I love this song. I especially love listening to it while driving. I admit it: I get road rage. But the thing that makes this song great is the poetry of it. The lyrics are full of strong images and beautiful sounds that make it easy to sing along. I realize that country-ish music isn't for everyone, but listen to the words: see the images that build this song and taste the sounds that make it fun to sing along with.
You can listen to the song on YouTube.com here. (I'd rather import the video for your audio-visual enjoyment but I can't figure out how.)
And here are the lyrics, to aid you in seeing imagery and tasting sounds:
Today I promise I'll never love you again
I swear I'll care as little as I can
'Cause I've become accustomed to wearin' nothin'
But pink nail polish on my left hand
So many valuable lessons I learned from you
Like forgiveness and breakin' hearts too
Now that you're a goner in your honor
More of the silence is the least I can do
Cut the lines
Blow up a few bridges
Trim the fat
Trim the grass
Clean out the fridge
Then sweep up the mess
Put on my Sunday best
And burn down the house
Burn down the house
Toss an easy stride into this dance I call life
And Burrrn, yeah
I never did like your fantasy football friends
I'll never have to watch Caddyshack again
I finally started cookin' and if you're lookin'
I'm walkin' my new dog in front of my new house
Got a new job and the money's come in
See you need a new man and a world and a new life
Nothing's quite as right as a girl on the mend
Cut the lines
Blow up a few bridges
Trim the fat
Trim the grass
Clean out the fridge
Then sweep up the mess
Put on my Sunday best
And burn down the house
Burn down the house
Toss an easy stride into this dance I call life
And BurnYeah, yeah
Oh, whoa, whoa
Tearin' down old walls
Puttin' up new ones
Have a little fun it's wreckin' ball night
Gotta little itchin' to get down in the kitchen
With my tall drink of water and some dynamite
Cut the lines
Blow up a few bridges
Trim the fat
Trim the grass
Clean out the fridge
Then sweep up the mess
Put on my Sunday best
And burn down the house
Burn down the house
Toss an easy stride into this dance I call life
And burn, burn, burn
Baby, burn
Ah, burn it up, yeah
Don't know burn, burn
Burn it, burn it, burn it up
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
School is back
Sorry it's been awhile since I posted, folks. That second internship at the USU Press kept me really busy up until school started. Some good news and some bad news following the first week back on campus: I was lucky enough to make it into Dr. Sinor's Creative Nonfiction Writing class, which I am very excited for! Plus, the focus of my Prose Studies class is autobiography, so the two classes will reflect off each other and I will learn more than I could taking each class singly. The bad news is that I did not make it into Dr. McCuskey's British Writers class all about Jane Austen, and I don't think I can audit the class. I might talk with him tomorrow and see if we can work something out so I can learn to read Jane Austen critically without actually being in the class. Other than that, I'm good to go! Lots of reading and writing to do already, but that's why I'm an English major.
I have a correction to make for my previous posts. I am not entering the May Swenson Poetry contest even though that would be a great opportunity for me to grow as a writer. I decided I should probably start studying for the GRE and write poetry when the creative urge hits me. Poetry never sounds or feels good when you try to force it.
Since I am no longer entering the contest, I thought I'd share with you my "midnight poetry" from the last post. Let me know what you think.
I have a correction to make for my previous posts. I am not entering the May Swenson Poetry contest even though that would be a great opportunity for me to grow as a writer. I decided I should probably start studying for the GRE and write poetry when the creative urge hits me. Poetry never sounds or feels good when you try to force it.
Since I am no longer entering the contest, I thought I'd share with you my "midnight poetry" from the last post. Let me know what you think.
Today I ate a grapefruit
and now Orange describes everything
as I sit in the sun:
the glow through my eyelids
the radiation of heat from my center
the calm energy of this yoga pose
the sour citrus taste on my tongue
even the cricket-song of sunset
puncuated by the crunch of dry grass.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Yay for writing
I couldn't fall asleep last night, so I wrote some "midnight poetry" at 2 am. The desire and inspiration to write is such a good feeling! The problem is that now I want to post it here; I hadn't realized how much sharing my writing on the internet contributes to my attitude about writing. Let me know if you want to read it, or if you think I wouldn't be disqualified from the May Swenson Poetry Award by posting it here.
I'm also thinking about advertising myself on campus as a freelance editor. I'm thinking with two internships at the Press, my job as a Rhetoric Associate, and currently being trained as a copyeditor that I have experience to do scholarly/research papers; I also think that with my experience in creative writing and the fact that I'm a senior in that major I could also freelance creative work. Let me know what you think.
I'm also thinking about advertising myself on campus as a freelance editor. I'm thinking with two internships at the Press, my job as a Rhetoric Associate, and currently being trained as a copyeditor that I have experience to do scholarly/research papers; I also think that with my experience in creative writing and the fact that I'm a senior in that major I could also freelance creative work. Let me know what you think.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The May Swenson Poetry Award
...is my new deadline. I've already posted how strange it feels to have a large percentage of my no-assignment, no-deadline writing take the form of poetry, and now I'm doing something even stranger: trying to write even more of the genre I've never previously had feelings for, and get it peer-reviewed and edited and as perfect as possible, and submitted to (my favorite place) the USU Press for the May Swenson Poetry Award BY SEPTEMBER 30. Am I crazy?
So this means lots of work. The submissions must be unpublished, so only first drafts have the potential of making it onto the blog, and then probably not many. Mostly I will probably keep you updated about the process and what I'm learning, maybe a few troublesome lines or deep questions I'm pondering. If you want to help me out and peer review some of the poems (50 to 100 pages, one poem per page--AAH!), let me know and I will find a way to get some to you! I need all the help I can get!
How many poems a week do you think it's reasonable to expect myself to produce? Remember I have to have time to edit and get them peer-reviewed, too. Ten weeks between now and then, subtract a two-week cushion, equals eight weeks to write. Aim for 75 poems (middle of 50 and 100), divided by 8 weeks...basically I'd have to write (at least) one poem every day. That's a lot more writing than I've ever done.
Tell me what you think of this idea: Shanan Ballam was my Poetry Writing teacher this spring, and since she writes a lot, she's been published, she has her MFA, and she was my teacher of poetry, I'm thinking about emailing her and seeing if we can establish some sort of mentor relationship. Meeting with her once or twice a week would be very helpful for my writing because not only would I be discussing my poetry with someone who knows what she's talking about, but I would have more and closer deadlines and the writing would feel more like an assignment, the two things that I lack over the summer. The only thing is that it's still summer break, so the beginning of this relationship might be mostly email-based, which is okay. Even if I don't earn the May Swenson Poetry Award, Shanan would know of other publishing venues, like journals (or databases of them), and be able to help me either write for a journal's guidelines or find some that are likely to accept my style. Of course, the real goal here (besides an improvement in writing, a bigger portfolio, and a better chance of getting published) is to get another letter of recommendation for grad school. That way I'd have one for my creative work, one for my academic work (Dr. McCuskey, hopefully), and one for my publishing experience (John from the USU Press).
And they tell you who the judge is on the guidelines website (http://www.usu.edu/usupress/poetry_award/), so now I'm nervous. Grace Schulman sounds incredible. Should I read some of her poetry collections? Some poetry in general probably, just to sort of immerse myself in the situation and the genre, but should I read hers specifically? How much?
This is a lot to do and think about, on top of grad school research and materials, GRE studying, working at Walmart as much as possible to afford tuition, my internship at the Press, reading (hopefully) Atlas Shrugged for a scholarship essay (conveniently due in the middle of September...), and any other kind of writing.
If anybody sees me wasting time, such as watching TV, will you please smile and remind me that I have writing to do so you can see a published book of my poetry? Thanks.
So this means lots of work. The submissions must be unpublished, so only first drafts have the potential of making it onto the blog, and then probably not many. Mostly I will probably keep you updated about the process and what I'm learning, maybe a few troublesome lines or deep questions I'm pondering. If you want to help me out and peer review some of the poems (50 to 100 pages, one poem per page--AAH!), let me know and I will find a way to get some to you! I need all the help I can get!
How many poems a week do you think it's reasonable to expect myself to produce? Remember I have to have time to edit and get them peer-reviewed, too. Ten weeks between now and then, subtract a two-week cushion, equals eight weeks to write. Aim for 75 poems (middle of 50 and 100), divided by 8 weeks...basically I'd have to write (at least) one poem every day. That's a lot more writing than I've ever done.
Tell me what you think of this idea: Shanan Ballam was my Poetry Writing teacher this spring, and since she writes a lot, she's been published, she has her MFA, and she was my teacher of poetry, I'm thinking about emailing her and seeing if we can establish some sort of mentor relationship. Meeting with her once or twice a week would be very helpful for my writing because not only would I be discussing my poetry with someone who knows what she's talking about, but I would have more and closer deadlines and the writing would feel more like an assignment, the two things that I lack over the summer. The only thing is that it's still summer break, so the beginning of this relationship might be mostly email-based, which is okay. Even if I don't earn the May Swenson Poetry Award, Shanan would know of other publishing venues, like journals (or databases of them), and be able to help me either write for a journal's guidelines or find some that are likely to accept my style. Of course, the real goal here (besides an improvement in writing, a bigger portfolio, and a better chance of getting published) is to get another letter of recommendation for grad school. That way I'd have one for my creative work, one for my academic work (Dr. McCuskey, hopefully), and one for my publishing experience (John from the USU Press).
And they tell you who the judge is on the guidelines website (http://www.usu.edu/usupress/poetry_award/), so now I'm nervous. Grace Schulman sounds incredible. Should I read some of her poetry collections? Some poetry in general probably, just to sort of immerse myself in the situation and the genre, but should I read hers specifically? How much?
This is a lot to do and think about, on top of grad school research and materials, GRE studying, working at Walmart as much as possible to afford tuition, my internship at the Press, reading (hopefully) Atlas Shrugged for a scholarship essay (conveniently due in the middle of September...), and any other kind of writing.
If anybody sees me wasting time, such as watching TV, will you please smile and remind me that I have writing to do so you can see a published book of my poetry? Thanks.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Question 5:
Someone whose opinion I value greatly read that poem yesterday and commented that the switch from comical to serious seemed a bit harsh for her. This led me to think: how would the poem change if it ended with the comical "What thunderous snores..." line? Is the realization of how loud his snores must be enough of a twist at the end for the poem to feel done? Can the poem function as simply a funny take-off of a nursery rhyme?
And Question 6: Any ideas for a title? It'd be great if the title made readers think about the poem differently or see something new in it the second time around.
And Question 6: Any ideas for a title? It'd be great if the title made readers think about the poem differently or see something new in it the second time around.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Hallelujah!
I started writing again today! Woot! I'm not sure if I'm going to write that memoir about Megan; maybe, but I'd have to do it all from scratch, and that's hard when you've already started the project in a different form (like, say, a badly written version of the memoir from when you were 16...). Today I wrote a poem. Actually, I expanded on an idea I had for a poem in January, but that I couldn't find a direction for in my Poetry Writing class. Hopefully this means I have successfully psyched myself into writing something every day; the more seriously I consider grad school, the more things I have to do yesterday to make myself a competitive applicant (the acceptance rate for the school I really want to go to is about 50 seats to 150 applicants--yikes). Sometime this week I need to go to Testing Services and figure out how to register for the September GRE, then go to Hastings and buy the book my brother told me to study from. I need to write something every day, so that a) my writing improves, b) I'll have a bigger portfolio, and c) I might get scholarships, published, and/or go to conference(s). I need to read every day to expand my knowledge base (to be a good writer you have to read, you know), and I really need to start reading Atlas Shrugged so I can write a killer essay and get a scholarship in September. Never mind all the good stuff I'd like to do anyway, like practice French, learn the piano, and crochet my afghan. It really doesn't help that my otherwise totally awesome roommate Christina got me hooked on a Japanese anime, "Bleach." There's not enough time for everything! AAH!
Anyway, now you all know my stress. Below is the poem I wrote today, because I know you've all been dying to read it from the first line of this post:
It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring—
Wait—
Why is there an old man?
Why not a young man? Or a woman? Or a child?
That line is so restrictive.
Breathe. I’m over it.
It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring—
Wait—
Why does he snore when it rains?
Why doesn’t he sit by the fire, holding his white-haired wife’s hand?
Or finish his homework to Nature’s background music?
The least she can do is watch through the kitchen window as greens grow brighter, reds burn longer, and all colors blend into an ephemeral arbor over her roses.
Surely the little one learns the pleasure of puddle-jumping and the cold eerie surprise of water in one’s boots.
Or maybe it’s raining and pouring because the old man is snoring. Hmm.
What thunderous snores he must make, to be heard above the rain’s roof-tapping.
What manner of Man he must be, to call forth the tears of heaven.
What so many sorrows He must have endured, to know how to wash away the faded green of dying flowers, the bright crimson stain on pure white clothes, and give them new life.
It's hard to see some of the formatting this way but that's okay. I love comments on everything, but if you could, I'd like my readers to respond to a couple questions.
Q 1: Does the switch from comical to serious work? Why or why not? How can I make it better? Did you see this poem going in a different direction? Why?
Q 2: Is there enough imagery and sensory detail in this poem? Why or why not? Any ideas?
Q 3: Any help with poetic techniques in general would be great, specifically internal music.
Q 4: There are a couple of lines that I'm not so sure about right now. If a line doesn't seem to fit, or confuses you, PLEASE tell me. Any ideas for these are especially helpful.
Any other comments are always welcome! Keep your fingers crossed for me that I'll be able to write something again tomorrow!
Anyway, now you all know my stress. Below is the poem I wrote today, because I know you've all been dying to read it from the first line of this post:
It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring—
Wait—
Why is there an old man?
Why not a young man? Or a woman? Or a child?
That line is so restrictive.
Breathe. I’m over it.
It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring—
Wait—
Why does he snore when it rains?
Why doesn’t he sit by the fire, holding his white-haired wife’s hand?
Or finish his homework to Nature’s background music?
The least she can do is watch through the kitchen window as greens grow brighter, reds burn longer, and all colors blend into an ephemeral arbor over her roses.
Surely the little one learns the pleasure of puddle-jumping and the cold eerie surprise of water in one’s boots.
Or maybe it’s raining and pouring because the old man is snoring. Hmm.
What thunderous snores he must make, to be heard above the rain’s roof-tapping.
What manner of Man he must be, to call forth the tears of heaven.
What so many sorrows He must have endured, to know how to wash away the faded green of dying flowers, the bright crimson stain on pure white clothes, and give them new life.
It's hard to see some of the formatting this way but that's okay. I love comments on everything, but if you could, I'd like my readers to respond to a couple questions.
Q 1: Does the switch from comical to serious work? Why or why not? How can I make it better? Did you see this poem going in a different direction? Why?
Q 2: Is there enough imagery and sensory detail in this poem? Why or why not? Any ideas?
Q 3: Any help with poetic techniques in general would be great, specifically internal music.
Q 4: There are a couple of lines that I'm not so sure about right now. If a line doesn't seem to fit, or confuses you, PLEASE tell me. Any ideas for these are especially helpful.
Any other comments are always welcome! Keep your fingers crossed for me that I'll be able to write something again tomorrow!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
In Memoriam, F.M. Megan
My horse Megan had to be put down today. She developed a strange form of colic, probably within the last 24 hours, that completely backed up her digestive system. The vet said we would have found her dead this afternoon if we hadn't seen her laying sprawled on the ground in pain and made an emergency visit this morning. She's been my one of my best friends since I was 12, about 8 years. I cried in sympathy a week or two ago when my roommate and her family had to put down her Golden Retriever that they'd had seemingly forever, but you just don't understand it until you've felt it for yourself. My emotions have been close to the top all day. As part of my grieving process I want to share some pictures of her with you.
This was taken soon after we first bought her, when we were both 13. I'm holding her and my brother Rick is sitting on her.
This is actually my riding instructor, RaNae, riding Megan in a Western Pleasure show before we met. Isn't she just beautiful?
This is a photo I took two weeks ago to put with Megan's ad on KSL.com (which is no longer online). For a 20-year-old horse she still had pretty good form. My sister Katie is holding her.
I also think instead of a USU Press memoir (although it's a good idea, and I might come back to it), I'm going to revisit a memoir I wrote as a high school sophomore in my first Creative Writing class. It's about when I first met Megan and our riding lessons together. Since I wrote it when I was 16, it needs work. It's 8 pages long but it's all summary, and it only covers our riding lessons before we bought her, which is one summer out of 8 years. I think there's some room to play with there. My idea is to revise each paragraph or section for detail, description, dialogue, imagery, stories that highlight the ideas or detail, etc, and then I'd like to post some of them here for your enjoyment and critique. Let me know what you think.
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