Eventful Friday (Saturday to come)

If you've been checking in daily, eager to get the scoop on what's happening at Poets House (chances are you haven't been...and perhaps shouldn't be) you'll notice I didn't post last night. Allow me to give a summary of yesterday.

I went in early today because Jeffrey McDaniel, my poetry workshop professor, scheduled a reading with Cate Marvin at Sarah Lawrence College at 7:30, and I wanted to leave early to make it back with enough time to see her. We read Marvin last week and went over her newer book of poems, Fragment of the Head of a Queen (Gallaher's take). With gentle admiration I call her today's bitch poet. In tone, she's always either dangerous or ironic, or both, and her provocative dialogue explodes with animated, raw attitude. More on her later.

I went into the city about two hours early and headed first to scan the area nearby for a Thai food restraunt my suitemate, Taylor, told me about. Taylor, works at a low-key publisher a few streets west of Poets House's offices. As I headed down Houston looking for the street I thought the restraunt was on, I ended up walking into Taylor on his way to find some pizza for lunch. He showed me the way to this place (called Peep) and decided to abandon pizza for the Thai. The lunch menu is a very affordable (for Manhattan) $7 for an appetizer and main dish. Really good Pad Thai.

At Poets House I got orders to start using the database system. Stellan showed me how, and he was successfully lucid and concise in his explanation as he tends to be. One glance at the layout told me it was going to be easy. Previously I'd had an uncertainty about my ability to "do" database management. It was all wasted worry. I spent the time searching the database for titles, entering them in, and recording their identifications and statuses, something I was doing with ease for just under two years at the Orleans Whole Food Store on the Cape. I guess my fear of databases originated from the ambiguity of what a database can be. Emily at Academic Computing said basically there's some really complicated, but important theory on how a database works. Thus the creation of a database must be a bloomin' headache. But by no means was that what I was looking at. When a company mentions to you that you'll be working on database management, they really mean you'll have to read a bunch of data and then fill in the blanks on a survey so to speak, it's all very user-friendly.
Still, easy as it was to grasp, the process was not a breeze. Some books have translators and editors instead of authors, which have to be entered on a separate survey. Publishers (this I talked about earlier) sometimes have series names which will often confuse the situation. Then there are a slew of other confusing items that are just to be set aside and dealt with when Mike is around for that executive decision. The process is slow, and precision is key. After a book has been entered, it also needs a sticker that says it's in our showcase, and any extras (most of the time a publisher will send one extra copy) are to be marked duplicate. The duplicates are sold to raise money for various events the House hosts.
Though the process takes a while, considering there are a number of helpers every week, the job is completed pretty quickly. Stellan was staring at the four shelves of books yet to be managed saying: "man, we're gonna run out of work." We almost did even today. Next week is a new week though, and Mikes desk is apparently continually stacked with mailers on weekdays.

I worked on two mere stacks on Friday. The job felt somewhat unsatisfying when I looked at my 5 hours of work. But Katherine and Stellan assured that my work was bountiful. Wanting to finish shelving the books I managed, I left a few minutes late, so I hurried to Grand Central. Long story short I made it back right on time.

Only one other person from my class, Lindsey, showed up to meet Cate at the Pub before her reading. I think the Pub is a disgusting place. The food is horrible and expensive as well, but Cate didn't seem to mind. Lindsey was excited speechless with a question now and then to fuel Cate's unique behavior. I listened mostly, also interested, but lacking inspiration or useful inquiry. After all, I only gave the book a 4 (of 5) against Lindsey's 5.
Cate had a good deal to say about confessional poetry and the treatment it's been given over the years. I got some advice on my conference project. She sent me to some resources, including the letters of Wallace Stevens, to get a feel for what exactly propagated Stevensian language. We headed over to the reading room and she read for about half-an-hour, and we discussed a couple of her poems in depth. My favorite poem of hers (and I'm guessing one of her favorites as well based on her treatment of it) is Muckraker. The poem also features an epigraph from the famous sonneteer Sir Thomas Wyatt about whom I had the opportunity to study last year. Wyatt's a perfect specimen of pre-"confessional" confessional poetry.

By the time we left the reading area, it was pretty late and I headed home and got ready for sleep shortly after. It's getting late even tonight, so I'll make a short post about the goings-on today, tomorrow. I have some pictures I've been meaning to figure out how to post. So, starting tomorrow, there may be some color to this boring ramble I keep spewing.