A commemorative bench for my parents on the Constitution Trail, Normal, Illinois

As readers of this blog will know, until his paralysis in 2007, my father loved cycling, and the creation of the Constitution Trail in Bloomington-Normal was a great event for him. He cycled on it regularly and indeed, talkative man that he was, he also made friends there. After his death in 2009, I talked with my mother about arranging for a commemorative bench on the trail, an idea that really pleased her. When she died in 2011, I wanted to include her, too, somehow. The bench is located in Fairview Park. (If you click on the photo, it should enlarge.)

I look forward to visiting the bench when I'm next in town, probably early September.

"The Cult of the Eye" on the radio

This poem, once the title poem for my first collection, starts off a little overimpassioned in my reading here on WGLT's programme, Poetry Radio, but that's part of the character--and mine, admittedly. It originally aired in my hometown of Normal, Illinois on 8 February.

The Illinois Corn Festival, 23 August 2014

I timed my visit to my hometown to coincide with its annual corn festival and spent four hours there yesterday with my niece Ella.

 One of the two corn shucking tables

A pile of corn awaits shucking

 Ella with corn

Me with corn

A perhaps slightly more flattering photo of Ella, a sweet and spicy sixteen!

The next installment of my home visit photos will be of today's baseball game, in which my nephew Nathan Wallace plays second base &c.

 

Home without a home

I'm hours away from returning to my hometown, but for the first time in my life, for the first time in the 23 years I've been living away, there is no family home awaiting me. It's been sold, and if I'd been in a position to buy it, I'd have considered it seriously. I can't explain how strange it's felt throughout my journey, making my familiar trip but without the familiar destination.

Having missed the downstate bus by three minutes, I have almost four hours to wait for the next one. I used to wait it out in the dreadfully overlit and uncomfortable bus center, but at some point I ventured into the O'Hare airport Hilton en route and found their sports bar. I'm no fan of sports bars, but here they make a decadent Caesar salad and have Sam Adams on draft, not to mention the free wifi. It gives me my first chance to blog (read breathe) in weeks.

I'm only in my hometown for three nights and two packed days before heading to Chicago for the AWP conference. I've fit in a little poetry, though; my nephew Brandon has arranged for me to speak to Olympia Middle School's eighth grade on Monday morning. I'll read a little poetry and fiction and answer the students' questions. I suppose that's to say there'll be small space for mourning, though already I feel I'm teeming with that and so much else.

In that kitchen, a writing exercise (NaPoWriMo, day 25)

Three days of NaPoWriMo, I've begun anew an exercise I came across in a listserv's archives: Begin with "In that kitchen," continuing writing until you're stuck, and when you reach that wall, write "In that kitchen" again and continue accordingly for 10-15 minutes; this becomes the first draft of a prose poem. In my three pieces, the kitchen is always the kitchen at 220 Arlington Drive, Normal, Illinois, the kitchen I knew as my family's from the age of five, the kitchen I may not see again if the house is sold soon. I was surprised to feel how much a kitchen can be the axis of a family; I suppose ours especially, as it was connected to the garage on one side and was open to the dining room on the other. For those struggling with coming up with a poem a day, I strongly recommend the exercise and urge people to try it with the kitchen they knew in childhood: it's amazing what strands of relationships, family, place, and development arise and mingle.

Christmas 2009 in Normal, Illinois

My nephew Matt, 15 on the winter solstice

Brother-in-law Scott Cummings, showing his new Smoothie King gift card

My sister Sandra in her new motorcycle cap (not that she rides a motorcycle, mind you)

My niece Sara, 6, in a flurry of unwrapping

"Outside of Town" on Poetry Radio, WGLT

On the 15th my old poem, "Outside of Town," aired on the Poetry Radio programme of WGLT at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois. Clicking on the title of the poem will take you directly to the mp3 of my reading of the poem, on Poetry Radio to the details of the programme as a whole.

Normal, Illinois in literature

Thanks to Richard Lambert for bringing to my attention the following passage from Lorrie Moore's story, "Like Life":

"You had to get out of them occasionally, those Illinois towns with the funny names: Paris, Oblong, Normal. Once, when the Dow-Jones dipped two hundred points, the Paris paper boasted a banner headline: NORMAL MAN MARRIES OBLONG WOMAN. They knew what was important. They did! But you had to get out once in a while, even if it was just across the border to Terre Haute, for a movie."

I love it and would be glad to see more!