Sharon Olds

Yesterday Matthew and I went to a Sharon Olds reading in Reston, VA. It was a great reading. It was wonderful to finally hear her read her poems out loud. I actually got to meet her and have her sign my books afterwards too.

And, I'm 10 weeks pregnant. Just thought that needed to be put on here. If anyone wants to see our first sonogram of the baby it's up at family.lilius.com

The sonogram is from 8 1/2 weeks. I'm due October 21st.

That's it for now. Off for a nap!

Chapbook Publication!

I'm happy to report that I have a chapbook coming out along with my dear friend Erin Bertram. It's a chapbook of our exquisite corpses. It's going to be published by NeO Pepper Press! We're very excited and can't wait until it comes out. Probably sometime this year. Here's a link to their website:

http://www.tashogi.com/neopp.htm

Hope everyone that reads this is doing good.

Sarah L.

First term finished tomorrow

I am officially done with my first term of grad school tomorrow night after my last class. I finished a 15 page paper on Whitman and "Calamus" today as well as finished reading Moby Dick. I can't wait to go home and see all my family and friends. Sorry no poetry at the moment. I've been too busy with papers to write. But, hopefully over break I'll be able to get some writing done. I have a whole month off!

Cheers,
Sarah

Mountains

Hello everyone,

Per request of the wonderful Erin B., I'm posting to my blog. It's been a good month since I made a post.

Today Matthew (my husband) and I visited Shenandoah National Park, a national park that I believe is in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was Matthew's idea and I was glad that he had the inkling. Nature is very inspiring to me. It seems to balance me out.

I have a lot of homework to do. I'm reading Moby Dick, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, "The Overcoat" by Gogol, Whitman criticism, and Satanic Verses/Rushdie criticism. I have 2 papers to do, both about 15 pages. It's not fun. Grad school has turned out to be quite the challenge. But I am happy to report that I received an A on a Whitman presentation that I did. That was a wonderful surprise because I wasn't sure how I did.

I don't have any really recent poems to put up. Well, I do have one that was supposed to be an elegy that I was to turn in to class but I ended up turning in a different one. Let me know how this poem could be fixed as I feel it has many flaws. Thanks. Sarah L.

Chimera

Your death taught me many things.
Don’t take it all for granted and love
those you love with fervor and grace.

A woman’s laughter rose above the crowd,
she is the chimera inside the holiest of buildings.

She jumped the gun, missed the bullet.
Small, she was there merely, and I know

that death will bring me to you
but I keep on day to day.

A woman with wings should be an angel
but not this woman, see her eyes glare red.

See her lion head, her goat body, her serpent
tail. I know I’m not imagining this. She rises.

Your death taught me many things.
I watch for you in dreams and you come
in all your dead glory, floating and laughing.

Some would ask Jesus or God for help
with the pain but I’d rather not.

A man’s voice distinct and rich rose above
the crowd, he is the myriad of what I’ve been

waiting for. I stroke it real. I wait it out.
I find you in the strangest of places,
Buddha statue, incense smoke, coffee cup.

Birthday

Well, today's my birthday. I'm officially 30 and feeling a bit older. I'm ambivalent about the whole thing.
That's all for now.
Hope everyone is doing good.
Sarah

Poetry Reading

The reading today went well. I didn’t feel too nervous and read well, at least Matthew thought so. I didn’t win any prizes and there were three. One of the poems that won I didn’t like but the other 2 were okay. A woman came up to me and said that my poem made her cry and she thought that it should have won. That made me feel good inside. That I touched someone that much. Matthew got teary eyed as well. One of the judges (there were 3) told me she really liked my poem and was rooting for it. I guess that it was hard for them to make the decision. There were 2 other GMU students in the contest, Kamau (another 1st year like me) and another guy who is 3rd year.

I got a new computer! It's an iMac desktop computer and I love it. My laptop was getting old, about 3 1/2 years old now so Matthew said I should upgrade. My computer is now faster than his! I still own the laptop though and do not plan on getting rid of it. It has sentimental value for me as it was a graduation gift from Matthew when I graduated Augustana. Anyway.

So here's the poem:

At the Holiday Inn

The room was crooked, somehow not a rectangle.
The bed seemed a wedge in space to small.
There was a chair my mother sat in, then my father.
We watched some cartoon on the TV.
We waited for my husband as he made arrangements
with the dead body. I sat on the bed after a bath
with matted hair. I made like I was okay.
But after the parents left we rocked hard
against black silence and the white ceiling,
misshapen, crushed us.
Some heavy burden, some guilt-like presence pushed
us to sleep.
I woke with wet pillow and hair so tangled,
I didn’t care.
It was Sunday. Our strength gone,
the insignificance of death in relation to it all
sinks in as children yelled in the halls—you see,
it was Sunday morning
and they were free.

Carl Phillips

Saw Carl Phillips read tonight at school. It was great.

Also, I'm one of ten finalists in a contest for a Arlington library. I read my poem, "At the Holiday Inn" on Sunday, so wish me luck. I'm nervous but I'm sure it'll be fine.

I'll post the poem later.

Ciao,
Sarah