Katie's Blog

At the Latino Virtual Smithsonian on Second Life! I will be giving a virtual poetry workshop at the Sin Fronteras Cafe. My topic is "Let's Get Personal: A Workshop on Autobiographical Verse". I 'hit the mic' at 8pm central time! See flyer for more details. If at this last minute you'd like to join me, you can message me on Second Life. I'm PoetKatie Phew, nervoussss!!! Hope all goes well :D In other news: I wrote a new poem and it is beautious. I've also received an acceptance letter for Breakwater Review . Woohoo! I'm on a roll :-) I will be in their summer issue. The poem is "What They Told the Girl With Bite Marks on Her Lips". Very excited and honored to be in the publication! Ok I'm off to prep for workshopppp!!

I am a master at wasting time, let me tell you... I've decided to dedicate my 'time off' to producing new work, reading, and just surrounding myself with poetry. I've had this fear that without my weekly 'workshops', I'll stop writing. And, well, as much as I try to give myself some sort of writing structure, it's kind of happening. Ugh. In my time since graduating two weeks ago, I've written one poem and did one freewrite. And really they're not even that good... So maybe its time to refocus? Perhaps. When I get 'stuck', I like to try reading. So I picked some Amy Clampitt today, since, well, I'm obsessed with plants and from her poems it seems as though she may have been, too! :D I'm impressed. I just had to share this poem: Nothing Stays Put - Amy Clampitt The strange and wonderful are too much with us. The protea of the antipodes—a great, globed, blazing honeybee of a bloom— for sale in the supermarket! We are in our decadence...

Hooray! Last night I received an email from the editors at Platte Valley Review that they will be included two of my poems in their special "Forces of Nature" issue! So excited :-) They're going to be publishing "The Dance", which is a poem about a tree in a hurricane (as a metaphor for miscarriage/grief), and also "The Mother of Sweet Texas Onions," which is a poem about farm workers, pesticides, and birth defects. OOph, ok, so they're not uplifting cute Katie poems, but I think they appropriately go with the forces of nature theme. Anyway, I'm excited. PVR is the lit journal from the University of Nebraska - Kearney. You can check them out here

Aww, why are you so happy, Katie? LoL. Poetry reading last night was fantastic! So I was invited by Edward Vidaurre to read at Poetry Al Dente last night, and sure did have a good time. There were a lot of familiar valley poets there, so it felt much like a big group of friends all getting together to enjoy poetry, pasta, and vino too of course. But the best part? Bruno came to the reading, and brought my fam too! But it was a surprise, you see - I was there eating my dinner with at a table with some new friends from UTB, and Bruno taps me on the shoulder, ta dah! Here is he. Bruno's not a big poetry guy, and so it just meant a lot to me to have him here. Anyway, was a great evening. One of the best readings I've ever had the privledge to be a part of. Hopefully Johnny Carino's will be hosting us poets again sometime soon. I'll be there :D As long as I'm invited, that is. Other than that, life's been pretty slow movin' for me lately. I'm psyched about th...

Ok so maybe they're not so much children but more high schoolers, and man, what a crowd! Reading to kiddos = very different than reading to adults. I know, I know, I teach high school so I'm used to them by now :) But still, it was a great experience today. I was invited by Mr. Daniel Garcia Ordaz to come to McAllen Memorial High School and read some poems. I had a good time, stayed the entire day to read poems and talk about writing. One girl came up to me and said, "You know, at first I didn't get your poems but then I thought about them.... and I loved them!" LoL. Yep. That's the job of a post-modernist poet. To make the reader/listener participate in the construction of meaning. So it was good to hear :-) When I write my poems, I try to have multiple layers of meaning. On the surface, they're cute/sexy/odd. But usually, underneath that, I comment about society. So... wow I was pretty impressed that a 15 year old girl 'got' the poems. I would ju...

"If you think swimming in cheese in impossible, clearly, you've never been to Wisconsin" LoL. I love it. Ok so it has nothing to do with poetry but everything to do with... nothing? :-) So life's really slowwwwwwwwed down for me lately. My last grade posted yesterday and ya, I got an A :D That marks the official end of my MFA days. ::elongated sigh:: so now what the heck do I do? Well, I'm signed up for my 'free' graduate class at UTPA just because I can. I'm taking a South Texas Literature class this summer, and looking forward to it very much. I think I need more of a literature background, and I'm eager to start doing research/writing scholarly conference papers. Next academic year, I want to hit the conference circuit with more than just a mouth full of poems. Other summer plans? Of course I've got the WCU poetry conference which I'm psyched about aaaandd... hmmm, well... that about does it! So it should be a pretty easy going few month...

Boo me for not posting regularly, I know. It's just, I don't know, I haven't been in the mood to write reflectively, and stuff. So since my last blogpost... I've decided to go to the West Chester University poetry conference ! I'm really excited about it. Even my plane ticket is booked so now there is no turning back. The lovely folks at WCU have offered me a scholarship. When I realized scholarship wouldn't be enough, I sent them a very sad email explaining my situation (because, you know, airfare is really expensive and poets don't make a lot of money and I'm living on ramen noodles, ect) So what do they do? Double my scholarship! Booya! I was soo unbelievably surprised at the gesture. Now I have no choice but to accept. My lovely parents have even paid for my plane ticket. Gosh I feel all warm, fuzzy, and loved by everyone :) Tis a wonderful feeling. So I'm now fretting over the details. What to wear? What to bring? How to navigate large airports?...

There's the beautiful Boundless 2011 cover! Ahh, the reception was nice :-) So back to the poetry festival: The Valley International Poetry festival was great this year. I participated only in the anthology release reading, and had a great time. I got to talk to the featured poet, Ken Jones, who was super nice and gave me a signed copy of his latest chapbook, Bones of Rebellion :D In return, I gave him directions around the valley. Fair trade, right? LoL. I'll post a few pics. A local photographer, Iliana Spitz, took some fantastic pictures! Mine, not so much. I'm more of a camera phone from the back kind of girl. The rest of the festival looked really excited, but honestly I needed some veg time this weekend. So veg it out I did, plus did some GRE study. Phew, finally, that number is getting to where I need it to be. Twas a good week for me :-) I'm excited for 'what's next' and can't wait to start moving forward! In other news: Did I ever mention about ...