Appendix A: Notes from the 30

Unlike last year, I've offered all of this year's 30/30 efforts without any context, save for the occasional descriptive title. In part it's because I know you're smart cookies who will look it up (dear); in part it's because I'm lazy and easily distracted.

In the spirit of fair play, here's some glosses and notes. Poems were prompted by the NaPoWriMo unless otherwise noted.

1. "Old development" [unprompted] - An homage to Harbutowice, a weird unincorporated hamlet in my hometown. It's named for a village in Poland, and owing to either a nearby body of water or some X-Files shit, the sun appears to rise in the west there.
2. "Against The Waste Land" [unprompted] - Not much explanation needed. Title inspired by PSC's poem against Walk the Line, which is amazing.
3. "Darkness" - I double-checked to make sure that "milliseconds" is the right order of magnitude for a blink.
4. "Ectopia cordis" - Why it's "cordis" and not "cardis," I don't know. Blame wikipedia. The bit about the Gore-Tex myocardial sleeve is true (and extremely awesome, don't you think?)
5. "Uncles I didn't have/Poetry" - Ugh, writing an Ars Poetica with the word "poetry" in the title... sorry. I really don't have any uncles. Narragansett Beer is a New England thing; they just started making it again. Is Daffy's ("Clothing bargains for millionaires") an East Coast thing only? MCL = medial collateral ligament, an injury rarely mentioned without the preamble "season-ending."
6. "The moon on our terms" - The proper names are all real moon sites from the final manned Apollo mission. Moondust does smell like Cordite, according to those few who know.
7. "Blind date, coffee shop" - The actual date went even worse than portrayed here.
8. "Zippo" - Pretty straight-forward extended metaphor exercise. It may help to know that Vassar in my era was more than 60% smokers, so having a light was more than a Mad Men affectation.
9. "Pastime" - Heavily influenced by 16 Horsepower and (naturally) Perry. A bit stereotypey, alas. "Pleasant" was a real Appalachian men's name. "The Old Rugged Cross" would actually make a lousy hoedown song, I think, but it worked for the text.
10. "Life event, Beth Sholom" - The temple in Roslyn, NY. At least 50% of my maternal family's weddings and b'nai mitzot took place here.
11. "Dear pencil" - I prefer to chew pens.
12. "Nymphs and reapers heavily vanish" - from the famous dumbshow stage directions in The Tempest. "Blue Sailors" are a name chicory flowers. Doesn't "lanceolate" sound better than "sawtooth"?
13. "Poem starting with a line from Norman Dubie" - QED. I kind of cheat conflating Ursa Major and the Big Dipper. So many great prog-rock bands got the initial treatment--ELP, ELO... HP Lovecraft already had initials, so.
14. "Cleave poem for sleeping arrangements" - The allusory cat is Willie, who has only one eye, and is heavy as the philosphical rock so heavy God Himself cannot move it. A very annoying form, if useful in its way.
15. "Deadline" [Poetic Asides] - I'm not sure if that self-extinguishing cigarette paper is ubiquitous, but they wouldn't need it if there weren't so many accelerants smothering the tobacco.
16. "Cloves" - The "cloved lemon" game is a Renn Faire thing--the only thing that can render a kissing game less appealing.
17. "Ununseptium" - Element 117, pending whoever's in charge of these things giving it an official name.
18. "Referred pain" [unprompted] - Written on the train back from the Poetry Festival using an iPod Touch. A friend, Lillian I think, suggested I write this based on something I said offhand.
19. "Don't Look Back in Anger" - Based on a true story from Teachers College. A com is a Vietnamese food stand.
20. "As in 'vogue'" - Andy Moog, G, Boston Bruins. His poster hung on my door for the longest time.
21. "Phil. 4:13" - "I can do everything through him that gives me strength."
22. "Just mad about saffron" - I was reading Casino Royale and had to look up the rules of Chemin-de-fer Baccarat. (A natural 8 or 9 is an automatic win.) Vikruti-Lakshmi is a Hindi nature goddess-aspect. 
23. "A penguin considers the WTO protests, Seattle, 1999" - What the penguin was doing in Seattle, I'll never know.
24. "When in Rome" - Probably reveals my shocking ignorance of Los Angeles. Also somehow inspired by Ludacris.
25. "Please don't let me be misunderstood" - I feel badly for the glaring inaccuracy about bourbon-making: it's charred oak, but I sold out the facts to use the word "virgin." Tacky.
26. "Victory boogie-woogie" - ISO-9000 probably does have approved party colors. If you've never been through an ISO audit, count yourself lucky.
27. "Acrostic" - I really enjoy doing laundry, and tend to assign it overblown meaning.
28. "Among School Children 2: Electric Boogaloo" - A triolet. I feel that the "...2: Electric Boogaloo" construction should be used only by those who have, in fact, seen the Breakin' films.
29. "Cape Cod Vows to Avenge Death of Cajun Food Tradition" - A pastiche of NYT headlines. How a submarine restaurant would work is unclear to me.
30. "O Attic shape" - Going out on Keats, which is chintzy but shows some chutzpah, I think. The names in the first line are, all former city mayors. And I do like that the great Greek icon of NYC was designed by an Ashkenazi Jew.