going over my thesis with a fine toothed comb. it's incredibly draining.

graduation date: Dec. 21
graduation ceremony: Dec. 14

yeah, it sounds weird, but this will be the first time I've ever walked for a graduation. didn't do it in high school. didn't do it for undergrad. I figure that since I have to stick around for the last week of classes that I should walk.

first, for my workshop we are doing personal anthologies. this means that we type up three poems that we love per week and send them out to the rest of the class. given my anger about the biomedical industry, I decided it would be most theraputic for me to type up the entirety of Aeschylus' Agamemnon. there's nothing like killing the icon of everything I hate about humanity. but I never realized how much like Bush he was:

CHORUS
Clytemnestra has spoken. A clever
interpreter finds the true meaning
of a woman's words. But tell us what has happened
to our fleet. Is Menelaus, our King's
brother, alive and returning with Helen?

HERALD
We lost sight of King Menelaus and his ship.

CHORUS
Where is the rest of the fleet?

HERALD
We have lost the fleet.

CHORUS
Where is the army? Where are our sons?

HERALD
No man can tell you, only the sun,
the all-seeing and giver of life,
knows where they are. I wished to give my city
a single day of rejoice in the ruin
of Troy and Agamemnon's preservation..
All night the sea kept rising, wave
over black wave. Rain from Thrace
rattled through our rigging, oars snapped,
hulls splintered, we wallowed sidewise,
our bronze beaks rammed our own ships,
as we spun in the hand of an angry shepherd.
Then the sun came up. We could see
the blue Aegean blossom with bodies,
oars, timbers, figureheads--
a whole dead army on the sea.
Our ship kept floating. We lived.
Some god, no mortal, had handled our helm,
and saved us from the big sea, and led us
through the crooked, covered rocks of the channels.
We stared at the watery white sky,
and wept for our friends. If any were still
alive, they thought of us as dead.
I think of them as dead.

CHORUS
What happened to Helen who caused the war?

HERALD
I don't know.

[Exit HERALD]

* * * * * * * * * * *

ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION, PAY ATTENTION

Matthea's new book, Modern Life is excellent. I do not just say this because I'm her student. I say this because I read it in one sitting.

book: [link]

some of the poems: [link]

first, for my workshop we are doing personal anthologies. this means that we type up three poems that we love per week and send them out to the rest of the class. given my anger about the biomedical industry, I decided it would be most theraputic for me to type up the entirety of Aeschylus' Agamemnon. there's nothing like killing the icon of everything I hate about humanity. but I never realized how much like Bush he was:

CHORUS
Clytemnestra has spoken. A clever
interpreter finds the true meaning
of a woman's words. But tell us what has happened
to our fleet. Is Menelaus, our King's
brother, alive and returning with Helen?

HERALD
We lost sight of King Menelaus and his ship.

CHORUS
Where is the rest of the fleet?

HERALD
We have lost the fleet.

CHORUS
Where is the army? Where are our sons?

HERALD
No man can tell you, only the sun,
the all-seeing and giver of life,
knows where they are. I wished to give my city
a single day of rejoice in the ruin
of Troy and Agamemnon's preservation..
All night the sea kept rising, wave
over black wave. Rain from Thrace
rattled through our rigging, oars snapped,
hulls splintered, we wallowed sidewise,
our bronze beaks rammed our own ships,
as we spun in the hand of an angry shepherd.
Then the sun came up. We could see
the blue Aegean blossom with bodies,
oars, timbers, figureheads--
a whole dead army on the sea.
Our ship kept floating. We lived.
Some god, no mortal, had handled our helm,
and saved us from the big sea, and led us
through the crooked, covered rocks of the channels.
We stared at the watery white sky,
and wept for our friends. If any were still
alive, they thought of us as dead.
I think of them as dead.

CHORUS
What happened to Helen who caused the war?

HERALD
I don't know.

[Exit HERALD]

* * * * * * * * * * *

ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION, PAY ATTENTION

Matthea's new book, Modern Life is excellent. I do not just say this because I'm her student. I say this because I read it in one sitting.

book: [link]

some of the poems: [link]

I don't like my species. we're mean. I know why we can get away with torture: the National Institute of Health describes humane treatment as something in captivity getting food/water once a day and being kept out of their own waste matter. forgive me, I thought that was just what you did to keep the individual alive. I didn't know that keeping the individual alive was all there was to being humane. bring on the psychological abuse. bring on the electrodes.

just updated a lot of the poems that I've been working on for you guys. put "Michal speaks to God for the first time" in storage because I'm sending it out for publication. sorry kiddos.

oops... forgot to change this... sorry