“What must I do, to tame you?” asked the little prince.
“You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First you will sit down at a little distance from me—like that—in the grass, I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstanding. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day….”
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Sentinel
I woke up today with this word. A Teresa word—there are words that I recognize as being part of my map. I understand I see sentinels everywhere, places I must past that are guarded, if I know the right word I may enter. How much of my life is based on knowing what to say?
Today b/c of google I learnt there’s an ancient sentinel in Iraq which American soldiers are guarding so it is not destroyed—men dressed in guns, standing around a stone when so many people are dying. What is the right word?
Today I know that sentinel mapping is a way of entering a woman’s breast so that a doctor may clear cancer from the lymph nodes, that a map may be drawn so something which seems so intimate, so connected can be an island.
I am going to stop looking for the right way. I do not want to believe in paths anymore, or houses, or gateways. Things I can do to make my life, journey, love, book better. I do not want believe that the world is guarded, if I miss chance I will never be allowed in. I am taking away the guns---there are tulips in his hands.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Today I want to be a white violet or if I can’t be a violet, a glass of water and if I can’t be water, I’d rather be sleeping.
If one is talking about images, lasting images in art there has to be contrast. I was reading an article today about painting where the artist was stating that great art comes from composition. If you paint an orange on top of the bottle verses to the side, you get a very different feeling.
How do you enter the poem? In what angle do you see? If you're apply everything to painting, (and why the hell not) it matters where you put your orange. To me, a good poem can be read at any point and come back to its self. I can start in the middle, make the end the first verse and it still works.
I am queen at playing round robin with my book, which may be why I de bowel the damn manuscript more times then one would think possible. Because if you keep turning the painting or the mind’s eye, you are going to find the one place to enter no one has ever thought of before, and that my friends is art.
If one is talking about images, lasting images in art there has to be contrast. I was reading an article today about painting where the artist was stating that great art comes from composition. If you paint an orange on top of the bottle verses to the side, you get a very different feeling.
How do you enter the poem? In what angle do you see? If you're apply everything to painting, (and why the hell not) it matters where you put your orange. To me, a good poem can be read at any point and come back to its self. I can start in the middle, make the end the first verse and it still works.
I am queen at playing round robin with my book, which may be why I de bowel the damn manuscript more times then one would think possible. Because if you keep turning the painting or the mind’s eye, you are going to find the one place to enter no one has ever thought of before, and that my friends is art.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Today everything was beautiful. I was trapped in a painting on 38th street while driving home. I looked in the window and watched a father comb his daughter’s hair, her hips swaying to some unknown beat. Her brother had on these giant green foam hulk hands, swaying them in the air. They were all speaking really fast in Spanish and I stood there forever, trapped in the beauty of it.
Sometimes the world hurts. Sometimes I watch people and they are so loving and kind to each other, I want to trap them in a jar---see this is what it looks like. To love, to be loved. It is so simple really.
Sometimes the world hurts. Sometimes I watch people and they are so loving and kind to each other, I want to trap them in a jar---see this is what it looks like. To love, to be loved. It is so simple really.
power of image
I find myself this morning thinking about the power of image in poetry. The things which last long after the poem ends, even years later when you cannot remember how it begins but somehow that image is still with you.
The last time I was home, my aunt told me I wrote a horrible poem which by the way, is a horrendous way to begin any conversation. She said that the poem I wrote about being a little girl in my father’s meat market, holding the bucket while he butchered the animals, always was with her. She said, every time she sees a steak, she is horrified.
Though it should be noted here, my Aunt Jan is a little wacked the fact is, opposing images have power. Marie Howe does this beautifully with a poem about her brother, how all his life he is afraid of losing his sight, how he points all the silver ware in the opposite direction, and you can see a little boy doing this, in your mind’s eye, you understand. Then there is this brilliant line “how it find us, the one thing we fear” and you are left with the image of a man in a doctor’s chair, having a needle placed in his eye.
I may not remember my name at 83 but I know I will always remember this line because that’s how powerful internal word is. It has the ability to build us up and place us in another body, to weave in and out of own similarities.
What are your images? What lines in poetry do you carry and what are the steaks you will not buy?
The last time I was home, my aunt told me I wrote a horrible poem which by the way, is a horrendous way to begin any conversation. She said that the poem I wrote about being a little girl in my father’s meat market, holding the bucket while he butchered the animals, always was with her. She said, every time she sees a steak, she is horrified.
Though it should be noted here, my Aunt Jan is a little wacked the fact is, opposing images have power. Marie Howe does this beautifully with a poem about her brother, how all his life he is afraid of losing his sight, how he points all the silver ware in the opposite direction, and you can see a little boy doing this, in your mind’s eye, you understand. Then there is this brilliant line “how it find us, the one thing we fear” and you are left with the image of a man in a doctor’s chair, having a needle placed in his eye.
I may not remember my name at 83 but I know I will always remember this line because that’s how powerful internal word is. It has the ability to build us up and place us in another body, to weave in and out of own similarities.
What are your images? What lines in poetry do you carry and what are the steaks you will not buy?
Sunday, January 22, 2006
ring, ring....
If you want something literary go to Eduardo’s blog. He’s been posting great links lately, great places to submit. I’ve been following him around. If you are looking for something that has nothing to do with literature, keep reading.
I have a new phone. My old phone and I had an understanding. I treated it like crap and it still loved me. I washed it three times, once I caught it spinning around in the gentle cycle and saved it; another time it made it to the dryer. Last week I drove into my driveway and heard ringing UNDER the car. It was my phone—it found me. And of course because it has been loved well it cannot actually hold a charge for more than a few hours and as any good lover, dealing with charge and uncharged—I moved on.
My new phone and I, also have an understanding---its way too good for me. It can take my picture and simultaneously call itself. It has a mini computer which can down load my email. (I have no idea how to do this) and it can recognize my voice in a crowd. I don’t know about you, but something that can actually hear me in a crowd that A) I haven’t given birth to or B) slept with---scares the shit of me. Come to think of it, I slept with my X-husband and he still can’t hear me in a crowd!
I have no idea how to answer it. If I hide the phone in my purse it shuts itself off. I’m actually avoiding intimacy by placing it as far away from me as possible. I don’t trust myself. I am the washer, dryer girl. I know I cant live up to its expectations .
I have a new phone. My old phone and I had an understanding. I treated it like crap and it still loved me. I washed it three times, once I caught it spinning around in the gentle cycle and saved it; another time it made it to the dryer. Last week I drove into my driveway and heard ringing UNDER the car. It was my phone—it found me. And of course because it has been loved well it cannot actually hold a charge for more than a few hours and as any good lover, dealing with charge and uncharged—I moved on.
My new phone and I, also have an understanding---its way too good for me. It can take my picture and simultaneously call itself. It has a mini computer which can down load my email. (I have no idea how to do this) and it can recognize my voice in a crowd. I don’t know about you, but something that can actually hear me in a crowd that A) I haven’t given birth to or B) slept with---scares the shit of me. Come to think of it, I slept with my X-husband and he still can’t hear me in a crowd!
I have no idea how to answer it. If I hide the phone in my purse it shuts itself off. I’m actually avoiding intimacy by placing it as far away from me as possible. I don’t trust myself. I am the washer, dryer girl. I know I cant live up to its expectations .
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
God did teaching feel good today. After two weeks of not teaching kids I was ready to hunt them down in the grocery store. Do you want to draw with me little boy? (said in my evil deranged cookie voice.)
My ten hour day felt like an hour and a half. The thing about teaching a wide age range of kids is that sometimes you get the whole family, which is an incredibly cool thing. My classes at the community center go from preschool to junior high. I have students that can’t wait to turn three just so they can come and paint with me. Sadly, I think I'm one of the major toilet training rewards in South Minneapolis;)
Yesterday Alice turned three, yesterday Alice ran at me full force, threw her body against my knees and said, Weeza I’m here. Her sister Sarah, who is six and also my student told me, She’s been waiting her WHOLE life to do this.
What have you been waiting your whole life for?
My kids teach me how to love. Everyday they teach me how to create. Everything in my life is changing lately. Things are beginning and ending. I’m trying to work through all the legalities of custody with my girls. I’m trying to get all the financial crap that I didn’t deal with when I left my husband, out of the way. I’m trying to buy/sell a house. I am not good at any of these things. Okay, so I’m horrible.
But today I could teach. I could be in a room full of children and paint---
It was glorious.
My ten hour day felt like an hour and a half. The thing about teaching a wide age range of kids is that sometimes you get the whole family, which is an incredibly cool thing. My classes at the community center go from preschool to junior high. I have students that can’t wait to turn three just so they can come and paint with me. Sadly, I think I'm one of the major toilet training rewards in South Minneapolis;)
Yesterday Alice turned three, yesterday Alice ran at me full force, threw her body against my knees and said, Weeza I’m here. Her sister Sarah, who is six and also my student told me, She’s been waiting her WHOLE life to do this.
What have you been waiting your whole life for?
My kids teach me how to love. Everyday they teach me how to create. Everything in my life is changing lately. Things are beginning and ending. I’m trying to work through all the legalities of custody with my girls. I’m trying to get all the financial crap that I didn’t deal with when I left my husband, out of the way. I’m trying to buy/sell a house. I am not good at any of these things. Okay, so I’m horrible.
But today I could teach. I could be in a room full of children and paint---
It was glorious.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
I lost a friend today. He died this morning of pancreatic cancer.
He saved my life once.
Dave Jackson was in charge of two classes in our high school, honors English and trackers. Trackers was a class for the high risk kids, the kids most likely to drop out or start fires, most did drugs. We called them “The Lost Track”. At 14 I belonged to both groups.
He was the man who fought my suspension when I called Homer an asshole and then my teacher an asshole for not listening to my argument. He was the teacher who had me moved to honors English, who had me tested out of high school at 16 so I could leave home. He was the one who talked to my dad, who convinced him to let me go to college instead of waiting in Maine “for the right man to marry.”
He gave me books and respected me. He read my poems.
Mr. Jackson, I am glad you got to see me be a mom, to see me roll down the window as a woman in the parking lot and say, somebody’s getting old. I’m glad you met my daughter. And I’m glad you always let me come back, when I thought I had no one to come back to, how you always open the door and let me in.
I grateful you were a good man--one to be trusted. A better teacher. You saved my life more than once. I will miss you.
He saved my life once.
Dave Jackson was in charge of two classes in our high school, honors English and trackers. Trackers was a class for the high risk kids, the kids most likely to drop out or start fires, most did drugs. We called them “The Lost Track”. At 14 I belonged to both groups.
He was the man who fought my suspension when I called Homer an asshole and then my teacher an asshole for not listening to my argument. He was the teacher who had me moved to honors English, who had me tested out of high school at 16 so I could leave home. He was the one who talked to my dad, who convinced him to let me go to college instead of waiting in Maine “for the right man to marry.”
He gave me books and respected me. He read my poems.
Mr. Jackson, I am glad you got to see me be a mom, to see me roll down the window as a woman in the parking lot and say, somebody’s getting old. I’m glad you met my daughter. And I’m glad you always let me come back, when I thought I had no one to come back to, how you always open the door and let me in.
I grateful you were a good man--one to be trusted. A better teacher. You saved my life more than once. I will miss you.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
A Black Leather Sketch Book
I bought myself a beautiful sketch book today for my open studio class. It’s an amazing thing for me to think about not being the teacher, to just sit there and create my own world. When I was a teenager I use to pay my sister Carin a dollar to sit in the chair naked. I'd take out my pens and paper, draw her on the page. My sister is still convinced, that this concept of art is a little twisted, she tells this story as if, I should be arrested but I got into art school at 16 because of those drawings. Twisted I can live with. Art I cannot.
The manuscript to me is like putting together a human body, if I put one poem next to the other, they both look good. If I somehow mix up the elbow with the eyeball—well, the person is wacked. I’m always beginning on some page or another. I’m always offering a dollar to sit in the chair.
I know how to draw you, even though you are not here. I know every shape and shadow. You exist somewhere inside me like another room. Please be still, this will come naturally. I understand the page.
The manuscript to me is like putting together a human body, if I put one poem next to the other, they both look good. If I somehow mix up the elbow with the eyeball—well, the person is wacked. I’m always beginning on some page or another. I’m always offering a dollar to sit in the chair.
I know how to draw you, even though you are not here. I know every shape and shadow. You exist somewhere inside me like another room. Please be still, this will come naturally. I understand the page.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Question
In Summer The Song Sings Itself
Yet in December the rivers grow quiet—
the trees lonely.
No one would notice the blue if not for emptiness.
Silence, a voice without letters.
If we took lessons from the lark we’d leave.
In our mouths we’d place the last feather, hold it in our teeth.
Memory has no room for winter, the whole season forgets.
Even you, my darling, do not remember.
If my name found the feather, if in your mouth
was a nest, we'd begin.
Question: in my manuscript I have the title in italics, b/c it is from William Carlos Williams, do I need to note it at the bottom of the page or can I just note it in my acknowledgements?
Yet in December the rivers grow quiet—
the trees lonely.
No one would notice the blue if not for emptiness.
Silence, a voice without letters.
If we took lessons from the lark we’d leave.
In our mouths we’d place the last feather, hold it in our teeth.
Memory has no room for winter, the whole season forgets.
Even you, my darling, do not remember.
If my name found the feather, if in your mouth
was a nest, we'd begin.
Question: in my manuscript I have the title in italics, b/c it is from William Carlos Williams, do I need to note it at the bottom of the page or can I just note it in my acknowledgements?
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Blessed art thou, woman at the door,
empty bed. Ringless
finger, blue Mary.
May I call you virgin?
Sleeping wonder. Dark
hall. May I call you?
Light. May I alter. You
woman. Wrecked.
May I.
Did you ever think I’d give up____to write a decent poem ? I am having one of those evenings. I saw the movie Capote tonight and it was good. Lots of people are calling it brilliant. I was in love with Harper Lee through out the whole movie. I wanted to follow her around the theatre: please teach me how to write a good book. Please.
Unfortunately she did not follow me home. Sometimes I think, what was great about literature, has already been done. Someone told me today if I was going to be serious about this business, to stop pissing around. Be a serious writer.
I have no idea what that means.
I am sure it has something to do with Harper Lee.
empty bed. Ringless
finger, blue Mary.
May I call you virgin?
Sleeping wonder. Dark
hall. May I call you?
Light. May I alter. You
woman. Wrecked.
May I.
Did you ever think I’d give up____to write a decent poem ? I am having one of those evenings. I saw the movie Capote tonight and it was good. Lots of people are calling it brilliant. I was in love with Harper Lee through out the whole movie. I wanted to follow her around the theatre: please teach me how to write a good book. Please.
Unfortunately she did not follow me home. Sometimes I think, what was great about literature, has already been done. Someone told me today if I was going to be serious about this business, to stop pissing around. Be a serious writer.
I have no idea what that means.
I am sure it has something to do with Harper Lee.
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