#gillian conoley

[deermouth]

Hmm. Feeling like I should maybe revisit my bachelor's thesis and make it into something real.

Did I ever share everything that happened during my last semester thesis class here?

I was pursuing a magna cum laude thesis, which along with cum laude—unlike summa—was embedded in a non-honors course, with the expectation that students would work with the professor to develop individualized standards for what would qualify their work as deserving of honors. I chose to do a creative writing thesis as opposed to a literature studies paper, and settled on a poetry course, one which met every Monday evening for three hours.

I didn't find my advisor particularly helpful/insightful or my peers' work especially engaging, but I figured it'd be a good learning experience for me and that maybe I needed to broaden my horizons.

Except my professor had Parkinson's, which of course I'm sympathetic to, but he ended up having to cancel almost half our classes due to health reasons. One cancelation every other week wouldn't have been so bad in a normal course schedule, but again, this class only met once a week. We turned in our rough drafts in mid October, and... never got them back. I was emailing this man at least once a week asking questions, asking when we could meet to discuss summa honors standards, asking when we would get our drafts back. Often he would give a yes or no answer to a question that was not yes/no, if he responded at all.

Admittedly, I did wait til early December to go to my advisor about this, but when I did, she went to the English department head with my anonymous concerns. The professor ended up sending us a really weird email that was like "Guess I need to retire... really wish whoever this was had approached me directly" (I had tried, desperately).

I never received feedback on any draft of my thesis but the final, where he just said I was talented and had earned honors. I ended up scrawling out like 4 extra poems in a week to qualify for summa.

It's a shame, bc my manuscript was a concept piece, where all the poems were in some way about a genderweird queer girl and the time-traveling murderous demon named Urishiol (that's the oil in poison ivy) who was possessing her. The chronologic form was heavily inspired by Gillian Conoley's The Plot Genie. The concept is still very dear to me, and I'm sure the actual writing is all rubbish—have barely looked at it since I turned it in.

I basically stopped writing poetry after that because I was so demoralized. I do want to start again...

[michaelwarr-creativework]

Chun Yu and I read a few of our Two Languages / One Community poems in Chinese and English to close the 70th Anniversary of City Lights Bookstore on Sunday, August 20th, in Jack Kerouac Alley. The list of stellar poets and musicians follows below.

From City Lights:

Thank you to all the poets and attendees who turned out to help us celebrate our 70th anniversary with a live poetry reading in Kerouac Alley!

This star-studded event featured readings by Micah Ballard, Chris Carosi, Garrett Caples, Neeli Cherkovski, Norma Cole, Gillian Conoley, Sophia Dahlin, Tiff Dressen, Nadia Elbgal, Agneta Falk Hirschman, erica lewis, Randall Mann, Alexandra Mattraw, Alejandro Murguía, Achy Obejas, Julien Poirier, Sam Sax, Janaka Stucky, Tate Swindell, Sunnylyn Thibodeaux, Preeti Vangani, Michael Warr, and Chun Yu.

City Lights is celebrating our 70th anniversary all year long with historic talks, poetry readings, online panels and discussions, and much more!

Details: https://citylights.com/city-lights-70th-anniversary.../

[sfsucw]

Coming up this Saturday, May 27! Please join Barbara Tomash and Apogee Press for the release of her new book, Her Sant State. She's thrilled to be reading with some of her favorite poets—Gillian Conoley, Elizabeth Robinson, Cole Swensen and Brian Teare—wow! We hope you can find time on your Saturday to  Zoom in— 11AM Pacific/2PM Eastern/8PM CET. https://ZOOM.US/J/2730238369

[processes]

PREPARING ONE’S CONSCIOUSNESS FOR THE AVATAR

GILLIAN CONOLEY

Was a rare sun      its sudden mouths,      shrugs and voices.

A birth      a sleep      a forgetting      a God

or scientist or brain. Or when in mind       or on a freeway       a red/orange sign

drops down says

do not neglect,      nor demonize the demons.       The lice are feasting.

Drafts, computations,       clean for more space,        rid unnecessary surfaces

bottled water       Augua pura, sabor perfecto.

Avatar, avataristic       just a brief, lettristic shuffle       avatar chiefly Hindi,

manifestation of a diety or released soul in bodily form

on earth (are you? maybe, don’t flatter me) from the Sanskrit

ava “down” + tar “to cross,”

and atavistic origin 19th century (in your dreams) from the Latin

atavus “forefather” via French

atavisme. Frankenstein bewildered       at his limp  or rising member

still a little angry re: parlor game his cheek tingles nuzzles and buries

itself in verdant marl. World welcomes more world in sun

the young muscled       amputee in basketball shorts       heading cheerfully,

quickly to the ferry.                    Don’t stir

                                                     the trash

                                                     writes Sappho,

It’s you and I in pursuit counter-pursuit

in the long epiphany of having a face. Was it 16th century——

to simulate rain——water spray was released over mechanical dolls

sent flying near the masterpieces—— Or was that you who were tired

of not being

and so began calling for help?

If I were a mothering belly

would I

heave or contract out your tangled, wires tissues a silkworm

cocoon, put your head at my feet and we’ll pretend.

You would not think it is this young Russian

who wants us all to live forever. Walking earth down

to basalt, shale, slate.

Sea-roaring is the blood

in sparrows if the Holy Ghost

a ting, ting in bell tower.

Maritime, lorikeet, sleet. Dimitri Itskov

(pale yellow Borelli blazer,

rose-gold watch, 32, a mild mannered, internet billionaire)

is non-plussed, sweet of face

which someone

(David Hanson, of Hanson Robotics) in Plano, Texas,

is duplicating, carefully

paused above a tiny haired brush for the eyelids in the Times.

36 motors to reproduce facial expressions and voice.

“No more world hunger,” says Dimitry Itskov. At least for you. While the others are always

hungry. So some refrigerators will have to stay, some sent to dump

in silver or white array—— look in, look away.

— — — — — —

how to figure when to leave the body

summer’s blue jay calling caw caw caw quick diving down to peck

the calico/tortoise mix, who waits so stoic, still. Only

to pounce later. Do you play cat or bird? Blue jays lift and spin

the clean sheet on the line, turn

into a tumescent sub-group, the organs of our fancy . . .

                Felonies and phantoms

       of DNA like sharp notes

                cleared of choir

while floats a

yellow post-it, postage size, cropped fabric/memory of my dead

father’s blue/grey wet plaid swim trunks—— a flash——

they burled hand-rest at the end of the burnt stairway——

           Time to clean, to clean and polish, the figures and friends

are coming over, the ones     who read, command     and trail us,

hello canary,     hello reptile,

parrot     brother     sister     and oh wow,     is that you celebrity?     and child.

               If you don’t see them now you

          will soon—no turning back—

they are mostly atavistic,     powerful in what

they get us to look like, do and say.     At least you—still in production—don’t

have to sleep next to them,     or wake up and wing it—

               The wind bellows and rattles the house. 

          Ice, ice drops another cube.     Tiny tinny birdsong.

Wild red fox     purple zinnia     stone pelican     raven.

The celebrities scrub themselves down to the shine.

My mother who is now speaking

in sentences of no more than four words

reclines on the armchair

to watch

like a bony glamorous cheetah,     an unwrinkled sleeve     stilled

in the complementary then analagous

color theory of the room, the 

debris box they are taking away

a week from Friday.     One of the figures

has died.     And jumped into the debris box.

One of the figures     trailing the friends.     Delete, clean.

Old sound of empty chimney when wind dips down

into sudden clang.     Is that you again—uniting, hiding, expansive in

the silence     after sound?     OK,     I will give you my childhood

neighbor who sat in the backyard painting her china plates,

her dyed black hair     done up in a knot—

Breasts loose in a housedress. Her wondrous teats

fallen over her waist     above the astonishingly small petals

she is painting on the plates     with tiny-haired brushes.

The rotting garage behind her.     And what’s this?

Cloudy afterimage of myself and cousin     in her upstairs bed her

funeral night?   Cool, old, dark, empty house.

Fooling around in the riverbank’s low grasses

the day before? The same 

cousin, at least.

                                                            Blue palette extending

                              beyond sky over windless     sidewalks that tilt and buckle

at most tree-rooted spots. I know this way

     like I have trudged it all along

every new street.     Immortality,     if you are coming,     you are

     the last figure off the boat.     I am the one     who gently pushes the boat

away, and wishes you well,     the friends and figures slowly extinguishing

               then enlivening     the word love,     and the love in gone and ever.

[omnidawn]

Gillian Conoley Reading

On November 8th Omnidawn Poet Gillian Conoley will be reading with Maxine Chernoff at Moe's Books! Gillian Conoley was awarded the 2017 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her eighth poetry collection, Peace, was named an Academy of American Poets Standout Book for 2014 and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. 

With Omnidawn, Gillian Conoley published Peace (2014) and The Plot Genie (2009). 

Moe's Books will have multiple readings this month with various poets, you can find more readings here: http://www.moesbooks.com/events/#nov8

[l-yre]

gillian conoley

[joncronshawauthor]

The Ray Bradbury Challenge: Day 682

The Ray Bradbury Challenge: Day 682

Short story: Five Red Poppies by Douglas Shirley, listened to through Librivox.

Poem: In the Next, Next World by Gillian Conoley, listened to on the PoetryNow podcast, from July 2018. Recommended.

Essay: We Don’t No Education – Plato’s Meno, listened to on the History of Philosophy podcast, from February 2011. Recommended.

What is the Ray Bradbury Challenge?

[superstitionrev]

ZAUM, Creative Writing Journal

ZAUM, Creative Writing Journal

Join Sonoma State University in their submissions period for their literary magazine, ZAUMS’s, 25th issue. ZAUM is both edited and designed by students, as well as, accepts submissions from any student, whether they attend SSU or any other university. The magazine is distributed across the Bay Area and is overseen by faculty advisor, Professor, and Poet-in-Residence Gillian Conoley. “Each issue…

[joinleticia]

THURSDAY OCT 17 7PM @ the Make Out Room 3225 22nd St, San Francisco

Emceed by the incomparable Daniel Handler! Two teams of award-winning poets, including Kazim Ali, Cintia Santana, Sam Sax, Leticia Hernandez, Derrick Austin, and Susan Browne, take turns batting at topics pitched to them by the audience. Fastballs, curveballs, knuckleballs: these poets won't know what's coming next! Hilarity and stunning work guaranteed. Eminently qualified umpire Gillian Conoley and Dean Rader will score each batter's reading, and the winning team takes the series title. Book sale/signing follows the reading. Tickets are $5 in advance/$10 at the door. Doors open at 6:30--arrive early for the best chance at a seat. Don't forget to bring a topic to stump the poets with! As Marianne Moore wrote, “Writing is exciting / and baseball is like writing. / You can never tell with either / how it will go.”

[collegenewsupdates-blog]

English Professor Gillian Conoley Wins Shelley Award for Poetry

SSU NewsCenter Sonoma State University English Professor and Poet-in-Residence Gillian Conoley has been awarded the prestigious Shelley Memorial Award for her body of work as an American poet. The award has been given to one poet annually since 1929 by a jury of three poets selected by the Poetry Society of America. “The list of…

English Professor Gillian Conoley Wins Shelley Award for Poetry

[deermouth]

Or all is forever created and creaturely— a multiverse without a manual in which someone who is not you, but an exact replica of you, is holding a book in a room or a public space or a mode of transport that is not where you are, but is an exact replica of where you are, on an earth which is not the earth but an exact replica of the earth on which you stand as if on an uninhabited plain, and it is not a distancing to compare not a photo not an image and there doesn't seem to be direction though there is wind, there is no time but the light remains.

From “[Schools of Thought]”, Gillian Conoley

[skankypossum]

Berkeley's Univ. Press Books: Hoa Nguyen and Gillian Conoley Read Sunday March 6, 2016

Berkeley’s Univ. Press Books: Hoa Nguyen and Gillian Conoley Read Sunday March 6, 2016

“University Press Books is very excited to welcome Hoa Nguyen and Gillian Conoley for a reading of their poems this coming Sunday, the 6th of March. If weather permits, the reading will be held on our garden patio, and refreshments will be served!” from Facebook event here. I hope weather permits!  

[inebriateofink-blog]

I threw out everything that didn’t give me a spark and hung all the whites on the table. Greens and deep dirt browns and grays. The sensory titillations of the day entered each limb’s phantom collapse and gait, tremor are you there? See until you are gone and there is only what you are seeing. Just trying that meant yesterday. What to do today. Falls the shadow.

Gillian Conoley, “Sinking into the Leopard Pillow”

[poetrysupportgroup]

I threw out everything that didn’t give me a spark and hung all the whites on the table. Greens and deep dirt browns and grays. The sensory titillations of the day entered each limb’s phantom collapse and gait, tremor are you there? See until you are gone and there is only what you are seeing. Just trying that meant yesterday. What to do today. Falls the shadow.

Poem of the day: December 2, 2015 Sinking into the Leopard Pillow // Gillian Conoley

[omnidawn]

TODAY is the LAST day you can sign up for our one of a kind "Prosody & Revision" workshop taught by the incredible & irreplaceable author David Koehn! Check out the pictures of famous authors who will be the guest poets of this workshop: Tyrone Williams, Robert Pinsky, Author, Arthur Sze, Norma Cole, Carmen Giménez Smith, Srikanth Reddy, Annie Finch and  Gillian Conoley.

Sign up now: http://us8.campaign-archive2.com/?u=b17e2ef2fd06178523ee500f7&id=14347bbf01&e=2277cfcfb4