Wednesday, March 28, 2007

the california season

It seems like I've carried a bit of the rain with me to California. It's rained twice; quite heavily yesterday in the tropical style - violent and brief. I'm teaching/in residence in the English Department of the California State University in LA, but the Department is housed in the Engineering and Technology building. As soon as I got to it I felt at home - the story of my life; an engineer/scientist turned writer. Anyway, it's been good so far: I've been in one editorial meeting for sentence, the in-house literature magazine, the introductory class for creative non-fiction and I've had a couple of one-on-ones with students - more on the way today. I haven't had a bad time with writing; I think I'm being fairly productive - my aim is to get the beginnings of a definitive poetry collection done before I leave the US, so I'm doing it a day at a time. Yesterday, I settled on a concept for grouping my poems so now I'm going to group them, edit and weed out the crap, then send a rough draft out to my agent. In the meantime, in between times :) I've been writing a couple of haiku. These three celebrate nightfall in cali and the fact that I've seen no energy saving bulbs around...

#1
rare as brown flowers
fluorescent bulbs crouch in packs
the earth flames at night

#2
homicidal lights
fret like insomniac starlings
warning signs in neon

#3
leaves fade, bulbs burn slow
lights gleam like knives in alleys
the world mugged by night


what i'm reading/listening to


listening:
Jimi Hendrix on my laptop


reading:
Other people's poems - editing really....

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