Words that, if they are included in a title of a book/poem/essay, will compel me to read that book/poem/essay:
1) a number, any number (or the word 'number')
2) saint
3) blue
4) salt
5) lightning
6) perpetual
7) falling
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Purple Power
Today I got a really great rejection. I say this without sarcasm; I was rejected in the best way possible, with encouragement that my manuscript is good enough to be published in the future (even though this press was rejecting me), and with specific comments on my writing that lifted my spirits. The best part is that this came from a press I consider out of my league, that I only submitted to because the timing was good for me, which it had never been before with this press.
I had been considering whether to stop submitting this manuscript for the time being, but now I will continue (though in the months between when I submitted to this press and today I have strengthened it considerably by pulling the weaker poems and inserting a new section of linked prose poems which I think are pretty strong). I have hope again when until this morning it had been waning.
When I went to enter this rejection in my submissions spreadsheet, I was about to change all the information to red (I color-code my worksheet: black for outstanding submissions, red for rejections, green for withdrawals, and blue for acceptances). I was thinking what a shame it was to code this entry red when I was actually feeling pretty good about the rejection, when I remembered that a month ago I had also received a very encouraging rejection (I'd had to withdraw some poems from the submission when they were accepted elsewhere, and this journal told me they had been very interested in the entire group, and were disappointed when the withdrawal made it impossible to publish the entirety) and had decided to code it in purple because red didn't really reflect what it meant to me. So I happily coded this near miss purple too.
This is, I think, a good practice: to consider encouraging rejections as positive, and to remember them that way. Now when I see purple on my spreadsheet, I'll feel encouraged (not as encouraged as when I see blue entries in a sea of red, but still...). Appreciate your near misses; not everybody gets them.
I had been considering whether to stop submitting this manuscript for the time being, but now I will continue (though in the months between when I submitted to this press and today I have strengthened it considerably by pulling the weaker poems and inserting a new section of linked prose poems which I think are pretty strong). I have hope again when until this morning it had been waning.
When I went to enter this rejection in my submissions spreadsheet, I was about to change all the information to red (I color-code my worksheet: black for outstanding submissions, red for rejections, green for withdrawals, and blue for acceptances). I was thinking what a shame it was to code this entry red when I was actually feeling pretty good about the rejection, when I remembered that a month ago I had also received a very encouraging rejection (I'd had to withdraw some poems from the submission when they were accepted elsewhere, and this journal told me they had been very interested in the entire group, and were disappointed when the withdrawal made it impossible to publish the entirety) and had decided to code it in purple because red didn't really reflect what it meant to me. So I happily coded this near miss purple too.
This is, I think, a good practice: to consider encouraging rejections as positive, and to remember them that way. Now when I see purple on my spreadsheet, I'll feel encouraged (not as encouraged as when I see blue entries in a sea of red, but still...). Appreciate your near misses; not everybody gets them.
Friday, April 26, 2013
(Not) Sleeping On It
Sleep-wise, I've had an abysmal week. I suffer from a kind of insomnia known as early morning wakefulness, which means that I have no trouble getting to sleep, but staying asleep is a real problem. For the past six months or more, I've been waking up in the mornings at 4:00 or 4:30, unable to return to sleep (this is a cycle I've had periodically for more than 20 years).
However, this week my wake-up time has inched its way into the unreasonable zone. First I was waking up at 3:30, and then 3:00, then 2:30, and the night before last I was up at 1:30, just 2 1/2 hours after I'd gone to bed. Up and awake and alert, with no chance of going back to sleep.
Today I listened to a podcast on sleep disorders, hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences' podcast Science & the City. The opening segment was with journalist David Randall, author of Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep, who was inspired to delve into this topic because of his own sleepwalking issues. Randall discussed how the invention of the lightbulb has divorced modern sleep patterns from the cycle of the sun, by which our brains and sleep cycle are naturally regulated, as shown by experiments in which subjects are sequestered in an environment lighted to copy the sun's cycle. In those cases, sujects fall asleep just after sundown and wake up around daybreak.
However, there's one more behavior these subjects exhibit that I didn't anticipate. They tend to wake up around midnight or one in the morning, and stay awake for about an hour before returning to bed. (The natural phenomenon of this "first and second sleep" are documented in the Canterbury Tales and in 16th century French physicians' manuals.) During this awake time, subjects reported feeling quite good and indulging in "me" time. Researcher who drew their blood found the subjects' exhibited heightened levels of pro-lactin, a hormone which is linked to a feeling of contentment.
This was news to me...instead of feeling robbed of my sleep and desperate to return to it, I will now try to think of my middle-of-the-night awake time as an indulgence of free time for myself, a biologically-programmed way for me to get the downtime I am definitely not getting during the day (and perhaps that is why my body/mind keeps waking me in the night, for forced downtime?).
Coincidentally, today I also read an article on the Writer's Digest website, entitled "Do You Dream In Paragraphs? Mine Your Dreams For Writing Ideas," about ways to get creative ideas from your dreams. I've written about this in the past on this blog, so I won't cover that territory today, but if you are interested, check out the article at Writer's Digest. As for me, I haven't fixed any poetry dilemmas in my wakefulness this past week, but I was able to solve a problem I've been having with an analytical task for my linguistics course. That liminal time between awake and asleep (which I've doubled with my first and second sleeps now!) is a boon to the mind's flexibility--I'll remember that too when I undoubtedly wake in the middle of the night tonight!
However, this week my wake-up time has inched its way into the unreasonable zone. First I was waking up at 3:30, and then 3:00, then 2:30, and the night before last I was up at 1:30, just 2 1/2 hours after I'd gone to bed. Up and awake and alert, with no chance of going back to sleep.
Today I listened to a podcast on sleep disorders, hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences' podcast Science & the City. The opening segment was with journalist David Randall, author of Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep, who was inspired to delve into this topic because of his own sleepwalking issues. Randall discussed how the invention of the lightbulb has divorced modern sleep patterns from the cycle of the sun, by which our brains and sleep cycle are naturally regulated, as shown by experiments in which subjects are sequestered in an environment lighted to copy the sun's cycle. In those cases, sujects fall asleep just after sundown and wake up around daybreak.
However, there's one more behavior these subjects exhibit that I didn't anticipate. They tend to wake up around midnight or one in the morning, and stay awake for about an hour before returning to bed. (The natural phenomenon of this "first and second sleep" are documented in the Canterbury Tales and in 16th century French physicians' manuals.) During this awake time, subjects reported feeling quite good and indulging in "me" time. Researcher who drew their blood found the subjects' exhibited heightened levels of pro-lactin, a hormone which is linked to a feeling of contentment.
This was news to me...instead of feeling robbed of my sleep and desperate to return to it, I will now try to think of my middle-of-the-night awake time as an indulgence of free time for myself, a biologically-programmed way for me to get the downtime I am definitely not getting during the day (and perhaps that is why my body/mind keeps waking me in the night, for forced downtime?).
Coincidentally, today I also read an article on the Writer's Digest website, entitled "Do You Dream In Paragraphs? Mine Your Dreams For Writing Ideas," about ways to get creative ideas from your dreams. I've written about this in the past on this blog, so I won't cover that territory today, but if you are interested, check out the article at Writer's Digest. As for me, I haven't fixed any poetry dilemmas in my wakefulness this past week, but I was able to solve a problem I've been having with an analytical task for my linguistics course. That liminal time between awake and asleep (which I've doubled with my first and second sleeps now!) is a boon to the mind's flexibility--I'll remember that too when I undoubtedly wake in the middle of the night tonight!
Thursday, April 25, 2013
In Praise of Broadmann Area 47 (and Galoshes)
I've been listening to a podcast about the science of sound, as explained for the lay audience, by scientist Daniel Levitin and musician Rosanne Cash, hosted by the Science & the City (the podcast of New York Academy of Sciences). At one point, Levitin is describing the part of the brain that is responsible for organizing sound, called Broadmann Area 47 (the red-highlighed area below), and Cash laughs and says with irony, "What a poetic name," or something akin to that.
Which I take exception to. Why is the name "Broadmann Area 47" not considered poetic? Because it has a technical sound to it, a scientific sound? Because it's so specific? Because it has a number in it? To all these ideas, I take exception. To me, nothing is more poetic than a very specific reference that works as an image. I LOVE the name Broadmann Area 47. I would use it in a poem; in fact, now it will be a mission of mine to do so. (Not that this is necessarily a meaningful mission--I recall once reading a poem before which the poet explained that having been told there could be no poem about galoshes, she had written one; I just googled 'galoshes poem' to try and find it for this post, and couldn't, but I did discover that there are an abundance of poems about galoshes now.)
There are no poetic words, and no non-poetic words. It's the way, the manner, and in the context in which words are used that render them poetic. The ugliest-meaning word can be poetic when used to effect. The ugliest-sounding word also has its place, due in part to the reaction created by the harsh sounds. The words with the most banal meanings can be exquisite when used outside of a banal context. Broadmann Area 47 just by itself sounds lovely to me (put a number on anything and you've got my attention) but it could be made meaningful and poetic to a general audience when used by a good poet.
Which is to say that words need be neither mellifluous nor with unequivocally positive associations to be in a poem, but they need to be evocative.
These days traditionally "poetic" words--light and dark and longing and absence (all of which are topics of mine)--are banal themselves, rendered unpoetic through overuse. Fresh language and new imagery, that's where the poetry is--right there in Broadmann Area 47, which is not only responsible for organizing sound, but also for the processing of syntax in language. So ironically, if you want poetry, Broadmann Area 47 is not only among the right words to use, it's one of the places in your brain that you'll be using them. Bring your galoshes.
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| from BodyParts3D, copyrighted by The Database Center for Life Science licensed under CC Attribution Share-Alike 2.1 Japan |
There are no poetic words, and no non-poetic words. It's the way, the manner, and in the context in which words are used that render them poetic. The ugliest-meaning word can be poetic when used to effect. The ugliest-sounding word also has its place, due in part to the reaction created by the harsh sounds. The words with the most banal meanings can be exquisite when used outside of a banal context. Broadmann Area 47 just by itself sounds lovely to me (put a number on anything and you've got my attention) but it could be made meaningful and poetic to a general audience when used by a good poet.
Which is to say that words need be neither mellifluous nor with unequivocally positive associations to be in a poem, but they need to be evocative.
These days traditionally "poetic" words--light and dark and longing and absence (all of which are topics of mine)--are banal themselves, rendered unpoetic through overuse. Fresh language and new imagery, that's where the poetry is--right there in Broadmann Area 47, which is not only responsible for organizing sound, but also for the processing of syntax in language. So ironically, if you want poetry, Broadmann Area 47 is not only among the right words to use, it's one of the places in your brain that you'll be using them. Bring your galoshes.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
What's Neat on the Net VII
Today, from the internet:
1. LibraryJournal has compiled a list of five interesting things libraries are doing with old books. In Austin they're making them into crafts, and in England they're making them into art (and if you wonder about the difference between arts and crafts, have a look--it'll be immediately apparent, though both are great ideas.) In the Netherlands, they've made a library desk from recycled books, and in Virginia they are cutting the books up into prompts for personal history projects. Gainesville, Florida libraries (my old stomping ground) is restoring patron's old and personally-important books for them.
Have a look at this article and it's accompanying pictures with links. Such good ideas.
2. The Ploughshares blog has an article about rejection entitled, "From the Slush Pile, Have You Got What it Takes?" It's another reminder that rejection can be more about the sensibilities of the editor than about the quality of your work (with compelling examples provided), so if you believe in your work, keep sending it out. And if you're not sure, revise revise revise, and then keep sending it out. The article cites gender differences in this attitude as well (men send out more) so read the whole thing if you could use some encouragement.
1. LibraryJournal has compiled a list of five interesting things libraries are doing with old books. In Austin they're making them into crafts, and in England they're making them into art (and if you wonder about the difference between arts and crafts, have a look--it'll be immediately apparent, though both are great ideas.) In the Netherlands, they've made a library desk from recycled books, and in Virginia they are cutting the books up into prompts for personal history projects. Gainesville, Florida libraries (my old stomping ground) is restoring patron's old and personally-important books for them.
Have a look at this article and it's accompanying pictures with links. Such good ideas.
2. The Ploughshares blog has an article about rejection entitled, "From the Slush Pile, Have You Got What it Takes?" It's another reminder that rejection can be more about the sensibilities of the editor than about the quality of your work (with compelling examples provided), so if you believe in your work, keep sending it out. And if you're not sure, revise revise revise, and then keep sending it out. The article cites gender differences in this attitude as well (men send out more) so read the whole thing if you could use some encouragement.
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