Sorry I missed out on posting last week guys! We actually drove back from vacation last Friday instead of Saturday so I just didn’t quite make it. I have updated the post from two weeks ago so your work in progress is down 
I’m posting a newish poem below to get your feedback on. Feel free to post your work in progress (and/or links to your work in progress) in comments, and I’ll take my work and yours down a week from today.
–and now I’ll go work on da poem!!
This has been a bit of an odd week as I got back into the swing of being at home. I was also feeling a little under the weather which means I’ve cancelled my attendance at the NCWC this year. It is starting today and is five hours away. I just didn’t think I could handle that drive by myself this weekend since I’m feeling a little blah (for lack of a medical diagnosis) so instead I’m staying in to write, read, reflect etc.
I did submit some poems this week, and they were accepted! Yay! More details when they come out, but I also received a rejection which prompted me to pull a poem from the next full length manuscript I’m working on. Always plucking away at a new project.Actually that manuscript has over 50% of the individual poems already accepted for publication somewhere, and I’m just organizing the poems right now before I do another read-through. I need to decide if I want to continue sending the individual poems out. I usually stop sending them after the manuscript has been accepted somewhere so maybe I shouldn’t be premature . . . hmmm
I’ve already reported in on some reading and watching, but I am finishing up Loria Taylor’s poetry collection SOB from Sibling Rivalry Press, and before my husband headed off to his anime convention (yearly adventure with his brother the weekend I’m normally at the above mentioned writer’s conference) we finished up Sasuke 26 and 27 which meant hours and hours of watching people try to complete an obstacle course. Just simply fun to watch
This all has me almost up to date although I finished two books last night, a movie, and I’m starting a new pile of books. Nothing like having a bit of time to yourself to give you the time to do whatever ya want. I’ll celebrate that as I head into my extended weekend. Hope you have a good one as well!
I almost feel a kindred poem theme, well kind of, going on with us…I like poems that tell a story, but this almost is way out there…maybe the form it is written it, I found it hard to (swa)follow. I’m snickering right now at my own silly attempt to be funny.
I think we are also in sync with the feeling blah, but I went to the doctor and waiting for tests, but I’m sure it’s all good. Feel better!
I have two subs I haven’t heard from, and need to work on more packets to send out. And I have docs waiting on DVR. Man does time fly!
Okay, I am playing with the use of a dissonant imagery…
—poem is out crop dusting
Hope you are feeling better to! I know it would be impossible to post it properly on the page, but this is one I could see having a scattered affect – spread across the page. It would make some of the really cool images stand out even more. One of my favorites is the specificity of “tractor’s blade pointed left.”
Hope you both are feeling better soon.
I also like the tractor blade pointed left. Very cool line. Good visuals in this one.
Wouldn’t it be fun if you could squeeze words together or spread them apart, like I remember being able to do on word processors and when I did typesetting in the late 70′s. Unless you know of a way to d this, your right, I can see this scattered, since it is meant to be playful! That line was specifically meant to give an image! Thanks
I totally wish I knew how to do more with typsetting and graphic design! Yet another thing I wish I had learned
Me too! I love typography! I took a print class in middle school and LOVED it (yeah, okay, it was middle school, but it was a cool class) but for some reason never followed up on it in college.
I took office duplication, a print and office machine class (glorified secretarial class back in 70′s), but I loved loved the typesetting job at the local chronicle, I was published once, but my name wasn’t put on the piece
It paid more than any other job I ever had and I met Dustin Hoffman after he did Kramer vs Kramer and the Commodores because the entertainment writer and I were friends. I was a train conductor for a night on a freight train, and rode it after I got off work during the college years…I have done many things 
I can’t go one day without saying ‘No regrets’!
it is so much fun to look back at all the jobs we’ve had over the years
Happy Friday Everyone!
Missed you and your posts, but glad you had what sounds like a super vacation.
I like your poem (I don’t think I’ve ever not liked one of your poems) but I especially like how you have words that mean something to the travelers, then the “translation” in the parenthesis. That is really clever. The language and the play with letters is nice too. I’m not sure if I’m not getting something though about naming him Jaguar. I feel like there’s something right in front of my face but I’m too dense to get it, so forgive me if that’s the case! LOL. Overall, really cool idea. I like the ideas you have been coming up with lately. Diverse and original.
I, on the other hand, have been feeling completely uninspired and unoriginal. I haven’t written a poem in two weeks. Well, I sort of wrote that prompt response one, but it was really just a mish mash and though I am inspired to REVISE it, there really hasn’t been much else. I am turning a poem that was a dud as a poem into a flash fiction piece–which I think it was meant to be all along–so that’s something.
I haven’t submitted anything in a while. I have a group of three that I want to submit, but they’re just “not quite” yet, so I’ve been dragging my feet on that. I have 18 poems and 2 short stories out now, but according to Duotrope the response times are between three and six months, and that is driving me absolutely crazy!!! I need (fairly) instant gratification! ha ha. I got an acknowledgement from one yesterday that they have received my work, and that took two months to get. Not saying anything negative towards the mags, I get it, it’s just me and my impatience. The whole process of submitting and getting responses ( be they positive or negative) kind of was spurring me on. I need something else to spark that drive in me again I guess.
I haven’t even been reading that much. I really don’t know what the heck I’ve been doing. Spending a lot of time goofing off on the internet mostly. Oh yeah, and kids. I forgot about them.(lol) They may have something to do with it. Things may get better when they get back in school. And Jessie, I swear, you have eyeballs on your hands and feet or something to be able to read and watch all you do! So envious.
So here’s my draft. It doesn’t even have a title yet. Oh, and the lines are long so they’ll probably be broken up here in some weird way, Just sayin.
*******
—draft is taking a nap
I know my mom had eyes in the back of her head and laser vision so perhaps I inherited some of that?
Having those kids around will definitely keep you busy! You have work out there though, and you are still plucking away; that’s what counts.
I’m not sold AT ALL on the Jaquar name. I was just going for a J, but not feeling it either so that’s definitely something I’ll need to do better with. I was debating if I should keep the translation thing going hmmm had fun playing with that.
There are some AWESOME images in your poem. The cherries, the eye and thread. Can’t wait to see what you do with this one! I’m going to give you the same advice I gave E actually. Have you considered moving this one around on the page? I’m reading a poetry book right now that makes fantastic use of indentations. I could see that with this. Totally see it. That might also pull out some of the unnecessary words (not that there are many).
Rock on girl!
Oh, good, totally thought there was something I was being lame about with jaquar. I think you should leave the translations, I love that about that poem, maybe even do more! lol. Like if you change the name in the last line, make it something weird, then do a really meaningful translation of it. The way you would have a line of a poem as the “penultimate” line, make the name’s translation something like that. a big philosophical whammo. ha ha. I dunno. Just my 2.5 cents. I like it though, hope to see it wherever you decide to take it.
Thanks for the suggestion! (and the nice comments) I will definitely play around with that. I could see that working too. Hmmm. Getting some images of words on the page already….. I’m pretty boring when it comes to stanzas, linebreaks and such, so this will be something fun. Maybe I’ll figure out a title in the process too!!
I’m definitely trying to figure out what those people would name a child once they finally decided that they were now on this planet to stay. I kind of want the word to be something in our own language to show the connection to us, but will have to decide if I stick with a J word and what on earth would that be. Might need to play with a dictionary. I used to LOVE to play with the dictionary. I love that scene in “Say Anything” where the girl tells Lloyd Dabbler that she used to look up the words she didn’t know in the dictionary and would mark them. He looks in the dictionary and just sees mark after mark. Terrific character detail
I’m so 80′s
ARG. Hate this laptop. Just erased my reply….
Anyway…as I was saying…
I love Say Anything! That’s cool you do too, that’s a movie I think not many people know, but I guess it has kind of a cult following…
I love the dictionary too. My grandparents had this one (I have it now) where the words are so tiny you need a magnifying glass to read it, but it was so cool to me with all those “grown-up” words….now I like using it to find words that nobody uses anymore, and seriously, there are quite a few that are not in the new dictionary. Online at least.
Okay, now I see that you do need to have the name be an Earth name. The J works with what you are doing with the alphabet–I bet you could find a good J word.
ugh. I think that’s everything I said the FIRST TIME I typed this…( that was directed at you, computer…)
Hi Jessie! Delicious language and translations in “Just Sit Right Back . . .” I can hear the music. Having lived in Iowa, I also love Cowboypoetry’s poem and title: “Play Date in the Corn Field.” And Val — love the “rude gesture to the sky.” No poem here, but fun news — check out the excerpt of my memoir about nursing my baby while in law school, just up on The Literary Lawyer: http://allenmendenhallblog.com/2012/07/27/unraveling/
Cool! Heading over to see your piece
My poems that were accepted will be in “Eye Socket Journal” which is where I see you are!
Cool, Jessie — I’ll look forward to seeing your stuff on Eye Socket!
Rose, I enjoyed reading your piece; it brought back memories of me trying to go back to college for my English degree when my two 13 month old apart kids were three and four!
Thanks for the nice comment.
I love the excerpt from your memoir! I wanted to keep reading and was sorry it ended!
I also love that you use highlighters like I do. LOL.
Too funny that you use highlighters, too
Huge thanks for your kind thoughts, and for the “like” at http://allenmendenhallblog.com/2012/07/27/unraveling/ My agent is knocking herself out to drum up support for the memoir, so any and all comments by everyone are sooo appreciated — thanks again!
Opposite of blinking is such a great line! I love this poem. Very sci-do, but it goes somewhere unexpected.
Thanks, Tel! I love sci-fi, but I’ve never been able to pull it into my work in a way I’d really like
So many comments to read here LOL I forgot what I was going to say…well Val I agree with Jessie, love the poem and can see it move around. Funny how others see things we might not. I also can concur with you on the comments disappearing or falling into a void, UGH is right!
I’m melting in this humidity, the brain is turning to mush, and my mouth feels like an over heated candle, inside out…Thanks everyone…
Thanks so much for reading my piece! Wow, going back to college with two kids, ages three and four? You are my new hero.
Jessie, your poem was amazing and I loved the translations and the opposite of blinking!
What fun! Hoping you are feeling better by now!
Sounds like me. haha!
Elizabeth, your poem took me to that cornfield! Great word choices and pictures! I liked “snaggletooth and rusted”.
Val, Val, Val . .. you start off saying you haven’t written and then you deliver us another classic killer piece. You wow me and I love the way you come up with such unique wordings. No cliches with you!
Rose . .. my daughter was just here after taking a final exam for her summer law classes. She has 3 weeks before starting into year 2 of law school. But no baby! phew!
I think I’m just going to wait til next Friday, since I’m so late. haha! I’ve been mostly away ,house / animal sitting for 2 weeks, then had a surprise weekend visit from my oldest daughter (wonderful to see her even though I had to go back to house sit one more night and morning) and had a kitty pass away this weekend too. That all should fuel my inner poet!
The end of summer seems to be rushing in doesn’t it? And this morning is already rushing away from me. Almost 11! I better get the next blog posted
Look forward to seeing what you have for us on Friday, Debbie!
Debbie, thank you so much for reading my piece and for your nice comment. Your daughter just finished first year law school? God bless her. She’s over the hardest part — congratulate her for me!!
Congrats Debbie! I was wondering where you had gotten too. My son is about to embark on finishing college by going full time rather than a few classes at a time. It has been fun having him around, but tiring. I don’t write as much when he putters around the house talking to me and watching the Olympics, and loudly LOL We love our kids no matter how much work they can be. Mine makes up for the loss of the other at times…