wednesday: a list

1) hiked up rock canyon at 7 a.m. with kirsti & talked about women artists with her until i realized i needed an inhaler to get up any higher.

2) got lula off to camp.

seeing francesca woodman show in nyc.  i forgot to write about the show.  but i will.  it was terrific.

3) signed up three kids and me for the summer reading program at the provo city library (aren't you proud, julie?) brought home two armfuls of books.  i hope julie will post/link us to some of her fabulous librarian lists.

4) poured over one of my new library books, ad hoc at home by thomas keller.  this book is seriously beautiful. i'm a little jaded about cookbooks, but this one really got me all excited to cook again, as i've been a little burned out/not home of late.  tomorrow i plan on making brioche from his book.  also excited to make the five melon salad when the melons come on.

5) wrote a poem, using the "rock, paper, scissors" prompt from april's poetry month daily prompts feature from janet mcadams (and a couple from me, as well.)  i'm working on keeping up a daily poetry practice this june.

6) went to monica's yoga class with eva.  gave in to the temptation to do shoulder stand, which always kills my neck, and sure enough, my neck is dead now.

7) taught my online class.

8) washed and dried but did not fold a load of laundry.

9) looked for interesting new places to submit poems.  didn't find them yet.

10) thought about how lame my parenting has been for the first two days of summer.  need to get a plan, a schedule, or something.

11) watched 3.5 episodes of restaurant impossible.  it's really not a great show, and yet i can't stop watching it and imagining what i would do if it were my restaurant.

12) researched soup dumplings and found a good looking recipe for them.  cecily requested we make them (she checked out a novel about dumplings from the library today, dumpling days by grace lin.)

13) read a couple of interesting poems from allen grossman's collection, titled after the poem how to do things with tears.

14) got into my nightgown at 6 p.m.  got out of bed at 7.30 to eat the delicious baked pasta with spinach and tomato prepared by eva.  did the dishes and crawled back into bed.  what's wrong with me?

legwear: yoga pants, day two.  that's a warning signal for me.  i need to get into some more structured legwear/outfit tomorrow or risk sliding into the black hole.

inspiration:  thomas keller!!!!!!

looking forward:  a new day with no headache and more structure.  also, more poetry writing.

chance operations

 almost swerved into mcdonald's for a double cheeseburger, but resisted, came home, and made this instead

today i had lunch with a wonderful composer.   we talked about chance, randomization, happenstance, choice, improvisation and all that.

you know.

the stuff composers think about all the time.

my composer said:

the mind craves


both order & chaos

& i think he's right.  we're only comfortable with chaos for so long.

we're only comfortable with order for so long.

we need both.

here's my book balloon poetry prompt for today, inspired by the composer.  in the spirit of loving the order and the chaos equally well:

Poetry Prompt #4—Aleatory
A theme has seemed to emerge this month (thank you so much, Janet, and Book Balloon, for having me!) as I thought about practices that encourage innovation and progress in poetics:  that of lessening the over-determination of the poet.  It seems, at least in my own practice, that the more I focus on a specific outcome, the less successful my work, my life, and even my own heart feels.

This is not to say that there are not good times, places, and reasons to learn technique, to study hard, and to put your self through some rigorous training.  But there’s also a time and place to admit that words are much more powerful than the poets who use them, and we’d best step aside and let them do their work in the world.

With this in mind, I turned to composer John Cage & his practice of using the I Ching and chance operations to create new compositions.  Although Cage’s method of randomization was complex and ever-changing, we can simplify it and use chance to tap into the power of association, random happenings, and the smells, sounds, and smoke rings that emerge when words stand next to each other, no matter what the author’s intent.

This prompt has two phases:

Phase 1:

Roll a pair of dice.  Write down the number you roll and then compose a line inspired by that number. 

Your line must start with that number. 

If so inspired, you may continue and create a couplet, tercet, or a quartet.  (You may decide to continue working in couplets, tercets, etc., or you may decide to change the number of lines with each roll of the dice.)

Repeat for a total of ten rolls.

Phase 2:
Despite your intention to not have intention, themes may have begun to emerge,  and you may have begun controlling your text in all the devious ways we’ve been trained in, so phase two will help you to loosen your grip on the need to control again:

Roll the dice.  When you roll a number corresponding with a number that begins one of your lines, that line or group of lines becomes the beginning of your poem.

If you have more than one line beginning with that number, choose the group least likely to make a “good” beginning to a poem.

Your subsequent rolls will determine the order of the subsequent lines.  Each time a number corresponding with a group of lines comes up, that group will be next in the order of the poem.

Again, if you have more than one line beginning with the same number, choose the lines that seem the most out of order to go next.

Repeat until your poem has found its own order.


legwear: my favorite olio yoga pants

inspiration: randomness & vegetables

looking forward: to the tasty dishes my girls always bring to bookclub

the list & pink tights

lalage in seattle--tomorrow night, provo.  wish my pink tights were still alive.

all this talk of lists got me writing this prompt for my wednesday guest spot at book balloon:

(if you've missed the other prompts, let the table speak is here and a missive, a supplication is here.)

No method is better at reminding the poet of the power of juxtaposition and letting the white space do the talking than the list (also known as the catalogue) poem.  No method is better at freeing you from the constraint or pressure of forcing unity into your poem, something those of us trained on the sonnet might feel from time to time. 

It’s also one of my favorites for getting out of a rut, which maybe a few of us are feeling after a month of trying to keep up with all this intense thinkin’ and poetry writin’.  Try a list poem to get yourself over the mid-national poetry month hump:  when it’s too hard to make the connections, leave them out.  If you’ve been thinking too hard, stop.  The list can be spontaneous, absurd, profound, funny, lyrical or, in its best incarnation, all of those things at once.

*

I keep a lot of lists—and my lists are so far flung and various that it’s almost absurd.  Here’s an actual list I found from an old notebook eight years ago when I had a baby with respiratory illness and was working on Ph.d, teaching, raising 3 older children, feeding a vegetarian teen, buying a house, trying to write and publish a book of poetry, and basically juggling a lot of different sizes and shapes of balls:

1)    Order more tender grips from IHC.
2)    Make baba ganoush.
3)    Find copy of out of print Spicer book.
4)    Write Baudelaire paper.
5)    L’s reading assessment appointment.
6)    Buy dry erase markers.
7)    Find phone charger.
8)    Change oil.
9)    Soup to Grandma Beth.
10)    Write Daniel’s grant.

That list isn’t particularly poignant or profound, funny, absurd, or lyrical on it’s own, but if I fleshed it out just a tiny bit more for you, it would be.

Here’s a list poem I wrote in the early ‘90’s.  I’m only sharing it with you to show you an example of the poem, not because I’m particularly proud of it (though it has some okay moments):

I Will Write Ten Poems About What Happened to Me in Prison

I rested my cheek against a cool bar.

I dreamt of my scented mother, her sweet warm milk fed to me with a breast slipped
between the bars of my prison.  I was saddened to think the bars might chill her.

I quietly, embarrassingly, crying all the while, used the toilet.

I designed a gown that was later actualized by Donna Karan.

I pretended my enclosure was a crib for babies, and that I would soon be lifted from it.

Out of hunger, fear, and compulsiveness, I ate the inside of my mouth.

I asked that all bullets fired at 10:57 turn toward me, enter me like they were all my man, and release me at once from my body, far worse than any jail.

I vowed to become more ladylike.

I questioned my former disregard of Catholic mysticism.

My body kept telling me to run, but my mind quietly insisted that I stay put.

*

If you really want a catalogue tour de force, invest 20 minutes and read Christopher Smart’s Jubilate Agno.  (that link I trust a bit more because it's from poetry foundation, but this link has the full text and gives a better sense of the list/repetitive qualities of the poem.) Holy crap, it’s good & pretty crazy under the surface.  Notice the repetition at each line’s beginning and then the long shifts from “bless” to “praise” to “rejoice”.

The list poem can be a lot of things, and ideally, all things exist and co-exist without any need to justify, explain, or force a monolithic meaning out of the beautiful and absurd disparity that makes up a human life.  So don’t force—flow. 

Here are a few lists you might try making into poems.  Bon chance!

1)    grocery list
2)    imperative list—second person
3)    list of books
4)    to do list
5)    “I will. . .” list
6)    a list of favorite dresses, actors, plays, shoes, etc.
7)    a list of medications
8)    list of things you love/hate about____________
9)    a list of America
10)  a list of ten things you see from wherever it is you’re sitting



legwear:  grey herringbone tights to match the grey weather

inspiration:  radiohead "in rainbow" and c.'s "how to be spring"

looking forward:  performing in tomorrow night's show at muse with lalage

tights trajectory/ a missive poetry prompt

leaving utah--encountered blizzard outside of beaver, ut.

did i know the bowling shoes would match my dress in mesa, az.?

pool legs, sans tights, scottsdale, az. 

so, one more day of spring break "vacation" (decision:  taking kids places is not a vacation--it's much, much harder than going to work.  not to say it's not a worthwhile endeavor, but it's certainly not relaxing.  or is it just me?)

it's the end of the day, so i won't go into much detail, but we've gotten to see all siblings and spend an entire day at the pool, so mission accomplished--sun & sibs.  got to hold my newest nephew, marco, aka mr. bubbers/papi/chubby hubby.   he's very advanced and handsome, as are all my nieces and nephews.

i barely had time to post my guest poetry prompt from book balloon today, so i'll let it double for my blog post as well.  it's inspired by yesterday's post, and it uses jean valentine's poem again which i love more and more with each read.

i'd be so overjoyed to read anyone's attempt at this poem.  the idea for it is rather nascent, so it would be great to see how writers respond to it.

& DEFINITELY go to book balloon, register, go to the forum and click on "go--get creative."  janet mcadams has been posting a prompt for each day of april, except wednesdays when i prompt, and she has a few surprise guest poets coming up.  so do it!

A Missive, A Supplication

To whom do you supplicate?

I’ve been thinking about the poem as a prayer, a cry, a missive, a plea, an attempt to speak about something we need but we don’t have the right words, in the expository sense, to ask for. 

So we send a missive out into the world, “This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me,” Emily Dickinson said, not knowing whom, exactly, in the world or universe, is listening, or what they will hear.

Prayer and poem connect on many points, but specifically in the way that they can be expressive in a non-direct, non-linear, nonsensical way that sometimes someone will understand and make their own sense of. 

I love this poem by Jean Valentine, and think of it as a prayer; in the end, God knows she needs to take “Jim” into the wide front porch of her lap.

The Rose


by Jean Valentine

a labyrinth,
as if at its center,
god would be there—
but at the center, only rose,
where rose came from,  
where rose grows—
& us, inside of the lips & lips:
the likenesses, the eyes, & the hair,
we are born of,
fed by, & marry with,
only flesh itself, only its passage
—out of where?    to where?

Then god the mother said to Jim, in a dream,
Never mind you, Jim,
come rest again on the country porch of my knees.




So here’s the prompt for a missive poem, after all my blah, blah, blahing (thanks for listening!)

A.  Dear __________________, (insert a word that is god-like or ungod-like here.  How about “toothbrush”?)  Please___________________________.  (Insert your cry for help here.)  It can make sense (“Brush my soul clean/Sweep my heart with your bristles") or not sense ("Please tell me who you are/change from neon pink to clear/make the teeth fall out of my head.")

Repeat this warm-up 10 times.  Here are a couple of my first attempts:

1. Dear Strawberry,  please curl me up in your tongue until tendrils sprout, and I become we.

2. O pencil, please write and unwrite, write and unwrite, write and unwrite until god’s breath makes me clear and blank as a spirit.

3.  Beloved bowl, please don’t mock me for overturning you and wearing you to the winter formal and pretending like you are an Alexander McQueen.

Okay, so some of those are silly, but I’m brainstorming and therefore not getting too critical yet.

B.  Choose three to five lines that you like and make a stanza for each, letting the prayer extend itself to wherever it wants to go?  (Who would EVER have predicted that, in Valentine’s poem,  “Jim” would come into the picture, or that god would be a mother rocking on the porch with her big comfortable lap for Jim to sit in?)

What I’m trying to say here is let your poem write itself into a prayer, let the poem tell you, your toothbrush, god, your pretty bowl, ripe strawberry, or the stars above, the words that need to be said.

Then post on book balloon, and/or get on your knees & speak your prayer aloud in a dark room.


legwear:  cocoa butter & bathing suit

inspiration: baby flesh/mr. bubbers

looking forward: to going back to work/routine

blue & blue, borax & sugar, holes & roses

prussian blue toenails=ready for spring break

blue can be blue

or blue can be bright

or sky or lake or sea or eye or

lupine or vein or lace or dead or

sadhappy, the color of the arterial 

roadway to our heart

& so it is my color for the season

for the series of juxtapositions 

we live whether or not

we believe in it

all is soft

*

tights giveaway winners, selected by one of our illustrious guest bloggers, are:

-christine-chioma--blue roses

&

-sunshine christiensen--holey black

one of you will receive a punkish pair of holey black tights, the other a fine meshed blue rose garden for your legs.

maybe some day you'll want to get together and trade.

mixing the hard and the soft is always good, even if you don't believe in the hard and the soft,

but rather think that 

all is soft. 

 

*

from the poetry foundation website:

Common Blue

Common Blue
 by Melissa Kwasny
 

Their eggs are laid on lupine. Tiny jade

hairstreaks I could easily mistake for dew.

Too precious. Too incidental,

and besides that, blue, these trills that flounce

in my potato patch, drawn

from dryland origins to the domestic

stain of water from my hose.

What an old woman would study, I think

as you hand me the guidebook, distracted

by the replica of a parasol

growing out of a bleached cow pie.

The Siamese kitten with his butterfly eyes

comes running, his mouth full

of swallowtail, his breath smelling of borax

and sugar I have poured

over the ant hills in the garden.

He is young and intent on eating poison.

We bushwhack through Paradise,

what is there to say except to lament

the daily evidence of its passing.

How the common blues scatter from my shade.

And you, so fragile, so sick, so thin,

your diet restricted, keep pointing out

the bearded face of larkspur.

When the angels fell, a fifteenth-centruy bishop says,

there were 133, 306, 668 of them.

It takes us all afternoon to cross the field.

The body, it is so sad what happens to it.

If you fell, you would dry up instantly.

But these are not angel wings

who disguise themselves as leaf or shred of bark,

who are named after the stops

in meaning our language must make room for:

the comma whose wings look battered,

or the violet underside of the question mark.

To keep the mind from clenching, you say,

is the main thing. Even the most

beautiful days always seem to have death in them.

As Valentinus said; our fall into love and sleep.

You especially like the dark alpines

with their furred bodies and lack of marking.

And the sulphurs, yellowed scraps that fall

from a myth of origin that doesn’t include us.

When we find them, we will wonder

who is still alive. We speak of our souls with such

surface ease. But who will take such care for us?

You bend and bend to the scrappy blue sea,

your back turned to the moon fluttering above you.

I have been thinking so much of strength

this week, yours and mine, I mean,

the field of attention that can be strengthened.

*

legwear: bare

inspiration:  janet mcadam's daily poetry prompt "the art of losing" at book balloon

looking forward:  to greeting the saguaro cacti waving to us along the road on our way to az.

notebooks (le cahier): poetry month kick-off

my favorite notebooks, on account of their silky paper

i'm sure you already knew i was gonna make a big deal about poetry month.

i won't disappoint.

i just cracked open my third red moleskine paper bound notebook with cream graphing paper pages.  i got a three-pack of these notebooks at the sarah lawrence college bookstore in july 2010.  that same day, i went to the cloisters and took a bunch of notes and sat in the gardens, then returned to the hotel and wrote some poems about stained glass and unicorn tapestries.

by this july i will have filled up three moleskines, one wonderwoman notebook (from target, that i won at a holiday white elephant gift exchange) and one clairefontaine notebook.  i don't write prose or scripts in my notebooks.  i do write poems, menus, quotes from my reading, shopping lists and sometimes to-do lists.

i like to mix all of these genres in each notebook.  when i look back on them they give me a sense of time and place better than any through-written journal could.  for instance, i had forgotten the week we had these menus for dinner:

m-spaghetti
t-gabrielle hamilton's chrilled cheese with squash soup
w-pernilla
th-quesadillas with black beans
s-chocolate walnut picnic cake

i had forgotten that i had read this from the baghavad gita in roughly the same quarter of that year:

kill the enemy menacing you in the form of desire. (3.43)

that i had been at the love feast in oklahoma rehearsing for three concerts with program orders such as this:

lalage
istanbul
stoops improv
eyvind's piece
jessika songs

that i had started, but never finished, a little essay about an inlaid rosewood desk,  how many times my grocery lists called for garbanzos, tahini, and lemons, or that lula had written a note for me to buy her some floral tights.

or that i had drafted 19 poems based on the teachings of the baghavad gita.

because: the tree of life is unchanging and lucidity addicts one to joy.

or that i had called marni and asked her to dictate the words to hildegard's aer aenim volat to me over the phone.  or bought half n' half, cider vineagar, foundation, popcorn kernels, limes, donuts and cocoa powder one day.

i love my notebooks for another reason:  they are a  finite space to fill with writing.  the infinite nature of the word doc can be overwhelming.  the choice of how many pages, words, chapters you can write is overwhelming.  i love to close a full notebook, with every page written on.  (all of my notebooks have doodles from my kids in them as well, as i have them with me in the car, at church, in restaurants and waiting rooms.  so they are inscribed by hands other than my own.)

knowing that i want to finish filling my fifth notebook by july of this year is a concrete and achievable mark to set for myself.  especially since a number of pages can be devoted to listing the ingredients needed to make biscuits and gravy, or ratatouille.  and a few more pages can be devoted to things like:  schedule orthodontist appointment.  go to cecy's violin lesson.  sign the kids up for swimming.  call dmba.  etc.

it's cheering to observe that  life is created through juxtaposition, to see the poetic and the quotidian lying side by side.

&
like ms. smartytights says
the external trappings matter.

(this month i will be a "guest prompter" at book balloon--offering a poetry prompt each wednesday during national poetry month.  the fantastic janet mcadams is doing daily prompts there, and i'm joining her.  i'm starting my first poem of april today, from her prompt.  i think i'll try to do one a day for the entire month.  are you up to it?  wanna try?)

legwear:  bare legs under maxi dress (even though it's freezing outside.)

inspiration:  daily poetry prompts

looking forward: to traditional conference sunday tamale dinner with the family