Katie's Blog

 Well, I've resigned to the fact that I'm not going to make it to 30/30 this year. No, I don't really have an excuse to speak of. I've been busy, but I'm busy every year. I'm just having trouble staying motivated to carve the time to write into my daily routine. I always write on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and even today (tuesday), I had a hard time getting myself to sit down and write when I have a million other things that need doing: mainly, grading.  I'm hopelessly behind with my grading, or so it feels.  Alas. Anyway, I think my Saturday talk was a success at the Cape G public library. There were only a couple of people in the Zoom session, but it was also steamed live, and in the live stream we had 40 views. Plus, it's archived. It was fun to talk about why I love poetry! I titled my talk, jokingly, "How Not to Hate Poetry," though it was about looking at poetry as an invitation into someone else's humanity. I think poetry really is all ...

 I'm still behind, though my days have been filled with poetry nonetheless.  Yesterday, I presented at the Valley International Poetry Festival, my old stomping grounds. I moderated a panel on Odes and Elegies, an anthology I recently edited and published through Lamar U Literary Press. It was great to see some old friends and new faces, too. Today, I'm giving a presentation on poetry at the Cape Girardeau Public Library for National Poetry Month. My talk is titled "How to Not Hate Poetry!" I'm hoping to discuss ways to approach, appreciate, and experience poetry that aren't intimidating. I'll share some of my favorite poems and read a few of my own, too. It should be fun! The library tells me no one has signed up for my talk, but I am not going to let that phase me. It will be streamed live on Facebook and archived, too. My good friend Cathy Lopez, who was an MFA classmate, invited me to do this, so we'll get a chance to jabber on about the magic of p...

 I fell behind :(  I don't know if I'm going to be able to catch up. I've been really busy lately and stressed out. B and I are going to travel home, but it's a bad time in the semester for such trips. Then the landlord says they're coming to inspect the apartment, so it needs some last minute cleaning at this inopportune time. Writing, unfortunately, didn't take priority. But here's what I have written: This first one is a "sijo" about spring in Omaha. It SNOWED yesterday: April in Omaha   Yesterday, a catalpa lost her blossoms to the north wind   as the last snow of April fell from the clouds. They fell like snow.   Winter blurs the line spring’s etched.             What’s beginning? What’s ending? And here's my rant about panties: Panty Rant   First of all, I hate the word “panties” As if they were made for a child. And I hate how I feel like one sometimes Slipping into a pair with ...

I think there's a seed of a poem somewhere in this. The prompt today was to write about the moon. I was reading Joseph Millar's "Venetian Siesta" on Poem-a-Day, and like the poem's meditation on sleep as something we're taught to feel guilty about. But the poem felt a little indulgent in an age of suffering and unrest--pandemia and protest and climate change, and here's a guy feeling guilty about sleeping on a sofa in Venice because he's not able to soak up the sights. Hmph. Of all the things to feel guilty about? Anyway, it made me think about the shared humanity of guilt. How it's something we all carry, collectively. And sleep is a moment where we can slough it off. I'm guilty of feeling guilty about trivial things, too. In my case, it's usually related to what I'm eating or not eating, and how much exercise I'm doing or not doing. Yesterday afternoon, during my own slothy nap, I dreamt of ice cream. An indulgence only in my drea...

I can't stop thinking about this moment, a few years ago, when I lived in Baytown, not exactly a safe town to the east of Houston. I'm a runner, and Baytown is more of a lunch bucket kind of city. No trails, no running club, a good bit of homelessness and crime. I lived on the "good side" of Baytown, whatever that means--an overpriced apartment complex filled with skilled refinery workers and some teachers, who were also well-paid in Baytown thanks to funding from Exxon.  At any rate, I'm a runner, and I wanted to get my runs out of the way early in the mornings while B was still working, though it made me feel a little on-edge. And I never went too far from home, either, which was frustrating because I was training for a marathon and loved big open long stretches of trail or sidewalk. I digress. One morning, I was finishing my run, and a Black man is walking my way. Immediately, I felt afraid. I couldn't really tell in the darkness, but he was dressed in runn...

  Becoming My Mother’s Daughter   My mother: Zeus. My mother: the god of our house, Ruling with a mixture of love and ferocity. My mother, a thunderclap headache Lying on the sofa. My mother, holding Her head in her hands in helplessness. My mother, screaming out in pain Some Saturday mornings, Tuesday afternoons, Sundays, her Olympus ruled By the whims of these rainstorms That rolling in off her skull.   My mother, shaking the earth In my bones. My mother, one eye Drooping. My mother, a grimace On her face. My mother, grinning And bearing it. My mother, the bolt Of her gaze at any peep or light Filling the living room, opening Her pain like a raincloud. My mother, Begging for a wedge, a hammer, The splitting open.   I am my mother’s daughter, now— I sprung forth from this, her wisdom. I realize this, supine on the sofa, My own Olympus awash in the aura Of another hemiplegic afternoon.

    Every weekend, you’d wake early, Make sure there was coffee in the pot And something sweet on the table Before lacing up your shoes And heading out to the open road.   Where were you running, dad? I’d wonder that, watching you From my bedroom window, Your spider legs carrying you Down the street, then out of my sight. When you’d return, hour later, Drenched in sweat and bringing The scent of the road and the sunshine With you, the day would begin.   Dad, now my own legs, thin and long In a pair of compression tights Carry me miles and miles and miles. And I know where I’m running— In your footprints, your shadow, Your sunshine. Some mornings, We are blessed to run together, Side by side, counting miles And laughing at ourselves, The ridiculousness of this endeavor, To count the miles these feet Have traveled. I know I’m your daughter, Always running, always moving.

I'd like to think about this idea a little further. I don't want to appropriate Abdurraqib's powerful poem. But I also don't want to just write poems about flowers and beautiful things as the world around me reels in pain and suffering.  How Can White People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This?   After Hanif Abdurraqib   I want to imagine each flower a fist, rising in unison. I want to say that flowers matter, every dandelion With its head blown off, every bluebonnet snuffed Beneath the knee, every glorious aster mistaken For a weed because it fit the description, each one Deserves all the sun and the soil and the raindrops Like any living thing. I want to write about all things Beautiful—the different shades of flowers blooming In the garden of this nation. But I will never understand What it feels like to be plucked from the root. And how many times have I enjoyed the beauty Of a daisy, its mother generations ago pulled From the fer...

 Spending some time this morning getting caught up! This was the prompt from Sunday.  To Juliet   Juliet, did you know, generations later, That your teenaged love and angst Would still inspire generations?   I mean, I remember that feeling, That end of the world feeling In my own heart if I couldn’t be   With HIM, who now that I’m older, I hardly remember. The boy I loved At fourteen. Goodness, girl.   I remember that feeling, that Eclipsing feeling of young love, That force of gravity, that gravity   That takes you by your ankles And pulls you into the depths Of yourself. I remember that.   I remember that, Juliet. For me, a boy with a basketball, He dribbled across the court.   My own world, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. As a million high school girls Read your story, and Romeo’s, too,   They can see their faces Their hearts beating back at them, And know they’re not alone...

 Working with an interesting "what if" this morning, inspired by Mark Wunderlich's poem "The Corn Baby." What if it were that easy, to just go out into the corn field and pull a baby from the stalk? How different life would be! If Babies Started Growing as Readily as Ears of Corn     If only it were as easy as growing a field of corn In these open Nebraska fields: the earth in spring,   The body with its rows, the stalks erect like gooseflesh As last of winter’s wind blows through. What if these stalks   Started carrying more than corn? Felt the first fluttering Of flesh deep in the buds, could carry this burden for us,   Through the heat of summer, soaking up the sun? What if it were as easy as walking out into a field   in the stubble of September, to touch the silken tops like a newborn’s hair against the palm, the scent of earth   arising as the morning dew becomes mist? What if birth was as easy as h...