Missivessippi
I've been here for a week and half now, maybe a little longer, and have gotten engrossed in the place. I'd intended to give y'all a broader window on the Oxford experience, but I just didn't get to it. Perhaps a quiet Friday afternoon is as good a time as any.
Oxford is lovely, as I remember, June at least as hot, if not hotter. We've had head advisories and "excess heat advisories" (the regular heat not to worry, but the excess—watch out now!), though I've gone for ill-advised walks in the height of the afternoons, which are good for considering how, after hosting for several decades a Nobel novelist who was (in certain esteemed or at least notorious company) opposed to air conditioning (though I'm told his wife installed a window unit the day after his funeral), a contemporary town in the South just isn't built for the natural summer any more. I'm dousing for whatever shade one can have, and I duck with new relish into the hermetic cool of the library or of the official enclave of the Grisham Writers in Residence in West 111 Bondurant Hall, where a sturdy wall-unit makes the oasis. I return along a similar route, occasionally, planning in a moment in an upstairs bar on the Square, or a stop by my brother's place to cool off. Then I return to this house and turn the thermostat down, pass out, and think it may be time, perhaps, to reconsider my growing aversion to automobile travel.
That's the afternoons, however. The first few mornings were taken up with official business—becoming an official university person, teaching three classes in a row—but since then I've spent the mornings writing. I've managed a short poem, a medium-sized poem (about 6 pages), and have begun work on two longer sequences, per my plan. This has involved reading about a mile of microfilm and listening to a dozen or so recordings, including Eric Dolphy's "Fire Waltz" (live at the Five Spot, 1961) and Charles Mingus's variously-titled "Meditations"; at 15-30 minutes a stretch, those are serious commitments, but they're stretching out my mornings and my writing sessions, resulting in some seriously satisfying sessions. Most of what I've written is a mess, but I'm getting more and more clarity about what I'm doing, and I'm feeling like I've got a good idea about what comes next, what needs to happen for these poems to keep developing meaningfully, instead of staying in the same place.
So, in the midst of that, some good news. A Murmuration of Starlings was named the recipient of the 2008 Colorado Book Award in Poetry (I always get the years wrong; in this case, though the award is given in 2009, it is for a book published in 2008, therefore it is the 2008 award) on Monday. The next day I talked to my editor at SIU, and there's strong interest in doing another book, maybe as early as next year, so this manuscript I have that is practically done (while I'm here, as it turns out, I'm working on the one after that one), seems like it may have a home.
Meanwhile, Denver has a hailstorm or a series of tornadoes every afternoon, which I experience through teleconference. A strange split of consciousness, thinking about the severity of the atmospheric pyrotechnics there and the severity of the stolid heat here. In both cases, the atmosphere seems interested in moving from gaseous to solid form.
There's more to tell, especially about my chance to witness a short set by Jimbo Mathus and the Tri-State Coalition last night, but it's getting on toward the whiskey hour, so you'll have to take this Missivessippi on installment. The furnish, if you will. I'll be cropping as the days go by.
