See her Thomas Jefferson post from the New York Times for proof.
This hiatus has gone on long enough. I'm afraid to look at my site minder or whatever it's called. I'm afraid of a lot - other people's emotions, my faults, falling from high places, seeing anybody in a position to possibly fall from high places, how vulnerable our necks and wrists and fingers are to injury, my own ignorance and stubborn unwillingness to change. This morning I went on a long bike ride along Lake Chelan. It was actually a shortish bike ride for me since it was 42 minutes long and yes I keep track in my notebook of the length of my bike rides. They are fun and restorative and sweaty and healthy. But first off they are fun. I love wind whistling through the holes in my bike helmet I am so grateful is light and airy since I did the bulk of my bike riding in the 70's probably before bike helmets had been invented. Jim and I rode our bikes from Seattle to Disneyland in 1977 without bike helmets or diaper pants. I still do not wear diaper pants. I bought a pair without trying them on at REI the last time I was in Seattle. The pair I bought are meant to look like sporty beige capris, but underneath is the thick wadding that keeps the bottom from being in pain, or so I'm told. I bought size large, whatever that means in sport clothing, and each of my thighs looked like the arm of an overstuffed chair so I immediately wadded them up in the back of my closet muttering silent curses that glow on the inside of the back of my skull even now a month later. I did later unwad them and fold them neatly, tags still attached, and set them under two other pairs of pants on a shelf as if I might wear them one day, and maybe I will but not today. I already rode my bike today in a pair of capris without a wadding feature under the rear but with paint on them and also too small but they don't LOOK too small. I found a Scrabble tile with the letter R on it on the cement floor of the arbor on my return, while I was clipping extraneous grape vines with the dullish clippers we keep in a V where a brace runs from top lattice to 4x4 leg. I thought to myself "I have the habits of a gardener," which was a nice thought I thought though not true. In those moments though, puttering with pruners and then weeding on my knees, I was utterly totally all gardener, fused, knees, fingers and mind to the task which is what bliss is.
Riding home, almost hands free, I passed a bank of name signs and actually read them. Name under name under name, SUMMERS, WORTH, name, name, and I grinned and breathed the sage scented morning air and steered and stared out at the lake and felt happy. And then my friend emailed Maira Kalman and soon I'll hold my granddaughter so her mommy can sleep and daddy can work and and and.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Baby Quinn is out of the womb
and in the world and I have made
three lasagnas in three days
which you wouldn't think would
be related except that I'm gramma
not mama so I'm the one with the oven mitt.
I'm in my place. Once again, doing my job that means I try to make it so that I'm out of a job - two mornings holding the baby so mommy and daddy could sleep then this morning I let myself in and they're all zzzing away in the bed so I crept downstairs and washed strawberries and put dishes away as quietly as I could. This is not my dance. My dance card not only is not full my dance card is in a foreign language from the past and my daughter radiates heat and health and smells of mother's milk and beginnings. Her daughter falls asleep at the breast without latching on and has a tiny mouth. A lactation consultant suggested sacro-cranial manipulation for the baby who also has a tight string under her tongue. Like I do. That foreshortened thingy-deal that a doctor recently asked me about. "Did you have a speech impediment when you were young?" No. Do you want a punch in the eye? I didn't really ask him if he wanted a punch in the eye, but I had a reflex inside my mind that said it. My son in law made a jokey fist and waved it at me when I said I have the short thingy deal that has a very official sounding name that people who have normal tongues can remember. Mine is too tied - it's that tongue-tied thingy deal I could probably look up right now on the internet except that my temper like my tongue holder is short and I don't want to and in my refusal is my power. I'm a powerful refuser. That's not such a great skill, really, but I'm good at it. Let us all celebrate and exaggerate what we are good at for at least a few minutes a day. I'm going to add caveats to that one. If you are good at holding back like me that's okay but if you're good at socking people in the nose then just cool it and get some fricking help already.
If you are bearing with me, I will continue about my granddaughter who is a little pea in a pod in her little green swaddling blanket. Her mommy or her daddy hand her to me all pod-shaped with her beautiful perfect little face with eyes like her mommy's and lips like her daddy's and an intensity all her own. She isn't radiating baby-heat yet, so new out of the womb. Her daddy goes downstairs to work, two floors and it's too far away to stay longer than ten minutes, he says. He misses her smell. How can anybody doubt we're mammals? Take OFFENSE that we're mammals? My best friend for eleven years was a dog mammal. She didn't hide her empathy or hold blame or invest a minute of her valuable time on recriminations. She'd have loved this new girl baby. I love this new girl baby. She makes my eyes water just to think of her out here with the rest of us. All of us opening and closing our hands and squinching up our faces, our little chins quivering. We don't know what we want, but we want, we want, we want.
and in the world and I have made
three lasagnas in three days
which you wouldn't think would
be related except that I'm gramma
not mama so I'm the one with the oven mitt.
I'm in my place. Once again, doing my job that means I try to make it so that I'm out of a job - two mornings holding the baby so mommy and daddy could sleep then this morning I let myself in and they're all zzzing away in the bed so I crept downstairs and washed strawberries and put dishes away as quietly as I could. This is not my dance. My dance card not only is not full my dance card is in a foreign language from the past and my daughter radiates heat and health and smells of mother's milk and beginnings. Her daughter falls asleep at the breast without latching on and has a tiny mouth. A lactation consultant suggested sacro-cranial manipulation for the baby who also has a tight string under her tongue. Like I do. That foreshortened thingy-deal that a doctor recently asked me about. "Did you have a speech impediment when you were young?" No. Do you want a punch in the eye? I didn't really ask him if he wanted a punch in the eye, but I had a reflex inside my mind that said it. My son in law made a jokey fist and waved it at me when I said I have the short thingy deal that has a very official sounding name that people who have normal tongues can remember. Mine is too tied - it's that tongue-tied thingy deal I could probably look up right now on the internet except that my temper like my tongue holder is short and I don't want to and in my refusal is my power. I'm a powerful refuser. That's not such a great skill, really, but I'm good at it. Let us all celebrate and exaggerate what we are good at for at least a few minutes a day. I'm going to add caveats to that one. If you are good at holding back like me that's okay but if you're good at socking people in the nose then just cool it and get some fricking help already.
If you are bearing with me, I will continue about my granddaughter who is a little pea in a pod in her little green swaddling blanket. Her mommy or her daddy hand her to me all pod-shaped with her beautiful perfect little face with eyes like her mommy's and lips like her daddy's and an intensity all her own. She isn't radiating baby-heat yet, so new out of the womb. Her daddy goes downstairs to work, two floors and it's too far away to stay longer than ten minutes, he says. He misses her smell. How can anybody doubt we're mammals? Take OFFENSE that we're mammals? My best friend for eleven years was a dog mammal. She didn't hide her empathy or hold blame or invest a minute of her valuable time on recriminations. She'd have loved this new girl baby. I love this new girl baby. She makes my eyes water just to think of her out here with the rest of us. All of us opening and closing our hands and squinching up our faces, our little chins quivering. We don't know what we want, but we want, we want, we want.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Tell Me That You Love Me, Baby Q
Another night with no phone call to come to the birthing center,
My daughter thinks maybe the placenta's gone rogue
My son-in-law undulates an arm, says "One-armed squid,"
we all laugh though my younger daughter, squeamish,
squeezes her face and makes retching noises. That belly
bulges enormous, baby maybe seven maybe nine pounds
and growing. My younger daughter's dog leaps at the bulge -
"Dogs do that," my daughter says. They want to get at
that little being. That little being we want to get at too.
Count those fingers and toes, snuffle that fuzzy head.
My daughter thinks maybe the placenta's gone rogue
My son-in-law undulates an arm, says "One-armed squid,"
we all laugh though my younger daughter, squeamish,
squeezes her face and makes retching noises. That belly
bulges enormous, baby maybe seven maybe nine pounds
and growing. My younger daughter's dog leaps at the bulge -
"Dogs do that," my daughter says. They want to get at
that little being. That little being we want to get at too.
Count those fingers and toes, snuffle that fuzzy head.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
That's what I'm talking about!A poem that riffs on "Ballad of the Gypsy" by Langston Hughes written by a 7th grade boy, PERFORMED by the boy and two friends at the cafe reading - whose idea? THEIRS!
The teacher said she found the 8th graders clustered around a computer at lunch, thought, "They KNOW they aren't supposed to be playing video games," walked over, found they'd Googled "Bang Bang Outishly (for Monk)" by Amiri Baraka, which I'd had them listen to in class, and were listening to it. OH YEAH!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Poem from Daily Crossword 5/26/09
Li Po, Tu Fu, the house of Usher
all those chimneys in their pots
as chins are cleft so treble clefs
will tremble violins, so we stove
the wall sides in. Osage oh Ohio
so all we had to do was Live?
Oh much that would have eased
to know when chaps were worn
and we cast in pantaloons amid
the rumpus and fear our ear
to track as others learning tap
trapped as we escaped by thread
a needle in a camel's eye, a plan
to set for tea or stoop for raid
and all you say to me is "I see."
Never hunt or fish, are urban,
never tendre croppes but items
on a shopping list, cars idle
so do we who peer down alleys
through corn rows to our van.
--
An auspicious day for Quinn to emerge. I was born on the 26th, Shawna was born on the 26th. It's the 26th.
Li Po, Tu Fu, the house of Usher
all those chimneys in their pots
as chins are cleft so treble clefs
will tremble violins, so we stove
the wall sides in. Osage oh Ohio
so all we had to do was Live?
Oh much that would have eased
to know when chaps were worn
and we cast in pantaloons amid
the rumpus and fear our ear
to track as others learning tap
trapped as we escaped by thread
a needle in a camel's eye, a plan
to set for tea or stoop for raid
and all you say to me is "I see."
Never hunt or fish, are urban,
never tendre croppes but items
on a shopping list, cars idle
so do we who peer down alleys
through corn rows to our van.
--
An auspicious day for Quinn to emerge. I was born on the 26th, Shawna was born on the 26th. It's the 26th.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Out my window, dogwood leans
towards rampant kiwi as I wade
into another May day. No pony
for me, one trick or no. No aria
that I can hear. No one will punt
for my points, point perfect toe
and pirhouette prettily. No pest
either or rampant turkeys
on the lawn we do not have. Ten
blinks of an eye. Another mocha.
Your life on Oprah. Hired, fired,
we're hard-wired tired. Oh tenor
Dyer Bennet when all is dire err
and nobody will notice. We span
eras in our careening bobsled.
Go back to bed. What's snapped
has sped. Deny them exit polling
Let's go bowling, eat limes to rind
no one left behind, the doors ajar.
---
Did I say that was a Daily Crossword poem (5/19/09)
--
And today at school we'll poem like ancient Greeks. Eek.
That is to say I'll rip up poems and have them make like experts, like antropological, archeological poetry experts recreating what's been lost like people, maybe poets, did for Sappho. So many ways this will be fun and not so educational but somewhat educational but hitting that other side of the brain, whichever it is, that is the creative, random side. I always forget because, well, you can guess. I'll ask the fifth and sixth graders what the 9 muses were for. That's always fun.
towards rampant kiwi as I wade
into another May day. No pony
for me, one trick or no. No aria
that I can hear. No one will punt
for my points, point perfect toe
and pirhouette prettily. No pest
either or rampant turkeys
on the lawn we do not have. Ten
blinks of an eye. Another mocha.
Your life on Oprah. Hired, fired,
we're hard-wired tired. Oh tenor
Dyer Bennet when all is dire err
and nobody will notice. We span
eras in our careening bobsled.
Go back to bed. What's snapped
has sped. Deny them exit polling
Let's go bowling, eat limes to rind
no one left behind, the doors ajar.
---
Did I say that was a Daily Crossword poem (5/19/09)
--
And today at school we'll poem like ancient Greeks. Eek.
That is to say I'll rip up poems and have them make like experts, like antropological, archeological poetry experts recreating what's been lost like people, maybe poets, did for Sappho. So many ways this will be fun and not so educational but somewhat educational but hitting that other side of the brain, whichever it is, that is the creative, random side. I always forget because, well, you can guess. I'll ask the fifth and sixth graders what the 9 muses were for. That's always fun.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
I googled "You are Here image" and got BOOKSHELVES!I like them though I don't know how, except with rocket skates or suspensors, you get TO the books in the upper left photo.
After long absence, I return to this page, the time between a blurrrrrr of what the heck WAS I doing - putting together books and readings (one my own - at Hugo House with other WITS writers. I sent out no publicity. I am already sitting in a corner,) teaching at two schools, finishing work for two others. It's May, tra la, and while I have woodruff flowering in my garden, I have not gone a-Maying.
Here is a poem draft using the May 13 Daily Crossword. Ahem.
Be glad she'll have a girl, just think of Herod
NSync, Anvil, Woodstock, any band,
or any man with all their plans to blot
a blotch upon the sea or map. Let's evade
GI Joes and wonder if that skirt is boxy
do you want red velvet or the lemon?
--
Here's your chance, one out of ten
so let's begin your easy tosses
hit the running light on this vessel
or miss and we'll whistle and snort.
(abort)
---
Children gather 'round I'm gonna talk like Plato.
You know the joke. The notebooks all say "PlayDoh".
---
From out of where came this Miss Manners-
we do not like her make her leave.
--
Seventh graders wrote like Emily Dickinson yesterday.
Poem 3,462
To make a Poem
you Need a pencil and a Paper
and an - eraser
an Eraser alone - will Do
if paper is few.
-7th Grade Boy
---
The 4th, 5th and 6th graders
write odes to their drawings of Grecian Urns
and I say
More rainy May
more rainy, rainy May.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Daily Crossword Poem 4/24/09
Now that I've become a crone I hoard my cache
I used to scoff as only gone-before, ad hoc
junk that went and then the real that hid
would show and off I'd go like phoenix yawn.
As every hen will tell you no one stokes the fire
but you and if you won't your gruel be thin
your sorry life answers who you've been.
My father chafes when grandson calls his age
and rages I am young. Now there's a cautionary
tale. He's eighty five and still alive though bleery
eyed and fading as am I. So yes I've been twit
and haven't earned a swell obit but lest I bore
you my arms though heavy breach for shore.
I used to scoff as only gone-before, ad hoc
junk that went and then the real that hid
would show and off I'd go like phoenix yawn.
As every hen will tell you no one stokes the fire
but you and if you won't your gruel be thin
your sorry life answers who you've been.
My father chafes when grandson calls his age
and rages I am young. Now there's a cautionary
tale. He's eighty five and still alive though bleery
eyed and fading as am I. So yes I've been twit
and haven't earned a swell obit but lest I bore
you my arms though heavy breach for shore.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
The hail unzips the sky with a sound between moan
and panic attack. My heart brattatats as I copy
notes into a smeared journal. Nothing today lulls
or consoles me. He says "it's not your money"
and I cower in my workroom but do not work.
What were these thirty two years if not to share
but he's too in despair to care he's wounded me
as he feels cornered without choices, all mine
meaningless when one can hurt the other with
few words and nothing but the pain is real.
It's not my money or my house and the car
outside hit by hail pellets is yellow but isn't mine.
I have no shoes on but if I had they would be his
not mine. None of it mine, though the law would
say they're mine or half. One shoe a half a car
the toothpaste tube but not the cap the withered
almonds on the pantry floor but not the door.
I hate days like these that pry the mouldings
from around the windows, tramp mud through
my, excuse me, his, rooms, show me my wishy-
washy self too frightened to stand up too angry
to run. I have no sword to sunder him limb
from limb no hatchet to chop a pound from
round his heart and he would say I've chopped
a pound from his or albatrossed his neck with
me and all my piddling need and greed and this
another screed we never agreed I'd write. It's
me, it's not alright. You're unhappy, you lash
and the floor's gone out from under the spinning
funhouse ride that turns me white and puking.
But I go to show you I won't give up or in and
I won't quit you or you me though how we got
here neither one can say a map between us
crumpled, torn, the roads rerouted, both
of us together and alone.
and panic attack. My heart brattatats as I copy
notes into a smeared journal. Nothing today lulls
or consoles me. He says "it's not your money"
and I cower in my workroom but do not work.
What were these thirty two years if not to share
but he's too in despair to care he's wounded me
as he feels cornered without choices, all mine
meaningless when one can hurt the other with
few words and nothing but the pain is real.
It's not my money or my house and the car
outside hit by hail pellets is yellow but isn't mine.
I have no shoes on but if I had they would be his
not mine. None of it mine, though the law would
say they're mine or half. One shoe a half a car
the toothpaste tube but not the cap the withered
almonds on the pantry floor but not the door.
I hate days like these that pry the mouldings
from around the windows, tramp mud through
my, excuse me, his, rooms, show me my wishy-
washy self too frightened to stand up too angry
to run. I have no sword to sunder him limb
from limb no hatchet to chop a pound from
round his heart and he would say I've chopped
a pound from his or albatrossed his neck with
me and all my piddling need and greed and this
another screed we never agreed I'd write. It's
me, it's not alright. You're unhappy, you lash
and the floor's gone out from under the spinning
funhouse ride that turns me white and puking.
But I go to show you I won't give up or in and
I won't quit you or you me though how we got
here neither one can say a map between us
crumpled, torn, the roads rerouted, both
of us together and alone.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Saw/heard Sherman Alexie at Highline High School library this morning. He was wearing a dark suit, maybe blue, maybe black, but with a brilliant darker than sky lighter than navy blue shirt. He spoke to two groups of high school kids - I arrived at the tail end of the first presentation, lined up to speak with him, then stayed for the second, longer talk.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Listen to me and Chiloquin H.S. junior Vanessa Longley being interviewed on Jefferson Public Radio - streaming tonight, April 1, 2009 (not an April Fools joke) at 8:45 (ish) pm. Once at the site, you'll see three tabs: Classics & News, Rhythm & News and News & Information. Click on News & Information. We were on Jefferson Exchange, with host Keith Henty. Our few minutes of chat and Vanessa reading one of her poems will be worth your effort! We speak about poetry, about Chiloquin, and about, it could be, much, much more. We were both dazed and adrenaline laden, having screeched into the studio just in time to make the interview. It was over before we'd finished arriving like so very much that is important in life.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Yusef Komunyaaka: The Voice
oh that's what I didn't hear in his poems,
the warmth and many harmonics sound
he makes with his chest and vocal cords.
He said his poem, "Anodyne", lifted head
out from the book wings, eyes closed,
and intoned his body love, this poet
who gave us the whine-bone in kindness
who Rebecca Hoogs introduced as
poet of accretions and additions
who sounded Bogalusan, Louisianan,
bluesy and much deeper than smart.
I'd only before known him as smart.
I closed my eyes, my ears drank tones
rocked in the arms of his poems.
(which are not easy-sweet my dear.)
A poem has to have content he said,
though he believes in vibrancy, will
speak about Phillis Wheatley, at
Callaloo at Washington U. Public
poet by twenty, dead before thirty two.
What do I have to show for my years?
How about you?
oh that's what I didn't hear in his poems,
the warmth and many harmonics sound
he makes with his chest and vocal cords.
He said his poem, "Anodyne", lifted head
out from the book wings, eyes closed,
and intoned his body love, this poet
who gave us the whine-bone in kindness
who Rebecca Hoogs introduced as
poet of accretions and additions
who sounded Bogalusan, Louisianan,
bluesy and much deeper than smart.
I'd only before known him as smart.
I closed my eyes, my ears drank tones
rocked in the arms of his poems.
(which are not easy-sweet my dear.)
A poem has to have content he said,
though he believes in vibrancy, will
speak about Phillis Wheatley, at
Callaloo at Washington U. Public
poet by twenty, dead before thirty two.
What do I have to show for my years?
How about you?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Live Imperfectly With Great Delight
Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem (Sheffer, with the PI, is no more - at least on newsprint)
Ah sing to me of Cuzcos and of Limas
holy cities that to climb to abler
make it first. That's how it be. Ah bee
ah ant we celebrants do adore
thee also common sense took Paine
and he gobbled up the task, T Rex
of Americana. We bear witness,
give due to them that did or a
few who born to did not but were sane
(see Paine) and so sir octopus we begs
with our friend Nash. We love heroic
the stoic who lashed to spar
heard the beauty and did not die.
We worship command and master
and those who are faster. Toil at
the tedious they do not. They trot
and do not see us see the aster
in their button hole. Their reins
we've softened with our teeth
we live to worship then are gone.
Their deeds live on in texts dense
with unabated glory. Are we glad?
Ah yes we sing of him who opts in
and clank our casks of tepid ale,
smudges in the pub scene, tired.
Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem (Sheffer, with the PI, is no more - at least on newsprint)
Ah sing to me of Cuzcos and of Limas
holy cities that to climb to abler
make it first. That's how it be. Ah bee
ah ant we celebrants do adore
thee also common sense took Paine
and he gobbled up the task, T Rex
of Americana. We bear witness,
give due to them that did or a
few who born to did not but were sane
(see Paine) and so sir octopus we begs
with our friend Nash. We love heroic
the stoic who lashed to spar
heard the beauty and did not die.
We worship command and master
and those who are faster. Toil at
the tedious they do not. They trot
and do not see us see the aster
in their button hole. Their reins
we've softened with our teeth
we live to worship then are gone.
Their deeds live on in texts dense
with unabated glory. Are we glad?
Ah yes we sing of him who opts in
and clank our casks of tepid ale,
smudges in the pub scene, tired.
Friday, March 20, 2009
In Flight From
for Icarus and Yusef Komunyaaka
Equilibrium is deadly dull
and when Icarus was young
he longed to loose labyrintine
rocks and hurl himself a path
across the sea. His father
the engineer balanced desire
with deeds, and as we know
Icarus did not heed his warnings
for his boyish greed for sky-high
play that repeats his story
still today.
RESILIENCE
for Lucille Clifton
Heel of my hand for backhoe
I scoop ants and flatten them,
swirl their ruined corpses
carelessly under the tap.
Spontaneous generation upon generation
spills in a single clandestine thread
along the baseboard from the door --
no matter that I kill some here come
more and more and more.
RESPITE
for William Butler Yeats
For I will arise and go now
to a cabin by a shore
where grape vines twine
through an arbor with a view
evenings loud with crickets
and nothing much to do.
for Icarus and Yusef Komunyaaka
Equilibrium is deadly dull
and when Icarus was young
he longed to loose labyrintine
rocks and hurl himself a path
across the sea. His father
the engineer balanced desire
with deeds, and as we know
Icarus did not heed his warnings
for his boyish greed for sky-high
play that repeats his story
still today.
RESILIENCE
for Lucille Clifton
Heel of my hand for backhoe
I scoop ants and flatten them,
swirl their ruined corpses
carelessly under the tap.
Spontaneous generation upon generation
spills in a single clandestine thread
along the baseboard from the door --
no matter that I kill some here come
more and more and more.
RESPITE
for William Butler Yeats
For I will arise and go now
to a cabin by a shore
where grape vines twine
through an arbor with a view
evenings loud with crickets
and nothing much to do.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Off to see the Lenin statue in Fremont today with a passel of sixth graders if a passel is twenty-some. We'll experience the statue with our five senses, writing from each of them for three minutes. We'll experience a Lenin statue presentation from aka which will further inform our poetry. Poems can be free verse or haiku or pantoum or nine line process poem style. The weather with luck will be dry enough that the words won't blur on the pages as though we wrote through tears, though through tears might be appropriate. How much do I tell them about Lenin the revolutionary leader who proved to be impervious to the suffering of his people? Do I tell him about the Moscow Red Square mausoleum where Shawna filed past his shrunken corpse wearing a red nightgown? We will eat lunch, 3" slices of sub sandwiches, apples, chips, juice boxes. We'll walk-hike-skip-bounce-lag our way from school to Fremont. Will we have time to stop by the Troll for comparison? Compare and contrast was quite large as a literary tool when I was in school. Isn't that what we mostly, naturally do?
Friday, March 13, 2009
Saw Jane Hirshfield last night - alighting from a car outside the Gibson Gallery in Seattle - the instantly recognizable hair. Inside the gallery where the reception was, she didn't need the nametag she was offered. I wore mine, with a little flag of cutout debris sticking out until Felicia Gonzales removed it for me. It was fun to be asked to come, and to talk with Jane and with Clare Molesworth who used to work at SAL but is now a practicing attorney! Yay! I remember her telling me that when she got to law school she "was excited to find so many people who think like me!" Here are some more !!!!'s. There. We're done. Oops, one more. I gave Jane a little book I made of poems written by some of my 8th grade poets at Hamilton incorporating lines from her poems, which she clutched to her chest and squirreled away in her bag!
Her reading style of hyper-enunciation which had turned me off on the online video did not detract from her poems in person. I like her, I like her poems, I enjoyed her reading. And that's probably enough with the I as well.
Rebecca Hoogs, the fashion front for poetry in Seattle, wore a sprightly gray dress with a skinny slip of a sweater with prominent round clasps and rasperry tights with gray heeled pumps to emcee. (Obviously she looked terrific.) Kathleen Flenniken's 5th grade student Michaela read her metaphorically veined poem to start things off. Michaela wrote that she felt like a cake topper set in her favorite place. One of my students will read something to begin Naomi Shihab Nye's second reading on May 8 in this series. Will it be the Palestinian-American girl who loves Naomi Shihab Nye? Stay tuned.
The q&a section began with Rebecca opening a water bottle and asking Jane if she wanted some. "Cheers" Jane said, they clinked plastic cups, and Jane settled back in her chair. "You didn't know; it's gin," she said. "Who knew Jane Hirshfield was so wild?" Rebecca said breezily to the crowd, and the q&a was off.
3/10/09 NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLE POEM DRAFT
What counts are not the thoughts but acts,
Who were the first to cache their bras?
Will you run pall mall across the Abbey?
Asking me for $2, she says she makes a meal
with something like top ramen very hot, each
bowl "guaranteed to keep me warm" I quote.
Outside the auditorium a woman asks, which
did you see? She's looking at the sympony, two
posters - very grand - I saw the poet, ye gods
disappointment as she waited for the bus.
Bernie Utz Hats - man atilt in the doorway divot
settling in for the night, he jumped a little as
I jumped, delicate dance of privacy by urban
display. Is this a permanent wave
new Hoovertown between third and sixth?
Her reading style of hyper-enunciation which had turned me off on the online video did not detract from her poems in person. I like her, I like her poems, I enjoyed her reading. And that's probably enough with the I as well.
Rebecca Hoogs, the fashion front for poetry in Seattle, wore a sprightly gray dress with a skinny slip of a sweater with prominent round clasps and rasperry tights with gray heeled pumps to emcee. (Obviously she looked terrific.) Kathleen Flenniken's 5th grade student Michaela read her metaphorically veined poem to start things off. Michaela wrote that she felt like a cake topper set in her favorite place. One of my students will read something to begin Naomi Shihab Nye's second reading on May 8 in this series. Will it be the Palestinian-American girl who loves Naomi Shihab Nye? Stay tuned.
The q&a section began with Rebecca opening a water bottle and asking Jane if she wanted some. "Cheers" Jane said, they clinked plastic cups, and Jane settled back in her chair. "You didn't know; it's gin," she said. "Who knew Jane Hirshfield was so wild?" Rebecca said breezily to the crowd, and the q&a was off.
3/10/09 NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLE POEM DRAFT
What counts are not the thoughts but acts,
Who were the first to cache their bras?
Will you run pall mall across the Abbey?
Asking me for $2, she says she makes a meal
with something like top ramen very hot, each
bowl "guaranteed to keep me warm" I quote.
Outside the auditorium a woman asks, which
did you see? She's looking at the sympony, two
posters - very grand - I saw the poet, ye gods
disappointment as she waited for the bus.
Bernie Utz Hats - man atilt in the doorway divot
settling in for the night, he jumped a little as
I jumped, delicate dance of privacy by urban
display. Is this a permanent wave
new Hoovertown between third and sixth?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Does anyone know if Ayda Al-Jahani is still in the running for best poet title on "Millions' Poet" the Abu Dhabi TV reality show? She (yes SHE!) made it to round 3 - A Beduin woman who resisted pressure to quit, whose husband supports her, and whose poems celebrate womens' value. See the video on YouTube. There are TWO reality shows with POETS competing for prizes on Abu Dhabi TV - The Prince of Poets as well as Millions' Poet.
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