(no subject)

[supercheesegirl]

so i had a really good conference with stuart yesterday. he *really* liked my new weird poem, and he liked okay the other two poems i brought him. and he helped me work on what i'll be reading on friday and in what order, too. i had printed out fresh copies of a lot of my poems just in case, and i pulled them out to show him what i have as my options to read, and he said good things. now i feel like i have more poems that i *could* read than i'll have time to read. so that's a good position to be in. stuart also thinks i should read one of the st. augustine poems--we'll see what fred says about it today, i have a conference with him. but if i read the big six-part poem, that means i *can't* read like three others. because it's long, and it'll require a big intro. not sure what to do.

i was going to try to have a conference with christy this week also, but by the time i saw the sign up sheet on her door yesterday afternoon, all the time slots were gone. i considered using some i'm-a-second-year-and-my-thesis-reading-is-today priority muscle, but i don't know that it's worth it--i can see christy next week. i mostly just wanted to see her because she's so wonderfully supportive and she'd make me feel less nervous, but i already am feeling less nervous, so it's okay.

a really good poet, natasha trethewey, is doing a short residency here in march--she'll be around for three days and will do conferences with all the poets, run the thursday workshop, and give a reading. and since we have to mail stuff to her beforehand, the poems for conferences with her are due monday. as in, a week from yesterday; the monday after my thesis reading; the day after my circus of visitors leaves my apartment. like i'll have time to really prepare anything good to show to her. but then last night i was thinking that i'll give her the st. augustine poems. it will actually be a good thing, because natasha's second book, Bellocq's Ophelia, is also basically rescuing forgotten women from the past (her character is an octoroon prostitute in new orleans around i think the turn of the century). her work does a lot of engaging with race that mine doesn't (although it *could*, maybe, since augustine was from africa), but i think it's something she might be interested in. and i'll be doing some work on that group of poems today/this week too, since i'm conferencing with fred today. plus, who knows, it could end up being a book someday. (wouldn't that be neat?)

anyway, i should probably go do something useful. work is really quiet this morning--we finished degree audits for the students on academic probation (god, were those depressing--kids with 0.41 gpas, kids who failed every class last semester but for some reason are still here this spring), but we haven't yet started on the degree audits for the regular population.

i'm really glad i have yoga today. when this semester's over, i really want to keep doing the yoga thing; it's so good for me. maybe while we're still in greensboro, i can take classes with elan's yoga studio. i'll have to find a place in boston too. i almost typed "a palace in boston." one of those would also be nice.

Comments

[sleepyworm.livejournal.com]

hey, what's "octoroon"? MC Paul Barman used the word in one song, and I always wondered about that.

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

i told you once already, i think. it refers to a person whose ancestry is 1/8 black (as in, one of their great-grandparents was black--a quadroon would have one black grandparent). the term goes back to the time when people were really uptight about such things.