Thesis Poem

I've written 7 new poems for my thesis work with Claudia Rankine in approximately 12 days. Here's thte latest:

Watch Keeping

That the skies would open and bury her
in whiteness. The ground would find her
bones inside its gravel and rock. The trees,

their limb-roots. God, the strain

of belief. What you want is to hold her,
press her skin back into yours and say
this is how dying is, your breath slipping under

your tongue, through my palm
against your lips. The light luminesces above. Pray
to the sheet you wrap her in, the ribbon of tubes,

the knot of her fist
against her heart. The dawn
blooms with her—

ask the walls to give back her voice,

that the hours would forgive you
for not being able to speak,

for the way you held the phone against your ear
while her body rewound to ash.

Yummy

I got this email from Harpur Palate this morning:

Dear Ms. Auchter,

At the AWP conference this year, we plan on doing an "edible poetry"project to promote our upcoming theme issue. We love your poem "Dark Sky, White Sands, New Mexico, 1956" and want to use it as one of our edible poems, printed on edible paper with edible ink. These edible poems would be distributed at the conference and would give both your work and HarpurPalate more exposure. Your permission would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

Sincerely,

Harpur Palate

Is that the coolest, oddest thing you've heard of? I'm very excited, though. If you know me at all, "edible poetry" is just like something I would do (except my cooking skills are quite lacking). If you are @ AWP, take a nibble on my poem from Harpur Palate.

Impossible List

New England College's application calls for a list of the "ten most influential poetry books you have read in relation to your creative work as a writer." This, obviously, seemed like an impossible task. How did I narrow it down, you ask? Difficulty and patience (and a little though-dredging). Here's who made the cut:

1. Some Ether by Nick Flynn
2. Ariel by Sylvia Plath
3. Ararat by Louise Glück
4. The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forche
5. Cusp by Jennifer Grotz
6. Life Studies by Robert Lowell
7. Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot
8. Sad Little Breathing Machine by Matthea Harvey
9. Deposition by Katie Ford
10. Bright Existence by Brenda Hillman

and who almost made it:

1. Interior with Sudden Joy by Brenda Shaughnessy
2. On Love by Edward Hirsch
3. Marconi's Cottage by Medbh McGuckian

Who would be on your list?

Hard @ Work

Yes, my fellow bloggers, Pebble Lake Review is featured once again on Verse Daily. Congrats to Robert L. Brimm, whose poem, "Hard Times," was selected for today's poem.

If you're interested, we're still reading for the forthcoming Spring 2006 (mid-April) issue. Submission information is available on our website.

My weekend plans: complete my MFA applications (still left: Warren Wilson, Pacific University, Bennington College, and New England College), laundry, thesis work, an extended visit to Kinko's, reading Brenda Hillman, and visiting my sister in the hospital before she leaves for the rehab clinic.

Speaking of my sister, I just realized that I haven't given an update about her since just after the accident. Her recovery has been a miracle in itself. She went from being in a three week-long coma and on full life support to where she is now: walking a few steps unassisted, eating and talking on her own, and partial memory recall. The next step is for her to go to a rehab clinic for an unspecified amount of time. She still has memory problems, particularly with her short-term memory. However, her broken bones are healing nicely and there doesn't appear to be much brain damage (besides the memory and some loss of feeling below her waist and in her right arm).

On a completely different subject, who out there is going to AWP in AUSTIN this year? If you're going, leave comment and let's try to meet up!

Red Hot

Congrats to Keith Montesano, whose poem "Long After the Flames" (Pebble Lake Review, Fall/Winter 05) appears on today's Verse Daily.

New Poems (Finally)

I'm hard at work on my thesis:

Genesis

Before the naming, the burning, the earth’s
wet eye, there was the dark
that held you. Heat earlier than heat,
the badlands of rock and dust.

The first time ash considered flesh,
bone, a woman’s wide
tender lips. Then, the parting,
the dividing, the eventual

loss. How two breaths rose from one
side, one mouth, up through
the tree before the tree, the still-
tamed garden. Call what came

next light, call it illuminate, a split-
open sky, the poured in heaven.
A sparrow song, the sun-glazed leaves.
Leave this. Let the dusk fall

inside your mouth and your eyes
touch every room. Repent
and bend back into the ground
(your stone tongue, gray ash heart).

Sleep, and the body remembers the body.
Not the body, but its wildness,
where a mouth is not a mouth but smaller—
sand grain, starlight, shatter of rock.

Reconciliation, The First

God, you who lost your way
of speaking, slid inside

my folded palms and slept.
I have nothing to confess. Silence,

my body’s sorrow. There is no room
for an admission, to tell you what

you already know (a door’s slam,
a shattered plate, the stolen bar of soap).

I want to believe in penance,
the beads threaded through

my fingers, that thorn-punctured
head. I listen for your waking:

your breath’s stir, your great blue eye.
How death is your only love, as though

pain is all of the memory we share.
The hand raised into a cross,

the forgiveness, the kneeling,
the father’s hard slap.

Another Verse Daily for PLR

Congrats to Mercedes Lawry, whose poem "How Passion Finds Us" (Pebble Lake Review Fall/Winter 2005) appears on today's Verse Daily.

Now Pre-ordering!

My chapbook, Light Under Skin, is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press for $12.

Poems in this chapbook have appeared in Blue Mesa Review, Born Magazine, Cimarron Review, Tampa Review, and elsewhere. Here's what one reviewer has said:

"In Light Under Skin, Amanda Auchter explores combustible landscapes—both internal and external—and brings us to the keen and tenuous boundaries between safety and danger, love and fear, nurture and abandonment, where to misstep could bring disaster. The triumph of this young poet’s work is the sure-footed care with which she insists upon seeing: an unflinching eye, yes, but tempered by a worldly tenderness that I greatly admire. I trust these poems completely, and I celebrate this book’s arrival with pure delight."--Ron Mohring, author of Survivable World and The David Museum

I appreciate your unending support and encouragement. Please support me and small presses like Finishing Line Press by ordering a copy of my (very first) chapbook. Order soon (now, even) to reserve yours before they run out!

Sunspun Birthday

The Spring 2006 issue of Sunspinner is now online. Check out my poem, "Thrift Shop." If you go to the archives (or click here for ease), read Ron Mohring's interview. Good stuff.

Today: boring errands and little-to-do's, reading Katie Ford (yea!), and planning for my birthday dinner this weekend @ Chuy's. My official birthday is the 6th, Monday. I'll be 29. Scary, isn't it? I mentioned to my mom that my 29th is around the corner. It went like this:

Me: "My birthday is only a few days off. Can you believe I'll be 29?"
Her: "Oh, no you won't. Don't exaggerate."
Me: "No, I'll really be 29. I'm serious. 1977. . .2006?"
Her: "Wow. You're really getting old, there, aren't you?"
Me: "Yeah, thanks."