Katie's Blog

Well I had a frusterating weekend... And here it is Thursday and I'm finally writing about it. Ok so a week ago, my prof assigned for us to write a poem. I got excited and my mind was on fire with ideas for it. I knew I could have it finished by Sunday at the latest! I sat in my car waiting for Bruno to get out of work Friday night, just testing the water to see what I had up in my head. Nothing. Nada. Just some scribble in my journal. Then, Saturday I sat in Bruno's office all morning reading poems. I was searching for my inspiration. I read a poem by A.R. Ammons, Corson's Inlet: I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning to the sea, then turned right along the surf rounded a naked headland and returned along the inlet shore: it was muggy sunny, the wind from the sea steady and high, crisp in the running sand, some breakthroughs of sun but after a bit continuous overcast: the walk liberating, I was...

Well, I'm back in class. And it's a GREAT thing I am! I already feel myself more inspired, more motivated to write. I'm reading and thinking too... So what is it that makes a good poem? Is it the imagination of the writer? Her structure? The way she uses language? Or is it something more? Anyway, I was reading an essay about writing poems, and it brought up an interesting point. It stated that poems stem from (duh!) our thought process. And when we're writing, and our mind goes off on a tangent, that's a good thing! My mind often goes off on tangents, so I need to remember to cherish and record these. There's a reason I'm thinking about thing x, and thing x needs to go in a poem. Something like that... But I've always known that when your mind makes a leap, it's usually a good thing. I'm vowing today to follow my stream of consciousness more in my brainstorming, and let my mind wonder. I bet I'll come up with something slightly interesting......

Working on a piece about grief and death... how uplifting right!? OK here's my brainstorm. Here I am and I guess I never really loved you - Alone in our bed - the sheets still warm with passion. Unaware that tomorrow you'll wake unmarried. I'll watch your tearless eyes turn red - your body become a warm shell waiting. But I'll never return - a whore. My flesh gave way to soul. In an instant we were divorced by eternity. I want you to stay here with me, unliving. There's something missing. I want to write about how I want you to continue mourning me forever, because I'm not like Neruda. I can't understand the thought of you loving again without me. And how, I can leave you for death, but you can't leave me for another piece of flesh. And how, I guess that proves that I never really loved you, because I want you to suffer and mourn without me.

I often wonder how one goes about being a good wife... Amidst all the periods and the dirty dishwater, greasy hair days and frost killed flowers. When, in the rushing hum of everyday life, with its stale morning coffee and the little piles of dirty socks on the floor, the evenings at home when all we can do is sit at our messy kitchen table and eat once warm McDonalds cheeseburgers, and when, waking up this morning, I forgot where we were five years ago - you grasping me in your arms and offering me a ring, and yet here we lay, in our bed together, you still holding me close to you as if I were life itself.

With my book coming out in the near future (I LOVE WRITING THIS!) I now have the happy but stressful task of doing my bio and getting my author picture taken. Playing around with the tone of my bio is tough. My book's a little on the serious side, and whenever I've written my bio in the past, I'm silly about it. For example: Here's the bio I submitted for the Human Slavery conference: K. is first and foremost a writer. In her spare time, she teaches 6th grade English in Santa Rosa. She is also an MFA scholar at the University of Texas Pan American, where she concentrates on poetry. She lives in Edinburg with her soul mate and many cats. Eh? too lighthearted. K. is first and foremost a writer. In her spare time, she teaches 6th grade English in a tiny town called Santa Rosa. She is also an MFA student at the University of Texas Pan American, where she concentrates on poetry. Katherine lives in Edinburg, Texas with her many cats and her soul mate. She is a vegetarian who ...