Where the prospects are dim, and the pickins are slim

Well, I'm gearing up for the Kentucky state elections next week, doing my research and such, and I just have two words to sum up all the candidates from Governor to Commisioner of Agriculture:

Slim pickins.

This is the biggest bunch of say-nothing Republicrats I've ever seen.

Yep.

It's about dang time!

Just got some poetry submissions out today. It's been waaaay too long. Got my little spreadsheet to keep track of everything up and running again. Planning to work back up to having eleven things out at a time--it felt pretty good when I was doing that. Logging in rejections when they came in and immediately sending more work out to a new place. Occasionally getting an acceptance. My printer's not working, so I started by sending out to the good/fave places that have online submissions managers. Boy, was that handy for getting me over this hump!

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Oh, and the sun's out today. Yay! (I just *knew* singing "The sun'll come out tomorrow" last night was going to work.) Now, for some sweeping and raking that which is not too damp. Oh, and doing some laundry to hang out on the line.

black mountain diseased & cut into three pieces

enjoying this little animated art film by zachary rossman:



he's in LA, but feels like he could be right here in E KY.

Where We Live and Work

Click here to watch a little movie and find out more about W's work.

Jenny Wiley, 1760 - 1831

Yesterday, on the drive back to Hindman, I stopped by the grave site of Jenny Wiley:



A politically incorrect introduction to Jenny Wiley:



"Heroic pioneer mother, captured by Indians, October 1, 1789, at Walker's Creek Virginia. Witnessed the slaying of her brother and five children by savages. Was held captive for several months on Little Mud Lick Creek in the present Johnson County. She escaped from the Indians to Harmon Station at Block House Bottom and was later united with her husband, Thomas Wiley, in Virginia.

"Mrs. Wiley returned to Johnson County with her husband and a cabin was built near this site about the year 1800 where they reared a family of five children. Jenny Wiley died in 1831"

The original grave marker under an ugly metal cage and a heap of plastic flowers:



With a tree that looks to be over 100 years old in the background:



And a couple dorky self portraits:

Soggy soggy day

Well, I'm back in Hindman from WV, and it's a drizzly cozy evening. Oh, this is a rain that's going to do us some good. There might even be a trickle back in Troublesome Creek in the morning. Lots of news from my very short but eventful trip, but all I really want to do right now is curl up with a certain novel I've been looking forward to for a while, and maybe fix some popcorn the old fashioned way in my new Whirley-Pop.

'Til tomorrow, then...

-----------

PS--Some additions have been made to both the List of Poetry Books Obsessed with or Organized around the Alphabet and the List of Books of Historical / Fictional / Persona Poem Sequences. If you're keeping up, check 'em out.

Like a little kid, I'm saying, "Ooooo, oooooo, ooooo!"

Just found a good interview with Ann Pancake in the Huntington (WV) Herald-Dispatch. Here.

A Busy Week for Literature and Culture

Yesterday in Lexington was the dedication of James Still's papers to the Special Collections of the University of Kentucky library. There were probably around 125 people there. A wonderful day hearing all about Mr. Still, from biographers, and literary scholars, and friends, and even his adopted daughter and literary heir (who I had no previous idea about!) Took some good notes and got a broader glimpse into the life of the writer in whose house I am living.

Sometimes I get all self-involved and forget: but, this life of mine is pretty amazing!

Today, rolling over to Marshall University in Huntington to hear Ann Pancake read, and run into my undergrad writing professors, I'm sure.

And then, this Saturday in Whitesburg, a beginning banjo lesson at the Old Time String Band Day put on by Appalshop. (If you don't know about Appalshop, you should. They do wonderful films, have a great community-funded and -run radio station, and, for the locals, put on all kinds of neat cultural events. Find out more here. And check out their loaded YouTube page here.) Then, Saturday night, a masquerade square dance. At this point in my life, I can't imagine much more fun than that. Well, I guess the only thing that would make it out-of-this-world-blissful would be to have all my friends and family there wearing masks and do-see-doeing with me.

Wintry Thoughts

I just made a basket in the shape of a sleigh in my basket making class. Actually, I was working so intently on writing yesterday that I almost forgot to go and showed up an hour late. This is the class that really gave me the bug. I've toyed with the thought of trying to make baskets outside of class--as a continuing education course, we only make one basket a month--but now...I've got plans! (And now that I think about it, I think these plans officially confirm that I am no longer a "young adult." I am firmly aboard that train to middle age, with these plans. Shoot, I might even be on the old-woman train and not quite realize it--age, I've heard, will do that to you.)

Anyway, I want to make a cat basket!

One of these:



Or one of these:



Or this:



Just a little something that will make W. and the cats AND me happy. (I've had a no-ugly-cat-furniture-in-our-house rule for awhile now. So far, all humans and felines have complied.)

These aren't *ugly* are they?

Now, for figuring up a pattern based on my limited skilz....

Thar Be Monsters in These Hills

List of Poetry Books Obsessed with or Organized around the Alphabet

[Criteria found here.]

Alphabetically (of course):

Inger Christensen (trans. Susanna Nied), alphabet
Karl Elder, Mead: Twenty-six Abecedariums
Angie Estes, Voice-Over
Kathy Fagan, MOVING & ST RAGE (in part)
Carolyn Forché, Blue Hour
Barbara Hamby, Alphabet of Desire
Barbara Hamby, Babel
Matthea Harvey, Modern Life
John McKernan, Resurrection of the Dust
James Merrill, The Changing Light at Sandover
Harryette Mullen, Sleeping with the Dictionary
Robert Pinsky, Jersey Rain

Additionally, some individual poems published in journals, but either from collections not yet published (as far as I can tell) or from published collections that, as a whole, are not obsessed with the alphabet:

Mary Moore, "Door" in Poetry May 1994, and "Fontanel" in Poetry December 1993, both from the manuscript Dada Alphabet of Desire

Jennifer Perrine, "Coveting, with Pronunciation Guide" (originally published in Poems & Plays 11) from The Body is No Machine

[Also, FYI: You can download an essay written by Matthea Harvey (originally published in American Poet, Spring 2006) about the modern abecedarius--hers included--by clicking here. It's titled: “Don Dada On The Down Low Getting Godly In His Game: Between and Beyond Play and Prayer in the Abecedarius.” It's worth the download for the abecedarian cartoon at the end alone, although "Inbred Hillbillies" for the "I" is, well, let's just say, "Insensitive" and "Insulting" not to mention a few other choice words that start with other letters.]

[Thanks to Doug Cox for the suggestions so far.]

[Add to these lists in the comments, or email me with additions: sarapennington --at-- gmail --dot-- com.]

List of Books of Historical/Fictional/Persona Poem Sequences

[Criteria found here.]

Listed alphabetically:

Pamela Alexander, Commonwealth of Wings
Julianna Baggott, Lizzie Borden in Love: Poems in Women's Voices
John Berryman, Dream Songs
John Berryman, Homage to Mistress Bradstreet
Annie Boutelle, Becoming Bone
Gabrielle Calvocoressi, The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart
Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
Fred Chappell, Midquest
Martha Collins, Blue Front
Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah
Cornelius Eady, Brutal Imagination
Diane Gilliam Fisher, Kettle Bottom
Nick Flynn, Blind Huber
Louise Glück, Averno
James Baker Hall, Praeder's Letters
Andrew Hudgins, After the Lost War: A Narrative
Tyehimba Jess, leadbelly
Rebecca Loudon, Navigate, Amelia Earhart's Letters Home
Maurice Manning, A Companion for Owls: Being the Commonplace Book of D. Boone, Long Hunter, Back Woodsman, &c.
Maurice Manning, Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions
Davis McCombs, Ultima Thule
Raymond McDaniel, Murder | A Violet
Les Murray, Freddie Neptune
Alan Shapiro, After the Digging
Enid Shomer, Stars at Noon: Poems from the Life of Jacqueline Cochran
Natasha Trethewey, Bellocq's Ophelia
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie
Frank X. Walker, Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York
Robert Penn Warren, Audubon: A Vision
Robert Penn Warren, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce
Ruth Whitman, Tamsen Donner: A Woman's Journey
Kevin Young, To Repel Ghosts: Five Sides in B Minor

[Thanks to JCB & BDC for the help so far.]

[Add to this list in the comments, or email me with additions: sarapennington --at-- gmail --dot-- com.]

Compiling Two Lists

Sometime shortly after this post goes up, you'll find two new posts, two lists:

1. Books of historical/fictional/persona sequences. First, second, third person, doesn't matter. Let's say the book should meet two of the three criteria: historical, fictional, in persona. None should be autobiographical (though the idea of self-as-persona complicates this, and that's fine...). All--in whole or part--must be a sequence in some way.

2. Books obsessed with the alphabet, the alphabetical, abecedaria, etc. This one's wide open.

Both of these will be continual works in progress, as I/you remember ones previously read/encountered, as we discover new ones. Feel free to add via the comments for each post, or email me: sarapennington --at-- gmail --dot-- com.

I'll link to the updated list/post in a new blog post each time a batch of books is added.

Let the listing fun begin...

Today is also...

Cup o' organic Hot & Sour soup from Big Lots, green tea, basket-making homework, poem writing, fuzzy socks, and my first Kentuckians for the Commonwealth meeting this evening.

And now...some sunlight in the window.

I've been spending too much time in the cyber-world recently, surfing around when I should be doing other things, and so, I'm chronicling these "real world" things here. Bridging the two worlds. Using the screen to remind myself there are great things outside the screen. Directed computer use: more writing about the world around me, less random / pointless surfing.

Two different things have happened since we got wireless cable internet, one good, one disappointing. 1) I've gotten more active in my community--in some ways--because I'm able to check in on and keep up with meeting times. I'm listening to debates, going to meetings, etc. Seeing new places. But... 2) I'm reading much, much less out of physical books, and I miss that. But, it's not quite so easy to give up on checking out blogs and news sites, because, for me, it's addicting.

So. Well. I'm trying to find the balance.

Today

Today is drizzle out the window, cats, toast, apples.


[The view toward downtown. "Downtown?" you say. "Yep," I say.]


[Fat & happy.]


[Toast with my Homemade, Super-clove Apple Butter, made from apples picked at my 99-year-old grandmother's. Thanks, Mawmaw.]


[Cortland apples. In season. Schweet! Break out the caramel.]

Yesterday

Yesterday was pumpkins, flowers, moss, trees.


[A blank canvas.]


[A mini.]


[Pots of pansies and mums.]


[Still blooming?]


[The happy chiminea.]


[A table full of moss--blown from our roof by a leaf blower. Thanks, Moses & Lonnie!]


[The everchanging driveway.]


[World's Smallest Grapes. Wild. Mostly seed. Fun to eat a few.]


[The oak of Oak Ledge.]

Waiting for Ann Pancake

Ann Pancake's novel, Strange as This Weather Has Been, came out a couple of weeks ago. In less than a week from now, she's reading at Marshall University, and I can't wait: to be able to buy the book or to be able to hear her read from it. I truly love her short story collection, Given Ground, and this novel, I'm sure, is going to make me cry more than a couple times, not out of pity for the family at the center of the novel, but out of this always burbling rage against Big Coal, and out of the very thing that one critic picks on: her idiosyncratic language, her truly lyric prose.

Even in reading the generally positive--but noticeably picky--review by Jack Pendarvis in the New York Times Book Review, I got a little choked up when he included these lines spoken by the mother-character Lace:

“The best way to fight them is to refuse to leave. Stay in their way — that’s the only language they can hear. ... Listen here, it says. We exist.”

Read the rest of the review here.

Also, you can find more info about the novel here. (CAO, you may be interested in teaching this one sometime, & I think you'd really like the story collection too.)

And if you see she's going to be reading near you (click here to find out), I'd encourage you to go. (SLC, it *does* look like she'll be in your neck of the woods--where she too lives--later this fall.)

Today is:

Blog Action Day!



And, so, for my environmentally oriented post, I'll put up something I've been meaning to do for awhile. A couple weeks ago, a friend emailed asking how to clean a bathtub using eco-friendly around-the-house products. Well, She-Who-Uses-Aluminum-Foil-as-Dryer-Sheets has the answer: vinegar and cornstarch.

First, I wait until a day when I desire a nice soak, a bath intended more for relaxation than any heavy-duty bodily cleansing. That means: no bubbles, nothing but a little natural soap and a quick rinse-off after my toes have turned to raisins. Then, into this post-bath water, I pour a cup or two or more of regular ol' white distilled vinegar, and let it sit for a good while, a couple hours at least, sometimes even overnight. I scrub the area underwater with a scrubber, and that area comes out gleaming. In this way, vinegar works an awful lot like bleach--but, I'm not afraid to slosh any on my clothes. Then I let the water out, and rinse the tub.

What you'll find, though, is that you're left with a sparkling bottom half of the tub, and a dingy top half--and the line that separates to two is quite distinct. So, I then concoct a paste out of vinegar and corn starch. I use the starch because otherwise straight or water-diluted vinegar wouldn't stick to the sides for any amount of time, and, although vinegar works like a charm, it does need a lot of time to do its good work. I just mix vinegar and cornstarch together until I get a consistency that will stick to the side of the tub, I slather it on the tub walls and any cracks in tiles, on caulking, and even on the chrome-work, and then I let it sit. Vinegar is a mild acid that breaks down the alkaline soap scum and hard water stains. This vinegar-cornstarch also works great on the hard water stain buildup around sink faucets.

After the paste has sat for awhile, even dried out, I get a damp scrub brush and scrub until it comes clean. Rinse, and then I'm done. Then I step back and am once again amazed that my tub is so clean using only materials that wouldn't hurt me if I swallowed them.

And here's one other eco-cleaning tip thrown in for free: For really hard to clean spots, such as iron water stains in the bottom of the toilet, break out the pumice stone.

Pumice + kitchen gloves + a little elbow grease = hard-core eco-cleaning.



(And, although I sound like some Good Housekeeping ad here, I promise nobody's paying me a cent.)

Coolness

There's some great new things happening over at The Southeast Review. I really love the new featured artist. And the web pick for the week: I *love* the cover for Memorious. Wouldn't it make a great cover for a certain book set in the late 1800s?:


I'm digging those patchwork colors.

David Kirby and the NBA

No, the poet, and my professor and committee director, David Kirby is not going to start playing for the Knicks or the Spurs. He was just nominated for the National Book Award in poetry for his collection, The House on Boulevard St.

Congrats, Dr. Kirby! If the NBA process were anything like American Idol, you'd have my vote on this one.

To hear Kirby reading at The Warehouse in Tallahassee click here. It'll be worth your time. And listen, toward the very end, for one of my favorite lines: "Be bwave fo' me."

The Thunder Rolls

Wow. I hadn't realized how long it had been since I've heard thunder. It's been months. At least two.

It's raining right now, for the second time in a week. I still don't think it will do much to help us recover from this severe drought. We'd need weeks of steady off-and-on showers to get back to "normal."

At this point, I'll just settle for fewer dogwoods dying and a reduced chance of raging forest fires. Seeing as we live completely *in* the woods, that's a scary thought I've been suppressing.

But weirdly, right now, as I type this and the rain is picking up a bit, I *do* smell forest fire smoke. Maybe the atmospheric smoke from the fires over in Leslie county is being brought down with the rain. Weird...

I Was a Bad Audience Member

...at this "debate" today. Very passive aggressive. Blurting out in my rage. It was all I could to not to jump up and start shouting obscenities and hurling the contents of my purse at those pro-mountain-blasting, anti-Appalachian people. Oh, sometimes I just want to run away screaming.

And then I came home to read this article in the LexVegas Herald-Leader. Sometimes it just feels like the utter destruction of this place is inevitable.

It's 91 degrees in KY on October 8th and not a single person mentioned the climate crisis. I heard "alternative energy" only 2 times during the 2 hour debate. Cutting 1000 acres of trees to study siltification will do nothing to help global warming.

I heard Rusty Justice say that he believes God put coal in this region for human use.

So much logic is awry.

Finally an audience member brought up logic, and said, speaking of all the talk of "progress," just because we *can* do something doesn't mean we *ought* to.

Accordingly: Just because God may have put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden, doesn't mean that Adam and Eve ought to have eaten from it.

Just because I can kill a person doesn't mean I ought to.

Only a passing mention was made to water quality, to the heavy metals released from the deep rock uncovered by MTR that runs-off into our/my/your water supply and causes cancer.

Earlier this week, Ray Slone, one of Knott County's most loved and respected residents died of liver cancer. He never drank.

Coal companies--one way or another--are depopulating this area.

Give me clean water, or give me death.

A Couple Requests of You Cyberfolk

First, does anyone know who the new judge for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize is going to be? I think judging the 2007 contest (earlier this year) was the 5th (and last?) year for Louise Glück. Can anyone confirm this and/or shed any other light on the situation?

Also, let me know if you ever see this in your drugstore/supermarket/co-op/wherever:

I'm looking specifically for "Arm & Hammer Essentials Natural Deodorant," fresh scent or unscented doesn't matter. We're running out of what we bought in Florida--I think it was Florida, but I don't remember where. W. tried a stint with the Crystal, which works for me, and worked a while for him very well, but then it started to give out. Anyway, this Arm & Hammer product is fairly eco-friendly (no aluminum, no parabens, mostly plant and baking soda based) and works well--and "fresh" smells good, neither masculine nor feminine. Anyway, this is probably more than you want to know, but do keep an eye out. I think it might be discontinued as I can only find one mention of it online--at the parent company of Arm & Hammer, where I stole the pic (from here, this page).

Anyway...

One last tidbit:

Currently reading: The Logan Topographies by Alena Hairston. Poetry collection concerning Logan, WV, a couple counties away from where I grew up, and located on the Guyandotte river just upstream from the area I'm writing about in the Zinnie poems. I've only read the first section so far, and it's rather elliptical, but evocative and interesting, definitely not any cliché Appalachian writing (and I mean that as a huge compliment). Reminds me a bit, now that I think about it, of C.D. Wright. Maybe I'll say more as I work through it...

Note to Self for Monday

This just in, and a reminder for me:

Save the Date:

Monday October 8, 2007 Pikeville College is hosting a panel discussion on Mountain Top Removal Mining and its affects in Appalachia from 2-4pm.

Members of the panel include:
Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association
Silas House, Kentucky author, Writer-in-Residence at Lincoln Memorial University
Rusty Justice, co-owner of J & H Enterprises and a practicing environmentalist
Kenneth Schmidt, retired after serving 27 years in various environmental & land management roles
Raul Urias, a representative of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth,
Joe Whittaker Pikeville College Associate Professor of Biology
Former governor Paul Patton will moderate.

We are asking KFTC members to attend and be a part of the discussion. The discussion will take place in the multi-purpose room at our Information Technology department, which is located on the first floor of the public library building on Hambley Blvd.

And I Thought *I* Was Going a Little Batty...

...from working at home.

But this little vid takes the cake.

[Be prepared to laugh.]

Dude, you're tellin' me!

This, from an article today in the NYTimes.com, about writing (and completing) the dissertation:

“It’s easy, especially in our field, to feel isolated, and that tends to slow people down,” he said. “There’s no sense of belonging to an academic community.”

[Dude, try it in Hindman, KY.]

And some good advice in there for me as well:

Some common sense would also hasten the process. The dissertation is a hurdle that must be cleared, not a magnum opus, the capstone of a career.

Read the whole thing here.

It's good to know I'll be far faster than the average: 8.2 years to complete the whole kit and caboodle. I'm shooting for 4 years 7 months--that's 5 academic years even.

Little Brown Dress + More

Have you heard of the "Little Brown Dress" project? It took place back in 05 - 06. Alex Martin, a dancer and choreographer, made one dress and wore it every day for a year. About the project, she wrote: "I made one small, personal attempt to confront consumerism by refusing to change my dress for 365 days." You can watch a great little video about the project here. And you can read her journal from the year here. The main page for the project is here, where you'll learn that after the project was over, some "pranksters" stole the dress.

The next year she committed herself to wearing only clothes she made herself, everything from "fancy clothes" to underwear, and everything reconstructed or recycled. The project didn't receive as much attention as the Little Brown Dress and she didn't blog about it as much, but you can find info here.

Now, I check up on a new project just about every day. And, in some ways, this project is the opposite of Little Brown Dress. For her MFA thesis in printmaking, Jodi Green will never wear the exact same dress or skirt twice. She'll actually wear some of the same clothing, but each time she wears a piece, it has to be altered with printing or drawing or sewing from the last time she wore it. Since this is a current, ongoing project, it's fun to keep up with the changes as she makes them in "real time." Her blog about it (with lots of pics) is here. I also like that she has the site organized both chronologically and by article of clothing, so you can see the progress of a specific dress or skirt through its many alterations.

In the meantime, in my little world, I'm getting over what I hope is a short but intense flu/cold/congestion thing. And, I'm working on a few web projects and making progress on poems. (Yay! I've been wanting to say that for awhile.) And, as soon as I stop coughing up a lung, I'm going to have lunch at the new café in town, located in the Kentucky Appalachian Artisans Center.

That's the news for now. More later...

"K" is . . . for kicks.

Call it a belief in the economics of abundance, or call it a fascination with the fact that I once again have the rights to this work, after giving up those first publication rights. Whatever, it's fun to share.

First published in Ninth Letter, Spring/Summer 2007:

What I Want

1) a "post-Appalachian" literature to flourish*
2) to visit Knoxville and the folks I know there often*

* more details forthcoming (after I get caught up on some work)