loving living poets

It struck me on the cold walk to the bus after therapy: i've been wearing my hat upside down. Literally--it's not a metaphor. 

Also, filled another notebook, promptly lost it.  

Oh! and (thanks to Issa's Untidy Hut for breaking the good news): 
this exists!

That's right: Sharon Olds wrote a new book: One Secret Thing, in which "Olds completes her cycle of family poems." (Good to know that cycle ends, right?) Fuckin' awesome loving living poets, isn't it? This past week, I've been reading The Gold Cell and The Dead and the Living--both of which just stun me breathless. She said this in an interview: "This creature of the poem may assemble itself into a being with its own centrifugal force."

Also, in looking for the picture above, i stumbled across these 50 writing tools via yourdrum.com. That will be fun to explore. But later. i'm already doing this instead of something else i should be...

By the way, thank you, thank you to you who suggested books and records to me--i'm immersed.

go vote.

for what it's worth, here's my endorsement.

(photo by callie shell.)

'i can stand right here, see my face from the other side.'

last kind word blues
by geechie wiley

(listen.)

the last kind word i heard my daddy say
lord, the last kind word i heard my daddy say

if i die, if i die in the German War
i want you to send my body, send it to my mother in law.

If i get killed, if i get killed, please don't bury my soul.
i p'fer just leave me out, let the buzzards eat me whole.

when you see me comin', look 'cross the rich man's field
if i don't bring you flowers, i'll bring you bolted meal.


i went to the depot, i looked up at the sun
cry some train don't come, there'll be some walkin' done.

my momma told me, just before she died,
"lord, precious daughter, don't you be so wild."

the mississippi river, you know it's deep and wide,
i can stand right here, see my face from the other side.

what you do to me baby, it never gets out of me
i mean to see you, if i have t’ cross the deep blue sea.

















image source.

from "a laying on of hands"

i sat up one night walkin a boardin house
screamin/ cryin/ the ghost of another woman
who waz missin what i waz missin
i wanted to jump up outta my bones
& be done wit myself
leave me alone
& go on in the wind
it was too much
i fell into a numbness
til the only tree i cd see
took me up in her branches
held me in the breeze
made me dawn dew
that chill at daybreak
the sun wrapped me up swingin rose light everywhere
the sky laid over me like a million men
i waz cold/ i waz burnin up/ a child
& endlessly weavin garments for the moon
wit my tears

i found god in myself
& i loved her/ i loved her fiercely

--from for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf
by ntozake shange

an appeal to your genius

In deciding the order of poems in my book, i realized my mp3 player killed my sense of narrative. Listening to the same song over and over or obsessively studying certain poems was really useful to that phase of getting to know the poem as i write it, but now, it's counterproductive. So, i'm taking honeydunce's advice, and listening to entire albums--no track skipping, no randomized mixes of songs. And i'm reading books of poetry--not anthologies, not literary magazines, not collections of selected works.

i could use a little help: What are great albums that you listen to that take you on journeys? What books of poetry, thematic or not, thread you through them?

50 poems

Here they are, laid out in the chaotic order i envision them now, in the raw. Years--literally years--of work, of writing, on the cusp of release, about to breathe.

Looks like a February release date for the collection-as-yet-untitled (accepting suggestions). Bit of a pity; as a Scorpio, Aquarians are most difficult to get along with. Kidding, kidding, kidding. We'll manage.

Watched a pigeon drop off the cliff of a building yesterday, catch wind under wingspan, thought: first step of flying is to jump.

Oh, holy fuck.

fear and voice

As a writer, a question i face so often is "Why share it?" Why revisit troubling experiences, mine difficult emotions and confront my own (and, so, others') darkest parts? Why repeatedly seek the Shadow, coaxing it out like the frightened child or cautious animal it is?

As i get closer to finishing and publishing my book after a long period of relative quiet (if not silence) and hermitage, these questions intensify. Ralph Keyes' book, The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear, which Holly recommended to me, has been really helpful these past few days.

But, more than any book, the camaraderie and understanding born from sharing experiences, however painful, are the unshakable proofs that stand up to the doubt i subject myself to. I am so grateful to my friends who have recently shown me this firsthand. This article--about the vital role of survivors speaking out to combatting the epidemic of rape in Congo--speaks toward that strength.

We have to remember how important our voices are. Sometimes, whether we ever know it or not, that terrifying poem, fiction, essay, collage, conversation, is someone else's lifeline.

There is no difference between samsara and nirvana. There is no difference between nirvana and samsara.

Despite the fact that every night, we set the clock to interrupt our beta waves with AM radio waves at a specific minute, the alarm shocks me out of dream. Before we fall asleep, we set the hour we'll awaken, lucid, all-dimensional. Is that what samsara is?


This morning, voices on the air tell me the air is thick with fog, visibility: 1/8th mile.

i walk the usual way (is that what samsara is?) along the Edge. The city is gone. Beyond the overlooks, there is no beyond. The view ends at armslength, in white. Naturally, i'm spellbound. (Is that?)


No cliff, no train tracks, no valley, no river, no bridge.
No city. Even the hawks can't see here.

Vapor gathers in drops on spiders' translucent threads, usually invisible in the sun. Is that what nirvana is: To see the web, its spiral, its gaps?


The Nothing is a relief. i am the happiest i've been in weeks: If i can't see it, and the thick wet air muffles its cry and growl, and flattens its smell to its clear damp scent, then for all i know, there is no city, no basin of ground. For all i know, past the cracking rock platform stretches a blank, primal valley.
Deep.
And wide.
Quiet as a lung.