fallow, and plough

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.

& learns by breaking

My poem Against Desire appears in the latest issue of Pebble Lake Review. There's a recording there too, of me reading the poem. I think it turned out nicely. Ploughshares just send me proofs last week, as did TYPO. A nice winter/spring publishing.


If you didn't know, Gigantic Sequins is still open for submission. The other day in workshop, Tony Hoagland said that he wanted "wet blood poems." Fresh kill. Send me some bloody poems.

Gigantic Sequins will be at AWP, at the bookfair, right next to Wave Books, which is amazing for so many reasons, including the fact that they've supported us via raffle donations for the past two years. We're having a reading too, on Saturday night. More about that later.


I am feeling quiet today, chickadees. Holding stillness. I taught my kids a little about syntax and discursive poetry and Carl Phillips and there's just so much I do not know. Off to read Transtromer and Moore and more and more.

inspiration: saga sig

i really love saga sig - iceland-born, london-based photographer. her sense of the world and color and possibility. she's smart and magical. here, she talks about her personal fashion, history and beliefs ("nothing in the world is more evil than jealousy"), and here is her blog, the neverending story.

i turn you with slow animals

(& in text version)


This video and this poem make me think of Chautauqua, age 15 maybe and meeting a boy who'd dyed his long hair black and red, how he and Julia (who was fair, whose bright red hair lifted when she ran) were goths in safety pins and purple ribbons and there I was in my polo shirt and brown shorts and we all ran away from club to John's house, smoking cigarettes, all of us laying on his bed together on our backs listening to The Smashing Pumpkins, if you turned your head to the side there was the lake outside down the hill, the sailboats, maybe it was drizzling or smelled like drizzling, like an old house in New York State in August on a warm gray afternoon and then I was being kissed

live the questions

Chickadees,
I want to tell you about my friend Anna's journal.

Actually, I'll let you discover it for yourselves, but I'll share here some of the questions she poses, which I find inspiring. All of the below are her thoughts and questions. They fill me with a sense of longing and hope and challenge. Perhaps you will find a question that chimes with you:


could something else have been possible?

how does the specific body choose to carry out tasks and actions?

what is my body not aware of? what does my body not know?

what are the infinite possibilities?

what would it take for an unimaginably fluid, creative and adventurous 2012? what would it take for non-stop dancing, traveling and collaboration opportunities? what would it take for grand leaps of growth and expansion to all directions? what would it take for ease, space and lightness of being?

what leaps, turns, shifts, drops and changes are available for my body that i can't currently even imagine? what is the range of unexplored physical expression that is possible through the dance of frequency? where can i go from where i am today by dancing sensation, feeling and imagery?

hey universe, what would it take?

what does it take for an optimally available body? what does it take for a soft, open, empty body that listens and feels without thinking? what does it take for an unrestricted, uninhibited instrument of movement? what does it take to dissolve habits and patterns and make new choices, have new options?

thinking is such a drag. how to follow intuition, instinct and impulse without the necessity to employ the thinking mind? how about creation without conclusion, decision and judgment? how about doing it for the sake of doing it, always expanding further and not having to look back?

what are the chances?

in this spare room

cass mccombs at the library, first night, boston

2nd year of first night in boston; after tom got me hooked on cass mccombs' music, it turns out that he & his friends - jake & mollie (lighting), albert herter (film) - are lovely people too. they're on tour all of january.

2012 is the year of lace, the year of john & yoko.

reading the art of losing, edited by kevin young, and AVA by carole maso. feeling a little peace in shift. another key, another bed for now, another flight. no place to go but along with it.