ear drum and that part of my "hearing bone" had disintegrated. Yikes. To add to this, he said that so much was missing, that he could look through an see my facial muscle and that I had a tiny hole in the good part of my ear drum. So gross. He prescribed me ear drops that are a combination of antibiotic/steroid to help build up the skin cells and heal the good part of the ear drum. Next step: hearing tests and a possible MRI. If the medicine doesn't fix this problem, then I may have to have surgery, which is too scary to even contemplate. So, think happy thoughts for me and I need some well-wishing right now! Ack!

Contact Info

Finishing Line Press is putting together publicity contacts for my forthcoming chapbook, Light Under Skin. If you are interested in receiving the press advertisement when my chapbook comes out, please email me your mailing address/contact information as soon as possible. Thanks!

Southeast Writer's Conference

If you are in the Houston area on September 10, I suggest that you sign up for the Southeast Writer's Conference. You can visit the website and register online. I will be speaking on a panel about submitting to literary magazines and the literary magazine industry. This panel discussion will be at 10AM. I will also be conducting a workshop "critique" session for poetry as well as participating in a mini-roundtable discussion later in the day. I hope you can join me for a day of interesting literary discussions and writing fellowship!

4 Degrees

Today I watched Dr. Phil, and I'm not sorry, so there. Mattress Mac's 18 year-old daughter, Liz, was on there talking about her serious OCD condition and how she had been treated here in Houston at the Menninger Clinic.

The interesting thing about that is that my current therapist, Christopher, and my previous therapist, David, both work there (I go to the Baylor Clinic, not Menninger). This is funny because I think that Christopher (or David or both) have at some point worked in the adolescent OCD unit. I told my husband this and he said, "so, you know Oprah?" Joking, of course. I was puzzled until the following came to me:

Me--->Christopher--->Liz---->Dr. Phil---->Oprah

There you have it: there are only 4 degrees of seperation between me and Oprah Winfrey. How many are you seperated by?

I Heart Literary Magazines

A few days ago, I got a rejection slip from The Sow's Ear Poetry Review. I was momentarily downtrodden, but got over it as soon as I filed that yucky slip with the handwritten note away. As any writer knows, a handwritten note on a rejection slip is something to keep (and think about when revision time comes) and outweighs a form letter, but still sucks nonetheless.

Today, however, I got an acceptance letter from Jon Tribble, the managing editor at the Crab Orchard Review, and I'm all smiles. They are publishing one of my poems in the Winter/Spring 2006 issue AND paying me $50 to boot. So, it's now time to update my cover letter and bio. =)

So Busy

I've been VERY busy lately, so I decided to post some photos from my crazy life. Here's a run down:

I went clubbing at Hush with my friend, Jennifer Richardson, my little (not so much anymore) sister, Samantha, and one of my other friends, Eddy (who took the first photo below). So much fun! If you haven't been to Hush, go now! (P. Diddy had his post-Super Bowl party there). Seriously, Hush is one of my new favorite dance clubs.

I had a party at my house, which ended up with more drama than it was probably worth. Hence (what a word), the lack of photos from said fete.

I went to to my high school reunion mixer at Whiskey's All-American Pub in Galveston. It was a lot of fun but so surreal and strange! I was glad to see some of my old friends and have a couple of cocktails. My husband enjoyed meeting Tara's husband Ryan. I think they were seperated at birth. I was a little sad in leaving, probably because I have a serious nostalgia problem. The funny thing was that the guys got, um, a little more rotund these past 10 years. But then again, who hasn't? I talked to a friend of mine from the reunion yesterday and we said that by the next reunion, most of the women will have caught up in the weight dept. and certain ones will have begun to visit their local plastic surgeons for various implants, liposuctions, and Botox shots. You know who you are. . .

My family had a birthday party (the Quad Birthday, below) for my twin sisters, Lisa and Lynne, my sister Lorie's husband Travis and his daughter Suzanne. Did you get that? I have five, yes five, sisters. Try to top that family drama-Lifetime movie of the week. Uh-huh. I knew you couldn't. ;-)

My husband and I celebrated our 3-year wedding anniversary, which was officially yesterday (Tuesday). It was lovely and so much fun. We've been together a total of 4 years now. We had dinner, took a walk down a creepy, under-construction alley, visited a bookstore, play glow in the dark miniature golf (which is so fun, you've got to do it), and other things you're too young to hear.

It's been a strange few weeks of parties, drama, and realization of age. I think I'm going to revise poems tonight and maybe grab a drink with my friend Sarah Gajkowski-Hill at Brasil or somewhere similar.

Before Hush: Jennifer, Me, & Sam 

At the Reunion Mixer. 

Jennifer Rodda 

The Lindsey Boys 

Me & Mom @ the Quad Birthday Party 

Me and Jeff on our 3 year Anniversary. Note the guy and his tongue in the background. Nice. 

Oh, the poetry

My friend Gerald Bourdeau wrote an amazing poem last night that I have got to share. He's a poetry student at the University of Houston (with me). I LOVE this poem and I know you will, too. Leave comments -- he craves them (ok, I do, too).

This May Be Completely Inaccurate


(Bartender anonymous) asks, Another?
Here for a reason, You reply, fill ‘er up.

The shot swarms like wasps down your throat
and you almost forget why you’re in this shit-hole,
where excitement is a passing train through whiskey twilight
announcing $2 shots, but it’s then you remember to forget:

1. Your ( ) is a (Cunt) (Dick).
2. Drunkenness is favorable to (Reality) (Health).
3. An aborted fetus hangs jackets in your closet.
4. The dead are not as silent as their still hearts.

Or years before you came to this loathsome desperation you
were probably crouched in the corner of your room and
(Robert Johnson)(Johnny Cash)(Judas Priest) (The Misfits)
blared from your stereo. Sonic angst complimenting
a barrel between the grind of teeth, you told yourself,

I am no more.

A trigger pulled with God’s (volition) (disregard) (playfulness).

Lets say we have gotten it all wrong and your life
has been (fulfilling) (adventurous) (other). Instead
of piss soiled linens, barbarous nurses, the imaginary
parrot on your shoulder, or uncontrollable bowels,

you prefer the impressionist flicker of candles and
the glint of a straight edge. A Salvador Dali painting
of your death, mountain range tile walls, brooks flow from vein
into a bay were schools of fish swim between your legs
as you drift into the warm red of Indian summer.

New Poem!

Since I am so inspired by other people's lives (God, I am vicarious), I wrote this poem for my friend who burned the shit out of his hand in an oil/grease fire this afternoon:


Second Degree


burns on your right hand, white drape of thumb
skin. When you were a child, your mother stuck
your palm on the stove and said this is what it means
to hurt. You thought of her sitting in front of
television reruns, her frayed pink robe, her
lighter with the flamingo on the side, her ash
tongue. When she bent over you at night,
you smelled ruin in her clothes, thought, death
is only as deep as the body. Now, your kitchen
is soot-stung, blazed from the ceiling, burned
though the spice rack, the lemon print dish towel,
your fingers. You tell me: first, there was the skillet
oil, the bag of potatoes. It’s easy to forget, you mention.
These things happen. When you returned, you saw
the charred walls, the greased counters, how the potatoes
had fattened and burst to nothing in the black air
that singed the end of a photograph—the one where
you might have been happy, once. The one where
your mother held a spatula, an iron, or your good hand.

Comments welcome.

Cheap Sushi Goodness & Fuzzy Feelings

I had dinner with my friend Eddy tonight at Blue Fish. If you haven't eaten there, you have to for all of the cheap sushi goodness. I also met up with the fabulous poet, Lacy Johnson, who is working a) on her PhD in Poetry at the University of Houston b) a book review for Pebble Lake Review and c) reading my honor's thesis. I love her. She's so bad ass, that if she were a cartoon, she'd be She-Ra (remember that?). Anyway, I am meeting her on Friday for a noontime lunch/smoke-athon/poetry talk at Cafe Artiste (another dandy Houston dig).

After dinner, Eddy and I went for tea at Diedrich's. At one point, I asked Eddy a question and he gave a really sweet response, to which I said, "Aww. . .I feel all fuzzy inside." He said, "That's gotta itch." HaHaHaHa!

Ilya Kaminsky

Do you love Ilya Kaminsky? He's another Bucknellian (from a few years ago) and a damn good poet. You should buy his books. It's funny: everytime I tell someone about Dancing in Odessa, they say "Texas?" If you've ever lived in Texas, you know Odessa, Texas is a WASTELAND of desert and Dairy Queens. Ick.

I'm going back to school in about 3 weeks. I want to get last minute reading in, so if you have any suggestions, please leave them here. I just finished The Mother Knot by Kathryn Harrison, who I normally LOVE, but this book sucks and is so boring. It's already been done in The Kiss. She's beating a dead horse.

I am working my way through Marya Horbacher's The Center of Winter, which is excellent and tragic, as almost all good novels are. It's her first novel after her memoir, Wasted (which I also highly recommend).