Poetry Out Loud

Heard the beautiful poem below
for the first time watching

Poetry Out Loud

presented by the Vermont Arts Council and Vermont PBS

"Poetry Out Loud is a national competition for high-schoolers created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. The program provides pathways for students to explore, memorize, and recite great works of poetry."

Young people read poems written by others
in the centuries old tradition of reading/speaking
out loud the words, stories, poems of others.

Diameter

by Michelle Y. Burke

You love your friend, so you fly across the country to see her.

Your friend is grieving. When you look at her, you see that something’s missing.

You look again. She seems all there: reading glasses, sarcasm, leather pumps.

What did you expect? Ruins? Demeter without arms in the British Museum?

Your friend says she believes there’s more pain than beauty in the world.

When Persephone was taken, Demeter damned the world for half the year.

The other half remained warm and bountiful; the Greeks loved symmetry.

On the plane, the man next to you read a geometry book, the lesson on finding the circumference of a circle.

On circumference: you can calculate the way around if you know the way across.

You try across with your friend. You try around.

I don’t believe in an afterlife, she says. But after K. died, I thought I might go after her.

                In case I’m wrong. In case she’s somewhere. Waiting.

Published, in Vermont

Looks like I have had a poem accepted by

PoemTown St. Johnsbury,

which invites Vermont poets of all ages to submit original poems to be displayed on local business storefronts in celebration of National Poetry Month in April.

I submitted two poems. I wrote both during sessions of the Wednesday Poets group that I joined last July.

The one selected was my response to the prompt, What would you like to take down? The prompt arose out of our discussion of the movement to take down confederate civil war monuments throughout the nation. My poem took a more personal route.

With thanks to this band of creative hearts that has welcomed me in, and especially to Sylvia who encouraged us all to send entries, here's my poem:


What would you like to take down
for Russell

I’d like to take down
a picture – one I (really) like
so you can hang the one you (really) like
of that lone, leafless tree
stark center in the frame
of a grey winter.

I don’t like it – (so)(I) hid it in the attic.
To me it’s lifeless, barren, cold
but you – you see something else –
an open season to play in,
a field to cross in snowshoes,
a toboggan run.

So tonight when I get home
I’d like to show you a picture
I’d like to take down.



Here are the PoemTown Events:

POEMTOWN ST. JOHNSBURY 2018

All PoemTown St. Johnsbury events are open to the public at no charge.  

PoemTown Poems Display

Poems will be posted on downtown St. Johnsbury business windows throughout the month of April. 

Noontime Poetry Readings

Wednesdays, April 4, 11, 18, 25, noon-1:00pm

St. Johnsbury Athenaeum

Bring your favorite poem to share, or simply listen.

Poetry Slam

Tuesday, Apr. 10, 7:00pm

Kingdom Taproom

Slam Master Bill Biddle will lead this raucous and fun competition. If you'd like to compete, bring two original poems to perform (you may read from a paper). If you would rather listen (and cheer and boo), come on down to support our local poets! Judges will be selected from the audience.

Teen Poetry Slam

Friday, Apr. 20, 7:00pm  

Catamount Outback Artspace

Middle and high school students are encouraged to bring two original poems to perform at Open Mic St. Jay. Hosted by St. Johnsbury Athenaeum's Teen Advisory Board.

Junior Jam

Friday, Apr. 27, 6:00pm

St. Johnsbury Athenaeum 

Students will read their favorite poems at this event hosted by the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum's Teen Advisory Board.

PoemTown Poets' Reading

Sunday, Apr. 29, 3:00-5:00pm

Catamount Arts Gallery

Poets whose poems are displayed in downtown St. Johnsbury will read their poems, and refreshments will be available. 

PoemTown St. Johnsbury is a collaborative effort of Catamount Arts, St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, and St. Johnsbury Chamber of Commerce, and is a satellite site of PoemCity in Montpelier.

Image: St. Johnsbury Athenaeum staircase

Make it stop

He has that sober addict-wounded animal-fighting for his life-look.

He has that addict-on the wagon-sliced open by a predator-mammal-clawing for his life back-look.

He has that addict-reptile brain engaged constantly-cold turkey-white knuckling-I shouldn't have to need help-detoxing-fight-flight-freeze-help me or kill me, please-look.

Me.

The Mom

and God

watching

our son(s) and daughter(s)

try to get off

Oxy

Heroin

Perks

She's an IV drug user

She did Heroin throughout her pregnancy

The baby was born in withdrawal

The grandmother.

My sister

and 

Kali

listening

to a stranger

describe

our child(ren)

to their own child(ren)

so that they

might

not

pick up

try it out

go down the path

to family heartbreak

Me, my sister

and

Durga

nod 

and 

with hearts ablaze with empathy

say

softly 

you won't know it's coming friend

you won't feel it coming dear one

you won't see it begin my love

but

you will

hear

the roar

in 

your own head

a voice

that wails

No and why and how and ... 

when you finally

and irrevocably know

you will

feel the tears

burn like a hand on the stove

that you will leave there

so you know 

this is not a nightmare

you are awake

and you will feel this pain

until it stops.

Make it stop

Make it stop

Make it stop

Please.

Image: Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939

I don't turn 55 until next month

I'm at my mother's
she lives at
in East Bridgewater
Massachusetts
where she and a hundred other
over 55-ers
enjoy
- one level living
except for the flight of stairs to the basement
(who missed that?)
- adequate, sometimes, snow and lawn care
- a club house
where my aunt,
my mother's roommate,
plays cards with the Ladies
on Monday nights
(the guys, she tells me,
play poker
at the other end of the
vast round table filled space)
- and
through the grapevine
a long list
of handymen
(yes, they are all men)
who are husbands
sons and cousins, maybe,
of the others
who will shovel the short walkway
from driveway (already plowed, like I told you)
to front door
for $20
or fix a leaky faucet
or put up a shelf in the laundry nook

My mother has been in Florida
for two weeks
visiting her best friend
met in Brockton, 1969
when we moved there
from Dorchester
While she's been away
her mail has piled up
I steal a glance:
Roseanne Bar and John Goodman
on the cover of
AARP - the magazine!
an exclusive
They are over 50?
the subtitle promises
"tougher again - wiser, happier and more
outrageous than ever"
Of course
Why am I surprised?
Next up
Lifestyle - inside Hingham's premier senior living community
Linden Ponds
wow!
the competition arrives
in hard copy old style mail
dueling senior living options
they have a pool,
and yoga,
and communal breakfasting
if you want!
grown up dorm living
but better!
Why didn't she pick this place?
Well, cost, I'm sure
and you know
blatant God's Waiting Room warning signs!
I turn the pages...
the georgetown,
one bedroom, bath with den
nice layout
the kewick, larger
with family room and bay window,
I'm sold!
the fairmont, large two bedroom
for couples that sleep apart and rendezvous?
sisters?
friends?
the paxton, two bed, two bath
somehow not as exciting
as that bay window...
If I was looking...

I'm not.

I don't turn 55

until next month.

So shut up.

I'm not looking.

Really.

Stop.

(I didn't even look at my mother's mail.
No, I didn't.
That would be illegal.
And I am a rule following woman of 54!)

((I'll tell you about R&J later;
I can't wait to watch the show!)

Artwork:

Mary Cassatt, of course

Woman Bathing, (La Toilette)

from the MMA: "The American painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt spent her professional life in Paris, where she was a member of the Impressionist group. Woman Bathing belongs to a group of ten color prints that Cassatt showed at her first independent exhibition (at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris) in 1891. The abstract, linear quality of the nude's back drew the attention of Cassatt's colleague and sometime collaborator, Edgar Degas (1834–1917), who exclaimed, "I do not admit that a woman can draw like that.""

I am a writer

Italian writer Oriana Fallaci
always wrote with her leg on her desk!

I have been a writer

almost my entire life
although I have not owned

this identity
really
until recently...

today's quote from the website,
Advice to Writers,

is perfect:

There Are No Rules

There are no rules. It’s amazing how willing people are to tell you that you aren’t a real writer unless you conform to their clichés and their rules. My advice? Reject rules and critics out of hand. Define yourself. Do it your way. Make yourself the writer of your dreams.

ANNE RICE

And so, this morning

My 12 year old self is smiling

She writes poetry

My 17 year old self is smiling

She writes songs

and plays guitar

so writes music

My 21 year old self is smiling

She writes poetry

despite her art school Dean Lord's

objections

My 22 year old self is smiling

She writes

everywhere and on everything

napkins at the diner where she waitresses

scraps of paper while she

breastfeeds the baby

My 23 year old self is smiling

She writes feature articles

for a local weekly newspaper

because one professor in art school

believed she could write

and said deadline work

for ten years

would matter!

My 24 year old self is smiling

She writes news stories

and edits three weekly newspapers

She is a writer with gut and curiosity

She knows the power of print

(it was 1987!)

to make town, city and state

officials bleed information

they'd rather not tell

Kyle and me, circa 1992,
just before the floor fell out from beneath our feet.

My 30 year old self is smiling

and crying

this is the year I turned 30, 

I know I said that already,

but listen,

I turned 30

had my second baby

and my father died

all in the span of four months

and I received a grant from

the Massachusetts Cultural Council

to publish the chapbook,

Journeywoman Poems, 

am I writer yet?

Cover art by Meg Harrison Young

My 32 year old self is smiling

I received another grant 

this one from

the Unitarian Sunday School Society

to write the curriculum

Meetings at the Moon:

for pre-teen girls and their mothers,

I know, 

small audience, Dean Lord,

but fuck,

am I writer yet?

And now like a storytelling pro

I must stop to tell you

that I forgot
to mention something

in that room 

we passed through
a little too quickly

my 23 year old self

wants to remind you
and me of 

The Menu for Love, The Menu of an Anorexic,

published in Heresies, Issue #21 – Food is a Feminist Issue

(Author and title list, here.)

and now that we've paused

for a moment

my 42 year old self is beaming

about that piece published

in the anthology,

For All that Is Our Life

It was a long, long, long poem

entitled, with aspirations of regality

and possible inclusion in the next

version of the Christian Scriptures,

with parenthesis for Unitarians:

A Psalm (to God) in Six Stages.

My 43 year old self is smiling
hard

and
breathing in and out

She writes sermons

and delivers them

in front of people
on a weekly basis
in sanctuaries
(eventually from Boston to Flagstaff
from Bridgewater to Urbana)

and that year won

the Clarence B. Skinner Award, 

yep that guy!

Andrew, Kyle and me; Christmas 2015

And now,
right now,
My 54 year old self is laughing

just a little

for that girl

who wrote poems 

in her journal

and imagined

never having to speak in front of anyone

except a gentle crowd

at a book signing

at which she would read

just a few poems

for that girl who

did 

once

read poems

at a poetry slam

at her old high school

in her twenties

her body betraying

her fear

in shivers she could not shake

but she read,

she read

aloud

to that room of teenagers

and their teachers

and showed them all
especially herself
that yes, a Brockton girl

can do any thing

even if her guidance counselors

dissuade her from college
and suggest she has gone
way, way
beyond her raising!

Am I a writer yet?

My almost 55 year old self

says

Yes!








(This is the 50s baby! My midwife told me I'd be different once I moved through menopause...and right on schedule, I am reflecting on the past and contemplating the future - what I'll leave behind, what I've done. How about you?)

(A man, who eventually became a dear congregant, asked me last year after the first time he heard me preach: What do you call your preaching style? I said I didn't have a name for it. I asked what he would call my style. He said he didn't want to tell me. He said it might hurt my feelings. I said, go ahead. I can take it. He said, strident. I sat with that for a while. Eventually, he added, and I mean eventually, like months later, he said, you know I think now I'd say your sermons are provocative but I'm still stumped on the style. Thanks, I said. I would say, now that my style, of writing and delivery, is poetic. He smiled.)

Waking Up White, part 301

This morning's

internet check-in
brought me to this article:

"The care and feeding of black children's souls, part 3."

Posted on the blog, East of Midnight, 

the author, Kim Hampton, asks how Unitarian Universalist religious educators are going to nurture the souls of black and brown children (and youth and adults) in our congregations, specifically in our religious education/faith development programs?

She writes:

"In June 2017, Georgetown University Law School released a study called “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood,” which shows that starting at age five (that’s right, 5) black girls are viewed as less innocent and more adult than other girls. The press release from Georgetown says the following:

"The new report reveals that adults think:

-Black girls seem older than white girls of the same age.
-Black girls need less nurturing than white girls.
-Black girls need less protection than white girls.
-Black girls need to be supported less than white girls.
-Black girls need to be comforted less than white girls.
-Black girls are more independent than white girls.
-Black girls know more about adult topics than white girls.
-Black girls know more about sex than white girls.

Sit with those results for a minute."


I have read these stats before. It must have been right around the time they came out. Just after the congregation (I was serving at the time) and I had committed to working with the Movement for Black Lives. Just after we had held our first White Supremacy Teach In - People of Color and People of the Global Minority. Just after we had shared Marley Dias' 1000 Black Girl Books and asked our own kids, Where's the Color in Kids Lit?

I had read these stats. I was mortified. And, I stored them in my file of the many oppressions that need attention.

Today they make me so sad.

My beautiful great niece is turning one year old on Wednesday.

I am aware and awake, again.

I vow to work in the world

-In the religious education classroom

-In the media and the streets

-In the hearts and minds of friends, family, and acquaintances

In my own heart and mind

on her behalf.

I am fiercely ready.

The kids are not alright

Students gathered at Borough Hall in Brooklyn, NY.
CreditPhoto: Annie Tritt for The New York Times

.

Second post of the day
cuz
you know

I read the news:

The kids are not alright
and they are
letting us know.

TW: 
Here are three articles
to break your heart

open

again.

why-one-student-sat-alone-as-thousands-of-others-marched

photos-students-protest-against-gun-violence-across-country

photos-across-the-nation

I'm crying now. You might be too. 

These young people might just change things which we have be unable to change.

Anyone else having flashbacks to the Vietnam, Civil Rights and other protest movements? 

What do they all have in common - young people, younger and younger, speaking up and out to their government that is killing them.

The age of nostalgia

for Chrissy and Bob

It's been snowing here for three days in Vermont's northeast kingdom
and I'm laid up with a wrenched hip...fell after getting stuck in the driveway on the way to yoga.
Go figure!

So it's day 2 on the couch for me
with ice and time to rest

Of course, I'm cruising the internet

from the news - bad - to a note from Pinterest
to check my many days ignored inbox

there are pins for 2 socks at a time in the round

and 40s hair styles for every day and special occasions:

including weddings

which reminds me that my sister is marrying this summer
and her theme,
yes, there is a theme,
is the 1970s

and so now I am looking for a dress -
something timely
and at ease
to cover a bathing suit
because, it's a pool party reception, too!

Here are a few favorites...

Wow, huh?
$495 from this New Zealand maker: KraftytKiwiKornershop

I could crochet this one.
Auntie Lena taught me to make granny squares.

Not this color!

I find
at nearly 55
that nostalgia
has a different feel
than it did even a year ago
the oldies on the radio
are really mine now
not my mother's and father's
and certainly not my grandparents'
as they were in my past
and theirs...

funny, in a 'my heart is fluttering' way
to be the one
whose music is
the sentimental
love of a generation
of late boomers
and early gen-X-ers

Led Zeppelin to the Clash
Steppenwolf to to UB40
and more...

Wore a crochet bikini in this color at age 18.
I think I could still rock this. For the wedding?

Anyway, can't wait for the day,
Chrissy and Bob!
I'll be there
beside you
while you marry
and we all
sway and nod
to our memories' groove...

(and our kids roll their eyes
at us old people!:-))

This: nostalgia and the present. iPhone and crochet.

OMG, here are some more from Liloumariposa on Etsy. She finds old patterns and makes them available for very small dollars. Here is one I hope I can crochet myself:

Here are two that give me giggles.

All for now.

International Women's Day

Yesterday, March 8, was International Women's Day.

I know this because I received no less than 10 emails from a variety of interested parties (including Planned Parenthood, Michelle Obama, the Poetry Foundation, ThirdLove, the New York Times, the Parliament of World Religions, the UU Bookstore, the NAACP and Harvard Divinity School) by midday.

I mentioned this to my husband at dinner. Oh, yeah, he said.

And then he said, it's Women's History Month too, right?

Yep, I agreed.

How long has there been Women's History Month? I'd never heard of it, he added.

Really, I asked - trying to not be visibly aghast, but you know I don't have a poker face. Really, I repeated. And then when I composed myself, I added:

Well, I don't know how long...actually...but I've known about it at least since Hillary Clinton went to Beijing for the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. But, it's probably been around for longer than that and actually I've probably known about it since I was a young woman reading Our Bodies Ourselves.

Oh, he said. And added, I do know about Black History month.

That's good, I smiled.

How many other history months are there, he wondered out loud.

Good question, I said. Off the top of my head I know of a few (I am a Unitarian Universalist religious educator, after all):

Asian Pacific American Heritage,
Gay Lesbian Pride Month,
Hispanic-Latino Heritage Month,
National American Indian Heritage Month.

(BTW, there are also months for Italian and Irish Americans, Older Americans, Jewish Americans and more. To see a fabulous list, check out: Month Long Observances List - Wiki

And then, he said, is there an International Men's Day?

Yes, everyday.

A Men's month?

Yes, all of them.

Really? he asked.

Yes, I said, and we both smiled.

White male privilege, right?

Yep.

And we moved on.

Women's History Month has its roots in two other observed holidays (holy days for us women:-)):

the first International Women's Day in 1911

and

the first Women's History Week observed by the school district of Sonoma, CA in 1978 (go wine country!)

Congress, in 1987, declared the month of March as Women's History month after being petitioned by the National Women's History Project that same year.

Some of you may have known this. Thanks to my husband for asking. I don't think I would have looked it up.

Read more about Women's History Month at these sites:

Women's History Month - Wikipedia

Women's History Month - gov

Women's History Month - women's history project

Polaroid of my beautiful and courageous aunt Lena with my cousin Ginger , 1943, southend Boston.

Happy Birthday!

Wishing my oldest son Kyle a happy 32nd birthday today! 

Here we are getting to know each other in March 1986...

And in April 2016, Kyle gets to know his little girl...

So blessed. 

Big Women

Love this post, Artist of the Day, from Michel Bergeron's blog visualdiplomacyUSA.

Yulia Ustinova is a Russian crochet artist, sculptor "who uses the art of crocheting to replicate famous artworks or to arrange new shapes totally made by her."

Click on the link above to see her ‘big women’ or in Russian, “tetki.”

To see more of her work, visit Yulia's Facebook page: Yulia's FB page

I am hoping I can find a pattern to try my hand at one of these. Maybe a Venus of Willendorf!

For those of you teaching, Cakes for the Queen of Heaven, Yulia's images might make a beautiful addition to your media cache.

Women, pants, power

Gladys Bentley, an American blues singer,
"was an absolute pioneer as a
black, lesbian, 'cross-dresser,' says the Post article.

I am in love with this article in the Huffington Post: women+in+pants=power

Full of pain and triumph

Full of courage and promise

I hope you enjoy the read, too.

In the storm

Still feeling gratitude for the safety found at my mother's house during the storm that hit the northeast this weekend. And sadness for those whose lives were lost, were hurt and afraid. For those who now have to pick up the pieces of their hearts if broken.

The poem below, by the beloved Mary Oliver, came to me from a friend living in Europe. She posted it knowing what we were going through here, across the pond.

I post it too - for the ordinary miracle of sheltering each other in the storms of our lives however they come.

In the Storm

Some black ducks

were shrugged up

on the shore.

It was snowing

hard, from the east,

and the sea

was in disorder.

Then some sanderlings,

five inches long

with beaks like wire,

flew in,

snowflakes on their backs,

and settled

in a row

behind the ducks --

whose backs were also

covered with snow --

so close

they were all but touching,

they were all but under

the roof of the duck's tails,

so the wind, pretty much,

blew over them.

They stayed that way, motionless,

for maybe an hour,

then the sanderlings,

each a handful of feathers,

shifted, and were blown away

out over the water

which was still raging.

But, somehow,

they came back

and again the ducks,

like a feathered hedge,

let them

crouch there, and live.

If someone you didn't know

told you this,

as I am telling you this,

would you believe it?

Belief isn't always easy.

But this much I have learned --

if not enough else --

to live with my eyes open.

I know what everyone wants

is a miracle.

This wasn't a miracle.

Unless, of course, kindness --

as now and again

some rare person has suggested --

is a miracle.

As surely it is.

Mary Oliver

in Thirst