update: they've scheduled surgery ... october 12 2005 ... she says: it's good, you know, because chris is off on wednesdays

Lorna, Ivy, Teresa, Suzanne, Mary, Rick, Steve, Lyle, Amy, Cynthia, Lee Ann, Jim: thank you. Lorna, you remind me there is prayer in story. Ivy, your mojo is the best I could ask for. T, when I said you couldn't imagine my need, you didn't have to and I took your advice, made tea, stayed calm, called Glenda. Suzanne, you: how did I ever do without your thoughts, prayers, and candles? Mary, thank you for keeping us with you. Rick, I think of you, am with you as well as you are with me. Steve, thank you for Shawn, for knowing what I mean, for 20 years. Lyle, I'm counting on your wishes. Amy, I'm grateful for your words, here and on your beautiful blog. Cynthia, you've seen everything: she's an amazing woman, stronger than I am, resilient, but better for your prayers. Lee Ann, your heart is the heart of hearts, thank you. Jim, your call meant more than I can say...

*

And to Mark who sends a healing poem written for his friend in a scary time, what a gift first thing this morning and all of today: re-reading is a kind of prayer too. And to Stuart and Dara for reading and understanding, thank you.

and this is necessary, thank you, may I have another

because you can't put an angel in a poem just because you need one

No significant other who wooed me with a line, no babies of my own, not so far, but I do have a BF, this is my gift. She took me in when I was fifteen and had no place to go but back home to my mother, and for twelve years we lived in tiny apartments we couldn't afford, moving our meager belongings each year when the rent went up:

her water bed, my grandmother's dresser, her tv, our beloved rent-to-own stereo complete with a turn table and glass-door cabinet. She drove a '71 Mavrick and I was her passenger until she taught me how to drive my own VW Baja, my first car and license to drive when I was just old enough to walk into a bar and drink. She got me a job working with her on the south side of town--a pay step up from my 70 hours a week at Dairy Queen and Church's Chicken--at a 7-Eleven. We worked there for more than a couple of years

even when one night some guy threw a rock the size of a softball through the front glass door and knocked all 300 pounds of Brett the night guy out cold and bleeding not two feet from where Glenda stood. Even when another night another guy jumped the counter and dragged me across the deli floor by my hair and kicked me in the ribs a few times for good measure to keep me from reaching the phone before he ran out with the cash drawer. But we both quit when Brett the night guy started bringing a sword to work. The manager and owner told us we'd never work in that town again if they could help it, and it was a long scary time before the Sheraton took us into their housekeeping department a full month and a half later. We were both too slow and inept to avoid getting yelled at by the most formidable woman alive, she who supervised our scrubbing and dusting and bed-making. This is a four star resort,

her sentences began. So we helped each other a lot off the clock and celebrated our first time ever great medical benefits the likes of which I've not seen again, to be honest. And we felt strong working for a strong woman though we were dressed alike in pink maid's dresses and white aprons and name tags. We pooled our money to pay the electric bill, and felt stronger. Our various boyfriends were very confused: if not sisters,

then lovers, secretly, they thought. And sometimes, still--just a few days ago in fact--some old friend confesses uncomfortably: you know what we thought about you two. Yeah, we know. Old news. But you missed the rare beauty of it, in the oldest sense. In the childhood sense of the word forever,

bestfriends:

so if you would, pray for us or light a candle or do whatever you do when you wish hopeful things for others because my bestfriend is not feeling well, and so much is uncertain and terrifying about now, right now, and all this not knowing, and while her husband and children need her most of all, I need her too. Like you can't imagine. And I am far away from home.

celebrity crush

G. C. Waldrep I am swooning for you. Yes.
Yes. Yes.

................................................................................twittering machine........

a boob or two

Sometimes a gallery exhibits more than its exhibit, and who knows what to say about that without firing off a debate, so I hesitate to mention after this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and anything else that comes to mind (apologies to anyone I left out, I'm working from memory)--

wait, what was I saying?

Oh yeah: if you're a suckling--and who isn't?--the summer Fence is all about you. But keep in mind the writers in this issue had no idea what you were after. Some of us appear there despite its impossible promise. Some deliver. Some of us will not voice a secret wish for cosmetic surgery. Absolutely tits are hot and deep (I mean profound). Mother, all things pale in comparison. Should they sell lit mags? Maybe just this once and never again.

I have a poem there, you know, so be kind if you want to be intimate. I'm in the best of company, but: you'll need to read past the cover to disagree. There's not much to read on the cover. There's a number you can call to get your own. I don't have it on hand though I think someone with a mouth has it memorized.

Brian, I posted a response to you in the comments, for what it's worth, but forgot to say: go Buddha.

I will send you postcards from Knox

My little college has about 1200 students, and of those 70-100 are English or creative writing majors and minors, which means my department kicks ass, all nine of us. We do. Here's a write up of our undergraduate creative writing program at Poets & Writers--where we compare to Oberlin and Sarah Lawrence--and here's the first event lined up this fall from our English department:

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, internationally acclaimed Russian poet, novelist and filmmaker, will give three public lectures on Sept. 21, 22 and 23.Yevtushenko will show and discuss his film "Stalin's Funeral" at 7:30 on Wednesday, September 21, in Kresge Hall. He will give a poetry reading at 7:30 on Thursday, September 22 in Harbach Theatre. Finally, Yevtushenko will give a lecture, "Poetry, Cinema and International Politics Today," at 4 pm, Friday, September 23, in Harbach Theatre.

I had nothing to do with it--I'm on leave this fall--but if you're anywhere near Galesburg, IL you're invited.

saw this yesterday on national geographic while avoiding the world and all I could think was I was trying to get away from the news

In 1994 a small child in western Uganda was attacked and partially eaten by a wild chimpanzee. This was the first casualty in a spate of horrifying attacks which were found to be the work of one rogue chimp. Nicknamed "Saddam", he was no match for a posse of angry villagers who tracked and shot him, quelling the attacks for two years. Now another killer terrorizes the villages around neighboring Lake Kifruka. The Dark Side Of Chimps is the story of these chimps and what compells them to attack humans. Through the eyes of the local chimp tracker who studied the attacks, and the scientists who watched on in horror, we explore the dark nature of our closest relatives, chimpanzees. What we discover is that chimpanzees are xenophobic, aggressive and violent predators, even towards their own kind, killing not only for meat, but over territory and power.

here on the church grass they were praising God in the night time, in the street lights

Mr. Bush's support remained strong among Republicans, conservatives, evangelical Christians and those who said they voted for him last fall. Nearly twice as many people - 63 percent - said the country was "pretty seriously" on the wrong track as those who said it was headed in the right direction, equal to the worst level of Mr. Bush's presidency during a spate of bad news last year.

numbers

and our soul loatheth this light bread

In the Eternal Leer of the Playground

A clumsy ritual--
you hang yourself
with your own striped tie.

Gnaw on leg of deer, rabbit, wild duck,
roasted turbot, grilled salmon. Hungry
for blood, rub the stewed fruits
into your skin, fall asleep with the light on,
thumb sucker, biter.

Your father made you hunt.
You wanted to take me,
you were strong enough,
you had the goods.

Say it in 5 languages. Oberon
spools from the kingfisher's mouth.
By the time you notice the mermaid's
chorus, it's swollen, ready to burst,
a polyp with double roots.

It was a prank.
You didn't mean a thing.
Sometimes people just die
accidentally.


~~Rebecca said I could have it.

"the importance of settled expectations"

Didn't catch the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on CSPAN this morning--guess it's ongoing--but here's the take at the NY Times:

"Judge John G. Roberts Jr. testified today, as he was pressed for his views on legalized abortion, that there is nothing in his Catholic faith that would prevent him from adhering to settled law on the bitterly divisive issue."

That's what I like about Catholics.

Also, oodles of fun with their Supreme Court Interactive Graphic.

"Keanu's rep denies the romance while Diane's had no comment."

and worn out with hurricane news and with waiting for news, I find gossip to distract me and think: doesn't matter if it's true or not, not to me who looks for something in the world that doesn't matter as much as death and grieving, and it didn't

--have matter, I mean--

except as a kind of guilty distraction, as in wondering really about the state of someone's bed sheets in the morning, someone you recently dreamt about despite watching yourself carefully around him, her, when the socializing wouldn't allow more, and thinking just don't go there, for example

--I thought Keaton ha you live woman, you rock--

until somebody had to say something weighty about beauty: "But he's 40 and she's 59, and ... isn't exactly wrinkle free in certain areas,"

and then it was a matter of bodies again. Can't get bodies off my mind.

***

View from my study window: hospital roof launch pad across the street. All day today the helicopters land and take off. I've never seen so many in a day. All night the launch pad lights siren through my bedroom window, all colors. The lace on the wall is like water.

Later on we found a flat boat.

And we went around in the neighborhood in a flatboat getting people out of their houses and bringing them to the school. We found all the food that we could and then we fed people.

from Charmaine Neville's story

September 11, 2005

Two urgent announcements below that Cynthia Huntington asked me to post.

The first is a letter from the editor of The Southern Review. Put your School of Quietude aside, you who believe in it. Get your copy of the magazine and help students in great need.

The second: Dartmouth opens its doors to Tulane.

A letter from Brett Lott, editor of The Southern Review

To the Community of Writers, Readers, Teachers, Students, Editors
and Anyone Else Within the Sound of This Email--

Bret Lott here, editor of The Southern Review on the campus of LSU
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I am writing to you and to everyone you
can forward this email to with an opportunity to help victims of
the hurricane. Forgive this rather long email, but it is important
to the welfare of many hurricane evacuees in our area -- please
read this all the way through.

No doubt you know the sorrow and hardship that has been visited on
residents of our state because of Hurricane Katrina and the
flooding caused by the breach of the levee in New Orleans. No doubt
you know as well of the thousands of displaced persons who have
lost everything because of the evacuation of that city.

As a result of so many New Orleans area universities and colleges
closing down for who knows how long, LSU has taken on almost 2800
new students who were displaced by losing their homes and their
schools; in addition, many students who were already enrolled at
LSU have also suffered great losses. These students have
experienced hardships that few of us will ever know: they have
lost their homes, their personal belongings, their books, their
food -- everything, including, for many, the college or university
at which they were enrolled. To help meet their needs -- and these are
IMMEDIATE and GENUINE needs -- the LSU Foundation has set up
Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.

Strangely and beautifully and sadly enough, the latest issue of The
Southern Review -- mailed to subscribers just week before last,
right as the hurricane was making way for the Gulf Coast -- has
turned out to be a very special issue for the artwork on the cover
and that featured inside. The artist, Billy Solitario, lives near
GULFPORT (and I trust you have seen the pictures of the devastation
there); as of this writing, we have not been able to contact him.
The paintings themselves are of the Gulf Coast --one of them is
even titled "Spiral Cloud over Levee," another one titled "Storm
Over the Mississippi"; still others in the portfolio are of barrier
islands on the Gulf Coast -- places that don't even exist anymore.
The artwork was selected about a year ago, and the synchronicity of
this is a little too much to think about -- the issue, which went
out just two weeks ago, celebrates a coastland that is, suddenly,
gone. Also, and again the synchronicity of this is too much to
behold, the lead poems in this issue are by Peter Cooley, poet at
now-closed Tulane University; we have heard that he is safe in
Houston at the time of this writing.

Here is where the community of folks to whom this email is
addressed can help (and please read the following instructions
CAREFULLY as they are being written this way so as to allow all of
us to help each other legally!).

1 -- YOU SEND THE SOUTHERN REVIEW A CHECK FOR $8 (EIGHT DOLLARS)
MADE OUT TO "LSU FOUNDATION," AND WRITE ON THE MEMO LINE "HURRICANE
STUDENT RELIEF FUND." MAIL THAT CHECK TO:

THE SOUTHERN REVIEW
OLD PRESIDENT'S HOUSE
LSU
BATON ROUGE LA 70803

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME AND MAILING ADDRESS WHEN SENDING THE CHECK.

Or

CALL THE SOUTHERN REVIEW AT 225-578-5108 or 225-578-5041 AND GIVE
US YOUR VISA NUMBER AND NAME AND ADDRESS

2 -- I SEND YOU A FREE COPY OF THIS ISSUE OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW.

Please note that these two actions -- your donation, our sending
you a free copy -- are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE (does anyone out there
recognize yet the legal hoops I am having to jump through in order
simply to help students in dire need of help? Sheesh!). Please note
as well that it just so happens that the cover price for an issue
of The Southern Review is $8 (eight dollars), BUT YOU ARE FREE TO
DONATE AS MUCH AS YOU WISH.

Order as many as you want -- use them as gifts with the good
knowledge that because of your generosity help is going to students
in need; use them in your classes as a means to help your students
rally to the aid of their comrades here at LSU; give them to anyone
and everyone you know. And please forward this email to as many
people as you know so that they might also be able to contribute to
a worthy fund, and to enjoy the issue itself.

But finally, please note that NOT A SINGLE PENNY WILL COME EVEN
REMOTELY CLOSE TO THE COFFERS OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW; THIS IS
SOLELY AN EFFORT TO GET MONEY TO STUDENTS IN NEED AND TO CELEBRATE
THROUGH THE PAGES OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW THE BEAUTY OF A COAST THAT
HAS LARGELY BEEN LOST.

I know that to many out there this may sound like some sort of
mercenary effort to advertise our journal and somehow to make money
through the loss of others. Indeed, we will in fact be losing money
in all this.

But you have my word -- Bret Lott -- that we will in no way profit
from these mutually exclusive actions.

I know the outpouring will be a great one, and please know that we
here at The Southern Review are prepared to handle the deluge of
good will you are already sending our way. Thank you for reading
all the way through this email, and thank you as well for what you
have already done for the hurricane relief efforts.

Sincerely, and with thanks to all --

Bret Lott
Editor and Director

To the Dartmouth community:

In response to the needs of college students whose lives have been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina, I have today approved a plan to offer temporary admission to academically qualified undergraduates from the colleges and universities whose operations have been affected.

Because we are still three weeks away from the opening of our fall term on September 21, we hope this will be of particular help to students who need time to assess their options and take action but hope to continue their studies this fall.

The students will be admitted under a temporary expansion of our Special Community Student Program, and we will not impose a limit on the number. We will review the program on a term-by-term basis, and will expect students to return to their home institutions once that is possible.

We will waive the tuition for these students, but they will be admitted with the provision that they pay the regular tuition at their home institutions. We envision that the home institutions will use the tuition funds to help rehabilitate their campuses and to help offset some of the impact on their local employees.

We are not in a position to offer housing on campus, but we will reach out to the community to organize a volunteer effort to help any students admitted under this program to find housing within a reasonable distance of the College.

There are many details of this arrangement yet to be worked out, but I am confident that we will soon be prepared to accept visiting students, and I look forward to welcoming them. We will work with affected institutions, higher education associations, the media, and members of the Dartmouth family to get this information out as widely and quickly as possible. Inquiries about these arrangements may be directed to Julie Bell, Coordinator of Dartmouth's Special Community Student Program at (603) 646-3098 or via email at Julie.Bell@Dartmouth.Edu.

Paul Danos, Dean of Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, has also announced that Tuck will arrange for a limited number of special exchange students to be admitted to the second year of the MBA program. Arrangements for students in Dartmouth's other graduate and professional programs are under consideration.

While we are putting the special admissions program in place, I have asked a range of Dartmouth administrators to find ways we may be able to convey material aid and assistance directly from Dartmouth to the affected areas. We will explore options to grant leave time to faculty and staff members who wish to join with various agencies to assist in hurricane relief efforts in the affected areas. Student interest in participating in relief programs is being coordinated by the Tucker Foundation. I expect more information on these programs to be available next week.


James Wright
President

water sitters

maggie taylor

boy who loves water

maggie taylor

I feel empty from all the pleading for help and understanding. I don't know any more than anyone else. Nobody does.

I'm being torn apart by this and there isn't anything left.

~~Jack Ware



maggie taylor, southern gothic


tears tears tears tears tears tears tears tears it all down

the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort

slow to load but please if you read nothing else today . . .

***

Oh, Emily's posted it too. Try here.

look under the rock

photographs of the dead

We can't imagine a worse idea.

in an attempt to save the necks of those higher up

to put your lights back on

it is a matter of memory, it requires an act of memory

They say, 'Well, there's going to be more African Americans in this particular town. Are they going to bring their crime with them?'

and the reason it's important is is that . . . uh

so I'm going to find out . . . over time

~~W

I'm wearing bright green Mardi-Gras beads around my neck.

In the French Quarter, the trash-filled streets looked like an early morning scene on any day after a bout of reveling on Bourbon Street.

I mean, How long can New Orleans be closed?

I would strongly encourage them not to allow them to transfer to their institution until such point, if it ever came, where it was deemed impossible for them to come back to Tulane.

~~Scott S. Cowen, President of Tulane University

***

Tulane is the third-largest employer in Louisiana.

to trump and silence criticism out of respect for the dead

But everybody knows

now for the kindness of strangers

fished from muddy bayous or lifted off street corners or carried down from roofs or attics

"It's not going to be low."

What I’m hearing which is sort of scary

is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.

~~Barbara Bush, September 5, 2005

Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater...

Clamavimus, O depths. Let the sea-gulls wail

For water, for the deep where the high tide
Mutters to its hurt self, mutters and ebbs.
Waves wallow in their wash, go out and out,
Leave only the death-rattle of the crabs,
The beach increasing, its enormous snout
Sucking the ocean's side.
This is the end of running on the waves;
We are poured out like water.

To leave and go where, sir?

Where will they go to find one another?

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced.

George Bush doesn't care about Black people.

from tony tost: "let them walk the hell out of here"

the big easy

I'm furious, exhausted. Please please help them, why don't you?

***

Carmen Rios drowned in a flood in the little border town of Del Rio, TX, on August 22, 1998. The mayor was out of town. The people living near the river received no warning and no aid until too late. Nine deaths, nine Americans accounted for. But the morgues were full, and my mother couldn't find her mother's body among so many dead. It turns out she was wrapped around a stump, trapped with flood debris in a chain link fence, naked from the waist down, but still wearing the small gold cross she always wore around her neck. In the aftermath, Governor George Bush visited the town's flood shelters, shook hands with folks and held a few little ones in the photos they published in the special flood issue of the local newspaper. Many people were grateful that the Governor had taken time out to visit, but there were those who said that the Governor of Texas would surely like to be rid of the shit hole called Del Rio and all the shit living in it, and what better way than to delay getting there in time? Some said: well, you should know better than to put a house there, and some pointed out that all the druggies living in the house by Devil's Bend were washed out, thank God. The wrath of God, some said, and some: God helps those who help themselves.

***

Old gods are terrible to look at when
They weep, all bloated like spoiled fish.
One wonders if they ever understand
That they have caused their own grief. When the seventh day
Came, the flood subsided from its slaughter
Like hair drawn slowly back
from a tormented face.

from Gilgamesh

***

This from Lorna's blog: Open Your Home

***

Help them.

***

Stay tuned.

***