May 29, 2007
December 18, 2006
Kids today ...
These are my peeps! [Though I'm not aware of any of my students being involved specifically.]
I teach in the southwest dorms. Thankfully, student conferences this week are at my office, in the less rowdy English department building.
Oh the humanity!
October 8, 2006
What am I doing this semester?
A couple of inquiring minds out there still may want to know.
1) Poetry workshop with Peter Gizzi. Readin, writin, talkin.
2) Continuing my Wave Books internship. Poetry bus! Subscriptions! And so much more! Last summer I put together this page on Dara Wier.
3) Teaching
4) Independent Study -- Contemporary Poetry. Read books, write about books. I plan to focus on a lot of Wave Books authors.
5) For fun - writing articles for the Montague Reporter.
6) For fun - taking piles of photos.
June 28, 2006
Falcon Update
Here's an update on my previous post about the pair of Peregrine Falcons nesting on the top of the UMASS library.
They had two babies! They even got a press release! The babies are attempting to fly around now, one apparently more successfully than the other. I saw some folks with cameras and binoculars on campus today, and what do you know ... the two young falcons were perched on the fine arts building. I think they've chosen their majors. Here's shots of them getting bands on their ankles so they can be tracked. Here's shots of one of the little dudes a week ago. They're so cool looking!
Here's my picture of one of them from this afternoon. It's hard to see too much detail in the photo, but it sure was neato to see in person. I need more zoom, zoom, zoom! And, I saw the parents circling the library tower. Bunnies! Chipmunks! Squirrels! Run! Hide!
And, bonus. Scenic cloud formations at UMASS:
June 14, 2006
Look at my new cute little UMASS friend
A met this fellow on campus today. What do you think ... a candidate for Cute Overlord?
Hi little friend!
Snacks, are you there?
April 17, 2006
Zoom, zoom, zoom!
UMASS has a pair of peregrine falcons at the top of the W.E.B. DuBois Library. The fastest animals on earth! Squirrels, duckies, and birdies beware! Some fun quotes:
"Natthorst has noticed that although mockingbirds usually like high places, here they keep a low profile:'I saw one on a treetop one day and I thought, you’d better not perch there. The next minute, it was a puff of feathers.'"
"He says: 'Every time I look into our mother peregrine’s wild eyes, I know that she would eat me if she were large enough to do it.'"
Peregrine Chickie:
An Eagle update: There are now 2 eagle chickies that Mom Eagle keeps sitting on. Yesterday, I got to see her feed the 2 youngins on Eagle TV (MCTV, Channel 17 in Montague/Turners). Lately a bunch of headless fishies lounge in the nest waiting for feeding time. Daddy Eagle seems to enjoy the heads before giving the fishies to the chickies, via Mommy. It was a whole different take on Easter chickies for me ... more nature and deathlike than cutie-pie baby chicks. Although, the eaglettes are awful damn cute. There are some still shots here where you can usually see one or two pics of the baby eagles. There was also something furry in the nest that had been munched on, but it was not identifiable ... I still have my kitties safe and sound! You can see the eagle cam live too, for 10 minutes at a time here.
Eagle chickies:
March 3, 2006
By request from Mz. Z - UMASS Amherst campus photos
I had some time in between my Wave Books internship in East Hampton and a poetry reading on campus to finally take photos of the UMASS campus. Sorry it took awhile Mz. Z! It snowed a smidge this afternoon, so the campus doesn't look too bad. It was twilight, so not all the photos are in focus, but they're still festive. UMASS Amherst actually isn't the most picturesque campus. Smith, Amherst, and Mt. Holyoke campuses nearby are super charming. I'll try to get some photos of them too. A few of the buildings at UMASS fall into the University of Oregon Prince Lucien Hall category of beauty -- as in the architect liked it, and that's about it. The W.E.B. Dubois Library is looking its best when reflected in the campus pond. For more photos of UMASS go to flickr!
There is a cute little chapel.
February 21, 2006
More pics, new walksies territory, and Lucy takes over
I put that nifty Flickr banner at the top of this here blog. What do ya'll think? I find it festive. Today: I slept in, went for a long long walk along the most southern parts of the power canal which was new to me, went to an art opening reception at the UMASS student union, and then Lucy took over my desk. It's hard to write under these conditions.
I took pictures of the art, but I figure maybe it's uncool to post them on the internet without permission, so you'll have to imagine a painting with a dude sticking out his tongue and either spitting blood or licking it; a photograph of a lady on a couch looking somewhat naughty; a mannequin of a young girl in a hospital gown with real yet unreal feet and hands and real human hair, but no face, and the hair all over where the face would be; a big blue thing with pink thingies sticking out of it with cotton coming out of the pink thingies and a noose holding it all up; an all black painting and/or photograph (Buttwipe would have loved it); a lime green boa with what looks like long boogers at each end of it; a bunch of rubber tubing cut up and stuck on a board, ends up, in a kind of rubber tubing cityscape; and much much more!
So here's pics from my walksies instead. More, of course, on flickr.
This one is for Rusty
What's a power canal without power?
January 30, 2006
It's about freedom!
News flash! The Sherman Alexie paper is done and turned in, so I'll stop whining and stressing about it. Now, time for a cat nap!
I've got some other pics on flickr too, but I'll put up even more soon, now that I have my life back. It's about freedom!!
And, did I mention, Tio Pepe is really an alien?
January 3, 2006
Hey kids - I'm back!
Safe and sound after hours of flight delays, then luggage delays, then snowstorm delays. I'm in BIG TROUBLE though with the wee fuzzy kitties. Lucy has velcroed herself to my lap, and Tio has been lecturing me. I have piles of photos to upload, so stay tuned for those. Sadly, the UMASS minuteman got beat out by the Cornhusker dude, but I don't care that much, in case you were worried that I had too much school spirit. :-P
December 7, 2005
Vote Now!
It's time to vote for your favorite university mascot, and guess who's in the finals?! That's right the glorious UMASS Sam the Minuteman. Vote Now! Be sure to watch Sam's video. Sam can do the tree pose! Sam is a hit with the ladies! Sam knows how to party! (We're #9)
November 18, 2005
Loose cows and art needs to percolate - so deal!
First - a bonus in this weeks Montague Reporter includes both Gill's and Montague's police logs. I think I like this one from Gill the best:
11/12 - 11:02 p.m. Loose cow on West Gill Road. Contacted owners to remove same.
Just because a cow wants to get out and have a little fun on a Saturday night, does that mean she's "loose"?
Second, to bug ya'll back about buggin me about my light school load .... darlings, this is art we're talking about here. You can't rush it! You must free your schedule to free your mind! And, well, neener, neener, neener.
I forgot to mention that I will likely also audit this class, and maybe get some independent study credits for it at some point, if I do something creative with it.
491A-L1 Neruda in Translation 55756
Instructor: M. Espada M 4:00 – 6:30 pm
Same as Latin-Am 491A. This is an introduction, in English translation, to the man considered by many to be the greatest Latin American poet of the 20th century. The poetry of Neruda is marked by a series of aesthetic and political metamorphoses, and the course is organized around the enormous diversity of the work: the early love poems, surrealism, the political poems, brought on by Neruda’s experience with the Spanish Civil War, the sweeping historical works best represented by his masterpiece, The Heights of Macchu Picchu, the humorous odes, the nature poems, and so on. The life of Neruda was also characterized by dramatic change, likewise charted throughout the course: from his career as a diplomat to his bitter years as a hunted political exile, from his acknowledgment as Nobel Laureate to his isolated death in the wake of the 1973 coup in Chile. Neruda was a witness to history, and special attention will be devoted to that history, particularly in terms of the Spanish Civil War and the Chilean coup. The course will also focus on the process of translation, and students will be encouraged to compare translations with one another, as well as against the original text. Students in this Honors course are required to write several papers, with an optional class presentation.
November 16, 2005
Classes for next term - more poetry madness!
780/2-Imaginative Writing: Poetry James Tate
Tuesdays, 1-3:30
Workshop in the writing of poetry. Each week, a close reading analysis of poems submitted by the class and occasional poems brought in from outside. Attention to the way in which a poem works and how it comes together through its choice of images, rhythms and subject matter. Assignments in an anthology of contemporary poetry and supplementary reading. Enrollment limited to 10. Permission of instructor required of students not enrolled through the MFA Program in English.
James Tate is the author of Return to the City of White Donkeys, Memoir of he Hawk: Shroud of the Gnome; Worshipful Company of Fletchers, which won the National Book Award; Selected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Willliam Carlos Williams Award; Distance from Loved Ones; Reckoner; Constant Defender; Riven Doggeries; Viper Jazz; Absences; Hints to Pilgrims; The Oblivion Ha-Ha; and The Lost Pilot, selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. He has published two books of prose, Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee and The Route as Briefed. His awards include a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, the Wallace Stevens Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is currently a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets and has been recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
777-Modern Poetry Ruth Jennison
Thursdays, 1-3:30
This course will survey American poetry from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Students will become familiar with the canonical generational account of modernism (Dickinson; Whitman; Pound; Eliot; Stevens; Stein; Moore; Williams). However, discussions will also take up modernism's "others" (including Crane; Hughes; H.D; McKay; Zukofsky). Against modernism's own "cult of genius," we will read our poets as exemplary participants in interconnected and sometimes antagonistic literary movements, coteries, political fronts and avant-gardes. These groupings will include, but are not limited to: Imagism, Constructivism, Colloquial Nativism, Epic Classicism, Symbolism, the Harlem Renaissance, the poetics of the Popular Front and Objectivism. As we take up these canonical and alternative literary genealogies, we will also attend to the historical and political coordinates which subtend and substructure the various ideological orientations and formal strategies of early twentieth century American poetics. To what aspects of capitalist modernity are modern poets responding? How do uneven developments in racial formation, politics, economics and culture provide the conditions of possibility for modernist poetry's contradictory commitments to precapitalist organicism and futural experimentation? What is the relationship between the production of new social subjects (the "new Woman;" the "new Jew;" the "New Negro") and the innovative languages of a modern poetry seeking transformation in art and life? Finally, we will survey to the critical construction of modernism itself -- from its initial solidification as "movement" by the "New Criticism" to its current restructuring by Cultural Materialists working in the "New Modernist Studies." In this overview of modern poetry's critical history, we will seek the answer to the following question: Why is literary modernism often the privileged site of new critical-aesthetic narratives of modernity's historical traumas and/or potentials?
Ruth Jennison is presently writing a book entitled "The Zukofsky Era" which elaborates an alternative genealogy of modernist poetics. In it, she constructs the historical, literary and theoretical coordinates of the materialist Avant-Garde constellating around Louis Zukofsky's "Objectivist" poetics of the 1920s and 30s. Her interests include American modernist and postmodernist poetics, the theory of the Avant-Garde, Marxist literary theory, and psychoanalytic approaches to subject formation and aesthetic form.
And, I will continue to get credit for my internship work.
November 14, 2005
I have east coast friends now!?
I had a dinner party this evening, and the theme was comfort food. The menu: chicken and veggie pot pies (recipe courtesy of David Adam), mashed potatoes, butternut squash soup, and brownies, and misc items that people brought. It was a hit! I do believe fun was had by all (my fellow writers in the MFA program), and some people walked away with festive items to borrow -- some David Bowie CDs, a Richard Hugo book, etc. Me -- I'm still sobering up, but happy :-) Nothing quite like a carbo fest to perk up yer spirits! Tomorrow, I must write poems! Happy vibes to all who read this. Though I had fun tonight, I miss ya'll on the west coast!! --Janel
October 29, 2005
Updates-- Internship, thank yous, organic grapes
Greetings! Here's an update on Massachusetts life.
The Juniper Initiative Internship -- I have the scoop now on my internship. I'm going to be helping to implement a UMASS summer creative writing pilot program for high school students, along the lines of what the adult program does. I'll be doing a bunch of legwork to make it happen. Should be fun! It will be held in June sometime, and I'll get a total of 6 credits for it. Also, I'll be pulling together information on UMASS MFA alumni to be put up on the MFA web site. This will help me get in tune with all of the presses and literary journals that grads have been published in.
Thank you Thunderchowderians for the care package, especially Jenny and Richie! I've already been sucked into the People magazine, and scarfed a bunch of cookies. I have proof that the kitty trick or treat bag has already been well loved, but I need to figure out how to get pictures from my new camera onto this blog before I can show it to you. :-)
I went to a Halloween party last night, and decided to reprise my "bunch of grapes" costume by pinning purple balloons to me. It was a crowded party though, so I didn't pin as many balloons on as before, and some people were confused as to what I really was... Oh well. I had my fermented grape juice, so it was fun, and I got to hang out with my fellow MFA and English grad students.
October 14, 2005
Take me to the river, and beers for a buck
A brief update ... this graph from NOAA shows that the Connecticut River at the point closest to me that is measured, does not appear to be projected to go above flood stage, unlike last weekend.
Lucy says hello! Tio Poopy keeps beating her up, poor girl.
This evening I will be going to Live Lit, at Amherst Books, to see my poetry compadres read their wares. According to the MFA programming page, "Since 1985, students have sponsored Live Lit, a reading series in which poets and fiction writers in the program have an opportunity to hear each other's work. Housed at Amherst Books in downtown Amherst, Live Lit offers camaraderie, literature, and beers for a buck."
There appears to be great emphasis in all of the announcements on the beers for a buck idea. Hmmm, wonder why... Hopefully, Jenny and Richie are ok with the pricing.
October 11, 2005
What classes am I taking?
Everybody wants to know! So, here's the scoop:
780/2-Imaginative Writing: Poetry Dara Wier
We will discuss the various considerations a poet imagines while composing or revising a poem, the role reading plays in these activities and the various ways people incorporate poetry in their lives. Our main events will be your work-in-progress. We'll occasionally read and talk about essays and poems from supplementary texts TBA available from Wootton's Books. Enrollment limited to 10. Permission of instructor required of anyone not enrolled through MFA Program in English.
Dara Wier's books include Our Master Plan (Carnegie-Mellon), Blue for the Plough (Carnegie-Mellon), The Book of Knowledge (Carnegie-Mellon), All You Have in Common (Carnegie-Mellon), The 8-Step Grapevine (Carnegie-Mellon), Blood, Hook & Eye (University of Texas). She was the 1993 Richard Hugo Memorial Chairholder at the University of Montana. Before coming to Amherst she's taught at University of Texas, University of Utah, University of Alabama and Hollins College. Her work has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation.
ENGL 891JJ History and Memory in Contemporary American Fiction, Joseph Skerrett
In the face of the uncertainties and mendacities of post-modern life, the struggle for integrity often draws writers to cultural traditions that can be constructed or reconstructed on human rather than institutional terms. In the resulting works of art, mergers of identity and history are often achieved through the use of myth, storytelling rituals, and varieties of memory (personal, mythic, cultural, "racial") that refute, resist or complement the official or institutional "master narratives." After considering some ideas about memory, we will examine works that reflect itls use in literature, from Proustian subjective memory to collective memory and cultural politics. Reading: Carolyn Forche, The Angel of History (poems) Ernest Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Alan Gurganus, Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All, Joy Kogawa, Obasan, Li-Young Lee, Rose (poems) and The Winged Seed: A Remembrance, Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, Lee Smith, Oral History, Edmund White, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl, James Welch, Fools Crow, Tina de Rosa, Paper Fish, SinghSkerrett & Hogan, eds., Memory and Cultural Politics, essays and exceprts from other critical writings.
And the verdict? I'm having a great time in both of the classes, writing poems every week, and reading and discussing some very good books. I have to give a presentation on Thursday on Li-Young Lee's Rose, so I better hop to!
Next week: I'll learn more about a potential internship with the Juniper Initiative.