Inky

So, I’ve gotten reviewed, though I’ll admit they’re both people I know, they were willing to vouch for me publicly, which is more than I say for myself most days!

l’étoile magazine says:
“Sarar brought off a modern retooling of some timeless tales, seasoned with the energy of a slam veteran and the smart vision of a smart girl in a simple world, combining moth-style storytelling with Judy Tenuta’s delivery and all of the charm and darkness you would expect from Gaiman.”

My friend m’s blog (he works for Macmillan Publishers) says:
Faerie tales set on their side, retold with a cunning eye & a canny ear. Inky’s not afraid to lay down some beats: poems like “Cinderella” demand to be read aloud, the cadence luminous & dribbling off the letters.

Whoop whoop!

So, that said, I’m up to my eyeballs in to-do lists that do and do not have to do with being a writer. More details later! We’ll see how much I want to avoid packing for the move across town.

Thursday, April 8th, 2010
8pm – 9:30pm
Kieran’s Irish Pub (New Block E location!)
600 Hennepin Ave Ste 170 (corners of 6th St & 1st Ave N)
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Poet and spoken word organizer Cole “Inky” Sarar releases her first book of poetry, retelling, reinventing, and creating new fairytales and nursery rhymes. Joined by world-class poets and performers, come celebrate with us. Shá Cage, Kyle “Guante” Myhre, Wonder Dave, Aimee Renaud, Khary “6 is 9″ Jackson, Ruth F. Kohtz, and Beruch Porass-Hernandez are among the performers who will be bringing something to the celebration.

We’ll be taking over the new Kieran’s location, in their aptly named Poet’s Corner. Donations accepted at the door, books will be available for sale with cash or check, for $12. The book is 44 pages long, and each poem has been illustrated by a different, talented artist from around the world- Minneapolis musician and theatre technician Dietrich Poppen, Michigan cartoonist and illustrator Meredith Rogers, L.A. illustrator and collage artist Aaron Edelson, Saint Paul set designer Andrea Heilman, and Chilean illustrator and web comic writer Juan Santapau are among the artists represented.

“not just the quiet chronicler of the scene, but a luminary” – MinnPost

I decided to write a poem about Ada Lovelace a) for Ada Lovelace Day on Wednesday and b) because it’d fit into that sciencey sort of poem that I need to write tons of for the grant this autumn. Without knowing much about her aside of the fibs we told about her involvement with tiny shanty, I didn’t know what I was getting into. Read a lot about her and her parents, got too caught up in all the heredity of poetry and mathematics, and wrote this over-dense poem. Maybe a new one tomorrow that is a little more approachable, a little less unnavigable. I like so much of this but it is too, too dense. Also, there was a sassy bit about Barbie that was just inappropriate in this poem. There are always the failed poems that are still close to our hearts.

She walks in beauty like a sequence of numbers
simplifying the fundamental theorem of calculus.
She formulates rebellion from her mother’s worries,
writes poems in elegant equations, mother’s heart
is egg yolk spilled wet in amniotic fluid.
Ada wipes her up with a damp cloth and goes dancing.

They say father was mad, bad, and dangerous to know,
but mother and Ada cannot help loving him.
So we’ll go no more a-roving in literary circles,
we’ve heard his name spoken, and shared in its shame.
Dainty Ada outgrows her abacus and writes sonnets
for machines, she is waltzing algorhythmic elegance.

She calculates beauty in possibility, took mother’s numbers
and Babbage’s unfinished engines into dreams of weaving art
from punched paper dance cards- this loom could produce
music, she knows. Its weft could pen nursery rhymes;
Ada speaks contraption like simile, mathematics is metaphor.

Unearthing a new language, Babbage’s dance card
could become terabyte and wintermute.
A woman speaks breath into bot, we will call her programmer,
and centuries later, let’s give her genius to girls
who will walk in intelligence like the night,
of ceilingless heavens, and unimaginable skies.

Finding Ada

A few small edits need doing so far- the inside illustrations all need to be recalibrated in regards to their margins (all way low!) and one of my artist bios borders on incoherent, and another is missing the artist’s last name. But the thing sure. is. pretty.

Not something I’m ashamed to call my own. So much work, now just the polishing left, and then we release! Where should I have my chapbook release party?

0. Have two not-quite-”real” jobs.
1. The chapbook, not done *by* Valentine’s, is at least 99% done now- I’m waiting on the proof, which is a relief and super exciting.
2. Fourth in the erotic slam… did as well as I could, given the competition.
3. No new items up on Etsy. Faaaaaiiiil!
4. Better system for Etsy? Nope!
5. Book a month… so far, so good!
6. Letter-writing, not so great, but okay.
7. MN Mic schedule and deadline….. not great? But it’s been going pretty steadily.

Unplanned successes: MPR interview. Somehow have become the slammaster of a new poetry slam. Going to the Women of the World poetry slam. Connecting with a lot of folks in the wider spoken word scene.

All of the artworks received, all of the poems done, 80% of the formatting done! It’s well on its way. You can see over on the right side of the webpage, I’ve created pages to promote/support my chapbook attempts. I have the feeling, that I won’t always want my chapbooks to be such ENORMOUS undertakings, but I’m pretty certain that this is going to be something I’ll be happy to hold in my hands.

I’ve also got a new goal. One new science poem every two weeks. Initially, I’d gone for the very ambitious “every week”, but I know that’s not always going to be possible, and I’d like to start with a goal that’s attainable. I’ve been carrying around my college genetics textbook, with the hopes that I will be able to start working on new material soon, but it likely won’t get cracked open until after Wednesday.

Wonder Dave said to me yesterday, that it must be exhausting being me. And I was totally taken aback. Except today? Today I’m exhausted.

Working now at what we will call the Irish bar and also what we will call the corporate bookstore, and today, due to training, was a day where I worked at both places. And mailed stuff dealing with the grant and dealing with my student loans and worked on MN Mic video and fed Cali’s cat and and and and. So yes, today Dave, you are right.

But that won’t stop me from finishing the night off with some rockband.

Writing status- holding pattern. Waiting on one last art piece for the chapbook, and time to double check all my writing for edits.

I have to get up super early in the morning to go to work, so this is going to be a super quick little blog post.

1. I was interviewed for Minnesota Public Radio’s “In the Loop” today. They’ve got uncut video of the whole interview up online.
2. A couple hours after getting home, I got official word on the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant for poetry. I have been approved for full funding for a tour of the upper midwest this coming autumn.
3. While I was writing my family an email telling them the good news, Marc showed up unannounced to give me fantastically adorable buttons, starring a breakdancing Cinderella who we know to be part of the upcoming chapbook. Marc and I walked down to a local bakery/coffeeshop to celebrate with vegan truffles.

4. Met up with the lovely Cynthia French at the Fringe Lottery. We both have our places on the waiting list. Saw many lovely Fringe folk, lots of people whose faces I am happy to see.
5. Fed Cali’s kitty, got scolded for not having a MN Mic blog up, drove home, and am now wondering where my phone is, such that I can set my alarm for *too damn early*.

Tomorrow- work, a few errands, and then South Dakota.

I was asked just now, where one could find some of my poetry online, and realized that I’ve not put anything on here in quite a while. Here’s something that I’ve been keen on recently- I wrote it in December, I’ve been trying to get it solid, and perform it as much as I can before it’s unseasonable.

First Snow

And this must be what it feels like
to really be in love
not some passing flutter of lacy flakes
that balance perfectly on the tips of green grass blades.
Not some nighttime shimmer in streetlight
only to melt with the noonday sun.

It is being
snowed
in.
You might want to hide in your warm bed mornings
knowing it has piled up against the screen door
and glazed over your windshield, making it tough work
to see exactly what is going on out there.
And you want to drive fast, just get through it,
but the more you push the gas pedal towards the floormat
the more your heart fishtails through the intersection
the more likely you are to spin out of control
find yourself wrecked in it- and being wrecked is not pretty.

By daylight it is blinding.
Nothing looks like it used to, this bare ache
of leafless branches and grey skies has become
some kind of holiday greeting card- unbelievable and dreamlike.
You don’t want to go out in it,
your footsteps and shadow will only sully it-
if you keep your distance it may always be pristine and perfect.

By night it howls past walls,
shakes your old window panes,
keeps you up late.
Or is immense and quieter than you can imagine.
You will wake sleepless at three a.m.
watching now amber, now red, now green
by the stoplight at the corner
it is falling like astronauts to the moon
slow-motion floaters.
It will call you like the pied piper
undisturbed before the plows,
You will rise and dress like a somnambulist.
You will walk out into it
see the city lit up and empty
washed clean with your lover.
You will not feel alone-
it will cover the sidewalks and playgrounds
every park bench and doorstep
will belong to you, the snow, and three a.m.

And you will grow tired of it.
You will slip and fall and it will hurt or be embarrassing.
You will tire of how it grasps at your fingertips,
how it waits at your window
how it sits on your doorstep muddy and kicked
like a hungry mutt.
You will dread going out in it,
all the idiots driving like they’ve never been in love before,
there’s too much of it out there
imperfect, in great unwanted mounds in Walmart parkinglots.
You will push it from your sidewalks
and brush it from your car,
this much is a burden, you will wish for warmer climes.

And find yourself waking at three a.m.
sometime in late March
heart and lungs swollen
sleepwalking into your hat and mittens
slipping into boots waiting faithfully next to the door.
It will settle on your eyelashes
your cheeks will grow pink
It will tell you it forgives you, it understands.
It just wanted to see you
one last time, before it had to go.