Eva Moe

Author: Eva

  • A.E. Housman notebook poem

    It’s been a while since I wrote here and I’ll tell you why. JOBS. Two of them.

    This is newly written, and like my earlier stream of consciousness poem, I took a whole page and threw out some words.

    here’s a legible version:

    I to my perils
    came not like A.E. Housman
    clad in armor by stars benign.
    I swam to them in my PJs
    water logged, hair kinked
    and trouble was a bonfire.
    I was the mosquito and the jet was my blood meal.
    Whoever shaved before 8th grade wished too hard for time to pass
    and passing is the great curse and gift of prickly knees.
    I dragged myself through marshes by tufts of leg hair
    to which I gleamed a shining eye to Hope
    I’d not trifle with a fleeting love
    or mad money and me, the poet,
    the victim of my own desires.
    If I was a better friend, the last line
    would have been my own design.

  • My 12 Steps for Poetry Writing

    Below is a stream of consciousness poem I wrote an hour ago. Lots of imagery potential here! Today I thought I’d share how I usually approach poem writing.

    1. Write rough cut in pen or marker
    2. Run away from it! It needs time to rest.
    3. Look at it with an unbiased mind
    4. Say “hey this isn’t so bad”
    5. Say “except this right here is awful”
    6. Subtract
    7. Run away again
    8. Read it aloud
    9. Fine tune
    10. Publish or
    11. Put it away until I run out of ideas
    12. Return when I’m a better writer and revise

  • Advice for Recent College Graduates

    Congratulations, 2017 college graduates! [and high school graduates and all the other graduates but this post is specifically for college grads] It’s been a long journey for all of you, and I know you just want to rest, and you might already have a dozen people lined up to give you advice. But if you don’t, here’s mine:

    1. Take a f^cking break. You’re probably exhausted from running on fumes writing shitty papers and teaching yourself advanced math for the past 4+ years. Get outside and remember the smell of strawberries, Mr. Frodo.
    2. Get a student job. Not a career job, not a job that requires 3 years of experience (which you won’t have) and willingness to stay at the company for at least one year (you won’t have this either). NO. Get a college student job. Like a barista or a waitress or take a job with a temp agency. Anything temporary that you don’t have to make a lasting commitment to because…
    3. You need to TRAVEL. Where are you, the USA? Take a trip to Canada or Mexico, whichever’s closest. Never been to NYC? Go there. Never been to NOLA? Go there. Are you in Auckland, New Zealand but haven’t been to the south island? GO THERE! Go somewhere you’ve never been before. I suggest traveling solo because you’ll learn a lot more about yourself and the world this way. You’ll find everything you need to know about travel at NomadicMatt.com.
    4. Avoid career traps. You know how one of your parents, or an aunt or uncle is trapped in their cubicle job? That’s going to be you. If you’re in the USA, you’re supposed to get a career job right out of college with a big company whose CEO has never heard of you. Or, you can run the other way into the arms of a small company who will watch you grow and help you achieve your ultimate goals. This is starting to sound like advice for myself…
    5. READ A BOOK because now you have time! Were you supposed to read Lord of the Flies by William Golding in high school but used spark notes instead? Read it now. Or read something super fun.
    6. Learn more Spanish. Sorry, that one’s for me. But if you don’t know any Spanish and you live in the United States, you better hit up duolingo right now. I’m sure you already know 30 Spanish words, but learn 30 more. Take your new knowledge across the border. If you’re fluent in Spanish, learn Mandarin Chinese. If you’re fluent in Mandarin as well, you’re cooler than the rest of us so stop reading advice blogs.
    7. Finish that project. You know, THAT project.
    8. One more thing. Don’t spend all your free time seeking advice and taking dozens of personality quizzes online. You can’t know who you are by reading. You have to do something. Make something, go somewhere, put yourself in a position that requires decisions. You know enough about yourself In Theory. You need to know about yourself In Practice.
    9. That’s it. Leave me now, I must rest.

  • Star Wars Viewing Order for Newbs!

    Today is a special day. May 4th. Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you! To celebrate, I wrote a Star Wars post. If you’ve never seen Star Wars, this post is for you. Surely there have been many people telling you which order they think is best to watch them in. Here’s the order I’d suggest to a newcomer.

    Episode 4: A New Hope
    Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back
    Episode 6: Return of the Jedi
    Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
    Episode 2: Attack of the Clones
    Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
    Episode 7: The Force Awakens
    Rogue One

    “Wait, you mean 456, then 123, then 7? Then a movie that isn’t an Episode? What?” Yes, that’s the order they were released in. If you’re going to get into Star Wars, the Release Order is the best way to go. This is the order that all original fans came to love that universe by, and it should be celebrated. Some people will tell you to watch them in the storyline order. DO NOT DO THIS! You get the least interesting 3 films first, and the true spirit of SW LAST. NO!

    Now, for anyone who doesn’t want to watch all the movies and simply wants a gist for what the universe is, watch Episode 4: A New Hope. You get the original whiny Luke and his power converters, Leia and Han in their prime (plus Chewy, R2-D2, C-3PO and YODA) and the story that started a franchise.

    For anyone who just wants to see a cool action movie, watch Episode 7: The Force Awakens. It’s new, the graphics and sound design are spot on, and it’s a lot more racially balanced than the previous films. We get to watch Oscar Isaac AND John Boyega. Plus, John Williams’ brilliant score.

    Rogue One can be appreciated by anyone who hasn’t seen Star Wars before, but it’s best for fans. For example: blue milk. Anyway, Michael Giacchino’s score is not Classic SW but it’s still good. I mean, he also scored the TV series Lost, Pixar’s Up and Ratatouille among many many others. Still, the iconography isn’t the same. Watch another one first.

    So you’ve seen all the films in order. Now what? When you finish Rogue One, go back and watch A New Hope. Rogue One is the story that happened JUST BEFORE A New Hope, and really ups the stakes of the 1977 film.

    This whole Which To Watch First problem is going to be even more complicated when the Han Solo movie comes out. But for now, I’m very much looking forward to Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. December 15th!

  • Running into Old Friends

    There’s nothing like running into an old friend to make you realize how behind you are. Today I saw an old friend [literally, last I checked he was 65 and that was a few years ago] who I hadn’t seen in a long time. He asked “so, did you finish your book?” And I wasn’t sure which book he was referring to, because there have been so many. But my answer was “no” because I haven’t finished a single book in my life.

    B.O.O.H.O.O.

    That’s okay. I finished my application to the Poetry Foundation competition a few days ago and that gave me some much needed momentum. I mean, I finished something. I worked on that damn thing almost everyday for a month and a half and I finished! So, I’m getting back to work on Sort of Super. Maybe I’ll become addicted to finishing books and then I’ll be able to go through my collection of rough drafts and….

    yeah I’m getting ahead of myself.

  • Don’t Look Inward Whatever You Do

    Don’t Look Inward Whatever You Do
    Doug said to look inward
    but it’s winter there.
    He doesn’t know I can swallow a whole snowman
    and my belly stays fat until I go to the equator.

    The doctor put a stethoscope on my chest and said
    she heard a black hole purring.
    I worry science doesn’t know whether
    one comes back from that.

    Who knew Dr. L was also a court stenographer?
    She said Quiet Let Me Dictate
    I said Sure and heard
    “I know you in the black.
    In the caves between pixelated dreams
    I can steal you anytime”
    I said Shit Doc What Do I Do
    and she was like
    “don’t call me Doc”
    so I said, “just tell me how to fix this”
    and she hypothesized
    “if the core of your persona grows in a terrarium
    you should drink 3 buckets of water a day for a week to drown any evil roots”
    I don’t know where she got “terrarium” but long story short
    NASA’s bringing me down to Huntsville, Alabama on Thursday
    which is very far away from Doug.

  • College

    College

    The buttons on my blender told me
    Crush. Grind. Pulverize.
    I stuck my mind in and pressed all three.

    I left the lid off, can you imagine
    the kitchen ceiling?
    My clothes splattered with essays

    Essays splattered with me
    My roommates gave me the short straw
    and told me to suck it up.

    Remember in elementary when health teachers
    stuck coffee straws in your lips and said
    “that’s what it’s like to be a smoker”?

    Then you went to recess for the black lungs
    and mourned the loss of their monkey bar callouses.
    You hoped they could make it up the stairs.

    Then you went to college and wished you were still
    the swinging champion of your grade school
    but every time you test it, voltage shakes your ankles

    When you die they’re gonna put you on a big ole sling shot
    They’re gonna pull you back, aim
    and shoot your body into quicksand

    where you will sink and drown. It will be so shitty
    that the lightning buildup in your legs will flip the switch to your brain
    You’ll open your eyes (you dummy!) and kick your feet

    like a dolphin you’ll shoot straight up from the surface.
    Summer air will suck the sand from your nostrils like sugar,
    and a classmate will ask for an extra pencil.

  • UPDATE: I’m now at www.evamoe.com !

    Hello All!
    I just updated my domain name from blankfirstpage.wordpress.com to www.evamoe.com. The blog is still Blank First Page, though!

    Sincerely,
    A More Professional Eva Moe

  • Audio: Hip Violence – lofi demo

    Hello everyone,
    I recently recorded this song: Hip Violence. I started writing it about 4 years ago under the working title “Monster Monster”. I finally finished the lyrics, which changed the meaning of the song a bit. Thus, new title.

    In this recording, I experiment with violin and melodica overlays. Because I recorded it with garageband and a simple microphone, it’s not top notch studio quality. There are times when you can hear me press the melodica keys, which drives me nuts. When I finally record this for my album, I will amend that. I’m thinking about adding bass and drums, like in my more popular song, Magic Trick, but I’m not hung up on the idea.

    You can find my other demos on www.soundcloud.com/eva-moe.