The Long Weekend

Put together a small collection of poems for a friend's birthday, and thought about how much I miss writing...which made me think, damn I miss painting and photographing too... lame

In Light of This

Some of my conferences are frankly depressing. I know that I've done my best as far as instructing these students but many of them are quite transparently trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Many have submitted frankly useless drafts which seem to have been put together in one night. There are few if any quotes, no citation and little organization. It is overwhelming because I am not sure what more I could do.

In light of this let's forget about 121 for a moment....

Here's a little floundering bit of semi-recent poetry


Yaquina Head

Sooth on sooth the sea
tosses and wears away the meanings

in an arching skyward cauldron
combusting ginkgo

A delta leaf vein tremulous
stilled in Holocene weed fields

Rosebay pointing up and up
spike on spike between clusters

Salal all finger-linked haunched
and sea air rounded in great hills

Yaquina Head Bird Mania

Today we went to the coast. Since we have a membership at the Oregon Coast Aquarium we tend to head off to Newport pretty often. Typically we go to the Aquarium, the Brewery and Hatfeild Marine Science Center. But today we went somewhere new, Yaquina Head. 

The head is just north of Agate Beach, where we frequently take the dogs to run along the long sandy beach, and look for treasures at low tide. Yaquina Head is managed by the BLM and is the site of an old light house first lit in 1873. Bird and Jan went into the lighthouse while I hung out on the back deck and watched some whales. There are several other awesome features at Yaquina. One is Cobble Beach which is a freakish place covered with nearly perfect round basalt cobbles that sing as the tide rolls in and out. Another lovely feature is Salal Hill, a 1000 ft trail that brings you to a great lookout over the ocean and lighthouse. It was totally worth the seven dollar parking fee. We saw many lovely harbor seals, whales, and tons of bird (Brandt's Cormorants, double crested Cormorants, brown Pelicans, white crowned sparrows, common Murres, and pigeons Guillemot) 

Needless to say I took plenty of photos and posted a good smattering of them on photobucket.

Tomorrow it's back to the grind, but today was a magically delightful day of seacoast, history, poetry, dog play, and hiking. 

Oh Eight Oh Eight Oh Eight

In an effort to get even briefly back on track I went to the Valley Library (which incidentally has a webcam, something that I found totally amusing) today and spent some time, more than I had intended, in the archives and maps room. I was looking for historical geologic or hydrological maps of Pendleton, but found only a few State Water Resources maps from the 60's and 70's which depicted the Umatilla drainage basin. I had been hoping to find some maps that pre-dated the McKay Dam, but no success. I did however find some cool digital archive photos of the Pendleton Round-Up.  I also found a large number of news articles about the town dating back to 1878. I must admit that my microfilm skills were a bit rusty, but I figured it all out well enough. Despite all this research I feel that this paper is no closer to completion than it was when the day began. Hopefully after next week I'll be able to make quick work of it.

In the spirit of getting on track I could not ignore the thesis so I looked around the many delightful library databases and found an essay published in Philosophy and Literature which seems promising; Joseph Carroll's "The Ecology of Victorian Fiction". Although I most certainly don't conceive of Wharton as a Victorian writer I felt like this essay might bring up some interesting ideas which I could debate with in my paper.  The first 10-11 pages of this work are dedicated to establishing the author's position in relationship to what he sees as the dominant ecocritical mode. 

Although Carroll's writing seems intensely biased and polarized I think he does raise some interesting ideas. His primary argument is "that ecology cannot by itself generate a theory of literature or serve as the basis for a theory of literature, but...that responsiveness to the sense of place is an elemental component of the evolved human psyche and that it thus can and should be integrated into a Darwinian literary theory" (296).  While I am not overly enthusiastic about using Darwin as the basis of my literary inquiries I was very interested in his presentation of E. O. Wilson's concept of biophilia.  Regardless of whether or not this can be used in my thesis, the concept of affinity with nature as adaptive and evolutionary is thought provoking. I still have another 10 pages to go with this piece before I can make any real assessment. 

Current Leisure Reading: Galway Kinnell Imperfect Thirst

Flagging, Feasting and Free-Verse

It seems I just can't keep the same intellectual pace up anymore. I haven't really read any scholarly works in some time. I've slowed down in my Wharton readings as well. I suppose the lull is understandable given the intensity of the past few weeks, but it is somewhat dismaying. I'm hoping to go to the map and photo archives tomorrow to find some information about the historical hydrology and geology of Pendleton, Oregon. The due date for this Columbia Basin paper is fast approaching. 

Despite the diminished scholarly work I have been busy mixing up pizza dough, making jugs of tea, Thai peanut sauce and the like. 

I've also written three or four poems, none of them very good, but they are first drafts after all. 

Channeled Scablands

1.

I will be a reminder

a curve

hugging close hand

to hip

a whiff of water

in a wasteland

slip of skin black

between shadowy hillocks

a glimmer of cataclysm

some will say

sun white in open sky

light I will be

reflecting

whispers the fluvial

fluctuations

of will whirling

star-spit in a field of

basalt umbilici

Topography and Thesis

I started reading another Wharton novel today, Hudson River Bracketed.  Published in 1929 it is claimed by some scholars that Wharton considered this work to be one of her best novels.  I am only about 90 pages into it, but there are already several points of interest concerning water issues.  I am not sure if this novel will end up in my thesis as a case study, but it is certainly evidence that water issues were important to Wharton since some of the same issues she was considering in 1913 appear many years later.

Aside from Wharton this day was mostly spent playing with the dogs and catching up on some Columbia Basin Ecology. This week the lessons revolve around industrial disturbances, depressing, but interesting. This class, although it is a great deal of work, and not particularly related to my thesis, has been quite inspiring. I've decided to work on developing a collection of geology/ecology-inspired poems. The tentative title is "Belated Odes to Harlan Bretz". 

Confessions

Today in Women's Lit we talked a bit about confessional poetry. This makes sense as we're reading Anne Sexton. I used to really enjoy Sexton and Plath, but to be honest I've lot my taste for confessional poetry. It seems juvenile to me, and I am frankly not interested in hearing people whine about their troubles in poems. Ironic since in life I enjoy listening to people and trying to offer guidance, but when it comes to poetry I think it seems gratuitous. Sorrow and grief have a place in poetry but for me confessional poetry seems more interested in shock value...blah. 

We're also reading through The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. I am having mixed feelings about this text. While I enjoy the quality of the writing it seems as though I am turned off by most women's lit from the 1970's and 80's. I haven't really pinned down what it is about it that irks me.

Lately I've been thinking about my own writing. I'm considering working out a few confessional poems of my own that explore only joy and contentment. I've also been thinking about my book, Oxbow Infamous which has been on the shelf for over a year now. I want to work on my fiction but it doesn't seem practical right now. At least I get the opportunity to work on my poetry in the company of some other poets.