Finally

the interview! And (how is this possible, it's only been up for an hour or two at most?) it's already mentioned on Poetry Daily.

Teaching poetry

I just, in complete seriousness, wrote on a student's work "I think she needs to forge more of a connection with the acorn."

New school

Somehow it comforts me to know that Alex Doonsebury is worried too.

Closing Time

Well, the sloth got cut, but most of the intro survived, so I'm relieved and excited. It will be going up on the web next week. Hooray for the new media.

I just officially gave notice that I'll be moving out of my apartment on September 1st. (Absurdly, I'll have to pay for 1 day of September rent--$16.37.) It's a little nervewracking not to know where I'm moving, but it won't be good ol' Verano Place anymore. I'm reminded of that song lyric, "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

Apocryphal Giant Sloth

I spent all day today writing the intro for an interview I conducted in a state of extreme grogginess the day after prom night.

Actually, the subject didn't like speaking off the cuff, so we redid the whole thing by email a few days later. Thankfully. I think it came out pretty well, actually. But I'm nervous about the intro. I'm afraid it will be deemed something that won't do at all, and then I'll be sad because I've grown fond of it in the hours we spent together. My favorite part (maybe): the poems approach their characters with "humor, fellow-feeling, and a rueful appreciation of the predicament of being a strange creature in a world of strangeness, whether as a human being or as an apocryphal giant sloth (“Fear not, dark familiar,” the poem consoles this Bigfoot of the Amazon: “you’re still the man”)."

This is the book:

Yak Yak

Today Emily and I rented sea kayaks and paddled around Newport Harbor. It was awesome. Then we ate a fish called Oprah.

An Abstract of My Thesis

It’s the Void, Stupid

After all, I’m not obsessed with drowning in a pool;
my biggest fear is someone will deem my swimsuit inappropriate.

The ocean is a factor, but mostly it’s really deep ponds.
You have to experience this: you dive down

and you realize, it goes down and down and down.
It’s all the same down there, and it wants

in the scariest way, which is nothing like the way a person wants,
to keep your body. And the fucked-up and terrifying thing

is that it is right. It will get your body.
The bottom of the pond is more real than the shore.

Just ask any fucking Stegosaurus you might meet.
And that, friends, is what it is to be a poet.

Heigh ho, nobody home

I really appreciate that the 4th of July is a stress-free holiday. You do something, you don't do something, who cares? It's the sweet doppelganger of melancholy New Year's, and marks the nice rut the year slides into in summer. It's comfortable because it's all commemorative--we tip our hats to the founders, but nothing really happens to us. Even with a war going on for "freedom," the holiday feels more about pleasure than contemplation. New Year's actually does something--the year changes, the old year slips away forever, new chances emerge. The fireworks go off, and we stand outside in the freezing cold, in order to ease a difficult passage. On the 4th, we get the fireworks for free, not to mention the beer and hot dogs.

Happy 4th of July, everyone.