Showing posts with label the god fugitive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the god fugitive. Show all posts

Friday, September 12, 2014

to not add a last line

god fugitive: a bosom friend outfit.  no, not that kind of bosom.


i'm on the downswing after the debut of god fugitive: a bosom friend.  

accomplished nothing yesterday.

today i hope to work on my essay on O, for dialogue's pink issue.  i hope it works out.


i also need to work on a stupid little thing called laundry, teach my online class, and get together an email list to invite people to my reading next friday.


spend some quality time with my children, who have been neglected for the past week.


figure out something fun to do for date night.


last night i did readings for a 9/11 memorial recital.  i feel weird about 9/11 memorial stuff that happens outside of nyc.  the recitalist chose the readings, but asked me to add one to it, so i did.  and that was tough, too.  i was trying to avoid anything that would have weird connotations in the context of the music and video feed that went with the readings.  


turns out everything has weird connotations in that context.  but, score one for poetry!  the recitalist told me that when she sent in the texts to the people making the programs, the whole office stopped to read this poem. 


so haters who hate poetry, take that, and read this.


WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA
They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.


The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them   
above the earth toward the earth.


Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.


There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.


They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.


I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.


Wednesday, September 10, 2014

mellow'd my harsh

anne hutchinson.  foremother.
rough day yesterday.  luckily some cool collaborators helped me mellow my harsh when i had a little melt-down during moby dick puppet opera rehearsal.  i remember now why doing guerilla experimental opera is for the young.


queequeg and ishmael are married.  photo from hannah johnson, aka the coloratura.

tonight, the deseret experimental opera collective (DEXO) is performing part two of the god fugitive, "a bosom friend", my moby dick puppet opera.  

late night rehearsal last night, up early to get kids to school, took a morning nap.

not super productive today except:

1) break-through on essay for this journal that i've been trying to figure out for weeks.

2) reading about anne hutchinson via susan howe.

3) off to practice and get some last minute stuff ready for avant-garawge tonight.  have to come up with an outfit!

xo

CHARGES AGAINST HUTCHINSON:  "the Flewentess of her Tonge and her Willingness to open herselfe and to divulge her opinions and to sowe her seed in us that are but highway side and Strayngers to her"

a bit like kate kelly, right?

Monday, September 8, 2014

flooding

today i'm wearing a nightgown. still. at 1.59 p.m.  friday i wore my two favorite colors (as ingrid says):  leopard and red.

i hear it's flooding in arizona, where my family lives, and where i grew up.

it's also flooding up in provo, utah, where i have more projects on my plate than i can handle this week.

& i will handle them, although.

friday got crazy.  i read and wrote a lot, but had no time to report in:  finished olson's call me ishmael, a worthy, worthy read, and read some other stuff.  lots of psalms.  both kjv and robert alter translations.

most notably, i finished the second installment in the god fugitive, my moby dick puppet opera that everyone seems to think is just a gimmick BUT IT'S SUPER NOT--it's my current spiritual home.

gave the libretto to christian on saturday morning at 11.30 am.  he spent the day and night composing, and stayed up most of last night writing.  we rehearse this afternoon, perform on wednesday night at the avant garawge.

sunday i sang with the raddest musicians i know.  a dream team of people who love creative music and early music just as much as i do.  we sang machaut, hildegard, and asplund.  all thrilling.  it's seriously celestial.  splendid gems in those manuscripts.  and my soul feels like it's back in my body now that i'm doing music again on a more regular basis.

one of the things that struck me hard during the reading phase of my doctoral program was how inseparable musical and poetic practices are for me.  and the question of how they became so opposed to each other is one i haven't really answered, but wish to explore for a long time yet to come.

today i'm writing in my nightgown, still.  just finished my lunch of cheese & tomato sandwich and diet coke.  no more pecan sandies with dark chocolate chips.  i'm trying to wean myself from those, so i made do with a spoonful of nutella for dessert.

began susan howe's the birth-mark, recommended to me by this fine poet, and i'm gobbling it up.  i wrote a stupid poem based on "the candles" chapter of moby dick (i may have already told you that christian's mom, aka bammy, the funniest woman i know, calls it "mobile dick," right?).  i was quite taken with the image of the crew of the pequod frozen during a scary typhoon in which the ship is struck by lightening "in enchanted attitudes" like the skeletons of pompeii--in mid-stride, or jump, or run, or walk.

also, this from my shero susan howe:

"emily dickinson's writing is my strength and shelter.  i have trespassed into the disciplines of american studies and textual criticism through my need to fathom what wildness and absolute freedom is the nature of expresssion. . . . poetry unsettles our scrawled defences; unapprehensible but dear nevertheless."

aaaahhhhh-men.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

accountable to cyberplace


i wore my favorite betsey johnson nightgown for reading time, and my favorite target merona black dress for writing time.  i think a peignor set would be more inspiring, though.  like proust, i work best in bed.  i'm not going to be ashamed of that no more.  no more.
in an effort to be true to my new schedule of uber-productivity, here's today's report.  on wednesday 27 august 2014 i:
  • wrote the poem "oh sweet friends. . . "
  • wrote the poem "she was a thing of trophies. . . "
  • wrote the poem "this world pays dividends. . . ."
  • read part one of charles olson's call me ishmael
  • read chapter 15, "chowder" from moby dick
  • read chapter 16, "the ship" from moby dick
  • read "unconscious came a beauty," "catbird in a redbud," and "gometrid" from may swenson's iconographs
  • wrote this blog post
unfinished on today's list (i still might get there)
  • re-submit to (great!) journal who rejected me last week but said to send them something else
  • spend 45 minutes finalizing edits on lapidary's nosegay

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

back to school

from <the god fugitive: a moby dick puppet opera>


it feels soooo good.

i love the fresh start of (anticipating) september with all its possibilities, and my perennial optimism that THIS will be the year i become the person i really am.  (as in : : : the girl who gets good grades and exercises and is on time and finishes projects and stops watching so many shows on netflix. . . and finishes her moby dick puppet opera and finds a great job. . .  .)

it's much better than new year's because you're all tanned and rested and excited for regularity and schedules and the sublime mundane.

so, fresh start. or as my kids call it, "my new leafishly way." (they have weird made-up grammar and syntax and words.)

here's a long list of things i'd like to do in my writing and creative life.  it surely won't all get done this fall, or maybe ever, but i feel pretty sure that some of it will come to completion by 2015.

1)  finish book edits on poetry collection, <the lapidary's nosegay>.

2) submit <tln> for publication.

3) write monthly installments of moby dick puppet opera.

4) work on moby poems daily.

5) finish screenplay (not gonna talk about this.  no jinxy.)

6) finish poem for a wonderful publication that asked me to write for them a long time ago but i couldn't get it together until now.

7) finish lyrical essay for another wonderful publication that i've never written for before.

8) apply for writer's residency/retreat.

9) start research on t.v. series.

10) practice voice and violin daily.

tomorrow i'll post my short list--what i'd like to do tomorrow, by the end of the week and by the end of the month.

p.s. here's installment one of the god fugitive.