Mondays need Happy Songs

The sun is back here in Bloomington and after a long day of editting and revising it feels very welcome. Sometimes this whole writing thing seems to be too damned competitive and we all just need to take a step back and maybe breath. I'm not referring to anything particular event, but just that general malaise of received at least six times the rejection letters than acceptance letters. Well, at least most the rejection letters are at least nice ones. I'm starting to hate the whininess of this post already, so lets turn the ship here.

Music cures the soul, right? As I said before that I spent yesterday working and listening to tunes and this song somehow came up. It reminded me of trips of Amherstburg and driving I-75 south in my childhood. We had an old beast of brown station wagon and my father would be slurping the majestic red cans of Bud during or travels (I'm pretty sure he wasn't driving at those moments). Here's to mustaches, tight clothes, and 1970s pop. There must be a story or a poem in there somewhere.

Grunge, Subversive Poetic Activities, and Greyness

I got an email from a fellow writer declaring that would should actively pursue the return of Grunge to forefront of the American Art scene. I must admit to a certain desire to pursue this plot to successful end. I more or less started to come of age in this grunge era (yep, long johns, shorts, wool socks, I had it all), and a large part of me really would enjoy this coming back. Oh, Oulette Street, the Second Cup, and the power of being in a half-illusionary band. It might help the bleakness of spring/late winter in the mid west a little better. For some reason this song came to me (Dollar Bill - Screaming Trees) and really felt the need to post it. I might even try to build this into a short story set in Windsor. Sorry it's not the original music video.

Notes Concering the Mid-February Blues

'Tis true, those blues just keep a rolling. For such a short month, the greyness of days certainly seems to really stretch out those 28 days into an immeasurable chasm of general blahness. The whole body seems lathargic, just waiting for glorious thing to happen at some later date. Perhaps the one motioned to by the arrival of sun. All minor complaints given the current status of countless other people in the country.

I've been slaving away inside over these past few weeks trying to finish up the first workshop story for the semester. What's come is a monster, my longest complete piece to date, a 6100 word monster set in Bozeman, MT. The funny thing is that after I fashion the final, and rather short scene earlier today, I clearly felt a weight lift. I was starting to have dreams about my characters. I was becoming concerned for my sanity and perception of reality. Hopefully, with the completion of the manuscript for "Light Upon the Bridgers" will put myself back in the midst of the insanity of my own dreams.

I have been reading way too many form of poetry books recently. I tore through Robert Hayden's Collected Prose book last week. I'll post an in depth review once things slow up around here. I just started Nims Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry. I can and must tell that is a must have book even thus far into it. Again, I will post more on it in the next weeks. It really seems as though it is a brilliant catch all for poetics and questions around composition.

Lastly, for something of just pure fun check out the New Michigan Press for there most recent chapbooks. They are all beautifully designed and are available on Amazon. For the more ridiculous to look at and maybe even purchase (I'm really thinking about it) look at the bottom of this t-shirt list at MFA t-shirts. How cool are these? http://newmichiganpress.com/nmp/tshirts.html

Western Longings - Hemingway, ALO, and the West on Paper.

Maybe it was all that Hugo that read, maybe it was the snow-laiden streets of Bloomington, or maybe it was just the passage of time, but I've been trapped in this feeling of longing for the West all week. All this industrial haze must get on the individual's nerves after awhile. I've managed to turn the longing into some positive work, but aside the novella for a couple of weeks to crank out some workshop short fiction. Oh, Bozeman how will you fare in the workshop environs of the midwest?

I always use music to drive my craft and as such I've turned to the appropriate "jam" pieces that really highlighted my western migration. My most recent piece, set along Bozeman's mainstreet, is being design with the rhythms of the Grateful Dead and Animal Liberation Orchestra. That smooth gliding funk of certain songs really help to conjure up the way light plays off the mountains of Montana. You don't work at a ski hill (I stray from the term resort of a reason) and not become at least partially inspired by the beauty you see every day. Hence the title "Light upon the Bridgers."

I've been readng Larry Philips collection "Ernest Hemingway on Writing," and it has been at least somewhat enlightening. There is a comment that Ernie wrote to someone in his family about the secret of fiction being poetry. The greatest distiller of the language of prose fiction clearly sees the merging point of the two genres. Creativity is creativity, and without the beauty of concrete metaphors and similies what is writing but threadbare newsprint? I'll leave that yo journalists.

All things being what they are, I'll leave this posting with a little Animal Liberation Orchestra. May all your western dreams burn brightly and winter recede quickly under spring's growing fingers.

Lest We Forget Hugo: Triggering Town, the must have.

I still recall my early days here at IU. Those clumsy first weeks in a graduate creative writing program, when you introduce yourself from you (in my case adoptive) home state (Montana) and try to push the virtues of that place on the others. Being education in Montana and being a writer, it pretty much went without saying that I had to push the whole Richard Hugo thing. I was surprised by the number of my fellow students who had no idea who the man was, let alone anything about his book The Triggering Town. Really, this is a cornerstone type book in any writer's collection.

Hugo's book is quiet short (just over a hundred pages). But it packs that sort of terse depth that one often associates with his poetic works. For those who don't know, Hugo was a professor at University of Montana back in the day. He shares that magical space of awe of Montana poetics with Patricia Goedicke also of the same school's fame. Be a poet from the Northwest (Seattle) you can really feel the landscape pour through in his work. In this collection of his essays, you can see the origins of it. One whole chapter/essay is pretty much just a collection of his triggers for good poems.

But this collection is worth it, just for the final two chapters. This chapters most brilliantly illustrate the way in which Hugo pieced together his work from the experiences around him. The first of the two is centered around his return to Italy in 1963 (Hugo fought in the war) and a few of the poems that came out of that experience. His last chapter focuses on his time working for Boeing and explores this great story that leads to a great poem. I'm trying to give much away, here. To hear Hugo on this level is to apprecite him beyond his verse and into his mind as a teacher.

I'm terribly fascinated by the places where poetics and prose merge. Those that pull these type of sections off best, tend to be the writer's I hold dearest. I say this only because a book such as Hugo's illustrates the ways in which life experience can translate into poetics and possibly great fiction. For those that don't know Hugo and fancy themselves writers I say it's about time you made friendly.