Common Time by Chris Pusateri

10 Things I Love about Common Time by Chris Pusateri (in no particular order):

 

1. It's influenced in part by Glenn Gould's Two Take. In Chris's version: an elaborate process of drafting the manuscript three times (in full), then taking the "best" of those drafts to create Common Time.

2. The table of contents is a poem!

3. It's a comedy: "My message is so long, it has become a religious text."

4. It graphic: "Steaming penis fondue."

5. Cathy Wagner wrote a lovely blurb: “Common Time is a ‘collection’ in the best sense, a self-consciously accretive book; here, meanings precipitate out of the nonsense detritus of the working day and observations tighten into aphorism. Pusateri’s method exposes the paths that obstruct meaning and those that allow it to accrue: ‘There is a grid within/what we utter,/within phonemes, associations form/and dissolve like flies on bison.’ A humane, wise, and wicked smart book.”

6. It shows tenacity: it took Pusateri over a year to write it. 

7. It's meditative: "Does writing create a moment/or does it exist in a moment/which it illuminates by drawing attention to it?"

8. The good folks at Steerage Press are bringing it out soon: available in March at AWP!! Hear Chris read at the Dusie/Pussipo AWP reading.

9. HR Hegnauer designed the cover. Love her work.

10. It's written by Chris! Disclosure: I know him.  

AWP, Pedagogy, and a Bruise

This morning I reviewed the AWP Chicago panel descriptions and tried to narrow down which I might attend. Beyond the directors' plenary and breakout sessions, I'm interested in some of the creative writing pedagogy panels and one on "fractal geographies of trauma and identity." I'm starting a project on ethnicity/race and depression, so perhaps this will give some insight. There's a session on Glissant that looks quite interesting and one on the legacy of Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop(!). How wonderful that Burning Deck Press and the Waldrops are being celebrated. Also quite intrigued by the panel on digital literary journals. If you are around, please stop by the JKS table in the Bookfair (for swag and to meet some of our current MFAs), and I'll be at the Fordham table for my CFBRed book signing on March 2 from 1-2 pm.

Spent the early afternoon answering pedagogical interview questions from a former Writing Fellow, who is now a PhD candidate down at DU. I discussed collaborative discourse and Kenneth Bruffee's dictum: How we teach is what we teach. That is, my pedagogy must demonstrate my values (empowering students, decentering authority, and developing knowledge and meaning together) as that is also being taught alongside the course material. Or another way to put it is: why teach transformative writing if you aren't going to teach it in a transformative way? One question asked, What is the most satisfying aspect of teaching for you? And easily the answer is: interactions that extend beyond the classroom--when the discussion assists with my own learning or inspires me to write or rethink something.

Also read an interesting interview about Laura Goldstein's Bruise. How often does a piece of drywall fall on you and inspire a poem! I'll be reading at her Red Rover Series in Chicago on March 3 at 9:30 pm. Stop by!

Must run: gotta translate a waka (Japanese poetry) about "asa midori": the morning green.

Something on Paper

I have gone rogue. Secret meeting in the Arapahoe Conference Room with five lovely Naropa women. OK, not all that secret--it was on my outlook calendar. Here's what I can tell you: it had something to do with wireframes, which if you are not familiar are screen blueprints. Fitting: in that I am interested in architecture. Though not nearly well informed in such areas. (Had a sudden flash of Gaudi's work: "Nothing is invented, for it's written in nature first." But that's a tangent.) An intersection between the critical, the creative, and the experimental--that's something on paper. A discourse. A dialectic. Call and response. In such meetings, all synapses are firing. We discussed our upcoming symposium in May with David Buuck, Gabrielle Civil, Melissa Buzzeo, and Kate Zambreno. The notion of capturing installations. What does it mean to respond to an occupation--to the self in an occupied space and the aftermath.

Earlier in the day was given a surprise box of pop tarts: I think strawberry. This made me smile, as I was talking to my little friend T about it earlier in the week: on the phone. I forget now his favorite flavor. Cheese danish? Was told: "Lately you look well put together. Well done." Which is good--at least I'm together in one aspect of my life.

We are preparing for the Alice Notley's visit: in just two weeks! I need to formulate interview questions: plus the scope/the frame/the lens. Again, architecture. The structure of discussion, which really isn't about structure in the linear sense, but about the borders--the center and the margins where language occurs, pulls, expands. When language moves towards the edges and then must make a decision about whether or not to cross the boundary. And this is what the symptom of color is all about, in the end. The decision about moving through a membrane. To the other side. Or remaining in the space you currently occupy. Or something in-between. Yes, in-between.

CPR

When one is trying to revive a blog, one must think of clever things to say. Actually, one must make time to sit at a computer—this of course extends beyond the blog and into one's real work. I've started a new project, in addition to rewriting Exposure. And it began with a 3-minute free write in the Naropa Writing Center.

Now three minutes may not seem like a long time, but it generated an entire page of writing—the fast and furious kind, where one's hand does not move as fast as one's mind. Memories flooded the purple page one after the other. It was hard to see so much of my life in that short amount of time. This semester is about taking care of the self: that is, the body, the writing life, the relations. I'm sure there is more. Next step: leave work at a decent hour! As I was walking out of my office, now in the quaint Chestnut cottage (thanks facilities for getting the back porch light fixed!—extremely helpful in the dark night), it dawned on me that the Open House for prospective MFAs was going on. I didn't want to intrude, but I thought it might be nice to pop in and say hello. Dear Reed Bye was holding the space, and Jade and Annie were there, too (two of our lovely MFA students)—what a nice surprise. I drove home thinking how lucky JKS is to have wonderful people who contribute to community: who contribute to making the community. This is getting a bit pollyanna. Stop.

In a couple of weeks Alice Notley will be on our campus, and I am hoping to do an interview. If you have an interview question that you want me to ask her, leave a comment. Email or text me. Write it on my FB wall. Tweet me. By the way, may I just say that I am quite disturbed by the amount of crazy that happens on Twitter. I am new to that social networking space, and I'm not sure how long I will stick around. I've already had to block like four people in two days. What is up over there? As if there were really a there there. Who knew? Stein saw the future and it included the internet: AKA no there there.

Teaser

Really want to tell you about Occupying Academic Writing--a contemplative writing workshop that I attended tonight, led by Naropa's Judith Simmer-Brown. It was amazing, and I left energized: happy that I work at a place that challenges patriarchal academic writing and grateful that I have great colleagues who think--and I'm not only talking about Judith.

Spent several minutes with some of the Writing Fellows from the NWC after the workshop, discussing how to incorporate this into the Writing Center, the pedagogy course, and first-year writing courses. So, I hope to unpack this a bit more...hopefully tomorrow. Plus, got an email from my collaborator, Yasamin Ghiasi, who wrote in response to my last post about our project, Exposure: "I am thinking here of course about simulacra. We forget the referent because the image precedes it. The image precedes the reality of the event. History becomes abolished as we are trapped in the eternal present of looking. The gaze. The gaze itself. The gaze that jetties." Yes! Simulacra! And I would like to add...because the image replaces the reality of the event. I will be getting out my Baudrillard tomorrow.

This is to say: this post is just a teaser...of things to come...soon.