10 hours a week for 2 months we have spent together in Paragraph Gallery. Many moments of tears, laughter, experimentation, and epiphanies. This rehearsal process for, An Inside Job has reaffirmed my gratitude for the community I live in. The performers, artists, and supporters, have made this project what it is.

Our team, Abbe Findley, Katie Ford, Laura Frank, Laura Isaac, Tiffany Sisemore and myself have formed a unified collaborative voice, through which we express our individual talents; music, photography, movement, video and sculpture. Our interpersonal artistic growth glows like a subliminal message through the performance. We hope to inspire our viewers through the reveal of our inside job.

Performance Information:

AN INSIDE JOB

Paragraph Gallery, 23 East 12th Street, KCMO 64105

The Frontier

Friday, May 18th 6:30-8pm

All ages welcome and FREE

For more information visit: www.janegotch.com

Hello, all. Yay! Weekend! Yay! Well, Yay! Almost weekend! Yay! does not have quite the same punch. I’m preparing. I’m preparing. Here we go.

We start with Donna and The Poetry Mixtape where she shares with us Katie Ford’s poem “Colosseum”. As Donna says, here is a successful long poem, one that I read and then reread. Very few long poems hold me for one reading. The exercise is fun and can be done in a shorter poem, so don’t feel overwhelmed by the length of Ford’s. Head over to read the poem and see what Donna suggests we try.

Joseph Harker’s Reveries may have some of you shaking your heads, but I promise you, that if you work your way through and give it a try, the exercise is an important and worthwhile one. Joseph asks us to write a poem, as short as possible, using every sound in the language. The post looks intimidating because of the phonetic marks. Ignore them [the linguists out there may revel] and concentrate on the sounds we are asked to reproduce. If you can only manage a few, that’s fine; you will get the idea of what needs to be considered. By the time you read this, we might be into Reverie #6. Go back and try the phonetics, if you haven’t.

I was hoping that dVerse would have their new Poetics prompt up. Alas. Instead, I am sending you to look at their form for this week, which is French Ballades II, a little less cryptic than last week’s FB I, as a clear step by step is offered. The examples, by Dudley Randall and Dorothy Parker, are wonderful.

This week on Poetic Bloomings Marie Elena and Walt ask us to consider the concept old. To find out what they suggest as possibilities, head over to read the full prompt and our hosts’ responses. While there, check in on this week’s form which is a cento, something many of us love tinkering with.

At The Sunday Whirl, this week’s words come from the poem “Kalashnikov Staccato,” by Matthew Kaler. Visit to see the wordle and to read what others have done. As always, Brenda has picked a fun group of words to work with.

Carry On Tuesday gives us the the first few words of “In the Park,” by John Koethe. To read the line and for a link to read the poem, head over. The line is fun, in the sense that there are several possibilities, to include dividing it at the comma.

Go to Mad Kane’s Humor Blog for her Limerick-off Mondays and a lot more besides. Go for the laugh. It’s healthy. It doesn’t much matter if you don’t want to write a limerick; reading them brightens a day. Fact. I smile as soon as I see the site next on my list.

Over at Jingle Poetry At The Gooseberry Garden the theme for this week is the military, soldiers, veterans, or poetry dealing with physical, mental, and emotional healing. The caretakers of the Garden are taking a three week break and suggest that we post at any time during that period. They will return refreshed, March 1st.

Visit Magpie Tales for our image prompt. They are featuring a grave at the Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow. If you have not seen the image yet, be ready to jot down your immediate reactions/thoughts. I’m keeping myself in check until this post is finished before I see what else I can find from that cemetery.

Poetry Jam provides us with a prompt from Mary, this week. Between the photographs and her words she had me salivating. Think food and drink, or maybe not. You had better visit to find out what.

For you alliterationists out there, ABC Wednesday presents us with a music video to watch and listen to, Ozzy Osbourne’s Dreamer. For the rest of the alliterative intro, head over.

Over at imaginary garden with real toads we have Kerry’s Wednesday Challenge which offers a prompt to do with magical realism. Head over for an explanation and for some interesting illustrations, each of which can be a prompt. I need to go off and study some more to see where this and surrealism bleed into each other.

The three words this week for Three Word Wednesday are control, flesh, and razor. Remember that it’s all about the three words working together. You might try writing down the first thoughts that come into your head as you read these words [creepy are they?], before you go on to visit the site for their definitions. They have a particularly good source and I often get ideas from the definitions rather than the given words. Reading the definitions allows me to see possibilities and connections.

We Write Poems asks us to look at our hands, more specifically, Hands are a place where fingers take bloom. That’s such a lovely image. Visit to read the rest of the prompt. You might, during one day, list every thing you do requiring fingers. Uh huh. I think the only reason we sleep is so fingers can.

At Poets United, we have no Thursday Think Tank this week. Instead I shall link you to their night owl prompt, as you can post anytime during the week. The Midnight Snack is a photograph. There’s something about it… Visit and see.

Over at Patricia K. Lichen, Author her Weekend Haiku & Limericks has the usual three options. Despite needing to get this post written and out, I always find myself checking the links for the three options. It might be fun to connect the three in a poem. This week’s seem to go together particularly well. The photograph of the flower, as always, is stunning.

That should keep you busy and writing. If you think anyone else would enjoy these, click on the buttons below. If you have questions, ask. If you write in response to any of these, the people whose blogs you visit would love to read your responses. So, post!

Remember: if you have a topic you want me to discuss, tell me. I’ll take on just about anything and if it’s beyond me, I’ll find sources. What niggles? What have you wanted to ask, or know? If you have an announcement you want posted, send it along for Your Serendipity at Thursday Thoughts.

See you Tuesday for a prompt [not mysterious; undecided at this moment]; next Thursday for announcements; and Friday for the next roundup of prompts.

Happy writing, everyone.

You can see them in the photos to the right.

The aluminum frames for the original doors were inside the trailer when I got it. Unfortunately, through some miscommunication, a helper that my handyman had hired to help him did not know that the frames were original, unique, and valuable, and he discarded them, thinking they were junk, before we got around to working on that particular problem. Just trying to help, you know.

I felt sad about the loss, but what could I do? Forgive, because he really didn’t know any better, and move on. Ian let him know it was a mistake to assume he could discard anything, and he was properly abashed and worked really hard after that.

I’ve been using the back door to get in and out this whole time, since late June.

This past week, Ian found a pair of wide sliding glass doors at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store. They seemed to be a little bit too wide for the door frame in my trailer, which is riveted into the metal frame and shell and can’t be adjusted without huge expensive work being done.

He asked me if I wanted to take a risk for $60 that he could make the doors work. Heck yeah! If they didn’t work, we would have learned something, and I could redonate them as a charitable deduction.

Between measuring and re-measuring, consulting with the pros at Binswanger Glass (who could have cut the frame but not the safety glass), and trips to The Home Depot for the right kind of rollers, Ian got the doors in. They fit almost perfectly and are completely functional!

The latch is in the right place. There’s a little bit of overlap (half an inch) where the doors meet in the center, and with weatherstripping, it’s good enough. I can live with that. The only problem remaining is figuring out what needs to happen so that the doors can be locked and unlocked from the outside.

To have new custom doors made and installed would have cost about $2,000. This solution cost under $350, with most of that being labor. Ian is now a magician in my book who can do just about anything!

The photo shows the mixed border I planted with purslane and greens, the pots of aloe and basil, the solar lights, and the stand of ligustrum that was here when I moved in and seems planted catty-wampus to me. They aren’t native, so I didn’t water them during the worst of the drought, and one is dying. I’d like to eventually do some more pleasing landscaping with native plants out front.

So now about half of my living room walls is windows. I’m still working on getting window coverings. I have a call into Budget Blinds — big thanks to Katie Ford for that referral.

And an entry deck will be built soon!

So, progress. Yay!

Thanks for playing guys – I hope you send in more!!!

My room is a complete disaster (worse than usual I mean).  I’m trying to unpack everything from school and then repack it for Moscow.  It is a long, confusing process, so checklists help.  I have a hard time packing for a little one-week vacation, so just imagine my daunting task of packing 10 weeks’ worth of things in, let’s say, one suitcase and one carry-on.  Talk about pressure!  The weather in Athens right now is around 70 degrees; in Moscow it is around 30 degrees with rain and snow expected all week.  And by the time we leave Moscow in June it will be in the upper 60s.  So I have to pack for totally opposite temperatures.  Not only that, but I worry that my clothes will scream AMERICAN.  But I’ve toned down the pink and bought more black.  It’s all a big headache.

I am also paranoid that I will forget something I need that I won’t be able to find in Russia, so I’ve been writing down everything I need and sorting my stuff into piles in my room the keep some kind of organization. On top of that, I have to keep in mind size/weight limits for traveling, in addition to the space I will need to return to the US with souvenirs for friends and family.  My brain’s going to explode by Monday.

It sounds cliché, but there are no words to describe the feelings I have about this trip.  But I will do my best.  Of course I feel excited, because this is an opportunity I’ve worked hard for, and I’m ready to experience something else besides the usual college student life of schoolwork, cornhole, and Court Street.  I feel nervous, because I know nothing of my host family besides their names, address, and lack of pets.  I hope they like me, and that I like them.  I bought them gifts, as is customary, so at least I’m on the right track!  I feel sad, because I’ll be missing my OU friends, and especially my family.  I think it is inevitable that I will be homesick at least once.  But the wonders of technology will see me through I’m sure.  Lastly, I’m feeling extreme curiosity, which is one of the reasons why I’m going in the first place. I’m curious about everything from their dining to their metro.  So many questions, and 10 weeks to discover the answers.

I need to keep packing.  Moscow awaits!

Visit Katie’s full-length blog covering her experiences at http://katiefordou.wordpress.com/



*

In the book on the ancient mayfly
which lives only four hundred minutes
and is, for this reason, called ephemeral,
I couldn’t understand why the veins laid across
the transparent sheets of wings, impossibly
fragile, weren’t blown through in their half-day
of flight. Or how that design has carried the species
through antiquity with collapsing
horses, hailstorms and diffracted confusions of light.

*

If I remember correctly what’s missing
broke off all at once, not into streets
but into rows portioned off for shade as it
fell here, the sun there
where the poled awning ended. Didn’t the heat
and dust funnel down
to the condemned as they fought
until the animal took them completely? Didn’t at least one stand
perfectly still?

*

I said to myself: Beyond my husband there are strange trees
growing on one of the seven hills.
They look like intricately tended bonsais, but
enormous and with unreachable hollows.
He takes photographs for our black folios,
thin India paper separating one from another.
There is no scientific evidence of consciousness
lasting outside the body. I think when I die
it will be completely.

*

But it didn’t break off all at once.
It turns out there is a fault line under Rome
that shook the theater walls
slight quake by quake. After the empire fell
the arena was left untended
and exotic plants spread a massive overgrowth,
their seeds brought from Asia and Africa, sewn accidentally
in the waste of the beasts.
Like our emptying, then aching questions,
the vessel filled with unrecognizable faunas.

*

How great is the darkness in which we grope,
William James said, not speaking of the earth, but the mind
split into its caves and plinth from which to watch
its one great fight.

And then, when it is over,
when those who populate your life return
to their curtained rooms and lie down without you,
you are alone, you
are quarry.

*

When the mayflies emerge it is in great numbers
from lakes where they have lived in nymphal skins
through many molts. At the last
a downy skin is shed and what proofed them
is gone. Above water there is
nothing for them to feed on—

they don’t even look, except for each other.

They form hurried swarms in that starving, sudden hour
and mate fully. When it is finished it is said
the expiring flies gather beneath boatlights
or lampposts and die under them minutely,
drifting down in a flock called snowfall.

*

Nothing wants to break, but this wanted to break,
built for slaughter, open arches to climb through,
lines of glassless squares above, elaborate
pulleys raising the animals on platforms
out of the passaged darkness.

When one is the site of so much pain, one must pray
to be abandoned. When abandonment is
that much more—beauty and terror
before every witness and suddenly
you are not there.

By Sasha Dugdale
Poetry Media Service

Katie Ford’s new book, Colosseum, takes its title from a startling meditation on the Colosseum in Rome. “Built for slaughter,” the building saw gladiatorial combat, execution, and wild beasts tearing each other apart, and when the Roman Empire fell and the arena was left untended, exotic plants spread over the abandoned ground, sowed from seeds in the waste of the beasts. Caught at some oblique angle within the poem, another set of reflections concern the mayfly, whose 400 minutes of life and physical slightness are set against its survival “through antiquity with collapsing / horses, hailstorms and diffracted confusions of light.” The tiny mayfly and the massive tiered structure of the Colosseum are both cycles of destruction and renewal, turning slow and small, like the wheels of God:

When it is finished it is said
the expiring flies gather beneath boatlights
or lampposts and die under them minutely,
drifting down in a flock called snowfall.

Against the backdrop of constant mortality comes the real tragedy, spiritual desolation, which numbs the voice and renders it hoarse and hollow, the speaker clutching at the straws of objectivity and remoteness: “If I remember correctly,” “I said to myself.” The site of suffering is no longer the arena without, but the injured soul within: “When one is the site of so much pain, one must pray / to be abandoned.”

Ford’s collection has at its heart the more recent tragedy of New Orleans, blasted by Hurricane Katrina and then flooded. It is in three parts, the first dealing with the storm, the second with flight and return, and the third with grief. My apportioning seems rather crass: Colosseum is characterized by lyricism and fluidity, and its narrative rises out of a tangled confusion of events and objects. Much in the manner of a disaster, we are never entirely sure of sequence; we live through dark days and random happenings that must be pieced together intuitively, for they hardly belong together logically. Tragedy wipes out all linear notions: time, history, inheritance. One disaster merges into another, one victim into another. In a remarkable prose poem, “Division,” flight from New Orleans is within a landscape of constant geological movement: creasing, dividing. Catherine of Siena lived in hills like this, muses the lyrical voice, scouring her throat raw with twigs, so the communion she so desired would be felt:

She scalded herself at the baths, ran away to a cave, shoved twigs into her mouth so that when the host traveled down her raw throat she would indeed feel something, even a god breaking inside her.

Colosseum is a study of the psychology of survival. We are left in no doubt. This matter goes to the heart of the human condition, our condition:

We love the stories of flood and the few
told to prepare in advance by their god.
In that story, the saved are
always us, meaning:
whoever holds the book.
—“Ark”

At its most immediate, this is simply the attempt to grasp the cup of grief which runneth over: the woman who uses the wind to open her wrists; the desire to be an unthinking vessel with no heart to be torn into “strips of weed” (“Vessel”). But then there are the seismic shifts in our understanding that happen slowly, over time. There is nothing of permanence. People are lonely in their suffering. In the sonnet “Injury,” which opens with the plastic curtains around hospital beds, the injury is the transparency of those same curtains: “the thought we could not be harmed” has been felled and the convention of the sonnet is nothing more than a terrible empty irony.

Tragedy and devastation are hard things to write about in poetry, which doesn’t of course mean that they shouldn’t be attempted. There are terrible risks: voyeurism, sensationalism, the simple overbearing fact of the event. On the other hand, they are the stuff of poetry: Homer, Shakespeare, the poets of World War I in Britain, Mandelstam, Celan—all have provided a poetry that stands at some oblique angle to the suffering. Do you need to witness or partake of suffering to write about it? I think perhaps you do, if only to find the correct oblique angle from which to write. Katie Ford’s is a finely wrought lyrical beauty, a poetry of detail and care, but she has set it within an epic arc—the small wheel of individual life revolves within the larger human epic. And though we know that she has felt everything on her own pulse, still nothing is personal—the poems rise up through the clutter of the receding floods to become observations on the universality of suffering.

Excerpted from “Devastation and Digression,” originally published in the February 2009 issue of Poetry magazine and available at www.poetryfoundation.org. Sasha Dugdale is a poet and translator. She recently translated Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard for BBC Radio. Distributed by the Poetry Foundation.

© 2009 by Sasha Dugdale. All rights reserved.

Charlene "Chat" Almarvez wins the Super Model of the Philippines 2009!!!

NOTE: CHAT WENT ON TO WIN 1ST RUNNER-UP IN THE SUPERMODEL OF THE WORLD CONTEST IN BRAZIL! CLICK HERE TO READ THE STORY…

Congratulations and warm warm hugs to Charlene “CHAT” Louise Alagon Almarvez, the female skyscraper who won the right to represent the Philippines in the Super Model of the World competition which takes place in the US Brazil this January. (If anyone can tell me what her last name is, please drop me a note in the comment section!) (Thanks to Aina and Karl for Chat’s complete name!) Although I prefer the build-up of excitement in traditional beauty pageants, I enjoyed the laid-back presentation of haute couture and the heart-felt speeches given by the organizers Joey Espino of Runway Productions’ and Katie Ford of Ford Models.

Mykiru has more info on Chat Almarvez and the Super Model contestants here…

Joey Espino, who started his career as a talent scout and choreographer, talked about how his dream came true – making it BIG in the fashion industry. If I wasn’t mistaken, Joey got a bit teary-eyed at one point of his speech but was able to keep his emotions in check. I remember working with Joey Espino in several fashion shows – he was (and still is) small but terrible!!! All the models, even the senior ones would do their best NOT to get his knickers in a twist or else they’d never hear the end of it.  But we ALL loved him because behind that tough veneer was a soft heart.

Joey, together with his brother Audie Espino are the moving forces behind Philippine Fashion Week and the Super Model Philippines franchise.

Katie Ford, whose parents founded the famous Ford Models, shared her passion too – the fight against Human Trafficking, also known as SLAVERY.  The Philippines, she said, was the third largest “supplier” of migrant workers and therefore is vulnerable to such abuse. Katie Ford also talked in great length about Visayan Forum, a group that helps people who have suffered in the hands of unscrupulous “employers”. This is an issue that is also close to my heart; I treat my house-helpers like family and have even rescued a few girls from bad situations.

Congratulations to Katie Ford and Joey and Audie Espino and the team behind Runway Productions for a VERY successful Super Model of the World Philippines 2009 presentation at the SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia on October 23, 2009!!!

Check out OPMB for photos of the contestants

Here are photos of the presentation, I hope you enjoy them!

The 10 Finalists - Super Model of the World Philippines 2009

Charlene "Chat" Almarvez, Super Model of the World Philippines 2009

Top 3 Finalists, Super Model of the World Philippines 2009

L-R: Joey Espina, Chat Almarvez, Katie Ford and Audie Espina

Chat Almarvez seems dazed after winning Super Model of the World Philippines 2009!

L-R: Joyce Burton Titular (me), Katie Ford, Mrs. Espino (Mom of Joey and Audie) and Joey Espino

http://www.burnmagazine.org/

ERIC ESPINOSA: In a way, Alex has been true to his vision all these years and I am a huge fan but maybe he would have preferred to take his vision into more different directions?

ALEX WEBB: The questions you raise about repetition and reinvention are complicated and difficult for any photographer or artist who has been working for some time.  When does an obsession become stale?  When is one repeating oneself without expanding one’s vision?  In the early stages of one’s work, the changes are often more striking, more evident.  As one works deeper into an obsession, as one hones one’s vision and one’s craft,  the variations are often subtler. For me, some of the questions I’m grappling with are:  Are my variations on my obsessions deepening and expanding my work? Or have I exhausted the tension, the vitality, and the power of these obsessions, so that the work no longer sings?

I sometimes look at other photographers and artists to see how they have grappled with this question.   I think of photographers like Bruce Davidson, or Josef Koudelka, who have changed cameras and sometimes formats for different projects, clearly demarcating divisions between their bodies of work.  Lee Friedlander, on the other hand,  for years (until recently) never changed formats, but his projects seemed fairly unique, though clearly it was the same remarkable eye that created all the images.  And  Cartier-Bresson never changed his approach significantly for all those many years of working (though I do think there is a  difference between the early, more formal and surrealist work  — Italy, Spain, Mexico — and some of the the later work — India, China — which often seems to strike a more worldly, more socio-political note.)  As I was originally a literature major, I also often think of writers and how they have dealt with obsessions.  I sometimes feel with some of my favorite novelists that they have simply written the same book many times over.  It’s only the superstructure that changes: the essential themes, the essential elements remain fairly consistent throughout.  I also often wonder if we as photographers or artists have more than one or two serious obsessions in our life.   Maybe it’s okay to have just one — if indeed it’s rich enough, complex enough, and expansive enough.  In my case, I discovered a certain way of working in color in certain kinds of places and have expanded on that obsession for 30 some years.  Is that enough???  Or does it simply reflect my limitations?  Or are my limitations perhaps ultimately also my strength?I don’t know.  So, these questions that you bring up are ones that bedevil me — especially now, after nearly 40 years of photography.

Though I think you are right that there are certain themes, motifs, tendencies that run throughout my color work, and that some of the notes — especially visual notes — struck in, say, Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds or Under A Grudging Sun, are also struck in my Cuba work, I think that there are emotional notes that I  more consistently strike in Violet Isle that are distinct.  It’s the same photographer, the same eye, but it’s a different place and it’s a different time in life.  In my early work, I think I had a much greater need to directly confront the otherness of the world, to explore that tension, and, as in Under A Grudging Sun, to experience and photograph the violence of the world, specifically Haiti.  The Cuba work is subtler, at times perhaps more lyrical, though often tinged with melancholy (a little bit like my Istanbul work).    Yes, there are photographs in Violet Isle that could have been taken by the Alex Webb of 1986, but the Alex Webb of 1986 could not have produced the totality of this particular body of Cuba work.

Along the same lines, one of the things that appealed to me about the notion of doing a book with Rebecca was that it would be something new, a different kind of book.   I have produced books on Haiti, the Amazon, Florida, the US-Mexico Border — did I just want to do another on Cuba?   I found it very exciting to collaborate with Rebecca, to experiment, to try something different and new.   Furthermore, there have been quite a few very good photography books about Cuba.  Both of us liked the idea of producing this “duet” — a form that inevitably makes Violet Isle a unique kind of book on Cuba.

Ultimately, I don’t have any answers right now about the issues of artistic repetition and reinvention.  After all, a certain level of repetition is not problematic; in fact, the very nature of obsession implies a certain level of repetition.  Certain art forms — most notedly poetry and music — rely heavily on repetition (an obsession is “…a refrain, after all, playing itself again and again in the mind.” –– the poet, Katie Ford.)  I’m not sure what’s next for my work.  Usually I am working on several projects simultaneously, but not so right now (though I have some ideas.)  So we’ll see. I don’t think you’ll see me on the corner with an 8×10 camera anytime soon. But you never know…

The softball team garnered some awards as well with Katie Ford and Brittany Hess earning NJCAA Divison II All-American. Christi Clevenger along with Hess earned NJCA All-American.

Been super busy the past few months and really haven’t had time to update the blog at all. We’re happy that the new issue of GivingCity is now complete (at last!), and we can move on to the next one – and get that one done on time! Please take a look and give me your feedback. Also, please please please send the link to as many people as you can!

Inside this issue:
The New Philanthropists
Here are some of the young, active, and engaged people making a difference in Austin now.
Are There Too Many Nonprofits in Austin?
And if so, what’s the solution? Four experts weigh in.
Unscripted Collaboration
The We Are One video proves nonprofits can – and do – work together.
PLUS
Tom Spencer on Austin’s philanthropic culture.
An all-girls football game for charity.
What you don’t know about Goodwill.
The “social entrepreneur” poster child.
What’s so cool about Leadership Austin?
Teaching philanthropy in schools.
New Austin-born films about giving.
Mando Rayo’s argument for social media.
Katie Ford’s encounter with the convicted.
DJ Stout’s SIGNS for change.
…and photos from the fundraising event, Austin Under 40.

Pitchers Katie Ford, Jamin Landreth and Lacey Dixon kept the Larks offense at bay, allowing only two runs in the doubleheader.

Offensively, the Lady Cavs scored 16 runs in the first game, and 14 in the second in 16-0 and 14-2 wins.

The top three hitters in the Lady Cavs lineup, Lindsey Tuter, Christi Clevenger and Taylor Nelson reached base a combined 18 times over the two games and plated 16 runs.

Of note, Jordan Gadbois hit a three run shot, in the bottom of the second inning in game one, part of a 10 run, seven hit inning that send 13 batters to the plate. Also, Clevenger, hit a grand slam in the fourth inning of the same game.

Other home runs on the day were struck by Brittany Hess (solo shot in the fourth of game one, solo shot in the fourth of game two), and Nelson (second inning of game two).

Hesston briefly held the lead in game two, after a lead off single by Elice Frey, a sacrifice to second by Megan Schrock, and a two run home run by Kristin Nussbaum, but the joy of the Larks was short lived as the Lady Cavaliers struck back with a 10 run, 10 hit bottom of the first inning off of Jayme Hays.

With the sweep the Lady Cavs advance to the next round in Wichita to face the winner of the Labette/Dodge City series on Saturday, May 2. Game time is yet to be determined.

***

experiencela.com

I am afraid I might find the entire stone church beneath this hill. Altar, crypt, bodies/curled like leaves in ash. I am scared I will find it all and still it will not move me.

Katie Ford: Beautiful lyrical poet whose words resonate like music. In an interview with SFStation.com, Ford said she believes “music is the great need of a poet,” and her sentiment is absolutely echoed in her own work. She lived in pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans, so her poetry often reflects the misery of that event. In the way the post-war poets could not avoid being influenced by what they had seen, Ford’s poetry often has feelings and bits of images from Katrina in it even when the disaster isn’t the central subject of the poem. Flesh, the first poem in the Legitimate Dangers anthology, is my favorite of hers out of everything I’ve read so far.

***

poetryfoundation.org

If you rub two glances together, you get/a smile; rub two smiles, you get/a spark; rub two sparks together and you have a kiss.

Jeffrey McDaniel: I haven’t been reading Jeffrey McDaniel so much as I’ve been listening to him. I first read his poetry in the anthology, but it only really came to life for me after hearing him perform it. I love the concepts of his poems; he starts with a basic question, like Do we talk too much? or What is a kiss?, and then goes off in incredible directions. In The Quiet World, for instance, each person is allotted by the government only a certain number of words per day. Pretty interesting, no? Wonder how I’d use mine. How would you use yours? Oh, and also, he’s pretty funny sometimes. I’m having trouble finding a video of him on YouTube, but when I do, I’ll post it here. (Ah, now I’m tempted to write an entry on slam poets. Maybe I’ll save that for tomorrow.)

***

esquire.com

…I have to force myself to love the ones I am supposed to love, and then I have to force myself on the ones I am not supposed to love.

Diane Williams: Now here’s a strange one. I read a (very) short story of hers and, while I’m not even sure if I like it, I can’t get it out of my head. It’s called All American and its in The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. Its narrated by a woman who is thinking about affairs, moves on to talking about her brother for a bit, and then remembers a time when she used force to try to basically rape her sister. Disturbing, yet completely engrossing. I’m frustrated. The story is so short, it can’t give me any more than a quick glimpse into this character that I’m desperate to learn more about. Perhaps that’s the point of the story: it continues on in my head. Bravo, Diane Williams, for writing the tiniest little story that captured my attention for more time than most of the longer ones. I’ll be looking up much more from you.

I waited for a silence with its boards stripped off,
its sills pried away, all glasswork, all September light
with no latch. And when it came,

sometimes it was easy to think of nothing at all, have no question
at all, to sit and stare at the cracked, orange house next door
where the rodents scurried in and out, storing

green bulbs dropped from our trees—olive nuts, our choked-back eyes—
for the mild southern winter in which nothing dies,
only goes a way a while.

I wanted the far away. I wanted not to feel
caught. Look at the myrtle tree pulling up the yard.
Look at the belief I can’t live by, how it didn’t follow
but was here before me like the fields of tall, planted cane

where anything can be hidden. I think this is
what we get when we ask to be saved:
a land where everything grows, and there are many killings.

Earth 

Wild horses folded into their last night.
One burrowed against the dead’s descending heat
as three cantered from the threadbare wood.

You must leave everything lit
by city light and Damascus light, anything fueled
except by your eyes on these animal bodies.

Species by species, light by light.

As for the tarpan it shall be for you.
A reckoning so slow you aren’t even frightened.

Katie Ford,   The Paris Review