my american sentences
October 31, 2007
I don’t feel so hot. Therefore, the title of my last post must serve as my American Sentence for the day. I don’t have another 17 syllables in me:
I’m on Claritin and it’s time to get the poetry party crunk!
i’m on claritin and it’s time to get the poetry party crunk!
October 31, 2007
First things first: My allergies are bad. Real bad. I’m not just talking about my allergic dermatitis, which is only barely starting to act like it’s on the mend. I am also talking about allergy allergies — the kind that leave you sneezing, watery-eyed and make your head feel as if it’s two or three sizes too small.*
I’ve taken drastic measures and by that I mean I am now on Claritin. It’s sure to make me fuzzy-headed, but I am already fuzzy-headed because of the allergies themselves. And right now, I can’t seem to go more than five — count ’em, five — minutes without having to blow my nose or sneeze or cough an oh so dainty and feminine Victorian-era cough to mask the heavy-duty emphysemic** construction worker cough I want to cough so that I might clear all the polleny moldy pine-scented garbage out of my throat and lungs but that I will not allow myself to cough because I don’t like it when all my co-workers scatter to the Cascades in fear of my being the contagion I am not.
(Think SARS. Think pandemic flu. Nobody can have good old-fashioned allergies these days without everyone, and I mean everyone, getting all up in arms about it.)
I’m actually hoping the Claritin will dull my senses enough so that my feelings of anxiety are at least blunted if not eliminated. Anxiety has been chewing my ass like a skinny rabid dog ever since my kidney diagnosis, and it’s not letting up even now that my kidneys are better.
I’ve had bouts of anxiety since childhood but nothing as intense and persistent as this. My co-workers were talking the other day about anxiety, saying it can be brought on by abuse and neglect during childhood. I figure I’m pretty much fucked defenseless against it then, although I’ve decided to get cognitive-behavioral therapy, since it’s supposed to be beneficial.
Still, I hope the Claritin soothes me a little as well. (Or at least makes me dizzy. Dizzy is good, unless I have to drive or interact with anyone or accomplish anything that requires any degree of physical or mental coordination. I can even write while dizzy. In fact, I prefer writing while dizzy because my words look way better when they are blurry than when they are clear. It makes proofreading kind of a bitch though.)
So about that poetry! Tomorrow NaBloPoMo starts, and that means 30 days of posting! w00t! I don’t think I am going to write a poem every day, seeing as how NaPoWriMo wiped me out writing-wise for more than a month after it was over. But I do think I will try to write something poetry-related every day. What the heck. It’s better than talking about my dermatitis, allergies and anxiety, right?
* I realize this list does not have parallel construction. Do not expect great feats of grammar from me today.
** I know this is not a real word.
my american sentences
October 30, 2007
The elevator’s mechanical heart throbs as it lifts me higher.
my american sentences
October 29, 2007
Overnight, it seems the pigment has leaked from each hair on your body.
perennial poetry postcard fest, card #3
October 29, 2007
How a shadow means
Hello or goodbye,
harbinger or afterthought.
Here you come again, your shadow
behind you, it’s clock running slow
There I go, what’s before me
clinging to brick and mortar.
my american sentences (a double feature)
October 28, 2007
I went back on birth control pills and holy moly: instant boob job.
* * *
(to the cashier at Yakima Fruit Market)
Hey, quit flirting with my husband because you think he looks like Moby.
my american sentences
October 27, 2007
My lint roller’s the closest I’ve come to being felt up in ages.
readwritepoem.org?
October 26, 2007
I’ve been really sad about Poetry Thursday ending. The situation was very complicated, and I only feel comfortable stating publicly that it was neither my decision for that project to end nor was it a good time (because of my health) to start a new project.
I want to publicly apologize to Jim, January and Melissa for getting them involved in a project when I was in over my head with my health and other stresses. I did what I did because of my love for poetry and my investment in the work I had done on Poetry Thursday. I wanted to see the community continue, and I did not realize how taxing it was for me to delve into trying to start a new project at that time.
Having said all that, I have been sad to see that there hasn’t been anything quite like Poetry Thursday to crop up in its place — a site that encourages respectful sharing of work, shares poetry-related information like links to featured poets, poetry resources and information on copyright laws, and that has all the spark and energy Poetry Thursday had.
I’ve had a lot more time to think about what I would really like to see in a new project, and that includes some of the work I did on Poetry Thursday as well as a collaborative aspect, since I am very interested in collaborations. I’ve created a site that models what I would like to see — a project I know I would like to participate in.
I’m not even sure I want to run another online community, at least not all alone, but I do know I want to see something like this in the world, so I figured I should create it. I don’t know if other people are interested in this vision, but I thought I’d put the prototype of the site out there and see if anyone is interested in participating or working on it: readwritepoem.org.
(It’s a very early version of the site, so don’t judge it too harshly.)
my american sentences
October 25, 2007
Dorothy leans in to say my eyebrows look exceptional today.
disenchanted and disappointed, the usual
October 25, 2007
I’m going away. I’ll be back.
I’m not telling you this. I’m telling myself.
You just happen to be here. Or you aren’t here. Doesn’t matter which, does it. Or does it?
I suppose you get to decide if it matters, what matters and to what extent. I’m sure we could never really have a conversation about that, at least not one either of us could follow.
Listen, I’m no longer talking to you. I’m that person with a tiny phone apparatus stuck to my head who walks up and down the street going on about something you don’t care about and could not care less about.
I may be gesticulating as I talk, but that does not mean what I’m saying has any urgency or that it’s any of your business. My tiny phone apparatus could be a prop, nothing more than pieces of cork and wire painted black. What would it matter? It gives the appearance of purpose and connection, and isn’t appearance what’s important?
I’m dressed nicely, too. This lends credence to whatever I’m going on about, but I’m equally nonsensical dressed or undressed.
Listen, why are you still listening? Listen, there’s nothing to hear.
This is my blog wherein I, Dana Guthrie Martin, write things and stuff. Most of the time, writing and I hobble along in a sort of three-legged race where there is no finish line. (more...)
You can always catch up with the past. I think it’s very important to read what’s being written now and figure out how you stand in relation to it and how it represents what you do or don’t want to get into. — John Ashbery
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beg, borrow, but don't steal
This work is licensed under Creative Commons. If you don’t credit Dana (by using her full name and preferably by linking back to the appropriate post) for however you copy, distribute, transmit or adapt her words, you are being bad. And naughty. And she will have her servant monkeys hunt you down and cut your hands off so you can never copy, distribute, transmit or adapt anyone’s work again and call it your own.
(Unless, of course, you were to use your butt cheeks to manipulate your keyboard with the copying, distributing, transmitting, adapting and whatnot, but Dana fortunately has only met one person whose butt cheeks are that talented. He could play a major third on a piano using nothing but his ass. She kids you not.).
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flick, flick, flick
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i cannot be bought
