Personally Stated

I hate writing personal statements.

An intrepid friend pointed out to me that the above sentence is internally contradictory--what I mean is that I hate writing personal essays, the kind every application to anything ever always requires. Generally, the prompts are too narrow and not clearly defined, and the questions are trite and, to me, not indicative in their answers of the way I think as a writer or, really, as a person.

Occasionally, though, I can make it work for me. Not occasionally, that's a lie: this is the first time. And I'm happy with the result, because I think it does, somewhat, encapsulate how I think as a writer. This statement went in with one application in my most recent round of MFA-attempts. And I liked it. So here it is.

Describe in 500 words or less your development as a writer.

Let us approach this from the back end, as a maze more easily navigable from finish to start.

Today I am a writer living and writing at several coffee shops, at my desk, on the bed, on the couch, at the kitchen table, on paper, and on any of three different computers (yes, really) in and around Norfolk, Virginia. Yesterday I was also a writer, writing ideological and thought-based poems; writing poems that encapsulate a particular moment in time; writing poems that explore the nuances of meaning, both in words and in syntax; writing poems in prose then converting them to verse then back to prose; writing poems that are as aware of the speaking self as I, myself, am of the self that speaks.

Since September, I have been a writer. Learning the ropes of a true writing life for the first time: erratic meals, daily writing, revisions, not leaving the house for days on end. Always thinking, rethinking, deriving, rearranging, justifying, capitalizing, and surprising myself. I’ve never met a poem that has truly been “done.”

For the many months between April of 2008 and September of 2010 in which I was a writer in thought though not deed—sporadic, unpredictable, painful, infuriating—there was much cyclic thinking and rethinking. The development and subsequent dismissal of incoherent theory after incoherent theory. Many involved and encouraging conversations with a composer friend who also does not believe in inspiration, putting his faith instead in concentrated thought processes and dedicated hard work. It was not always like this; however it means that all the responsibility for the work I do or do not do is mine and mine alone.

Before that indefinable morass of writing less and less, I was a student writer. In Pittsburgh, I forged some invaluable bonds with other writers both of poetry and prose—we took from the company we found and created the company we wanted. Even in the more general, larger academic community, the writing program—so I thought—was an island on which we collectively chose to not build a raft. It was ever the better choice.

In high school I began to read Ayn Rand but had no sounding board for my writing and was not reading poems. I remember little else from this period save a rock-solid certainty that I knew what I was doing.

My first memory of poem-writing was during a Language Arts unit in fifth grade in which I wrote a short book called Tea for Two which I hope is stored in my parents’ basement and which, apropos of nothing, I look forward to seeing published before I die.

Sneak Peek: Alicia's Maternity Photos

I spent this past Saturday morning with Alicia and her husband Brandon in a park near their home in Hampton, VA. Their baby girl, Kiernan Lily (what a pretty name, right?), is due in less than a week and Alicia wanted to take some maternity photos before she popped! Here are a few of them for your viewing pleasure:

I haven't posted them all yet, but in a couple of days, check out the rest of their maternity photos on our SmugMug. Hope you like them!

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Coffee

Having uprooted to an entirely new area in an entirely new state, one of my main projects was to find that greatest of sanctuaries: a favorite coffee shop. I know it might seem trivial, but sometimes, in order to really do effective writing, I need a change of scenery, and in that situation, it helps to know that there's a spot with good vibes where I can go and do good work. In Pennsylvania, it was easy: Perk on Main in Emmaus. Excellent vibes, good people, and such good coffee. What I didn't know until I started looking: There is an incredible number of locally owned coffee shops in the Norfolk/VA Beach area. Such a gratifying thing to learn. It took me three forays out to find my coffee shop in the 757. All three that I tried are excellent, and I'd highly recommend any of them to anyone who's looking. Here are my reviews of each.


Borjo Coffeehouse
4416 Monarch Way, Norfolk, VA 23508
(757) 440-5800

Going to Borjo took me right back to college--it's in the heart of Old Dominion's campus, across the street from the university book store and behind the convocation center. I can't say it was exactly welcome reminiscence, but it was still a great atmosphere. Bold reds, oranges, and yellows offset by black leather armchairs and colorful artwork by a local artist make it a warm space. Borjo also boasts several outdoor tables with umbrellas to keep off the sun (it was in the high 80s when I went), which are a huge selling point for me.

The girls working the counter were cute and friendly; they clearly had an excellent rapport with one another, and I like to feel that people are enjoying their job. After asking for a recommendation, I tried what the girl suggested--a Mocha-Java, which is like a chocolate milkshake plus espresso--and, while it was good, it was way too sweet for me, as heavy as a meal in itself. Average price range, maybe $4 for a medium one, exactly what I expect to pay for that type of drink.

I grabbed a table outside, and snagged the shop's wi-fi--password protected, but all I had to do was ask the baristas--to do some work outside. Within five minutes, I needed my headphones; maybe it's just me, but I can't do work with some foolish college girls babbling about Twilight on either side of me (yes, seriously). Eventually, that was what caused me to leave. I had put two hours worth of coins in the meter down the street--Borjo doesn't have its own lot, and parking is metered only--intending to do one hour of work on the internet, and one hour of writing, but I couldn't survive without my headphones. Would I have fared differently inside? Possibly. As it was, Borjo's overall vibe was cute but college-y, and, while I would return, it would be with a friend to chat, not to try to work.


aLatte Cafe
321 Granby Street, Norfolk, VA 23510
(757) 625-2326

My next adventure took me downtown, and while downtown Norfolk is much less expansive than other cities, my least favorite thing about driving downtown--any downtown, every downtown--is parking. There's a parking garage right behind aLatte on Freemason Street, though, so that's where I ended up. Walking up Granby to the cafe, my first impression was of some eclectic boutique, a quirky antique shop, maybe. Inside aLatte, this impression was only solidified: a mixture of old couches, tables at different heights, an old church pew stacked with magazines at either end. Multi-colored walls showing bold work by a local artist seems to be a theme, but one I appreciate. The overall effect--a former warehouse that got abducted by a quirky, color-happy antiquer--reminded me of a brighter, better lit version of Pittsburgh's earthy Kiva Han.

As I was ordering a large coffee, I realized that I should have instituted at least one control in my coffee shop quests: the same drink, a simple cup of coffee. Espresso drinks are all well and good, but the best way to judge the quality of a shop's beverages is in their basic cuppa. Either way, aLatte is another one using locally roasted beans behind their counter, and the coffee was good, pleasantly bold. I was feeling good, so I topped it with some cinnamon, and found a table. For whatever reason, I prefer the tall tables, so I took one of those and set to work. Probably I looked a little crazy, cutting out and mixing up pieces of paper for the parasyntactic exercise from my last entry, but I've never been one to worry about something like that.

The clientele at aLatte seemed balanced between local professionals and students from Tidewater Community College's Norfolk branch right down the street, but, just like in Borjo, I'm not either of those, so I felt a little out of place. I'm having trouble nailing down a reason that aLatte won't become my default location, but it's hard to pinpoint. The overarching vibe was good, but it wasn't great--when I got down to trying to do some new writing after playing with my bits of paper for a while, I couldn't. Maybe I felt over-stimulated by all the colors and sounds--there's an upright piano that spent some minutes being played by a boy clearly fishing for some young female attention--and the rotating cast of characters, but it's hard to say. I liked aLatte; it was cute and comfortable, and I'll definitely be back when I don't have any serious work to do.


Elliot's Fair Grounds
806 Baldwin Ave (upstairs), Norfolk, VA 23517
(757) 640-2899

Fair Grounds is my winner. The Ghent neighborhood is billed across the internet as the artsy-fartsy area with a boho ethos, and that's absolutely fine by me. This was my first trip down there, but it is really adorable--Ghent has a hometown, community-type feel, tons of locally owned restaurants, the historic Naro Cinema, plenty of people walking around and enjoying the beautiful weather. Fair Grounds shares a parking lot with Texture, the shop on the first floor of its building, and not having to pay to park is itself enough to sell me.

Fair Grounds would still win for me even without the parking lot. The mix of tables and comfy chairs, light colors with bold, my favorite Vampire Weekend song coming over the shop's XM Radio, and, best of all, tons of natural light all sold me at the top of the stairs. When I ordered my iced coffee--a medium for $1.90--the barista joked with me about the Steelers and chatted football with me for a minute or two. Something in his manner made me feel like a regular, exactly as comfortable and welcome as I always felt talking to the ladies at Perk. Oh, and the coffee was dynamite, rich and velvety without being bitter. The coffee on its own made my day; having a comfy chair to sit in inside a bomb atmosphere made it that much better.

More than anything, the vibe was local, comfortable, welcoming, intelligent, and functional. Yes, functional--I did more new writing in two and a half hours in Fair Grounds than I've done in months. That's the most important element for me, whether or not I can do the best work of my mind in any given atmosphere, and that is what will bring me back to Fair Grounds. The lovely little porch helps, and the excellent cup of coffee is absolutely crucial, but I've got work to do, and now I have a place in which to do it.

Distrusting Metaphor

Anyone who knows how I think about art and language--which, admittedly, is fewer than five people, but still--knows that I tend to distrust metaphor. Not just metaphor: all figurative language. I dislike imprecision and misrepresentation, finding truth instead in exactness, in what something is rather than what someone perceives it to resemble.

The other day, in searching for a writing exercise in a book, I found one that encourages just such false associations, a simile exercise. It said, "Here are a few similes we like. After reading them, complete the unfinished ones; try for something unexpected." Then it gave examples--Sharon Olds, Carolyn Forche, William Carlos Williams--and the list of open-ended similes. In an effort to exploit what I see as the ridiculousness of such an exercise, I did it, as much to make fun of it as anything else.

Halfway through, I had to stop; maybe it was me impressing absurdity on it, maybe the thing itself was inherently absurd, but I couldn't finish all the similes. Then, yesterday, I had an idea. In past years and past exercises, I've done several parasyntactic experiments--that is, rearranging extant language randomly and working with the new, surprising connections it engenders. That was the only way that I could make this exercise work for me: to finish it, and then to separate the phrases from their original associations and give them new ones, seeing what would come of it.

Here, then, you have the original similes from the exercise followed by some of the surprising connections that came from my own cut-and-paste half of the game:

...tired as...
...the marathon runner--no
...the marathon lover, limp and lurid
...the wash on the line dancing all day--no
...the corpse on the line, dancing all day, head cradled in rope's loving embrace

...hot as...
...the Mojave sun--no
...the ice cube on your tongue, sublimating

...waves unfurled like...
...flags, the banner of the storm--no
...umbrellas, weak-skeletoned, unconvicted

...after the shelling, the town looked as if...
...it knew what a shelling was (?)--really?
...it had been ravaged by a zombie apocalypse--no? what?
...it were all exoskeleton, calcining in the sun

...disgusting as...
...the cavity of a rotting tooth--true, but no
...the moment of death, the pallor of the departing soul (This is where I gave up the first time)

...the child trembled like...
...a leaf in the wind--no
...a flute sonata, tiny, tight vibrato
...the aftereffects of an earthquake--no
...a hesitant step on a rope bridge, one inch over oblivion

...the airplane rose like a...
...graceful bird--oh, please
...building in construction, scaffolding preemptive
...breath, autonomic

...black as...
...night sky--no, obviously
...a cynic's favorite crayon--ha, but no
...the seeing core of the pupil, tower of muscle and perception

...he entered the room like...
...a thief in the night--no
...a sound, intimation, perceived
...a sound, uninvited, intrusive
...a wave of memory recalled after a long absence

...their lovemaking was like...
...fireworks--oh, geez, no
...everyone else's, false and insincere, a facsimile of one seen elsewhere
...a slow dance on a smooth floor--ugh, no
...misery later misremembered as ecstasy


And my more interesting associations:
...their lovemaking was like umbrellas, weak-skeletoned, unconvicted
...disgusting as a building in construction, scaffolding preemptive
...he entered the room like a flag, the banner of the storm
...disgusting as a slow dance on a smooth floor
...after the shelling, the town looked like everyone else's, false and insincere
...the airplane rose like an exoskeleton, calcining in the sun
...tired as a sound, intimation, perceived
...he entered the room like the seeing core of the pupil, tower of muscle and perception

Beth & Andy

Here's a little teaser from an engagement shoot with my dear friends Beth Gockley and Andrew Petro, who will be getting married this coming April!

Notes on Creativity

a creative essay from the first issue of New Fraktur

One.

To create from nothing. The most difficult thing; the most dangerous. Simultaneous glorification and absolution of the self. This self that can create; this self that ceases to exist in the face of the thing created.
Show me an idea that I may touch it.
The ownership of the palm of the hand. Since speaking, man has said mine, mine, mine--the province of sweat and toil, of thought process and involvement, of claim-staking, of ownership, of owning, of one's own. the province of the one who dares seek it first.
What is the boundary of an idea? Where does it exist? Where doesn't it? When does it become one's own?: The moment it germinates.
O, seed; o, growth! O, fertile soil and the action of tilling. The intimately personal joy of the harvest.

Two.

The qualitative element over the quantitative.
Ars Poetica
like pulling teeth
like giving birth
like the pressure in the lungs from holding breath underwater.
like orgasm--a little death, the focus on one small center of the body, intensely personal, distorting, brief euphoria, only ever brief
like none of these things
a battle for the most accurate
the place in the world where the ideal of a thing lies; carving out layers and layers to get closer to the ideal, to the thing itself, the purest form
false journey towards revelation
said, unsaid, re-said
glimmer of hope of possibility of newness--maybe not a new idea, but a new perspective
unfamiliarizing to recreate
ground up; sideways; a lens convex, concave, flat, magnifying; different ways of seeing
not to lie
What is a road but an indirect method of achieving x?
Are there true straight lines in the world?
Places where there is truth in art:
the idea before articulated
color unsullied
not the language of emotion--emotion ephemeral, truth maintaining
accuracy, exactness, fact
the word representing the thing is not the thing itself but instead stands in for the thing but lies if it represents that the thing is other than it is
blessing in disguise
stagnation--stagnant--stagnation
a means of re-stimulation
means and ends, means or ends
ends
ends
ends
beginnings

Three.

The belief in inspiration:
Ascribes no power to your own mind. What is inspiration? Can you touch it? Is it atomic? A broken synapse? External? Like a cartoon bolt of lightning striking the "create" center of the brain? Onto the page/canvas/tape/&c. by osmosis from random particles in the air, fingers as a malleable catalyst?
The existence of a watch presupposes the existence of a watchmaker. He is not "inspired" to his craft, coming to its knowledge with the suddenness and force of a sneeze. He is patient, diligent; he fails, disassembles and begins again. He improves his dexterity wielding tiny screwdrivers, screws, to reach into the smallest spaces and connect them. He is patient; he creates many poor timepieces. He relies on habituation; he relies on skills acquired through repetition; his watches tell accurate time; he is patient.
The man who guards time and its measure relies on his mind, his knowledge, his memory. Why should we, as artists, require anything less of ourselves? Why undercut the powers of our own minds?
It is worrisome, to rely so heavily on oneself alone. It is fearsome; it is frightening; it is exciting. It is strength, or truth, unlooked for.

The Serenity of Dawn

Perhaps it's the coolness of the air.  December frigidity gets a reprieve from its reputation: the cold is still biting, but not spiteful.  It's a cold that portends warmth later.  A cold that sharpens the edges of everything it touches.  Not as a saw but as a nearer approach to the reality of the thing.  The promise of clarity.

Or perhaps it's the clouds.  Much-traveled territory made strange by the pre-dawn dark.  It isn't until the road bends south that I notice a strip of clear sky beneath the thick cloud bank.  The sky lightening; the clouds a deep, rich pink.  Sunrise on Mars.

The day beginning in the sky.  In the certainty of motion honed by custom into skill.  My fingers touching on the far side of the steering wheel.

Howl for Carl Solomon

As a student of literature, one typically finds oneself edged towards The Classics, the literary canon, all the works that themselves form the literary tradition.  This is partially because that's how the curriculum "has always been done" and partially because The Classics are so for a reason and greatness has a way of making itself felt at whatever epoch.

As a student of the art of writing, however, it's quite the opposite; we as writers are encouraged to steep ourselves in the contemporary; to be of-the-moment in our subject matter, our style and diction, and our understanding.  In my current quest to read all the books in my little library that I bought and never touched, I recently encountered a poet whose writing managed to elude me within both of these paradigms--the theory and the practice.  Unquestionably, I would place Allen Ginsberg within an essential canon of modern literature, with Howl probably on my list of Top Ten Poems that Shaped Modern Poetic Thought.  (Forthcoming.  Obviously.)  How I managed to eke out a university education without ever reading it mystifies me; nevertheless.

Much of the subject matter of Howl was widely contested as obscene when it was published; there's truth in this, but in spite of the obscenity, there is much that is beautiful, startling and painful.  The pieces that struck me most poignantly are what I choose to share here.


From the introduction by William Carlos Williams:

"It is a howl of defeat.  Not defeat at all for he has gone through defeat as if it were an ordinary experience, a trivial experience.  Everyone in this life is defeated but a man, if he be a man, is not defeated."
"...the spirit of love survives to ennoble our lives if we have the wit and the courage and the faith--and the art! to persist.  It is the belief in the art of poetry that has gone hand in hand with this man into his Golgotha..."
"We are blind and live our blind lives out in blindness.  Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of the angels."


From Howl for Carl Solomon, by Allen Ginsberg:

"I saw the best minds of my generation desroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked..."

"...incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between..."
"...whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes..."
"...who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task..."
"...who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons..."

"...who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade..."
"...who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other's salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second..."
"...returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East / Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon..."
"...to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head..."
"...and blew the suffering of America's naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio / with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years."
"I'm with you in Rockland / where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse"
"I'm with you in Rockland / in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night"


From the Footnote to Howl:

"The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!"
"Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements!"
"Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension..."
"Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!"

Ise gots t'flow again...

Oh, hello again, blogosphere!

(Katie spends several minutes contemplating the term "blogosphere" and its sister sufferers, other bastard children sprung from stops along the information super-highway: Twitterverse, to Google, Myspace picture, to Facebook, and *shudder* e-vite.  Unprofitable digression.)

You guessed it: This is yet another late-night-and-Gertrude-Hawk-smidgen-(yeah, I said it)-fueled attempt to make the internet work for me.  With the advent of my royal purple netbook in my life, I feel like I can take on anything, Monopoly City Streets notwithstanding.  (Dude--that game is kicking my ass!)  It means more time engaged in active work, less time spent adjusting the network of rubber bands holding the power cord in place.  It means increased mobility, less dependence on others for help, a new perspective on my own capabilities; really, it means a new lease on my intellectual life.

Is it just me, or is this starting to sound like a Rascal scooter commercial?  My favorite is the one where the child rides circles around his grandmother on his little red tricycle: "You're motorized and I'm still faster than you, Murder She Wrote!"

My advice to you upon entering my little consciousness-awareness project?

1. Check your expectations.  Things not to expect from me: Politics, except as an off-handed joke, religion, potty humor, anything from the news or world events.  Things you might possibly expect: Sports enthusiasm, poems, photographs, nostalgia, ranting stories from Lotion Land (Seriously, lady? Every coupon you've ever gotten from anyone anywhere ever has a start date in addition to an end date.  Cross my heart.), Homestar Runner/The Office references, questions to which I really want answers, arts and crafts homework...  The list is fairly limitless, in other words.

2.  Shop early, shop often.

3.  Don't ask me any questions to which you don't actually want to know my answers.  The only ego I'm interested in protecting is my own; also Skippy's, but to a lesser extent.

4.  Bring a friend.  And a bottle of wine.  It's a party.

And you're...*shudder*...e-vited.