Troubled Guest

The Poem

2012-01-13T00:15:00.000-05:00

Home After a Long Hiatus

2011-10-30T20:36:00.000-04:00

Home:
it begins with an expulsion of air, then segues
into the sound of the universe;

the leaves here are already turning
shades of gold, red, igniting amber-blazed effigies
that burn brightly in the forest

and at the sides of roads.

I have never been away so long before.

Things have happened:
friends moved, couples
split. An aunt moved and split
and broke an arm in two places.

In one year, so much change...

yet so much is unchanged
that I wonder if time moved without
me at all;

men haven't forgotten, touching me
on a denim leg, letting innuendo drop
like drifting-down leaves
into smoldering piles.

Neither has the poodle forgotten,
her creamy topiary body greeting me at the door
as though I had just returned late with groceries.

Food tastes the same,
the restaurants serve the same dishes,
stores the same Made in China
rags posing as designer labels that they did before

I left.

But I'm certain there is something different...
a lens that colors the scenes, or a cloud that rolls
and covers,
then uncovers as it chooses, revealing

bits and pieces
that I had never before noticed.

I tell myself that this, like any weather system,
will pass soon enough,
and everything will look as it once did:
a whole unparceled painting,
a horizon that stretches just as broadly as ever,
a vastness that cannot be captured in photographs.

In the meantime, I move slowly,
tentatively,
just in case perspective has shifted
and the step in front of me is bigger than it looks,
even though I feel like leaping and skipping
and cruising several city blocks in one giant stride.

Home of Baggott & Asher & Bode: How Boot Camp -- Starting Tomorrow -- Might Actual...

2011-08-01T22:17:00.000-04:00

Home of Baggott & Asher & Bode: How Boot Camp -- Starting Tomorrow -- Might Actual...: "This is how it's going to work. 1. I'm going to give you some memory exercises every day. Basically, it's my firm belief that the dark fin..."

Submit Now!

2011-07-23T12:19:00.002-04:00

After a long hiatus, I've finally decided to start submitting again. Poetry, that is. I stopped because I had become disillusioned with so many of the print journals that published poetry. There seemed to be an attitude among certain editors and writers that praised poems that were basically incoherent, and the more incoherent the poem, the more praise was heaped upon it. Language poets ruled. Lately, I've noticed a lot of movement away from that sort of aesthetic, which I welcome gladly. Not that I look down on experimental forms; I'm only too happy to see people playing with words and language in new and interesting ways. It was more the attitudes of certain groups that I was dismayed by. As though poetry only belonged to an elite bunch of writers who had clearly been educated beyond their intelligence.

Poetry belongs rightly to everyone. Robert Frost understood that concept; he knew that poetry stirred the spirit and imagination of the common farmer as much as it did the college-educated man. His poems exist on two distinct levels for this very reason. Everyone can read his works and gain something from them, whether it be more a surface gleaning or a deep, nuanced understanding that comes from informed study.

I like the new movements that strive to put poetry in the everyday world, such as the one by poet, Agustina Woodgate, in Miami, who recently sewed lines of poetry by Li Po and Sylvia Plath into the collars of thrift store clothes as part of a campaign for the O, Miami Poetry Festival. I am also reminded of the title character in the Norwegian film, Elling, who sneaks his own poems into packages of sauerkraut in his town's grocery store.

Poetry did not have elitist beginnings. Quite the opposite. Poetry was enjoyed by everyone as they sat around the campfire or the hearth listening to epic tales or histories recited in verse form. Rhyme was originally used in poems as a mnemonic device; it's much easier to remember a long piece if it has rhyme and rhythm. The poetic form also adds power as it preserves; the very reason the Old and New Testaments are written in verse is to bring power to the words and stories they contain. If poetry did not have elitist beginnings, why should it have slipped into the dominion of the elite few for so long? At some point along the way, most readers found they no longer understood poetry, or could no longer relate to it. I'm happy to say that's no longer the case. The great equalizer of the internet has provided voice and medium to so many poets and readers of poetry that I can't imagine poetry ever again being usurped by professors and critics who feel so threatened by mass audiences that they have to confine the practice of poetics to their own small circles.

I welcome the deluge of poems on the internet that beg to be waded through, the guerilla poetry movements whose ranks I would gladly join, and all the new writers and readers of poetry who only prove my thinking that poetry is important and necessary to our culture. Not that my own poems will be a great boon to any of the new journals, but I want to be a part of it now. I want to submit, to play whatever small role I can, to make my own tiny contribution to poetry in whatever way I can.

The Red Shoes

2011-07-04T06:58:00.000-04:00

the first pair was different
she made them from found scraps
   pieced together carefully at night
she no longer minded being poor

then the gilded carriage came
   in its radiant glistenings
the old woman inside like a dried bean in her pod
with the carriage came duty and being quiet
   when the girl really wanted to hunt for more scraps

the first pair were tossed into the fire
   by the old woman
the inappropriateness of red shoes extinguished

the girl yearned for what she had lost
she dreamed of the red shoes
she longed to walk in brightness

the second pair were bought secretly
she wore them to church
   where the old woman became ashamed
the red shoes were forbidden to her
and they were hidden away

but the girl was resolute and devious
she found the hidden shoes
and wore them again

but now something was different
now her feet danced
or the shoes danced her feet
she could not stop
she was a marionette
   a wicked puppet on strings
   a foolish automaton
that wanted only to rest

but the shoes did not stop
they danced
all over town they danced
the shoes danced the girl
   until she thought she would die

she danced in front of a woodsman
she begged him to cut off the shoes
he struck but the buckles were too tight
they were bound around her feet like roots
she begged him to cut off her feet
he lifted his ax and she rested finally

shoeless
footless
the girl continued alone
once again she searched for scraps
and the things to be pieced together

no longer needing red shoes
no longer expecting golden carriages
hobbling
dragging herself
she scoured the forest for scraps left behind
by others who had also cast things aside

An Awakening in Three Parts

2011-06-27T06:34:00.000-04:00

One: a waiting

urgency seizes the girl
who listens with all her curiosity
to the flailing night;

the sky releases the scent of day
that it had been carrying aloft
and she breathes it in deeply,

as deeply as she is able to breathe.

Two: a revealing

of things kept under padlocked dread
flares like a sunburst;

the girl opens herself in time
to be struck by meaning
like an asteroid creating a canyon;

she holds herself open
with piercing deliberation;
her body floods with certainty.

Three: a releasing

of everything she once held
close sloughs clean her memory

frees mistakes that had lurked like a dog
with its tail between its legs
at the edge of exuberant woods

leaves her with only her corpse to ponder
and an emptiness ready to be filled.

Green Tara in the Cleveland Museum of Art

2011-06-13T02:29:00.001-04:00

Adder eyes
and breasts like colliding
planets,
she lifts one hennaed hand
in a mudra.
The gold hoops
almost touch verdigris shoulders
and a jewel-strung foot
rests the weight of wisdom
on a solitary
blossom.
Lips that might have imparted
their secrets to Mona Lisa
tell no tales, yet
Enlightenment is one step away
would surely be their words
if I only knew how to hear them.

A simple act

2011-05-30T12:11:00.002-04:00

I marvel at the eternal
genesis of the world
and of me: I am
   the center
through which everything po
   urs.

I am the observer;
   without me, the particle is silent.
Without me, there is nothing.

My gaze begins the rotation,
the winking in and out
of existence
thousands of times per second,
   the flux of subatomic activity
the only constant.

A thought is a step in evolution;
a single idea spawns galaxies.

My memoir is strung
in a double helix,
the sugars and amino acids
   that form my desires
spelling out my destiny in distinct letters.

The world is inside me;
I am inside the world.

A quantum leap is all that is required
of you
   now
to create the world with me,
   and you and I
will beget ad infinitum

the simple act of consciousness.

Shanghai, China

2011-05-26T02:50:00.002-04:00

(thanks to Diane Lockward for the writing prompt & Jason Shinder for the model "Jacksonville, Vermont")

Because I am not Asian, I have the skin of a page

that has spent its life between rigid covers.
Inside the pulp I am spellbound.

I cannot tell when a breeze reaches in and stirs

the atoms of the dust. Sometimes
an aiyi will bring the tea into my study.

Or the yellow leaves falling on the bare floor

are days beginning to bump against each other
out of their drifting quest. All the great novels I have known

have been suffocated by fog and the prostitutes crosing the street at night.

The Birds

2011-05-24T04:33:00.000-04:00

In Bodega Bay
they're not fussy chickens
that tell of the arrival
of chaos

and they came, the sky darkened
with beating wings
the power lines conquered

she said I want to go through life
jumping into fountains naked.

they descended in hordes
tearing flesh from limbs

I wish I were a stronger person
I'd love to be able to relax sometime
I'd love to be able to sleep

they came down the chimney
through the windows
tore through wood
through nerve

It's the end of the world
she said

the wings beat quickly
drowning out thought
and screams

even the hard-boiled knew
this was no accident
the sky flushed with black
with the fury

of the helpless suddenly
coming into control

the forgotten bringing the
lens back to their moment
in the spotlight

How to worship Diana

2011-05-21T03:47:00.000-04:00

Stand closely, quietly
underneath the quaking trees;
your emptiness
should deplete you.

Lady of Wild Creatures,
Queen of Heaven.

Contemplate your origin.

Listen to the wind above
as it excites the branches.
Smell the bark. The moss. The dew.

Do not brush butterflies away;
let them paint your hair
in phosphorescence.

Be luminescent.

Sing along with the wolf,
the wind, the dancing leaves.
Lie with the pine needles
in their prostrate humility.

Regard the moon.

Ask the light to bathe you.
Ask the dark to clothe you.
Ask nothing of Diana;
she has already given
you everything you need.

Aradia's poem

2011-01-19T04:01:00.003-05:00

They call my father dark,
yet his name is the opposite.
I am his hopeless earth-bound child.
My father stands tall in the background
of a childhood that only knows how to crouch.

His eyes glisten
like burning pools of water.

He listens.
He respects my opinion.
The leader of a revolt
that ended badly for everyone,
he still believes in free will.
His voice rises above the daily racket.

He is so very old now.

His hands bear the memory of war.
He showers me with truths
that cannot be rationalized away.
He encourages my individuality.
He tells me not to conform,
and, of course, not to submit.

He says the only way to lose
your soul is to give it away.

His exile is painful.
He is slandered daily.
He holds his head high.
He is not afraid of pride.
His memory is a light in a dark room,
a lucent flame that dances as though a window
has been opened.

Becoming Gertrude

2010-12-07T20:41:00.001-05:00

I will have a salon like Gertrude Stein,
and all the weirdness in the world
will belong to me;
it will be mine to open like a bat
mitzvah gift found twenty years too late.
I will wear a caftan and pour shiraz
into tall stems; the poets
will settle in one corner hoarding
the cheese platter, and the painters
will stare at white walls until we
are all quite dizzy.
My friend Alex will stretch himself
the length of the settee, asking,
So, would you do me?
I will still shake my head, even as Gertrude,
and direct him to the water closet.
The novelists will ask me how to end
their endless novels,
and I will have a ready answer.
I will be formidable as Gertrude
and large, and those who touch me
will be famous before they leave.
I know that she is dead, and the decade
deader still, yet I can't help wondering
how the fabric would feel against my skin,
the draping beautifully, covering only what
it needs to cover, silk of becoming Gertrude.

A Poem to Rania

2010-10-12T21:44:00.006-04:00

My paper is violet (no, not violent,
although maybe it should be that too),
and cheap, but my story is cheap.

Overheard in a poor palestinian village,
I stole it from a girl who had gotten married.
A young girl. How dumb, I thought,
why do you throw your life away?
How can you do such a thing?

I wanted to pull you away, but I didn't
like you well enough for that.
Your life is mine now; it belongs to me
lock, stock and barrel.

I write about you as though I own you.

Your long black hair is mine too,
your every feature, crooked uncertain smile,
girlish laugh. I've taken them hostage,
although without hope of ransom, I think, Rania.

You are no longer your own person.
I am in charge and you will go
through all the permutations I ask of you.
I am too lazy, though, to ask for much.

You can't deny the fact

2010-09-19T18:23:00.002-04:00

that I've been tired so long
the silver dollars from years
past don't even begin
to pay my allowance.
I am unaffordable
in my exhaustion,
the wall that separated
past and present worn
down to a nub, a glittery
pile of rubble that collects
only dust. You remind me
that I am expensive,
every coin in the world
a failure in precious metal:
in god we trust,
tiny letters defining mass
hysteria for future generations.
What's your point? Saying
that wealth accumulates
behind held-down eyelids
only tells me that you're not
willing to count and wrap
as those who've learned to delay
gratification might. After all,
it wasn't me who Lady Liberty
pointed to
as the mint pressed her spine
and rolled her toward uncertainty.
It was you, dallying around
the periphery like a collector of debts,
that the finger was meant for,
her omniscient gaze worth following
for those whose eyelids are still open.

On Writing Poetry

2010-09-03T15:15:00.001-04:00

Learning to write poetry is a lot like learning to draw. When you first start out drawing, you see a face. Okay, that's easy: a big circle with 2 smaller ones inside for eyes, and a semi-circle for a mouth. Voila! You have a face. Not so fast, my drawing teacher said. Look at the lines, the shadow, the light and the dark qualities of every inch of your subject. It's not a face, after all; it's just shades. You start at one corner of your subject, documenting painstakingly every shade variation. When you're satisfied, you can move on to another aspect. You continue in this manner until you have captured it all. Then you look again, and instead of having a few perfect circles on your paper, you have a good representation of the person sitting in front of you. The key is to NOT see it as a face while you're drawing it (because our brain wants to reduce the idea "face" into a simple symbol), but to pay attention to each detail in its turn. Once you've captured all the details, you relize that what you've drawn is your best friend's face (or the face of whomever you connived into sitting for you).

Learning to write poetry is the same. If you want to write a poem about the rain, for example, you can't just think "rain." If you do, your brain will reduce that image to a few succinct (and likely trite) words and images. Like "wet." And all the well-worn phrases you've heard people use about rain: a "sudden downpour." Instead, you have to focus on each aspect of rain, one at a time, never thinking "rain," but trying to see it as though for the first time. Isolate the senses involved and let each one speak for itself. What does it look like? Sound like? Taste like? How does it feel on your skin, head, your open palm? Document the rain as someone from another planet might. Capture the shading, the light and shadow, the lines as you would with a charcoal pencil. Don't let the left side of your brain get involved until editing time. Easier said than done, I know. But with practice, it gets easier. And you don't have to actually write a poem to practice. Just start noticing the details. Put words to these sensory details. And be patient. Trying to take it all in at once is how we get our left brain into the mix, and then it asses things up for us. Inch by inch, fill in the shadows, and the lines will eventually reveal the poem that was right in front of you.

Striking

2010-08-26T00:40:00.001-04:00

Echoes of striking hammers
bounce off metal walls,
the sparks of work continuing
into the darkness.

I am not satisfied.
The world ages quickly.

Love is a four-letter word
in this hole;
workers strive
not to notice how time
passes them by,
secludes them from the party
where tea is served
from gold-rimmed porcelain.

My time is short;
I will not wait for you
to hammer the cold metal
into a hot, morphing shape
that calls itself eternity.

The anvil's patina reflects
the number of things struck
upon its altar.
The count is staggering.

Once I knelt; submission
was inevitable.
I waited for the hammer to strike,
the fire to spread
between synapses and memory,
the pain that shapes
formless ore
into something precious.

Waiting for the strike
is illuminating;
the darkness splinters
into cold shards of light
and dark,
the knowledge
gained leaving no doubt:
I will not wait again.

Return of the Rider

2010-08-20T15:59:00.005-04:00

The girl breaks her silence;
after the fall from the polo pony,
the quiet entombed her,
holding her like a chained
demon from the light.
Now she sees the rain falling,
hears the drops pound the stable roof,
asks herself Where are the ponies?
The ponies are retired,
bridles left hanging on rusty nails
by unopened doors.
Her friends are gone;
they've forgotten what it feels like
to ride in the early air,
dew gathering on ankles, mud
speckling the hems of jeans.
No one remembers marriage
of horse and rider, two
becoming one machine
that propels forward
into gloom and into sudden light,
into trails that wind
through unknown trees.
The girl remembers. Days of birdsong
and brisk musty smells,
the will of the animal submitting
to your own,
patting the brown neck for encouragement
when wading through water or
sliding downhill in slippery rain.
She listens again to the rain,
the empty barn's echo throbbing
in her own temple.
It wasn't the same, coming back
after so long.
She wants to leave it all again,
let it lie and rot as she has, but can't
bring herself to let go
of the smell of leather, the touch
of the mane running through her fingers
like dark hesitant water.

The Empty Field

2010-08-17T17:52:00.005-04:00

The walls stand without a roof, the late
afternoon sun fixating bricks with a pallor
that means autumn is unpreventable.
Blackened beams crisscross the ground,
weeds growing up around the foundation
in place of shrubs and bedding plants.
Three steps lead nowhere. The sky beckons
with a sleepy watchfulness,
wind carrying the odor of charred wood
across the otherwise empty field.

Can wind also carry emotion, dense
suspicion or virulent fear?
Can it predict the outcome of years
of burning, the slow smoldering
that consumes walls, floors,
the memorabilia of youth?

The wind eddies these questions
as we search among the ruins,
toe aside the debris
of a life we never knew.
A bridge in the distance rumbles
as cars head home from dead-end jobs
and satisfying careers. Only the dead
understand that these are the same.
I choose a memento: a stick from
underneath the rubble, a reminder
of things past, dark and unforgiving.

The ruins merge with our visions of the future,
the sky growing darker by the minute,
our teenage brains clouded by dreams
of places other than Alpharetta,
of houses other than those burnt by madmen
or of those decorated by spoiled housewives.
We worship detritus, spoils,
things that have fallen away;
we avoid the building,
the planning and creation of things
that are as yet unblackened.

The sky watches us leave, the wind
telling us of things we cannot understand.
Of accidents, and murder, and fate.
The Porsche revs softly through the dust,
carrying us back to unended lives
that consume in their own flameless way.

The Battle of Brunanburh

2010-08-07T12:17:00.003-04:00

Ah, the days of grammatical gender and declensions. Definitely brings back memories....

Atlanta Queer Lit Festival: INtown Magazine Features Two ATL Musicians Perform...

2010-08-05T22:44:00.000-04:00

Atlanta Queer Lit Festival: INtown Magazine Features Two ATL Musicians Perform...: "Atlanta INtown features two local musicians in their recent The Sound of Intown music edition that can also be caught next month at AQLF's E..."

Summer Reading

2010-07-26T11:44:00.005-04:00

I think summer will always be the season of long leisurely reading lists. When I was a girl, I couldn't wait until summer vacation when I could go daily to the library and come home with my twelve books (all that they would give a child at one time) and spread them out on the floor. I liked to read at least two at a time, switching back and forth between chapters. You only had to read twenty-five books to get the summer reading certificate. I already had that accomplishment ticked off the first week out of school. I could hardly believe someone would reward you just for reading. At school, I was always getting in trouble for reading a book under the desk. During the summer, I could indulge my habit without fear of repercussions.

My reading list this summer has thus far been long and ecclectic, starting with Sidney's "Defense of Poesy" and ending (so far) on A.J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically. As usual, I've read fiction, non-fiction, essays, poetry, memoir. I like the variety of genre; I think I'd be extremely bored to do anything less. I have to say I really enjoyed Jacobs' memoir; his writing style is completely up my alley and the topic is fascinating to me as an agnostic. I've always considered religion a dangerous proposition, one that if taken to its logical end would trump individual freedoms. And I don't want to think of anything trumping individual freedom. Even if we are all going to hell.

Next up is Escaping into the Open: The Art of Wrting True by Elizabeth Berg, which I'm really excited about finding. I'm desperately in need of some writing motivation these days; with my first novel shelved indefinitely, I need to find enthusiasm for the current project, for which enthusiasm has been hit or miss. Someone told me that motivation doesn't happen on its own; you start a project and motivation follows. I'm just wondering, if that's true, how any projects get started. What compels us to begin something new? For Rania's Spring, it was the desire to tell Rania's story. At the moment, I think it's boredom, restlessness. I need something to work on. Something intellectual, that is.

Not that reading is an anti-intellectual activity (although it can be). The most anti-intellectual book on my current reading list is El Diario de Bridget Jones. I let myself read trash only if it's in a foreign language.

Back to the lounge chair by the pool with my book (metaphorically speaking, anyway; to really read by the pool will turn you into a sun-withered crone. On my last trip to Florida, I witnessed plenty of these creatures with their leathered arms and puckered eyes. Scary. So, I repeat, stay away from the pool with your book; try to find a nice cool indoor spot instead.). Now that I've broadcast my PSA for the day, I'm off to the sushi bar for lunch (with a book, of course).

NaPoWriMo Poem #27

2010-04-27T11:26:00.006-04:00

Xing

The sign is dreary, rusty
with a timeless age, a patina
of years that passed without notice.
It is a sign, I think, that most
people ignore.

Stop. Look. Listen.

Was it in a reel with a puppeted frog
that I first learned the axiom
that would keep me safe?

Over and over, it runs through my mind
like wheels clacking in rhythm.
I want to post it on telephone poles,
hoist it on a flag high above the streets.

Would it help if it were emblazoned in neon,
the cursive injunction part of the landscape of memory,
of willful consciousness?

If I screamed it, would it have meaning
beyond the sound of fricatives and nasality?
Would anyone notice that my face was red
from effort, that the consonants were fading
from around me at the rate of locomotives?

Stop. Look. Listen.

As simple as that, the words can be formed,
strung together and pronounced
like a mantra to a concrete god. An iron god.
A god who would have us think for ourselves,
questioning things they want you to take on faith.

While most watch for a sign from the heavens,
I watch the sign of delapidated metal,
the one becoming entwined with the strangling arms of kudzu,
the one that leaves to my own judgment
whether or not it is safe to cross.

NaPoWriMo Poem #22

2010-04-22T18:49:00.003-04:00

Reluctant Poem

It's another day in a fucking cruel month

and I'd much rather be kissing the long lines
of Dagny Taggart
than writing this damned poem

but some things can not be controlled

especially those concerning fictional
characters.
Unless, of course, it's your story.

For whatever reason,
it's rarely my story anymore —
laziness, obtuseness, or plain-assed refusal
inform my actions or the lack thereof.

So I slink along the mouldered pages,
lurking in a world of someone else's
creation: where trains arrive on time
no matter what the signal says.

I want to say:
Damn the train; damn the red signal;
damn the length and force and
beauty of the heroine

at whose feet I grovel
like a demented acolyte.

But, after all, I am a demented acolyte

and this is my problem as well as
the solution, and, too,
the very origin of the problem.

If I didn't stoop to pour libations
repeatedly,

who knows what things could be accomplished?

NaPoWriMo Poem #21

2010-04-21T15:02:00.005-04:00

Naïveté

How naive I was to imagine
we could just sit together at tea,
having cucumber sandwiches
and sliced strawberries,
and I would say as I curled
my pinky around the Royal Doulton,
So, tell me where the solution lies.

It turns out that the solution lies
in pretending
that everything is just fine,
and in leaving bear-hunting to
the shootists.

Meanwhile, the stench of bear
scat is oppressive; the summer
comes on quickly, the heat
a distinct disadvantage
for those wearing camo.

The strawberries swim in milk,
sage and mint blacken
in the boiling water.
The reports say to stay indoors,
but the ceiling fans are overtaxed
and the tea steams up the kitchen.

Instead, we sit in the open air,
flaunting the good china cups,
our arms lifted in mock salute
of the summer and bears
and the trials of imagination.

After a while, the smell is not
as noticeable; you can almost
forget about bears completely.
But you never quite do.
It's always in the back of your nostrils
like a former lover's scent
that you can't quite forget.

Charles Bukowski Interview

2010-04-20T16:44:00.000-04:00

NaPoWriMo Poem #20

2010-04-20T12:34:00.002-04:00

A Morning Like No Other

It had rained the night before,
the pounding drumming up
dankness and yellow rivulets
running across stepping stones.
The herbs were hungover from
the ecstatic dousing, bashful
to raise their heads in the morning light.

The coffee steamed luxuriously
in her mug (a Lockheed C-5
Galaxy hurtling across its creamy front).
A sulphurous poodle slept at her feet.

This is a morning like no other,
she said. She said it aloud, exactly
as she did every morning, certain
that all the creatures in her garden
would understand what she meant.

She knew if this moment lasted
forever, it would pass into the ordinary.
Another thing to lament and relegate
to the pile of inconsequential memories.

Rising, she forced herself into the morning
as conscientiously as a monk raking
patterns into sand; this was her duty,
to preserve moments as others might
preserve a species, or money, or love.

She preserved time, and in exchange,
time expanded indefinitely, seconds
becoming stars, minutes galaxies
through which she plummeted,
a single morning slipping into eternity.

NaPoWriMo Poem #19

2010-04-19T00:06:00.000-04:00

Mommy Was a Cougar

My dad knew; of course he did.
He told me she was crazy; I couldn't deny it.

It was surprising only in the extremeness of it:
There was a reason her friends called her Norma Jean;
he was almost effeminate in his youth and slightness.

She asked me to take them to an art show downtown
to satiate his quest for Waterhouse, Romantics.
I walked in front of them, my head down, staring
at the sidewalk, afraid to turn around, to
catch his eye, to see them glancing
at one another.

My boyfriend laughed when I told him.
Post-menopausal hormones were mysteries
that we joked about at night; I imagined an animal
with unhinged jaws swallowing huge prey.

He was nearly our own age, bearded and thin.
He collected postcards and lived for antique shows.
My father worked on his car. For free.
My mother swallowed him whole.

We made fun of him, of both of them,
until one day he was gone.
As quickly as he was a part of my life,
he disappeared from the daily routine.

How glad I was, I remembered, that his pale
fingers with the long dark hairs were gone,
that thumbing through a file drawer of
postcards would no longer be a task
I'd have to witness.

My mother stared at the television,
wrote in a journal, and forged tears
at the corners of her eyes.
As always, I pretended not to notice.
Pretended not to care.

NaPoWriMo Poem #18

2010-04-18T20:51:00.003-04:00

So I fell off the wagon; I'm trying to climb back on board. It's really hard for me to write anything approximating a love poem, but here's an attempt for today's poem.

Afterwards

Would you tarnish his memory
because it hurts to remember?
Would you say to yourself,
He wasn't interesting enough
or His smile was crooked?
No: You will hold his memory
like a gift, beautiful and unopened.

Because he isn't here to love you,
would you tell yourself he never
loved you enough?
No: Instead, you fill your heart
with his words; once, his dreams
of happiness became your dreams
because you desired the world
to be his gift to open.

Against the changing seasons,
against those who beg for attention
and those who would have you forget,
you defend the memory of him.

You will guard the pain itself,
making certain that it never fades.
The pain is a badge you wear,
proof that your heart fills and empties.

Against all advice and wisdom,
you will keep his memory
as you would an oath,
as a promise you might have made
underneath a wisteria arch.

No matter what happens,
you will keep the memory ready
like a jagged and rusty knife
to slice open the moment,
no matter how long
the pain breaks over you,
no matter how your shoulders heave
with the weight of the remembered.

NaPoWriMo Poem #10

2010-04-10T16:34:00.004-04:00

To abide by what was written
in my childhood book of dinosaurs,
to follow a long path without diversion,
was never in the cards for me.
A peripatetic heart and uncertainty
pulled me down divergent ways.

Meandering among the sciences
I failed to see the clear answer:
that every day without a question
is a day wasted.

It’s like a child going into a candy
store and being gobsmacked by all
the sugary confections and jawbreakers:
taking a pocketful of this and a handful
of that is never very satisfying.

It’s hard to turn 40 knowing that your
own heart strategized your capture
and that villainy lives in your deepest
imagination of yourself.

Picture yourself a scientist: Are you successful,
or do you dwell in the margins of your journals,
hide between the covers of other writers’
books?

Can you justify the years of thinking about thinking?
Too much planning only holds in suspension
what must eventually be released.

To release, to grow large under the curious
sky, to evince mastery through repetition:
These are the reasons for moving forward
on a path regardless of the fascinations
that surround you, the endless fresh questions
that may or may not culminate in truth.

To give in to only one form of knowledge,
to let it grasp your hand and pull you forward,
to wade into the depths of its unfolding mysteries,
was to deny the spirit of everything else.

Sacrifice for sacrifice. It was impossible for all
postulations to be true, illogical to think that
what a five-year-old wrote in the cover of a book
should be important one day, and crazy to think that
I could sit quietly in the impossibility of knowing.

NaPoWriMo Poem #9

2010-04-09T21:55:00.002-04:00

Life Imitates Buffy

It was months before I was comfortable
sleeping in her house.
At night I would walk through
quietly, imagining her green eyes glowing
from every dark corner.
She wanted to take me with her,
to be a slave to her loneliness,
to chauffeur her around from one
hellhole to another, to push between
her ribs when the air ran out.

I avoided the halls, the corner
between the dining room and master:
a small nook where anyone could be
trapped if he were to run into a green-eyed
snake demon bitch.

If she hadn't been happy in life,
she surely wouldn't be in death.
It was inevitable: She'd come back
to complain, to hound,
to spread guilt like blown dust.
She'd come back with those glowing
snake eyes, and there'd I'd be —
skulking thorugh her house,
standing in her kitchen at 3 am
making a sunflower butter
and grape jelly sandwich, or
waiting by the microwave,
smiling and saying, Here,
bitch, have some popcorn.

How my brother slept soundly
in the master suite I'll never know.
Maybe he never felt her cold fingers
around his neck, was never haunted
by glowing eyes. No, he has a different
memory. Don't they always?

I sleep better now.
I've exorcised her spirit with Clorox
and the ritualistic passing of vacuums.
I wish Buffy were here to say
some snarky thing that would wrap
it up cleanly, but I guess it's never
that simple in real life. Or,
for whatever reason, that funny.

NaPoWriMo Poem #8

2010-04-08T23:31:00.003-04:00

She floats past the rice paper
screens, setting the plates
in front of us; our hunger
is great: the papery-thin flesh
of ginger, the heat of wasabi.

The cherry blossoms on her
crimson robe undulate across
her breasts; she smooths her gold
scarf with both hands and leaves
us alone with our hunger.

The paper cannot be ripped away
from the chopsticks quickly enough.
The paper lanterns sway overhead
as though a breeze blew
through the shop that used to be
a Subway.

My lips form prayers of thanks
to the sushi chef who speaks
Chinese to his wife.

The flavors meet on our tongues,
merge, become one.
Our chopsticks work furiously
to grab one more morsel.
And another. And another.

When it is over, we glance
for the silk waitress, but she
is staring at the flatscreen.

We glance at one another
but it is too soon to know
the consequences. The
cherry-blossomed breasts
return to clear our mess,
and we stare, momentarily,
at the stilled lanterns
before venturing back out
into the just-emptied evening.

NaPoWriMo Poem #7

2010-04-07T23:18:00.000-04:00

the world is flat and
made of chaos

the horses kick up dust
and treasures lay waiting
like blissful virgins

who could name all the discrepancies of the bible

and the wretched catholics crying
over their crusty bread

selling relics of relics at roadside
bargaining tables
soldiers of the just war buy them for
guidance

the muslims and the jews
sell their own bit of history
in back alleys

everyone is right

in days before logic
every event is a sign
a bird falling from the sky
a cow's sour milk

the promises of popes
lie trampled underfoot

Mongols Hussites Slavs
lie trampled underfoot

everyone is wrong

gods and demons
jinn and angels

a rock is a rock
and the world is flat
and made of chaos

NaPoWriMo Poem #6

2010-04-06T23:02:00.001-04:00

One Day in Photography Class

When the half-naked man erupts from the
idling Datsun, the only barrier
against the chilly morning is his red
sweatshirt and worn running shoes. He chases

the three girls who had been taking photos
using meticulously-made pinhole
cameras. They run across the campus
asphalt of the parking lot, dart through beds

of unawakened azaleas and pines;
two of them are laughing, happy to be
relieved of the boredom that had stifled
their hilarity all winter morning.

The third girl does not laugh; she carries a
chair like a shield against her wool sweater,
her dark ponytail swinging behind her,
taunting the strange chaser who finally

turns around. They talk about it all day:
the engorged penis that wouldn't fit in
any orifices they had, the ruined
photos, the scuffs on shoes and one elbow

where tree bark had ripped open a long gash.
Even Mr. Hamilton laughs after
trying so hard not to, his face reddened
and sucked in against the bubbling of

an outburst. The boyfriends laugh when they're told
at lunch, but their eyes look away, try to
find something harmless to fix their gaze on.
Surely what they had would fit anywhere.

It was just like a tree trunk, Lara says,
and the girls convulse with laughter again.
The boys try to laugh just as hard but it
is becoming difficult to pretend.

That night, two of the girls will sleep soundly,
their energy burned off by all the jokes;
the girl with the ponytail lies awake
and wonders about things: Why hadn't she

dropped the stupid chair, and why couldn't she
laugh it off the way the other two had?
She knows she is different, disfigured
even, and tired of endlessly running

from her own nature. She resolves to run,
instead, toward the things she can not control,
to confront head-on all the mysteries
that confronted her: the unknown chaser,

the discomfort of the boys around her,
the laughing girls, the unresolved feeling
that the future lies inside her like an
undeveloped film, ready for imprint.

NaPoWriMo Poem #5

2010-04-05T19:03:00.003-04:00

In the Shadow Grows the Truth

I exxonerated her from all they accused her
of: the oppressive heat, the wavering judgments
of what was sinful and what was necessary.

Taking my hand many times in her own,
she led me to see what she meant: that
times pass when the wrong becomes the
only way out, that sin and guilt are inventions

without necessity. The morning dew will dry,
or the grass will grow moldy; the waiting buds
will open, or they will dry and fall from the clutching stems.

The truth surpasses the imagination over
and over; the way she opened herself to me led
me to believe in secret paths and just-blossoming
gardens waiting behind thick hedgerows.

Even now, she makes me dream of the spot
where the three trees joined, growing over
the creek in their crooked shadowy way.

Crossing the wooden footbridge, her hand
in mine, she whispered: Even here

will you find me; even here, in the shadow,
there is no irony in desire.

She is forever exxonerated, forever free from
the repercussions of crime or love or
undefined curiosity. She told me once

that nothing matters except the moment
of truth, the moment when you know with
certainty what will become of the bud or the blade.

Her moment of truth is this: petals opening,
one by one, in a deliberate act, in the sunlight,
or even in the shadows. Petals tinted with first

blush, swabbed in dewdrops, soft and satin
and naked. Petals collecting around me, petals
falling and covering and surrounding me until
the truth of desire is as evident as the season it follows.

NaPoWriMo Poem #4

2010-04-04T22:21:00.002-04:00

I dream of houses: large houses with many
rooms, small houses with dirt floors, houses with
gilded staircases and high windows.

Castle, penthouse, cottage, shack.

Taking Jung's theory seriously
is not easy for me. There are too many
houses in my dreams, and they're always
so real. So real that I awaken to
tears that I should have to leave my dream.

I find it strange to feel nostalgia for places I've never been;

is this what my psyche cries out, that I've
never been home, that I'm lost in the world?
How many parts of myself are missing,
how many personas am I hiding beneath
the lazy facade?

Castle, penthouse, cottage, shack.

I long for myself, for my stifled abilities,
for tucked-away intellect, all replaced by
decades of blonde jokes and silence.

I long for the many hallways, the balconies,
the stuffed closets; I want the doors opened,
the attics explored, the floors swept clear of debris.

I dream of houses: houses with multiple levels,
with floorplans that yield endless surprises.
I dream of myself.

Castle, penthouse, cottage, shack.

NaPoWriMo Poem #3

2010-04-03T21:13:00.001-04:00

The fat cop doubted us. After all,
we were only teenagers, me with pink
hair and the four guys I hung out with
all nervous. He doubted what we were
doing at night behind the mall,
doubted our story that we were attacked
by redneck girls. Rich kids, bored,
horny, we waited for someone
to take us seriously. We waited for
the fat cop to write our story down,
to press charges against the girls
who jumped out of the pickup
to throw drunken punches. Instead,
he just looked at us, measuring us for
the spoiled teens that we probably were.
We should have been outraged by
the injustice, by the spiteful neglect
of middle-class law enforcement.
But we were ready to go back by then.
We retreated into manicured lives,
making jokes at the cop's expense, wondering
vaguely why redneck girls are always so angry.

NaPoWriMo Poem #2

2010-04-02T19:46:00.003-04:00

Alibi

The many minutes of my undoing
cannot be counted.
Most of them occured in the sink - the warm
water splashing me from behind
as he entered me from the front.

The moon was involved too.
Yes, the moon is to blame — long
before I took the oath of larceny
I earned the night's respect.
Watched over by shooting stars,

I held love like an afterthought.
The horizontal limits of dusk
softened into nothingness,
and the shovel waited patiently
in the trunk of my '76 Camaro.

The moon is most certainly to blame —
the gushing warmth, the knowledge
unfolding its great wings, the unexpected
caress of feathers that made me pretend
to not notice the blood running into the dark waiting soil.

NaPoWriMo 2010 & Poem #1

2010-04-01T13:37:00.005-04:00

Wow. It's April already. Time to take the NaPoWriMo pledge again. Okay, I'm going to try my hardest to write and post a new poem every day this month in celebration of National Poetry Month. I'm not promising any great metaphors or imagery (but I don't promise those things in my regular poetry, so what the heck?). Who was it that said if you sit down to write a poem, it's going to be crap? So much for letting the poem find the writer....

NaPoWriMo Poem #1

Hunting the Animal

I know ahead of time how this is going to turn out...
the sweat, the scratches on my arms from fighting the low-
hanging branches, the adrenaline rush, the stinging eyes...
It's never what you think it will be: You chase the animal
(this wild, majestic, beautiful-beyond-words creature), using
every wile, employing every ounce of strategy and knowledge,
but what is it that you end with? Something fugitive and wet
with tangled fur full of burs and blood, stripped of whatever
qualities you had sought so desperately. Do you really want
that hanging on your bleeding wall? Do you really want to display
your incompetency in mutilated forms, to say to any visitor who will
listen, This is the animal I caught, but it is not what I chased.?
Meanwhile, the carcasses leave a trail behind you,
but you cannot look at them long enough to toss them away,
to make space for the newly butchered.
After a while, you have to ask yourself: Is the animal even out there?
The one you dream about when the night finally quietens enough
that you imagine you can hear its heart beating?
Was it ever really there, like hope, or love, or Jesus Christ?
Maybe it was all imagined....
From the time you were old enough to rub a hand
across your dog's back, you dreamed of it, seeing yourself
tracking, climbing, descending, forging ahead through
the thickest bramble, getting so close to the elusive creation
that you find its trembling matches your own, quiver for pulsating quiver.

St Patricks Falling on Friday

2010-03-14T18:15:00.003-04:00

I realize St. Pat's doesn't fall on a Friday this year, but I still felt it was appropriate to share this poem I wrote a few years ago for St. Patrick's Day.

st patricks falling on friday

the pastor hammered a nail
into the cross
cried
watched the acolyte illumine the altar
got up
wheezed
made a joke about st pete asking
smoking or non-smoking
reminded us it was lent
coaxed the scape-goat out of the woods
reattached centuries of blood
and pillagings, smacked
his ass (he ran off, far away, dumb goat)
passed out booklets for easter readings
resurrected lukes rich ruler
commanded us to give up all our goods
passed the plate
implored us to touch the lords robe
recited the creed
sang the doxology
bled from as many places as he could —

i sat and wondered
if the market
would have any good corned beefs left
and at what price

Introduction

2009-10-21T14:03:00.001-04:00

Introduction

I play with dolls.
I load my gun carefully.

I sift memory for grains of understanding.
I answer when the question is unknown.
I hoard lamps.

I spit in any direction.
I collect the weather as some might collect postcards.
I note the absence of wild turkeys.

I kiss the cat’s grey electric head.
I clip dreams from worn-out old sheets.
I baste my heart in villainous juices.
I hang the disco ball close to the ceiling.

I drive until my fingers bleed.
I smile when violence comes closer.
I tell my story in a circle.

I offer you my hand.

I swallow whole the discrepancies of morning.
I hurry from the smothering silence.
I swerve haphazardly when I hear my name.
I race the shadows.

I close my eyes to the hot afternoon’s insouciance.
I bless fields of cows from the bus window.

I rake back the strands of precision.
I grow sleepy just before the answer is given.

I cauterize the wounds of the guilty.
I preach the inevitability of nothing.
I descend into subterranean regions daily.
I defend the ant.

I beg small candies from strangers.
I swallow great inconsistencies of hope.
I masquerade as someone you’ve seen before.
I tantalize without fruit.

I strike through words I never wrote.
I defy anyone to tell me what I said.

I structure months around the lack of pain.
I scoop all the untruths into my arms.
I recuperate slowly from my future grievances.

I blow a kiss.

I play games when the sun goes down.
I invite scavengers to follow me.
I implore the dead to make new friends.

I swaddle my desires in tight rags.
I salvage stars from your backyard.
I pin photos of me to photos of you.
I exorcise demons in the driveway.

I parade by the gospel of porches.
I vilify neighbors as they drive by.
I douse things that smolder with kerosene.
I move slowly as the light fades.

I reply to no one.
I write in a language I do not speak.

I covet all that I can.
I trip over those who lie down with the lamb.

I break open the glass case containing your promises.

I climb over the wall of night.
I soar over the refuse of guilt.
I introduce myself with every breath.

Serenade

2009-07-23T21:44:00.002-04:00

I'd love to talk
to you
beyond convention,
outside the walls of taste
and good manners.
The night goes by
instead
without a murmur
of the indecent,
and your hands grow
colder by the moonlight,
(touching the deck rails
in the gorgeous moonlight).
You lean closer once
and my heart hurries
to catch up,
to heat the parts of me
that lie neglected,
but you lean away
again.
The night trees snigger
at my yearning,
my clumsiness,
my inability to say
what I mean and stick to it,
so I say, "It's late."
The cricket under the deck winces
once before continuing
his lonely serenade
to me, the night, the moon
and to you
which, after all,
is more than I can say.

My Fall Reading List

2008-10-08T23:36:00.005-04:00

When the weather starts to get cooler in autumn, I get excited. It makes me think of new beginnings, fresh starts. It brings to mind images of snuggling in front of a fireplace with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate. Even though I don't have a fireplace to snuggle up in front of this year, I still have the craving to gather a stack of good books to look forward to over the next couple of months. So today I sat down and created a fall reading list for myself.

Some of these books on my reading list have been out for a while, some are classics, and some are fairly new. I like a good mix when I read; for example, if I get tired of Victorian ramblings, I can switch for a while to a clean modern novel.

The first book on my list is Mark Doty's Dog Years. It's a memoir that came out last year, winning the Israel Fishman-Stonewall Book Award for Nonfiction. It was also a Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year. It's out this year in a trade paperback edition (I hardly ever buy anything in hardback anymore; too expensive & too heavy). I've been reading more memoirs lately as the genre continues to be blasted open by great writers who have something to say, as opposed to mediocre writers who led extraordinary lives. I'm also a huge animal-lover, so there are several reasons that I look forward to reading this one.

The second book on my list is a novel that's already celebrated its 25th anniversary, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. This has been a book I've meant to read for years now, but just never got to it (unfortunately, there are a good many books that fall into this category). Random House published a 25th anniversary edition in 2006, and I've finally got it in my stack.

The third book in my list is Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. This book was just released this year in a paperback edition. Pinker supposedly examines the way we use words in order to more clearly understand our mental lives. Sounds like a topic that's right up my alley. I love reading and learning about language and about psychology, so any combination of the two just seems like Nirvana. Here's hoping it's as good as it sounds.

Another nonfiction book on the list is one that I've been wanting to read for a while now. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, the story of a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1997. I know all too well about miscommunications between people of different languages and cultures. I look forward to reading this, even though I think I remember hearing that it has a tragic ending.

I don't normally like detective novels, but I'm dying to read The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. Of course, Pulitzer Prize-winning Chabon wouldn't write your typical detective novel. It just happens that his main character is a homicide detective enmeshed in solving a murder.

The final novel on my list for fall is Brock Clarke's An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England. This novel is supposedly laugh-out-loud funny as well as profound. Every reading list should have comic relief built in somewhere, right?

And, of course, no reading list of mine would be complete without poetry. I have four books lined up to fill this pressing need: Valentines by Ted Kooser, Rumi's The Book of Love, Charles Bukowski's The People Look Like Flowers at Last, and Charles Simic's Sixty Poems. For whatever reason, I find it much easier and more enjoyable to read (and write) poems from the fall to the spring. So after my summer break from poetry, these books will be a friendly "Welcome back," and hopefully an inspiration as well.

No Plot, No Problem!

2008-08-31T14:32:00.003-04:00

I was having a conversation with my brother about movies the other day. He was talking about plot. I don't remember the specifics of our discussion, but at the end of it, I realized that I don't require much of a plot in a movie. I enjoy a movie for character, dialogue, theme, the director's artistic bent, etc. but plot is just not that important to me.

I realized later that I feel the same way about novels. I don't read a novel for the plot; I read for the sheer artistry of the author. I read for an interesting character, for the way the characterization unfolds, and for the language itself. My favorite authors are probably Stein, Woolf, Joyce. You have to admit that a novel about a woman buying flowers for a party would probably not be considered by most a page-turner. Or a butler who takes a drive in his employer's car on holiday. But Mrs. Dalloway and The Remains of the Day are two of my all-time favorites.

I have to say that I don't avoid genre fiction because I'm a book snob. I avoid it because it's normally very plot-driven. I don't think I ever remember reading a book to find out what happens or who-dunnit. For whatever reason, plot is not high on my list of must-have qualities for a novel. Perhaps because I'm a poet, the language of a book is what I pay attention to the most. Metaphor, an interesting usage, evocative language. This is what makes me keep turning pages.

I started to wonder if I'm alone in my attitude toward plot. I doubt that I am or authors such as those mentioned above would not be read in such large numbers (even if certain people are just reading a book to say they read it). These authors are popular for a reason. Even so, I want to pose the question to other folks: Is plot important to you in a novel? Could you read (and enjoy) a novel in which there is no real action? If you'd like to respond, leave a comment, drop me a note, or just answer the poll in the sidebar. I would really appreciate knowing that I'm not the only person who could care less about plot.

One Poet's Burial

2008-08-11T11:51:00.006-04:00

I just had to comment on the death of Mahmoud Darwish, the loved Palestinian poet. He died yesterday in a Texas hospital after having heart surgery.

Already the Palestinian Authority has arranged three days of national mourning and a state funeral for Darwish, which was accorded only to Arafat before him. People are congregating in the streets of Ramallah with lighted candles; they weep and read his poetry aloud. Media around the world have picked up the story due to the fact that he was popular not only in Palestine, but in Arabic countries in general.

I spoke to my sweetheart (who also hails from Ramallah) about Darwish, and found that Darwish is well-known by Arabs, regardless of their educational level. People who are functionally illiterate in the Middle East could easily tell you about Darwish, his poetry, and his life.

I feel very wistful now after hearing about the outpouring of grief for Darwish, after seeing people publicly cry over his loss, after hearing of the national hero's funeral he is receiving. Was there ever a time when America treated its poets in this way? If there was, it certainly hasn't overlapped my life span. I'm certain that most people in this country don't even know who our poet laureate is. I'm pretty sure I could challenge the average American to name a single living American poet, and the challenge would go unmet.

Why is this the case? Do Americans not need poetry? I remember the Georgia poet David Bottoms telling us that he was asked by the Atlanta Journal for a poem once, and that was just after September 11th. The editor told him that people had been sending in poems about the incident in droves, and there had been numerous requests for a major poet to comment on the tragedy. Is it that we don't live with tragedy as others around the world do, and so we aren't in need of the emotional and spiritual gifts of the poem?

Whatever the reason, I'll hold that metaphorical candle for Darwish in honor of a poet who gave a voice to his people, who may somehow have lessened the suffering they experienced every day. I'll remember him with respect and awe that a poet could achieve the popularity that he did, the kind of fame and prestige that an American poet can only dream of.

"I Come From There" by Mahmoud Darwish

Down With Grammar!

2008-08-08T23:24:00.007-04:00

Well, the kids in my area are starting back to school on Monday which reminds me of something I'd like to bitch about. As a kid, my favorite class was English (no kidding, right?), but the older I get, the more bones I have to pick with high-school English teachers, namely over the bugaboo that calls itself grammar.

Yes, I have issues with grammar. Not that I have trouble understanding it or using it correctly; I can spot a run-on sentence or tell the difference between an adjective and an adverb. But I take issue with the pedantry of most teachers in their view of how to teach grammar. When you view English as a living language (which it is until further notice), you can't be too much of a stick in the mud concerning usage and vocabulary. Things change in a living, growing language. It's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's just what happens.

As our use of spoken English changes, so does the written form. It may happen more slowly than the oral changes, but the changes do start to become noticeable. Sometimes the change is a conscious one (something I'm not personally in favor of; why do university professors get to choose the route a language takes?); for example, when I was in high school, "one" and "he" were synonymous. Now most professors and teachers insist on using either "he or she" or switching between them (WTF????). More often, the change is a gradual one, usually in the direction of economy or ease of use. The history of the English language is full of such changes: Old English combinations of "hl", "hn", and "hr" were simplified to "l", "n", and "r" respectively. Certain consonants in pronunciation were dropped, vowels underwent unrounding, inflections were reduced, grammatical gender lost, etc. There have been entire books written on these changes, so I'm not going to dwell on them here. I guess my point is that these changes were made over time in a sort of evolutionary way; in other words, they sped communication or made speech easier and more economical. (Of course, many changes occurred due to conquests or one kind or another, but that's another story).

I'm not suggesting we let kids use whatever speech they pick up on the street in their essays about what they did over the summer. But there are some things that teachers need to consider. ONE: Communication is the ultimate goal. If writing a sentence the "correct" way is confusing or unnecessary, then why the hell are we doing it? For example, do dangling prepositions really bother you, or have they become the norm in everyday speech? I would argue that they've become standard speech these days, and to force a sentence into an unnatural state simply to avoid them would be counterproductive to your goal of being understood. Isn't that what language is here for?

A pet peeve of mine is the belief in "double negatives." I have to say that I don't believe in them. Does that sound a tad crazy? Shakespeare had never heard of such a thing. As a matter of fact, no one had until the so-called Age of Reason. During that period, man (and by that, I mean to include those with and without dangling genitalia) decided that the principles of mathematics and logic should be applied to everything. This "everything" somehow extended to include the English language. If a negative number plus another negative number equals a positive number, then how can a negative word followed by another negative word equal anything but a positive word (or meaning)? Once again, I'll say WTF??! This kooky theory caught on (probably among pedantic teachers) and now we have people counting the number of negative words in a sentence to determine what it is that you said. Look: negatives were strung together for emphasis. If a Shakespearean character meant "no," he might have used one negative in his sentence. If he really meant "no," he might have used three or four together. Trust me, nobody had to count to know that he meant "no."

In spoken English, most of us seem to understand this concept of emphatic speech. But for some reason, once you enter the classroom, you have to speak another language for the benefit of the English teacher. Yes, there are all sorts of registers in language; you have to know when to use slang and when not to, when to use "one" and when it's okay to use "you" instead. But instead of telling students never to use these constructions, that they're wrong, teachers should be helping the students to discern the correct register for the situation. Students should be taught to communicate, to get their point across in the best way possible.

I'll admit grammar is necessary for good communication, but not an inflexible grammar that holds onto the past at all costs. Let go of it this year, teachers! Let the language breathe.

If I Believed in God, He/She Would Be...

2008-08-05T14:40:00.003-04:00

"Not the God of names,

Not the God of don'ts,

Nor the God who ever does

Anything weird,

But the God who only knows four words

And keeps repeating them, saying:

'Come dance with me.'"

- Hafiz

I Do Not Submit!

2008-08-03T10:11:00.008-04:00

I know a distinguished oncologist who loves to read. His first question when he runs into me is, invariably, "What are you reading?" He would almost always be familiar with the title or author, and we would have an intelligent and interesting conversation about the work. One day, as was bound to happen, I had been reading a collection of poems: John Clare, if I remember correctly. When the doctor heard this, he said, "Oh, I don't do poetry." I was shocked. This was a very educated and intelligent, well-read man. If he didn't "do" poetry, then who did? After puzzling over the question for some time and discussing it with friends and colleagues, I came to the conclusion that most poetry readers are poets themselves, or perhaps editors or educators. When did poetry become the exclusive property of this small group?

On a trip to the Middle East, I saw a different story. One evening I watched a group of men playing a game in Arabic. One man would recite a line of poetry. The next man would then have to think of a line of poetry that began with the last letter from the previous line. The game would continue in this manner until the last man standing was stumped to come up with a new line. One man in this group was an elementary school teacher. Several of the others were men who had never finished high school. One, an old man, had never learned to read or write, yet he was one of the better players. I was amazed that this group of men would enjoy a game that revolved around poetry, but I later found out that this was a popular game in the area among all levels of society. I had earned a graduate degree in creative writing in which I studied poetry in-depth, yet I doubted that I would be able to play a game like that in English.

As much as I would love a readership for my poems, I hate the idea that, if published, my poems will only be read by a select few in this country. No one will memorize them. No one will play games with their lines.

Frost was perhaps our last national poet who was read and quoted by the everyday sort of reader that I would like to have. Operating at different levels within the same poem, Frost offers something for the college-educated as well as the high-school dropout. But striving for accessibility in your poems is not enough. There are plenty of accessible poems being written today, but where are they? Most likely, they are tucked away in a literary journal that most people have never heard of. As a little girl, I dreamed of having poems published in the morning paper, of people reading my poem over coffee, perhaps out-loud to the family. Now I have to face the fact that that will never happen (even if I could write a poem worthy of such treatment) since my local paper stopped publishing poems many years ago.

Whatever the cause of this current situation, (I've long thought that perhaps language poetry or the unpopularity of memorization in schools might factor in there somewhere), it's once again August and I'm stuck with a dilemma as a poet. Do I submit my poems to the small journals that I love to read knowing that they will be read mainly by other poets such as myself, or do I sit it out another year, waiting for some cultural miracle to occur in which Americans will suddenly be struck by the desire to read poetry and newspapers will be paying big bucks (did I really say paying?) in order to fill the new demand?

Not to align myself with Lucifer or anything, but I find myself saying, "I do not submit" quite frequently as I flip through the Poet's Market, checking out the new markets each year (I may as well admit I'm the first to buy the book when it hits the shelves). But this year, for whatever reason, the voice is getting quieter, a less pesky fly than in previous years. Contribute it to getting older or perhaps getting more desperate to have an audience, any audience, but I find myself itching to put my poems out in the world. I have especially been eyeing some of the internet sites that publish poetry, as the writer and reader seem to have more of a choice in the virtual world than in that of ink and paper. But whether I will break down and start submitting remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, I plan to start slipping poetry into conversations with ordinary folks, perhaps finding great poems to share with people who may not be poets, editors, or professors. I may try to memorize a few of my favorite poems this year. I may even try to convince the oncologist I know to read a few poems, to give poetry another chance. The alternative, that of the common man living without poetry, just seems unbearable.

Dreamism

2008-07-29T16:28:00.009-04:00

I have to say I love the concept of Dreamism as an art movement that I've been hearing about on the web. I've always created poems and paintings based on my dreams, but was afraid to share them for fear they would be lumped into the category of "Confessionalist." I realize that the movement constitutes not only actual dreams, but also the essence of dreams in general or art that takes on the feel of a dream.

I've always tended to believe that dreams were important somehow, and not only to the one who dreamed them. If you study dreams, or even just start asking friends about what they dream, you find that there are many overlapping themes in them. For example, we've all had those dreams of flying or of falling. I also think we've all had the one where we show up somewhere without remembering to put our pants on first. I'm not so sure I'd want to preserve that moment in art. But there are always dreams that you remember vividly, dreams that seem more meaningful than most. These are the ones I always feel compelled to get down on paper. Somehow the very act of translating dream to reality helps me to comprehend the meaning that might lurk under the seemingly bizarre literalness of it. I can't say how many times I've began a poem with only a vague emotion or memory of some sort. Some snippet of a dream that felt relevant even after I waked. But while writing the poem or after it is finished, I begin to see why the dream felt important or bothersome, or whatever other emotion it may have dredged up in me.

Not only is the production of art from dreams important, but the sharing of the art produced, I think, is important too. As I said in my first post, I've always felt that Jung was on to something when he talked about the collective unconscious and how our psyches are tied together by some evolutionary memory. So it makes sense to me that my dreams may hold meaning for you and yours for me. The art created from dreams, then, would hold even more meaning because the artist has already explored them as he engaged in the creative act.

The formation of Dreamism as a movement has given me the impetus to not only explore more of my dreams and dream-like moods, but to feel freer in sharing the results. To put my money where my mouth is, I've included an example below.

This is a mixed-media/oil pastel thing I made after a particularly disturbing dream. I was being chased by an old woman through an office building. The woman didn't walk but glided down the dark hallway. When I reached the end of the corridor, there was an open window. I looked out of it to see that I was several stories up. Then my husband (at the time) appeared on the ground below me. "Jump," he said, holding his arms up to me. "Jump." I was trying to decide what to do when I felt her bony fingers on my shoulder.

After finishing my picture, I realized that I had been caught by the old woman because I hadn't been able to make up my mind. In a sense, this dream foreshadowed my divorce since much of our discontent stemmed from me not being able to make a decision. Evidently, I let the woman's bony fingers grab me because I couldn't risk leaping down to my husband.

Say What?!

2008-07-28T22:56:00.004-04:00

Okay, this photo is just one of those that's able to make me smile no matter what (well, almost). Plus, I kind of have this thing for goats. Just thought I'd share.

Another Blog?

2008-07-28T09:43:00.001-04:00

I know what you're thinking. Another blog. Yippee. One more internet space devoted to self-indulgent logorrhea, boring photos, and cliched poems. What does it all mean (other than that the world is full of self-indulgent, boring, tasteless people)? I like to think that it means the creative impulse cannot be squelched indefinitely. The very human desire (and need?) to create, to express the self in all its glory or squalor, and its personal interpretation of the world, inevitably seeks an outlet. And so I come, quite human, with all my self-indulgent, boring, and tasteless baggage, to the present-day altar of the Muses: the blog.

I'm not even sure exactly what I plan to post here, except that I desire to present my view of reality, the self, the world. I like to imagine that I'm pulling apart my ribs with my bare hands in order to see the true interior, to show others like myself that we are all connected in more ways than we might ordinarily imagine (although perhaps in a less messy way). I may as well admit here that I'm partial to Jung's theories of the collective unconscious. Despite my personal circumstances, I'm fairly certain that my experiences are not unique, that my feelings, ideas, dreams, are not only the property of my consciousness, but in a sense belong to all. Therefore, you might view this page as just another facet of your own mind, one more expression of the universal truth that may lie underneath us like a vast supportive net.

Of course, it goes without saying that I'll also include the self-indulgent ramblings that have become ubiquitous on the web, as well as the boring photos and tasteless poetry that my creative impulses may insist on showcasing to the world. I hope that in the midst of all the ordinary, you will find something here that opens up a truth inside your own mind, or a phrase that speaks to your own experience of the world. If this should happen, please feel free to drop me a line to tell me about it. It would help me feel that I've made a real connection, which I think is my most pressing need at the moment, and the major reason for starting this blog. Simply to connect.