Experience Necessary

I've been doing a lot of yoga lately, and the teacher is a lovely, quirky young woman who keeps saying yoga is all about the experience. "Don't worry about locking into what you think is the perfect pose - have an experience," she says. I had no idea what she meant the first time she said that, but it sounded really nice.

On Saturday evening, I had the pleasurable experience of participating in a feminist poetry reading at Tsunami Books in Eugene, Oregon. My son and I took the bus there from his apartment. Since the bus stop was several blocks away from the bookstore, we walked the rest of the way, plunging into a rain storm. The wind kept blowing my umbrella inside out, and it rained so hard we had to leap over the little lakes that formed at every intersection. By the time we got to the reading, my socks were wet inside my shoes, but I couldn't have cared less because everything about the evening was pure magic. Tsunami Books is a small store filled with new and used books, greeting cards, calendars and even LP's. In the back, it has an intimate space for readings and other events - small enough that I could feel the words of the other readers resonate in my bones.

After the reading, my son and I went back to his apartment. He set out an air mattress for me in his spare room, and in the morning I got up and saw the shape of a tree through the blinds. I stretched and relished the experience of looking out the window as the sun rose in the sky.

Hunger Games

Ravenous for a good read? Here are some books I enjoyed in 2015:

Two sisters are searching for a new husband – a Man at the Helm – for their newly divorced mother who is prone to popping pills and writing odd little plays instead of taking care of her three children. A master of wit, author Nina Stibbe brings her story to a thoroughly satisfying end that’s a lot like raspberry jam – sweet but full of sharp little seeds.

In A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson revisits the Todd family, who appeared in her 2014 Life After Life. This time she focuses on Teddy, a supremely decent man who bombs German towns (and the people in them) during World War II. Atkinson so clearly describes all of the details of being up in a Halifax on a horrific mission that I found it hard to believe she was not a bomber pilot in another life.

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell is one of those books – yet another story about teens with an improbable load of depressing problems. Eleanor is poor, despised at school, and overweight. To top it all off, her mother is living with an abusive man who becomes an increasing threat to Eleanor with every page. Park is a slight, sensitive, half-Korean boy who stays chummy with the school bullies to keep himself safe. I didn’t expect to like this book, but I was quickly hooked by the hidden sweetness and humanity of these two kids and the story of how their slowly developing affection keeps them both afloat in a horrible sea of teen and adult cruelty.

The Chapel by Michael Downing – To be honest, I didn’t always get what this book was driving at, with its hefty discussions about the 14^th century Italian artist Giotto and Dante’s Divine Comedy. But the banter between its two main characters (a depressed widow in her fifties and a silver-haired smoothy she meets in Italy) is pretty divine itself. Like all great writing, these sections show (don’t tell) us about the tremendous warmth and need beneath the characters’ snappy wit.

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy – “Why do we have to read this?” many high schoolers automatically complain when their lit teachers assign a classic. In this case, I would respond by saying that Far From is just plain great. It’s the tale of a young woman who becomes the boss of a big farm in a day when women didn’t do such things. She’s hilarious and also heartbreaking – a living, breathing character who makes some devastating mistakes. Sure, there are some boring parts to get through (particularly the long conversations written to reflect a rural English dialect), but you can always skim over those and get on to the good parts, like when Miss Everdene (Bathsheba, not Katniss) lies back on her horse in order to ride under some low branches and then rises again in one smooth, lithe motion.

Meghan Daum comes off as a cranky, wise-cracking aunt who isn’t afraid to tell you how she really feels in her collection of essays entitled Unspeakable. In a piece called “On Not Being a Foodie,” she reveals that she hates buying and cooking food. In “Honorary Dyke,” she bemoans a culture that reveres makeovers and diets and elaborate wedding showers. She also confesses in “Not What It Used to Be” that she feels no nostalgia for her college days, and, in fact, spent her time in school longing for the shenanigans to be over so that she could get on with her life. Sometimes people who are known for “telling it like it is” can come off as being insensitive or rude. Daum’s truths, however, feel like a brisk, refreshing breeze ruffling the pages of more socially-pleasing views.

A Delicious Evening

There's nothing quite like hearing writers read their work aloud and then going home and savoring their printed words at leisure.

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Readers at the book launch in November. Photo by Robert R. Sanders

Many thanks to Shawn Aveningo and Robert R. Sanders from The Poetry Box Book Publishing® for hosting a rousing book launch for The Poeming Pigeon: Poems About Food.

Bon Appétit!

My new poem, “The Surprise Inside the Cake,” was just published in The Poeming Pigeon: Poems About Food. The volume also includes work by Paulann Petersen, Tricia Knoll, Jane Yolen and Carolyn Martin. To order a copy, visit http://www.thepoetrybox.com/5Bookstore.html.

Of Course I'm a Feminist!

This spring, I got to celebrate International Women's Day by participating in a poetry reading, which our organizer, Ellen Goldberg, cheerfully called "Of Course I'm a Feminist!" The poems we read that evening have now been published in an anthology, which is available from The Poetry Box. To purchase a copy, visit http://thepoetrybox.com/_DetailPagesBookstore/Feminist.html.

Criss Cross Applesauce

Criss cross applesauce
do me a favor and get lost

These lines from a clapping game are also the first two lines of the poem “Criss Cross Applesauce” by Thomas Lux.

In the poem, a single dad drives his young daughter “from her mother’s house to mine.” The girl is a kick – full of moxie and intent on being a kid. When the dad wants to talk about intellectual stuff (he brings up the surrealist artist Lautremont and his painting of an umbrella on an operating table), the girl keeps on chanting her playground rhyme: “along come some boys — p.u., p.u., pu.”

The dad’s appreciation for his daughter is palpable, his awe over the fact that this goofy, sublime person is his child. By repeating the line "from her mother's house to mine," Lux adds a subtle, poignant touch – the dad's time with the girl is limited.

One day I was thinking about this poem and decided to imagine a backstory for its narrator. What else did I know about him? What specific person did I see when he talked about his daughter?

I realized I was picturing a slender man in khaki pants and a chambray shirt. He kept a couple of bandages in his wallet just in case and knew how to make his daughter laugh, even after she has an accident that leaves her knee bleeding.

I knew the narrator’s name was Luke. The girl was Anna.

Luke told Anna stories about an evil queen in a gold dress. I knew he was worried her scraped knee needed stitches. He didn’t like the man his ex-wife was about to marry.

Luke himself had been married once before. I'd heard of mass cult weddings and decided that a “Reverend” had chosen Luke's bride for him just minutes before the ceremony, in which one hundred other couples were joined. I knew Luke hadn’t seen his first wife since the day he'd left the cult, but she’s still as real to him as Anna, who is asleep, with a trace of vanilla ice cream on her cheek, in the next room.

And I was off. I wrote the first draft of the story, "Yuliya's Ghost," in just a few days, and then edited it off and on for about ten years.

The final version was published last month by The Milo Review, both in print and online. Over the years, I deleted much of the background material. The queen, the khaki pants and the scraped knee all ended up on the cutting room floor, while the cult remained the center of the story. Thanks to all of that extra writing, though, Luke became a rounder character for me – a loving father, with a hint of danger in his past.

Happy Birthday to Thee!

Dear Will,

I hear they made a big to-do out of your birthday again this weekend in Stratford-upon-Avon. They lined up concerts and lectures, not to mention country dancing and shop window contests. The main attraction was a parade featuring a giant birthday cake. Not bad for a guy who turned 451 years old this past Thursday.

Of course, hordes of people think you’re fantastic 365 days a year. Really, did any writer/director/performer ever have such a fan base? I think it’s safe to say, Will, that you still enjoy more adoration than Jane Austen, Christopher Nolan and Beyoncé combined. Just look at Central Park. Every summer hundreds of people spend an entire day waiting in line, hoping to get tickets to see your characters strut across the stage. What’s more, professors spend their whole careers publishing papers on your motifs, Hollywood is always coming up with modern adaptations of your works, and inmates put on productions of your plays in prisons.

We, your fans, are all colors, all ages, from all countries. Some of us are native English speakers and some of us aren’t (FYI, your plays are a hit in China and Vietnam). Some of us make money selling t-shirts and coffee cups with your image printed on them. Some of us feel smart when we say your name. Some of us hope our love for you will win points with potential dates. Some of us get a kick out of saying you didn’t really exist. Some of us like to roll our tongues over your poetry. Some of us feel clever when we casually drop your lines into our conversation. Some of us wish we could traipse around in those costumes – the capes and wigs, the black boots and crowns and brocade-trimmed trains. Some of us just love you without analysis. Some of us love you so much we want to bring you back from the dead. In a town northeast of Tokyo, there is a Shakespeare theme park where tourists can wander through replicas of Elizabethan buildings, such as the house where you were born and the Globe Theater. A doll-version of you even tells visitors the story of your life.

I fell in love with you one day in sixth grade. Miss Knerr showed us a black and white film of your Midsummer Night’s Dream, and that was it for me. Around that same time, my best (nay, my only!) friend invited me to go with her to see As You Like It and then Much Ado About Nothing. My father noticed my growing enthusiasm for your work and gave me something of his – a set of your complete works. The musty volumes were so ancient that when I opened them their burgundy bindings crumbled in my lap. I remember staying home sick from school. I was lying on the long yellow couch in our living room and, instead of watching Perry Mason re-runs or an old movie, I held one of my father’s old books and entertained myself by reading about those warring lovers, Beatrice and Benedict. After that, I memorized whole speeches. As Helena, I spewed venom at Hermia for betraying our friendship. As Beatrice, I strutted around my bedroom and gave my all to the “If I were a man” bit.

The summer before I started high school, my parents took me to San Francisco. On the way home through Ashland, Oregon, my dad made a call and snagged three tickets to see Henry VI, part II, the only play that the famed Oregon Shakespeare Festival still had seats available for that day. The next year, my parents took me to see Antony and Cleopatra. At the Tudor Guild Gift Shop, my mom encouraged me to pick out a souvenir. I bought a palm-sized plaque that had the Merchant of Venice quote “Young in limbs, in judgment old” printed on it. “Ha!” my dad said when he saw that. He’d been in the navy and believed in rules. He got mad when my brothers and I left the garage in a mess or used his scissors and didn’t return them to his desk. But he saw how passionate I was about you, Will, and he encouraged my interest.

My mom did the same. The summer before my senior year of high school, she planned a vacation for just the two of us. On a hot summer’s day, we set out in her little gold car for the six-hour drive from Beaverton, Oregon to Ashland. With the windows rolled down, we belted out show tunes and laughed. We pulled off at a rest stop and ate crackers and grapes. The next night, my mom made reservations for dinner at an Italian restaurant some distance away. After winding along miles of road lined with so many trees we may have been entering the depths of the Forest of Arden itself, we ate a gigantic meal served one course at a time – antipasto, soup, salad, pasta – a novelty for us as we were used to eating dinners at home with salad, bread and a main dish all on one plate. That same evening, back in Ashland, my mom and I saw your masterpiece,The Tempest, and on the stage, the actors seemed to shimmer with enchantment. The next day, the performer who played Prospero led a group of us on a backstage tour. On the floor I saw a sprig of silver leaves that had fallen from the scenery. I picked it up and imagined I could hear the eerie music of your magician’s isle.

I kept the program for every play I saw at that festival, Will. I imagined that I would go to college in Ashland. I pictured myself falling in love with an actor. I’d work in a café, I thought, until I won my first bit part. If I couldn’t make it as an actress, then perhaps I could be one of the festival’s musicians, playing my recorder in the concerts that were given in the courtyard outside the theater before the evening’s show. I’d need some practice though, and probably a new recorder, since the only one I owned was the brown plastic instrument on which I’d learned to play “Hot Cross Buns” and “Pick a Little, Talk a Little.” Back then, in the early days of my affection for you, I went to church with my parents every Sunday. I didn’t think there could really be a hell, but I had no doubt that there was indeed a heaven where you were comfortably residing. I pictured you among the clouds, still wearing your doublet and tights and holding a pen with an impressive plume. Dying didn’t seem so bad, since it meant I'd get to meet you.

In Stratford-upon-Avon this weekend, visitors could make birthday cards for you. This, dear Will, is my greeting for you, written in your own perfect words. After four decades of loving you, I – like thousands of others – want to say, “Haply I think on thee.”