Ypsilanti

The drive from Appleton to Ypsilanti was long, wet, and boring. Six hours on I-94E to teach a one-hour class on the memoir for Christine. I was thinking I’d stop off in Ann Arbor, get a hotel—thought I had an hour to kill—but just wanted to get the drive over with, and figured the hotels in Ypsilanti would be cheaper, so kept going. After arriving in the parking lot, I picked up my iPhone, which said it was 6:30. The clock in the car said 5:30. I called Christine. Is it 5:30 or 6:30? I asked. I had apparently changed time zones without realizing it, which meant I had to book it up the hill to the class in less than a minute if I wanted to be on time. So I booked it.

Christine took me up to the room, where I spoke hurriedly and flusteredly about lyric and memoir. Back in Appleton, I had been notably self-depricating about my memoir, calling it an apprentice work, something I wrote in my 20s etc. (of course it’s not atypical for writers to have issues with their earlier work—we all like to move on). Later, in Milwaukee (I’ll post on that later), Faith informed me that her students had been perplexed about this—why wouldn’t I be proud of a book that I wrote that actually made money? The irony of course is that this current book, The Heaven-Sent Leaf, is in many ways the answer to that question.

In the class, I spoke about writing the memoir. We talked about “the dirty” in poetry, how money might make the poems “dirty.” We talked about theme as a structuring device. It was interesting enough, though a blur as my body still felt for the first half-an-hour as if in motion, still driving.

As I mentioned in my last post, there was one very smart seeming student in the class—too smart seeming—and kind authoritative in bearing and mien. I found out after, at the bar, this “student” was Carla Harryman, one of my very favorite writers (at 19 or 20 years old, Lyn Hejinian gave me Animal Instincts… I took immediately to Carla’s work). (“Hi Carla,” Christine had said, and I’d stared long and hard at “the student.” “It’s Carla,” Carla said. I turned bright red.)

After the embarrassment had passed, we all had a nice time next to the (fake, but heat-producing) fire, drinking wine and talking about Marx. Carla had just re-read Capital, which I have on my counter in the kitchen at home but have not been able to get myself to re-read (I read all my Marx back at Berkeley—more than ten years ago now—I should really bone up). I am teaching a poetry workshop in the spring, so was thinking I might have an optional café reading group meeting once a week where the students can come and discuss Capital with me. This seems like a good enough prod for all involved. Carla insisted the book is worth reading as pure literature. She also said it was much more speculative and exploratory than she had anticipated (i.e. Marx was really trying to “figure it out” in the writing itself). This all intrigued me. I’m excited to dive in again and take another look.

Here is Christine in a kind of “arty” shot:



Carla:



The Bar: