You know how my chapbook hasn't come out in months and months? It's not because I'm lazy or because I'm busy-- although certainly I am both lazy and very busy. But I am also very poor, and the lucre brought in by my chapbook, although far from filthy, should at least be dirty enough to motivate me.

Except that I hate all the poems in the chapbook. The photos look great, the silk screening, the cover, the glittery paper. But the poems themselves, bah. I can't bear to send them out. I can't put these chapbooks together until I don't hate them anymore.

It's one of those Jonah days. I am convinced that my thesis is going to suck, that I will never put together a manuscript I am happy with, that I will never be published, that I will never break out of the lowest tier of literary magazines, that I haven't learned a damn thing about the craft in the past two years, that I don't write enough, that my poems aren't good enough, and that poetry as a whole is pointless.

I talked to Professor President about this, and he said, "Yes, it's like those days when you look in the mirror and you think you're the ugliest person on earth." Exactly. Those "I hate everything" days. He assured me we all feel that way, and that it would pass.

I guess it did, finally. I had a very successful writing night the other night, in which I wrote ten poems. Not all of them fit into my thesis (incidentally, most of them have eggs in them somewhere, since I was writing in a diner) but at least I felt love for some of them. In fact, I have developed an unnatural fondness for my pagoda poem. (See below.) I am trying to fit it into my thesis on the grounds that it mentions an arm. Jen assures me that this will not fly.

I still have the chapbook problem, by the way. I am Rivers Cuomo, and my chapbook is Pinkerton, my second album that I hate. But at least it's just the chapbook at this point.

I put together an in-progress manuscript last night; it's about 30 pages long (half of what I am aiming for) and I printed it out for Professor P to review before our next meeting in a week. I am excited about having a theme, and I think he probably will have some scathingly intellectual things to say, like he did last time.

I really feel fortunate to have him working on my thesis. He gets what I'm trying to do, I mean really gets it, and this makes both his criticism and his praise more valuable. And useful to me, as a writer.

I was pondering my thesis the other day, and I realized one source of my frustration: my work is still evolving. I am 27 and there are days I still feel as if I'm writing juvenilia. If I was a genius, I would have created great art by now. (I know you are probably rolling your eyes at my desire for greatness, but if I'm going to be merely a competent poet, what's the fucking point? I want to be an artist.)

(Oh god, I just realized I sound like that King Missile song, "Sensitive Artist." Here are some of the lyrics: "I am a sensitive artist. Nobody understands me because I am so deep. In my work I make allusions to books that nobody else has read, music that nobody else has heard, and art that nobody else has seen. I can't help it, because I am so much more intelligent and well-rounded than everyone who surrounds me... I can't deal with people, because they don't understand me. I stay home, reading books that are beneath me, and working on my work, which no one understands. I am a sensitive artist.")

Uh, what was I talking about? Oh, my thesis. My writing. I don't know. I guess I'm sort of out the other end of the dark period at this point. Right now my big concern is having time to write. One day a week is not enough, and I feel lucky to get that. I'm hoping to have my thesis put together by the beginning of November. That involves writing thirty new pages of poetry (at least) and doing extensive revisions. Not a lot of time.

(Not to mention, I suck at revisions. If a poem needs too many revisions, I would rather write a new poem. Many poems with potential get thrown out because of this. I can't help it. New lines in old poems just don't sound right, and I'm still no good at revision. Which is neither here, nor there, but neither is anything else in this entry.)

So, to sum up: I am struggling with this. I want my thesis to be a manuscript I love. I want the poems to fit together thematically. I want a manuscript that I feel comfortable sending out to contests and publishers. (Okay, I want a manuscript that will win contests and woo publishers, but I'll worry about that later.)

At least I have a poem about a pagoda.

A Puzzle

You are lost inside a tiny pagoda,
and keep running into my grandmother.
Every time you see her, she hands you an item of cutlery.
"Where's the bathroom?"
one of you asks the other, your landmark being a bonsai tree.

You are carrying ....... a ladle
..................................a steak knife
..................................a plastic spatula
..................................a bag full of grapefruit spoons

You use a fondue fork to poke my grandmother
lightly on the arm. "Excuse me, ma'am,"
you say politely, as the sun sets to the north-north east
and the pagoda grows silent.
She hands you a tuning fork, which does you no good at all.

Which way out of this pagoda?