Amanda Auchter: November 2005

Day After Thanksgiving

Our Day Before Thanksgiving Party was a great success! I'm really glad that Jeff and I were able to get together with our friends and kick off the holiday season. On the menu: a 21lb. turkey, green bean cassarole, candied yams, stuffing, cornbread souffle, and several pies and treats. Here are a few photos from the party. The second picture is of the Pebble Lake Review staffers. The rest are available on my flickr.

The family Thanksgiving was a typical family Thanksgiving. This year it was held at my sister Lisa's new house (directly across the street from my parents house in a very Everybody Loves Raymond kind of way). We had dinner outside and I learned that my sister Lesley is planning to write a romance novella and my 13 year-old niece wears tie-dye pants. My comment of the evening was "Hmmm. . .well, I don't know what to say about that." Love the fam.

I am taking the GRE practice test on Monday and have almost everything ready to go for my MFA apps. I have some notes on some new poems and am thankful for the endless stretch of time that I will have a few weeks from now.

Quick News

Jeff and I are in the midst of preparing our house and dinner for 15-16 of our friends for our annual Friends Only Day Before Thanksgiving Feast. I just stopped to take a quick break, which means checking my email. I got a letter from DIAGRAM and they will soon publish one of my poems! This is my second poem with them (the first was "Water Jealousy").

I also just received news of an acceptance for my poem "Elegy with Photograph in Hand" (which I wrote at the Bucknell Seminar) from Center. Center is a great journal. What drew me to it is that it is edited by Brian Barker, who recently won the Tupelo Book Prize for his first collection, The Animal Gospels. He was my very first creative writing instructor at UH (when he was a PhD candidate in poetry).

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Shopping for a Car

As I mentioned earlier, my husband's car is pretty much beyond repair. We went to two dealerships yesterday and finally chose a car that was suitable: a 2003 Dodge Neon. Older model Neons have not-so-good reputations (the ones manufactured before 2000), but this model is highly ranked in its class for reliability and fuel efficiency. It's a 5-speed with black interior and has a nice sound system and a CD player. There's also a spoiler on the back. And yes, it's yellow (with a black pinstripe down the side), so I'm calling it the Bee. Still, it's a giant improvement on his 1996 Chevy Cavalier, and my 2003 VW Jetta seems to like this new edition to our family.

Troubles

Troubles do come in threes: my brake lights went completely out yesterday (the cuplrit was the break switch), which cost me $215 to repair (OK, that included an inspection), my husband's car is on its last, um, legs (tires? wheels?) and something else which I can't mention for fear of additional disaster, but let's just say it's been a hellish week. I got a rejection letter from CROWD today, which sucks, because I really like that magazine.

Today I plan to read a book for review, another book (The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath) for a course I'm taking, and get some housework done. I have my annual Day-Before Thanksgiving Friends Only Dinner this coming week and feel completely unprepared. We still need to fix our stove.

Thanks so much to the mystery person who purchased a sweater for me from my list. So nice! I'm making all of my poetry friends a special gift for Christmas. I love giving gifts. I love wrapping gifts. See some great wrapping paper here.

I'm Supposed to Be Doing Other Things

but couldn't help but write this:

Flagellum Apologia

Assume flagella: the apology of simplicity, one-
celled. No room for a true eye, a mouth, a foot.
Brine water and tide dregs part overhead, under, even.

Skirt the stubble of rocks, coral, a rudder. God,
the awful motor. Lonely, the way you find yourself
inside everything: reddened throats, eyelids,

the shark’s slick stomach. Let’s imagine how
the body feels without you, how the earth would
clean itself. You’re the barnacle cluster, the glow

on the ghost ship, the moon’s white-shore pull.
The sudden thunderbreak, the long goodnight.
Jealous of the human, the ring-tipped fish.

Your homefront: up through the cilia, back again
to micro. You are the model of bending, how
you look at darkness and wish for light.

How solitude is the only love you last out—
your crossed bridges and clear skeletals,
your basal body, or your single devoted self.

1-1 for last week

Rejection from Black Warrior Review and acceptance from Sunspinner ("Thrift Shop"). If you haven't heard of them, please do check them out. They're a great journal and they feature really talented writing. Be sure to read the interview with Ron Mohring while you're at it.

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Saw the movie "Capote" last night with my husband. It is amazing! I've always been a big fan of Truman Capote's work, and if you are to, go see this movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman does an excellent job portraying Capote. The movie centers around Capote's writing of his highly acclaimed nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood. See it. Let me know what you think.

After a Little Research

I wrote this poem. Are you familiar with the horrible tale of Bluebeard?

Bluebeard’s Last Bride

Having come to the closet door, she considered
what unhappiness might attend her.

—from Folktales

I touch the hourglass fitting and the brass doorknob.
This is the not-room, the room we never speak of

over dinner, the one he calls to in his sleep: forgive.
I unlock it. Each sound is a footfall, a voice, his

breath at my neck. This is the room of women: bodies,
hands, lips sewn shut. Here are their wedding veils,

white dresses, slips. Here, this little closet of death.
Even the gray weather announces it: this key

in my hand calls back the dead. How alone
each wanders, how out of tune. Their hips

sing to each other’s: blood lily, o child unborn.
Women locked in their barrens—never a chance

for the split egg, the growing heart. Sorrow:
a purpled throat, a mouth full of locks. Their flat

red bodies open to nothing. Even that word: not a thing.
The black butterfly in the webs, the windowless brick.

Checking It Twice

What do you want for Christmas? Books? CDs? A new microwave? A dog in a sweater-vest (please say no)? A PEZ collection?

Here's my list.

The Photos Speak for Themselves

The Pimp & Ho Halloween Party was so much fun! The costumes were amazing, particularly Brett and Mark who came as hoes. The winners of the costume contest were: Brooke (best pimp) and Brett (best ho). And now. . .the photos!