“Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.” — Wayne Dyer
The AWP (The Association of Writers & Writing Programs est. 1967) Conference is now on in Georgia. In 2008 it’s in NYC January 30 and February 2. It has:
· More than 400 Presses, Publishers, & Journals at AWP’s Bookfair
· More than 275 scheduled events
According to January O’Neil it is

one of the largest professional conferences for writers in the United States. It brings together educators, students, writers, editors, publishers, and literary aficionados to discuss the writing life, specifically the business of poetry.

With speakers and topics still to be announced…
The 11th year of the Ottawa International Writers Festival, Spring Edition, will be Sunday, April 15 to Sunday, April 22, 2007.
The 9th Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival will be April 25-29, 2007.
The Haiku Canada conference will be in Ottawa May 18-20.

Ann White’s piece on getting into the method of Louise Gluck is useful to me. Having read only part of one book by Gluck I wasn’t sure I could get a general sense of what she does since it didn’t grab me and I’m poor at keeping at reading something that doesn’t grab me. White’s sensitive reading in perspective of having read other works really helped get a context of what Gluck could be reacting to. Ann White also has some insight on how Mary Oliver’s Osprey works with a soft touch and slow draw.

When writers have written a lot it’s hard for me to decide how much I have to know to have a passable half-way acceptable level of knowledge. I suppose what I am doing to reacting to these words in this moment to me now. I don’t have to grasp the whole person. It doesn’t help to say that. I still feel like I’m reading blindfolded. Collected Works of Creeley for instance weighs in at 662 pages. Yes, I’m pagist but there’s a dauntingness to knowing how little I’ve read represents. Even if I finish these two books, drop in the bucket.

I’m way behind in non-paper reading but a month ago Anne Boyer said of writing down snippets of impressions,

To occupy oneself with projects of no interest to anyone is a generally winning idea. To be of no interest to anyone is a reliable evolutionary strategy as exemplified by birds whose feathers are the color of dirt, rabbits who turn white in the winter, green caterpillars, chameleons, etc.

I love the whimsy of putting these two ideas side by side. Writing ideas is a processing, a pleasure, an internalizing of the world with or without agreeing, or even being interested in it. It’s an acknowledging, coming into ideas, touching, interacting, being a unconscious and conscious part of the environment instead of pointedly ignoring and being mentally divided from where one actually is. Is it an evolutionary advantage to wear ideas that camouflage or are red vinyl ideas that don’t relate to the wetlands and fields? If one knows one is wearing what one is consciously as a counterpoint to better see the palette, does that change the relationship of fit?

(So it ain’t sophisticated but it amused me. :))

Actionable Joy
“An opal holds a fiery spark, But a flint holds fire.” — Christina Rossetti

We hold these ruses to be self-evident: baubles of trouble-
d double D legend are poignant, a jinxed tragic beauty we must scrape
to. How to keep pap and pope held above all the rabble of a good
bawdy joke? We are brought up short, a jerk of the shoulder
curt word to ensure we heard young man what a world this is.

A bombing is not enough, the one more scarce than scary —
must be re-run in syndication, spun into articles, editorials
plethoraing. Dramatization queens are made, not born. Vigilance is
trustmost, a curse borne by
all who are Responsible Denizens. Pray
we look at archives of international lists
compiled, trotted out his- and her-stories,
cross-reference to thicken where thin with
unibomber or do-wrongers, patch and scrap up
some fear-factor(TM) morality, be a good laddie,
poll someone quick before momentum
flits off to those damned flowers and sunshine again.

We must keep people Aware of how much Danger they
are in, how many (by number not percentage) once
screwed up something which we can’t bear
to ever let
anyone live down
because trauma
is not
to be trifled with
except for profit or propheteering.

Hurry, hurrah against all this counterevidence
mounding around the homeless man
who has a name we dare not note
he who
as if equal (imagine!)
ruffles the hair of the Clean-Coated Boy
who turns, smiles with his dad
glances back without a care (careless is a better paraphrase)
dad who adds a nice-sort-of-day-isn’t-it wave.

And the woman who falls on the intersection and
blame hardly has time to reach lips when a suit swifts over
soothing words, lifts her, checks she is
fine, tears not even with time to get out of ducts.
How is one to work up a good funk unless we blot
with the ruthless practicality of kittens sacks and stones…

We won’t even discuss how people keep talking with family
and colleagues or how when they break up
have the sense to shrug
and get on with other things.
Such harassment of relentless coping
and feel-good copy must be stopped. How dare people
keep breathing air, not be stricken with parts per million broken,
forget the majority that works.

Words bitten back in considerations,
spoken kindly, resilient healing
more tyranical than manical’s most celebrated hopes
goods and money to buy it and airports of people greeting people
they missed. Yes, con-
centrate on the ache of miss.
Bang that pang. Hammer,
no, no, they weren’t fine before.
They weren’t in contact all the
way in line by text. Think of poverty, depravity, abuse.

Let me dig up some files for you.

Each life has pain enough you say.
Now we’re getting somewhere aren’t we? Roma have been
failed by some institutional schooling and have tin shacks,

happiness study says poor are happier and have a community
of support, laughter, long lasting points pass
like ships in dark night of souls. Incandescence of critical
observation should be outlawed, already is in some areas
you know but what is scandulous and when I count to 4 you
will wake and do a headless chicken whenever I say war. 1, 2…

“When I’m awake, conscious working in a certain way I am more unconscious than in my half-asleep. When I’m in that half sleep there is a kind of vigilance.” Jacques Derrida in interview

MiPOradio Poetry is searchable at iTunes if you have it. It’s also downloadable as an mp3 at miporadio blogspot. Bob Marcacci’s The Countdown, Episode 20 (37 minutes) of MiPo radio features Arlene Ang for first 9 minutes, followed by followed by

• Wm. Rike‘s “Crone on Time”
• my reading my poem “Old Uncle” (around minute 12)
• Jordan Stempleman’s “The Eye”
• Ann Bogle reads “Basal distance” (which does some intriguing creative things with the concepts of punctuation).
• Rick Mullin, “Amtrak Cheeseburger, Northeast Corridor”
• Crag Hill “South of Clark”
• Christine Klocek-Lim “Children, do not mourn the snow”
• Maurice Oliver – “When the Daring Among Us Flirt”
• Sheila Murphy – “if as if whole daylight came to be” (From the interesting As/Is group poet blog)
• Rachel Dacus — “Wine Under a Fig Tree”

Where you can get an embeddable player or download an MP3 of the show… http://odeo.com/audio/9650593/