this is just to say: Momentum

11 September 2009

Momentum

I told Jason, I want to write about all these great moments that are happening, because I never want to forget them in trench times.

So I went to the Charles Simic reading, and it was so packed! There were no chairs but I was lucky to find one--I couldn't see Simic at all, but I heard him quite well. It was okay. I was mostly astounded by how big the creative/poet community is in NY. I love this--to be around so many others who are smarter than me, well read, who are just as passionate as I am about words on the page.

I'm in awe.

Jason Daniel Baker, the stranger from Hunter College's MFA who emailed me found my red bow in the room full of people and we went out to Cafe Loup for drinks with his other friend, Carter (whose nickname is Bagel). Everyone was super friendly, and nothing was awkward--and the conversation was thoughtful and enthusiastic.

This is what I needed; what has been missing for me since Columbia has started. Carter graduated from New School's MFA for fiction several years back, and he's a producer now for the Upright Citizens Brigade. Jason is married, works full time in publishing, and goes to Hunter at night (a strong program!)

I liked that both Jason and Carter exchanged David Lehman stories (he's the editor of the annual Best American Poetry series). Apparently, Cafe Loup is where NYU poets and New School poets and professors go for drinks. It's a somewhat fancy looking French bistro, but the drinks/bar is amazing! Expensive, but well made classic drinks.

After talking to them, I realized that I should just hang out at Cafe Loup, waiting for people like David Lehman to show up and strike a conversation with him. I hope I get this second job which I had the final interview for today, and I hope it pays well enough for me to quit Jane so that I can spend the rest of my time attending all the poetry readings in NY, and hanging out with poets in the community. The MFA is more than the classes; it's about networking and socializing.

I'm glad I met people like Jason and Carter. God, it feels so good. And there's no risk here with these male friends, so I don't have to be cautious about any kind of advances. We're friends.

NYU has an awesome lineup of readings for the season, and I'm going to try to go to all of them. Anne Carson! John Ashbery! Both are on the faculty for their MFA this year, and for a moment during Simic's reading, I wondered if I should have chosen NYU instead. But big names don't guarantee stellar MFA experiences. I remember and know why I chose Columbia. I wanted to feel uncomfortable, overwhelmed, and challenged in every poetic and academic way possible.

And I am.

God, autumn feels good. The rain is brilliant today.

from "Euphoria," by Sina Queyras

1

Dear Regret, my leaning this morning, my leather foot, want of stone, my age
Old, burnished and bruised, my hair lingering, my hand caked, spongy as
November my dear Relentless, my dear Aging, your voice tinny, dissonant
As Stein shot through decades of war and Fortrel, cocktails on the hour,
Zeppelins over Piccadilly, bombing blindly in the fog. Dear Skin, dear Tobacco
Mouth my refusal, my merely geographic, my fibrous strings for you: your
Abundant wit, your lack of shadow and still joy nosing the air. Each moment
Stretches toward you, your dry feet: I carried them, pumiced and peppery
Laid them where regret is a biscuit thing to lean upon and sweeten,
My hour of you, my cursive thoughts, a pulpit beating under these ribs.

2

Dear Time, you swallowed us whole, swallowed us lovely, sharp as bones
Crimping sadly under foot my benign, my flotsam and crabs thin as leaves
Your smoothing, your sinking in. Mornings or mooring, or wallowing
Jericho: tapioca air indolent. I am still there, supple and driftwood, you lovely,
You loved me, your memory dark and west, thoughts like tugboats stitching
The horizon, you pulling me, my pudding, my thin crustacean, sideways
In the late afternoon, your gaze, having so soon forgotten the sharpness
Of mornings, the bite of your look serrating the hour: my treasures, all
Of them, for the pleasure of that slice once more, of our dangling,
You and me, the lot of us in some car, driving some hour, mapless.

3

Under a spiderweb, a tire, slouched: flat, sad-lipped, I think of Newton
Of the original apple, all of these clones since, all of these scentless
Descents. I shake my glass, shake again, melted suffixes tinkling; observe
All things natural: foliage unfurling like old bills, wryly betraying
Your habits, like the dog who digs and rubs, the dog who whines, who
Paws and circles, you trace. Why is pain so much better than nothing? Or
The mark of it more understandable? Why is saying nothing so much better?
Your one-liner like blossoms, uplifting, your currents strap me to air, yes
I guess there is a little texture up here, and oxygen pure as baby’s toes
Which if I recall, are sweet as kernels of corn, if I recall so long ago.

4

To arrive is practice, conversation or conversion, a story over a field
My Sweet, of concrete or whispering, furrows of a path no longer, not
Sure, was there, and snow combed in curlicues and dog ears a zigzag
Through January. Sure you are witty, but are you any less romantic?
In my remembering, I have undone all my beliefs, it is a luxury to lay
Unencumbered here, or there, the bones flexed with tendons, the
Spine like a seahorse, the heart far from a cliche unless beating is
Innocent, though innocence is not as supple as you think, nor as flexible,
Nor as perfumed, nor convenient, or even clean: between things regret
Gathers force. I remember that day: it was cold and the coffee tepid.

5

The small red balloons like thumbprints, waves green as the brush of
Cedar, the wind lapping your hoodie, blind strings tap the air, camera
Bobbing like a dog’s tail. Such lightness, the dog heading off, all
The dogs of English Bay angling off-leash. I would follow backward,
Lay old maps on your white sheets, so sincere, I am in earnest for you:
We won’t regret having not yet knit our acrid puns and jaded barbs, nor
Having the wind slip in under our belt loops, though I gently refuse
Gor-Tex, and you bet I will not concede the game. Those small red
Balloons like tulips in your eyes specs of amber, an amulet, an avatar,
My thoughts of you fully indexed, ready to step into.

11 September 2009

Momentum

(underbed stor)age