Woman of Claims

MSA this weekend.  Millay paper went excellently -- the panel wasn't well-attended, but we were up against I think three other poetry panels, all on more major authors than ours, and it turned out that David Chinitz had been one of my copanelists' undergrad advisors, so he showed up, which means I got to give a really cool paper in front of a youngish heavy hitter in my field.  Our panel overall hung together really well, which is not always the case, and all the papers were strong.  Audience was into it, too.  Actually, probably the most interested, enthusiastic audience I've ever spoken to, even though there were like ten people in it.  I need to go get famous so I can have more people being all excited about the things I'm excited about.

The comments I got were primarily along the lines of thanking me for providing such excellent readings of the poems, which is great.  What that means is that my paper came across as illuminating facts people hadn't noticed before, rather even than making an argument, when it was not only making an argument but making a fairly extreme one.  My stance is essentially that Millay's formally perfect sonnets are as aesthetically innovative as the Poundian free-verse strike against the metronome.  I even said that toward the end.  And, still, people were like, "oh, yes, I never saw that, thank you for showing it to me," not even like, "wow, that's an interesting idea, thank you for putting it out here to think about" -- which would have been more than satisfactory!  Of course I think I'm right, but I think I'm right about all sorts of loony things.  Having one of my loony ideas come across as correct at the level of appearing to be a fact to other smart, informed people -- that's pretty swell.  With some development of the context and slightly more attention to the (incredibly small) pool of criticism on Millay, I think it'll be a good article.  And that is well-timed, it turns out, even though writing the talk represented a big detour during my Last Ever Dissertation Month, because it will give me a project where the thought is already laid out, and where I have a wind of encouragement at my heels, to carry me beyond what still feels like a funereal act.

Last Dissertation Month itself is going all right.  Tired.  Wow am I tired, and I'm only going to get more so, but I banged out an entirely new, much, much, much better chapter on Spicer and now I'm going through Eliot to see if I can get that down to about 60-65 pages.  Needs an intro and conclusion, needs signposting, needs some things trimmed.  Spicer will need an intro and conclusion.  Crane still needs more substantial work but I was on kind of a "skygack or girder-jack" tear for a while and got lots laid out on him that I should be able to shape and extend well.  Plus, Crane, thank goodness, is all about The Bridge for me, without this career-surveying thing I'm doing with both Spicer and Eliot.  Remind me not to do this again until I have a job and the accompanying license to write single-author books.  Or not to do it at all.  I was drowning in Eliot earlier this year, really just drowning.  With Spicer, it's more like stretching myself over a great tract of territory, I suppose because he writes about distance and Eliot writes about drowning.  The criticism starts to feel like the poetry, too, though.  Anyway, Crane is so blessedly much more focused.  I want to shape Eliot, do the on-ramp and off-ramp for Spicer, so that everything will be done but the one chapter, and then go to the rest of Crane.  It's still a project and I have mere fleeting weeks to get it done, but I think it will be possible.

Barring crisis.  Crisis is always a possibility when it's my life, but one does what one can, and at the very least, I can forge on until crisis strikes, if it does, and reschedule my defense if necessary.

Yes, the defense is scheduled -- room reserved, whole bit.  December first, which is numerologically fortuitious.  H.D. would be pleased.  Viz.:

12 / 1 == 1+2+1 = 4, the Moon/motherhood, feminine revelation of mysteries, intuition, fertility, generosity, stability (predicting a fascinating, affirming, supportive discussion, in this context); the Emperor in the Tarot, command and masculine power of law, another kind of stability; also the number to which my birthdate adds, so I consider that my lucky number;

12 / 1 / 2011 == 1+2+1+2+0+1+1 = 8, Uranus/expansion, exploration, the sky (moving; growing; i.e., getting a grown-up job), also the arts, alternative sexualities (which of course are all over my diss); Strength in the Tarot, which is a very gentle, flexible, fertile strength, the strength to give, not that which dominates; it's also a lucky number in many Asian countries, the number of legs Odin's horse has, and the number of white kitty paws in my house.  The total number of kitty paws in my house is 12.  Either way, I expect Bastet to be at my side, or winding back and forth around everyone's ankles, ensuring that the experience is magical and glamorous and purrworthy.

The prevalence of doubles, 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 suggests harmonious, very positive increase, as does the 8 + 4 = 12 sum; this suggests that the smaller and larger implications of the day support some greater structure together, rather than, say, undermining it or simply having no relation to it.  And, yes, you can spin these out in any direction, nearly infinitely.  I'm sure I could turn it all into combative 5s and painful, solitary 9s if I wanted, but I'm a pragmatic juggler of systems, and I'm only going to swing them around in ways that support my needs, in this case, to head toward this date feeling like I am going to win the academy, in the way that people are always claiming to win the internet.

I do sometimes wish this were a hundred years ago and I could obtain a doctorate in Occult Studies, but then I'd have to actually be in these things, the way I'm in poetry, and I have too much fun being an intellectual with an incongrously non-disparaging interest in these things.  I'd never want to give that up.  I guess I'm saying I wish I could get a PhD without having to be serious about it, and that wouldn't really work.

Anyway, Millay went well, and I've liked this conference generally very well -- no surprise, but it's the first time I've done MSA, so it's new, if far from unexpected.  Next year, it's in Las Vegas!  Gross, but if I went, maybe I could go meet the CSI people.  Don't tell me I can't.  Suspending the distinction between fiction and reality is the only way I get myself to keep writing and applying to jobs.