poet(r)ic(k)s

shortly after i posted a note re: swapping chapbooks on facebook, steve meador (editor of hanging moss journal) set up a group called the chapbook & literary journal exchange. i invited all my poet friends and acquaintances, and hope they are spreading the word. if you are not one of my contacts and happen to read this - do join. i've now exchanged books with ken pobo, rachel dacus, and valerie fox, and i only have one copy of "small confessions and pebbles of regret" left. i am more of a chapbook swapper than buyer - part of the reason is that i don't live in the usa, but mainly i love the idea of those books being some sort of special currency that buys you somebody else's words. i'm wondering why nobody else i know (including me!) had the fantastic idea of setting up such an exchange group. sometimes you gotta love the web. :)

so anyway: top of my reading list: ken pobo's trina and the sky (love the title!), rachel dacus's another circle of delight, valerie fox's the rorschach factory and valerie fox & arlene ang's bundles of letters including a, v and epsilon.

yesterday while putting new sheets on the bed, this line came to me out of nowhere: "nothing bad can happen to a girl with a goldfish voice". i sat down at the computer, wrote down some random words, turned to eclectica magazine for more random words (they have a special challenge in every issue, check it out!), did some research on element 113 - ununtrium - and began to write. the words just flowed. it was just like back in the good old days when i wrote a poem every day. it's such a fabulous feeling, and i know why i've missed it so badly. the new poem is called alice gets lost on her way to wonderland, and the first line i had is the final line of the poem - as happens so often with me. however, i changed "voice" to "mouth".

maybe i should change the sheets more often. :)

music-wise, i am quite smitten with sarah blasko at the moment - a great singer/songwriter from australia. check her out. i have my friend rachael to thank for the recommendation.


song of the day: all i want by sarah blasko.

reactivation

so it's been nearly ten months since my last blog post: if i made any new year resolutions, one of them would be to blog more regularly this year!

i think one reason why i did not blog as much as i used to is the fact that nothing was happening with my writing: almost nothing new, no submissions sent out, no publication. i've been quite far from poetry (makes a nice title, doesn't it?) these past two years. over the last ten days, however, i have written five poems - that is two more than in 2009! they are all for my "elemental" project, the poems based on the elements of the perdiodic table. it is tough, trying to get back into the habit of writing regularly. today was the first time that i actually thoroughly enjoyed working on a poem again, it was like a flicker of how it used to be. i've also done a lot of research on the elements i still need to deal with - and it seems as if i have done most of the really inspiring, interesting ones. *s*

"there, between / heifer and cup-bearer, beloved of the god: the veiled bride, mistress// of the night. beneath the netting, her freckles seem to shift, like/constellations."

(from: europium (eu) - between io and ganymede, eleven minutes to six)

i don't want to dwell on the past too much, but in a nutshell: it was a good year, well, most of it.

moving was stressful, but it's great to live with heinz! i had expected to miss my old flat, at least occasionally, but i didn't. of course, the place is not big enough in the long run - so flat/house hunting is one of the major projects of 2010.

work: lots of lovely students, challening and highly interesting translation project (encyclopedia of western european languages) - although there seems to be hardly any freelance job without a fight for the money. i am going back to work on monday - finally! it has been too long.

we took a few short(ish) trips: croatia in may, carinthia (around my hometown) in july, south tyrol in september. lots of nature, hiking, swimming, tons of photos.

my social life suffered a little when i had lots of work on my plate and i turned into some kind of recluse for a while. fortunately i managed to break the habit in autumn, with the viennale film festival coming in handy.

what i found hard to deal with was the fact that i had to increase the dose of SSRI again in autumn, following some anxiety/panic incidents. i had a couple of hallucinations, too. i am sure that this was partly due to my confronting some of the demons from my past, and partly due to being worried about work (it was uncertain whether the english teaching project would be continues). i am seeing my therapist regularly, and we have tackled a few tough issues. but i have been feeling much better over the last couple of weeks or so. heinz has been a source of constant support and encouragement. :)

other stuff includes: farmville addiction (decreasing!), scrabble addiction, christmas in carinthia and styria, bob hewis's unexpected death, loved the book "the book thief", miss the writing community, 72nd out of about 1400 in the vienna photo marathon, boy group: otto, pruno & heinrich, facebook addiction, photography, the untimely death of one of my favourite singers - lhasa de sela, aunt resi's 100th birthday, puzzle addiction (reactivated), concerts: leonard cohen (#2!), bruce springsteen (#4), tori amos (#5, i believe), regina spektor.


here are some pictures (moving; croatia with the boy group; hiking in carinthia; h&m with aunt resi (100); leonard cohen & band; succulent; michi & alex with heinrich; michi with livia; ladybird):






















song of the day: haiti by the arcade fire.

what's going on?

collin kelley is nominated for poet laureate of the blogosphere, ms ang has a severe identity crisis (again), amanda auchter is writing wonderful poetry, jenni russell shows some leg and needs someone to mow her lawn, kristy bowen's the birthday girl (have a good one!), nathan mcclain is not dead, rachel mallino has a new blog design, sarah sloat has booked a holiday and has a poem in barrelhouse magazine, and in way-too-warm-and-dry vienna i am confused, writing (Vows for a Cancelled Wedding; you've been flirting again), sleeping too little, teaching a lot, listening to regina spektor and nellie mckay, and trying to get rid of an annoying cold.

song of the day: musicbox by regina spektor.

I close my eyes and think that I have found me
but then I feel mortality surround me.