A Planet Struggles to Feed the New York Times

From a collection of recent experimentation with newspaper black-out poetry.

Spreading offered human destiny, a desert
Deliberately parched and nearly
Dead. Seed should have practiced
Fingers, empty husks going to feed
The people in spite of drought.
“This is beautiful!” rustled the wind,
A hope for the system that feeds
The vulnerable harvest, flailing.
Driven by increase, the four
Most human horsemen demand
Hunger in scores, amid riots, played
In the latest scientific change.
The failed harvests of consequence,
Of waves, believe those events were human.
Temperatures are rising,
Predicted. Continued
After decades of hungry prices.
Estimated: worldwide.

I sure suck at writing stuff.  Hopefully that doesn’t reflect in all the manuscripts I’ve been sending out.  Because I’d really like to go to grad school.  Busy busy busy.

Buh, stuff.

Wow, two weeks gone by already.  And trust me, it’s been a slow drag to this point.  Research, interviewing has been a blast, just exhausting.  Brain’s getting distracted, keeps thinking about bears.  And lasers.  And robots.  Robot laser bears, even.  It’s a keen critical process for my writing, thinking about bears is.  Meditation better done focusing on polar bears, they’re pretty chill.  Mostly think about grizzly bears when I need to get in a feverish homework fit.  Homework gets intense.  Poetry and papers, mostly.  Have one due Tuesday.  Aren’t I exciting?  Reading my days must be like watching paint dry.  Fun fact: I watch paint dry.  A+++ would recommend.

Let the Season Begin!

I feel I’ve lingered on vomit for too long.  Really, I’ve been well.  Busy, though, if you (dear readers, what few of you I imagine remain) haven’t noticed by lack of post.  Most prominently pressing in my day to day has been my return to university.  Classes are a-bustling.

Most foremost in my projects is an ethnography on Swedish heritage and concretized migrant culture.  It’s a project in three parts: first a poem to strike at the heart of the matter, second voices to explore the matter, and third a discussion of the whole.  In the project I explore my trip to Sweden and my familial Scandinavian roots, as well as my family’s place within the larger context of the Swedish-American exodus in the late 1800′s.  As I may have discussed, my family joined me in Sweden over the summer to visit Brunnsparken, where my great great grandfather held the position of Master Gardener.  What an experience.  The first, poetic section, is in its final stages of revision.  Perhaps I will share it here at a later time.  I’ve also been busy transcribing photo-elicitation interviews with my family.  In fact, the first weekends of October have been booked for this task alone!

And in coming weeks: visits and visiting friends.  Kyle and I have been resurrecting the KGB Poetry Press (Kyle’s latest, The Thaw, up just a few days ago).  And in Urbana I have been hosting Thursday night Poetry Den with various poets and friends from classes.  It’s a sort of informal workshop / writing session.  If you’re interested in joining, shoot me a line!  We always love new work and new perspective.

Much of my work has shifted to my uncle’s typewriter, the trusty Galaxie Twelve.  Something about the typewriter makes poetry seem so concrete.  I write daily, sometimes lost in words.  Perhaps my anachronistic switch is in part responsible for my lack of posts.  I cannot, after all, access the internet on those old-fashioned keys!

I am ready for Fall!

Update! Ha, just kidding.

I was totally going to update today. And then I got food poisoning. So I’m vomiting instead.

P.S. I hope no-one reading this post was here for professional reasons. I do occasionally get e-mails about Ibsen (which I love) or my poems (which I also love). This is clearly not about either. And food poisoning is so not professional. Sorry.

P.P.S. Did I just apologize for being ill? I really need to stop editing and go chug a bottle of pepto bismol or something. Then maybe lay down on the floor.

New Poem, New Marriage, New Post?

Posted a new poem over at the KGB Poetry Press today in honor of my good and newly wed friend Matt Simpson and his wife, Betty.  Another post coming soon, but today is for them.

Welcome to

And so has begun my whirlwind trip to my friends in the East. Arrived in DC after a 12 hour drive to hang out with my friend Mar from Sweden. Amazing to see her here in the States, almost as if I never left Uppsala. She took me on a quick tour of the area with a bit of sushi and a bit of thrifting, also hitting the Library of Congress (may my parents be pleased) and the Hirshorn art museum. Here are a few photos from the day:

Project Called Living

It’s been a while since I’ve had much to report on, between a case of underdocumented July 4th and an uneventful recent weekend I have been almost completely avoiding the camera and keyboard.  Not good for the creative spirit, I know.  I’ve been busy with this little project called living.  Or, to put a less depressive slant on it — moving to Urbana and readjusting to the American way of life.  First and foremost I have been ordering and listening to an absolutely unnecessary amount of vinyl records, including (but, I am sure, not limited to): The Antler’s, Broken Social Scene’s latest, Bear in Heaven (which I dragged back with me from Sweden, having carefully arranged my luggage for the better portion of two weeks in order not to crush it in transit), Medeski Martin & Wood, Fever Ray, Pavement, and Animal Collective’s older Merriweather.  Plus I have several more (I’ve forgotten which) waiting for me back at the Rock Island ranch.  It’s getting to be a sickness on par with my troubles with books; speaking of which, I picked up David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.  Seriously, why did no one ever shove this book in front of my lookin-ball-sockets (and their contents) before?  They’ve been locked, loaded, and fired almost exclusively at those pages for the past few days.  I did, however, take a good break to go border-line dumpster diving this afternoon, and earlier still this morning to meet with a former Scan-studies professor who is now moving on from the University of Illinois in order to get yet another PhD (I think she’s collecting; what a role model).  Total bonus of the day: first proper fika since my return to the States (go figure it’d be meeting with a Scan prof).  This also means that I’m only two people away from completing my Coffee Hour Club reunion tour (Holly and Ian, if you are reading this, set aside some time to talk about Dune and/or narwhals and make this happen, respectively).  Now, I was writing something… ah, dumpster diving; yeah, I picked up this sweet (not tasting, but looking) old chair and spent a good chunk of time forcing it through various doors in my apartment.  It’s a bit too ratty looking for me to actually want to sit in, but it certainly adds flavor to the white walls problem that’s been plaguing my apartment since my arrival to Urbana.  And continuing in on that little ‘project called living’ of mine, I’ve been trying to cure that white plague, as it were, with a few decorations.  Here are a few pictures of my progress:

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Any and all help or suggestions or flavor you might have to offer would be accepted with open arms.  I need to cover my walls, people.  Probably the ceiling and floor, too.

Listening to: Cut Your Hair, Pavement

Peace!

World Cup, Downtown

Watched a disappointing US World Cup match this afternoon in a hereto unknown to me Mexican restaurant downtown. While the loss was, of course, a deserved disappointment (really, whatever the US did on the field today was not soccer), I took solace in the discovery of the most wonderful of restaurant decor.

It reads: “Authentic Mexican Food.”  Win.

Ronneby o Brunnsparken

Although by now my family and I have already moved on to Malmö, we have just spent the last few days in Ronneby, Sweden.  As my uncle has been telling everyone he meets, my great great grandfather, Henrik Madelung, was the Master Gardener for Brunnsparken in the late 18o0′s.  Together with landscaper Henry Flindt, my great great grandfather laid out the park as it remains today.  And what we saw, we had not expected to be so grand.  Brunnsparken stretches out more like a forest reserve than a local park, garnering fame as the fourth best park in Europe, number one in Sweden.  And its beauty is exquisite; a muted simplicity, stretching out over more trails than we could walk in a day.  That simplicity calls out to the wandering spirit, begging every twist and turn be explored.  If my family hadn’t pressed me to continue on, I may have stood dumbfounded for hours.  Although I haven’t seen the fruits of my brother’s camerawork, I am skeptical of any photo’s ability to capture the sheer expanse of the park.  Part of its beauty is in that expanse, the park worthy of a personal visit.  That said, I do have a few more photos from the past few days.  And if you would like to read more about Brunnsparken, Anna Jakobsson wrote a dissertation on experiencing landscapes, focusing on the park; it can be found here.

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