Friday Night Reading at Wisdom Well

I have some exciting poetry news. But first, a few updates are in order:


This weekend, we attended services for Grant Learman. Several of his teachers told stories about Grant's sly, silly humor and love of hanging out with kids his age. My kids said I should buy a tissue factory. Grant's just one of those kids you meet and think of as one of your own. (My post about his death is here.) After the service, we shared some of his favorite foods: Cheez Doodles, pizza and chocolate.

I will not be traveling to Nottingham for Auntie Mary's funeral. However, I will be there in spirit. Her daughter asked me to look for a poem for the services. Mary's love of flowers and long-term marriage to my uncle, Howard, brought Wendell Berry's "The Wild Rose to Mind."

Last piece of business. I have a new poetic obsession. I am working on something connected with photographer Francesca Woodman. Have you seen the documentary, "The Woodmans?" It's about Woodman, her artist family, and how her suicide has affected them. Highly recommended.


Now for some exciting poetry news. One of the other 100,000 Poets for Change hosts got in touch with me. Would Little Patuxent Review be interested in doing a literary exchange? Would we?! Of course. The exchange coincides with the recent release of our powerful Social Justice issue.

This weekend, we have three poets visiting from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I will be featuring their work this week.


You'll have a chance to hear Richard Krawiec, Debra Kaufman and Stephanie Levin on:


1. Friday Evening, 3/2 LPR at Wisdom Well
Our three visiting poets will be featured at a free reading, with open mic! I'm hoping we'll also have some snacks, wine and music. The reading is at a brand new wellness center that you'll want to check out -- they offer acupuncture and other healing arts.


Details:
Friday, March 2, 2012 
6:30pm until 9:30pm (Reading begins at 7, open mic at 8)

Wisdom Well 8955 Guilford Road Suite 240, Columbia Books by the featured poets and issues of LPR will be on sale. 2. Saturday workshops at The Writers Center (I'll post details soon, but you can find the workshops: Crafting Images (register here) and Ripped from the Headlines: Writing Poems about Hot Topics (register here.)) 3. Saturday evening at The Writers Center, LPR Social Justice reading with our visiting poets, and LPR contributors, including Dr. Tony Medina On to today's poem, by Richard Krawiec.        Richard is founder of Jacar Press, which supports local authors in Chapel Hill, and haibun editor for Notes from the Gean. This poem resonates for me today, as my family lets go of two important human beings. "Truly See" originally appeared at Prime Number.

Truly See

by Richard Krawiec.

 

They leave you, these ghosts,

and just when you think

they will never return

a single word aneurysm

pulls your grandmother

shuffling into sight,

wearing hairnet and apron,

smiling as she lifts the pot holders,

that memory more real

than the muted crackle

of dusk light on Fall’s red

leaves.  The sound of seizure

and your beloved

dog of twelve years pants

forward, cocks her head,

gives out a single yip, eager

for one more walk.  

Drowned swirls

Arlene’s purple-stained face

up from the whirlpool

of dish suds in the sink,

as if she’s rising

from the muddy bottom

of the lake where she took her final

sleep.  Everyone is so weary.

The ghosts miss you

as much as you miss them.

Can anyone say

what’s real?

Michael’s choir-smooth face

no longer gunshot

as you once again sprawl

on the rug whose mold

scent makes you sneeze

even now, forty years later.

He giggles the word Gesundheit.

The dog licks you hand warm.

If you don’t look closely

at the rain drizzle which spots

the darkening windows,

you can truly see

your grandmother bending

to rattle a sheet of cookies

from her gas oven; 

hear the hissing warmth.

Here is a note from Richard on using this poem as a model in the classroom:

"In this poem I was thinking about the difference between observation and memory.  Your memories often seem just as real as the day to day life you walk through.  Really, why can't a memory be just as real as an observation? We don't know enough about reality to say the reality of memory has less substance than what our senses observe."

If you or your students are using this poem as a jumping off point, Richard advises:

Free write (in prose or list form) about people, pets, places you remember.  Could be friends who moved, fields you played sports on when you were younger, etc. Try to get down as much as you can  remember seeing, hearing, smelling, etc.  When this pre-writing is done, talk briefly about what constitutes an image. Next, turn these free writes into poems by pulling out and developing the images contained within it.

Next, pick a setting from your life now.  Begin the poem, if you like, by setting your in a specific environment. Where are you, what are you doing?

Give students (or yourself) permission to try, and fail, to find their own way into a poem, Richard advises. "Otherwise you're not teaching poetry, you're teaching gimmicks."

I hope to see you on Friday evening. Be sure to bring your own writing to share.

Question & Answer

I'm about to leave for a group reading at the Writers' Center in Bethesda. Reading poems out loud to myself, stop watch ready.

One of the poems I'll be reading is my most widely published...a persona poem called, "Brother." (An odd choice for me, as I'm not a conjoined twin -- but you'll see why I loved Stephenie Meyer's The Host so much.) Most recently, it was published in the Maryland Writers' Association anthology, New Lines from the Old Line State.

Re-reading this piece, I realized that it has themes in common with May Swenson's "Question," posted for this week's Poetry Friday.

Here is "Brother":

Brother “Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim – who had been joined at the top of the head – were separated… after neurosurgeons finished dividing the boys’ venous systems and brains.” CNN, October 13, 2003 When did I become aware of my brother? I can feel him only if we stretch our arms overhead at once, our fingers touch. From above my eyes, I hear laughing, crying, words not my own. An echo self? Are there two of me? No. Not me exactly, but me. We are a continuous line, a human palindrome, my twin doing a headstand on my skull where people imagine light bulbs or dark clouds reside I have myself again, but not myself. Has God melded us, or has he never unmelded? Those dancing mitochondria swaying apart have never stopped holding hands. I have been given a word for the voice beyond my sight and would like to face my brother. I have never seen him, except at night when I walk my feet up the crib slats and he walks his feet up the other side. If I raise my eyes almost to their lids I can see – are they his toes? -- moving. And I have no sense of moving them.

I'll be busy this week prepping our regional SCBWI conference, but look for a classroom lesson on writing the persona poem.