Author Archive
Camille Dungy
A Few Prompts Drawn From Wandering/Home
Two poets at Faulkner's pad (C. Dungy and Major Jackson in Oxford, MS)
As I feared when I packed my life into boxes this spring, plenty is still lost to the inside of paper-walled containers. My copy of Flight to Canada must still be boxed up in cardboard, also my third-favorite terrycloth robe. Did I leave my good black bra in the old building’s washer, and where in laurels’ name is my signed copy of Native Guard? I can’t even locate the sheet of return address labels my insurance agent sent. Why would I bother to lose something as useless as that? The husband asks where our checkbooks are, and I panic. He asks where I’ve hidden his favorite sugar dispenser, and I tell him his guess is as good as mine. I’m pretty sure the box of his baby pictures my mother-in-law keeps asking after is buried in that incredibly dusty storage closet. Which means I’ll soon be back in the closet, stirring up dirt from the past. Consider the possibility of having permanently misplaced your husband’s baby pictures. Now write a poem.
Camille Dungy
Not finished yet
Harvey Milk Plaza, San Francisco, 6/28/09 (photo: C. Dungy)
The street sweepers have passed, and the crowd control fences have been carried away. Pride, for some, is over and done. But for many, the persistent resistance that Pride weekend celebrates still thrives. Thank goodness. In honor of Pride and, moreover, in honor of the spirit of resistance and persistence of the Stonewall rebellion and the movements it spawned, (and also in a sort of answer to a question Catherine Halley posed some time ago), I’m going to share a few poems by a small sample of writers from the West Coast LBGT community.
Camille Dungy
The Fish
Once or twice a year I shut off my cell phone and computer and spend a stretch of time in the great wide open. Or in some approximation of the great wide open. I always get plenty of juice out there, and I come back refreshed and full of ideas. That’s where I’ve been the last couple weeks, Harriet, running out in the great wide open. (Cue sound clip for open breeze.) This summer’s trip took me to the Monterey Bay, site of North American’s largest underwater canyon (think the Grand Canyon, submarine style), the Monterey Bay Aquarium, more Steinbeck placards than even I, an avid placard reader, could read, and a fish or two. All the fish, fishers, and fishing boats got me to thinking of my favorite fish poems. Now that I’m plugged in again, I thought I’d share a few. As ever, I’d love to hear what fish poems strike you, too.
Camille Dungy
Five Canadian Women Eco-Poets
I’m in Canada right now at the biennial conference for Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE). In honor of my host nation, I thought I’d write about a few Canadian women poets whose work I enjoy.
Camille Dungy
And the poet said…
I want to share a half dozen of my favorite quotes about the process and charges of poetry. I’d love to hear what you think of these (some of them are, purposefully, provocative). I’d also like for you to share some of your own favorites.
Camille Dungy
Do Poets Dream of Lineated Sheep?
Quick survey. Do you think the way you dream relates to the way you write?
Camille Dungy
Speaking of batting averages…
Boston (well, actually, Somerville) is the first city I lived in after receiving my poetic license. Here again now, enjoying the sun off the Charles and the good food at Toro and the many offerings at the American Literature Association Annual Conference, I’m wondering what it means to be a publishing poet.
Camille Dungy
Box by Box
My life is a life of boxes. It’s temporary, I trust. The hope, when one puts her whole life into boxes, is that, soon, her whole life will be out of boxes. But my parents speak, sometimes, of the as yet unpacked boxes they packed when they moved into their current house (that move happened in 1986) and so I fear, each time I pack another box, that I will never encounter its contents again. So, as I tried to think about what poems I wanted to share this week, I could only think, with much trepidation, of boxes.
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Thom Donovan
Bhanu Kapil
Fred Moten
Craig Santos Perez
Sina Queyras
Sotère Torregian
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Michael Marcinkowski
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Fred Sasaki
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IN THIS ISSUE: March 2010
A selection of new work from Dorothea Grossman; new poems by Lavinia Greenlaw, David Yezzi, A.E. Stallings, Gerald Stern, and Dan Gerber; translations of Carlo Betocchi, and Mahmoud Darwish; an Editorial on Ruth Lilly; an exchange between Ilya Kaminsky and Adam Kirsch; an essay by Chen Li; and a review by Daisy Fried.
CHICAGO EVENTS
Poetry Off the Shelf: David Baker
Fri, March 26th, 6:00 PM
Open Books
213 West Institute Place
Free admission
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