Sturgeon's Law

Liking the number 13 makes certain lists, like this one, pretty difficult to complete:

1. The Daily Show: Adelphia's asshole decision to run TDS at midnight here in Colorado Springs has permanently fucked up my sleep schedule because this is pretty much the only show I never want to miss.
2. The Colbert Report: I should just list this with TDS, but Jesus, I have to think of 13 current shows I like?
3. House: Genius-misanthrope-doctor show getting progressively more farfetched, but still great fun. Hugh Laurie playing against previous type is wonderful.
4. The Shield: Dirty-cop show getting progressively more farfetched, but still great fun. Michael Chiklis playing etc. But screw FX for running every episode 3-4 minutes over so I miss the beginning of TDS.
5. Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Even though he's really recycling jokes hard. I have a hard time seeing how he's going to fly in Leno's slot. See, we're only at 5, and I'm having to stretch.
6. Uhhhh, the NFL: Every Sunday during football season, totally wasted. (The day, not me.)
7. World Poker Tour: The broadcasts are better on most levels than ESPN's World Series of Poker, plus there's the absolutely delicious Shana Hiatt. I can't believe she's married to Dick Van Patten's son James (20 years her senior). Gross!
8. Scrubs: Only I almost never watch it, and I think it's on the same time as House. Whoops.
9-12. Let's just pretend I filled these in.
13. Simpsons in syndication: The new shows haven't done much for me in several years, but seasons 2-9 or so twice a weekday, oh my!

What stupid thing do you waste time watching on TV? If you don't watch anything, damn you to hell!

I just added a page on the Poetry West site for the publications (individual books and anthologies) we've received for review in The Eleventh Muse. The 2006 issue of the Muse will include a lovely review of Anne Coray's Bone Strings by Poetry West's Katie Kingston. Online version here.

If you have a book or chapbook new or forthcoming and would like it considered for review (on the Poetry West website, with consideration for inclusion in the Muse), please mail it to:

Poetry West
PO Box 2413
Colorado Springs, CO 80901

I wasn't really feeling bad about the four rejections yesterday--it was more a curiosity than anything else. But this is a real kick in the balls: I just got a letter from Bret Lott accepting a poem for The Southern Review, but it's "Crestone Conglomerate," the same poem that won the Laureate Prize last month. I sent them a notification e-mail, but obviously it didn't go through. Damn, damn.

Edited to add: yes, there's obviously a silver lining that I was accepted there at all, and no, I don't know that I'd give up the prize win, which was awfully damn cool, as an even trade for this acceptance. But still, this is the sort of thing on which I will dwell for a while.

Anyway, the upshot now is that I e-mailed TSR right away and apologized as best I could for the mixup, and they were gracious about accepting my apology and withdrawal. Sigh.

Apparently journals wait until right before President's Day weekend to send their rejections, as I got four(!) in the mail today after weeks of nothing. The best (if there is such a thing) was a really nice note from Ninth Letter, which is a badass journal I really wanted to get into. The other rejections were from Poetry Northwest, ALR, and Georgetown Review.

Since a couple people have asked: I'm not going to AWP this year. I'd like to, but time and money are both issues. I'll definitely try to go next year if I'm in an MFA program.

And yet God is clearly clearly telling me not to ever play poker for money ever again, no matter how good I may think I am. Sigh... I wish it weren't fun. I wish I didn't think I understood the game.

I found out today that I got accepted into Vanderbilt's MFA program--one of three poets...

One down, two yet to hear from.

I already used "Tidbits" as a title, sorry.

• I set aside the poem where form was overwhelming content, because I realized that it had completely departed from the cool idea that got me started on it, and not departed to fun new places.
• I figured out a form for the poem that needed it, so that draft is preceding nicely, even though it's a style I'm not really comfortable with.
• I revised a formerly 23-line poem into an 8-liner. Yes, that is drastic, but I decided most of what I removed was exposition.
• My longest outstanding submissions at this point (of the ones I haven't completely given up on) are Many Mountains Moving and The Hudson Review, each at 33-34 weeks. Jeffery, any news on MMM? Grin...
• Because I've been preparing The Eleventh Muse a lot this month, my writing and submissions have slowed way down. I think that's good on the submission side, where I've been getting better in the past year about being more selective--even with that new selectivity, there are dozens of places I'd like to be published.
• Speaking of the Muse, it's in final proofreading, and I expect to take it to the printer next week, have a proof copy done, and then have the whole thing by the beginning of March.
• I think I shall write about something non-poetry on here very soon. I just need to have a wee bit of time.
  

I am working on one poem where I really love the combination of theme and form, but where the form is overwhelming the content right now; and one where I love the theme and content, but where a form is not emerging in harmony with the writing. This situation is making me want to accidentally cut the back of my head with a cheap disposable razor--wait, I already did that yesterday while shaving. Other than that, though, life is pretty decent.

Thought of the evening: why is it that HR professionals don't seem to have learned anything from the thousands of resumes they've seen?

"Bill Fowler’s Pointer Hears a Voice" by Daniel Anderson (The Cincinnati Review)
"Betty" by Jennifer Michael Hecht (H_NGM_N)

Okay, here's another draft of the poem below. I'm still not crazy about the peacock section, especially the last line, or about "penetrate" in the rhino section, which seems too on-the-nose and obvious. I haven't come up with a replacement for either yet, though. I also toyed a little with changing around sections, but didn't prefer any of the alternatives to the way I arranged them when I was writing pretty fast and not overthinking.

I went ahead and deleted the Danish cartoon. Today was a really bad day on a number of fronts, and I really don't need that stirring up trouble for me personally at the same time.

A long time ago my dad presented a word game involving thinking of words that had definitions that were opposites of each other--one word, two completely opposite potential meanings. Sadly, I've forgotten most of them, but the one that always comes to mind is "cleave," since it can mean stick together or cut apart. The reason I thought of this puzzle was that my last poem draft had the word "suspect," which can mean believe, as in "I suspect his story is false," or disbelieve, as in "I suspect his story." I cut that word from the poem draft, but the thought of these self-opposing words lives on. Can anyone think of any others offhand? I'll try to remember the ones I knew...

I'm experimenting a bit and posting something that's a little earlier in the writing stage than what I usually post here. I feel a little guilty about stealing a title from an 11(?)-year-old, but not that much.

If you're researching a journal to decide whether you're going to submit there, what information do you want to know?

This could fall into all sorts of categories:
Basic stuff like their reading period, the number of poems to submit, whether they accept simultaneous submissions...
More advanced or subjective stuff like what poets they've published, what sorts of work they seem to prefer, or samples of the journal online...

Ideas?