Like Some Runner in a Suicide Squeeze

Sometimes lately, well for the past several years, my life seems to be nothing about writing. Doing writing, fixing/trying to fix/improve my writing and others’ writing, reading everything I can of classics and good contemporary work, figuring out how different writing communities work, what makes them tick and how they’re different or like the work I’m doing or trying to do, corresponding with writers and friends who are writers. I don't really like the term "networking." It seems too business-y and weird. I am more likely to disregard an "in" I have than to capitalize on it. Maybe this comes from always having a job/paying my way, even as a child. From not having things "given." I always want to believe it's on the quality of my work and not that someone knows me. So I stay mostly unknown. I mean, other than people reading my work. Nothing delights me more than some stranger saying they like something I've written. All the better that I usually have nothing concrete to offer them. I am not a good contact. No affiliation with a journal or press. I just like reading, being immersed, sometimes writing. I just like words.

Sometimes I feel like all that defines me anymore is this one thing. My relationship to language.

I am not a good conversationalist, but I love to listen. I also like sitting quietly. A perfect evening for me would be sitting on a couch or bench with a book with someone who also has a book. To be together and in separate worlds. There is something inherently sexy about this. Comforting. I think a life best spent would be mostly spent in this way.

And while I said my recent travel was vaguely tangential to writing, what with setting up a few readings for MFS along the way, it was more about getting outside this rabid focus for a little while. I took the train. For a long time. I think I figured the total hours added up to six days. The total trip time was 17 days, with stops in Flagstaff, Wichita (Augusta, actually), and Los Angeles. In Flagstaff, a good friend and her beautiful baby, also a reading.

This is Kate and Max. Two people I love very much.

In Kansas: Grandpa. The impetus for the whole trip. I don't see him enough. He's been good to me, and is the only grandparent I have left.

Handsome devil, isn't he?

I also made the mistake of having to return the rental car in a tiny town in Kansas (Newton: where the train comes and goes at 2:51am and 3:25am... and so it will be forever referred to by me as "the 3am train station) the afternoon before getting on the train in the middle of the night. I felt seriously a bit homeless to have to find a place to be from 5pm until the train station opened at 1am (thank goodness for libraries, bars and my good legs that like to walk). I literally broke into the train station to leave my luggage in a locker. I found a loose side door and worked it, using my grandmother's Saint Christopher key to jimmy it open. Then got walked out/removed by someone working on the building, but not before I'd stowed my bag.


Then there was the reading in Riverside, and spending time with Kathryn and Lola.

Lola is one of the coolest kids around.

LA was mostly about forcing an old friend to reconnect with me. That went well. I mean, we're both awkward human beings. I think it went okay. I actually have little idea how she feels about the whole episode, but one must be content with the mysteries.

Inside The Museum of Jurassic Technology.

I’m actually finding some effort/trouble in realigning back to regular life, reassessing some things I had taken for fact that now seem shaken. It felt nice for a little while just to be on the move, focusing on family, friends, kids, hanging out. Spending time. Rather than being focused inward all the time. Though there's always that inward thrust towards whatever project I'm working on (or the anxiety of what I'm not working on). The whole time, for the month of August I've been in a poem-a-day writing group. Though I didn't always have access to the internet to post every day I did write a poem (or at least averaged one poem) a day. 21 poems, in fact. About half of which I'm quite pleased with.

Like this:

THE LAST THING I WANT TO DO


I did that thing where I wouldn’t put anything in my mouth for the longest time. So I wouldn’t lose what was left of you. Even after taste fades, and the feeling. Even after thirst makes everything dry. I parch, I desiccate, die; you replace me.

I rebuild the house from memory all the way home. The fireplace that holds no fire, the broken TV, that lamp everyone has. Stains on the carpet; stains on linoleum. Terra cotta tiles in the foyer, miniature terra cotta animals hunting pale yellow shelves. Stone walls, orange low sun, and you standing in the yard, red face, flushed and mud on your arms, your worn through shoe with its sliver of duct tape crowning the toe.

You were always outside, said the halls echoed. And then you would scream. “What do you hear?” “My father’s snores.” And what does that feel like? The last gun blast, sore throat of smoke and everything quiet.

The arborist had taken the tops off all the trees in the front yard. So they wouldn’t crowd the wires. But I kept thinking: decapitation. Where my head is. Where is my head? The green, another straight line, another horizon. How to get to you. What I want is messier than fire. What I want is soot-black in the keel, a balance wheel back on its heels. Hairspring and oscillation, a regulating beat.

You said the clothing got lonely, waiting for me. Shirts separated by sheets on the line. Thread counts like miles. Dead weight of my bag in the backseat. I felt imperfect again moving away from you, listening as another bee troubled the window like some runner in a suicide squeeze.

Idea like a hit song, a virus in the brain.

I'll admit it. I like a big blockbuster. Quality of the plot and character development are unimportant. What's important? Explosions, the bigger the better. Good, fun things that look good big. And good looking people.

I went to see Inception today. I should mention size also matters. Sitting in an air conditioned theater for 2 hours and 22 minutes was an excellent idea. For the two of you who mightn't know, Inception is the Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle about dreams. The visual effects in a word were: stunning. Especially the scenes with Joseph Gordon-Levitt trying to get the team into position for a wake-up "kick" in zero gravity.

This is not it, but here's JGL running funny:


As with most of my favorite stories, we are presented with the concept that the real world and the unreal world (sometimes fictional, but in this case the dream world) are divided by only the finest of lines. In the best of cases, we can't really decide for sure what side we're on. As a writer, I kind of feel like I live on this line. Actually, that's even pushing it. Differing from some of the characters in this film, I do not have trouble knowing what's real and what isn't. I have trouble maintaining a strong presence in the RW.

I had a conversation just this weekend about this. Over drinks and dinner with a group of writers who live in my town, and a few from out of town, we talked about babies and traveling and TV and a lot about writing. One friend writes poetry, but may be better known for her nonfiction. She admitted that her poetry tends along the lines of nonfiction as well. I contended that I am unable to write "anything true" because every time I try to tell something that happened, things immediately get added, deleted. Not so much that the story is unrecognizable from its origins necessarily (well, not always), but enough that Oprah would chide me if I tried to pass it off.

Necessarily we all do this. Our brains do this in creating memories. We can't not leave things out. But I am aware of the major changes I'm making. I do it willfully, yet uncontrollably. It's just not that interesting if I don't change things around.

From my house I often walk to the grocery store. When I get home, I often find myself adding details and characters to the deli counter and produce aisle. Right now I want to tell you about the boy behind the counter with the incredible, bushy eyebrows, but that was someone ahead of me in line. It's much more interesting if I was asking him for cheese.

I recently invented a woman dancing with tomatoes in a denim skirt. The woman was real. A quick glance gave the impression of dancing. When I turned fully to face her, I realized she had her hands full and was getting the hair out of her eyes. Much less interesting than dancing, which is what I had seen initially. Was this a lie?

Maybe it was. In this relationship C and I have an agreement never to lie about big things. If she tells me she couldn't answer my call because she was watching a house fire, when really she was just in the middle of a thought I'm okay with this. If I talk about long-haired women dancing with produce, I assume this is okay too. This works for us. And I don't mind not always knowing what's real. We tell each other stories constantly. It's who we are. Some are true. Some are better. What I want always, and what I expect from others is an emotional truth.

This is the distinction I make. The facts are not so important as the emotion conveyed. What was felt is prime. Primal.

My nonfiction writer friend of mine and I were talking about how maybe people (or writers anyway) are predisposed towards either fiction or nonfiction. Like on a continuum. I like this thought. Kind of like Kinsey's scale for sexuality. I'm much farther gay and much farther fictional on the scales.

Sometimes I like to break the world into either/ors. Binaries. Such as: 'there are two people in the world: those who like, deal compassionately with animals, and those who don't.' But it is more useful to think of all things in a more complicated way. Perhaps a book could be given a number from 1 to 6 indicating its relation to the facts. We would want most of our textbooks to bear closely to them, but for me all else could gather happily on the other side. (By the way, as expanding as I am of all definitions and breaking down binaries, I probably won't like you if you don't like animals. Although, that said, I'm not much of a cat person. Yes, I know: I have three cats. This does not make the statement any less true, and possibly more so.)

So the movie! I think it bolsters/illustrates my claim that the emotional truth is more honest. It's where we live. There's little to no character development in anyone but the main character, but that's mostly due to the fact that I don't think an audience could hold any more details in their brain while parsing the rules followed in the dream world(s). Kudos to whoever cast the film's stars though; there's someone for everyone.

Also, it's a film that times itself out. So many times (especially in long films, and with me of tiny bladder) I'm left wondering whether I can wait it out or if I should dash off to the ladies' so I can finish the film in comfort. (For those who also drink a lot... I've never used it, but supposedly RunPee.com is an excellent source that tells you when to go.) In Inception everything must happen before the van hits the water. The different dream levels are toggled between (the farther in the dream, the longer time is expanded), and the van makes it's slow descent. Actually, visually these moments were probably my favorite. Sleep-filled arms flailing in the half-light of an overcast day, the water somewhere below, everything riding on a few seconds dragged impossibly and unfelt to the man awake at the wheel.

There's no one at work in the world.

Yesterday I spent some time perusing the Verse Daily archives in a successful attempt to put off work. I made dinner at 9am. I boxed and did sit-ups in the garage. I watered the plants. Mary B had yesterday's poem over at VD. Exactly a month ago Khaled had a poem up. Perhaps Shane will get one August 13! (My blurbers.) So then I started reading backwards; I like this one a lot. It's Ander Monson. Repetition makes me happy. Just keep saying bags. Keep saying stars. Keep saying beauty. Drink. Take this. It's yours. Tell me that last line again.

More Precisely 


What I meant was stars: lots of them.

What was in the bag: a hundred other bags,

each filled with a star. What came after the world:

silence, lots of it. Like being in a bag for a year,

a portable hole, losing the sensation of sound.

After only two nights stars appear

where there were none. So: I'm sorry. I'm here,

not the star of this poem, nor are you. Nor beauties
in bags draped down by the river in books about bodies

and necks stretching upwards to sky. What comes after beauty
is water, just water, nothing reflecting in it, not even the song

of water. Drink. Take this. It's yours. There's no one at work
in the world. No dogs rambling the park.

Nothing in darkness or pressure arising by depth.

What was in the works but ears, ears everywhere,
on the land like leaves, caught up in updrafts like silk,
like slick maps written on it and worn on a body.

You know it's a beauty. Even seen from a mile,

at which point it's only a dot, it stretches and grows.
Comes closer. She's coming for you. She walks like a star.
Towards you. In her bag is a book. Each page

draped with stars. You'll know her
when she arrives. You've seen her breathing before.

Frances and I sat in the park.

Sometimes, especially when reading, I look up and am shocked to find myself where I am. So transported by the world I have entered through language that the "real" (what I'll contend is not-as-real) world has dropped away. It is also like napping in an unfamiliar place, dream state to new sometimes equals a moment of surprise. Who needs vacations? Okay, I do. And will be taking one soon.

In my studio I nap on the hard indoor/outdoor carpeting, my head on some rolled up piece of fabric I've snatched from studiomate Lisa's vast shelves. In those few moments upon waking I'm not sure if I'm paralyzed, in grass, underwater or what.

Yesterday I was in the co-op (in Mount Vernon!) and I wasn't sleeping. I was reading (re-reading) Stacey Levin's Frances Johnson. I figured it was re-released, I could read it again. New to me! Not so, but it's been awhile. It's a good book, strange. What I'll call the Seinfeld school of novelling. A novel in which nothing really happens. This is also what my most recently completed (and recently begun circulating) novel is like. Something happens towards the end, but it's not big. What happens big is internal. This, I think is more how our lives really are. No one I know has ever been shot. (Wait, I don't think. Though I did see someone get stabbed when I was a kid. He survived! It was OK!) And wild romance isn't really that interesting. I couldn't write a murder mystery (the ultimate SOMETHING happening) or a thriller or, well, no, maybe I could, but it would be an alien thing. The book and the experience. Maybe I'll write a mystery. Really most of the world (and the internal workings of everyone, myself included) is a mystery. So any novel--

Anyway, Frances Johnson. Like this (this is where I was going), this is how I feel: "Immediately, she fell into a hapless, jagged doze, only to wake moments later, frightened back from the horizon of unconsciousness, for she had seen a turtle there" (12). This is what it's like to read in public.



It doesn't always take so long to get to a point. Sometimes it takes longer.

It's kind of how I feel in opposite though. It's not the turtles I'm afraid of. Maybe falling brick. I've been dreaming about earthquakes again. (This morning I walked past a house in my neighborhood with a sign out front advertising that it had been retrofitted for earthquake proofing and had a number to call. In my usual overzealous panic I thought, should we do this? we should do this. But our house has been standing for a hundred years. I trust it. As much as one should trust a house.)

Like the day C's father died and I had just woken from a dream in which an earthquake occurred in a hospital room and the nurse and everyone in the room was freaking out and he was in the bed and said, why is everyone so upset; everything's okay. We're all fine. And then we got the call he had died. In dreams lately it's no one I know; sometimes it is, but rarely. Last week before seeing Deb Poe I had a dream about Deb Poe and Karl was showing me around their house at what they had done.

So the book's out. Luckily I read everything, Kate Greenstreet's blog interviewing poets about first books, some other personal accounts, and talked to people I know, C and others. All of this was kind of like reading What to Expect When You're Expecting. I didn't expect my life to change and it hasn't. Except this month I'm letting myself off the hook a little about submitting things and writing new things (which means I am writing new things, but relaxedly). The time off's been nice. And next month the train. I was going to give myself time off then as well (at least I can't really do submissions), but I'll make that decision come the first of the month or so.

I'm working the earthquake dreams into the new stuff I'm doing, trying not to make it at all about dreams though, but real things that happen. Backdrop of a city, buildings coming down. Not coming down, because the earthquake is mild. But enough shaking that people start thinking more concretely about a "big one."

(Read about tsunamis from a thick blue book. Read about the Big Ones, the ones that killed, the causes, how many dead. Read about velocity and volume, then go down to the water.Walk the beach, feet tipped in low waves. Imagine every tremor an earthquake—waves, birds beating quiet wings, a waterfall—then shiver as you watch the horizon for the swell.)

The above is actually from a poem in Money for Sunsets, but every time I say or think "big one" that's what runs through my head.

So I'm relaxed, sort of.

I'm also sending the book places, which takes some time. Who knew 5-line cover notes could take so long?

How else the book has or has not changed my life: holding it. I understand it's possible. That the others can find homes. That maybe I'm a Writer. Also that no one can take this away from me. Maybe I am still that younger version of myself with the threat of heartbreak in its varied and maniacal manifestations hanging over me. Any floor can drop. But this one I can walk on. I feel like a teenager who has just given birth so that someone will always love her. How's that for mixing metaphors? MFS, be a good little child.

Money for Sunsets

"David Lynch meets Gertrude Stein." -Denise Duhamel, author of Ka-Ching!

“Protean like dreams, jittery montages of the quotidian-turned-nightmare, Elizabeth J. Colen’s lyrical prose poems in Money for Sunsets shed a steady gaze on our present moment.” –Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville

"Here are poems that speak many minds with a single voice." -Shane McCrae, author of Mule

“Cinematic and compassionate, sexy and heartbreaking, this is a debut collection that will thrill you with the sound of your own pulse.” –Mary Biddinger, author of Prairie Fever

Get your copy here: http://www.amazon.com/Money-Sunsets-Elizabeth-J-Colen/dp/0982416938/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276661418&sr=1-1

I came home last night to a box of books on my porch. Slept with one in the room last night. Carried one around all day. Yeah, she's pretty. Prettier than me. Probably a little smarter and dirtier, too.

Excitement.

Hooray! It looks like all is well in the world of the book. That is, in Money for Sunset's world. The world within the book is still a little bit messy -- what with our world being messy as it is, but the proofs are proofed and gorgeous, thanks to Tom C. Hunley and his crew.

I've had more people ask me what the book is "about," not satisfied with the answer, "well, it's poetry, prose poetry." (Yes, I say this kind of like Bond, James Bond.) So I'm working out a description my aunts or my grandpa could spout when someone asks. Something along the lines of...

"An individual examination of our culture of deficit. You know, with sex and stuff thrown in."

Okay, so it's a working description. But that first part I like. And there is a lot of sex in the book. Appropriate sex, sex in inappropriate places, beach sex, imagined sex. I could go on.

In reading the book again while proofing I realized,

a) Hey, this is a really good book! (I hadn't read it in probably more than a year, so distanced it seems sometimes like some other creature wrote it. But they are my obsessions in there.)

b) There is a lot of talk about overconsumption, and specifically about oil. Oddly. I finished this book more than two years ago, but somehow all the environmental stuff that crops up seems way more relevant today than it did even then.

Must. Walk. Dog.

Thanks for checking in.

A poem is not an abstraction.

Excerpt from a letter from Lee Hickman to Todd Baron (lifted from this place, if you want to read more):

You talk of “pure charge.” Pure charge is the meaning. In a poem, there is no other saying. What is said and how charged it is said are the same thing. As in life, the generosity and intensity of your love is that love, there is no separating them from it. A poem is not an abstraction. It is a product of the body. It is not the fingerprint. It is the fingertip. No poem goes beyond meaning. Meaning is the body. Yr body.