I participated in a panel last weekend on translation theory sponsored by the Washington Poetry Association at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle. That's me looking to the side. 

Here is your assignment. Read Teresa de Lauretis' "Re-Thinking Women's Cinema: Aesthetics and Feminist Theory," watch Todd Solondz Palindromes (2004) +and Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames (1981), and address the following questions: How does Born in Flames "inscribe the differences among women as differences within women"? What is the difference between the collective singular protagonist of Palindromes, and the collective protagonist of Born in Flames? What might Mark Wiener's speech near the end of Palindromes say about Difference? Feminism? Fate? What might it say about Woman's (capital "W") plight? How is Palindrome's bildungsroman shattered? How is it consistent? What might this say about womanhood? What narrative parallels/opposites/palindromes exist in Palindromes? Consider the concepts of Choice, Life/Re-birth/Killing. How are both of these films a product of their historical moments? How do each of these films implicate their audiences? Who is their audience? Why does that matter? (There is much attention paid to this concept in the latter half of the assigned essay--be sure to use this text in answering this question). How does each film's cinematic structures affect its feminist implications? Tones? What exact images did you find particularly disturbing, meaningful, refreshing, unusual? What might this imply?

Your Limbs Will Be Torn Off in a Farm Accident from Zachary Schomburg on Vimeo.

I have some poems in a thing called Heartbreaker. 

Sometimes when I am sitting still, I decide to read my David Shrigley book. But I only have the one, so I keep rereading it. When I get to the end of it, I wish I had another one I could read, but then I don't ever get another one. If you have one, let me know. Maybe I'll come over and read it. 

Check your Small Press Points in your current issue of Poets and Writers. Kevin Larimer gave Octopus Books some attention for its subscriptions. See how cool we are? Now get to subscribin'. 

Upon last night's walk home.

I tell you, I'm huge in Brazil. Huge. Here are some poems translated into Portuguese by Brazilian poet, Renato Mazzini.

I don't speak a lick of Portuguese, but I was a bit concerned when I re-translated "Islands in the Black Night" back into English on Babelfish, one of the lines read: "Some man-bomb was giving returns in the bathroom."

"The horror of death, the pantomime of the beyond, the total breakdown of the most beautiful intellect in dream, the tower of Babel, the mirror of inconsistencies, the insuperable silver-splashed wall of the brain, all these startling images of human catastrophe are perhaps nothing but images after all." 

from Andre Breton's Second Manifesto of Surrealism

A few weeks ago, Kate found an old notebook of mine with a bunch of poems I wrote between 1997-2000. I thought these poems were lost. There are a few I hardly remember writing at all. I typed up a couple of them to show you what I was doing 10-12 years ago. 

THE HISTORY OF THE DINOSAURS

At some point I read a book on the history
of the dinosaurs. I was in a park.
I was about to flip through the last several
pages. A group of young boys on bicycles
began throwing rocks at me. One rock
hit me in the head and I lost consciousness.
I awoke to watch two trains collide
from my airplane window at 7000 ft.
Everybody else on the plane was asleep.
I checked the news broadcast on the hotel
television but found nothing. I’m living
at sea and my ship is being buried
beneath high waves. The sun has been
replaced by a giant electron.



THE GARDENER FOUND THE FIELD WHERE ALL THE POLE-VAULTERS HAVE BEEN HIDING

There is a thumping of mattresses
behind the brick wall.

The dry flowers think
they hear thunder.

The gardener thinks
he hears his mother’s heart.

He spreads the wall’s ivy
with his soil-rimmed

fingers and places his ear
to the brick.

His flowers will have to be patient.
The gardener will be too busy

building a ladder
from some scattered

aluminum poles half-buried
around the garden.



BEEKEEPERS, ASTRONAUTS, ETC

It’s as if these men
have been replaced—
the beekeepers, the astronauts, etc.
Let’s call for them
by the train load
pack them into cars
and drive them back
to suburbia by the thousands.
From now on,
let’s have our children
settle disputes with yardsticks
and colanders rubber-
banded to their faces.
I know, let’s teach America
to weld again.

Today, in my film class, we're going to talk about what Ripley and Joan have in common.

Love is When You Build a Boat Out of All the Eyelashes in the Ocean from Zachary Schomburg on Vimeo.

Well, thank you. That's nice. 

Thanks for your help with the viewing list on my Women in Film syllabus. Here is an updated version.

Primary in-class viewing: 

Pantomime Lesbienne (Alice Guy,1900) 4 mins; Feministe! (Alice Guy, 1906) 20 mins; A Fool There Was (Frank Powell, 1915) 67 mins; The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Dreyer,1928) 82 mins; Morocco (Josef Von Sternberg,1930) 91 mins; Blonde Venus (Josef Von Sternberg, 1932); Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931); King Kong (Merian Cooper, 1933) 100 mins; Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming,1939) 103 mins; Dance, Girl, Dance (Robert Wise, 1940) 89 mins; Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943) 20 mins; Swing-Shift Cinderella (Tex Avery, 1945) 10 mins; The House of Tomorrow (Tex Avery, 1949) 11 mins; The Marrying Kind (George Cukor, 1952) 92 mins; Skyscraper (Shirley Clarke, 1960) 20 mins; Children’s Hour (William Wyler, 1961) 109 mins; Darling (John Schlesinger, 1965) 128 mins; Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1970) 109 mins; Ciao! Manhattan (John Palmer, 1973) 91 mins; Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973) 99 mins; Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1975) 97 mins; Coal Miner’s Daughter (Michael Apted, 1980) 125 mins; The Willmar 8 (Lee Grant, 1981) 55 mins; Not a Jealous Bone (Cecilia Condit, 1987) 10 mins; She’s Gotta Have It (Spike Lee, 1987) 84 mins; Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1988) 119 mins; Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989) 99 mins; Aliens 3 (David Fincher, 1992) 144 mins; Chasing Amy (Kevin Smith, 1997) 113 mins; Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Pierce, 2000) 116 mins; Filming Desire: A Journey Through Women’s Film (Marie Mandy, 2000) 60 mins; Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, 2001) 83 mins

Secondary recommended viewing: 

The Merchant of Venice (Lois Weber, 1914), The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937), Olympia (Leni Riefenstahl, 1938), Dark Victory (Edmund Goulding, 1939), The Women (George Cukor, 1939), The Wicked Lady (Leslie Arliss, 1945), Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946), All About Eve (Joseph Mankiewicz, 1950), The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953), La Strada (Frederico Fellini, 1954), The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman, 1960), Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), The Connection (Shirley Clarke, 1961), Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962), Suzanne’s Career (Eric Rohmer, 1963), Charulata (Satyajit Ray, 1964), Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964), Daisies (Vera Chytilova, 1966), The End of August at the Hotel Ozon (Jan Schmidt, 1967), I am Curious: Yellow (Vilgot Sjoman, 1967), Belle du Jour (Luis Bunuel, 1967), Marketa Lazerova (Frantisek Vlacil, 1967), My Night at Maud’s (Eric Rohmer, 1969), Claire’s Knee (Eric Rohmer, 1970), Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jires, 1970), Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971), Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Martin Scorcese, 1974), Martha (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974), Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974), Seven Beauties (Lina Wurtmuller, 1975), 3 Women (Robert Altman, 1977), I Spit on your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978), In a Year with 13 Moons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978), Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1978), Killing Us Softly (Margaret Lazarus, 1979), Norma Rae (Martin Ritt,1979), City of Women (Frederico Fellini, 1980), Private Benjamin (Howard Zieff, 1980), Nine to Five (Collin Higgins, 1980), The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (Connie Field, 1980), Ms. 45 (Abel Ferrara,1981), The Decline of Western Civilization (Penelope Spheeris, 1981), Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982), Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983), Silkwood (Mike Nichols,1983), Mr. Mom (1983), Yentl (Barbara Streisand, 1983), Lianna (John Sayles, 1983), Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman, 1985), Working Girls (Lizzie Borden, 1986), Desert Hearts (Donna Deitch, 1986), Salaam Bombay! (Mira Nair, 1988), An Angel at my Table (Jane Campion, 1990), Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991), Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (Leslie Harris, 1992), A League of Their Own (Penny Marshall, 1992), Basic Instinct (Tom Curran, 1992), It Wasn’t Love (Sadie Benning, 1992), Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994), Antonia’s Line (Marlene Gorris, 1995), Welcome to the Dollhouse (Todd Solondz, 1995), Waiting to Exhale (Forest Whitaker, 1995), The Watermelon Woman (Cherly Duyne, 1996); Virgin Suicides (Sophia Coppola, 1999), American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000), Audition (Takishi Miike, 2000), Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Pierce, 2000), Filming Desire: A Journey Through Women’s Film (Marie Mandy, 2000), Ophelia Learns to Swim (Jurgen Vsych, 2001), The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2001) Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001), Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001), Bridget Jones's Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001), Lovely & Amazing (Nicole Holofcener, 2002), Secretary (Steven Shainberg, 2002), At Five in the Afternoon (Samira Makhmalbaf, 2003), Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July, 2003), A Very Long Engagement (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2004), Thirteen (Catherine Hardwicke, 2004), Monster (Patty Jenkins, 2004), Lady Vengeance (Chan Wook Park, 2005), Sisters of ’77 (Cynthia Salsman Mondell, 2005), My Summer of Love (Paul Pavlikovsky, 2005), Memoirs of a Geisha (Rob Marshall, 2005), Billy the Kid (Jennifer Venditti, 2007), Alexandra (Alexnder Sokurov, 2007), 4 Weeks, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Cristian Mungui, 2007), Sex and the City (Michael Patrick King, 2008), Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, 2008), I've Loved You So Long (Philippe Claudel, 2008).

Hey, Svalina-heads: Play, Mathias' new book from The Cupboard is available (very soon). Why order when you can pre-order? Pre-order is the new order.

My mom gave birth to me exactly 32 years and 52 minutes ago. And now, here I am. 

Two photos I took of my friends Riley and Will just after my 20th birthday when my mom bought me a nice camera. 

You now have exactly one month to finish your manuscript. Join that poem-a-day poetry month poetry writing group, save $10 by cutting out one coffee-shop coffee each week this month, and send us a manuscript we can't refuse. Check it.