Full June
...something to squinch.
Dear Poets,
I hope your summer is doing all it should — feeling expansive, more open-ended, less scheduled and strict. I have a memory of my poetry professor Adam Zagajewski telling me about his ‘childish’ desire (as he called it) each year for a summer of unfettered time and how this seemed like something he should grow out of but he never had. This seemed such an implicitly natural thought to me — why should anyone outgrow this longing? It’s hard to forget the shock that comes, post-college/first job, when June 1st doesn’t signal anything except the possibility of a half-day off every other Friday (maybe). I’m sure many of you remember the slap of realization that ‘summer’ didn’t mean a long break, sanctified by the school year’s rhythms.
I went looking online for Sharon Olds’ poem “June 24th” in her book The Gold Cell. Alas, I can’t find the text and (more alas!) my copy burned in the Eaton Fire (probably signed by her, as she had signed all my books) but what I loved about this poem was the ode to June within the first few lines. It went something like, ‘June, four full letters / something to squinch or to squelch.’ And then she rhapsodizes about the 2 and the 4 side by side — ‘like a couple’ and then ‘a couple coupled.’ The poem reveals itself to be about her father — this date was his birthday — and, as all her poems about her parents do, then takes a decidedly darker tone. I still remember how startled I felt when seeing this poem — June 24th is my birthday, too. And my delight and dismay to learn I shared this date with her Dad. The assignment of writing a poem about one’s birthdate — or someone else’s — strikes me as a good one. Try it, if it appeals. ✍️
One project for July is to work on my ‘catalogue of losses’ — the legal term for a table in which I am supposed to list every single thing that I lost. Yes. Every. Single. Thing. I suspect it’s simply not possible, though I’ve seen many ideas, suggestions, tricks/tips in various fire survivor groups about how to tackle this (download a ‘common’ list of items that typically live in each room, use AI, scour old pictures, etc.). I’ve also seen a ton of discussion about how emotionally devastating this onerous task can be (traumatized twice).
After remembering my Sharon Olds’ signed copies I found myself recollecting a photograph I kept from the years I lived (post-MFA) in the West Village in New York City (on Perry Street, a few doors down from where Elizabeth Bishop once rented). The Magnolia Bakery had just opened around the corner and I often joked that property values were rising as the most wonderful smell wafted through the neighborhood at certain hours. I went out with a friend (also with a late June birthday) to celebrate and she insisted on going there to buy me a cupcake and a candle. As we waited in line we realized we were sandwiched between two other sets of friends each with one celebrating a June 24th birthday. I had a great picture (pre-digital!) of the three of us laughing and looking twentysomething fresh and confident as we tried to see if we shared any common traits as moonchildren, flirting and joking and feeling young in the city. It is a fine example of something I’ll list that will then cause me to stare into space as I try to contemplate what to put in the line labeled ‘value’ as I remember what I once had and what I will never have again.
Let me share a few things with rapidly approaching deadlines. ‘Recovery’ update below. Here is the Henry James classic. 🏖️
Sharing with you:
I started this email a few days ago, and the deadline for the above grant was, er, today. But I’m including the link since whoever is chosen for this position “should engage local artists and/or arts groups to co-lead workshops. Workshops should be designed for Altadena residents and others impacted by the January 2025 fires.” Not yet clear how to express interest, but it seems like a way to connect with other creative opportunities.
And this deadline is … tomorrow! I love the idea of merging poetry and dance. Click for the submission form.
I will be at this Women Who Submit event on July 10 with my (still) new book Girl in a Forest. Dessert & DJ reception following the reading! Tickets are $10.00. Women Who Submit has had many satellite groups pop up across the country — there might be one near you!
This opportunity seems more visual-arts focused but I love the idea of an artist-in-residence at the Grand Canyon. 🍃 “Three artists will be selected to develop a place-based project that deepens the public and community understanding of and connection to Grand Canyon’s historical, cultural, and environmental significance.” Deadline is July 15th.
If you know someone who is still at an internship stage of life, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux would be a great place to do one. I interviewed with them after I finished my MFA and was living in New York City. The salary offered was more akin to working for free and receiving a monthly tip. I am glad to see that some things have changed. “The Fellow and finalists will also receive a collection of FSG classics” — that’s something. Deadline is July 6, 2026.
I have great fondness for the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference which I have attended three times. It is coming up right up from July 26–31, 2026. If you are local (or can commute from the Bay area) there are a lot of wonderful public events.
I’m not sure why this caught my eye, but it did. Two book prizes (with reasonable submission fees!) at Wendy’s Subway. The Carolyn Bush Award “supports innovative, hybrid, and cross-genre work that contributes to expanding the discourses and practices of poetry.” Deadline July 24 at 11:59 pm EST for both. Submit via Submittable.
Thimble Literary Magazine is also open for submissions through June 30th, closed for July, and then opens again in August. From their masthead: “Thimble Literary Magazine is based on the belief that poetry is like armor. Like a thimble, it may be small and seem insignificant, but it will protect us when we are most vulnerable.”
Rest in poems, Stephen Dobyns. I was sorry to hear this news.
Personal Update
In brief(er), there’s not too much to report this month. We finally (!!) signed with a contractor at the beginning of May and are pleased with them so far. They have an in-house designer who is now assigning us weekly ‘homework.’ I sense already the tedium ahead as I spent many hours this past week looking at bathroom fixtures to add to our shared Pinterest board (this was after compiling ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ boards) for her. (But doesn’t this list of shower faucet ‘spray patterns’ read like a found poem? “Rain, full, drench, massage, wide, soft, pause, aeration, mist.” ☔) There is a smidge of excitement as the idea of a house custom-designed to our specifications starts to rise from paper into 3D, though that full reality is at least 18 months away. In between, there is more of a sense of an uphill mountain to climb with every step cleared after a barrage of decisions are made.
There has been such an acute awkwardness in sitting through long meetings with architects, contractors, structural engineers, listening to their technical discussions about things I barely grasp but then always culminate in the moment when they collectively turn their faces to myself and my husband and say, ‘So, what do you want to do?’ I’d like to think we mask our barely gripped understanding well enough, (and I have gotten bolder about asking ‘basic’ questions that pull back to what is probably ‘101 knowledge’ about drain systems, the mechanics of solar power, supporting beams, etc.) as we fluster our way through an answer.
Yes, it will be our house, and yes it is our money (doled out by our insurance co.), but do we know what the !&#$&(*_) to choose?! Not really, half the time. It feels bizarre. We have final say and yet find ourselves often resorting to ‘what do you advise?’ and teetering between revealing our lack of informed decision-making (and, frankly, sometimes even lack of interest) and taking it ‘seriously’ since (at least in theory) this will affect our living space for years. It’s so often awkward. So often weird. And I’m sure there are months and months of these kinds of meetings still to come
The other surprising thing was that once the contractor let us know our lot would be ‘grubbed’ (the technical name for it) both my husband and myself had a strong urge to spend time there, to stand on our land, taking in what was still left. The foliage is wildly overgrown and what trees that survived look black and parched, with their tops still marked where they burned, but the growth seemed a way what was left still asserted itself. It was a sign of will, it seemed, that things still wanted to grow. I felt unexpectedly ambivalent to know all of that would be razed and the land would experience another destruction again.
As with so much of this experience, there are opposing emotions continually held at the same time. There is some excitement at getting the process going and there is loss in seeing what markers of familiarity we still had be erased. The previous owners had hand-built a low stone fence that curved throughout the property and survived. They left us a stone fountain that had long stopped working but we liked seeing and talked of one day having repaired. There was an inlet where our round patio table once stood. Now all of that is just gone. Bulldozed. Blanked out again. It’s a reminder that even when there is a new house standing at that address it won’t be our house. The house we lost. The house we still see in our mind’s eye.
I’ll hope, bit by bit, as the stages of construction start to shape a new physical one, that on some parallel level, we can construct a new idea of home, although I suspect, once we move (again) it will simply take time, like anywhere, for it to feel familiar and comfortable, and then tip over the threshold that makes a space one of comfort and refuge — a home.
We are still settling into our new rental, having been here about six weeks. I’m still FOMO’ing over missing FOBA (Friends of Book Arts — wrapping up as I type!) which only comes around every two years, but too many unexpected factors stood in the way of going. The dates for FOBA directly coincided with an Asian Studies conference my husband helped organize at CSUN. He was excited about it, but his attendance was cut short one day when I texted him to leave a session because we both misunderstood a meeting date with the architect and contractor (combined!) and we scrambled to reorganize. It felt like another way we have to give so much up to tackle this unwanted work.
The weekends are more often packed than not with ‘fire survivor’ events and opportunities. As mentioned in my previous ‘Stack, it’s good that there is such a buoying amount of support for the community — yet it’s overwhelming to keep track of, follow up on, and then schedule to benefit from these resources. On Friday night I went to a lecture on Octavia Butler, one of Altadena’s most famous residents which was part of the “Altadena Revealed” series (sponsored by the visionary Foothill Catalog Foundation) meant to bring together community.
On Saturday, I drove way up near the Cobb Estate to another community development fair, in part lured by the promise of a free charcuterie board milled by Angel City Lumber from felled Altadena trees. I do love a charcuterie board (!) and liked the idea of this repurposing, plus was curious to see who would be there and what tone the various speechifying would take at this mark. Today, I queued up for a gift certificate and deep discounts at the Habitat for Humanity Re/Store in Pasadena. There’s more to say about who benefits from these giveaways, what I notice about who comes out to these events, and the rhetoric about recovery now offered.
There is strong community urging to lobby for the passage of SB 1090 to support “a balanced recovery and rebuilding effort for Altadena” i.e. keep developers at bay. There is tremendous concern to make the recovery of Altadena as equitable as possible and to keep its non-corporate identity but how that will happen and what it will look like and what can be done to re-root its community is very much up in the air. The language around supporting this bill includes: “Altadena has long embraced diverse housing that … serves residents across a wide range of incomes. The community remains committed to ensuring that renters, seniors, working families, and moderate-income households have meaningful opportunities to return home.” I watched part of an online community discussion about this tonight and the concern about how Altadena will emerge/rise and with what opportunities, and for whom, is very real.
There is a serious PUSD (my public school district) brouhaha I’ve been tracking closely (mentioned in my previous ‘Stack) and the parent Signal chat has been a hotbed of anger and ideas and strategies that might sway the school board. One person recently wrote ‘this is our third job — we have our ‘regular’ jobs, our parenting jobs, and now this!’ It took all of my restraint to not add in: ‘yes, and for some of us, you can add in the job(s) of rebuilding a house, dealing with insurance, understanding contracts, picking out flooring/windows/fixtures ad infinitum, soil remediation, trying to save our remaining trees, etc. etc. etc.’ For now, it’s just the way it is.
On perhaps a more philosophical level, I find myself wondering of late when will a ‘big tragedy’ will come for others — will everyone experience one in their lifetime? Do only a small fortunate few escape? I just heard the death toll in Venezuela and have been trying to wrap my mind around it. I recently saw a post on Instagram that an acquaintance I’ve always wanted to get to know better is now dealing with a life-changing diagnosis. This is likely another essay (or poem or book 📚) but after getting to the number I just reached last week it feels impossible (January 7th or not) to not dwell in this type of reflection.
For now, I am trying think of this summer as a way to move at a slower pace, alongside using it to tackle some of the more onerous ‘recovery’ work: taxes! (another whole complicated category), legal lists (😕), and what looks like ongoing twice weekly meetings with the designer and contractor. But to also sink into a certain steadiness, relief from twice daily pickups and drop-offs, the school year’s pressures, and to welcome other calm things, if I can. I hope the same for you. 🌞