Category: writing

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Only connect–but how much?

It started innocently enough. I was in the Verizon store on a quick errand, and, just for fun, I asked if I was at that two-year mark when I should look at a new cell phone. Sure enough, the saleschild looked up from his screen and said, “Oh, yeah.” So I wandered, flirting with the chained-down models, and found myself seduced by a cute little almost iPhone-like Palm.

I played with the stuff on the screen and visualized myself with 24/7 e-mail access. I pictured myself looking as if I belonged in this decade with a colorful phone and a cute little charging stand. And apps. Apps? Apps!

“Would you use it mostly for texting and e-mail or would you want to have a lot of games?” the salesboy asked.

“I’d be using it mostly as a phone.” My answer was disappointing to us both.

“Oh.” But he tried to regroup, showed me lots of cool features. I could picture myself using one or two of them. I left intending to think about it, ask around, learn more.

But when the Verizon spell wore off, I was left with the suspicion that maybe I didn’t want to be followed day and night by all my e-mail. The spam? Those nice chatty ones from friends that serve as mini-visits–I wouldn’t want those to demand my attention just when I’m out doing something else.

One of my favorite things about e-mail is its ability to wait for you. It’s not a ringing phone; you get it when you want it, when you have time to read it. I appreciate that as a sender, knowing that I’m not interrupting someone, and as a receiver, having that control over my time.

Time. That’s the thing. The one definite, finite commodity of our lives. The one thing that’s ours to use, to waste, to make of whatever we choose. Do I really want to add a new level of outside demands on it?

It’s especially too easy for writers to spend their days avoiding the time they have. “Now I’ll sit down to write…but first I’d like a cup of tea…and maybe I’ll do the Times crossword puzzle/ read one more chapter/ throw in a load of laundry…” And that’s even before checking the blogroll (which, unlike the morning newspaper, has no end) or having the stray thought that demands satisfaction from Google. Then maybe just a quick peek at the e-mail–oh, the pooch pottie and I could change my life today with a degree in medical records…And all that is without the phone ringing.

In this morning’s New York Times Sunday Styles section, there’s an article about people bucking the trend toward more apps on their phones. One woman is quoted as saying, “There’s this sense that I’m missing out on something I didn’t even know I needed.” Exactly. Just because they’ve built it, do we have to come?

I’m not sure what my decision will be, but right now I’m leaning away from the adorable little Palm and toward just a basic old phone. I know I’ll have regrets about all that missed coolness and cuteness. (If only there was a phone that looked cute and cool.) But how much of my life do I want to make available to outside demands? It’s my time. I think maybe I want to decide how to use it.

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The end of a week of poetry prompts

Today is the final prompt in my series honoring my teacher, Ricky (Ottone Riccio) and his new book of poetry assignments, “Unlocking the Poem.”

Ricky is known for his poem-provoking assignments and I hope you’ve tried some of these. In the time I studied with him there was always that moment at the end of the workshop when he would say, “For next week…” And what followed was often something that sounded impossible, involving both form and content, and eliciting groans around the table. But, invariably, we returned the next week energized by our efforts, eager to share our poems, and enriched by the challenge to step outside our comfort zones and try something new. And, strangely, if he gave us a few weeks off to just write whatever we chose, we’d often ask for an assignment.

For today, I’m feeling benevolent, so no villanelles based on complex text, no Shakespearean sonnets on Sumerian goddesses. Just a free verse poem of 25 lines or a prose poem of 100-120 words on the subject of “year’s end.”

Did you have some fun with these prompts? Let me know.

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Thursday poetry prompt

I continue with my week of poetry prompts in honor of my teacher, Ricky (Ottone Riccio)’s new book, “Unlocking the Poem,” written with Ellen Beth Siegel.

Here’s the one for today: write a poem based on this quote by Albert Einstein, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

Now, imagine the poem…

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Another day, another poem

I’m blogging more frequently this week to let you know about a new book of poetry prompts, “Unlocking the Poem,” by my teacher, Ottone (Ricky) Riccio and Ellen Beth Siegel.

Today’s prompt comes from Ricky’s web site, where it is the assignment for the month of November: a rondeau about ocean waves crashing against the shore.

Here, from Ricky’s first book, “The Intimate Art of Writing Poetry,” is a little about the rondeau to get you started. “the rondeau evolved gradually from the older rondel and consists of 13 full lines of four beats each, arrange in three stanzas of five, three, and five lines. Only two rhyme sounds are permitted. At the end of the second and third stanzas there is a tail–a half line taken from the first half of the first line. It’s a non-rhyming tail and is frequently turned as a pun. Using R as the symbol for the tail, the rhyme pattern is aabba aabR aabbaR.”

It’s easier if you see an example, like this famous World War I-era poem by John McCrae
In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Now go try one of your own.

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Today’s poetry assignment

Yesterday I blogged about a new book of poetry prompts, “Unlocking the Poem,” by my teacher, Ottone Riccio–aka Ricky–and Ellen Beth Siegel. I offered a sample assignment. Today, as promised, another:

Write a poem, between 12 and 45 lines. It should be about you, but may not include any of the following: your name, birth date, place of birth, physical description, profession, schooling, family, partner.

Also as promised, here’s my poem from the wolves/skate prompt I talked about yesterday. And, yes, my mistake: it was wolves, not wolf. I had seen the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra play an outstanding concert of Peter and the Wolf on Saturday, so I think I was still in “wolf” mode. Though not wolf’s clothing.

So, are you writing a poem?

where the wild things are

the wolves are always waiting
staring into us with pale unblinking eyes

they watch us as we rush to hear Mozart
our red claws brushing past outstretched hands
we smile our crushed glass smiles
and hurry into cars
to restaurants with sparkling chandeliers

and the wolves with licking tongues
watch as we skate the knife edge
between day and night

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The key to unlocking your poems

Poets, here is a brand new book you should know about. “Unlocking the Poem” is by my poetry teacher, Ottone Riccio (“Ricky”), and Ellen Beth Siegel, a student of his and former workshop classmate of mine.

Here’s my Ricky story: I was living in New York, about to move to Boston. I was finding myself drawn to writing poetry, but with no idea how to proceed. I could revise a piece of prose writing, but poetry was a different world, one that felt like a mystery. Where to start?

One day in a bookstore I was lucky enough to come across a book that answered many of my questions. It was “The Intimate Art of Writing Poetry” and it turned out that the author, yes, Ricky, taught at the Boston Center for Adult Education, just a few blocks from where I would be living. He became my teacher.

Ricky has always been known for encouraging students to make their poems as concrete and as tight as possible. One apocryphal story has him saying to the author of a three-page poem, “This would make an excellent haiku.”

But beyond the deep knowledge of poetry and the striking ability to grasp what the poet was trying to do, was always a great respect for the poet. He is most definitely not of the slash-and-burn-the poet’s-ego brand of teachers. He most frequently introduces his comments by saying, “This is your poem. But if it were mine, this is what I would do.”

One of his greatest gifts as a teacher has been the assignments. And that is what “Unlocking the Poem” is all about. The book is a collection of his assignments–provocative, sometimes startling, sometimes groan-inducing prompts all designed to get you writing in new ways. To get you to dig deeper, work harder, write better. (Blatant plug reality check: some of my poems are used as examples in the book.)

One of my first of Ricky’s assignments was to write a poem using the words “wolf” and “skate.” It became, strangely, the first of several wolf poems for me and for other workshop members, too. Try it. Tomorrow I’ll post my wolf/skate poem, along with another of Ricky’s assignments for you to try.

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Adele P. Margolis, role model and friend

The news when it came this morning was not unexpected. My friend Adele Margolis was, after all, 100 years old and had become more frail each time I saw her. I first met her because she was my aunt Alice’s childhood friend. But I was fortunate that she and I had our own friendship, too. And her determination to enrich every aspect of her life with beauty and meaning and creativity was a lesson I was honored to learn from her.

Google and you find pages about her books on sewing and tailoring. They were written in the 1960s and beyond, but they are classics, still being bought and talked about among women who sew. One blog, Diary of a Sewing Fanatic, had a wonderful post, “New Sewing Books have Arrived,” with a photo Adele would have loved–her book, “Make Your own Dress Patterns,” next to “Chanel: A Woman of Her Own.” Perfect. Her newest book, on tailoring to fit an aging body, is currently in the hands of an agent and will, hopefully, soon find a publisher.

Adele wrote poetry, too. Here is one from a recent birthday:
The years surprise me.
The numbers surprise me.
The number of years surprises me.

That I am here surprises me.
That I am here when so many
of my contemporaries are not
surprises me.

Next year another birthday?
Surprise me!

In my last visit with her a few days ago, she told me she had had a good life and that she had no regrets. “Except,” she said, “that it was so short.”

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Where the poem comes from: Beth Gylys

I met Beth Gylys online through an enthusiastic introduction from Dustin Brookshire. Beth is an associate professor at Georgia State University. She is the author of two award-winning poetry collections, “Spot in the Dark” and “Bodies that Hum,” and two chapbooks, “Matchbook” and “Balloon Heart.”

Here is her poem, “The Scene,” and her story behind it.

The Scene

Last April when Travis’s band played a set
at the Zonolight, Michael got sloshed. 
Kelly had trimmed his goatee
because his book had been accepted.
Paul arrived in a limo with his girlfriend
who wore sandals with see-through plastic straps.

No one seemed to notice how my bra straps
kept slipping down my shoulders.  The set
had started, and I got talking to Paul’s girlfriend
about breast reduction.  Michael was busy getting sloshed,
and Kelly kept bringing up his acceptance
for publication, stroking his well-trimmed goatee

as if it were a bottle with a genie, instead of a goatee
that we all thought he should shave.  The traps
we’d fallen into made us giddy with acceptance.
We loved Kelly anyway, and Travis too, whose set
had inspired two little girls to hula. Almost sloshed,
Paul unabashedly stroked the ass of his girlfriend,

while Michael told me a story about the girlfriend
of a friend of his who only liked men with goatees
and wouldn’t have sex with him until he grew one.  Sloshed
on wine, Paul’s girlfriend kept pulling at the straps
of her dress.  Travis was jamming, his drum-set
a blur of noise, when the conversation turned to the acceptance

of US world domination as a norm.  “Acceptance
on our part doesn’t mean the world….” Paul’s girlfriend
trailed off.  “Exactly!” exhorted Michael, who set
his wine glass on a chair excitedly.  Kelly’s goatee
looked like a stain on his face.  He thwacked the straps
of his suspenders with his thumbs.  Someone’s beer sloshed,

on my foot.   Michael whispered in my ear, “I’m sloshed,”
then burst out:  “We can’t be complacent.  Acceptance
of tyranny is as bad as enactment. Patriotism is a cultural strap
used to bind us!”  Looking bored, Paul’s girlfriend
left for the bathroom.  Kelly fondled his goatee
as if it were a rabbit’s foot, and Travis finished up his set

with a flourish-even his goatee was sweating.  Paul’s girlfriend
returned with a set of chopsticks in her hair. She looked sloshed,
one dress strap undone.  The air shimmered with acceptance. 

“This is a sestina that I published in Terminus a couple of years ago.  It’s also possibly going to be in a sestina anthology edited by Daniel Nester.  The poem is a real mishmash, which is maybe true of a lot of sestinas. 

“One night several years ago, I went with friend Michael to hear my friend Travis’ band.  My housemate Paul also happened to show up that night with his then girlfriend Leslie. Michael and I were all stirred up because Bush was hell-bent on this Iraq war, a war that clearly had more to do with his own need to assert power and impress his/avenge his papa than with any real defensive need. 

“The sestina seemed a good way to blend the political with the personal and social.  There’s a party aspect to the poem that highlights the “theoretical” nature of the political conversation that’s addressed in the poem.  The characters of the poem don’t really have any stake in the political ramifications of the conversation. 

“What the poem is truly about, then, is the American political landscape.  We go to war as a country, yet nothing truly changes for most Americans.  Whether we are pro-war or against, we still live our lives unaffected.  And in a way that’s what the poem speaks to.  There’s a kind of frivolity to the whole ‘scene’ that implicates everyone in the poem.  The true horror of political domination in the world is framed against the backdrop of a party so that the characters in the poem all seem impotent and Dionysian.  

“I don’t know exactly how I ended up with the end words, but the poem was a lot of fun to write with “goatee”  “sloshed” “traps” and “girlfriend” cycling in again and again.  Though the poem ultimately expresses a serious message, there’s plenty of humor in the mix.  At least I’d like to think!” 

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Hearing Jack McCarthy

Jack McCarthy is back in town and last night I went to hear him. He lives out in Washington State now, so a local reading is a big deal for his friends and fans. This one was what a Jack McCarthy reading always is these days: a full house with the crowd enthusiastic to the point of worshipful and Jack, a little thinner but at the top of his game.

He’s a slam poet, but his poetry often has classical references. The poems often amble around in a deceptively chatty way before taking aim straight for the heart. I often find myself wanting to quote a line or idea of his, but the poems are so rambling that the set-up gets long when I try it. When Jack does it, you hang on every word.

He asked me to give him a word as a starting point–I was honored–and, just as I was about to say something like “street” I heard, in horror, the word “evanescent” coming out of my mouth. Not such a Jack McCarthy word, evanescent. But he went with it graciously and came up with a vaguely related poem that talked about watching television.

Jack’s reading was at the Cantab Lounge in Central Square, Cambridge. I hadn’t been there in a long time, but it’s the place I’ve considered my poetry home. I spent many a Wednesday night there, downstairs where they have poetry on Wednesdays–a two-hour open mic and then a feature and a slam, all while the ceiling is shaking from the music being played upstairs and the floor shivers periodically from the Red Line going by.

It’s the place where I first read my poetry in public and the place where I had my feature. It’s where I learned, by listening, how to read, and it’s the reason I always have a tender spot in my heart for the open mic. I know as well as anyone that an open is always unpredictable I’ve sat through my share of readers I was grateful were only going to be on for three minutes. And I’ve been there when reader after reader came up with such beautifully crafted and effectively delivered poems that I felt lucky to be in the room.

There’s wildly encouraging “first timer” applause at the Cantab, and often wildly encouraging applause and shouts and whistles after the poem, too. The Cantab, since its beginnings as a poetry venue, has been known for the quality of both the poetry and the audience enthusiasm. I was glad to see that those basics haven’t changed. It’s still the place where I learned to love reading. And it’s the place where I met Jack McCarthy.

Have you been there?

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Nan Robertson, thank you

Nan Robertson died last week. Maybe I missed it, but I saw only a hint of the outpouring of tributes I expected, especially from women journalists.

She was one of the trailblazers, a Pulitzer Prize winner who was known as a generous mentor to countless women in journalism. Certainly she was an inspiration for many more.

Nan was 83 when she died and had made her career, mostly at The New York Times. She started there in 1955, in an era when “women’s news” was a beat. She wrote hundreds of articles on fashion, shopping, and decorating before moving, in 1963, to the paper’s Washington bureau. There her assignment, as she described it, was covering, “the first lady, her children, and their dogs.”

She wrote candidly about her own life, her struggles with alcoholism and depression and, most famously, her horrific experience with toxic shock syndrome, which ultimately led to the amputation of eight fingertips.

Her 1992 book, “The Girls in the Balcony” told the story of the federal class-action suit successfully brought against The New York Times by 550 women employees alleging discrimination in pay, assignments, and chance for advancement. The “balcony” in the book’s title was the less-than-second-class area at the National Press Club in Washington where women journalists could look down at the auditorium from which they were barred. Women were not allowed in the auditorium even on business until 1955 and were denied membership in the Press Club until 1971.

It is shocking to realize how relatively recent those days in the balcony were. But in 2009 around the world, in new media and old, women journalists are writing substantive news stories. And their voices are being clearly heard in the public discussion of how information is gathered and shared. Thank you, Nan.