Hope to see you there!

Second, I received my contributor’s copy of the current issue of Eclipse, which includes a great piece by Judith Slater, also a member of the UNL community. My piece, “Hypotheses (or In the Lake of the Woods) is a poem I wrote in response to the Tim O’Brien novel, a book I taught in one of my composition and rhetoric classes. The poem also appears in my poetry collection Ghost Girl. In 2008, Tim O’Brien was the writer-in-residence here. I was lucky enough to take his master workshop. It was an unforgettable experience.

Third, my contributor’s copy of the anthology hell strung and crooked from Unhook Press has also just arrived. Yeah! It includes  a great interview with Mark Doty. Speaking of the poet, I’ve read a few of his books, but my current favorite is his memoir Dog Years. It’s a wonderful book. One of the best memoirs I read last winter.

And finally, today is the first day of a new semester. I’m teaching a composition class and a poetry class. The latter is my favorite class to teach because it combines women’s studies, women’s literature, and creative writing into a class called English 253A: poetry writing: Women’s Poetry. Along with a few short essays, this term I’m teaching Anne Sexton’s Transformations, Louise Gluck’s Averno, Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia, Carole Oles’ Waking Stone, Denise Duhamel’s Kinky and Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux’s edited text The Poet’s Companion. It’s going to be an amazing class. I’m so excited!

Students were given a thirty minute individual tutorial with the poet. For mine, I brought in a several poems from Branding Girls (before, mind you, I knew they would be Branding Girls’ poems). I specifically remember Bruce’s thoughtful comments on the poem “Dead Girl Brand,” a poem that responds to several images from Melanie Pullen‘s series High Fashion Crime Scenes, and a poem that was later published by Margie.

Bruce was a great teacher! And, he’s amazing poet. At the conference, I bought his wonderful book Radiography (BOA Editions), which includes my favorite poem ever written about a pomegranate. I recently finished his newest book Peal (Etruscan Press, 2009), a poetry collection filled with music.

Here’s Bruce Bond on Branding Girls:

Laura Madeline Wiseman’s brave new book, Branding Girls, offers us a mercurial and unflinching exploration of the commodification of the body, reduced to a vessel of projections, to a commercial brand, naturally, but also wearing the brand, the wound of the animal possessed.  And with possession comes the animation, the childlike doll-play, the habitation by foreign spirits.  Part of the power and pathos of these investigations lies in their restraint and tonal complexity, the asbestos of their wit, the intelligence of detail that illuminates even as it mystifies the closeness with which objectification haunts the desiring imagination.  A rare thing.  This book will widen the gaze that reads it.

Here’s Jehanne‘s blurb:

“Brand: as in a mark. Branded: as in burned on an animal, a criminal, someone enslaved. Branding: as in a trademarking, a commodification. In Laura Madeline Wiseman’s terrifying Branding Girls, the poet demonstrates that our femininity is defined by advertising, name brands, and material desires. From the figure of the Japanese “elevator girls,” we learn that contemporary women are in danger of becoming a series of negations: ‘Not geisha. Not madams… / Not call girls / or masseuses. Not school girls / in pleated skirts.’ I love this collection for the same reasons I love TV’s “Mad Men”: its elegance, its dark humor, and its pain.”

Wow. Thank you, Jehanne.

Ghost Girl Dreams Again of a Con, a Murder, and another Life
http://www.lauramadelinewiseman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/fingersmith_wiseman.mp3

I’ve been busily working on getting everything ready for Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press, 2011). I’ve contacted two of my favorite poets who will be writing blurbs for the chapbook. I’ve got the bios written, the author photos taken, and the acknowledgments updated. I’ve compiled the mailing addresses for the postcard promotion during pre-sale of the chapbook, which isn’t as easy as one might think. For example, I wanted to make sure and send my high school AP English teacher a postcard. She supported my writing and always encouraged me. She entered a poem I wrote to the Des Moines National Poetry Festival the year I was in her class. It was there I gave my first poetry reading, ever, at the Des Moines Art Center.  And she gave me a copy of Emily Dickinson as a graduation gift. (You are the greatest, Mrs. K!) She retired the year I graduated and thus, finding her mailing address was a bit tricky. Also, I found the perfect art for the cover. A few years back, I attended an art festival and purchased an adorable piece from pincurl girls. I contacted Pincurl Girls and asked about having the art on my cover. I recieved a yes! Yeah! Here’s a teaser of the cover:

I love her. Isn’t she super cute!

And, my forth chapbook SHE WHO LOVES HER FATHER is a finalist in the Apprentice House Chapbook contest. Double yeah!

Ghost Girl Peruses the Want Ads, Ghost Girl Can’t Recall What Happened Next, Neighbors
http://www.lauramadelinewiseman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/006_Ghost-Girl_001_madeline_Ghost-Girl-Peruses-the-Want-Ads_2010_07_09_Ghost-Girl-Peruses-the-Want-Ads1.mp3
http://www.lauramadelinewiseman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/006_Ghost-Girl_002_madeline_Ghost-Girl-Cant-Recall-What-Happened-Next_2010_07_09_Ghost-Girl-Cant-Recall-What-Happened-Next.mp3
http://www.lauramadelinewiseman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/006_Ghost-Girl_003_madeline_Neighbors_2010_07_09_Neighbors.mp3

In other news, there’s a mini-review of my poem “Dead Girl Brand II” in Big Muddy. The forthcoming anthology of poems on violence that I’m co-editing (with Christine Stewart-Nunez), WOMEN WRITE RESISTANCE: POETS FIGHT GENDER VIOLENCE, was awarded a grant from the South Dakota Humanities Council to cover some of the costs of permissions. I’m super excited about our anthology! It’s something Christine and I have been putting together since the fall of 2007. Finally, my chapbook GHOST GIRL just came out from Pudding House…more on that soon.