I emailed two of my former professors to ask if they could write letters of recommendation for me and they actually remembered who I am! We haven't seen each other in five years! I would like to believe that my world class writing skills is what makes me stick out in their minds, but I think what really registered with them is when I reminded them that "I was the tall one." Then they thought, "Oh yes! The tall one of the spring of '07! Of course!"
So the application process is going well. Now I just need to take the GRE, send everything off, and cross my fingers. Then after I get in I will worry about passing. Then after I pass and graduate I will worry about finding a job. Then after I find a job, I'll worry about getting fired or laid off. That's my career plan. It's solid.
But I am worried about the finding a job part. Every time I tell people that I'm going to be a librarian they have one of two reactions. Either, "That's awesome! I can see that!" or "When are you get a job? When someone dies? You know librarians hold onto those jobs until they die." And I believe them because once I get a library gig I plan to hold onto it until they have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. Oh the other thing that people like to say is that there won't be many jobs open by the time I graduate because everything is moving on-line and there will be no print books. Ok. Then I'll be the old creepy lady who takes care of the archives. Surely, even when books are no longer printed on paper, the old originals will be so prized to book lovers that they will insist there be gate keepers to mind them and care for them in temperature controlled climates. Gate keepers with master's degrees in Library Science!
Why oh why do I care about how people react to my ideas? There's always SOMEBODY who's going to point out the flaws and inevitable catastrophes. "Don't become a librarian! It will be the ruin of us all! Run! Hide the children!"
The only downside I see is more student loans. Ugh. But I'm going to apply for everything that's out there! Grants, scholarships, single-mom-sympathy-gimme-money, ALL OF IT!
Writing my old teachers reminded me that I miss school. I miss sitting in classrooms and talking about a books, styles of writing, papers, and deadlines. History and ideas that people had. That's what I like about the library. It's one big reference section where people go to learn, or share knowledge. Dude, my inner nerd just goes CRAZY. And when I work at a library it'll go crazy every day! Because I'm going to find one of those hard-to-get jobs! And I'll have to die before someone can replace me! And I'll keep submitting my books to hard-to-please publishers so that one day, goddammit, I'll be shelving my own book! And fifty years from now when I'm caretaking the ancient archive I'll show my work to a young person who's never seen paper before and I'll say, "I'm Genevieve Rheams. I wrote this loooong ago." And they'll say, "I remember you! You're that writer! The tall one!"
Showing posts with label Edgar Allan Poe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edgar Allan Poe. Show all posts
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Poem in Your Pocket Day!
Good afternoon, poetry lovers!...Poetry likers?...Poetry tolerators?...What do you mean, you would rather have your brains eaten by Edgar Allan Poe's zombie than read one of his poems? Have you READ one of his poems out loud? They'll scare the pants off of you, and don't tell me that you don't like to have your pants off because everyone does!
But anyways, whether you like, love, or loathe poetry, today is Poem in Your Pocket Day! Yes, this is a real day dedicated to a single poem - any poem! Behold -
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/25/151339990/celebrating-poem-in-your-pocket-day
Seeeeeee! There's an article about it! And when you read about it on-line you know that it's real.
I have NPR to thank for getting me into poetry, actually. I began listening to The Writer's Almanac about ten years ago, where Garrison Kelloir reads you a (usually contemporary) poem and gives you the historical literary facts for the day. Before I started listening to this guy, I honestly thought I hated poetry.
I just didn't get it. None of the romantic or nature stuff moved me, which was confusing because I like love and nature, so why wouldn't I like poetry about it? None of it got to me until I read "The Death of The Ball Turret Gunner" in the 11th grade (WARNING! This poem has nothing to do with romance or nature):
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
I'd never read a poem like that. It was jarring, visual, gory, and real. And since I was very into heavy metal and gore, I thought this ROCKED. But I didn't read anything that affected me like that again until I started listening to Garrison Keillor.
I didn't know that poetry could be funny like this:
"I've Always Enjoyed Her Sense of Humor"
by Gerald Locklin
"She's an old friend
And I don't see her very often,
But she has a way of turning up
When I'm talking to a girl I've just met,
And she will invariably storm up to us
And confront me with, "where is the child support check?!"
Then turn on her heel and storm from the room,
Leaving me to make inadequate explanations."
Or that a poem about an animal could be powerful, like this:
"The Dragonfly"
by Louise Bogan
"You are made of almost nothing
But of enough
To be great eyes
And diaphanous double vans;
To be ceaseless movement,
Unending hunger,
Grappling love.
Link between water and air,
Earth repels you.
Light touches you only to shift into iridescence
Upon your body and wings.
Twice-born, predator,
You split into the heat.
Swift beyond calculation or capture
You dart into the shadow
Which consumes you.
You rocket into the day.
But at last, when the wind flattens the grasses,
For you, the design and purpose stop.
And you fall
With the other husks of summer."
This is where Genevieve takes a moment to recover from the frustration of not being able to write lines like, "You split into the heat. Swift beyond calculation or capture." Genevieve can't even describe why she likes that line! Or why it moves her!...or why she's writing about herself in the third person!
If I could write any kind of poem though, it would be the kind that tells a story, or rather, a snap shot of a moment in a person's life. Like this:
"Where Dreams Come From"
by Marge Piercy
"A girl slams the door of her little room
under the eaves where marauding squirrels
scamper overhead like herds of ideas.
She has forgotten to be grateful she has
finally a room with a door that shuts.
She is furious her parents don't comprehend
why she wants to go to college, that place
of musical comedy fantasies and weekend
football her father watches, beer can
in hand. It is as if she announced I want
to journey to Iceland or Machu Picchu.
Nobody in their family goes to college.
Where do dreams come from? Do they
sneak in through torn screens at night
to light on the arm like mosquitoes?
Are they passed from mouth to ear
like gossip or dirty jokes? Do they
sprout from underground on damp
mornings like toadstools that form
fairy rings on dewtipped grasses?
No, they slink out of books, they lurk
in the stacks of libraries. Out of pages
turned they rise like the scent of peonies
and infect the brain with their promise.
I want, I will, says the girl and already
she is halfway out the door and down
the street from this neighborhood, this
mortgaged house, this family tight
and constricting as the collar on the next
door dog who howls on his chain all night."
And so, my dear people, I have done my part for Poem in Your Pocket Day. I have provided you with a few portable poems that you can stuff into your pocket and read later at the dinner table where your family will sling chicken legs at you and demand that you shut up. When they do, threaten them with a love poem. I haven't provided you with one? Well, shit.
"The Weight"
by Linda Gregg
"Two horses were put together in the same paddock.
Night and day. In the night and in the day
wet from heat and the chill of the wind
on it. Muzzle to water, snorting, head swinging
and the taste of bay in the shadowed air.
The dignity of being. They slept that way,
knowing each other always.
Withers quivering for a moment,
fetlock and the proud rise at the base of the tail,
width of back. The volume of them, and each other's weight.
Fences were nothing compared to that.
People were nothing. They slept standing,
their throats curved against the other's rump.
they breathed against each other,
whinnied and stomped.
There are things they did that I do not know.
The privacy of them had a river in it.
Had our universe in it. And the way
its border looks back at us with its light.
This was finally their freedom.
The freedom an oak tree knows.
That is built at night by stars."
But anyways, whether you like, love, or loathe poetry, today is Poem in Your Pocket Day! Yes, this is a real day dedicated to a single poem - any poem! Behold -
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/25/151339990/celebrating-poem-in-your-pocket-day
Seeeeeee! There's an article about it! And when you read about it on-line you know that it's real.
I have NPR to thank for getting me into poetry, actually. I began listening to The Writer's Almanac about ten years ago, where Garrison Kelloir reads you a (usually contemporary) poem and gives you the historical literary facts for the day. Before I started listening to this guy, I honestly thought I hated poetry.
I just didn't get it. None of the romantic or nature stuff moved me, which was confusing because I like love and nature, so why wouldn't I like poetry about it? None of it got to me until I read "The Death of The Ball Turret Gunner" in the 11th grade (WARNING! This poem has nothing to do with romance or nature):
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
I'd never read a poem like that. It was jarring, visual, gory, and real. And since I was very into heavy metal and gore, I thought this ROCKED. But I didn't read anything that affected me like that again until I started listening to Garrison Keillor.
I didn't know that poetry could be funny like this:
"I've Always Enjoyed Her Sense of Humor"
by Gerald Locklin
"She's an old friend
And I don't see her very often,
But she has a way of turning up
When I'm talking to a girl I've just met,
And she will invariably storm up to us
And confront me with, "where is the child support check?!"
Then turn on her heel and storm from the room,
Leaving me to make inadequate explanations."
Or that a poem about an animal could be powerful, like this:
"The Dragonfly"
by Louise Bogan
"You are made of almost nothing
But of enough
To be great eyes
And diaphanous double vans;
To be ceaseless movement,
Unending hunger,
Grappling love.
Link between water and air,
Earth repels you.
Light touches you only to shift into iridescence
Upon your body and wings.
Twice-born, predator,
You split into the heat.
Swift beyond calculation or capture
You dart into the shadow
Which consumes you.
You rocket into the day.
But at last, when the wind flattens the grasses,
For you, the design and purpose stop.
And you fall
With the other husks of summer."
This is where Genevieve takes a moment to recover from the frustration of not being able to write lines like, "You split into the heat. Swift beyond calculation or capture." Genevieve can't even describe why she likes that line! Or why it moves her!...or why she's writing about herself in the third person!
If I could write any kind of poem though, it would be the kind that tells a story, or rather, a snap shot of a moment in a person's life. Like this:
"Where Dreams Come From"
by Marge Piercy
"A girl slams the door of her little room
under the eaves where marauding squirrels
scamper overhead like herds of ideas.
She has forgotten to be grateful she has
finally a room with a door that shuts.
She is furious her parents don't comprehend
why she wants to go to college, that place
of musical comedy fantasies and weekend
football her father watches, beer can
in hand. It is as if she announced I want
to journey to Iceland or Machu Picchu.
Nobody in their family goes to college.
Where do dreams come from? Do they
sneak in through torn screens at night
to light on the arm like mosquitoes?
Are they passed from mouth to ear
like gossip or dirty jokes? Do they
sprout from underground on damp
mornings like toadstools that form
fairy rings on dewtipped grasses?
No, they slink out of books, they lurk
in the stacks of libraries. Out of pages
turned they rise like the scent of peonies
and infect the brain with their promise.
I want, I will, says the girl and already
she is halfway out the door and down
the street from this neighborhood, this
mortgaged house, this family tight
and constricting as the collar on the next
door dog who howls on his chain all night."
And so, my dear people, I have done my part for Poem in Your Pocket Day. I have provided you with a few portable poems that you can stuff into your pocket and read later at the dinner table where your family will sling chicken legs at you and demand that you shut up. When they do, threaten them with a love poem. I haven't provided you with one? Well, shit.
"The Weight"
by Linda Gregg
"Two horses were put together in the same paddock.
Night and day. In the night and in the day
wet from heat and the chill of the wind
on it. Muzzle to water, snorting, head swinging
and the taste of bay in the shadowed air.
The dignity of being. They slept that way,
knowing each other always.
Withers quivering for a moment,
fetlock and the proud rise at the base of the tail,
width of back. The volume of them, and each other's weight.
Fences were nothing compared to that.
People were nothing. They slept standing,
their throats curved against the other's rump.
they breathed against each other,
whinnied and stomped.
There are things they did that I do not know.
The privacy of them had a river in it.
Had our universe in it. And the way
its border looks back at us with its light.
This was finally their freedom.
The freedom an oak tree knows.
That is built at night by stars."
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