THAT ROOFTOP VOICE

Open Circle Support

2012-02-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

Reminder: I facilitate a monthly chronic illness/chronic pain support group in Findlay at Open Circle Yoga & Wellness Center. Our next meeting is a week from today, Feb. 19, 2-3:30pm, and our guest speaker is Sheila Skipworth, who specializes in meditation. Check our her website at www.spatialtherapy.com. If you have any questions about the support group, please email me at htrahan@bgsu.edu. Thanks!

A Much-Belated Review of Elegy

2012-02-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

I do not know what it is about the film Elegy. I think I have seen it about ten times now. Is it that it was based upon The Dying Animal, by Philip Roth, a book which I also so love? Is it the fact that Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz are so luminous?—that they do not act but are the parts? Is it the general air, the general mood of the piece—the mist, the rain, the piercing dark clarity that can cast new depth upon even the raw-est and rarest of shadows? Is it that I identify with both the professor’s character and the earnest younger lover? Is it that the film always brings new light to what I have recently read?...having come from a frenzy with the philosopher Eckhart Tolle, I now re-see the film’s discussion of old age (of retreating from the variety and rush of form, of moving away from outward expansion and dominance) from a different angle? That I now see Kingsley’s character as being closer to my own previous sadness but less a part of my new peace? And how odd does that feel, to move apart from a (fictional) person I loved. A new beautiful.

As I continue to revisit this film, how is it possible that it catches up my breath, still? That there are moments in which I feel am in the story—that the story is, somehow, inside.

In praise of the divine

2011-12-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

When I try to describe Reiki, it is like trying to describe the sea…where would I start? Should I begin with the sound, with the incessant drumming in the ears? With the crash and swell of waves, as I drift to sleep, sprawled out, drunk on love and light, atop the sand? Or would it be good to begin with the feeling of mist, of moisture on my face, as I walk the edge? The pinch of rocks under heels. Or perhaps to start I should tell of the way that my whole body responds to the water—the pull. The need. The desire to say "fuck all" and give myself up to it, never going back to the mad places. Maybe I could tell about how when I swim, the salt stings my eyes, or how fish swim past me, tickling my legs. How my heart catches at the idea that I cannot see the bottom and do not know what's swimming all around me...the mystery. How should I describe the grains of sand under my toes, either wet or red-hot and sun baked? How should I tell of things that cannot be told of?

Emily Dickinson wrote of the sublime. That was her topic. I suppose my topic, Reiki, is also the sublime…for it cannot be measured out in language. Words cannot do it justice. No, not utterance. Only being. Only in the doing. The gentle pulsations…I could try to describe (heck, I just did), but the descriptions do not, cannot substitute for what Reiki feels like. It is odd that I wrote poetry, just a different sort of poetry, as I practice Reiki. I have transitioned from that art to this art, and can still call what I do poetry. Funny how love works like that.

I sing in praise of this.

Body Hair: The personal is the political

2011-12-26T15:27:00.000-08:00

While some women may truly find smooth legs an internally pleasing action or state—I never quite have. I have never looked down at my hairy legs, usually grown long during the winter months, and thought “I should really remove that hair in order to make my legs beautiful.” I have felt the same way about my arm pits, either. The only thing I don't find beautiful, curiously, is too much hair on my eyebrows or upper lip; I personally draw the line there.

I can imagine some women deriving pleasure from shaving their legs and pits. The feeling of the razor gliding over foamy, scented lather. The feeling of lotion being smoothed on glistening legs, after the shower or bath is complete. I can imagine this being a moment of reverie for some women…perhaps a moment of meditation, a “break” from the busy world. I think of spas, of places with water fountains and New Age music and cucumbers for the tired eyes. I think of how some women might want to shave; about how these women have considered how shaving makes them happy and not given a crap about the fact that this act has been culturally mandated. For these women, shaving--though normative--has become a transgressive act through the pure conscious choice of doing so, because the positives outweigh the negatives. For these women, time eradicating hair is well spent.

Recently, however, I have realized that I have never stopped to think about options regarding my appearance in terms of body hair other than the hair on my head. I have, in the past, enjoyed shearing my head short. (And I cringe to imagine being born into a past era when “manly” expressions such as having short hair and wearing pants were unacceptable for women!) However, I have always shaved other hair…well…just because. Because that’s what women do. Because I got the sense that if we/I don’t, we/I are considered unattractive. Lazy perhaps. Gross. Overly-masculine. Weird.

Folks, I am going to stop shaving my legs. I'm starting now, a handful of days before the new year! I feel liberated by this!

I take this action for two reasons. First, for political reasons. I want people in my life to do a double-take when they see my legs. I want them to think more about the default action of shaving. I do not necessarily want to rid the world of the desire, the wanting to shave…rather, I want to help women who—like me—don’t desire to shave. I want them to know that it's okay to not do something which seems totally "normal." Butch lesbians have known this for awhile. More straight women (and bi and queer women and other women) who aren't necessarily identified as butch need to think about this, about how not shaving is an acceptable choice. Yes, it is a choice! ...Which brings me to my second reason: For me, the countless hours I’ve spent shaving and maintaining a lack of hair on my legs (and pits) now seems like wasted time. So I’m done. I’d rather spend my time in another way.

I will undertake refraining from shaving for a year. After that, I may shave sometimes, occasionally, (or maybe not!), but only as a conscious act. I will shave in the way that I wear makeup—which is hardly ever, and totally dependent upon mood. Just as I now consider bra-wearing a conscious act of drag, of playing with gender, of embracing my queer side, so too will I consider shaving an act of drag (for me). When I do it, it will be a transgressive act, a unique, out-of-the-norm act (for me). When I do it, I will want to do it…and it will no longer just be some thing I feel compelled to do because “that’s what women do.”

Level 2 Reiki Course!

2011-12-05T18:44:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

Here's the scoop!:

Reiki Class: Level 2

Taught by Reiki Master Barb Hay & Heather Trahan

Reiki Level Two is a further increase of one’s capacity to work with universal energy and opens the door to increased personal empowerment. This class will focus on healing at the mental and emotional levels. Reiki Two helps heal past lives, and also assists with addictions and negative thinking patterns. “Distance healing” will also be learned and practiced; this includes sending Reiki to someone around the world or just across town. It includes healing our earlier years or situations in life. During the class, you will be given three of the five Reiki symbols and learn what they mean and how they can be used. Additionally, you will receive the second Reiki attunement.

Barb Hay has her Reiki practice, “A Wing and a Prayer,” at Open Circle Yoga & Wellness Center. She is a Level 3 Reiki Master. Heather Trahan is a teacher and graduate student at Bowling Green State University. She is a Level 2 Reiki Practitioner.

When: Sunday, February 5, 10am-2pm.

Course Fee: $110 (includes course materials & certificate)

Course Requirement: Students should have already completed Level 1 training and attunement.

Please bring: a sack lunch

Location: Open Circle Yoga & Wellness Center: 200 West Lima Street, Findlay, OH.

Pre-Register: Class size will be limited to 11 students, so please reserve your spot by emailing Heather at htrahan@bgsu.edu or by phoning Barb at 424-3752, and also mail your check (made out to Open Circle Yoga) or drop off check at Open Circle before January 15. Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you might have about the class, or about Reiki.

*If you would like to learn Reiki Level 1 before this class, please call Barb to set up a private class.

*For more about Open Circle, please visit: http://www.opencircleyoga.com/

Intensified Reiki sessions now available at Open Circle Yoga Wellness Center

2011-11-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

Greetings friends! I am now offering a new Reiki service. If you are dealing with a particularly difficult struggle (physical, emotional, spiritual, and/or mental), please consider trying an “intensified” Reiki session. You will be treated by 2 experienced practitioners simultaneously (I am a level 2 Reiki practitioner and Barb Hay is a Reiki master.) Cost: $45. Location: Open Circle Yoga Wellness Center in Findlay, OH. To schedule an appointment or for more information, please call Barb Hay at 419-424-3752 or me, Heather Trahan, at 586-354-1919; or email me at htrahan@bgsu.edu.

This week's read-in review

2011-10-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Geoffrey Sirc’s chapter “Box Logic”

(how could i write about any other piece today? I mean, seriously!!! My reaction must be to what i reacted to. must.)

by heather trahan.

Here’s my own box-piece:

The traditional essay=dusty? Do we? Need?

AMP UP …(underused symbol) relevance?

“Sparkling Randomness” (Sirc 112)

Fill in the box with what you think of now. And then, the way it is. The poetic. What some of us have always dreamed. Incorporation. The meshing of two fields. The revelation needs the reader, then. (And the revelation will be unique for all.)

In a plane. Typing as the air rushes past; houses now invisible. Would this be part of an ongoing project. According to Sirc, yes. According to me, yes. So it shall be a part of the tiny project here. Clouds like mashed potatoes, but brighter, outside the window. High above. High feeling. High fallootin.’ Able to aim higher, thanks to HERE and to Sirc. (Thanks, bud.)

Suggested goal: In courses, “to err on the side of life”… “I want to use technology in my writing courses: as allowing students an easy entre into composition, a compelling medium and genre with which to re-arrange textual materials—both original and appropriated—in order to have those materials speak the student’s own voice and concerns, allowing them to come up with something obscure, perhaps, yet promising illumination” (Sirc 113).

Students as:

Designers (no more essayists)

At play

Painters of a scene

A bit loony/collectors/obsessed/passionate ones

Hunters but not cooks (“the raw, then, not the cooked,” page 120)

WONDER-ERS

BEST PIECE-PART:

“There’s something increasingly untenable about the integrated coherence of college essayist prose, in which the easy falseness of a unified resolution gets prized over the richer, more difficult, de facto text the world presents itself as” (123)

Resulting Questions:

Ø If we adopt Sirc’s cool teaching, then will FYC continue to be mandatory/required at colleges/universities? How can we justify this “cool” teaching, this avante guard curriculum, to others?

Ø How is Sirc’s message to dwell in the banality of culture, of everyday life like an Eastern call to “be in the moment”—to disconnect from the upper structures of the mind (academy, logic, etc), and to just embrace the simple everday moments. How will Sirc’s message automatically help create pieces that we instructors actually want to read…because overdone themes such as abortion, capital punishment, etc (the grand themes) will seem silly and students won’t reach for them as much under Sirc’s suggested curricula…?

Ø How do you evaluate “desire” beyond the criteria Sirc listed at the end (144-145). Is there more we can say about fair evaluation?

Ø Beyond rap, what might be some other cool topics or course themes? (I HATE rap. Doing rap in a class is NEVER going to happen for me. Yuck.)

SAY NO MORE, SWEET, SO NO MORE. THE FLIGHT IS ENDING. THE PLANE IS COMING DOWN. SIRC HAS LET ME HAVE A TASTE OF POETRY, WHILE “DOING COMP STUFF.”

THREE CHEERS.

[HT1]Those of us who’ve gotten MFA’s, Mas in poetry/creative writing/etc.

How novel. The idea of meshing the past and the present. One must not necessarily drop all past affiliations with the creative. One must continue! (Or, can!)

Let’s add to this list! I invite your comments to my post include possible additions to this list.

Thanks!

Histories of Dance

2011-08-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

What is dance? Is dance built into our DNA? Is it the body (the whole system) reacting to a pattern of notes somehow most beautiful? And what makes me bounce to that song, and you to sit it out?

What is dance if not an act of learning? What moves will bring about more of the music? What moves will make the music forever? What moves can I use? What moves will we use? What moves need no moves?

My histories of dance include all the dancing I’ve done in my sleep…the times when I rise out of bed and trip to find a pen, so I can hastily record dreams like this one. Even if I can’t quite remember exactly what it was.

Reiki: as gift

2011-08-12T10:47:00.001-07:00

All I can think is, I'm on a new road. I'm on a new road. The best thing about new roads is that we know they're new. The worst thing about new roads is that we know they're new. It's the best and the worst, emerging from the very same strand.

Perhaps what I like best about walking forward from my Reiki Level II training is the sense that I am doing something not just for me, but for anybody who knows me. I can help. I can offer assistance. I can offer a possible moment of healing--and not just one moment...but perhaps my clients will then find other ways to heal themselves.

I must remember to keep in mind the teachings of my teacher: The practitioner does not heal; the client does the healing. I must remember not to take credit. Sure, I may accept thank you's, and may in the the future accept money, but I will only accept those as a token for my knowledge and time. The Reiki itself is free. I am just presenting it as a gift. As an option. I am saying: Here, this can be yours if you want it, if you're ready.

UP

2011-08-01T18:12:00.000-07:00

Lately, lately, and then some more lately. Needing to take risky steps. Only seem risky now, though...far into the future, these steps will seem tiny (probably). Realizing how much my physical health is tied to my emotional & spiritual health. Facing some issues with family. And soon, taking a Level 2 Reiki course. Life has ups. This week is up; last week was so down. Want to be up for awhile, so I'm willing to live accordingly. Lots of reading, lots of naps. Lots of writing and only seeing people who bring me up. Thinking a lot about K. Thinking of her constantly these past 2 days. So much love for her. And so grateful to A. He is the best mate for me. Okay...back to watching a movie. Back to the blue couch and my cat purring.

Publication Station

2011-08-01T13:04:00.001-07:00

Check out my latest publication--a book review of a really great book, if you are interested in rhetoric, composition, feminism, the economy, and/or the state of higher education: "Over Ten Million Served"

YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN GRAD SCHOOL WHEN...

2011-07-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

*You find little bits of paper floating in the bath...

*Pens are in your bathroom, your kitchen, your bed...

*You have more books than shelf space.

*You find Kindle to be somehow shocking, disturbing...

*You stack books on the back of the toilet and pray they don't fall in

*You use duct tape to rig your glasses because you are living on a stipend

*You forget to brush your teeth on a writing day. Same for showering.

*You are too busy to clip your toe nails.

*You forget to pay your bills

Poetries

2011-06-29T13:15:00.001-07:00

It's incredible. Poetry is always calling me back. This summer, I've been tutoring a wonderful lady, Barb, in poetry. Then, too, my dear friend Eva and I are doing a poetry exchange. Each week, we pick a theme (pretty random; this week it's "write a poem about a deer") and then exchange, criticize. First Alice...then these ladies. Poetry never goes away. Keeps calling me back. I can never leave; never really want to ever leave.

dream journal

2011-06-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

Last night I had this dream where there were these very dangerous monkeybars (remember, from the playground from when you were a kid?) that were the only roads out of town. These monkeybars twisted very high into the sky, sometimes upside-down (sort of like the twisting tracks of roller coasters), and they all shot forth into different directions: north, south, east, west, northwest, southwest, etc. The only way to get out of the town—which for some reason I felt I had to do—was to pick a monkeybar and then climb on top of it and then slowly climb. However, add this: the monkeybars were covered in ice and thick snow.

So I took a deep gasp of winter air and selected a bar. I wasn’t wearing gloves, and my right boot had disappeared. My socked-foot soon grew wet as I began to climb...indeed, I began to climb into the sky; very high. About thirty feet up. I was gripping the bars, balancing one foot in front of the next, trying to stay atop the bars. There was a line of people in thick winter coats in front of me on this same bar, and a line of folks behind me. In fact, both men—the one in front of me and the one directly behind—were so close at times that it was like I was on a crowded subway.

It became apparent that all the people on these bars were poor. Many had patched clothing. I looked down at myself; I myself was freezing, inadequately dressed. I realized I must be “poor” too. Then, a scream, as one man slipped off the bar and fell to the snowy earth below.

I woke…back into real life…thinking “I need people. I really cannot do this alone.”

Q & A

2011-06-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a recent Q & A, promoting the new queer creative writing anthology I'm published in...I discuss my theories of bisexuality and relationships... http://jafansta.wordpress.com/anthology-contributors/heather-trahan-q-a/

Here is a list of things that are irritating me right now:

2011-06-21T15:47:00.000-07:00

People who aren’t honest with their partners.

People who procrastinate and then whine about how busy they are.

People who, when they’re finished a project they they’ve procrastinated on, reward themselves by drinking themselves into stupidity.

People who will say no to a bike ride but yet to a night of binge drinking.

People who don’t confront situations that need to be confronted.

People who suppress the truths and needs of their own evolution—burying these deep in their “I probably should do it, but I am too afraid” box.

People who say that people who dare to be individuals are just “doing it for the attention.”

People who don’t want to talk about sad or difficult or weird situations.

Ready to give Reiki sessions

2011-06-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

I have been trained to perform Level 1 Reiki. My teacher is Barb Hay, who is a level 3 master. Please contact me if you live in the Bowling Green, Ohio area and are interested in receiving a healing session. My phone is: 586-354-1919. (Healing can pertain to the physical, as well as emotional or spiritual--or, a mix of these.) Price negotiable. I very much look forward to hearing from you.

"Two"

2011-01-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

In my version of the dream,

it is a tiny patch of arm I touch.

Forefinger and middle, it is

but a flicker.

We begin to weep,

but can’t

make ourselves

move back. “It seems we’re doomed,”

I say,

“So let’s continue.”

When it ends, thrust up & out, from

pillow to pen…

then, a beep.

My phone reads

you dreamed of me, too.

This morning, all of Ohio

in the full-wall window.

A no-snow blue sky. An old water-pump, rising from a still-green January lawn.

Waiting as long as possible.

Refreshed

2011-01-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

I have to let go of what I think a poem is. I have to let go of all that education. I have to find the space again—despite the hectic-ness of graduate school—to find my artistic side again. I realize now that I am still a poet. I realize that the horridness that I found in those fake poetry readings and those snobby workshops did not diminish the love that I have, what I still am. And, ultimately, I am glad I got a taste for the academic side of the art. But I am free and happy to play again, to write again, to plunge to the bottom of what I feel again.

A public declaration of love:

2010-12-21T11:46:00.000-08:00

This year, at Christmas, we don’t have a dollar to spend on each other. But what do we have? Let’s take a moment to look around us. Our budget may be in chaos…but look. Look at the orange cat we have in our house—the one who snuggles us on Sundays as we cuddle on the couch, watching movies. Look at the big bed we have, that we share—the one my mom bought for us in honor of our wedding. Each night we get to lie beside each other, our butts touching; we keep each other warm every single night, and then in the morning you kiss me sweetly, sometimes so softy that you don’t even wake me.

Most mornings, I wake up missing you. But then I think about where you are...you are at Coact—a place that you love to be at. It’s a place that you have made friends at…a place that values your creativity and your uniqueness and your beautiful optimism. Your boss Mark adores you, and so do I. So do I.

Andrew, being your wife is the greatest gift of all. I have everything I want already. I have you—the one who cheers me! The one who jokes! The one who’s serious about lots of things (losing weight, being kind to others), but who also realizes that life is funny and silly...life is short and therefore gorgeous and we must enjoy each moment.

Let's keep smiling. Together. And ain't it easy, baby? Take a moment and look into my eyes right now. Do you see that my gift is you?

Merry Christmas, my husband.

"And it's magic...it's magic..."

"OutofTown"

2010-12-15T13:53:00.000-08:00

BigUnbelievableSwoop.

You came in… You got me.

Once, once when-we-were-alone I felt your lips, yesyour lips felt me down

DOWN To

where righteousness!

The place where I.

II.

Stretch

Wings

III.

Quite these nights: I go back. Back to Alanis. Back to Ani. Those were my women. Are still my women. And THOSE days! I didn’t yet know but always knew I loved women quite that way

I could or…quite the way I—should. But those were the days. Yes. Days of un-en-ding weeping, days for double-shruggin’, for chain-smokin.

Bad body things so I wouldn’t feel quite so cold.

Cuz the cold man, The cold! It was coming in from the outside all sides! But keepin’ it cold on the

inside, so I could say hey it’s cold here… no biggie.

Those were the days.

IV.

It’s easier now. Now you’ve got Paul; he knows the way. You say, hey, I can’t

have all,

so no biggie cuz there’s no such thing.

(And you’re right; You’re happy.)

Take a shower, go to bed,

wake up and write a dissertation, something long.

Gratefulness

2010-12-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

Probably one of the things I am most grateful for are my friends who live in Michigan and who continually surprise and delight me with visits. Here is a photo from a recent good time, when Kelly Cleaver came to stay the weekend with Andy and I, in early November 2010.

Link to my latest rhetoric project...

2010-12-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

http://theelocutionaryperformanceproject.weebly.com/

Quotes from my professor Lance Massey (I want to remember)

2010-12-08T12:57:00.000-08:00

"Rhetoric is the force that is inherent in all language."

"There's value in occupying a minority position in a field."

Civic duty

2010-09-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

In the city of Bowling Green, it's currently legal to fire someone based on pregnancy, gender expression, and sexual orientation. It is also currently legal for a landlord to cancel an apartment lease for any of these reasons and put you out on the street. If this sickens you, then go out and vote. Say "yes" to ordinances 7905 and 7906!

If you are not yet registered to vote in this city, you have until the end of this week to do it, or else you can't vote on this issue. So, go to the courthouse this week asap and get registered! You can also vote at the same time as registering: "early voting" period has started, between now and November 2. Today I registered and voted (in the same line!), and it took about 30 minutes total.

Advice for grad students--how to stay relaxed, and remain joyful

2010-08-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

The following list I invented for myself. It's hanging above my computer at home. I thought I'd post, so perhaps others may make use of it.

AWARNESS, AWARNESS, AWARENESS: Plan to avoid stress and increase happiness!

During my doctoral work I will:

1)Once a week, devote an entire morning or afternoon (a chunk of about 3 consecutive hours) to watching, reading, or listening to someone or something that is not school related, someone or something that is enlightened. Examples: Paul Lowe, Anthony de Mello, Buddhist philosophy books and speakers, documentaries about social issues, etc. Work on my chi.

2)Repeat and remember: “Don’t take it all so seriously.” (For nothing kills joy quicker than seriousness.)

3)If in need of “real” raw grad school advice: Call dear friend Katie Taylor

4)Seek out gym and yoga classes. As soon as possible, get into routine workout schedule, and stick to it.

5)Write in journal, write poems, write stories—or just blog. A fun way to vent, work through problems, or relax.

6)Try sketching/drawing my emotions & concerns

7)Find kids to babysit for—kids get me out of my normal head-space

8)Ask Andrew for massages

9)Go on long walks with Andrew and talk about life-everything

10)Remind Andrew that sometimes I just want him to listen (no advice, please!)

11)Volunteer some time/get involved with either the Women’s Center at BGSU

12)After first semester, plan out my weekly schedule and plan time for play each week

What I'm reading/thinking/chomping on

2010-07-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

"No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you're not superior to sex. It's a very risky game...it's sex that disorders our normally ordered lives."

The Dying Animal, Philip Roth

CERTAIN NEW YORK LOVES ME

2010-06-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've decided that, for awhile, I'm going to post every new poem I write on my blog. For awhile, I'm not going to clutch and hide my stuff, or send it out to publishers. Enjoy!

***

It’s the mood—not the characters.

(The blissful leaping state of bliss)

The clocks:

The clocks in New York,

In unison,

All over the world.

Songs no longer sleep,

but sweep.

Friends no longer wave;

They come.

In this moment

2010-06-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

It is not like a revelation...it is a revelation. It is not like lust, it is lust. It is not like bliss, it is bliss.

I am so grateful to have a few people in my life that really make me wake up--really make me feel alive, vibrant--able to do or be anything I choose. It's all about the moment...and I'm waking up to that, and trying to love not just those special few...but everyone I can. I want to be more open to people...for if I am, life will be a lot more fun. I am in a particular fun phase right now. I feel strong, sexy, able to think new thoughts...able to be open to new, perhaps contradictory perspectives. Most of all, I want to put the brain in its place--that is, to call upon it not quite as often. I think the gut has much to tell me, much peace to give me. The trouble is when the mind gets carried away with what ifs. The mind can be peaceful, still; like it is right now, in this moment.

The Overlook at Clifton--the truth

2010-06-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

Consider this an act of public service...please stay away from the apartment complex in Cincinnati called "The Overlook at Clifton"... It is infested with bed bugs. I was warned before I moved in, but I did not listen. We got bedbugs twice in eleven months. We had to throw away most of our stuff, and then spend over $1000 to have our remaining possessions heat-treated. They are now gone, thanks to Xtreme Resolutions (see links below).

I am not saying you will get bedbugs if you live at The Overlook, but the likelihood is high. Ug. Getting bedbugs is just about one of the worst things I've ever gone through in my life. I still have nightmares about it about once a week. I am also not saying that the bedbugs are CMC(management)'s fault -- but they are are real and resilient creatures that need to be eradicated via extreme heat or cold treatment, and/or the removal of their food source: humans. So, I guess it is CMC's fault for continuing to rent to people! But hey, this is a capitalist society...so vote with your dollar. Do not rent here.

I am sure that the landlord will try to rebut what I am saying, and they will encourage some cronies to post positive reviews, but please believe me...the bedbugs are still in there, and they are hungry!

Links:

About Bedbugs -- http://bedbugger.com/

Video about heat-treatment -- http://www.thermapure.com/video-kill-bed-bugs.php

The company that helped us -- http://www.xtremeresolutions.com/

poem

2010-06-02T07:40:00.001-07:00

THE TIME IS MORNING

Before birds.

Sleep…it’s nothing.

You’re collecting keys, wallet,

me.

I wrote this for my masters Capstone class; and thought it great fun to share!

2010-05-26T05:41:00.000-07:00

“To Flee and Forgive: The Parallel Texts of Sex and the City and Jane Eyre”

I am convinced that the writers of the first Sex and the City movie had Charlotte Bronte’s book Jane Eyre clinging to their subconscious. Let’s look at the facts. “Big” is a rich guy. Rochester is rich, too. Both men are dark-haired and have rather flaky personalities. Big and Rochester are both involved in asymmetrical relationships: their women have a great deal less wealth and social stature; both men are markedly older in age (at least ten years). As the texts begin, readers and viewers see that Rochester and Big, who have been previously unavailable to Jane and Carrie, are suddenly opening their hearts, are suddenly making themselves available. There are weddings on the horizon!

On the morning of the book-wedding, Jane does not dress herself as usual. This time, the French maid, Sophie, dresses her. This super-fancy change of routine is bringing a metaphysical veil between her “normal” Jane-self, and this new Jane-self, which is being dressed, petted, pampered, rushed, and whirled about. Indeed, this routine seems to set Jane’s nerves on edge—for Jane, at one point, gets as close to complaining as she ever does: “Sophie came at seven to dress me; she was very long indeed in accomplishing her task” (244). After Sophie’s finished, she chides Jane for not even bothering to look in the mirror. When Jane follows Sophie’s advice, she thinks: “I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger” (244). Here, Bronte foreshadows doom.

On the morning of the movie-wedding, Carrie puts on an haute-couture gown and veil. The dress is gorgeous, but the veil looks completely ridiculous. Too fashionable. (There’s a big fake bird with big feathers on it.) Carrie’s makeup also looks weird. Her lipstick is too red; she doesn’t look pretty. She looks like an alien. Carrie’s facial expression matches her weird apparel: she rarely smiles as her friends dress her, as they press her into the limo—and when she does smile, it is a tense, haunted smile. Viewers get the sense that something is about to go wrong, terribly wrong.

Jane’s wedding gets half-way done, and then doesn’t conclude (the brother of Rochester’s current secret wife objects!); Carrie’s wedding doesn’t even begin at all. These failures can be blamed—entirely—on both man’s stupidity. In Jane Eyre, Rochester could have avoided the embarrassing, dramatic objection by simply coming clean to Jane about the circumstances about his mad-wife Bertha. Together, the two could have come up with a plan; perhaps Jane would have been more flexible about the whole situation had her pride not been squashed because of her lover’s many secrets. In Sex and the City, Big could have ventured into the church and talked to Carrie about his anxieties surrounding marriage (he’d been divorced twice before; therefore he was terrified of screwing it up again) rather than making Carrie believe he’d stood her up. Yet, even though the guys messed it up—they both try to quickly correct their mistakes. Rochester comes clean with the truth about Bertha, apologizes, declares afresh his love for Jane, and asks her to move away with him to somewhere no one knows them. As Big drives away from the church, he realizes his stupidity, says to himself “What the fuck am I doing?” and says to the driver “Turn around! Go back!” In a melodramatic moment, Big jumps out of the limo, saying “I’m sorry…I freaked out for a minute” but that he still wants to marry her—but Carrie won’t listen. Sobbing, she beats him repeatedly with a bouquet of flowers; pink petals fly through the air; pink petals falling on pavement.

At this point, both women have a choice. They can stay if they want—all is not lost. Rochester has offered an alternative plan, and Big has had a change of heart. But, the females flee. They flee because of pride. Their men have injured them too badly.

In both texts, next, there is a long period of separation (about a year). Carrie and Jane do not see their men, though they think of them often. They have every intention of starting a new life—a life of level-headedness. Yet, at the end of both plots, after sufficient time has passed, the couples reunite. Carrie and Jane forgive their flawed mates: Carrie and Jane are saints, angels. There is a pervading sense that the women are reaching their highest potential via this forgiveness: the message of the film and the book is: yes, men often deserve punishment (being fled from); but, if their affections can stand the test of time, a woman might (should?) forgive. In both texts, the writers choose to end happily and lightly, in a tone that communicates peace. Jane marries Rochester without telling anyone, not even the housekeepers (and, this time, no fancy French maid dresses her). Carrie marries Big comically: they exchange vows in an unglamorous courthouse (Carrie wears a simple suit from a second-hand shop), and then the happy couple and their closest friends go to a cheap family diner for the reception. Both couples are married in a non-showy, non-performative manner. And, this time, the weddings work. The end. Happily ever after.

Hooray for my first scholarly publication....!

2010-05-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

I recently received an acceptance! An article I wrote called "Teaching the Texts We Love" will be published in Writing on the Edge in fall or spring 2012!!!

new podcast of interest

2010-05-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

My colleague & best friend Katie made a podcast about our very first time at 4Cs (Conference on College Composition and Communication); March 2010. Listen! Enjoy!

to do what we love; and leave if/when we don't

2010-04-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

"Women who read always have a line of flight available to them, because they know that other ways of being are possible. Women who write offer a line of flight to others." ---Women's Ways of Making It in Rhetoric and Composition (2008)

A Letter From a Graduate Student in the Humanities: please stop your condescention

2010-04-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Check out my colleague and friend Kate Polak's letter to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

newest

2010-04-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

“Come burn me,” you say.

I try not to gaze too much ahead—too far down the highway of our lives.

I inch

Toward you

On the bed.

Your blush burns me.

Your need knows me,

to the deepest roots.

I tremble, I tremble,

I tremble,

and touch.

the right path

2010-04-03T14:43:00.000-07:00

In two weeks, on April 16, The University of Cincinnati will hold Composing Ourselves: A Graduate Conference in Literature, Composition & Rhetoric. I am very thrilled to have been on the organizing committee...it has been such a fun professional experience. For the first time in my life I feel like I am doing what I want to do. I feel like I'm on the right path. Check out our conference website!

St. Patty's Day

2010-03-17T04:26:00.000-07:00

Today I leave for my very first 4Cs! I am presenting with Katie Trauth Taylor about the benefits of using filmmaking in the first-year comp classroom. So excited. I plan on meeting Peter Elbow, Cheryl Glenn, and Kathleen Blake Yancey...

If you haven't seen it yet, please visit and add your ideas to my new website project: www.theimpermanenceproject.weebly.com

my colleague Liv created an audio blog about the use of profanity in the writing classroom

2010-03-08T09:23:00.001-08:00

Check out her fascinating interview with myself and other University of Cincinnati writing teachers: http://tinyviolence.wordpress.com/

indeed yes

2010-01-18T14:42:00.000-08:00

you can make a plan,

carve it into stone,

like a feather falling,

it is still unknown

---Bright Eyes, "arc of time"

Shakespeare on my mind, and surprises.

2010-01-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

And so I am filled with poetry. And so the surprises and discoveries of life do not stop. Andrew is right: I am easily surprised. Why, when things were black did they suddenly turn blue? Turn yellow and gold, all a-singing? I am entranced by the unexpected. When I feel this way, I write, and I am alive.

movie review

2009-12-31T23:16:00.000-08:00

Just watched "The Visitor"...a god-damned flawless film. Get it.

The writer who doesn’t believe in writer’s block gets writer’s block

2009-12-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

I didn’t believe in writer’s block. I thought it was baloney. To me, writer’s block was the excuse of the lazy, the whine of the procrastinator.

But then I got it. For the first time, I got it. My block happened during the composing of a scholarly essay. I was under deadline, and I had a week and a half to finish a paper that refused to be twisted and commanded into completion. (I have always been able to wrestle a paper into completion.) For two days, I stared at a computer screen, the cursor blinking mockingly at me, forever frozen at the place I’d left off, weeks before. The pile of books on the coffee-table next to my desk seemed to be jeering. For two nights, my sleep consisted of ten-minute nightmare spurts, which physically jerked me awake over and over, until the sun drearily rose.

I abandoned that paper. Although having writer’s block was a terrible experience, I’m glad it happened. It forced me to throw away a draft that wasn’t working. It taught me about the value of trusting myself enough to start over. Another bonus of that experience is this: I now truly believe in the event “writer’s block”—an event that has been bemoaned by many of my friends, colleagues, and even some of my professors, all trying to produce scholarly essays and/or works of fiction. Before my own experience with block, I didn’t believe a damn word they said. But now I get it. I’m glad: it’s exhausting to doubt other people’s sanity.

Be careful when you Google yourself...

2009-11-27T19:01:00.000-08:00

Today, while surfing the web, I googled my old last name. Two disturbing things happened.

First, I found that a magazine decided to publish one of my submissions without having the courtesy of telling me! ...with no thank you, no free copy. I keep a record of my poetry submissions. I checked the log just now: it says: "Healing Garden Journal, yet another query unanswered, Nov. 07. I'm giving up now."

http://www.healinggardenjournal.com/articles/0809/mcmacken.html

Secondly, someone decided to post one of my poems on their erotic-poetry blog. ??? I don't recall giving that person permission. In fact, I cannot even determine the identity of the author of the blog. It's all very cryptic: http://tealeafsandpoetry.blogspot.com/

I guess I am more amused than anything. But I do think it shockingly unprofessional for the Healing Garden Journal to not communicate with me. It makes me wonder why I bothered submitting to that rag.

To add to the classroom...more of:

2009-11-27T17:48:00.001-08:00

Questions and silence.

What I'm reading right now...

2009-11-27T11:03:00.000-08:00

"..I not only pursue truth but truth pursues me. I not only grasp truth but truth grasps me. I not only know truth but truth knows me. Ultimately, I do not master truth but truth masters me. Here, the one-way movement of objectivism, in which the active knower tracks down the inert object of knowledge, become the two-way movement of persons in search of each other. Here, we know even as we are known.

To speak this way about knowing is not 'merely poetic' (as if poetry could ever be mere!). Images such as these are faithful to our moments of deep knowing. Many of us, for example, have had the experience of reading a great novel and suddenly becoming aware that it is reading us as well. That is the mark of its greatness. The writer has created a living world with words, a vital communion that cannot be taken merely as an object of study but one that draws out our meanings even as we draw its meaning out." ---from To Know as We are Known/A Spirituality of Education, by Parker J. Palmer

my student's quote prompts thought...

2009-11-22T10:34:00.000-08:00

My Composition 101 student, Kara Gandy, wrote these words in a recent paper: "We have to identify with others in order to discover our own identity."

Her insight struck me as so true, so right. I was reminded of how much people I'd never met (Virginia Woolf, Ani DiFranco) had changed me. I was reminded of my early college advisors: Professor Barrons, my acting professor. Annie Gilson, my lit professor. Joseph Kenyon and Edward Haworth Hoeppner: my creative writing teachers.

We grow up when we are given the power to do so, when we are given selfless help. When we are believed in, we believe in ourselves.

Prairie Style: A Peculiar Style

2009-11-20T05:56:00.000-08:00

“The line of sight’s fairly clear leaving imagination little to supply.”

----C.S.Giscombe

These are the blues, but not really. Prairie Style: about the cravings and displeasures of landscape, poverty, sex, and city. This is about asking about values, asking what value belongs to speech, place, and dream. This is about the meshing of equation with the art of argument. There’s a voice of cynicism, and the struggle to remain hopeful. This is a book where love is not consoling, but rather an “old terror” and evil is everywhere. There are beginnings of argument. The speaker is weak, frustrated, tired. The speaker wants voice because voice carries in an argument (67)…and yet…this is a book about the lack of speech. A fascinating aspect of the book is that it’s very self conscious: it refers to and comments about itself again and again; here’s one occasion: Trim paragraphs of uninflected speech hung over the prairie (17). This is black jazzy speech slowly being sucked into mainstream white America, into the dominant culture, into the flat plains of flat inflection. This is a racial conundrum. This is terror, because nothing but the curl will do (20).

The I in Prairie Style is divided—metaphorically, and actually, because he (could one argue that the speaker is a she?) is on trip after trip. The I is a self that talks “erotic” (76) but doesn’t give us the dirty details. This is a speaker who loves the Midwest because it is his homeland, but that same self hates the place—the flatness of ideas, flatness of weather, flatness of geography, flatness of accent. The speaker in Prairie Style is afraid of becoming “the monster” (45). There is, indeed, something mechanical, monstrous and ominous in this voice. Language has become a source of frustration, a boundary, a source of anxiety rather than pleasure. The world has a dark hue. This is the voice of a person who is feeling bored and dreary. Got a case of the blaaas. Notice boredom in all the “etc.”s (one instance, pg 68). The etc’s reflect sleepiness, ambivalence.

There is the traditional element (more typically “poetic” element) in Prairie Style of rhyme; for instance, page 19: Nothing to the bear but bad hair. But…why is this poetry? I can imagine the criticism this book might receive. One might argue that the prose format is just a result of laziness. I can dig that argument—but only with the idea that CSG was being intentionally lazy. The idea of lazy is riddled throughout the book, so that theory makes sense.

Also, I can imagine some might say the book is too heady, too cerebral. What we have are perhaps too many concepts. Look, for instance, at part of “A Train at Night”: At first I’d thought being visible and silent was/a context on its own, a specific-enough remoteness: known by position,/known as denial. Getting even. (Evil’s silent and so on but it’s got its gods. A critic might justifiably say: Where the heck is the poetic in this? What is “visible”? What is “context”? And what the hell is “specific-enough remoteness” or “denial” or “getting even” ? While I can sympathize with this critique, allow me to play devil’s advocate: what if this lack of sense-specificity is exactly what CSG intends? What if the speaker wants us to inhabit his own state of mind? What if this is CSG’s project?

Yes, I think this is poetry. Absolutely. But, I must confess: I cannot hear the music in Prairie Style. The first time I read it, I realized that halfway through I had stopped reading out loud (something I always do when trying to come to grips with a poet). Why? Weird. But it felt really good to be reading in that way, so I kept on reading it silently until the end. A few days passed. I picked it up again, told myself to read it out loud, even if I didn’t want to…But then, by the section “Inland,” I found I had accidentally started reading silently again. Again and again I tried to read out loud, but it just felt uncomfortable. So, I gave up. I succumbed to the manner of reading this book asked me to do. For me (please do not take this as judgment; please take this as one reader’s aesthetic opinion), Prairie Style read out-loud is like tin in my ears. It’s not pleasant.

Having said that, I do want to pose some questions. Does poetry have to be musical? What if the poet is aiming for anti-musicality? Or, what if my unique ears simply cannot register this sort of music? Whatever the case may be, this is still poetry. This is a book that skips (repeats) like a record, and though I, Heather Trahan, cannot hear the music of this record, I know the music might be there, for others. Or… maybe…he’s taking away all the music. Maybe I’m having the intended reaction.

While most poets try to vary their diction within a book, Giscombe grabs at the same words over and over. There is a hypnotic effect to this: the poetry is ingrained into you, rather than the feeling of you choosing it. Most of these words are used more than 5 times: Repeat, Location, Distance, Authority, Reference, Metaphor , Speaker, Juxtaposition, Argument, Inflection, Blunt teeth, Animal, Evil, Ugly, Lazy, Monster, Old Terror, Slave/servant, Melodrama, Push, Obvious, Ambivalence. (How might we discuss the book by merely looking at these words?)

This is a book about social standards—not necessarily standing up to or protesting standards, though. Just mostly thinking. Self-conscious poetry. Poetry of self. Consciousness. The words “to me” appear on pages 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, and others. This book is about racism in the Midwest. Giscombe is building an argument. And…yet…for all the headiness, these are not poems that can be (or are meant to be?) intellectually grasped. This is an argument, but we’re not entirely sure what the argument is. After four read-throughs, I gave up trying to “get it.” I gave up in a way that respectfully conceded defeat.

I do understand that Prairie Style is about a lack and uncertainty of speech and language. I disagree with the praise (on the back cover) by Juliana Spahr. I don’t think this book is an attempt to describe “the sensuousness of the prairie.” Rather I think what Giscombe is up to is darker—I think he wants to negate the prairie by feeding us clichés instead of the poetic (the opposite of clichés). He gives us reams and hoards of clichés: “For the sake of argument” (57), “it goes without saying” (3), “Cry Me a River” (7), “ a fact of life” (41)“The devil’s in the details” (52)…and I do not believe these clichés are accidental. They are the speaker sinking. The speaker spouts clichés because he is a tired speaker, and he’s not sure about anything. As a reader, when I read a cliché, I instantly FEEL tired. What better way, then, to put readers into the speaker’s shoes?

This book, in short, is one that makes you step out. Even if you don’t enjoy the act of reading this work, you must admit the work’s level of craft. While this reviewer did not get goose bumps, did not nod or smile with joy during the reading, I did—in retrospect—enjoy this book. I enjoyed the analyzing and the dissecting and the ruminating. There was so much to work with! I see the odd beauty of it. I appreciate its peculiar power. Clearly, Giscombe crafted this book—and so it is poetry.

My life lately: A story in photos

2009-11-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

The Change

2009-11-07T20:47:00.001-08:00

I pick peanut butter.

My whipped cream days are done.

I love my job

2009-10-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

In the past week, I've had two students tell me that they now love English class, when they hadn't at all before, and that they're considerating changing their major to English. My god. What sweet sweet praise. Does it get any better than this???

Check out some fabulous art by one of my fabulous students: Kiki

2009-10-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.kikioliver.deviantart.com/

Application Process-profess

2009-10-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamt of dozens of letters. I dreamt my mailbox was overflowing: gathering the thick white rectangles in my arms like a baby, I brought them into my yellow house, sank deep into the couch, and ripped them open one by one. All the letters said Yes; Welcome.

Katie Taylor and I made a film

2009-10-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

Katie Taylor and I made a short film for our "Topics in Composition" class at the University of Cincinnati. We are responding to Janet Emig's influential text The Web of Meaning.

A Composition in Film from Heather Trahan on Vimeo.

wonderful world of wiki

2009-09-10T14:09:00.001-07:00

So, I'm working on a wiki I hope to use this coming fall quarter. Any input/ideas/suggestions/critiques?

http://beyondtheclassroom.wikidot.com/start

Language

2009-09-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

"And I said, with rapture, Here is something I can study all my life, and never understand." --Samuel Beckett, Molloy

marriage, friendship,and the questions that emerge

2009-09-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

And so why do we do it? And so why do we sing?

Why do we fall into the same traps? Or, are they simply modified traps?

How much newness is good? Can we not recognize change and growth?

What are the rules of friendship? What of marriage? Must we write them all ourselves? Must we follow the rules we have written—or can new rules emerge?

Book Review: Kristi Maxwell's HUSH SESSIONS

2009-09-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

Kristi Maxwell’s new book of poetry, Hush Sessions, starts with a snippet from Gertrude Stein: “Superstition is to believe what you see to believe.” It is in this manner we are invited into the book, and we are attended all along the journey through the book by strange, gorgeous perceptions that the poet often calls into question. In the poem “log of dead birds,” Maxwell, in her quirky way, writes, "On rocks and from a distance, a raven skull and a hamburger wrapper/are not so different." (8)

Hush Sessions is not so much decorated by the frequent, almost obsessive repetition of birds, eggs, bones, and teeth, but rather these images serve as a touchstone for all we take for granted as true, real—there. Hush Sessions does not follow a neat narrative or one overarching topic—instead, Maxwell gives us something un-neat, something with a disorderly progression: touching on polygamy, the discomfort of getting blood drawn at a clinic, the way culture urges us to marry and produce children.

The book invites dialogue. The book is honest (even when the poet is not flattered). The book is often cryptic—not for the sake of cryptic (a greenhorn move), but rather because this is the actual way we inhabit the world. For example, what will we make of the line: "I enact a minnow-shaped cabin you press into" (2) Or, how about: "I clear my clothes from/the way twigs around a pit/that become tinder for it" (18)?

What to think? How to reason these out? Well, here is one possible translation: what I see is probably not what you see…what you see is probably not what I see…we struggle alone, and yet we still struggle! Why do we struggle? Why not give up? Ah, but it is beautiful to not give up.(Of course, following this logic must mean that my translation—and even this whole review—will probably not be your take.) Yes, all around us and all the time there are layers and layers, twists and twists, ambiguities and ambiguities, and yet humans support a legal system where "conviction convinces with one eyewitness." (8)

Yes, Maxwell is stern in her critique. And her interrogation is most interesting when she gathers math and equations into her poems; there is a power of clarity there, a power of reason. The math aspect brings a cogency that makes Maxwell one of our most exciting new poets. Let’s look at a brilliant section in “log of dead birds”:

If you think Pigeon-Not-On-Its-Back = loss

you’re missing something.

Loss is not consistently good

or consistently bad:

I lost my car keys [situation: hurry]

She lost fifteen pounds [situation: a doctor’s recommendation]

He lost a tooth [situation: fist]

It equals loss + this-much-eye [the sad width, remember].

What can happen in the math is Maxwell’s humor can riot and play; simultaneously, here, she can break down into small bits an argument or a phenomenon in a way we can understand. There is a playfulness here, a daring, a let’s-try-it approach that is purified water in the mouth.

If I had to pin down the dominant tone of Hush Sessions, I would use words like mournful, wondering, and warm. And if I had to pin down the aspect of Maxwell’s book (and her work in general: this is her third book) that intrigues me most, I would pin down her ability to surprise. Now, when I say surprise, I do not mean shock. Shock is for the crappy poets who squeeze the word cock into the title of a poem just to make the audience gasp. No. This is what I mean by surprise: a valuable feeling of being decentered by art—decentered out of your moment, your day, possible whole months and years of believing. Whole thought systems shaken. For instance, in “scrap for grappling” Maxwell goes inside the mind of a woman deciding whether or not to forgive (and presumably, whether or not to divorce) her husband. The woman teeters back and forth, burdened under the weight of multiple options, and then concludes with an idea that is completely surprising (perhaps because this line of reasoning is so ubiquitous and terrible?): she thinks about trust and faith, thinks she will "throw out her own red pen" and "trust the Divine Editor"--because faith is like eating out instead of cooking for yourself, "food arriving because you ordered it."

Like Stein and Adrienne Rich before her, Kristi Maxwell writes in the language of the feminine, but not necessarily feminine-like. She strives to shape her own unique stance: one of woman, strength, and challenge to convention. She writes the personal with a particular play that causes a fire of one’s own. The greatest praise a book can receive, I think, is the statement it inspired me to write. Whether or not it was the raging rhythm, the subject matter, or the overall emotion or lyrical beauty, when a poem or a book or poems can push writers to write more of their own words, then we have a mission accomplished. We have a win.

In reading Maxwell’s book twice, I took frequent unscheduled breaks to write four new poems. These poems wouldn’t have existed had it not been for Hush Sessions puzzling, stimulating syntax swirling about in my head.

Kristi Maxwell is a doctoral candidate at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of two previous books of poetry, Realm Sixty-Four (Ahsahta Press, 2008) and the chapbook Elsewhere & Wise (Dancing Girl Press, 2008).

hell yes--the best quotation I have found in a long long time

2009-08-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

"Professors are expected to publish, but no one really expects or demands of us that we really care about teaching in uniquely passionate and different ways. Teachers who love students and are loved by them are still 'suspect' in the academy. Some of the suspicion is that the presence of any feelings, or passions, may not allow for objective consideration of each student's merit. But this very notion is based on the false assumption that education is neutral, that there is some 'even' emotional ground we stand on that enables us to treat everyone equally, dispassionately."

--bell hooks, 1994

all my favorite singers are dead

2009-08-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

sometimes, on afternoons like these, I daydream. I imagine meeting up with Nick Drake and Eva Cassidy at a local pub...or under a tree at a park...or swimming in a pool. Our laughter fills the sky.

yes

2009-08-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

“The only thing worse than growing up

is never quite learning how.”

----Joel Plaskett

Associations

2009-07-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

To desperately miss one’s mother is—to be human. Even if that mother is not the mother you wish. To forgive. To walk. To open each book, praying for…something. Beyond logic. Prescience. To love the summer, but look for fall. To love fall, but look for… To resist motherhood on principle. To slowly be attacked by genetics, a collective unconscious. The biological urge. The archaic urge. No longer needed. As a species, we no longer require binge-eating (the storing of fat due to the possibility of famine), and yet so many obese people. An epidemic. As a species, we no longer need to make babies—but we do it. Oh boy do we do it.

the pen vs. the keyboard

2009-07-28T13:26:00.001-07:00

Has the poet lost her passion? Her punch?

She composes on a computer now.

new vows: for a 2nd year of marriage

2009-07-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

My attempt at flash fiction. Untitled.

2009-07-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

A husband and wife climb forty-nine flights of stairs. By the thirty-first floor, both are out of breath, panting and groaning. The wife stops to puff her inhaler. The husband winks at her, rubbing the back of her neck gently with his thumb. He coos, “We’re over halfway there, babe. You can do it.”

The husband and the wife walk. It’s the wife’s birthday today. At the top of the tower waits some sort of surprise. A string of images run through her head, as she tries to ignore the pain in her chest and calves. What will be at the top? A candlelight dinner? A private concert? All their friends, singing Happy Birthday To You…?

The husband reaches the door to the roof first. He swings it open, leads her by the hand to the edge. The view of downtown Cincinnati is gorgeous…on the Ohio river, a sleek white casino boat steams across—the husband pushes her over the railing. “Happy death day,” he mutters.

I miss...

2009-07-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

Today as I was reading some random magazine articles on politics, television, pop culture, and nutrition, I realized how much I miss journalistic writing--away from academe. Or maybe, is it I just miss having my name attached to articles that people actually see (beyond the random professor or classmate)?

Reflection on the love of true love

2009-07-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

In honor of our one year wedding anniversary (which happened July 12), I want to post one of the most beautiful love letters Andrew ever wrote to me. I use this post as a testament to what real/true love is...what it can do...

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

Heather,

I do not know what happens after life, or what happened before life. I do not know if there is some God, Puppeteer, or other flick-pop-and-zip force that brought us all together in this universe. I do not know.

There is a lot that I do not know. A lot of ideas, decisions, viewpoints teeter forth-and-back on my internal fulcrum. I see so many sides of so much. I am unsure of a lot. But—I do know one thing with full certainty: I’ve always loved you!

I wish I was there on your birth day! I wish the following was one other thing I knew:

Your mother was beat red from all the bearing down. Your Ma and Pa stood right at her side I awaiting their first grand-baby. A girl! With poofy hair and beady eyes, you bellowed out “hello! I am born!” And you were, and I knew…

But I don’t. I can only believe, like I believe that on that Spring day in 1983 I looked up into the wide purple sky and saw a light from the room you were born in reflect off of a cloud and beam into my hazy pupil. You stayed forever in my eye, in my dreams until I met you in life. And we joined together in physical union, too…rowing together.

Love,

Andrew

Religion on my mind

2009-07-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

The Priest/Rabbi/Imam (all interchangeable) says, “Look around in order to be careful—but do not look too much. I caution and plead with you: do not even speak to the old man reading Tarot at your corner bar. Of course, he looks nice! Of course he looks interesting!”

all's well

2009-06-11T06:46:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, I am halfway done with earning my masters degree. That is a really relieving feeling—and also an exhilarating one. And also a frightening one. All mixed up, these feelings.

I feel very happy these days. I’ve made some friends here at UC that I know will be lifelong. My husband is getting very good at his job as a broker. He comes home from work content. In a month and a day, it will be our one year anniversary. We will write new vows for each other, and recite them at a park. Back at this time last year I was so stressed…and afraid. Moving to a new state seemed to be such an overwhelming feat…one which I wasn’t sure we could pull off. But we have. And we’re happy. And all’s well in Clifton.

I had an amazing bunch of students last quarter: very energetic, hilarious, and they prompted my own learning. One was even a poet, and I read some of her work. (That was a first.) I took a grad workshop with the Elliston Poet-in-Residence, Lynn Emanuel, and got a start of my manuscript called “Riddle Road.” I’m looking forward to tweaking it over the summer. I felt that I really connected with Lynn…not only did I become a humungous fan of hers—but I also felt I learned some new ideas about poetry…ideas that pumped me up in a way I haven’t experienced since Hoeppner.

My literacy story: "I Hated to Read"

2009-04-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

When I was in first grade, I hated to read. HATED IT! Monday through Friday, at 3pm, my mom would pick me up from St. Thomas Lutheran School in her blue Honda. After flailing myself and my bookbag into the car, I’d start to whine right away: “Mom, do I HAVE to do my reading today?” My mom would sigh, shake her head back and forth, and answer, “Yes, Heather, you have to read today.”

Mom would usually make me do my reading homework first, because that’s what I hated the most. She’d say “Just get it over with!” Every weeknight, while she prepared dinner, chopping onions, boiling spaghetti, humming slightly to herself, I’d reluctantly plant myself at the kitchen table and read out loud.

My first grade teacher, Mrs. Walk, assigned dozens and dozens of pages to read each night: she was the meanest. She had long red fingernails, badly dyed black hair, and when she smiled her teeth looked jagged and super-sharp: sometimes she reminded me of a rat or some kind of rodent—one that was ruthless, and hungry.

So, I would sit at that table, Monday through Friday, alternately whining, stuttering, banging my fists in frustration against the table, crying…attempting to read. My mother would encourage me, praise me (or promise to punish me, when I threatened to stop)…for about an hour or two, until dinner was ready.

I hated to read.

By second grade, something needed to be done. I still hating reading—maybe even more now—even though I was better at it. So, my mom and dad put their heads together, to devise a strategy. My mother was an avid reader, the daughter of an intellectual book-worm pastor. My mom loved books about medicine, books about religion, the supernatural, miracles, and mysticism. My father held a masters degree in engineering, and LOVED to read long, dusty, fine-print books about electricity and computers. …And I was their daughter—so why had I been born with some genetic deficiency, which made me hate reading? What was the world coming to? How could this have happened—horror of all horrors? I was their firstborn. Was I destined to be a high school dropout, an unmotivated fast-food worker, a heroin addict, or maybe a cosmetologist?

How could they get me to love to read?

They came up with a solution.

One Saturday, in the winter of second grade, my father asked me to sit with them, at the kitchen table (the apex of all life at our house). He said, “Heather, what would you say if I offered to pay you a nickel for every single page you read from now on…any page…It could be a story, a poem, an article…whatever you like. Any topic. Any author. Would you take me up on that offer?”

My eyes widened.

“YES?!?”

By the end of second grade, I was a very rich little girl. Those nickels added up… My parents really were geniuses. In true Pavlovian fashion, I still salivate at the sight of a book. Of course, I salivate for different reasons than when I salivated in second grade. Oh the obsession, the fetish I have with words! Today I’m a graduate student, reading about 300 or 400 pages a week…sometimes far more than that. In about a year, I’ll have a masters degree in English. I hope to continue on, to earn a doctorate in literature, composition, or maybe even poetry.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Quote to share!

2009-04-04T07:49:00.000-07:00

"The history of criticism is peopled with writers who possess refined taste but who remain minor critics precisely because they are minor personalities, limited in their understanding of life. Knowledge of literary forms is empty without an accompanying humanity." -------Louise M. Rosenblatt, "Literature as Exploration"

Interview with Don Bogen

2009-03-31T16:08:00.000-07:00

This quarter and last I've been on the volunteer staff of the Cincinnati Review...Luna Park interviewed our "top dog" poetry editor: Interview with Don Bogen

This is my warning....Please read!

2009-03-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

DO NOT TAKE CLARITIN D for more than a few days.

I have just discovered that I am—accidentally—totally addicted to it. I have been taking it for about 2 weeks, because my allergies have been horrendous. Well, yesterday I decided “What the hell, enough is enough…this stuff is expensive…and I can’t take it forever, right?”

So yesterday I went without it.

I went to bed last night, and I can only try to describe it…

Basically, my body wasn’t my own. I jerked and twitched uncontrollably…it felt like my body was on fire. I was sweating profusely…and then I was chilled…I felt scared, afraid…I felt paranoid, like someone was watching over Andy and I in bed. I opened the window all the way, and let the cold air fall all over me…and my body was still sweating. I tossed back and forth in this state for about 4 hours.

It was terrible. Then it clicked. I got up, took a Claritin. Minutes later, I was snoozing.

This morning, I woke up and realized that I am addicted to the stuff. I did some online research, and found out that what happened last night will likely happen to me for about a week, as long as I am clean of it.

Take my advice, don’t take the stuff. Just because a doc gives it to you does not mean it’s safe or good.

So, basically, I am a recovering addict right now. You think I exaggerate? No. I have sympathy for meth-heads, coke-heads…the thrashing is quite literally the most terrible feeling I have yet to experience…

Motherhood; movement

2009-03-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

Why does going home provoke such a heaviness within me? Heaviness not as in sadness per-se, but heaviness like deep questions, probing. What am I doing? What is this for? Will I ever return for good? What is marriage like over years? Whose funeral will I come for?

And I wish that all our trips don’t have to be so rushed, as they have been. I wish my husband could get more than a day off here and there. I want to be relaxed coming home, and not whirlwhinded from one event, one face—wam bam—to the next. I want to take the time to savor and laugh… I wish I could stay a week, and stay in my brother’s new apartment. I wish I could hand out downtown with AT and see my hometown through her eyes…I wish I could do more than one day.

What is movement? What is better here that is not there? Why could my hometown not provide the opportunities I have here, I have elsewhere? I will probably never move back home, that’s the truth. I will probably get offered a great job somewhere even farther than Ohio…somewhere, anywhere…and I’ll take it. I was not made for a life outside of academic halls…I was not made for anything else. I don’t even think I’m made for motherhood. I don’t think it will happen to me, and if it does it most likely won’t be something I choose. I can see falling into it, out of fate and out of love for Andrew…but not by choice. There can never be a good time for putting one’s life on hold…and to bring another human into this? …This sad pathetic country? No.

Perhaps if the land I live in changes focus…maybe if the glasses the land dons hold professions like Teacher and Scientist to be more valued than financial pioneer/stockbroker/scoundrel—if that happens, then maybe there would be a point to it. But…out of sex comes babies. And short of stopping sex with my beloved, I see a possibility that I will become a mother. And maybe I’ll have a girl. And she’ll move away one day. She will say “This place has nothing for me.” And I will know that I have either become my own mother; or I will know I have done better, something new and something different.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-12-22T13:40:00.000-08:00

Long hair, as pretty as it can be, is just not me. I just feel like I'm back in high school, still doing my makeup relentlessly each day...still winking at the boys and eye-ing the "cool kids table" with envy. It just isn't me anymore. So I chopped it. In a few months, I'm taking it even shorter: more butchy-er.

Spouse

2008-09-07T12:17:00.001-07:00

Andrew’s legs entwined in mine makes me forget there has ever been sadness in the world.