505: Things Go Slowly, But Quickly...
I am brain-dead... This week was the Writer's Festival at my school, which I covered for the QC--I went to every event, got to meet and talk with Robert Olen Butler (who was brilliant, of course). I'm not sure I have enough coherence (after writing the article, especially) to talk about it... Instead, you get a poem inspired by one of the speakers:
*
Sholeh Wolpé reading her translation
of Farugh Farrokhzad’s "Earthly Verses"
You read these earthly verses
of a woman long dead--words
you have held and felt and
give to our ears like this
brightly-colored shawl which
falls from your hands as they
rise and fall and swing like
these lines about a once-
beautiful world laid to waste.
They are like your voice:
strident yet sorrowful,
struggling under the weight
of something lost, yet
freed by it, your syllables
soaring like a bird that
has all its life been trapt
in the branches of a tree.
Once the sound of rattling
leaves has faded, you are
immeasurably devestated
by the sudden silence of
this overwhelming expanse,
yet you continue turning
the pages of your book,
looking for the next poem.
***
Oh, and I also got to meet and start talking to Tony Barnstone about taking his Advanced Poetry class in the spring. To my credit, I didn't breathe a word of the Newsom, just my several years of Creative Writing. So, it is only in jest that I am insanely arrogant--when it comes down to it, I like to err on the side of humilty. (But I have noticed about myself that I am hungry for praise and resentful of criticism--to what extent, and in what situations, only time will tell...)
Oh, and talking to advisor today about requirements and majors and my whole planning schtick. I worry so much, but I'm always surprised when he applauds me for worrying about the right things, and assures me that I am very much on track. But yes, will be talking to professors around about this and miscellaneous things. Will keep you updated (I need to talk to Switzer about that departmental funding lying around for the Gender Club).
EtA: And all this to distract from the fact that I have written a poem for the first time in months, it seems. XP