Duhamelmania!

I've just had the distinct pleasure of spending a great deal of the past two days in the presence of that poetic force of nature, Denise Duhamel. She had a sort of mini-residency at FIT this week--a reading, a Q&A session, and four classroom visits. Whew! Good thing she has as much energy as her poems!

So much more to say, but I'll have to post later. For now, just know that she was excellent and inspiring to all!

Blog envy

As a poet and sometime blogger I felt compelled to read about the furor over the Publisher's Weekly article on poetry and blogs.

I've been reading a bunch of these blogs for awhile now and there are some I go back to over and over for their humor, perspicacity, and downright wackiness. And, of course, there's the ever attractive gossip factor. Not to mention cute baby pictures (e.g., Reb and Deb). Others, however, feel like homework, and I have enough of that already.

I do admire the poet-bloggers who are able to incorporate cogent discussions of craft, current aesthetic debates, their favorite new work, recent literary mags, and so forth. And I admit that I find it all quite intimidating. How, I wonder, do they find the time and brain space??? I guess I have to accept the fact that I'm just not that kind of blogger. . .

Breaking the silence. . .

I've been rereading Tillie Olsen's Silences and Woolf's A Room of One's Own in preparation for teaching them in my creativity honors class. The timing is perfect because I'm trying to get into a more regular writing routine while FIT is on spring break. And these women remind me how essential it is not to give up, even though the odds are very, very discouraging.

I particularly love this quotation from Margaret Walker:

People ask me how I find time to write with a family and a teaching job. I don't. . . . It is humanly impossible for a woman who is a wife and mother to work on a regular teaching job and write.

OK, so that's my problem. Here's to doing the impossible!

Family Portrait

This is the most recent photo of all four of us--taken on Christmas Day at my parents' in Ohio. Notice Stella's winning smile and little black dress, and Bobby's pensive look. (Come to think of it, Dad looks a little glum, too.) Probably just tired after all the family festivities!
You can click on the image to see a larger version. Notice one of the photographers--my brother-in-law Steve--in the mirror.