Category Archives: Poetry

Two Week Sonnet, Day 5

Posted on December 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

Riding the line between abundance and chaos,
My stupid focus is on lack, lack, lack.
I try gratitude, but follow the switchback
Back toward loud whiny-assedness:
Too much. Too much! There really ought to be less

_____
12/7/12
So, no Babe the Blue Ox in the Slough of Despond yet. But there’s time. We’re only five lines in. A whole universe of crap can happen in 9 lines in a sonnet. Right now I’m thinking the next line will begin

Except for when

but I could totally change my mind by tomorrow.
_____
12/6/12
I decided I’d try to write a sonnet over a two-week period (14 days–seemed liked fate), one line a day. Curious if I’ll do it–I’m trying not to anticipate what I might write the next day or later, though it occurred to me this is kind of a version of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which made me think of Paul Bunyan, so they might show up, with Babe in the slough of despond or something. Or not.

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Two Week Sonnet, Day 4

Posted on December 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

Riding the line between abundance and chaos,
My stupid focus is on lack, lack, lack.
I try gratitude, but follow the switchback
back toward loud whiny-assedness.

___
I decided I’d try to write a sonnet over a two-week period (14 days–seemed liked fate), one line a day. Curious if I’ll do it–I’m trying not to anticipate what I might write the next day or later, though it occurred to me this is kind of a version of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which made me think of Paul Bunyan, so they might show up, with Babe in the slough of despond or something. Or not.

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Posted in Burnout, God Stuff, Poetry, Uncategorized, Work Life

In Defense of the Swine

Posted on December 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

The Lord said not to cast pearls to—poor pigs,
Just rooting through the slop of their to do lists,
The muck of obligation a fine sheen of stink.
Dolphins of the barnyard? Not in this scene.
The mess they make is made of others’ messes.
We count on their willingness to eat corpses
And kitchen scraps with equal relish and then yes,
We butcher them and eat their screams like a sauce.
Don’t kid yourself. They didn’t even see your pearls.

Don’t waste your precious best self in committee work.

But hey, let’s do admit we all take turns at this—
Pearl clutcher, pearl caster, demon, and pig.
Don’t give me your best when I’m going full-bore porcine.
When you’re a pig, you sure as hell won’t get mine.

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Posted in Burnout, Car Sonnets, Poetry, Uncategorized, Work Life

Tripping on Christmas

Posted on November 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

for Michael Higgins, my Zen Baptist Brother in Christ

Some churches hang the Christmas greens, a big deal,
But I don’t think First Baptist did. Instead,
Miss Iris’ shiny metal tree is what we had—
White, not silver, and oh! The color wheel!

Little kindergartners tripping out
In Sunday School. The tea party saucer became
The stone for Jacob’s pillow. We took turns being him,
And we saw angels climb a ladder to the clouds.

And then at the end of the season, some churches burn
The trees and garlands—the incense of which must bring
To mind the smell of other burning greens—
A safe and sanctioned mode of getting stoned.

Your message this morning recommended Marley—
A sweet gift for Advent. Grace. Mind? Altered.

From the Vermont Country Store online!

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Posted in Car Sonnets, God Stuff, Mt. Vernon, Poetry, Searching, Uncategorized

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Derailing the Train of the Perfect Semester

Posted on November 25, 2012 | 4 comments

Welcome aboard, students and friends, yes welcome to
The Train of the Perfect Semester. I’m your Engineer,
Conductor, Coal Shoveler, and the Happy Waving Guy
In the bright red caboose.  See the circus animals?
I clean up after them and feed them.  (And unlike
SOME professors, no, I don’t think my students
Are animals. Or vice versa.) See the tracks
Below us, flying past? Learning outcomes
Set by the department.  Or wait, no,
The learning outcomes are our destination.
Yes, that’s right. So those rails, well, they must be
The syllabus. (I thought the train might be the syllabus,
One car per week, but that doesn’t work.
Why would you move through a moving train like that?
And I need the lounge car more than just one week.)
I’m in constant contact with other trains,
Most are far ahead of us, a few behind,
And we are all converging on the station,
The depot with its train-font, “Finals Week,”
Where you will disembark and I’ll post grades
And tend to the train for a month or so until
We load her up again in Spring and head for May.

Except, oh Christ, it doesn’t work that way for me.
It never has. And even there, in that happy stanza,
I fucked it up—the destination was “Learning  Outcomes,”
Not “Finals Week.” The hardest thing for me
In everything is how to keep things straight.
So yes, it would be lovely if you’d climbed
The folding step and taken your seat and toured
Each depot along the way in an orderly fashion
Set up by me, “Here is the town of Paraphrase,”
Imagine my having said, “Next stop, Quotation Sandwich.”
Only those stops required, in order,
With me as your energetic tour guide.
(Oh great—engineer, conductor, shoveler, happy guy
animal wrangler and tour guide. I needed more work.)
And I guess your ticket for each stop would be a quiz
Or an essay. Your luggage is all your prior learning….
How much grit did you pack? You’ll need a fair bit.

Let’s talk about those circus animals.
They’re well treated, of course. They’re escapees
From other circuses, if you really want to know.
I thought you might enjoy them. I thought you might
Even learn a little from them, but no,
They aren’t exactly on the syllabus.

So here’s the thing. I lied when I gave you the schedule
For the semester. I should have told you then
“Here’s where we’re starting out, the first few weeks,
and then here’s a list of everywhere else we’ll go,
but no, I’m not committing to exactly when.
I promise we will get to the destination. On time.
And we will stop at all the absolutely necessary stops.”

Beyond that, I should have told you, who knows?
Will I ever be brave enough to say that?

Will I ever be brave enough to say that
If I see a pond I’ve never noticed before
And it occurs to me we could go fishing there
For topic ideas or movie reviews that bring up
What we’re reading from the 19th century,
We’re stopping. We’re always going to stop.
We might even abandon the train. Don’t freak—
I promise we’ll get where we’re going. We always do.
But I will not promise by what conveyance.

If you’re the sort of student who needs the train
To run on time above all else, my class will make you nuts.
But if you’re focused on the destination,
(I will give repeated updates about how close we are),
and able to be a traveler, not a tourist,
and able to enjoy the scenery and the side trips,
I can promise you  a punched ticket in 16 weeks.
You might even get the opportunity to shovel coal!
Or animal shit! I’ll even let you wave from the caboose.

Also there might be small robots or sushi or kazoos.

______
Here at the Sunday morning gathering of Zen Baptists at my house (Today’s Attendance…1), the reading was from St. Anne (Lamott) about the prayer of “Help.”

I came away thinking–why do I persist in seeing my semester as a mess when the weekly schedule I set up becomes something fictional? Why not work on making sure we hit the necessary stops but otherwise just say to students, why not say TO MYSELF, “Sure it’s a mess. But it’s a GLORIOUS mess.”

Because that’s what life is. At least that’s what my life is.

(And yes, I was thinking of those leaders who were praised with “at least the trains ran on time.” It isn’t logical, of course, to equate an on-time train with evil, but it’s also not logical to equate a meandering journey with educational malpractice, which is what those EXEMPLARY PROFESSOR CRITICS in my head say to me. I’m telling them hush. I’m telling them, enjoy the freaking ride, and here’s some herbal insect repellant. “For what?” say the EXEMPLARY PROFESSOR CRITICS. “For the bugs up your collective butt,” I say.)

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Posted in Burnout, God Stuff, Healthy Health, Poetry, Procrastination, Searching, Teaching, Uncategorized, Work Life

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Guest Blog from my Dad! “Unseen Shadows and Unheard Echoes”

Posted on November 21, 2012 | 2 comments

Hello, everyone! One of my big goals as I begin my second year of blogging is to host more guest bloggers. My first guest is my Dad, Everett Bullock.

Born in 1939 in Southern Illinois, he has to his credit full retirement from the U.S. Army, including time in Viet Nam during the Tet Offensive. Also to his credit: the ability to dance the Charleston on roller skates when he was a teenager (I have no video proof, but I do trust him on this).

He and my Mom will celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary on November 29th. That’s to their credit–good job, guys!

Also, he’s a terrific Dad–loving and present. I know I learned a lot of what I know as a writer and thinker from him–you’ll see why, below.

(And, just so you know, if you’re concerned after reading the poem & commentary, he’ll be surrounded by family and love on Thanksgiving AND after–it’s a huge reason I lured my parents up to Spring Green, so I can bother them ALL THE TIME at their house.)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and without further ado, here’s my Dad’s post:

_______

Amateur writers of prose or poetry often hesitate to put words on paper or in their computer. At times it is because of a lack of confidence in their ability, and other times we literally cannot think of anything to write. For better or worse, there are also occasions when our emotions, dreams, or nightmares reduce our ability to think clearly and write sensibly. Several years ago, members of my family departed after a Holiday visit, and I experienced a period such as this. I could not think of any cause for my feeling or any means for moving out of it. After suffering for a few hours, I started trying to write, planning to draft a poem or a paragraph or two that might clarify my problem. The attached poem was the result, finished several hours and days later. It was a relief to finish it, and I buried it with my other treasures for some time.

I must have done a poor job of burial, as the poem would come to mind every time a family member or friend would depart after a visit. I finally excavated the poem and tried to improve it. I had no success. I found that every time I read the poem, it caused me to miss those who were gone and caused me to think of how I might let them know how much I cared for them the next time they visited. While I have improved greatly, I am still less open about my caring than I should be, and I still seek out the poem to consider the empty house, empty of life, love, caring, or passion. May those who read this poem reach out to their loved ones before they depart and be sure to let them know of your love before their departure. There is no guarantee you will be able to do this at the next visit.

Everett Bullock
November 18, 2012

Unseen Shadows and Unheard Echoes

Now the house sits quietly, with feeling.
The chairs are in their places, empty.
The floors are bare and clean.
Tables are loaded with empty space.

In the dim corners, latent shadows stir,
stretch, and observe without blinking,
present, but not present,
old dust undisturbed.

The walls push faint noises from
one room to the next, pausing,
while silence catches up and passes,
leaving faint echoes.

Outside, the flowers nod with approval
as the grass straightens.
Trees hold their own conversation
with large, slow gestures.

The wind seeks familiarity,
Examining with gentle fingers,
passing with kind rejection,
continuing its search.

The fence sturdily fences out,
and fences in,
providing a beginning
and an end.

The house is still,
And waits patiently
for decay or use,
secure but empty.

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Posted in Family, Opdyke, Poetry, Searching, Spring Green, Uncategorized, Writing

Also Not Sinatra, Except I’m Not Retiring

Posted on November 18, 2012 | 1 comment

Philip Roth says he’s retired from writing:

 

‘“I didn’t say anything about it because I wanted to be sure it was true,’ he said. ‘I thought, “Wait a minute, don’t announce your retirement and then come out of it.” I’m not Frank Sinatra. So I didn’t say anything to anyone, just to see if it was so.’”

 

According to the author of the New York Times article, “Mr. Roth stopped because he feels he has said what he has to say.”  Later, though, he quotes Roth as saying

 

“’I know I’m not going to write as well as I used to. I no longer have the stamina to endure the frustration. Writing is frustration — it’s daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It’s just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time.’ He went on: ‘I can’t face any more days when I write five pages and throw them away. I can’t do that anymore.’” 

 

Which seems different to me than not having anything more to say.

 

In any case, although I am also not Frank Sinatra, I am not retiring.

 

I’m still up for all the frustrations, more up for them than ever, really. I’m trying to be very intentional about which projects I work on and what actions I’m taking to build my audience.  We’ll see what the payoff is soon enough, but what’s nice about where I am right now is that if I’m not satisfied with the payoff, I’ll change what I’m doing.

 

Interviewing a friend last week about creativity—more on that in an upcoming post—he commented on all the work I’m doing, not just the writing, but the work of getting the writing out there in front of people (Shitty Barn, blogging, etc.) and said sort of casually that I was someone who actually had something to say (as opposed to people who seem to get in front of an audience regularly but don’t have much important to say).

 

Pretty huge compliment from someone I respect hugely.

 

And I don’t feel as though I’ve come anywhere close to saying it all.  Maybe in 33 years, when I’m nearing 80 as Philip Roth is, I’ll be done.  If I’m lucky enough to live that long, a whole Jesus-on-earth-lifetime, with my faculties intact, maybe then.

 

But not yet.

 

My first blog post was November 20, 2011. Although I had used Facebook’s “Notes” as a kind of blog  previously, and had published the occasional op-ed in the Cap Times or Wisconsin State Journal, blogging is the first time I’ve genuinely felt as though I was writing “my letter to the world,” in any kind of format that might allow the world to actually receive the letter, let alone read it, in any kind of consistent fashion.

 

So here’s where we are so far:

With this post,

  • 52 posts published.
  • 3,828 views all time.
  • 278 views on my busiest day (thank-you Aeron Haynie!)
  • 1,179 views in my busiest month (thank-you  Aeron Haynie!)
  • Hits from all over the world—many of which are spam, or people Googling something and landing on my blog by error or curiosity. And yet, it’s a pretty picture:

Image

(And there are more one-hit wonders below Ukraine (with its blue sky/wheat field flag), including Germany, Japan, Hungary, and Tunisia. But hey!  I have former students in Japan.  Why aren’t they reading my blog for real?  HarrrUMPH.)

These stats don’t say how many people actually read the blog, or GOT IT, or enjoyed it, but they’re interesting, nonetheless. More telling, perhaps, are my

  • 204 comments,
  • 38 “followers,” and
  • 64 “likes.”

 

I had no expectations going into this but still have been pleasantly surprised by the response (so I must have expected less somehow). I want to do some research to get a sense of what an appropriate goal might be for expanding my readership, but the blog has led to another writing opportunity already (more on that soon!) and more importantly, it’s given me a way to share what I’ve always done a lot of—writing.

 

Goals I’ve settled on for my second year of blogging:

  • try to post at least once a week (I aimed for 52 because that means I averaged one a week, but they came in very spurty spurts).
  • host guest blogs!

In fact, I want my next blog to be a guest blog from one of my favorite writers, my Dad.

In this week of giving thanks, I am thankful for everyone who’s tuned in and given my little radio show a listen. I’ll be back soon spinning the discs and dancing in the privacy of my padded room.  (Did I ever mention I started out in radio?  It’s true.  Why, one time I interviewed Big Jim Thompson when he was governor down in Illinois…..)

 

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Posted in Creativity, Poetry, Publishing, Uncategorized, Work Life, Writing

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Ode on a Ding Dong (a fat sonnet)

Posted on November 17, 2012 | 4 comments

O.k. so sure there’s the fine grit of baby aspirin
Or something like it now in Oreos and Pop Tarts
And Coke has, instead of sugar, Satan’s urine,
The whole country is obese and I’m too fat,
I get that, but Jesus, let me have one day of mourning
On hearing Hostess is going out of business.
The fact they’re anti-worker makes it worse–
I can’t even make a run on Ding Dongs
Without feeling I’ve betrayed Wisconsin’s spring
Of protesting, so I ate my last one without knowing
It would be the last time I would bite
Into a chocolate layer that resisted just
A tiny bit before giving way to cake,
And then…that creamy middle. I won’t say
I’m sorry for loving Ding Dongs. I am sad.
I’m not ashamed to love something so very bad.

_____

It has made me furrow my brow, people saying things like “you know they’re bad for you” or actually listing the ingredients, in response to someone mourning the loss of Twinkies (which I personally won’t miss) or Ding Dongs (which I really will miss).

As if there’s someone out there who loved Hostess because they were under the impression that display at the end of the aisle was full of healthy treats.

One of the many, many things I loved about Kyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Leigh on The Closer was her addiction, and the way James Duff made obvious that she had unbridled love for things that were bad for her. I mean, gracious! Her going away present from her guys was a new black bag full of Ding Dongs! Or something like them, since I personally haven’t been able to find them wrapped in foil for a long time–perhaps there is a product I will come to love as much as Ding Dongs, but I suspect they were purchased and wrapped in foil by props people so that Brenda Leigh could unwrap them sensually. Foil can be sensual (at least in Sedgwick’s hands). Plastic wrap not so much.

So yes, Ding Dongs never were good for me. But I loved them and I will miss them, and you know what? You can criticize their badness all you want, but it isn’t as if now that they’re gone, the whole country will certainly get healthier.

That we’re all stress-eating, self-medicating with fat and sugar, that the country may well set off some new sort of plate tectonics by just weighing too damn much?

Don’t blame Ding Dongs.

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Posted in Healthy Health, Poetry, Politics, Searching

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Off Balance in Blaze Orange

Posted on November 16, 2012 | 3 comments

“The morning air is all awash with angels… …keeping their difficult balance.”

Richard Wilbur, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”

The morning air is awash with orange in Wisconsin,
gun deer season almost here, all the manly men
and women hanging their gear on the line so the doe urine
don’t stink up the house so much. All righty then:

we all must choose who we are: our inner Zen Fransciscan
who is APPALLED at the blood and gore being
touted as a family ritual over Thanksgiving,

OR our car-insurance-paying selves who thank
every roadkill we’re not responsible for hitting,
every hunter who lowers the population,

OR all our cells currently, valiantly fighting
off all the diseases that are tick-borne
with names more beautiful than Lyme or Rocky Mountain–

babesiosis, and tularemia (which sounds like a dance),
OR we must admit those doe eyes, so longingly brown,
do nothing reliably but throw us off balance.

 

_____

Of course, another choice is participating in the hunt, enjoying the family tradition and ritual. I’m not a vegetarian, and I’m not anti-hunting, so I actually do see that as a perfectly fine option (it just didn’t occur to me as I was writing the poem, and I was trying to list the choices as I see them for myself as a non-hunter).

 

I was also interested in Dave Zweifel’s column, “If only hikers spent as much as hunters,” in terms of one of the basic things that keeps the hunt the way it is in Wisconsin–money-bucks and not boy-deer-bucks. He points out that “those folks who stroll in the woods don’t buy ammo and guns, down six packs of beer and devour big, juicy steaks after the sun goes down.”

 

Well. If we’re not shooting, there’s no need to buy ammo and guns.  And I’m not so big on the steak-eating.   But by golly, I’m going to try and buy lots and lots of beer, which I’m sure will do nothing but add clarity to the issue.

 

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Posted in God Stuff, Poetry, Searching, Uncategorized

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NaNoWriMo (no-whoa) NoCanDo

Posted on November 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’m happy for and jealous of friends and colleagues who plunge annually into National Novel Writing Month.  They post their daily word counts and I pout a little to myself.  I tried, two years ago, and felt swamped by the semester toward the end of the month, and gave up.

Now I have friends who are posting about DigiWriMo, and I was tempted, since I’m blogging, to sign up for this, but I resisted.

I’ve had to be brave and sing to myself, “no can do.”

See, my problem has never been finding time to write. My problem has never been lack of output.  I’m prolific as all get out.

Profligate, in fact. All those hours, all those drafts, all those poems, warehouses full really. Going to waste in isolation.

What I need is NaFiOnGoProBeYoMoOnMo:  National Finish One Goddam Project Before You Move On Month.

So that’s my November–continue working on “Guided Trespass,” a draft of a scholarly chapter for a book on creativity.

But I don’t want to feel utterly deprived, and I won’t. I’m still blogging, and writing poems in the car on the way to work, and here’s my big treat:  for every hour I spend researching and writing on “Guided Trespass,” I get to spend an hour working on expanding one of my approximately six billion ten-minute plays into a full-length play.

Because what I need is long-term success, not a good month. Kerry Rockquemore has not only a terrifically cool name, she has terrific advice. In her 2010 piece, “30 Days Until Finals,” she has the following as items on a list–

“Prioritizing your research and writing,” “Developing a consistent daily writing habit,” “Creating support and accountability for your writing.”

It’s that third one that I most need to work on.  Later in the list, we also get “understand what is holding you back,” which will maybe make December into UndWhaIsHoYoBacMo.

She finishes with “Releasing yourselves from the need to be Super Professor” and “Developing a spirit of compassion towards yourself as a writer.”

I don’t want to spend a month on either of those goals. I want to spend the rest of my career on the first, and the rest of my life on the latter.

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Posted in Creativity, Poetry, Publishing, Teaching, Uncategorized

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