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Sunday, February 28, 2010

poets, lies, and stories

I love liars. Liars make me happy. Because liars can tell stories and i value stories. I love strawberry rhubarb pie and drinking coffee from mason jars. What Gary Snyder wrote in his poem What it takes to be a Poet is something I agree with but I think he forgot somethings. Like to be a poet you have to learn how to lie. But you also have to love cats and dogs, and you have to know how to fly. I know lots of poets who don't write poems but to me they are poets because of how they talk, or what they talk about. I once heard a poem by aloha lavina where she said "I am thinking of how so few people wear necklaces of teeth." I loved that line when I first heard it and even today the line from that lie of a poem profounds me. I have been telling stories since I could talk. My mother doesn't value that I tell stories. She tells me my nose is going to get longer if I keep telling lies. So what exactly is the difference between lying, telling stories, and writing poems? If what you are doing is to specifically and purposefully hurt someone, that seems and feels wrong to me. But if you are crafting a story, it's not a bad lie. I wonder if I have been deluding myself for years with this theory I have about lies and lying. I will ponder the question while I eat barbeque with friends. That's no lie.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Deferred and Hidden Poems

Today I censored myself when teaching. Actually, I denied the students full access to a poem called "What You Should Know to Be A Poet" by Gary Snyder. Why did I do this? I felt they would be offended by a couple of the lines in the poem. I question the whole idea of what happened. On one hand, I don't think it's that big of a deal, but on the other hand, I am concerned about my incapability to be completly free as a performer when I am teaching. I could have performed the poem and made a statement with it and maybe some of them would have enjoyed a poem unlike any in our textbook. So was I afraid or shy or what? I think I am getting more conservative as I get older. I wonder if that means I am losing my creative edge. I wonder if it means I am losing something of my old self that shouldn't be lost. Yesterday when I was reading through some of my older poems--from the year 2000 or so--I got caught up in hating them. They were yucky to me. I don't even know why. I used to think they were good. I think I might have hid them for too long; I might have ruined the poems by not getting them out into circulation. They sit waiting for me to do something with them but when I try to handle them, sort them, think about revising or editing them, I just feel sick and overwhelmed and I wonder if this phenomenon is unique to me or if others share the same type of feeling. How old can a poem get before it's no good anymore? Of course, there are so many PUBLISHED old poems which people never tire of, that is true. I am thinking of the deferred and hidden poems, the ones who fester, who whisper to you, who sometimes yell at you and chew you out for leaving them so lonely and unread. I am thinking of all the unpublished, undiscovered poems and writings that populate my trunks and boxes and notebooks and bookshelves. What will become of them all if I die before I can make them come to Life?

Thursday, February 25, 2010

amidst a sea of old writings

if you could see a picture of me now, where i am, you would see a bunch of papers and folders spread out at my feet, the contents of an antique Okinawan trunk I keep my old writings in. I don't know what to do with some or most of them. I have kept them all these years thinking i might someday need them or that i might get discovered as a great writer and then every scrap of every word i have ever written will be sought after. But I think that might be either illusion or delusion. So today as I sit amidst all the old script and typing i will do what i once thought to be unthinkable: i will carry some to the dumpster across the street. So there they will lie waiting for the trash man. There they will lie getting wet with rain, damp with dew, hot with sun. At the time I originally wrote everything i thought it was profound and necessary but now maybe i see it all as just practice. The good stuff meant to be kept will sift itself out of the piles into my willing hands. I will keep the few, the best, and the rest will have to go. I don't find it easy to get rid of these writings, but i must clean and cleanse and let some things just go goodbye. I must make room for the new.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Thoughts on Getting New Chest Waders

With the anticipation of beautiful early morning fog mist for fishing, I try on my new chest waders with the red suspenders and am reminded of a little girl twirling her fancy dress in front of the full length mirror on her wall. I have not been fishing for more than ten years, but this Monday I will be there to hear the bell ring as trout season sets off like a fire in a burning forest. Everyone will clamor to the river to set their boots in a spot where they hope to catch a tagged fish which might announce a prize: dollars, a new rod, maybe a tackle box. Who knows!!! Maybe I will catch a poem. A huge boat might blow by and throw out candy. It's a crap shoot, really. Out there in waders, in water, in wonder, with nature so close you can breathe her like a cloud well maybe it will be like heaven. And speaking of heaven, maybe my Dad will watch from afar. Or he might perch on my shoulder, a small and friendly little ghost to whisper tips in my ear about how to catch my limit. I put the waders back in their new box, fix the kettle for coffee, and wait.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

am i a poet or not?

i see a thousand different ways to write a poem but I don't take advantage of my abilities as a writer, a poet. I guess since I am 47 I feel I am too old and washed up; I feel like I can't overcome the handicaps I face. I don't think so positively about my future, either. It's not that I don't want a future--I do very much. I want to live a colorful, vibrant, interesting, vocabulary filled life. I want to settle into a love with the figure I wrote about once in my chopping wood man poem. But those seem like dreams. I watch the Olympic athletes and marvel at their wherewithal, courage, their ability to push themselves to physical and mental limits and then even beyond that to fulfull their wildest dreams. I wish I could reach that kind of potential. I wish I could fulfill even half my potential. I can bake a nice lasagna, some excellent chocolate chip with pecans and walnuts cookies and I can be a friend to several people who seem to need me, but I don't seem capable--or is it just as Peter Wodarz once said? Am I just lazy? Am I too mentally ill? Is there hope for my situation? so that one time i could sit down with the pen and the poem would craft itself and then find its way to a bunch of readers instead of being put into hiding.I want to eat the fire of Pablo Neruda love poems and then drink green tea. That's all the energy I can muster for now.

Monday, February 22, 2010

introduction to blog

Let me explain the title of my blog--"An Artist Among Thieves." Also, i will outline my goals and plans for the blog. First, i am a poet. i am a writer, teacher, lover, mother, poet. I am an artist. But I have lived amongst thieves. People who have stolen from me both literally and figuratively litter my past and that is why I have titled my autobiographical memoirs "An Artist Among Thieves." What I want to accomplish in the blog is simple: I want to find out who I really am. I must write to discover whether i really am a writer. I must ponder my life and my experiences with my daughter to see if i really am a mother. I must look at my relationships and ask, as a lover, am i being degraded as a woman because I don't stand up for myself? And what can I do in my life as a teacher to become more challenging and fresh? So everyday I will write to discover. I will write to live. And maybe by the time i finish in a year i will know something more than i know now. or will i know less?

For the Unbloomed

Tillie Olsen's short story "I Stand Here Ironing" offers a great line of wisdom which is also bittersweet to me since I myself have been a mother standing at a proverbial ironing board wondering about my daughter's life, her future, her choices, her past, her birth, and everything else about her. Toward the end of the story, Olsen wrote "so all that is in her will not bloom--but in how many does it?" And that is the line I most relate to since I feel the same about my own child and unfortunately I have to live with the idea that I did my best but it just wasn't good enough. Now, she is 16. But when she was 13 she was a cross country runner who was so full of talent and zest that as her ponytail would bounce by me on her way down a trail I would see her flying like a bug past all others into first place. I saw her at the Olympics. I saw her jogging with a baby stroller. I saw her unlike all the other girls: she was going to be the best. But then she changed. Or was it I who changed? Now she is not a runner and I am not a mother anymore, either. I actually don't know who I am.