XOXOXO

It's Friday afternoon  :)  I still have to post something to this blog, but I'm on it with a sonnet:
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From Clearances 5

By Seamus Heaney

The cool that came off sheets just off the line
Made me think that damp must still be in them
But when I took my corners of the linen
And pulled against her, first straight down the hem
And then diagonally, then flapped and shook
The fabric like a sail in a cross-wind,
They made a dried-out undulating thwack.
So we'd stretch and fold and end up hand to hand
For a split second as if nothing had happened
For nothing had that had not always happened
Beforehand, day by day, just touch and go,
Coming close again by holding back
In moves where I was x and she was o
Inscribed in sheets she'd sewn from ripped-out flour sacks.

Culturally clueless

The first poem in "Seriously Funny" is by Frank O'Hara, and it contains an allusion that was new to me when I first read it earlier this week.

Now here is what happens every time I run into stuff that's new to me:  I make a mental note to myself that I must look it up, which of course I never can do right away, because I must leave for class or something---I am on my way to somewhere almost all of the time, that is just how my life is---and then I forget all about the mental note before actually getting to it.

And here's the second half of the story---and this also happens to me amazingly often---this morning I came across the exact same allusion (in this case, a name) in a completely unrelated context (in this case, in this article on Poetry News), upon which I finally looked it up.

That's why I spent some time this afternoon researching Lana Turner on the internet.

Here's the poem in question:
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Poem

By Frank O'Hara

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to a lot of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Quick question

Here are two lines of poetry in Urdu, and I'm linking every single word in both lines to its entry in a standard Urdu-English dictionary:

  tum mire paas hote ho goyaa
  jab ko'ii duusraa nahiiN hotaa

My question:  Does that make the lines intelligible to someone who doesn't speak Urdu?

The lines are famous btw  :)  they are by Maumin KhaaN "Maumin" ... here is AKhtarii Baa'ii singing a different famous Ghazal of Maumin.

Seriously Funny

Arrived in today's mail:  poetry anthology "Seriously Funny", edited by Barbara Hamby (the friend from whom I heard about the book studied with Barbara Hamby) and David Kirby.  I'm obviously spending my afternoon reading the book, and I'm loving it  :)  so for my blog today,  I'll just post a poem from this book (and then go back to reading):

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Dream Song 4

By John Berryman

Filling her compact & delicious body

with chicken paprika, she glanced at me

twice.

Fainting with interest, I hungered back

and only the fact of her husband & four other people

kept me from springing on her

or falling at her little feet and crying

'You are the hottest one for years of night

Henry's dazed eyes 

have enjoyed, Brilliance.'  I advanced upon

(despairing) my spumoni.---Sir Bones:  is stuffed,

 de world, wif feeding girls.

---Black hair, complexion Latin, jewelled eyes

downcast ...  The slob beside her       feasts ...  What wonders is

she sitting on, over there?  

The restaurant buzzes.  She might as well be on Mars.

Where did it all go wrong?  There ought to be a law against Henry.

---Mr. Bones:  there is.

Almost 200 speeches

For those of us who are still looking for a speech for next week's homework, here are videos of Nobel lectures.  The texts of the lectures are posted as well (so we can easily get exact quotes).  The lectures are all long, but that's probably a good thing, because the paper has to be long too ...

Physics
Chemistry
Physiology or Medicine
Literature
Peace
Economics

I hope everybody has fun writing this thing.  I have never in my life liked writing such long papers  :(

On the road

I have to get on the highway in fifteen minutes, I'm driving to Ann Arbor to pick up my daughter for the weekend  :)  So today, I'm just posting another poem by Jim (my teacher at the Workshop):
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Orbit Obit

By James Galvin

From this far out in the orbit, everything
Is infinitesimal, and very clear,
Like the little trigger part of your ear
With a wisp of blond slacked behind it.

From this far out in the orbit, nothing
Is big or vague, like church, but the line in the sand
Keeps moving.  From this far out in the orbit your eyes
Are quatrocento islands of towers all

Atilt, where all the women go blind from making lace,
And all the men are fishermen who mend
Their nets each sunset, and sooner or later are lost at sea.
From this far out the Hemlock Society

Writes me a letter in which they offer to help
Me kill myself for a small contribution.
The line in the sand has passed me by.
From this far out in the orbit the tip of your tongue,

The white hush of your hip, your palm proffered to be licked,
The event horizon of your lower lip,
All good places to start and end,
Since no one ever mentioned going home.

Taking stock

Okay, after the Workshop announced next year's summer classes yesterday, I got thinking about my application, for which I need a manuscript of 10 to 12 new poems, postmark deadline March 1.  And March 1 next year is a Friday, and I don't always have time on days that aren't a Wednesday, so for me the postmark deadline is really February 27 ...  At any rate, I took inventory of what I have written this year so far, and I immediately became depressed:  As of today I have only one new poem that I could possibly use.  Other than that, I have one amazingly lame first draft for a second poem, one prose sketch for a third poem, one vague idea of a fourth poem, and nothing at all for the rest of my manuscript (except, of course, a solid wish to write more poetry).

In 2012, I ended up revising the last four poems of my manuscript during the late morning and the early afternoon of Wednesday, February 28, and I felt like a complete idiot when I mailed the manuscript later that same day.  Of course, I did feel blessed when, in spite of having been so irresponsible, I still got in, but it also made me think again that the poems would have been a lot better if I had worked a little more on them.

So this year I really, really want to work all year on my manuscript.

I want to have 15 to 20 good first drafts by the beginning of the Christmas break.

And I want to spend two months revising after that.

Three Sonnets (for three reasons)

I'm not posting three different sonnets, but one poem called "Three Sonnets"  :)  and there are three reasons why I am posting this poem today:

1.  It's such an exquisitely beautiful poem!,
2.  It's so true about my life!, and
3.  The Workshop updated their page for next summer!  Jim is again teaching the Poetry class during the special May session, and I'm going to try to get into his class for the third year in a row  :)  And this poem was written by Jim:
_______________________________

Three Sonnets

By James Galvin

Where I live      distance is the primal fact   
The world is mostly      far away and small
Drifting along through cause and effect      like sleep  
As when the distance      unlikeliest of stems
Bears the unlikely      blossom of the wind  
Engendering our only weather      dry
Except in winter      pine trees live on snow  
So greedy      pulling down these drifts that bury  
The fences snap      the trunks of smaller trees  
If the forest wants      to go somewhere it spreads  
Like a prophecy      its snow before it  
Technology      a distant windy cause  
There is no philosophy      of death where I live  
Only philosophies      of suffering

Dark night

As in:  I'm hoping to work all night in the darkroom tonight, so I really only have enough time to post a four-liner, such as this one:
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Wuenschelrute

von Joseph von Eichendorff

Schlaeft ein Lied in allen Dingen,
Die da traeumen fort und fort,
Und die Welt hebt an zu singen,
Triffst du nur das Zauberwort.
_____________________________

But, because I also really love these poems  :)  I am also posting this slightly longer one:
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Mondnacht

Von Joseph von Eichendorff

Es war, als haett' der Himmel
Die Erde still gekuesst,
Dass sie im Blueten-Schimmer
Von ihm nun traeumen muesst'.

Die Luft ging durch die Felder,
Die Aehren wogten sacht,
Es rauschten leis die Waelder,
So sternklar war die Nacht.

Und meine Seele spannte
Weit ihre Fluegel aus,
Flog durch die stillen Lande,
Als floege sie nach Haus.

It's still Fall, so ...

It's still Fall, so I can still post this poem:
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Es lacht in dem steigenden Jahr dir

Von Stefan George

Es lacht in dem steigenden Jahr dir
der Duft aus dem Garten noch leis.
Flicht in dem flatternden Haar dir
Eppich und Ehrenpreis.

Die wehende Saat ist wie Gold noch,
vielleicht nicht so hoch mehr und reich.
Rosen begruessen dich hold noch,
ward auch ihr Glanz etwas bleich.

Verschweigen wir, was uns verwehrt ist;
geloben wir, gluecklich zu sein,
wenn auch nicht mehr uns beschert ist
als noch ein Rundgang zu zwein.

Looking at the bright side(s)

Example:  I overslept and had no time for breakfast this morning.  Bright side:  I got some much-needed extra sleep  :)

And I wasn't even hungry afterwards  :)  In the morning, there was cake in the lobby on my way to class, and there were two kinds of cake, so I had to eat one piece of each kind (you can't put two different kinds of food in front of me and ask me to pick one); in the afternoon, there was chocolate in my Comm class (thank you Marylou!); after classes, I walked across campus to the Registrar's office to turn in my registration card for Spring, and there they had cake again!  Probably to celebrate students who go register on the first day, a.k.a. me  :)

And this is the kind of stuff that keeps happening to me every single time I have to do something like skipping breakfast, which is why I can keep looking at the bright side of everything  :)

More stuff to feel bright about that happened today:  The last two volumes of compulsory reading for my Master's thesis---"Das deutsche Drama" in two volumes by Benno von Wiese---arrived in the mail (thank you, Barbara!).  I'm hoping to finish reading them before the semester is over and get started with writing the thesis over Christmas!

And still to come today:  Poetry slam during 7--9 PM at the Moose!  And I'm feeling awake enough to go watch it.  Because I got extra sleep this morning  :)

Overdoing it now :)

And I mean it in a good way  :)  It used to be that, on most occasions when I, for whatever reason, did not finish homework on time, class would get cancelled, thus letting me off the hook, and I would be thankful, etc.  Of course, it helped that I usually do finish stuff on time, but there have been cases (such as my German class last Thursday) where I really could use the break I got, and I have forever suspected that, at least in this one matter, I get preferential treatment from life  :)

Well, today there wasn't even any homework due at all for my Journalism class, but it got cancelled anyway  :)  But I, like Alfred P. Doolittle, can always use a little bit o' luck  :)  I looked long and hard at my two bottomless lists (one of things to do and another of things I'd like to do) and I decided that I could use the free extra 75 minutes to do some stuff ahead of time, which might open up some time down the road, such as for going to watch Werner Herzog's film when the Art Department shows it next Thursday evening ...  Now it's past 5:45 PM (the time when, if we had had class, class would have ended), so I'll post this now and go on to other stuff  :)

Herr K. ist zufrieden :)

Josef K. (in Kafka's "Prozess") is doomed (he doesn't even know of what he's being accused), just like we are doomed to winter for the next 8 months or so, but right now, at the end of a classes-free warm day (probably the last classes-free warm day of the year), I'm feeling good  :)  because, for the moment, I have tobacco, canned food, drink, and both kinds of coffee (the dark roasted, coarse ground real coffee for the french press in my apartment, and the vile instant coffee I must drink at my office), and my winter coat has been dry cleaned ...  Ideally, I'd have liked to get a haircut today as well, but I can't do that in the middle of classes (it distracts my students too much), so I already got my hair cut during October Break, and I'll just let it grow until it's after Finals Week, and I'll consider it a natural hat until then  :)  The one other thing I needed before winter was new boots, but I didn't want to waste any part of today driving across town to buy boots, so I'll just do that some other day, and, for this evening, I'll just go ahead and feel good already, like Herr K. managed to do in spite of being doomed, in spite of knowing that he was doomed.

Oh and I also filled out my application to next year's (German) summer school  :)  and---now that I come to think of it---that might be a large part of why I'm feeling good  :)  try it yourself and see?

Last chance Wednesday

For example:  I am almost out of tobacco (not that I have no more tobacco, but that I have no more unopened pouches).  On Tuesdays, I'm done with classes at 2:55 PM, and my office hours are over at 4:45 PM, and Buffalo Tobacco Traders only closes at 7 PM, so I was planning to get a new box of pouches after my office hours today, but at the end of my office hours, after I made one 'phone call about my Spring semester classes (because the offices close earlier than the tobacconist's) and read my e-mail and checked Facebook, the sun had already set!  It was barely 5:30 PM ... it was also cloudy, so I decided to not walk the few blocks today after all.  It feels really lame to drive everywhere with the car, so I'm now planning to get the tobacco tomorrow instead.

And that's just one example.  I have the unsettling feeling that, all semester long, I have had no time to do anything at all on days when I have had classes; as a result, every little thing that comes up during the week has to be done on the following Wednesday; as a result, I end up being really busy on Wednesdays as well!

And tomorrow is even worse than the normal busy Wednesday:  We're into November now, and there's snow in next week's weather forecast, so there's no telling whether Wednesday next week will still be suitable for walking.

I know that driving in the middle of winter is just as certain as taxes at the beginning of spring and death at the end of summer, but tomorrow might be my actual last chance of the year to get stuff done on foot.

New titles received :)

Mondays and Thursdays are brutal:  I teach back-to-back from 9:25 AM to 1:05 PM, take a class during 1:40--2:55 PM, keep office hours during 3:05--4:20 PM, then take another class during 4:30--5:45 PM.  And yet it's all light and easy on those Mondays and Thursdays when I have something concrete that I'm looking forward to doing after all of that.  For example, today was a good Monday, partly (but only partly) because of the addition of the following new arrivals to my daily reading list:

1.  Verfuehrungen.,  Roman von Marlene Streeruwitz;
2.  Der Spaziergang von Rostock nach Syrakus, Erzaehlung von Friedrich Christian Delius;
3.  Nonverbal Concomitants of Perceived and Intended Persuasiveness, by Albert Mehrabian and Martin Williams.

So:  Have a great evening, everyone, because I sure am having a great evening  :)

Hot language, cool school :)

My German summer school, deutsche Sommerschule am Pazifik (dSaP for short), just updated their website for next year!  Here's the link.

Everybody knows this much:  The German language is hot  :)  But you need to physically come to this particular summer school and see for yourself how much unbelievably hotter it gets in summer!

Back in Fall 2008, I researched summer German-language immersion programs in the USA, and this was the best one (in terms of quality, course offerings, history, etc.) by about 23.44 miles.  I came here as an undergraduate in 2009, and I liked it here so much that I have come back as a graduate student every single summer after that  :)

If you are an undergraduate, you can earn 12 quarter credits during the 5 weeks with a normal class load (and it is perfectly possible to do an overload) which will transfer to your College and count towards your German major (or German minor).  This is what I did in 2009 (I took 16 quarter credits that time).

If you already have a B.A. in German, an M.A. in German at this summer school takes 4--7 summers.  This is what I am doing now  :)

If you are a graduate student in German, you can earn 12 quarter credits with a normal class load (and it is perfectly possible to do an overload) which will transfer into and count towards the graduate program at your University.

If you work smart at the summer school, you can typically make about a whole year's worth of progress during the 5 weeks, no matter at what level you start  :)  Want to see some proof?  You'll get to prove this to yourself by taking the Goethe examinations towards the end of the 5 weeks!  Taking the exams is optional, but they encourage it by offering a huge discount (the Goethe exams are expensive) during the summer school  :)

And that's not even the half of it ...  But I'm not telling you any more!  Get here next year and see for yourself  :)

If you will have already had at least 2 years of German by next summer, apply now.  The recommendation letter doesn't need to say your German is perfect, the letter just needs to say you have the tenacity to go 5 weeks using no language other than German 24/7.

If you haven't had enough German yet, take some (more) German already.  It's worth taking those classes at your local College just so you can come to this summer school afterwards (in addition to all of the reasons you've already heard, of course).  Yes, it's that good  :)

Featherweight

So far, tomorrow's Comm 101 exam is thoroughly kicking my butt  :(  and I'm even about to give up on it and go home.  Accordingly, a really short poem is all I'm posting today, and the poem is not at all representative of my day ...  On the other hand, receiving the e-mail which contained the poem was the one highlight of my day  :)  The original poem is in Italian by Tonino Guerra, who died earlier this year, and this is a German translation:
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Die Feder

Ich erinnere mich nicht mehr den Tag und die Stunde
aber es war um Weihnachten da hab ich gesehen
wie eine Feder vom Glockenturm herabfiel:
Ich stand da und schaute in die Luft
als waere ich es, der da fliegt
und langsam langsam bin ich auf den Boden gekommen
leicht wie nie