I knew before I started blogging for BAP this week that I wanted to end my gig with some words for the man who got me back on the path to poetry, Philip Dacey. Phil passed away earlier this month, on July 7. It was a sad day for poetry. We lost one of the great ones. I am, with Stacey's permission, reprinting a piece I wrote that day for the Stoneboat blog. It doesn't tell you everything Philip ever did, where he taught, who he knew, or even the names of all his books.It is just my personal response to him, his poetry, and his generosity. He taught me a lot, even from a distance. And, he still will, I think, even though he has moved on. That's what poets do, here or not here. Teach us with their words. Listen to the voice of each dead poet as if it were yours. It is. --Philip Dacey From Mosquito Operas, 2010 The sad news came today that a poet and good friend to Stoneboat, Philip Dacey, has died after a long illness. I only met Philip in person on one occasion, and that was at the Great Lakes Writers Festival at Lakeland College back in 2007. At the time, I had not tried to write a poem for many years. I was on major hiatus as far as poetry was concerned. But meeting Philip and hearing his work, I was impressed by his poems and by his welcoming nature. He was not snobbish about poetry. He did not make it seem like an enterprise for only some special sect of people. He helped me see that poetry is there for anyone who wants to partake of it. He was a true mentor in that regard. Later on, when we became email correspondents, he wrote to me often about "the vineyard." This was the place that he designated as the ground where all poetry comes from, and he believed that anyone who was willing to do the work of caring for the roots, fertilizing the soil, and tending to the vines would be able to enjoy the wine, eventually. He never said it was easy, but he also did not say it was impossible. The work was there to be done, if one so wished to engage in the endeavor. He always made poetry look like a vocation worth having. Philip was clearly generous with his time and talent. He did not make distinctions, I think, between "high end" and "low end." For example, when we were in the process of devising our first issue of Stoneboat, I wrote to him and asked if he would be so kind as to send us some poems. He immediately sent six. He did not say, "Oh, you are below me, little upstart literary journal." He simply sent some work. It was quite a boost to my editorial ego to be given the opportunity to select three poems from a repeat Pushcart Prize-winning... Continue reading

I've been thinking a lot about maps lately. Have you noticed that you can't find them in gas stations anymore? Now that we are fully in the era of GPS and Siri telling us that in a quarter mile, we need to turn left, hard copy maps are becoming obsolete. I find this extremely depressing. Before I go on a car trip, I love to spread out a map and get a bird's eye picture of my upcoming journey. I love selecting a route that will be slower but more interesting than the interstate. Who wants to rely on the 4-G network in the middle of nowhere? What happens if Siri decides to take a nap? Then what? A paper map will never fail you. Check the glove compartment of your car. If you are over 50, I bet you have a whole pile of maps stuffed in there, representing all the different states you have ever driven through. And then there are those special maps that have received a lot of wear and tear, whose folds are so stressed, they have worn clear through. You can no longer see certain junctions or towns, because they have gotten lost in the crease that is not there anymore. I love maps. Maybe it's because when I was in elementary school, we had this map-reading series that everyone worked through at his or her own pace. It was akin to the SRA reading resource. Does anyone out there remember that? In the series I am remembering, map skills were presented in booklets and each booklet was associated with a different color. As you mastered each level, you moved up through the color ranks. You started with common, every day colors like red and blue. But then, as the maps got more complex and the questions more nuanced, you moved up to aqua, silver, lavender, and black. You know, like getting a black belt in karate, but in map reading. Yes. I love maps. And it's not that I shun the convenience of the Internet. I love that Google Earth allows me to see an aerial view of the place in Malawi where I am headed to build the reading garden. I can literally see the trees on the grounds of the Teacher Training College. Come to think of it, that is not a map as much as it is a bird's eye view of reality. Okay, well, how about the map I found on the Facebook page of my guest house in Malawi, showing me the roads I will be traversing in just about a week from now. How cool is that? GPS is great, but having a map gives context. You can see where you are going in relation to a much larger world. That fact alone makes maps extremely valuable. My advice to you? Hang onto your paper maps. As they become obsolete, they may be worth a lot of money one day. In fact, they may themselves become currency.... Continue reading

Once upon a time, a group of graduate students from Malawi, Africa, came to study early grade reading instruction at Lakeland University, a small liberal arts institution nestled in the corn fields of Wisconsin. They were all teachers of teachers in Malawi, and they worked hard at their graduate studies, learning new strategies to support those who are charged with teaching the youngest of the young to read. The graduate students learned about phonemic awareness, scaffolding, differentiated instruction, ongoing assessment, and more. Malawi is famous for being recognized as the warm heart of Africa. It is also a very poor country with per capita earnings of the equivalent of $800 a year. In Malawi, there are often more than 100 children sitting under a tree waiting to learn. The beleaguered teacher, full of hope and good intention, has few practical strategies to engage such a large group of learners and no print resources to share. The teacher may have nothing more than a piece of chalk, a wall, and the sound of his or her own voice. And so, the graduate students dreamed of text-rich learning environments. They dreamed of incorporating reading across the curriculum, in all subject areas. They dreamed of older students writing stories that younger students could read. They dreamed of developing ways to engage parents in children's learning. They were determined to return home and put their M.Ed. degrees to good use. They were determined to be agents of change. One day, early in their time in Wisconsin, they visited a place called Bookworm Gardens. Bookworm Gardens is an inspiring outdoor learning-scape where children's literature is brought to life through interactive, multi-themed displays presented in a magical garden setting. Upon experiencing Bookworm Gardens, the graduate students said, We wish someday we might have a place like this in Malawi. They had a friend at Lakeland, a poet. Her name, Lisa. It was part of Lisa's job in the Advancement Office to write a blog about the graduate students to report on their activities in Wisconsin. She overheard them talk about how much they admired Bookworm Gardens. She filed this knowledge away in the back of her head. One day, Lisa woke up and discovered she no longer worked at the University. She was cast into the world to find a job that would earn her keep. But she didn't want just any job. She wanted to do a job that would make the world a better place. Lisa had the good fortune to be reminded by an old friend of an opportunity offered annually through her undergraduate alma mater, Vassar College. The opportunity is called the Time-Out Grant. Each year, one alumnus or alumna of Vassar is chosen to work on a project that takes the person outside of his or her comfort zone, to do something risky and amazing, something that could not happen without the support of the grant. Lisa had applied for this grant 15 years earlier, asking for time-out to write a... Continue reading

My room at Brigit Rest was once someone's office and it was full of books. There were books of poetry, theology, and folklore from many places around the world. I found one book with stories from Africa and checked it out in case I might find a story from Malawi. No such luck, but still. Lots and lots of stories explaining why things are the way they are. And then there were books by Patricia Monaghan, who co-founded Black Earth Institute and helped to create Brigit Rest. There were two boxes of books under the desk, one marked "Books in which Patricia appears," and the other marked "Books by Patricia." I was especially interested in that box. It contained The New Book of Goddesses and Heroines, a treasure trove of goddess stories from cultures all over the world. Published in 1981, there had apparently never been anything like it before. That is the year I graduated from Vassar. I wish I had known of this book then. It might have helped me a lot. In the same box were various collections of Patricia's poetry including Homefront, Seasons of the Witch, and Dancing with Chaos. A memoir travelogue, The Red-Haired God Rising from the Bog: The Landscape of Celtic Myth and Spirit, and a how-to book, Magical Gardens. I opened that last one to a random page and found this: "Abuk, mother goddess of the African Dinka people, lived in a magical garden, where plants spoke to her and told her how to tend and harvest them." That got my attention, seeing as how I am on my way to Malawi to build a children's reading garden. [In a future post, I will tell you the story of how the idea for this garden came to be.] I scribbled some notes about how to create a garden filled with meaning. I am open to all information on this matter. My intention for this garden in Malawi is that it be designed and built to reflect what the children, parents, and teachers in that place want it to be. And if this garden is magical, it will be that way because we listened to what the ground there told us to do. If it makes reading a more enjoyable and meaningful experience for children and families, my work will have been done. I don't have to know everything, or even anything in particular. I just have to listen, and to bring people together who can do the work. Fortunately, there are quite a few people there who are also committed to making this garden happen. Together, we'll figure it all out. That is the spirit I will go with, trusting that the right information and people will come forward at the right time. The Goddess is going with me. I think so. I feel like she found me while I was sleeping with all those books at Brigit Rest. Now she is watching over me and the garden that is yet to... Continue reading

I'm in need of grounding myself this morning. This past weekend, I participated in a writers' retreat at Black Earth Institute in Black Earth, Wisconsin. Founded in 2004 by Michael McDermott and his late wife, the poet Patricia Monaghan, Black Earth promotes thinking and creating across realms—including the environment, social justice, and spirituality. The institute is tucked into the side of a hill in a rambling house with a rambling, multi-tiered garden surrounding it. The physical place is called Brigit Rest, and I found it to be an earthly paradise in Wisconsin's driftless area. Brigit Rest gets its name from the Celtic goddess and Christian saint of the 5th century. Perhaps it's because Michael is an Irishman, or because the bookshelves are full of books about Celtic lore, or maybe it's just because there's so much green everywhere, but I felt transported to the land of Céad Mile Fáilte, Gaelic for "a hundred thousand welcomes." Brigit Rest is a very welcoming place. The retreat was organized by my friend and fellow poet, Sarah Sadie Busse. The other writers present were Cris Carusi, Marnie Bullock Dresser, Margaret Rozga, Wendy Vardaman, and yours truly. We didn't have a preconceived plan. We talked when we wanted to talk. The rest of the time, we worked on whatever we'd brought to work on. Thanks to our hosts, Michael and Charlene, we ate really well, enjoying fresh food from the garden all weekend. Sarah created a good frame for our time together by reminding us of the five keys to writing that are ours for the taking, or rather, the embracing: space, time, community, courage, and permission. As we wrote, ate, shared, read, and wrote some more, we realized we all struggle to find time to focus on writing. All the responsibilities of life pull us in many directions, so whether we write poems, plays, novels, short stories, blog posts, or articles, we can't always find the time we need. But we agreed that focus is necessary and encouraged each other to do that. We also talked about the urge to do more collaboratively, to work with others to combine word and image, or word and action. There's so much to do. It's good to take stock with friends from time to time and acknowledge the many ways that our work unfolds into the world. I'd like to stay connected to the magic of Brigit Rest. In the weeks and months ahead, I'll find myself walking far on this earth. In fact, I'll go all the way to Malawi, Africa, where I'm going to start the process of planning and building a children's reading garden with the help of friends there. More on this in the days to come. As I go, I'll keep a little sliver of Brigit Rest in my back pocket, a reminder of all the ways that we inspire each other, all the ways this world can be both heaven and earth at the same time. Despite all the roadblocks and... Continue reading

I have developed what I am calling “Salerno Eyes,” this being the phenomenon of seeing everything from the perspective of the awareness I gained while in Italy, in the presence of so many amazing poet-activists. So for example, when I sat this past Thursday evening by the large, terraced fountain that graces the front patio of Sheboygan’s Mead Public Library, I thought, “how can I use this space for a community poetry event?” The space is calling out for oratory. Now that I have returned from my own personal Mt. Parnassus, I am sure I could make this happen. I was at the library because the small press that I helped to found four years ago, Pebblebrook Press, was having a reading of our four most recent authors who would read from their books: Erik Richardson, a berserker stuck in traffic (a 32-page chapbook of poems that speak to the poet’s fascination with math, mythology, and fatherhood) Marilyn Zelke-Windau, The Momentary Ordinary (a 131-page collection of poems and original drawings that transform the everyday into something extraordinary) Mark Zimmermann, Impersonations (a collection of 73 lipograms, a form that restricts the letters of the alphabet that can be used in each poem to the letters in the poem's title.) and Karl Elder, who read from On Earth as It Is in Heaven, his novel that we will be publishing later this summer. (I was so enthralled by his reading, I totally forgot to take a picture of him. I'm sorry, Karl!) As I listened to these poets read their work, I could not help but think, “the oral tradition is alive and well.” I felt validated and on-task. I felt like all these disparate pieces of my life are starting to come together. It is a good time to be job hunting. I am sure the perfect job is waiting for me, right around the corner. I just have to look for it with my Salerno Eyes. Ciao, ragazzi!! Continue reading

I have come to the conclusion that it is quite impossible to sum up all the epiphanies that took place over five days with 80 plus poets from 21 countries.I cannot even begin to name all the dots that were connected, seeds planted, and friendships made. I do know that together, we observed how small gestures move adroitly between grand actions, and how each person's story comes forward into the realm of possibility.We learned that the rhythm, tone, and gesture of words convey their meaning just as much as meaning conveys meaning. Capisce? We learned we have a lot more to do, both apart and together. There is a big world out there that needs the balm of the poet. Andiamo, ragazzi! I want to offer some very specific thank yous to the following people for making this conference happen: First, to Valeriano Forte, the poet and organizer of 100 Thousand Poets for Change in Salerno, for his generosity of spirit, and for opening Salerno to all of us. Valeriano Forte before an image of poet Alfonso Gatto Filippo Trotta inside the Fondazione Alfonso Gatto To Filippo Trotta, grandson of Alfonso Gatto and director of the Fondazione Alfonso Gatto, for his vision and support. To Greenpino, the artist who wrote the poet’s words on the city’s walls and on the ground of the piazza and who said again and again with his photo portraits of us, “The World is Poetry.” To Donatella D’Angelo for making the vision of the conference a graphic reality. To student of language Guilia Sensale for “getting inside our minds” to do the lion’s share of translating. Without her, so much would have been lost between us. To poets Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion for starting all this and keeping the faith. Poster designed by Donatella D'Angelo In addition, ti volevo dire: Grazie to the one whose heart was beating like he was at a wedding and to the one who was a native in a strange land. Grazie to the one who secured our apartment and who woke me at 5:45 the last morning to hug me goodbye. Grazie to the one who swept me off to Paestum and the one who gave me tips about Dublin. Grazie to the one who went home to Macedonia to continue the struggle there and to the one who spoke for the Roma and to the one who spoke for the Yazidi and to the ones who spoke for schoolgirls in India. Grazie to the three angels of Salerno and to the one who exchanged books with me and to the one who admired my hair and gave me her long poem. Grazie to the one who sang her poems with such force and beauty and to the one who knew Hurry Curry in Venice, CA. Grazie to the one who gave the best bear hugs ever and to the ones who admitted being introverts and to the ones who shared their excellent photographs and to the ones... Continue reading

Which Way to Go? (My Dublin Feet) The blogger respectfully asks that you read this post out loud. Heavenly Mother/Father Poet Above Us, Source of All Our Contemplations, Having roamed the streets of Salerno after midnight with my fellow poets, speaking our verses under a June moon, I came to these eternal questions: What is this thing called poetry and what distinguishes it from spoken word? What distinguishes it from song? As fast as the questions came, answers quickly followed: 1) Nothing, my child and 2) Nothing, but song adds melody to lyrics. Although I have not done an exhaustive study on these matters, I do have some shreds of evidence that lead me to the conclusion that poetry, spoken word, and song are all manifestations of the same phenomenon, that is, the oral tradition. Here, for your consideration: ONE: A while back, I heard the poets Anne Waldman and John Giorno at the 30th anniversary of Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Both poets spoke all their poems from memory. At the time I did not think “spoken word.” I only knew the poets’ words were riveting and I vowed to make mine more like them. Yes! TWO: Fellow conference-goer, poet from Malaysia Elaine Foster, has this to say about the matter: “Poetry has always had an oratory nature. Poetry was first and foremost an oral tradition….There is no difference between spoken word and poetry in terms of actually being poetry. It is all poetry.” Yes! (and the snapping of fingers)* THREE: My 17-year-old son plays guitar, drums, and piano. You could say he is musically oriented. He often sends me song lyrics by bands he admires because he knows I will find them interesting. He intuitively recognizes that song lyrics are poetry. Yes, and yes again! (Snap snap snap) FOUR: Did you ever notice how easy it is to remember the words to a song? Do you know why this is? I repeat, borrowing a method from the tradition of which I speak, poetry, spoken word, and song are all manifestations of the same phenomenon, that is, the oral tradition. The oral tradition goes way back, as you know. It is the fertile ground out of which all storytelling and poetry have grown, grow now, and will continue to grow in the coming generations. The instinct to speak, to be heard, to pass wisdom from one mind to the next, to share the past so that we can learn from it in the present and thus make a better future; all this is the impetus behind our human inclination to partake of the oral tradition. (snap snap snap) Human beings live to make meaning, and while some prefer to do this by creating images (they are called artists), a large sector of the human race engages in making meaning by using words. These are the writers, sometimes called poets. When metaphor, rhyme, rhythm, word choice, repetition, intonation, and gesture get involved in this telling, it becomes poetry.... Continue reading

I am thinking back to Saturday, June 6, at the 100 Thousand Poets for Change World Conference in Salerno, Italy. We’d been talking all day about “Art and Activism” and then, “The Oral Tradition,” and then we had a three hour poetry reading. It was great, but also a bit grueling and we were all rather worn out. So what did we do? First we ate a delicious meal in the sanctuary, specially catered for us by a local osteria. Then, of course, we danced. The band was Compagnia Daltrocanto. They play traditional Neopolitan music, which to my ear was a kind of Latin, Italian, Greek, Macedonian mash-up with some hints of Scottish (due to a wind instrument that sounded something like a bagpipe). After a day filled with so many words, it was great to cut loose. There was a lot of sweating. And then, “the young poets” announced that the midnight open mic would be done as a walking tour through the streets of Salerno, culminating down at the sea. It was late. I am old (ish). But I had to ask myself, how often in this life does a person get to walk down to the Tyrrhenian Sea and say poetry? With a bunch of other poets? I don’t care if I’m old (er). I would have to be pushing 90 to pass on an opportunity like that. And so, I went. The poetry that night was intense and had an oratory nature. There were litanies, diatribes, and hip-hop rhymes. My poems are usually quiet and philosophical, and when you are out past midnight speaking poems in the streets of a foreign land, you want something a bit more, well, happening. David Loret de Mola, Sacramento, CA, USA Eriata Oribhabor, Lagos, Nigeria Pilar R. Aranda, Milinalco, Mexico Siobhan MacMahon, Dublin, Ireland Abdelhadi Said, Rabat, Morocco Canuto Roldan, Mexico City, Mexico Angels of Salerno: Richard Paa Kofi Botchwey (Ghana), Zorro Maplestone (France), Emily Weitzman (USA) In my purse, I was carrying a book of poems written by school children that I had gotten earlier that day from a new friend, Menka Shivdasani, who is the 100 Thousand Poets for Change coordinator in Mumbai, India. The Music of the Spheres is a compilation bringing together poems that children have written over several years in conjunction with the 100TPC festivities there. Here is one I read: What’s This All About? Solemn and sober, loving and calm Tranquil and serene, two fingers of the palm, White like a dove, sweet as love Calm as ever, in today’s day, hard to remember. I’m not part of your world, I feel so left out! All that lives in your world Is war and noise, what is this all about? Why don’t you be a little civilized? Join hands and don’t fight, Ghandhiji, Mandela, take something from them, Hold up a white flag, Be peaceful like them. Truce, harmony, they’re different forms of me, If you are any of them, you’re of a kind... Continue reading

Ti volevo dire is a sign in the window of an unassuming storefront located in a tiny alley off a main cobblestone artery in Salerno, Italy. “Ti volevo dire” literally means, “I wanted to say to you.” The eggshell-colored and slightly crumbling walls of this alley are covered in words written in black and red paint; poems by Salerno’s native son, the poet Alfonso Gatto (1909-1976). Gatto is recognized as one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century, a practitioner of hermetic poetry, a form of obscure and difficult verse, in which the language and imagery are subjective, and where the suggestive power of the sound of words is as important as their meaning. This storefront is the headquarters of the Fondazione Alfonso Gatto whose mission is to spread the work of Gatto by organizing cultural events like literary festivals, artistic interventions, writing workshops, and conferences like 100 Thousand Poets for Change. The foundation is committed to “the welfare of the region, in the belief that the use of expressive art can help to build more inclusive societies.” Wow, I am all for that. In fact, since I am in between jobs right now, I think that maybe I need to start my own foundation for the working people of Wisconsin. My foundation will be dedicated to helping people recognize how much poetry and art is already present in their everyday lives. Lord knows, we need something around here to wake us up before it is too late. But, I digress. When I posted the “Ti volevo dire” sign as my Facebook profile picture, Wisconsin poet and friend Tom Montag commented, “Please, say it…” And so, here I go: Ti volevo dire: There is something comforting about a small corner market that sells local fruit, vegetables, bread, cheese, crackers, and salami. Who needs a “supermarket” with 30 kinds of potato chips and a wall full of toothpaste? Ti volevo dire: How pleasant it is to sit for a couple hours in a café and watch the world go by. Ti volevo dire: Thank you for the self-serve espresso maker in the third floor conference room. Thank you for the daily dose of pastries. Ti volevo dire: Whatever you do, watch where you are stepping. And then, don’t ever use a potentially broken elevator. Ti volevo dire: Do not refer to the young poets and the old poets. There is no age where poetry is concerned. Ti volevo dire: In Italy, if you sit still long enough, someone will bring you a bowl of olives. Ti volevo dire: It was an honor to stand outside the house in which Alfonso Gatto lived and read one of his poems aloud. I honestly can’t remember which poem it was. Thus, I will end with this one translated by Philip Parisi and appearing in the book, The Wall Did Not Answer. Lazarus Where are you running to, Lazarus, unscathed where tree trunks amid rocks and bones detained you through the parched land?... Continue reading

“You will come to understand only when you stand in the same gap with me.” —Richard Paa Kofi Botchwey, The Tale of an Orphan Graffiti Bleu, Guilia Sensale, Pilar R. Aranda, and Youssef Alaoui stand in front of a poem by Alfonso Gatto painted on a wall in Salerno. I begin this week of blogging high on the fuel that comes from spending a week with 80-plus dynamic and diverse poets from all over the world. We came together in the name of 100 Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC), a movement founded in 2011 in Guerneville, California by poets Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion. The purpose of 100TPC is to harness the power of poetry, music, and the arts to build community and create a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world. This gathering—our group’s first world conference—took place from June 3 to June 8 in Salerno, Italy, the birthplace of Italian poet, Alfonso Gatto. I begin this first post with the words of a new friend, a young man with an old soul, Richard Paa Kofi Botchwey from Accra, Ghana. His book,The Tale of an Orphan, has grabbed me by the heart. Orphaned at age five, Richard nonetheless found his way to obtain an education and to overcome loss and despair. His story chronicles the many challenges he has faced growing up into the writer that he is, and his positivity is contagious. Standing with him, standing with the others, I am able to see this world in which we live with newly evolving eyes. We came from Australia, Canada, The Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, India, Ireland, Kosovo, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, The Netherlands, Nigeria, and Serbia. American poets came from: Baltimore, MD, Calexico, CA, Chicago, IL, Claremont, CA, Columbia, MD, Decatur, GA, Ellicott City, MD, Guerneville, CA, Kansas City, MO, Larchmont, NY, Los Angeles, CA, New Orleans, LA, Princeton, NJ, Rochester, NY, Sacramento, CA, San Francisco, CA, San Luis Obispo, CA, St. Louis, MO, Venice, CA, Waco, TX. And yours truly from Sheboygan, WI. If I forgot anyone's point of origin, forgive me. Let me know and I'll correct the record. In Salerno, our days were filled with round table discussions on The Poetics of the Feminine, The Oral Tradition, Art and Activism, Growing the Movement, and Building a Sustainable Community. Our nights were filled with scheduled readings, open mics, poetry in the streets, and of course music, dancing, great food, and lots of red wine and limoncello. There were intense large group conversations and quiet one-on-ones. As poet Graffiti Bleu of Sacramento, CA put it so well, “Beyond the midnight open mics, round table discussions, politics, guerilla street poetry, wine & song... there were conversations & exchanges of wisdom that meant more to me than anything else.” Santa Sofia Church Complex, Salerno, Italy I got back to the U.S. four days ago (I had an amazing power layover in Dublin and then decompressed for three days in Chicago) and I am still a... Continue reading

Last night was the 2014 Best American Poetry launch reading, and I surely wish I could have teleported myself to New York to be with you all. I trust you had a great evening. Since this is my last day on the BAP blog, I want to share some random thoughts that I’d hoped would find their way into my posts, but did not: Did you know: That Saturday, September 27 is the fourth annual 100 Thousand Poets for Change world-wide poetry day, happening at a location near you? In 600 cities in 100 countries, poets, musicians, mimes, and artists are working together to promote peace, justice, and sustainability. Go here for an event in your area. Attend. You will be happy you did. Did you know: That in the future, there will be no colleges, no banks, and no factories? Furthermore, in the future, there will be 3-D printers that can print actual things, like a guitar that you can use and then recycle. Same for clothes. They will fit you perfectly because they will be digitally mastered to fit your body. Then, you can delete them and make new ones the next day. (These are predictions by Jaron Lanier in his book Who Owns the Future?) Did you know: That in the future, things will be less linear and more fragmented? Lanier writes: “From here on out the human story will no longer unfold in a sensible way. We are said to be entering into a fate that will resist interpretation. Narrative arcs will no longer apply.” Lanier goes on to say that in the world of software development, there is still a dominant narrative, but the problem is that humans aren’t the heroes. He wants to make sure that humans remain players. Let’s stay in the game, people. Okay? Did you know: There is wonderful e-zine called Brain Pickings. Go here, to read a fascinating post on how to survive the information revolution. Writer Maria Popova posits that the hope for the future is in the storytellers, the ones who take information and make wisdom from it. In this age of information overload, we need storytellers to keep finding meaning. Hear that people? We need storytellers. Go! Did you know: That eons ago, the mammoths rubbed up against rocks along the coast of Northern California to groom themselves? They rubbed so much that the rocks became shiny. Talk about leaving a legacy. Did you know: A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. (Robert Frost said this.) Did you know: Now that everything is happening in the Cloud, there is a word for the world before the Cloud? The word is: antenimbosia. I want this word. Did you know: That not all Muses are female? Mine, for example, is male. I know this goes against centuries of mythology, but hey. Talk to the Muse. Finally, If I had to say there was one thread for me this week,... Continue reading

Here it is Day 4, a Thursday. In my blog, Frying the Onion, Thursday is significant because it is the day of the week that my dad died. Soon after this happened, a friend told me that the Tibetans have a tradition of remembrance. The day of the week on which the person died becomes sacred, a day to do things in that person’s honor: enact a kind deed, give to charity, or start a new venture. Then, after seven weeks, the deceased’s soul will have decided its next move, and off it goes. Those left behind can relax, trusting that the soul has found its next bardo, or level. So we hope. For me, Thursday has remained full of meaning, and a year later, is still frought with grief. On top of this, it seems that everywhere I turn, a friend, co-worker, neighbor, or acquaintance is battling cancer or some other life-threatening illness. And I don't mean the terminal illness called Life. I mean something serious. Something that changes how a person does things. Last week, when I visited California, I made a five-hour detour off my main purpose (which was to visit friends in the Bay Area), and drove down to the San Fernando Valley to say goodbye to a friend in hospice in her home. I last saw Diane in January, 2014, and before that, in the summer of 2010 when she came to Wisconsin for a visit. She was sick, but pretty high functioning then. Friends were giving her and her husband trips to Paris and London and the use of their homes in these romantic places. At the time, she said, "I should die more often." Diane is my age, and was my colleague when I worked at the Getty Museum. She was the writer/editor in the Education Department and later an editor at the Getty Research Institute. A good portion of our friendship developed through email after I left Los Angeles and came to Wisconsin. She was a great correspondent and had the most wonderful dry sense of humor in her writing. When I saw her last week, she was barely awake, though her doctor said she would probably hang on for a couple weeks yet. She said "It's unfair," and I said "I know." She said, "It's unfair that you will get to see the next season of Downton Abbey and I won't." We laughed. At one point, she looked me right in the eye and said, "Good things are going to happen!" I would like to believe this, but without her in the world? I'm not convinced. I’m so glad I made the effort to get to her and hold her hands and cry. She is an excellent writer, editor, and friend. I miss her already. Then, in Berkeley, I attended a poetry reading on the UC campus in honor of someone I did not know, had never met: the poet Hillary Gravendyk. Hillary died on May 10 of this year, age... Continue reading

I was telling you yesterday about my first poetry teacher, Nancy Willard. I pulled a book she wrote off my shelf over the weekend, in preparation for blogging here. I found some really good stuff in it, just in the first essay alone. That is as far as I’ve gotten. I’m slow, sometimes. I acquired this book many years ago, but never read it. Perhaps you can relate to this habit of buying books that often go unread until many years after their purchase. Is this a common problem among writers? There is so much to absorb. Better to buy the book then to have it go missing. The book of Nancy’s I am referring to is Telling Time: Angels, Ancestors, and Stories and it is a book of essays on the craft of writing. It is exactly what I need right now as I find myself dangling on a limb of my own making, as far as my writing goes. I have slowed on poetry a bit, trying my hand at prose with that hovering memoir that I described on Day 1, as well as a novel that is crawling all over itself attempting to find its story. And don’t forget blogging. The first piece in Nancy’s book is called “How Poetry Came into the World and Why God Doesn’t Write It.” Interestingly enough, it starts with the writer recounting a tale about being in a book store and seeing a book called The Lost Books of Eden, which she considered buying, but decided against. She left the store and went down the block, but the book called her back.Unfortunately, within those few minutes, the book had been purchased by someone else. The knowledge was gone. (This is why you should always buy a book without thinking twice.) So, in the wake of this loss, the writer imagined what The Lost Books of Eden would have said. The text told of Adam and Eve finding the words for things, finding them in a well in the garden. The serpent says, “What God calls knowledge, I call ignorance…What God calls ignorance, I call story. Help yourself to an apple from the tree that stands in the center of the garden.” And once they had eaten the fruit and were thus forced to leave Eden, Adam knew that what they would miss the most was not eternal life, but the well from which all their words had floated up, effortlessly. The angel escorted them out of the garden, saying: “God doesn’t want the well. What use is it to God? So he’s letting you take it with you.” “Where is it?” [asked Adam.] “The well is inside you,” replied the angel. “Much more convenient to carry it that way. Of course, it’s not going to be as easy to find as it was in the garden, where you could just lean over and take a drink. Sometimes you’ll forget the words you’re looking for, or you’ll call and the wrong ones... Continue reading

I will begin by letting you in on a little trade secret of the blogging business. At least, it is my secret. Maybe not all bloggers operate this way, but I do. Here’s the thing. A blog post should be fresh, immediate, and timely. It should address some occurrence of the day and it should sound like the writer just woke up that morning and conjured up all sorts of wisdoms about the Universe and consciousness as we know it. It should ramble aimlessly for a while. Then, with a few jolts of humor or sarcasm, it should crescendo to a humdinger of an ending that brings the reader back around to whatever was the essential question that opened up the discussion and BLAM! You have a blog post, (preferably under 650 words) and it really should sound like the writer barely gave any of it a second thought. Hardly. Here's the secret. This is not how it happens at all. Generally speaking, when I blog, I have to start writing the night before the intended post, if not sooner. Not only are there segues and interludes and thematic structures to think about, but my God, there is the literal act of posting which can cause a fair amount of hemming and hawing and re-dos, especially when the writer is trying to add in some useful links and interesting images to make the whole thing—words and pictures—come together in some sort of interesting and seamless OM-osity. Let me just say this: it takes longer than it appears. Okay, now that I have gotten that off my chest, I can tell you that it is Tuesday, Day 2, but I am really writing this on Monday night. All day long, I was thinking about what I want to tell you. Or rather, what I want to ask you. I have all these questions about poetry: who writes it and why, where does it come from, and who reads it for heaven’s sake, besides other poets? I mean, seriously. Does anyone read poetry who will never write a single verse? I think not. Novels can be devoured by total non-writers, and certainly gobs of people listen to music who wouldn’t recognize a treble clef from a bass clef if it hit them over the head on a summer day. But poetry? I don’t know. I’m not convinced that non-poets read it. I am open to counterpoint on this, however. Enlighten me. Please. My own introduction to poetry began in the hinterlands of my childhood with the collected works of Dr. Seuss. I loved that man, and I loved his wackadoodle characters and straight-up rhymes. Some of my favorites were The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop, Horton Hears a Who, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, and The Sneetches. Not only did these books teach me about rhyme and meter, (not to mention kindness and tolerance) they basically taught me how to read. The repetition was extremely helpful, because... Continue reading

Greetings, poetic earthlings. I’m pleased and honored to be on deck once again in the BAP blogosphere. It has been a while since I’ve written here and a lot has happened since my previous gig. The last time I blogged for BAP was in the fall of 2011. I remember this time frame because it coincided with my brief stint as a grad student in the Masters of Counseling program at Lakeland College in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. At that time, I was employed as the college’s alumni director (even though I am not an alumna of Lakeland). Now I’m the grant writer there, but no matter what one does at Lakeland, staff gets to take classes for free. Back then I thought, “What am I waiting for? Get a new master’s degree for heaven’s sake. It costs nothing!” A person can only go so far in life with a master’s degree in art history. (In a previous life, I had gone pretty far, though: 20 years as an art museum educator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Getty Museum, and then the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan. But I digress.) Art educator, alumni director, therapist? What was I thinking? As much as I relished learning about pathologies, the ethics of counseling, and how to be sensitive to humans of all stripes, I realized that at my advanced age, becoming a therapist was not a stellar idea. I had this notion that I wanted to blend poetry and therapy to help people become more self-aware, more emotionally healthy. But I realized that, like they admonish on the airplane, I needed to secure my own air mask first. If anyone was going to get healed by writing poetry, it was going to be me. Selfish, but true. So, I dropped out of the program after two semesters in order to focus on my writing. (I must digress again to say that after a strong start at Vassar in 1980 under the tutelage of Nancy Willard and Brett Singer, I slowed to a complete halt and did not start writing poetry again seriously until age 48. So to say I determined I had to focus on my writing means something particular in this context. I was choosing not to let my writing get stifled again. How could there be time for poetry if I was launching a new career? Better to stay in the career in which I found myself and allow poetry to grow up around it. Right?) What happened next was I had some health issues that required surgeries and extended hospital stays and bed rest. I was off work for eight weeks, during which time I thought it would be a good idea to try my hand at memoir. (I read two at that time that inspired me, Peggy Shumaker’s Just Breathe Normally and John Daniel’s Looking After.) I veered off poetry a bit to tell the story of my life. I wrote over a hundred... Continue reading

To the memory of my dear friend and mentor, Joe Ann Cain. Blogging for you this past week was very stimulating for me, and raised many questions related to psychopathology. What is normal, what is abnormal? How much is nature, how much is nuture? Who is in, who is out? These questions still haunt me. In another thread, I found myself wondering: where does the time go? And why do I fill mine up so much? Like the girl who is texting while riding her bike, it always seems to me that it is not enough to do only one thing at a time. I should be doing at least two things. Maybe three. But then, do all the things suffer from my divided attention? I had at least two friends who read the blog this past week tell me that they felt they shared my same tendency to “over-task.” Why do we do this? Why do I do this? Does all this activity really nourish my soul, or is it simply a way to fill the void? It seems to be true: nature abhors a vacuum. Am I in a four-dimensional state of horror vacui, fear of emptiness? Swiss "outsider artist," Adolf Wölfli had to fill every space on the page with line, form, or color. What if I could step into and embrace not only empty space, but also empty time? I am a hoarder. But instead of keeping piles of newspapers in my dining room, drawers full of rubber bands in my kitchen, and carefully folded mesh onion bags in the pantry closet, I “hoard” activity. Am I afraid to just do nothing? Yes, I am. Hey, as long as I do things that are productive, that contribute to my community, my family, and myself, what is the problem? There are poems to be written, injustices to rectify. There is water to carry, wood to chop. Why shouldn’t I stay busy, if I help make the world a better place? I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right to be busy this way all the time. Without some emptiness, the fullness is incomplete. And yet, I need to find my own fullness that is in me. I need to take care of myself before I can take care of anyone else. Like they say on the airplane, secure your own air mask first, then help those around you. And so. It is time to embrace my negative space, my silence, my black hole. I have to empty my cup in order to refill it. I have to drive my car until I run out of gas in the middle of the proverbial nowhere, get out, and sit in a cornfield for a while. I have to sit perfectly still and do nothing. Maybe that is where the next chapter of creation will begin, in the place where there is nothing, “…in a place without form and void, where darkness is upon the face of the deep.” Genesis,... Continue reading

It is late when I am writing this. But you are reading it tomorrow. Or today, this morning, as the case may be. You may be drinking coffee. Right now, last night, I am having a slice of pepperoni pizza and a beer. The beer is called “The Poet.” It is an oatmeal stout, and it has a picture of a raven on the label. I want to show it to you but I can not find a good image on the Internet and I am too tired to take one. So I am showing you an image that comes up when you google "time flies." The beer was a gift from my friend, Lucretia, who gave it to me to cheer me up because I am working so hard of late. I made the comment the other day that I need “chocolate and beer" to keep me going. And so, to fuel my efforts, she surprised me with both. A friend who is listening is certainly the best gift of all. My week has finally caught up with me. It is a lot to work all day, take two classes, and then come home and try to write. I miss the days when a weekend meant I could chill. But, it is all my choice and I really should not complain. Tonight, last night, the wind is/was blowing so hard. It is the kind of wind that makes me afraid that a tree might fall down on my house. But, at least I have a house, a job, my health, my son. I am safe. I am just tired. Sleep would be a good idea right now. And so, since I have nothing in particular to say, I am going to give you a poem by a poet who I admire a great deal, the Polish Nobel-prize winning poet, Wisława Szymborska. (I am happy that my computer would make the “l” with the line through it. Computers are amazing things, they are.) Here is the poem for you for today, from my friend, Wisława. If she we here with me tonight, we would have another slice of pizza. We would drink another Poet. We would listen to the wind. We would not write, but we would tap the keys, dreaming. We would wish each other good night and good morning. (Sorry about the stanza breaks.I have been trying for 45 minutes to fix the formatting but I cannot do it.) I give up, my apologies to Wisława for mangling the look of her poem. So much for my admiration of computers. Sometimes, they can be very infuriating. A Few Words on the Soul We have a soul at times. No one's got it non-stop, for keeps. Day after day, year after year may pass without it. Sometimes it will settle for awhile only in childhood's fears and raptures Sometimes only in astonishment that we are old. It rarely lends a hand in uphill tasks, like moving furniture, or lifting... Continue reading

When you begin the study of psychopathology, you don’t get very far before you encounter a severe looking tome that is large enough to prop open a very heavy fire door and brick-like enough to knock unconscious a medium-sized lab rat. The book is called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition Text Revision), or in the vernacular of therapists, the DSM-IV-TR. It is the Bible of diagnosable mental disorders. Every psychopathology student must bow before it or, at the very least, become familiar with it. It is organized in groups called “axes.” These are not things you use to chop wood, but rather, the plural of axis. There are five of them in the DSM and they go like this: Axis I: Clinical Disorders Axis II: Personality Disorders Axis III: General Medical Conditions Axis IV Psychosocial and Environmental Problems Axis V: Global Assessment of Functioning I’m just getting started in my studies here, so I’m not sure yet what all these things mean. Two seasoned therapists have told me that once I read the DSM more carefully, I will recognize myself in many of the conditions it describes. Oh boy. I can’t wait! When the first edition of the DSM appeared in 1952 it contained 86 pages. In the year 2000, when the fourth edition was released, the page count had blossomed to 943. The number of disorders increased from 106 to 365. Wow. Either we are getting more disorderly or we are getting more excited about giving these things names. I would say it is probably the latter. In fact, this phenomenon is known as “the social construction of psychopathology.” Here is how this works: we see a pattern, we give it a name, we give it an acronym (like ADHD or OCD), we create drugs to cure it, we get insurance companies to cover its treatment. If we stopped at “see a pattern, give it a name,” we might be closer to creating poetry than new strains of mental illness. But hey, we live in a culture with 47 different kinds of toothpaste. We like variety, apparently, not only in our toothpaste but also in our mental disorders. “Once the ‘disorder’ has been socially constructed and defined, the methods of science can be employed to study it, but the construction itself is a social process, not a scientific one. In fact, the more ‘it’ is studied, the more everyone becomes convinced that ‘it’ really is 'something.’” (Maddux and Winstead). Sounds like the emperor’s new, disorderly clothing to me. If you have “a preoccupation with a defect in appearance” that causes “significant distress or impairment in…functioning” (p. 507) you have Body Dysmorphic Order. I don’t like the fact that I am bow-legged, but it does not keep me from wearing shorts in summer when it is hot, so I guess I cannot say I have this particular problem. If you drink too much coffee, you may develop Caffeine Intoxication (Starbucks, beware). If you are a... Continue reading

While cooking dinner last night, I heard a fascinating story on public radio about Dr. Alfredo Quinones, an internationally-known neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Quinones, or Dr. Q, as he is called affectionately by colleagues and patients alike, has just written a book, Becoming Dr. Q, My Journey from Migrant Worker to Brain Surgeon (University of California Press, 2011). Dr. Quinones was born in a small, dirt-poor village outside of Mexicali in Baja, California in 1968. At age 18, he “jumped the fence,” and managed to run from the border and into a new life in the U.S. He spoke no English at first, and worked in the fields of central California as a migrant worker, then as a welder. He went to community college, learned English, and eventually made his way to Harvard and onto the path of becoming a leader in brain cancer research. Along with a team of scientists under his direction, he is looking for a way to replace knives and cutting with non-invasive stem cell therapies that could conceivably destroy tumors and repair damaged tissue. “I don’t want my children to have to undergo the same barbaric ways of treating brain tumors as we do,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong—I love what I do. But the brain is a sanctuary, for God’s sake! It wasn’t meant to be violated! What I did today—entering the brain, illegally—it’s against nature. We need to find a better way to treat this disease.” Dr. Quinones’ story is timely. In a recent Republican debate, Rick Perry accused those who oppose educating the children of illegal immigrants of having "no heart.” This did not win Perry points with his brethren. When Dr. Quinones was asked what he thought of this debate in light of his own life experience, he hesitated, trying to find words. He said, “Well, as you know, I always tell people, I wish I was a poet or a Nobel laureate in literature and I could express my thoughts and articulate them more eloquently, but the truth is, honestly, I am just a simple brain surgeon and a scientist. I am not an expert on immigration. I only know about my own experience.” He admits that his story is unusual. Not every illegal immigrant is going to become a neurosurgeon. But, he noted that the world needs not just successful brain surgeons, but successful carpenters, plumbers, and teachers. I think his point was that all people deserve a decent education to reach their highest potential. The world needs people who do lots of different jobs exceptionally well. In an article in Hopkins Medicine Magazine online, Dr. Quinones said, “you can’t succeed in today’s world without being open, without having feelings….You can literally train a monkey to do what we do. The challenge in what we do is not in the surgery—it’s in the emotional connection you form with the patients.” I like this man, Dr. Q. If I ever need to have my head... Continue reading

Time, so they say, flies when you are having fun. Does that mean it goes excruciatingly slow when you are sad or suffering? I would have to say that the answer to this is a resounding yes. A good friend of mine recently told me that when she feels sad, she feels really stuck. Every aspect of her life feels absolutely lousy: failed relationships, dwindling finances, unsatisfying employment. At those times, the whole ball of wax that is her life is one big, sticky, yucky mess. And the worst part of it is that—when she feels this way—it seems as though that general yuckishness is simply her natural state of being. In those moments, she is pretty much convinced that life is going to feel that way forever. Then, she gets some sleep, dreams a little dream, wakes up, takes a shower, goes for a nice bike ride, has coffee and a sweet roll down by the lake, listens to something on the radio that makes her laugh. The next thing she knows, she feels good again. She remembers that she has many things for which to be grateful. Then, she feels even happier. Suddenly, time’s pretty ponies speed up. The race is on. Just like the wind, time again flies. I think about time all the time. I am always trying to jam more things into it. I am always trying to do “one more thing.” As all my friends and relations will tell you, this habit of mine makes me invariably late for things. Furthermore, I do way too much multi-tasking on any given day. On a typical evening when I get home from work, you might find me folding laundry, paying bills, eating dinner, answering emails, checking Facebook, and writing a paper for school all at the same time. Really? At the same time? Okay, not literally in the very same instant. But I have gotten really adept at sprinkling my instances around. Tonight, a case in point. First, I fold a couple shirts and pair up a few sets of socks. Then, I open a bill and decide if I need to pay it now or can put it on the pile to be dealt with after pay day. Then, I take a bite of the eggplant sandwich I made from left-over roasted eggplant, a slather of horseradish, and two nice, thick slabs of melted mozzarella on an old crust of bread that I almost threw out this morning. But I saved this heel because it had not gone moldy yet and boy, am I ever glad I did. This sandwich I am washing down with a glass of Merlot is making me exceedingly cheery right now. Must be the horseradish. Email, Facebook. Check and check. I’m not writing a paper for school, but I did a bit of reading and now I’m writing this blog-entry so I can post it first thing in the morning before I go to work. And the race with time... Continue reading

In Psychopathology: Foundations for a Contemporary Understanding, edited by James E. Maddux and Barbara A. Winstead, I have come across some interesting tidbits during these first few weeks of fall semester that I have been eager to share with someone. How about you, Best American Poetry blog reader, out there? First, let us consider that pathological behavior is both outside the statistical norm and also maladaptive. By maladaptive, we mean behavior that does not help a person do better. By outside the statistical norm, we mean infrequent in the general population. However, we usually only think of something negative. “To say that someone is ‘pathologically intelligent’ or ‘pathologically well-adjusted’ seems contradictory because it flies in the face of the commonsense use of these words.” (Maddux and Winstead). This statement, as you can well imagine, got me thinking. What would it mean to be pathologically poetic? What would a pathologically poetic person look like and what would his or her day-to-day existence entail? Would this person speak in iambic pentameter every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, trochees and spondees on Tuesday/Thursday and save the weekend for nothing but speaking in haiku? Would a poetic psychopath see the entire world in a grain of sand, and metaphorical significance in everything from the delivery of the day’s mail to the mowing of the lawn? How does one who is pathologically poetic deal with such mundane tasks as folding laundry, going grocery shopping, dropping children off at soccer, and emptying the litter box? Don’t even mention cleaning a toilet bowl or unclogging a drain. Those chores require someone more pathologically inclined toward plumbing. Research in this realm is begging to be undertaken, but funding is scarce for this kind of endeavor. A poetic psychopath is not able to go anywhere without a small notebook and pen, tools needed to jot down interesting ideas. Those in the real throes of the disease will take to carrying a small digital recorder in which to speak ideas and snippets for poems. This person is marked by an uncanny ability to see connections between all things (living and non-living) and would be able to describe the shortest line between a bride and a waterfall, a tree and a unicorn, a banana and a bayonet. The pathologically poetic individual will often be found staring out of bus windows, laying in the grass looking at clouds, or whistling in the dark. These types are enamoured of the alphabet, idiomatic phrases, foreign languages, synonyms, homonyms, and oxymorons. They also tend to be gourmands and to enjoy a nice glass of wine with supper. Last but not least, the poetic psychopath hears the sad note in every happy chord, and sees the beauty in that which is least pleasing to the eye. There is hope for those who are able to get these contradictory thoughts down on paper. For the rest--those who ignore their illness--there is only madness and despair; marked by a feeling of impending doom complete with arsenic lobsters falling from... Continue reading