tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48736361674069101072024-02-07T21:37:30.711-05:00Carol Willette BachofnerThis is my space for discussions on writing, with poetry a focus. It is also a place for discussions about how we learn, why we learn, and what we learn.
I want to be able to have active conversations here. I may occasionally post a poem by me or an excerpt by another poet to illustrate my point (and I do have points!).Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.comBlogger225125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-27333125042153961722019-03-25T14:32:00.000-04:002019-03-25T14:34:36.989-04:00Me too and why I didn’t tell for 48 yearsIt is painful to remember some things, like the day I lied to my father about drawing a picture of our next door neighbors in a bath tub naked and putting it under their door. I hid under the porch until he found me there shaking with fear of what punishment I might face. I was 5. I had never lied to my father before (or since) and just knew he’d be disappointed in me for drawing that picture and putting it under the neighbor’s door. Since I was just five, and pretty proud of my drawing, I signed my name to it. I was naive to say the least but lied anyway, lying in plain sight so to speak. I was banished to my room without supper and got a spanking. I was repentant, but I’m not sure if my sorrow was for the drawing or for getting caught or for the lie I told. Maybe all of that.<br />
<br />
Most of the pain of remembrance however, doesn’t circle anywhere near the art-gone-horribly-wrong of my tender years. It lands squarely on two incidents that were not my fault. I cannot remember so many of the details, the day of the week or how I got out of there, if I ran home or whether my mother was in the kitchen or doing laundry or what she might have said to me. I don’t remember dinner that night. But what is clear as sunlight are the details of what happened to me and the way I felt. It’s best to tell as I remember and let the reader understand why I waited so long to tell anyone.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Incident</b><br />
<br />
I was ten, living in a nice middle-class neighborhood with my parents, my 8 yr old sister, and my baby brother who was a year old. I had a best friend who lived catty-corner across the street. We played together every day and walked to school together with two other friends. Her grandparents lived one house away, on the same property. Her grandmother had been my second grade teacher, beloved by me and our whole class. Sweet and loving. Her grandfather was, in contrast, a mean irrascible old man who yelled at us if we stepped onto his immaculate lawn or ventured into his garden where we like to play hide and seek in the corn stalks. What happened to me (and I guess probably to her too at some point or points) was horrible. I was ten. I barely knew my own body, much less the body of a man. It happened behind the bulkhead of his house, just out of eyeshot of my friend’s house or my beloved teacher’s ability to look out her kitchen window. He’d called to me and said he wanted to give me some corn to take to my mother for dinner. I was afraid of him, but that day his voice was softer than usual. I remember being able to see the garden just steps away, the corn stalks blowing in the breeze of that hot hot day.<br />
<br />
I remember him asking me if I was wearing a bra yet. I was confused and said nothing. He said <i>let me see</i> and opened the buttons of my blouse. The buttons of his overalls were open too and there was something like a big snake coming out of the buttons. He pushed my head there onto the snake and held it down. I pulled away and then he bit me on the left breast, leaving a red mark. He told me to never tell anyone or he would hurt me worse. He said <i>îf anyone asks, tell them you got stung by a bee. </i>To this day I remember his shoes, the garden dirt on his shoes, and there is a faint metallic taste in my mouth when I remember. I remember thinking that if I told my father, he’d probably kill the man and then he’d go to jail. What would we do without Daddy? So I shut up. After that I walked the long way around when picking up my friend for the walk to school. I never went over there to play again. I always invited her to my house. She never asked why.<br />
<br />
I also never wore that blouse again, though it had been a favorite: white with a palm tree embrodered on the left breast. To this day, I fear having my head touched or restrained, even by a hat. Blowing corn stalks can trigger the memories.<br />
<br />
I’m pretty sure that my friend was one of his victims too, because she was obsessed with brushing her teeth and scrubbed her face nearly raw. She went away to boarding school at age 14, the year we were to have started high school together. I never asked her, never told anyone any part of it. In 1985 I wrote a poem about what happened. I didn’t show it to anyone, especially not to her. She died at a young age. Only then did I relase the poem. I still had not told anyone.<br />
<br />
Here is the poem:<br />
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>At Our 20th Class Reunion</b></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>— </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>for Debby</i></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you mention him, your grandfather,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">speak of his beautiful garden, of the tall corn </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">where we played </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">as children, I’ll have to tell</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">you about the rows</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">of thieving stalks with their pale silk flags —</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">warnings of the approaching storm, </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">the shaft of lightning</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">that split my childhood in two.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you talk about his stubbled jaw,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">say it smiled, say it was kindly,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ll think of crooked yellow teeth</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">like misshapen kernels of corn, grimacing</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">through open husks, a sudden</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">split in the green of August.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you go so far as to say </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">he loved you, and you miss him,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ll glance away, remember the day</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">you strode from the rows</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">to brush your teeth over and over, to scrub</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">garden dirt from your face, your knees,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">your pretty lace socks.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you utter a single word</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">about his sad end, twisted with palsy,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">rotting bit by bit from cancer, </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m afraid I will laugh, twirl madly</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">with my skirts up around my waist,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">letting the stench of his garden</span></div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">fly off me into the wind.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">1985</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman";">I will never know if my friend told anyone, if that is why her parents sent her to boarding school. We never talked about any of it. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In 2005, when my mother was dying and long after my father had died, I finally spoke about it. I told my mother, not the details but that I had been assaulted and by whom. Her response was what I had feared, a palid non-response to the horror I had lived and relived. </span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman";">I</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i>’</i></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman";">m sorry if</i><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> that happened to you</i><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman";">. Now can we talk about something else please? </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman";">I felt some relief at having said SOMETHING, but knew that there was going to be no more talk of it. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman";">It took me 48 years to tell her. She was dying and all the people who might have protected me were already dead. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">When the House Judiciary Committee did their cursory </span>“<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">investigating</span>”<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> of Brett Kavanaugh, when the republican members of that committee focused on HIM rather than seeking to find justice, I felt her pain. I listened the whole day. I anguished over her story and all of our collective stories. I was transported back to 1957 and felt violated all over again. I know why Dr Ford could not pin down a date. I know why her clear memories are in that house, on those stairs, in that room, in the bathroom afterward. I know why she is still afraid and did not want to be in the room with her abuser. I know why it took a momentous event (his nomination to the Supreme Court) to make her brave enough to come forward after 36 years.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We want to stop being afraid. We ought to be able to live without worrying what someone will do to us, or how we will be vilified if we are hurt and choose to tell.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Here is the poem I wrote shortly after the hearings. It tells my story in another way:</span></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The Day </b></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I remember details of the day, burnished </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">somewhere in my brain, but not where </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I can find what he was wearing or whether </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">it was a Wednesday or Friday.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I remember his shoes, the garden dirt</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">on them, the frayed right lace. I remember </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">the corn was high and blowing, the sea </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">was fragrant on the breeze.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I remember the green bulkhead</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">behind his house, the bee that stung </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">my left breast, opened to air. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you ask me what exact time it was</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’d probably get that wrong,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">but my mother called me in to lunch.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I remember that I choked down </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">my sandwich, trying hard not to cry. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I don’t remember</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">the lunch chatter or if my sister</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">was annoying, as she could be. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I said nothing serious to my mother.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Not until she was dying. No risk then;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">she could take it with her. <i>I’m sorry</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>if that happened to you. </i>If. If. As if.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I know I never again wore that white blouse,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">the one with the palm tree </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">over the left breast, that breast </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">which was barely a breast at all back then. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ve waited for years to love that part of me, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">but we are strangers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The bottom line is this: we are hurt. We are afraid. We fear being hurt another way if we do tell. I say it is time to end the silence. If you are a #metoo woman, tell someone. Tell your story in your way, but tell.</span></div>
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Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-35631574744132287962018-07-28T13:10:00.000-04:002018-08-02T12:31:10.067-04:00Compassion and Madnessbrrrrrrr when a dream from long ago haunts you and finds itself too real in the present or future...<br />
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I awoke on a certain morning (several months ago) from a dream that began in compassion and ended in madness. It was a chilling dream filled with bizarre elements that will take me a LONG time to decipher.<br />
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I should begin by saying that I dream vividly on a regular basis. I dream in color (always) with a few b & w vignettes popping up from time to time (as in last night’s/early morning’s dream). My dreams are epic in nature most of the time, with wide-sweeping dramas or landscapes. They often involve walking in a city or town and being in different buildings that I have never seen or visited. Sometimes I wonder if my “regular life” is the dream and the “dream” is my real life. (I think that is where a bit of the madness might come in).<br />
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My dream opens (I think) in a bedroom where there are several high beds with pretty quilts or comforters on them. I hurry to make my bed because I am going somehwere and need to get ready. The next thing I know, the dream switches to b & w in a park of some kind where there are large numbers of homelss people sleeping on open ground and under trees. There are no homeless children other than where a few mothers are breastfeeding their babies (babies not visible but I know they are there). It is like a scene from a dystopian film. I walk past the people, sobbing for all that I see. I feel (physically) their sorrow. At the edge of the field or park, I see women dressed in robes (not burqas, but ragged on the edges and long-skirted).They are dancing slowly and crying and I feel extreme sadness and fear coming from them. I step up over a curb and onto a street where the scene changes to vivid color. I am told by a youngish woman I meet not to look back. I feel like Lot’s Wife but do not look back. My heart is sad. I am afraid.<br />
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I am dressed in a colorful dress with a full skirt. I look at the flowers on the dress and wonder why there were no flowers in the park I have just left. A young woman who greets me says we should walk and we do, weaving in and out of streets an past buildings with brightly colored doors. I am greeted at an open door by a well-dressed (not gaudy) woman who takes me into a room, multi-colored and angular. I sit in a green chair and she takes my wallet from me. (I had no purse, just my wallet). I complain that I need that because without my ID and credit caard I will not be able to get home. she tells me I will never go home. I awaken drenched with sweat and crying. In every scene/group of children, my own children (and in one case younger versions of two of my grandchildren) were part of the scene. I was at this point trying to climb out of something that at first seem like a basement with sharp broken windows. That basement faded into a pit with very slippery sides. Every time I get almost to the top I fall back/slide back. I see down on myself too. I know that I had to help the mothers find their children before the children faded like cheshire cats, leaving only their mouths.<br />
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The madness that ensued in the dream involved children who were wailing and looking for their mothers, unable to be held or comforted.<br />
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What do I learn from this? That somehow (with only a strange bit prescience) I knew mothers and children were going to face some kind of drastic action. It would be too easy to say that my dream predicted what has been going on with immigrant families. I do not give myself credit for that kind of psychic ability. But still, I think the dream was/is all about women’s precarious place in the too-white, too-unfeeling world. <i>We have come a long way, baby</i> really was about being declared equal…targets… we are now not even tokens of being honored and “protected” by man or society. In light of recent events, neither are our children. "Women and children first" is ancient history and not applicable. Cue the Titanic of the Future: "Men to the lifeboats! Women and children go down with the ship."Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-7639917450948168452018-04-24T16:01:00.000-04:002018-04-24T16:01:17.565-04:00Manners MatterWhen my grandson Christopher was a tween, we set him up for an etiquette class at the local country club where my husband played golf. It was to be a dinner adventure wherein the kids would learn about table setting, napkin folding, which utensil to use for what dish, etc. Every child was dressed in Sunday Best. There were a dozen kids, boys and girls together. We offered this to him and he jumped at the chance. Did I mention it was a meal, so free food including dessert was part of it. When he arrived, he began holding out the girls' chairs and shaking hands with the boys and the staff. Unexpected for a 12 years old, and we were proud. The meal and its lessons proceeded to unfold. Christopher raised his hand and asked if someone could give a toast. The woman who was leading them said that that is not a normal part of a dinner, but certainly he could do that if he wished to do so. He did. He welcomed everyone, remarked how nice everyone looked, and thanked the staff and the teacher. When dinner and the class were over, he politely thanked the teacher and put his napkin in the right place before holding the girls' chairs for them again.<br />
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My point is this: We have a president who just flicked a piece of <i>something</i> off a foreign head of state who was at the White House to attend a state dinner. The boorish behavior was accompanied by telling French President Macron that he got <i>a piece of dandruff</i> off his suit. He did this as the press was snapping photos. It is possible that he thinks this is an intimate gesture between friends. Yes, he is that unschooled in manners that he would not know that even best buddies and family members do not announce dandruff flicking in public.<br />
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This kind of thing happens every time the president meets with foreign dignitaries. Of course he (sometimes) reserves his direct insults for times when he is alone with his mouth, his inner circle, or his keyboard.<br />
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The limits to his bad manners and insulting tone seem unreachable. There is no inhibition present whatsoever. It is never the case that he behaves in a dignified way, even when he is saying nothing. His facial expressions, hand gestures, his body language, and his undignified mannerisms are always and ever on display. He has even picked his nose in public.<br />
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I know that there is an Office of Protocol available to teach him how one behaves in the presence of heads of state. Or perhaps he has disbanded that. It would certainly be a good idea to partake of a few lessons on how to comport himself. I am guessing that this all falls under his basic rejection of any kind of learning. He has not availed himself of any kind of that since taking office. He knows and is better at everything. He is quick to point that out. When he embarrasses the President of France on TV, it is clear he has overestimated both the friendship and his people skills.<br />
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Maybe our grandson could teach him something about being gentlemanly at dinner parties, before he blows his nose on the linen tablecloth.Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-91531137864002565742018-04-16T12:48:00.001-04:002018-04-16T13:31:00.211-04:00Yes, poetry matters: to all of us<h1 class="nytint-post-headline" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-weight: 500;">In a world of digital everything, and yes here I am blogging on my laptop, the question that always comes up when discussing poetry, is what if any relevance does poetry have now that anything is fair game to be reduced to 140 characters or fewer? I would answer that poetry is more important than ever. When we relegate ourselves to text-speak, we nearly eliminate syntax, spelling, grammar and we obliterate complex thought and nuance. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-weight: 500;"> </span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: 500;">A few years ago I wrote a poem in text-speak just to do it. Its dryness and clinical nature reminds me that I love words filled with the sounds and feelings that vowels produce. Being a person who has the ability for visual closure, my brain will fill in the vowels for understanding. However, minus the actual vowels, I lose something. Beauty. Look at this small stanza of Richard Wilbur's (</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-weight: 500;">from </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-weight: 500;">The House</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: 500;">) written as it was intended and again in txt spk (apologies to Wilbur for the bastardization of his beautiful words):</span></h1>
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For a last look at that white house she knew</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In sleep alone, and held no title to,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Smtms, on wking, she wd cls her eys</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Fr a lst lk at tht whte hse she knw</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In slp alne, nd hld no ttle to,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">nd hd nt ntred yt, fr all hr sghs.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Can you "read" the second version? Probably. You can get the likely "meaning" as well. But did you sense the beauty of the diction, the intricacy of one word played against another? Were you moved? Not likely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">While this is an extreme example, a rather silly one I might add, it underscores what I mean about language for its own beauty. Think of your favorite word. Say it (aloud or silently) and let its sounds take you, rolling them off your tongue and around the cavern of your throat. What do you FEEL?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My two favorite words are <i>ocean </i>and <i>lullaby. </i>I love the sounds of them, the way they fill my mouth, the way they encompass me with joy. Imagine now how these two words can work together to make something of a heightened joy through their complementary imagery. This short poem is an example of how they do this for me:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>When I was a baby, rocked</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>to sleep by the waves, </i></span><i><span style="font-size: large;">I had no word </span></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">for ocean, knew only the rise</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>and fall of its heartbeat, </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>like the lullaby </i></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">heard below my mother's own </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">tidal days </span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;">and nights. Lullabies are like that:</span> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>no beginning,</i></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"> no end to the soothing. </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Tides too </span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;">without alpha, omega, </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">just a repeating </span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;">lullaby on the shore. </span></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Now I am here at its lip, awash</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>in the music of the ocean, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>lulled toward sleep</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>as if stilled from my cries </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>by an invisible mother.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Plain language to be sure, nothing fancy or hard to pronounce. It is the way the two plain words work together, spurred on to make a feeling and to paint a picture of that feeling. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Author David Biespiel writes, in his NY Times article about the importance of poetry, that: </span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-caps: inherit;"><i style="font-variant-caps: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Poetic utterance ritualizes how we come to knowledge. In the same way that poems illuminate our individual lives, poems also help us understand ourselves as a culture... Poetic utterance mythologizes our journey of being. Poetic utterance tells and interprets our stories. </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-variant-caps: inherit;">I would add that human beings think in metaphor, which is a wonderful </span>testament<span style="font-variant-caps: inherit;"> to complexity and interconnectedness which makes us sentient beings with souls. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Dana Gioia in his famously controversial essay, </span><i>Can Poetry Matter, </i>tells us that poetry is an essential human art. He tells us that to be fully human we need nuanced language and delicacy or rigor of diction. He says that we are separate from other animals in large part because of complexity of thought and language which is the life-blood of poetry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-variant-caps: inherit;">Poets are sure that each word in a poem has its own value in that a word creates (in concert with </span>other<span style="font-variant-caps: inherit;"> words) an inner and outer landscape. Each word is important not only in its connotation but </span>also<span style="font-variant-caps: inherit;"> in its denotation. Words have power, intrinsic power to inflame, inspire, inculcate. When words get together in the way poets hear them, the power is great, almost magical. It is why poets are (generally) so careful about word choice, word order, word play. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-variant-caps: inherit;">Bespiel says:<i> No matter what language we speak, we follow the guidance of poetry to better perceive sorrow and radiance, love and hatred, violence and wonder. No matter what continent we call home, we read poetry to restrict us in time and to aspire toward timelessness — whether we are in our most vibrant cities or in the remote woods</i>.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;">Poetry is like a road map therefore, or a genealogical chart, connecting past to present and leading to the future. Poets hold a great </span>responsibility<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> in making certain that the path ahead is one of beauty, even in its darkest </span>moist<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> dangerous spots. Poets are responsible for holding up a mirror to history in order to tug at our </span>present<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> conscience. Poetry is a </span>vehicle<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> taking us from </span>there<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> to here. It can heal as well as (sometimes) wound. Even in its wounding, there is healing. </span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;">If we care about ourselves, about our cultures, poetry will always </span>matter<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> because it is the best way to know </span>who we are in the world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Poetry is not in competition with other kind of written communication, not as some say a mere shorthand for prose. It is its own. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When we read a poem, something entirely different happens than when we read the newspaper, a novel, a text. We are stirred to think beyond the naked words, even beyond the meaning of those words. We are stirred to a new vision of the world outside our windows, outside our relationship to that world. We are more deeply connected, even if we are alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;">Poetry matters because it is the</span><span style="font-variant-caps: inherit;"><i> art of the utterance</i></span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> a balance </span>between the<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;"> beautiful and the bizarre. </span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;">Poetry matters. </span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;">It is lullaby and explosion,</span> daylight and darkness, truth within truth<span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;">. </span></span></div>
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Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-11657878444339021362018-04-14T16:55:00.003-04:002018-04-14T16:58:31.519-04:00Odes; why we write them<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Times; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">The ode is a lyric poem, classically structured in three major parts (as in the Pindaric Ode): 1. the strophe 2. the antistrophe, and 3. the epode. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(84, 84, 84); color: #545454;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The parts of the poem correspond to movement of a chorus to one side of the stage (strophe), then to the other (antistrophe), and a pause midstage to deliver the epilogue (epode). </span></div>
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The epode is of a different meter than the strophe and antistrophe. For example: iambic tetrameter, iambic tetrameter, trochaic dimeter. This change of meter is a great way to make a final point without being over the top in terms of diction. </span></div>
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Pindar, as a poet, was determined to preserve and interpret great deeds (athletic and heroic) as divine values. He did this by writing odes to celebrate such victories or values. We write odes for these reasons, even now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Let's look at the (traditional) Ode and its 3 parts:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">1. <i>Strophe</i> typically begins the poem, consisting of two or more lines in a dominant meter, repeated as a unit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">2. <i>Antistrophe</i>, second stanza, is metrically harmonious with the strophe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">3. <i>Epode</i> is a one or two line stanza, in a different meter than the previous two stanzas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A good contemporary ode doesn't announce itself by ay of overdone meter. In fact some contemporary ode writers eschew meter altogether. Sharon Olds' latest book, <i>Odes,</i> doesn't use any of the traditional poetic devices (rules) for odes. The heralding gesture of these odes is the praising (or scoffing at) of the topics she has chosen for her poems. As Olds shows, the contemporary ode is open for interpretation as to the person, place, or thing it is celebrating or praising. Here is a partial list from her table of contents:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ode to Stretch Marks</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ode to Dirt</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ode to a Composting Toilet</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ode to Buttermilk </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ode of the Corner I Was Stood In</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One might say that Olds is breaking the form even in her choice of topics. Perhaps she is. There is nothing wrong with breaking form. Clearly Olds' choices are unconventional. I think, however, that she is leading the charge for those who want to fly in the face of tradition and strike out in new directions. It seems to me that poets writing today, especially those who write away from form, will find the praise and honoring of the ode to be a great vehicle for their work. For those who wish to stay with the traditional approach of Pindar's, brava! But this is 2018. We can ode as we are comfortable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It may be worth doing a few formal odes, just for the satisfaction and for getting to really KNOW the form. Then, off you go into your own space with odes, reinventing as you go but with the foundation well-built first.</span></div>
Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-44740423764309832572018-04-11T18:59:00.000-04:002018-04-11T19:14:45.515-04:00Because I am not feeling kissable todayYesterday I had some surgery on my face. A little thing called basal cell cancer on my nose and a trip to the surgeon has left me feeling awkwardly un-kissable. I <b>love love love</b> kissing, so this is a great hardship.<br />
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My husband is a great kisser. I am always happy to kiss him or to be kissed by him. When we were first together, kissing was one of the best parts of learning about each other, about learning how we fit together in terms of personality and approach to relationship. There is simply no way to hide inside a kiss. The kiss is a barometer of relationship. Marcel Danesi, in his <i>The History of the Kiss!,</i> says that "unlike sex, there is nothing to prove in kissing." I might not wholly agree with that. I think the kiss IS a proof of many things, including tenderness, loyalty, forcefulness, aggression, and more.<br />
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When I was in 8th grade I discovered kissing, the non<i> kiss-your-grandmother-goodbye</i> kind of kissing. I was taught to kiss by the bother of a friend. He pushed me gently against the coats in the coatroom at a dance and put his lips so gently on mine that I got dizzy. His lips were warm and soft and he put his hands on my face. The kissing he did with me remains one of my best boy-girl memories. It was so impressive that I celebrate it every year on his October 3rd birthday. All of my adult kissing has been measured against his kissing. Sometimes however kissing style or approach can be a deal breaker. I once was kissed by a boy whose braces cut my lips. He smelled of sour food too. I was so repulsed I never spoke to him again. Sometimes the kiss is a signal of the end of a relationship (the <i>kiss-off</i>).<br />
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I am currently reading a book edited by Brian Turner, <i>The Kiss, </i>which is a series of essays about all kinds of kissing, contributed by a melange of wonderful authors. Reading the book is, for me, like going to a fine restaurant and ordering a sampler. Each author/contributor shares unabashedly and honestly, adding both spice and substance to the conversation. Reading this book has made me consider how fortunate I am to have been well kissed in my lifetime. It makes me know all over again how wonderful it is to be kissed now, even as I must admit I am no longer a young kisser trying to find a mate. I am fortunate to know and expect lovely wonderful kissing on a daily basis by my sweet husband. I do know that kissing has been a make or break situation for me my whole kissing life.<br />
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In thinking about kissing today, I took to the internet for a bit of fun looks at the "science" and non-scientific conjecture about kissing. I found a site called You Tango where there is a fun look at how various signs of the zodiac are assessed as to their kissing styles. I share this here — just for the fun of it.<br />
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Note: the website writer put these in order from what are supposedly the <i>best</i> kissers to the <i>worst</i>. I do not agree with the line-up. Kissing is so personal as to style and effectiveness that I doubt anyone could rank them. Kissing is to be enjoyed. Great kissing is to be celebrated.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to the web site, each zodiac sign has its unique way of kissing, from soft pecks to an open, deep French kiss. Some zodiac signs are passionate while others approach intimacy in a methodical or mechanical way, some with hands involved and some without. I offer these as they were offered by the web site writer. You be the judge.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. Scorpio They use their tongues. Literally, penetrating your mouth with their tongue. This can be wonderful or dangerous (if you were to bite down, it would be quite unpleasant!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;">2. Virgo </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">The Virgo's kissing style is a sweet kiss on the hand when you're driving or watching a movie. When they get serious, the sweetness remains. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. Leo </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Leos are passionate kissers who will brush your hair away and look into your eyes first. Otherwise, they'll wrap their arm around your neck and pull you in to give you a simple kiss on your cheekbone. They are both passionate and tender.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. Taurus </span></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Taureans are driven by the need to use senses, to feel their partner’s plump lips (if they are plump), smell their enticing scent, touch their soft skin and take you in. They love to kiss the neck to feel the skin and get a deep whiff of scent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. Gemini </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gemini is (supposedly) in fifth of the top five best kissers. Gemini, being a cerebral sign, will go for the forehead. It's a great way to feel connected. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Getting a chance to gaze into expressive eyes after the kiss is a bonus for the Gemini.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">6. Aries An Aries is </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a physical person, making kissing a full body experience which might start pressing both of your lips, add in a little tongue, and finish with a bite. They enjoy a partner who is a little aggressive too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">7. Sagittarius </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fun and game kissing here. Sagittarius likes to use lips to trace the skin, beyond your mouth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">8. Cancer </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cancers are not wild kissers. They’re tender-hearted kissers who build tension slowly. If the They might work themselves up to holding you against something during the kiss.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">9. Pices </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Pisces kissers are always gentle. Unafraid to sink into their emotions, they get lost in them. At first, their <i>go-to</i> <i>move</i> might be a single lip kiss that leaves you feeling connected and wanting for more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">10. Libras </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Libra kisses are soft and light. They’re shy kisses. They like to go for the butterfly kisses where your eyelashes touch together. They leave you feeling a bit lightheaded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">11. Capricorns </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Capricorns are a little more classy in their kissing, but they are go-getters. They might nibble and bite you like an Aries, but more softly. They'll try not to kiss you where it might be uncomfortable for you as long as you let them know.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">12. Aquarians </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">They show their mental connection by kissing you on the eyelid. This is more common in spouses or with parents and their children. Still, it shows a strong mental connection.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What do YOU think about kisses? Have a memory of a wonderful kiss or memory of a kiss that turned you off? Please share. I'm in the mood for writing some poems about kisses and kissers. Send me some material.</span></div>
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Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-18179824764790957972018-04-09T18:54:00.001-04:002018-04-09T18:54:32.478-04:00Because it's Poetry MonthBecause it's poetry Month and because I am a bit nervous over some surgery scheduled for tomorrow, I am reposting a previous blog post. It is I hope worthy of your renewed attention.<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Poem, unpacked, with some translation from medieval Scots English to English.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Thrissil and the Rois (Thistle and Rose), composed by my ancestor, William Dunbar of Scotland, is comprised of stanzas in rhyme royale form. It is a bit of a struggle to get the poem to levels of deep understanding in its original language. However, as you read along, the elements of thought and expression begin to emerge. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">To clarify, rhyme royale stanzas consist of seven lines, usually of iambic pentameter (typical for narratives of the time). The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c and is normally made up either as a tercet with two couplets (a-b-a, b-b, c-c) or as a quatrain with a tercet (a-b-a-b, b-c-c). </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This allowance for variance is particularly helpful in longer narratives. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Notice that the poem uses <b>aureate</b> vocabulary (using both Latin and French) to glide it forward. Aureation is seen nowadays by some critics as being pretentious, however it is a method not of embellishment for embellishment’s sake but as necessary dressing. The narrative of Dunbar’s herein is presented via a quite common medieval device: dream vision. Since the poem was written to celebrate/commemorate a wedding (James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor of England), the embellishment of aureation and the dream vision devices are appropriate. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="hg x_xh0" style="display: block; font-family: -apple-system; font-size: 13.4399995803833px; margin-bottom: 0.6em;"><span class="hw" d:dhw="1" role="text" style="-webkit-hyphens: auto; font-size: 22.847999572753906px; line-height: 34.27199935913086px;" syllabified="au·re·ate">aureate </span><span class="prx" dialect="AmE" prlexid="pron0003680.002" prxid="aureate_us_j" style="color: #777777; display: inline-block; font-size: 16.12799835205078px; line-height: 20.966398239135742px; margin-left: 0.4em; margin-right: 0.4em;">| <span class="ph t_respell" d:pr="US" dialect="AmE" id="m_en_gbus0058060.013">ˈôrēət<span class="gp tg_ph">, </span></span><span class="ph t_respell" d:pr="US" dialect="AmE" id="m_en_gbus0058060.014">ˈôrēˌāt</span> | </span></span><span class="sg" style="font-family: -apple-system; font-size: 13.4399995803833px; margin-top: 0.6em;"><span class="se1 x_xd0" id="m_en_gbus0058060.008" style="display: block; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.3em;"><span class="posg x_xdh" role="text" style="display: block; font-size: 16.12799835205078px; line-height: 19.353599548339844px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: -0.8em;"><span class="pos" d:ps="1"><span class="gp tg_pos" style="margin-right: 0.3em;"><span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">adjective</span></span></span></span><span class="msDict x_xd1 t_core" d:abs="1" id="m_en_gbus0058060.009" style="display: block; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0em; margin-top: 0.3em;"><span class="df" role="text"><span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">denoting</span>, made of, or having the color of gold<span class="gp tg_df">. </span></span><span class="gp tg_msDict" role="text"></span></span><span class="msDict x_xd1 hasSn t_subsense" d:abs="1" id="m_en_gbus0058060.011" style="display: block; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.3em; text-indent: 0em;"><span class="gp sn tg_msDict" role="text" style="color: #888888; font-weight: 600; margin-left: -1em; margin-right: 0em;">• </span><span class="df" role="text">(of <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">language</span>) <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">highly</span> <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">ornamented</span> <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">or</span> <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">elaborate</span><span class="gp tg_df">. </span></span></span></span><span class="gp tg_sg"></span></span><span class="etym x_xo0" role="text" style="display: block; font-family: -apple-system; font-size: 13.4399995803833px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-top: 1em;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Let’s look at the poem itself now, beginning with Dunbar’s description of Spring (also emblematic of the beginning of married life).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Quhen Merche wes with variand windis past,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And Appryll had with hir silver schouris</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Tane leif at Nature with ane orient blast,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And lusty May, that muddir is of flouris,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Had maid the birdis to begyn thair houris,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Amang the tendir odouris reid and quhyt,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Quhois armony to heir it wes delyt,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The sleeping poet has a dream in which he is addressed by the personification of May.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Me thocht fresche May befoir my bed upstude</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>In weid depaynt of mony divers hew,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Sobir, benyng, and full of mansuetude,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>In brycht atteir of flouris forgit new,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Hevinly of color, quhyt, reid, broun, and blew,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Balmit in dew and gilt with Phebus bemys</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Quhill all the hous illumynit of hir lemys.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>"Slugird," scho said, "Awalk annone, for schame,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And in my honour sumthing thow go wryt,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Quhairto quod I, Sall I uprys at morrow,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>For in this May few birdis herd I sing?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Thai haif moir caus to weip and plane thair sorrow,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Thy air it is nocht holsum nor benyng,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">May reminds him that he had previously promised her to write a poem about the rose.</span><span style="color: black; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>With that this lady sobirly did smyll </i>[smile]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And said, Uprys and do thy observance,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Thow did promyt in Mayis lusty quhyle</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>For to discryve the ros of most plesance.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Quhen this wes said depairtit scho, this quene,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And enterit in a lusty gairding gent.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And than, me thocht, sa listely besene,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>In serk and mantill, full haistely I went,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Into this garth, most dulce and redolent,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Of herb and flour and tendir plantis sueit,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And grene levis doing of dew doun fleit.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In the garden, Nature (seen of course as a woman) sends messengers to the animals, birds and plants of the world, requiring their immediate presence, their homage. [<i>All present were in twinkling of an eye, both beast and bird and flower, before the queen</i> ... as embodied in the last couplet of this part.]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Scho ordand eik that every bird and beist,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Befoir hir hienes suld annone compeir,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And every flour of vertew, most and leist,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And every herb be feild, fer and neir,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>All present wer in twynkling of ane e,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Baith beist and bird and flour, befoir the quene.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Nature calls the Lion forward, described as the <i>Lion Rampant</i> standard of Scots Kings. Notice the rich description of this kingly beast and know Dunbar, as poet of the Court, was wont to thusly honor James:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Reid of his cullour as is the ruby glance,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>On feild of gold he stude full mychtely, </i>[on field of gold he strode most mightily.... think of royal banner]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>With flour delycis sirculit lustely.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>This lady liftit up his cluvis cleir,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And leit him listly lene upone hir kne,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And crownit him with dyademe full deir,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Of radyous stonis most ryall for to se, </i>[of radiant stones most royal for all to see]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Saying, The king of beistis mak I thee,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And the chief protector in the woddis and schawis.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Onto thi leigis go furth, and keip the lawis.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Exerce justice with mercy and conscience,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And lat no small beist suffir skaith na skornis</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Of greit beistis that bene of moir piscence.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The lion is the embodiment of the duty of the King to bring justice to all of his subjects,</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">the humble and the more powerful.The animals therefore acclaim their new King. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Eagle appears to symbolize the King's plan to keep the peace within Scotland and,</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">perhaps, with England. Nature crowns the Eagle King of the birds, sharpens his feathers</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">to dart-like points, enjoining him to let no ravens, or other birds of prey, make trouble.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>All kynd of beistis into thair degré</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>At onis cryit lawd, Vive le roy!</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And till his feit fell with humilité,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And all thay maid him homege and fewté, </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Syne crownit scho the Egle, king of fowlis,</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And as steill dertis scherpit scho his pennis, <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></i>[pennis = feathers]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And bawd him be als just to awppis and owlis </i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>As unto pacokkis, papengals, or crennis, </i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And mak a law for wycht fowlis and for wrennis. </i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And lat no fowll of ravyne do efferay,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Nor devoir birdis bot his awin pray.</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 54px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 54px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #0042aa; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Nature then inspects the plants and judges the spiked thistle to be 'able for war'. The thistle (thrissil) is crowned King of all plants with a gleaming crown of rubies.</span></div>
<div style="color: #0042aa; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The thistle seems to represent the King's determination to defend his Kingdom.</span></div>
<div style="color: #0042aa; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Nature then advises the Thistle to show discretion when judging other plants.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Upone the awfull Thrissill scho beheld</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And saw him kepit with a busche of speiris.</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Concedring him so able for the weiris,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>A radius croun of rubeis scho him gaif.</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And said, In feild go furth and fend the laif.</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And sen thow art a king, thow be discreit,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Herb without vertew hald nocht of sic pryce</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>As herb of vertew and of odor sueit,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And lat no nettill vyle and full of vyce<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </i>[and let no nettle vile and full of vice]</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Hir fallow to the gudly flour delyce,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Nor latt no wyld weid full of churlichenes</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Compair hir till the lilleis nobilnes,<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </i>[compare her to lillies’ nobleness]</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #0056d6; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Dunbar is a not-so-subtle admonisher to the King in this next part, wherein he seems to be warning the King to be done with the practice of having mistresses. He does this in the voice of Nature who praises the red-and-white rose over all the other flowers.The rose represents Margaret of England.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Nor hald non udir flour in sic denty</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>As the fresche Ros of cullour reid and quhyt,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>For gife thow dois, hurt is thyne honesty,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Conciddering that no flour is so perfyt, </i>[considering no flower is so perfect]</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>So full of vertew, plesans, and delyt,<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </i>[so full of virtue, pleasance, and delight]</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>So full of blisfull angelik bewty,<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </i>[so full of blissful angelic beauty]</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Imperiall birth, honour, and dignité. </i>[imperial birth, honor, and dignity]</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #0056d6; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #0056d6; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is clear that these lines are meant to praise the lovely Margaret of England, and to serve as a warning to James that he has it all at home, and should not stray.<i> </i>Nature addresses the rose directly, praising her and calling her forward to be crowned.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Than to the Ros scho turnyt hir visage</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And said, O lusty dochtir most benyng,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Aboif the lilly illustare of lynnage,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Fro the stok ryell rysing fresche and ying,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>But ony spot or macull doing spring,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Cum, blowme of joy, with jemis to be cround,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>For our the laif thy bewty is renownd.</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>A coistly croun with clarefeid stonis brycht,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>This cumly quene did on hir heid inclois, </i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Quhairfoir me thocht all flouris did rejos,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Crying attonis, Haill be thow richest Ros,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Haill hairbis empryce, haill freschest quene of flouris!</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>To thee be glory and honour at all houris!</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #0056d6; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The birds join the acclamation of the new Queen who is compared to a pearl which is totally expected in the poem as 'Margaret' is derived from the Latin term (margarita) for a pearl.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>The commoun voce uprais of birdis small</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Apone this wys, O blissit be the hour,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>That thow wes chosin to be our principall,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Welcome to be our princes of honour,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Our perle, our plesans, and our paramour,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Our peax, our play, our plane felicité:</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Chryst thee conserf frome all adversité! </i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #0056d6; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Now the poem switches from the dream of Dunbar to Dunbar himself. Birdsong merges with the dawn chorus. Dunbar awakens and looks for the garden he saw in his dream but finds it gone. While <i>half-frighted</i>, he “begins” to write the poem. This is reminiscent of what would later be seen as a magical realism poem, much like Xanadu.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Than all the birdis song with sic a schout,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>That I annone awoilk quhair that I lay,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And with a braid I turnyt me about,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>To se this court, bot all wer went away.</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Than up I lenyt, halflingis in affrey,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>And thus I wret, as ye haif hard to forrow,</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Of lusty May upone the nynt morrow.</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-indent: 54px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>It is the ninth of May.</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div>
</div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This poem may be one of Dunbar’s best. It certainly engendered a fairly robust admiration for his work from James IV, who appointed him as Poet to the Court. Dunbar’s ability to connect nature (with a capital N) to the monarchy is without reproach, either then or now. I am reminded of Sir Elton John’s remake song sung at the funeral of Princess Diana, wherein he refers to her as <i>England’s Rose. </i>I’d like to think Sir Elton has read Dunbar’s Thrissil and Rois, but I’m not taking that leap. But I will happily claim a certain visceral intertextuality that comes from the collective unconscious. In the world of magical words and symbols, we can rest assured that there is more “out there” waiting for us if we allow ourselves to be dreamers and writers, and to pay attention to the issues of the day, happy and not so... all is the stuff of poetry.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
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Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-64057350098607020352018-04-07T08:52:00.001-04:002018-04-08T12:55:06.728-04:00Sharon Olds and her new book; another expansion ahead for meSharon Olds changed me from a timid <i>vanilla ice cream with raspberry sauce </i>writer to more of a <i>rum raisin ice cream </i>writer. From expected to unexpected. From bland to bold.<br />
<br />
When I read her book, <i>The Father,</i> Alfred A. Knopf 1992<i>, </i>I became brave. She wrote bravely and I could do the same. This collection of poems became a touchstone for poems I knew needed to be written. What she wrote about (the dying of her father) and the way she wrote about it did not mince words. She used skillful diction and structure to come at this topic with honesty. Death and dying was taken off the pedestal of veiled sentiment or sentiment at all, and placed right there in front of us. Death, and in particular slow dying, was no longer a topic to be hedged, but was confronted in its nakedness and inevitability. We all secretly want to know, but no one was talking about it. Certainly no one was talking about it like Sharon Olds. Here is a poem that exemplifies that for me:<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>My Father's Eyes</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The day before my father died</i><br />
<i>he lay there allay with his eyes open,</i><br />
<i>staring with a weary dogged look.</i><br />
<i>His irises had turned hazel in places</i><br />
<i>as if his nature had changed, bits</i><br />
<i>of water or sky set into his mineral solids.</i><br />
<i>...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>and he swerved his blurred iris toward me and with-</i><br />
<i>in it for a moment his pupil narrowed and</i><br />
<i>took me in, it was my father </i><br />
<i>looking at me. This lasted just</i><br />
<i>a second,</i><br />
<i>...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Then his vision sank back down</i><br />
<i>and left only the globe of the eye, and the</i><br />
<i>next day his soul went out</i><br />
<i>and left just my father there </i><br />
<i>...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I'd never read such a thing. No overt emotion whatsoever, no flowery speech, just clear vision, inspiring diction. The poem shows what is possible in the intimate moments of our lives and our deaths. The rest of the poems in the collection are as barefaced, some even more so. I wanted to write with such clarity, such attention, such bravery. Olds' work gave me permission.<br />
<br />
I'd always written safe poetry. I did not tackle topics that were lurking in me. It was not that I did not want to/need to write about being molested as a child, or about my father's post WWII PTSD, or my difficult relationship with my mother. I very much wanted to write about those things, not just to serve my need to vanquish them, but because I knew (have always known) that others had similar experiences. Maybe they needed to hear someone else say these things out loud. But who would say them? Maybe me? But I was a <i>good girl </i>poet<i>. </i>I was concerned about whether or not I came off as a good girl in what I wrote. I was trapped in the <i>good girl </i>image fostered by my very proper parents, an image I eventually held for myself too. I chose silence because that was what <i>good girls </i>did, to the point that my poems were too safe to be <i>real.</i><br />
<br />
Along came Sharon Olds and her book. For the first time in my reading life, a woman writer was telling some big Truths. She was writing in such a way that there was authenticity even boldness, all the while using the tools poetry uses to attract. Her skills as a poet showed me how to write. I could say the previously <i>unsayable</i> and still be a good girl. <i>Good</i> had nothing at all to do with Truth in writing. I could get at the reality in my own life and connect to the lives of others if I was brave enough. I did not need to shy away from the tough parts and hide in the shadows of safety, but it would be a dance. I would need to balance my writing to expose Truth through careful diction and style. Fortunately I have had great teachers and models for doing this. Sharon Olds, unbeknownst to her, played that role for me. When I think of the balance, the dance, I remember these words from Ric Masten about relationship:<br />
<br />
<i>Let it be a dance we do</i><br />
<i>Let it be a dance for two.</i><br />
<i>In the good times and the bad times too,</i><br />
<i>Let it be a dance.</i><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Of course Masten was referring to a relationship between two lovers, but I see it as the same relationship between poets and readers. The steps must be careful and skilled. The dancers must be in a partnership.<br />
<br />
Once I discovered my bravery in writing, I was faced with figuring out how to tell my own truths without disrupting the life I wanted to live as wife, mother, daughter, friend. Since that moment I have defined and redefined Truth and revised my way of getting to it. I am certain this will be an ongoing project as I move along my own timeline as a writer, as a woman, as a <i>woman writer. </i>It is not a simple thing to stay authentic in writing. It would be easy to slip back into the bowl of vanilla ice cream, that safe place where no one is ruffled by my writing. It is too easy to back down, back off, back away deferentially. But I will not back up and become the timid writer I was.<br />
<br />
Until last evening, I had never met Sharon Olds in person. I did not yet have a copy of her latest book of poems, <i>Odes</i>. (by the way, the ode is not my favorite kind of poem to write, or to read). I was privileged to hear her read and to meet her afterward as part of the 16th Annual Terry Plunkett Poetry Festival, where I was a featured reader. The topic for the festival this year: Poetry and Truth. It was wonderful to hear her read, to engage with her audience for Q & A. A high point of the evening for me was meting her, getting her to sign my First Edition copy of <i>The Father </i> as well as her new book, <i>Odes, </i>and being able to thank her for helping me to become brave.<br />
<br />
Her new book is all about being brave even within the parameters of form (the ode) and I discovered in these poems a bravery coupled with humor, pun, word play, and liveliness of expression. I have only read (or heard) five of these odes, but I can tell you that there is another lesson for me therein. I urge you to find a copy for yourselves and read it. If you dare. It is a risky book. But then again, why not take the risk and discover something. I look forward to another expansion for my own work, thanks to this book and thanks again to Sharon Olds.Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-78715572577611249542018-04-04T12:09:00.004-04:002018-04-04T13:36:02.398-04:00Revising is an art unto itself Poem made. Seems pretty good. Is it done, ready for prime time? Well...<br />
<br />
I write almost every day. But not all of my writing is writing. Most of it is revising.<br />
<br />
For me as poet, revision is the best part of the process. I look at a particular poem and ask the same question: <i>what does the poem want? </i>Years ago I took a week-long workshop with poet Michael Dennis Browne wherein he posed that question to us, a question I had never considered. Since that time, I cannot revise without the question. As I wait to hear what the poem is saying, I review some possible revision strategies, try on a few and see what might make the poem stronger or more definitively a "poem." (another topic for another post)I used to think of revision as something I would do to peel away layers that were obstructing the poem's message or motive. Until the Browne workshop and later Jack Myers' workshops that was my strategy.<br />
<br />
Myers says in his helpful book, <i>The Portable Poetry Workshop </i>(Thomson Wadsworth, 2005), that revision was once thought of as <i>violating a sacred gift... the workings of the unconscious. </i>The idea that a poem comes from somewhere unearthly or is bestowed as a vision or is some kind of dictation from on high has always befuddled me. I've been in workshops where someone defended her/his poem by saying <i>this didn't come from me and I have no right to alter it. </i>I wonder why the person is writing at all if the writing is mere dictation. Do people who feel this way see themselves as prophets or soothsayers or mystics? Isn't automatic writing best left to the religious?<br />
<br />
Myers tells us that <i>re-vision </i>is actually the act of taking a closer look and seeing a poem with new eyes, then implementing techniques which potentially make the poem stronger. He promises that this process is engaging, rewarding, and worth doing. He is right.<br />
<br />
Let's look at three types of revision.<br />
<br />
<b>1. Reductive Revision</b><br />
<br />
This refers to the kind of cutting that most think of as the hallmark of revision. Get rid of the following and at least the poem will be tighter:<br />
<br />
<b>a. unnecessary modifiers (cut out extra or extraneous adverbs, adjectives!)</b><br />
<b>b. passive or flat verbs</b><br />
<b>c. obvious and over the top transitions</b><br />
<b>d. narratives or plot elements that are fillers (do not add to the poem but only provide back story)</b><br />
<b>e. too many prepositional phrases</b><br />
<b>f. poet-intrusive or editorial comments</b><br />
<br />
This is a decent strategy for the beginning poet to find ways to tighten his/her poem, however this is just one way, and a base-level way to revise.<br />
<br />
I am as guilty as the next poet when it comes to having extraneous elements in my poems. I get so intense over the imagery, the syntax, line breaks, end words, stanza construction, etc. that sometimes the throwaways creep in when I am distracted. Using articles (a, an, the, etc.) is my biggest issue right now. I must pare them, tame them, even obliterate them.<br />
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I am getting better about adjectives and adverbs. I've been on a campaign to free the literary world of <i>ly </i>words for some time. They almost never add much to the understanding of a poem. Clear<i>ly</i>, less is more. But some poets are married to adverbs.<br />
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<i>Ing </i> words are on my hit list too. I try to rewrite without them. Always seems to make the poems better.<br />
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Adjectives in strings of 4 or 5 drive me up the wall. Just because one is good doesn't mean 3 are better. How many <i>dark, grey, ominous, threatening, thunder</i> clouds are better than one nimbus. A wise choice of adjectives is a better strategy. Hint: if there is a list of adjectives that uses a bunch of commas, revise them out.<br />
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Another way (my personal favorite after doing the reductive revision) is to ADD material or elements to the poem. The poem may want to be more, say more, embody more.<br />
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This, in my opinion, is where the <i>art</i> comes in.<br />
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<b>2. Additive Revision</b><br />
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If a poem seems clunky to me, the first strategy I use is to print out a copy and write some notes in the margins, arrowing where the places in the poem are <i>not quite right. </i>I may do a free write or I may write out (in prose) <i>what I mean to say here is....</i> I can find new material in the free writing of my intentions. Sometimes clarity appears and I can move toward fixing the clunky part(s). Sometimes I just look for places where there might be something new or surprising to insert. This may seem a bit dangerous and I get a feeling in my spine or in my chest that I am venturing into deep water. I was working on a poem just yesterday where this was the case. The poem was ok, but lacked something to unify and to give it a bit of a punch. I chose a single line, a repeating line. I inserted the line in three places, the result being that the POINT of the poem emerged. It was a line that had been running through my head, that I had pushed aside in my desire to get the incident <i>just right, accurate. </i>Once I agreed to let the line into the poem, it began falling into place. Is the poem done yet? Maybe not. But it is better, clearer, more like itself.<br />
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Here are a few ways to insert additive elements to a poem:<br />
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<b>a. add images</b><br />
<b>b. add flashbacks or flash forwards — be careful here, consider changes in verb tense a way to go back or go forward in time</b><br />
<b>c. insert an anecdote (SMALL) that is supportive of the larger story being told</b><br />
<b>d. add a line that repeats at least 3 times</b><br />
<b>e. add color, landscape, food, or even game elements ... let it flow and look a the results; can always take out later</b><br />
<b>f. add a mysterious line that seems dystopian or utopian</b><br />
<b>g. add a quote or phrase from science, mathematics, or literature</b><br />
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These are just some ways a poet can be additive in her/his revision. Be creative. Settle in and let the poem reveal what it wants/needs. Worth remembering: when writing about something that happened, it is not necessary to be wholly factual. Get at the essence; the kernel of truth that lies somewhere, perhaps somewhere buried in fact. You can lie a little. Sometimes you need to lie a little.<br />
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<b>3. Deep Revision</b><br />
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This can be the scariest, also the most rewarding, process of all. It requires a poet to be somewhat relentless and cold-minded. It requires a poet to be willing to change everything about the original in order to arrive at the real poem. It requires a poet to fall purposefully out of love with every part of the original, only to discover what is really wonderful.<br />
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What would happen, for instance, if the poet took the original poem apart, laid all its elements separately on the table, then reassembled (rewrote) using either reductive or additive revision strategies? Deflate or expand each element. Every line, every phrase, every stanza.<br />
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Certainly, separating the elements will give the poet a new view of each as an independent gesture. It allows the poet to assess the strength or weakness of each and make informed decisions about revision.<br />
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The poet should consider changing the shape, format, or form of the poem. Sometimes a poem just wants to be a pantoum, a sonnet, or a poem in heroic couplets. Sometimes, it wants to be a prose poem. It is helpful not to be nailed to writing (constructing) the poem in one way.<br />
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The great thing about revision in general, deep revision in particular, is that the possibilities for great improvement abound. Be brave enough to try.<br />
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<b>Quickie Revision Checklist:</b><br />
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<b>1. Read the poem aloud until you get to point where you KNOW it deeply</b><br />
<b>2. Do not revise while writing the first draft.</b><br />
<b>3. Keep every draft until you are certain the poem is satisfied.</b><br />
<b>4. Do not title the poem until (at least) two drafts into the process.</b><br />
<b>5. Play line/element agains each other to check for repetition (the bad kind) and for confusion (always bad)</b><br />
<b>6. </b><b>Check for mixed metaphors.</b><br />
<b>7. Check all verbs for activity and power. </b><br />
<b>8. Check for a overabundance of adverbs and adjectives.</b><br />
<b>9. Try making the end (line or stanza) the beginning, the beginning (line or stanza) the end. What happens?</b><br />
<b>10. Put the poem away for a week or two (or longer) after you think it is done. It may not be.</b><br />
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When you are ready, send your poem to a trusted poetry reader. See what glitches she/he may find. If needed, go at it again. <b>Remember, if you have to explain the poem to someone, you have not let the poem have its own voice. </b><br />
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Revise, re-envison, re, re, re until the poem has had its say. Listen to the poems. They will speak on their own behalves. And keep in mind, remember ... it is a PROCESS.<br />
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Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-50037529799645241612018-04-01T12:00:00.002-04:002018-04-01T12:39:39.296-04:00Metaphor is not just for poets, although it may be the poet's life blood<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yesterday my husband forwarded me an article on metaphor which I share in a link below. It is worth reading even if you are not a writer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I admit that I think, speak, and operate in metaphor all the time. I see this as one of my strengths.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">People often say to me, <i>oh you have such a way with words </i>or <i>I've not thought about ___________ quite like that. </i>I am speaking in a metaphorical way, choosing comparative language or substituting an image or idea to make the idea, issue more pointed, clearer, relatable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My kids used to accuse me or inserting <i>drama</i> when I did this. True enough if <i>drama </i>means heightening the conversation or my speech with metaphor. When I would say <i>your room is a pig sty</i> I did not mean that literally, but even at a young age they got that <i>pig sty</i> was not good. Later they understood the full meaning of <i>pig sty</i> and knew I meant to compare directly the dirty nature of their rooms to the mucky, icky place in a barnyard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Two gestures of metaphor:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There are two types of metaphor. Direct and Comparative: <i>your room is a pig sty</i> (direct) or <i>your room is like a pig sty</i> (comparative... aka simile). The clue here is the use (or not) of comparatives such as <i>like, as.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We hear metaphor in our daily lives, in advertising and political speeches and even in the music we enjoy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br />
</i>(<b>Direct</b> metaphors)</span></div>
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She is sunshine on a cloudy day. When it's cold outside, she is the month of May. </i>(from<i> My Girl</i>)<i> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(similes/<b>comparative metaphors</b>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>He is behaving like a bull in a china shop. </i></span></div>
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I wandered lonely as a cloud. </i>(Wordsworth)</span></div>
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black as night</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>sweet as candy</i></span></div>
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sharp as a tack</i></span></div>
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guilty as sin</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br />
</i>These are not obscure. They may be oblique however, choosing a different path to get to a truth. Sometimes comparative metaphors end up being clichés due to overuse. Metaphor creation, therefore, can be a bit tricky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is another way to use a simile which is to emphasize by opposite:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>clear as mud </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We all know mud is not at all <i>clear</i>, so we understand that these two words do not equate. That makes the argument for whatever the phrase refers to as being in fact <b>unclear, murky, muddy</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Another way to examine metaphor in literature and in speech is to look at single words to find a <b>controlling metaphor. </b></span></div>
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</b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">A controlling metaphor is one that dominates (controls) an entire literary piece or is ubiquitous in a person's speech. For example, a character or a live person may refer to things in light of certain images or actions. Constant references to food for example may indicate the person sees life as a banquet. Depending on the tone of the piece or the tone of speech that may further indicate that the person sees life as a banquet to which she/he is not invited. The use of controlling metaphor is a great way for a writer to enhance a scene or develop a character.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This literary device is frequently seen in poetry. For poets, metaphoric diction, including controlling metaphor, is tantamount to creating intensity and deepening (expanding) meaning. </span></div>
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Controlling metaphor is similar to <b>extended metaphor</b>, which extends over a large portion, but not all, of a literary piece. When you read the article linked below, be very careful not to confuse controlling metaphor with metaphor used to control. There is a difference.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For now, I absent myself to the kitchen where my side dish for Easter dinner is <i>cooking like a champ. </i>(<b>mixed metaphor</b>), which is a topic for another day, along with the way slang has evolved (or perhaps <i>devolved</i>) into or from metaphor.</span></div>
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Your assignment: READ the article</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://qz.com/1241030/metaphors-can-change-our-opinions-in-ways-we-dont-even-realize/">https://qz.com/1241030/metaphors-can-change-our-opinions-in-ways-we-dont-even-realize/</a></span></div>
Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-54208460243678105722018-03-31T10:15:00.003-04:002018-03-31T10:18:16.987-04:00Holy SaturdayHoly Saturday, the day before Easter is here, and with it a dearth of sunlight. After the long winter (or seemingly long), there is light again. My husband saw a crocus yesterday and there are green spikes underneath the crabapple in our yard. Soon we will be able to open the windows and let in fresh air.<br />
I can hardly wait for the opening of our windows. Hallelujah!<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Waiting</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>It’s easy to know weather</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>when the horizon blackens.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Something new is on the way, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>rinsed in yesterday’s mood. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The sun spins</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>away like a mad kite, light </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>a shattered wine glass </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>on the hearth.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>What of the plot to bury</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>the yard in shrouds of white? What</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>witch came casting that spell? </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Has winter had enough of us?</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Wait for the sky to open, to cast</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>its bluest eye on the yard again, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>rouse bulbs from sleep. Wait</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>as the bird waits in her egg. </i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>It is the season of windows. Hear</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>nothing more of falling snow. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Wait.</i></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Watch the sky.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: small;">This poem, on its face, is a celebration of oncoming spring, a cautionary tale about the power of winter to linger, but for me it has always been a metaphor for the way our lives are in flux and at the whim of others. When I wrote it, I was in a period of contemplation and feeling deep-seated angst over the political situation. Everything I had once assumed to be <i>real </i>appeared topsy-turvy. Everyday life seemed </span>beleaguered by widespread madness in Washington DC. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Even today, the poem rings true to the metaphor I intended. I see the sunlight shining through the glass jars on my windowsill today and see the kaleidoscope of colors. This reminds me that where there is light, there is hope. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Yes, it is the season of windows. Soon enough I will raise them and draw in a deep breath of fresh sea air. I will sing the green corn song loudly and with gusto. I will give thanks for another chance for peace. I will write poems and make watercolor paintings. I will kiss my husband. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Today is Holy Saturday. I will remind myself that every day is Holy.</div>
Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-24334730786139485262018-03-30T09:24:00.001-04:002018-03-30T09:24:21.370-04:00Fog, not just weatherI've always liked the expression "in a fog." It refers (logically) to days or nights wherein a sweeping mist covers us, obscures things, and makes visibility closer than usual. We famously refer to the fog in London, but I can say that when I lived in Germany the fog was thicker and more dangerous than any I saw in London when I lived there. Fog was so pervasive in Germany that the road markers were painted with reflective paint in such a way as to alert drivers to what side of the road was on their left or right so they would not run off into a field or into trees, etc. Thick fog would obscure the not-so-occasional herd of wild boar careening into the roadway. Here, in Maine and the rest of NewEngland, spring fog is helpful in taking down the remaining snow so things can begin to green up and bloom. Last night and into this morning that process is underway. I'm grateful to see the last vestiges of snow melting before my eyes. I am hopeful for a change from cold, ice, snow. I want flowers and sunshine.<br />
<br />
But fog is not just weather. It is not always helpful. The word fog can also denote a state of dullness or confusion that befuddles the mind, keeps us from clarity of thought or makes us feel ill-at-ease. I think that the entire country has been in a fog for the past 16 months or so. What else can explain the dull acceptance of behaviors and attitudes and events that we previously decried as wrong? Even multitudes of avowed Christians are not outraged or offended by some prurient behaviors that once would have sparked action to remedy. We are through the looking glass into a realm of fog.<br />
<br />
It's not hard to spot the fogged-in state. We do not act. We act symbolically, but without result. We turn away and run from the truth or we accept it as a <i>nothing-we-can-do </i>status quo. We are left wondering if there will be a spring, or if we are infected so badly with fog that we might never recover. I am weary of people saying that this is our <i>new normal. </i>I pray it is not.<br />
<br />
Why are so many people, good people, pulling the fog around their shoulders like a quilt and resisting remedy? Did we, in our national state of shock a year ago November, just give up, cede spring to the fog makers? Where are there political heroes who have power and will to clear away this malignant fog that seems to be spreading? The fog-makers are in possession of a giant fog machine and use it every day. They benefit from the dullness and apathy that fog brings. They are paid for fog. I prefer real fog, the kind that takes down snow. This national political fog is something else. It is a killing fog and its time is up.<br />
<br />
There is a growing flock of robins in the yard. Teens and children are arriving with song and hope. I am proud of these young people across the nation who are taking direct action by marching in every city and town, saying <i>enough, no more, never again. </i>We need to listen to them. We need to believe them and honor them with our own action. It is their world and ours that they are trying to heal, a world we have allowed though our apathy to be covered by a killing fog.<br />
<br />
The children, our beautiful flock of robins, will have to shame the adults who are responsible for allowing this fog to spread. The children will have to vote them out, will have to plant seeds that will bloom so profusely as to choke out the weeds, and we who are not <i>fogged in</i> need to help them.<br />
<br />
Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-61050060646819859542018-03-29T11:34:00.002-04:002018-03-30T08:34:08.671-04:00Spring CleaningAnother day where spring looks like it might be here. Dare we hope? I am hoping. I need warm weather and want to put out the porch furniture. I want things to start getting green and flowery. I want everything and everyone to wake up.<br />
<br />
One thing is certain: I have an itch to do some spring cleaning. As I sit here in my study, I see stacks upon stacks of projects, materials, etc. and wonder how I could have gotten so lazy over a few months. Was I in some kind of hibernation? Was I dulled and numbed to my surroundings?<br />
<br />
I have a strange way to clean: I take everything OUT of a room that is not supposed to be there and move it to another room. I dust, vac, and polish the now cleared out space. DONE! Then I move to the next room and take out everything that doesn't belong. Repeat add nauseam until at long last I am down to one room. Then whatever still doesn't need to be there can get donated or otherwise disposed of to someone else.<br />
<br />
My question for me: do I start with this space (the worst) so I have a huge sense of accomplishment? I'd say yes, but... if I do this, it will be a LONG process. I may get discouraged and stop. I may lose sight of my goal as I begin re-reading poems, looking at my paints and brushes and wanting to stop to make a drawing or painting....<br />
<br />
No! I have to begin. I have a goal of getting it all done in 6 days.... after all I am not creating the world here, just cleaning my world. And on the 7th day I will go outside and look for crocuses.<br />
<br />
Now, to begin!<br />
<br />
I have one of those USPS boxes that they give you when you pick up mail that was on vacation hold... good transport vehicle to move things from room to room. Of course first I have to do something with whatever I dropped in to get it out of the way.... oh sigh.<br />
<br />
For those of you who might be concerned that I have become some kind of hoarder.... nope. Just a stacker. (slacker?)Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-36045047381465227332018-03-28T17:34:00.002-04:002018-03-28T17:34:19.712-04:00Loss and how spring might helpThe sun is breaking through an otherwise grey and grim day. At long last there is no snow in the forecast. It is 46 degrees. I keep a row of colored bottles and jars on my office windowsill so that there is sparkle whenever the least ray of light comes through. They are shining today: blue, yellow, green. I really need the sparkle.<br />
<br />
Loss is inevitable in every aspect of life. It is a fact that <i>people</i> and <i>things</i> come and they go. If we are paying attention, we learn how to grieve the losses and find our way out of the darkness. We don’t forget, but we forbear.<br />
<br />
I am dealing with some artisitc losses right now that are hard. I am cheered by the fact that spring is here (mostly) and summer is on the way. But the losses are still losses. I must figure out how to forbear.<br />
<br />
<b>Loss #1</b><br />
<br />
The lingering death of Poetry Month Rockland has been difficult. I established Poetry Month Rockland in 2010 with the coperation of Steve Donoso and the public library. It was designed to be part of the National Poetry Month festivites and celebration. Our first ever Poet Laureate, Kendall Merriam was appointed and served for two years. I was appointed in 2012 and served 2 terms (four years). We appointed our 4th laureate, Joanna Hynd, in 2016. She has served for 2 years.<br />
<br />
I put my heart, soul, (and education) into the office of Poet Laureate with a multitude of activities and events which brought poetry to life in our city. On average, one event or activity per month. I was more than visible and ready to engage anyone with poetry at any time. Poetry Month was a big deal, always ending with our Swarm of Poets, something Steve Donoso and I conceived of in 2010. A room full of poets, reading their work. Contest winners getting their prizes (usually sacks of books of poetry) and reading in public for perhaps the very first time. There were poems all over town in various places and ways. It was nothing short of festive!<br />
<br />
It all began to die in 2016. I saw it happening, and there was nothing I could do. Of course it was not at all about me…it was and remains all about poetry and bringing it to the people. It was and is about making people realize that poetry is for everyone. Now it is all about something else, perhaps about there being too much work involved (I offered my help and was turned away) … or maybe it is about cashing in on poetry via the Millay House and its for-profit festival in the fall.<br />
<br />
When I was asked to do a workshop in April, <i>one of two things happening for “poetry month,”</i>I was told by the current laureate that the Swarm was going to be <i>different this year, focusing more on contest winners. </i>There is no swarm on the last Thursday in April as it has for 8 years. The contest begins in April and ends in August with winners to read at the Millay festival, part deux which will be in September. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a rocket sonnet-ist) to see what is happening.<br />
<br />
I have never asked to be in charge of anything with the Millay group. I don’t want to be in charge. I do want to help. Why not allow a person with experience and education in the area of poetry and the time and willingness to lend a hand? I don’t know because I have been shut out of the conversation, <i>ghosted</i> as it were. I have offered for the last time. Message received loud and clear.<br />
<br />
At any rate, Poetry Month Rockland is no more a thing we do in April. I am grieving the death of poetry month. I am angry too, but that is going away, leaving instead sadness and disappointment… but leaving also RESOLVE.<br />
<br />
Poetry is more important to me than to let it get run over by lack of intitative or by indifference, so I am preparing to create something in place of poetry month, something that will not be killed off so easily by someone else. So far, my idea is to create a <b>Foundation for the Writing Arts</b>. I will likely crowdfund and seek donations and other forms of financial support. I will locate the Foundation and it activities in a place conducive to its business and functioning. I want to bring something to this community that will last, as I thought Poetry Month would last. Poetry is for everyone and ought to be readily available to everyone, all the time. The foundation will make it so.<br />
<br />
Through the loss and the grieving, there is hope. The sunlight will continue to stream though the glass jars on my windowsill and I will stop feeling so sad.<br />
<br />
<b>Loss #2</b><br />
<br />
Winter is a time of loss in many ways. This winter I have experienced the loss of the poetry group of which I have been part for many years. In fact, for the past few years I was the last one of the original group which I joined in 2009.<br />
<br />
This death too has been a slow process. Despite all attempts by some of us to save it, others were not dedicated to poetry or not dedicated enough to save the group. Some let their commitment slide, some were too thin-skinned to take critique as being about the poem, not about the person. Inevitably, personalities derailed the whole group. Details here are irrelevant. Even a carefully worded mission statement did not sustain us.<br />
<br />
I will miss the sharing. I will miss the poems of some of the group members who have worked hard to hone their skills in making poems. I will miss the thoughtful comments/critiques of my poems by most of the members. I will miss these very much. But I cannot do anything to make this group last another single minute. It is not at all up to me. I did my part. I would do it all over again, in a heartbeat.<br />
<br />
So now, another loss becomes another opportunity. I will grieve and move on. I will forbear.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>GOING ON</b> <i>après mort:</i><br />
<br />
On the horizon is a spring day, leading to another and another until it will be summer. I am cheered by that. I look forward to days at the beach with a book and a notebook in my bag. I look forward to more writing time. I have two new books, another in the works, and another finished except for fine-tuned editing. I will not be deterred from my life’s work. I will continue to bring poetry to as many people as I can in my short time here on this planet.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-20818046252319091812018-03-27T11:29:00.001-04:002018-03-27T11:29:36.381-04:00Poetry and TruthI recently attended a workshop entitled, Singing in the Dark. It was about poetry as <i>witness</i>. We were each asked to contribute one of our own "political" or "witness" poems. We looked at many examples of poetry of witness.<br />
<br />
By the end of the day I was convinced that there is<br />
<br />
1. There is no one way of witness<br />
2. There is no clear way to write about issues of society... the <i>polis</i><br />
3. There is a difference in seeing and giving the facts about something that happened and giving witness<br />
to a greater truth, a universal truth.<br />
<br />
AND<br />
<br />
4. There is a big difference between truth (facts, the <i>what happened when</i>) and Truth.<br />
<br />
I have wrestled with (Big T) Truth all my remembered life. I have considered absolute truth-telling versus the notion of an underlying morality that settles the psyche. For the past few decades, I have questioned myself as a poet in terms of what I am willing to say and how I am <i>safe </i>or<i> not safe </i>in saying it. I have had to become the arbiter of my own risk-taking. That is, I think, a good thing.<br />
<br />
One thing seems clear to me: Truth (with the big T) is much more important than truth (with the little t).<br />
<br />
Oh sure, <i>telling</i> the truth is a good thing, most of the time. One wants to be seen as honest and dependable. Lying (in the extreme) is certainly to be seen as pathological. However, <i>all truth all the time</i> can be pathological too, or at least passive aggressive.<br />
<br />
There are glaringly obvious times when truth-telling could be a not so great plan. For example, don't tell your wife the dress makes her look fat even if she asks. Here is where tact replaces truth. But if asked <i>do you love me? </i>perhaps the unvarnished truth-telling needs to be plugged in. Tact may be involved here too, but don't duck out of the answer. Telling <i>the whole truth and nothing but the truth</i> might, in some cases, even get you killed. So truth-telling, for me, is a bit situational. It requires care and finesse. I am not suggesting a life of dishonesty or even a totally utilitarian style of truth-telling. I am saying, think first, speak second.<br />
<br />
Eye witness accounts at crimes are universally seen by experts as unreliable. Why? Because the eye is NOT really a camera, and the brain is NOT really a recording device. Witnesses bring their own <i>stuff, </i>their <i>baggage, </i>their <i>biases</i> to their supposed recall. This is known. Still, juries love to have eyewitness accounts, largely I believe to make their decisions less self-responsible. It takes them off the hook for judging the defendant, the accused. Eyewitness accounts are not DNA evidence.<br />
<br />
The bottom line for truth-telling is do your best to be honest as you can within your human limitations. Be a reliable, dependable person.<br />
<br />
(Big T) Truth is markedly different from <i>truth-telling</i>. It's something far-reaching and critical. Universality, our shared human experience, depends upon it. <i>We hold these Truths to be self-evident</i> was the way the Founding Fathers put it. It ought to be that there is some kind of Truth we share, a Truth that protects us from the four horsemen of disenfranchisement, desperation, disillusionment, and despair. We ought to be able to hold on to something solid. Truth.<br />
<br />
Let's examine this concept of Truth as it relates to poems and poets. To begin, we must acknowledge that there is always (ALWAYS) something happening that seems wrong, fearful, upsetting: government's behaviors, environmental issues, poverty, racism, abuse, divorce, and betrayals of all sorts. There is crossover between a single personal episode or incident and an acknowledged or disavowed pubic interest.<br />
<br />
There is plenty of angst out there, all at once public and personal.<br />
There is rampant injustice and strife out there and in families behind closed doors.<br />
<br />
What to do if you are inclined to comment (write) about personal or public injustice or social issues? How can you be <i>truthful</i> while creating art? Is this possible? And what of the details? Must they be written about in such a way as the piece of writing is <i>reportage</i> rather than something artful? What is poetic license? What is my responsibility to Truth as a poet, as a human?<br />
<br />
I write within my deeply-held belief that Truth is important. It is about authenticity for me. It ought to come through clearly that I am a sort of authoritative voice when I write. Have I done the research or am I writing from personal experience? What about the object and subject(s) of my writing? What is my responsibility to their <i>truth?</i><br />
<br />
I do consider the impact of my writing on others, which has held me back from risk-taking in my writing in the past. My early poems reflect that over-reticence and restraint. However, I am less interested now in censoring myself than at any other time in my career as a poet/writer. Where previously I have held back, I am more willing to take risks now. Of course I would not publish certain of my poems if it turned out that my doing so would put someone else's life at risk. I would not publish certain poems (though I am willing to write them) which would destroy relationships or livelihood. I am more likely to write <i>anything</i>, choosing whether or not to publish as my line of restraint.<br />
<br />
Aside from public realm of comment, I seem to be the holder of many personal secrets. People tell me things. Must be I just <i>have that face</i> as my grandmother said. Do I want the secrets I have? Not so much. But am I in a weird way <i>honored</i> to have them. If you tell me a secret, it stays with me.<br />
<br />
I carry one big secret that my mother told me over 50 years ago about someone close to me. To this day, I don't know why she shared the secret with me at age 17. I have never told that secret, other than to my husband who is never going to reveal it either. Letting it out would most certainly cause hurt. The secret likely dies with me. I had another, more personal secret that I kept for decades having to do with being molested by a dear friend's grandfather. I wrote that secret, but never put it out there until that friend died. Were she still alive today, the poem would exist only in my computer and the secret would be secret still. Here is the poem that I finally published about that secret:<br />
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>At Our 20th Class Reunion</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>for Debby</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you mention him, your grandfather,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">speak of his beautiful garden, of the tall corn </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">where we played </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">as children, I’ll have to tell</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">you about the rows</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">of theiving stalks with their pale silk flags —</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">warnings of the approaching storm, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">the shaft of lightning</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">that split my childhood in two.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you talk about his stubbled jaw,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">say it smiled, say it was kindly,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ll think of crooked yellow teeth</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">like misshapen kernels of corn, grimacing</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">through open husks, a sudden</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">split in the green of August.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you go so far as to say </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">he loved you, and you miss him,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ll glance away, remember the day</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">you strode from the rows</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">to brush your teeth over and over, to scrub</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">garden dirt from your face, your knees,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">your pretty lace socks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you utter a single word</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">about his sad end, twisted with palsy,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">rotting bit by bit from cancer, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m afraid I will laugh, twirl madly</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">with my skirts up around my waist,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">letting the stench of his garden</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">fly off me into the wind.</span></div>
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At the time of the molestation, I did not my tell my own parents about what happened to me. I was afraid of the man, of his influence in the neighborhood, of the fact that his wife was my 2nd grade teacher and a lovely woman. I was afraid that if my father found out, he would kill the man and end up in jail. Fear = the enemy of Truth.<br />
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This remained a secret until 2003, when I finally confided in my mother. I might as well have not said anything to her. Her reaction was flat, somewhat unbelieving. She said <i>well if that happened to you, I am sorry. </i>She did not ask for details or ask me if I was okay<i>. </i>She simply turned the conversation to something else. Although she under-reacted, I did need to tell her for my own sense of well-being. I needed her, of all people, to hear it. To hear me. She just did not get it. Nothing I could do about that. There. Out. Secret told. Did I feel better? Worse? Honestly, her flatness just made me angry. But, Mr S and his disgusting garden were finally relegated to the compost pile. So, yes. Better.<br />
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What does telling this hard secret have to do with Truth (Big T variety)? It is a fact that I am not the first girl to be molested nor will I be the last. It (the poem) is only remotely about me, or even my friend, or even her grandfather. Here is where the Big T comes in: it is about the way men decide that women and girls are theirs for the taking. I know that somewhere a woman will read or hear my poem and relate. It is for her, and all of the rest that I tell the secret. Because I am a poet, my vehicle for telling is poetry.<br />
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You may wonder if the way the poem is written is accusatory of my friend. It is not. It speaks to her own silence. It is empathetic of that silence, while asserting that I could not deal with the silence. It isolated us both. Read the poem closely and you will see (I hope) that I have always suspected Debby was a victim too. I'd lay big money on that one. My regret is that we were never able to talk about it and be there for one another. She was sent to boarding school for junior high school and high school. I suspect that her parents knew what had happened and chose this way to protect her. I hope so.<br />
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I have written about hard things for a long time. It is a need I have to be more myself and less hidden. I was always myself inside, but as a bit of an introvert I kept myself closed. Why rock the boat? Why risk judgement or even retribution? I decided a few years ago that I would not be quiet (<i>good little girls are seen, not heard</i>). I wanted to be heard. I am still <i>good</i>, just no longer <i>quiet. </i>Risk-taker, not rule-breaker.<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-48822575039672846142018-03-23T21:57:00.001-04:002018-03-24T07:13:39.362-04:00Web site is up!The site is live!<br />
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What a learning curve this has been, with each challenge fraught with a bit of the crazy. I am pretty tech savvy, but all the code stuff and the settings required help from both rapid weaver (my building platform) and GoDaddy (my hosting and domain service)<br />
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The result of over a week of hard work to rebuild my web site is a site that is beautiful and functional. I will be able to keep track of myself and my books, with a solid format for book sales and reviews and notes by me on the reasons and processes of the books as they are created and offered for sale. I think the site is easy to navigate for readers. It is nw easy for me too. I can add and change pretty effortlessly now. Feels a bit like I just had a new baby.<br />
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So, please visit the site at www.carolbachofner.com and browse, read, comment, and ORDER books!<br />
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Enjoy.<br />
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PS<br />
I need to mention here the person who built and managed my site for the past five years, DiTa Ondek. As I built this new site, following the news that DiTa was retiring from this work, I kept thinking how wonderful her help has been. Whew!<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-14601256019319665682018-03-19T15:00:00.003-04:002018-03-19T21:42:04.218-04:00Building a new web siteMy web master is retiring. She has been wonderful for several years of managing my web site. All I ever had to do was send things her way and <i>voilà. </i>Within hours or at worst a day, the new material would be there. The only drawback was that I had no direct control over how the page looks or adding things on my own. I was the administrator of the site without direct access to administer. It was certainly workable and I got to be a bit lazy. I would say, <i>please do —— </i>and it would get done.<br />
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Fast forward to now:<br />
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She's retiring from 20+ years of managing web sites, building web pages, etc. Great job, but she is ready to be done. Therefore, I have to do it on my own now, including finding a place to host the site. This has sent me off on a BIG-ASS journey. I have until April 1st. Then my web site goes bye-bye. I am determined not to have this happen.<br />
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I am fortunate to have an involved husband, one with a few skills and more than a few ideas. He suggested I try something called RapidWeaver 7.5 to build (rebuild) my site. He suggested Go Daddy for hosting. They are where I get my domain name and renew it. <br />
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Based upon his suggestions, I immediately started the journey to autonomy as a web author and blogger. I had already been blogging (albeit intermittently) for years and knew I could simply link this site to my web site as it was linked previously. Whew. One less thing to do over. I already have the domain name, so I simply needed to renew it (which my previous web master had done each year). What needed to happen, the two BIG things were:<br />
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1. Get my domain administration moved over to my ownership and sign up for hosting services.<br />
2. Rebuild my web site. (This is the BIGGEST thing, requiring loads of time spent and things to master that I have never tried before.)<br />
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Getting my domain administration moved to my ownership meant I had to send in my passport face page and my driver's license copy to Go Daddy. They need to know I am me. I suppose I could have waited for my current web master to send me the login and password, but she is out of town right now and I am impatient. After all, I need to be up and ready by April 1st. Tick Tock.<br />
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Rebuilding my web site is really involved and a bit complex, but also a load of FUN. I rely upon my husband to interpret things for me, but Rapid Weaver 7.5 is a treasure trove of things one can do to make a site beautiful, efficient, and user-friendly. My site will be uniquely ME. It will be interactive too, with opportunities for readers/visitors to chat with me via my contact page. I have a place to say why the person visited, what was most interesting and what questions could be answered by me. I love this!<br />
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I'm learning about plug-ins, stacks, links, and so much more. I think I am about 90% finished with the rebuild. I think I will be fully ready to go live on March 31st. That is my goal. I still have to put PayPal on my site for selling my books and artwork. I still have to tweak the way my books are displayed (stacks maybe?) and I still have to make sure all the pages are ready to be found by my site visitors, so I also need to add an SEO so my site pops up on search engines everywhere.<br />
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So, in the meantime, enjoy visiting the site and my blog as they are right now. I think (hope, plan) all will be smooth in the transition.<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-76533697717376166012018-03-17T15:08:00.001-04:002018-03-17T15:08:15.273-04:00Why I Don't Write NovelsMy husband loves the way I write. He says <i>the words just pour out of you. </i> Of course I'm happy he loves the way I write. Today, however, he asked me why I don't write novels since I am so prolific. The man certainly is not afraid to poke me when he gets a notion. Sweet man. Poke, poke, poke.<br />
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I have long considered why I am a poet, why I don't write fiction. In grad school, my friend Audrey's husband admonished both of us to write something more economically productive. <i>You girls ought to write "smut novels,"</i> he said. <i>That's where the money is.</i> We laughed til our sides ached. Smut novels... indeed. We are poets. We are always going to be poets. It's in our DNA.<br />
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Many of my colleagues in grad school were concentrating their schooling on fiction, either short stories or novels. I am in awe of novelists like Janet Fitch (<i>White Oleander</i> is my favorite) and who hates a good short story? But write them? <i>Sigh.</i><br />
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I joke with people when they ask why not write a novel. I tell them that whatever a novelist can put in 100,000 words I can do in 40 lines or fewer. Funny joke, right? Well, it is not so funny to me. I do not, just do not have the staying power to go 100,000 words to get across a single incident or point. I get bored. I get so frustrated that soon I am putting the thing into a poem and feeling darned satisfied if I do say so. And I do say so.<br />
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My friend Layne is an amazing writer. She was part of my grad school cohort but in fiction. My friend Nanci was also part of that cohort, but in creative nonfiction (aka memoir). Both of these women can write circles around me when it comes to prose. I love novels and memoir. I have always read both. But when it comes to writing, poetry is my place. It is how I think, all metaphor all the time. I love metaphor, word play, form. I think this way, much the way I dream. Maybe I am a dreamer because of poetry, or maybe I am a poet because I dream.<br />
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I have studied under some pretty fantastic poets. Each class or workshop was like going to Disneyland for me. So many rides! Such a magical land. Look...over there... a woman who flies out of a castle! Each poet/teacher added something to my way of looking at poems, thinking of poems, writing poems. Even the least of these teachers added.<br />
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My father used to say to us <i>find something you're good at and do that. Do that all the time if it makes you happy. </i>Smart man. I know that my husband, in asking why I don't write novels, was actually asking me if writing novels might make me <b><u>as</u></b> happy as writing poetry does. He was letting me know that he sees my writing as perhaps more malleable and more open than I do. What he he has done however is to make me explore more deeply why I do what I do.<br />
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Novels are complex machines. They are also very needy. They want to be fed over the long haul with exotic foods like plots, rising action, climaxes, faux climaxes, falling action, round and flat characters, protagonists and antagonists. <i>Denouement</i>. My friend Layne did a presentation in grad school on the "W" of novel structure. Brilliant way to look at construction of a novel. I kept a copy and look at it from time to time, but every time I look at it, I realize that it is too much for me. It's like building a whole house with five bedrooms, two living rooms, a dining room, four baths, and a garage would be too much for me. I like working small. I don't mind working hard. Just small, please. 40 lines or fewer.<br />
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I did write a 100 line poem in 2014. That is 100 lines, not 100,000 words. Writing that poem was like running a marathon. When I was finished I wondered where I had been and how I got here. I will probably never write a poem that long again. And forget ever getting it published. Who would take on a 100 line poem?<br />
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One of these days I may do a novel. On my terms. A verse novel. Guaranteed it will not be 100,000 words. It will be a series of poem-like chapters with a plot line running through them. It will have characters and setting and action, rising and falling. Maybe Laynes "W" handout will be my guide. Oh, yes. It will not be a "smut novel."<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-42563581137515424172018-03-17T14:07:00.002-04:002018-03-17T14:07:21.832-04:00Support your local poet(s); a teeny tiny rantToday I am going off the rails a bit to complain. I don't like to do this, but sometimes one must. A complaint can sometimes seem like (or be) whining. I am not a whiner. But I do think I want to speak out.<br />
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I am what I like to think of as a <i>poet's poet</i>. I have been told this by not just a few people. I support poetry in many ways, not the least of which is buying poetry books, either for my personal library or for giving away to others or to public libraries and schools. I attend readings and book launches whenever I can. I particularly like to buy directly from poets at readings and book launches. If I cannot do this, I order them from publishers or find them in bookstores.<br />
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I think this is what ought to happen — because unlike someone with a film, a novel, or a memoir, poets do not get huge sales for their books even when they do sell them, unless they have the good luck to become nationally known. Even at readings, it is rare for poets to sell many books. There is interest in reading poetry, just not so much in buying it. I have noticed a phenomenon that is, frankly, quite disturbing. Some people attend readings and go up to speak with the poet afterward, but instead of buying the book from the poet, they will ask the poet to email a copy of a poem or provide a printed copy of that "special poem I loved so much which brought me to tears." <i>I'd love to have a copy for my sister whose ..... can you send it to me? </i>I am amazed that some people think poems ought to be free, where they would never assume a novelist would give away a chapter. I've considered putting out a tip jar at readings, the way musical groups do at cafés and coffee houses. <i>Suggested donation, $5</i>. Maybe a "free" poem for your donation. By the way, at my readings I always have a door prize or two, usually one of my books.<br />
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We who write work very hard at our craft. To poets, every word is critical: right word, right place. Writing poems is not a matter of taking nice sentences and breaking them into lines (or it shouldn't be that). Poems are mirrors. They are magic boxes. They are clues and answers to the riddle that is humanity. So we who write them are careful. We know that the wrong word can change everything. It is a big responsibility. We FEEL that responsibility when we write. The truth of the matter is that most poets are the <i>starving artists</i> we hear about in clichés. No, I am not starving. I am fortunate to be supported by a loving husband who is happy to feed me, and then some.<br />
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I am a writer, an artist. This is not a hobby. It is something for which I attended school, for which I earned two degrees. I am a professional. So are all of us who write and make books.<br />
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So if you have a book, I will buy it. If you hold a reading or a book launch, I will do my best to attend if I am in town where you are holding your event. I will buy your books there too.<br />
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OK, I am done now. I will keep this short because I have to dash off to get my free root canal.<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-14353114906257363842018-03-16T11:51:00.002-04:002018-03-16T12:06:31.232-04:00365/365, a disciplineToday my chat with you is about discipline. No, not the "go to your room until you can tell me why you did that" kind of discipline. I'm referring to the kind where you set up a challenge for yourself to accomplish a task that will create a habit, bust you out of a locked door (artistically), or set yourself on a course to completion of a project. My project was to be 365/365.<br />
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For me, the discipline came sneaking in where I had not expected it. November is typically a writing month challenge. You've seen them: NaNoWriMo etc. November National Writing Month. I've taken a stab at these every couple years, to no good end. You see, I am easily distracted. Very easily. I'd write for a couple days and then remember a particular project and shift to that, or I'd start writing and the watercolors would call my name and I'd go paint. I realized a long time ago that I am scattery and random in my artistic practice. Ever hear that one needs to work 10,000 hours to be good at something? Yeah. But do those hours have to be in any kind of a time frame? How about spread out over 50 years? UGH. I am sure that is not the way it is supposed to go.<br />
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I want to be a great poet. Not just a good enough poet. Not even a very good poet. I want to leave something on this planet that might survive my mortality. Big goal, yes? Achievable? Maybe or maybe not. But isn't it about the journey rather than the destination?<br />
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My dear husband once said to me <i>only a handful of poets ever really make it big. </i>I won't go into how mad that made me other than to say that I was thinking <i>why can't I be in that handful? </i>NOTE: we worked out later why that statement hurt and why he ought to NEVER say such a limiting thing to me again. Love the guy. He is very supportive. I probably got overly sensitive when he said it. Happens. But one good thing came from that incident as it haunted me like a crazy relative with an axe. I became more determined. I wanted to keep going. <br />
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In October of 2012, with the NaNoWriMo challenge on the horizon, I decided to go for it. But, as I am a fairly stubborn person, I wanted to do it my own way. So I set out to create my own prompts. I wrote a month's worth and put them into a file on my computer. I had difficulty writing just 30 prompts. I like to write them for the workshops I offer, a kind of nerdy hobby you might say. So for giggles I wrote a few more, then several more. I had over 60 more before the tv show I was watching had ended. I knew I'd have use for the "leftovers" later. I began my writing project precisely on November 1, 2012. A poem a day for 30 days. Oh, and I decided not to veer off course by changing the prompts I had already devised. No matter what. Stay the course exactly as it was plotted. This was to change ever so slightly, but more on that later.<br />
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Once November was winding down, me chugging right along with a poem (draft of course) every day, it occurred to me that I might not be done yet. Maybe I would write into December, finish up the year. Good. Had prompts I could use. At the end of December, the 30th to be exact, I recalled that the writing the final poem of December fit nicely in with another discipline I have done for 18 years: write the final poem of the year on New Year's Eve and the first poem of the next year on New Year's Day (another story for another blog post). I was already going to write one on January 1st. What the hell; why not just keep going. Do the thing for a whole year. Thus my 365/365 discipline was underway.<br />
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Discipline of any kind requires a certain amount of stamina. It means one has to keep going in all kinds of emotional weather. There is no day off for going to the beach or even for being down with a bad cold. One must be self-pushing. Oh dear. Could I? Would I?<br />
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I said <i>yes.</i><br />
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Thus was my year-long discipline born. Yikes.<br />
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I decided to fine-tune. I wanted the prompts to speak to me as if freshly baked. I did not want to be aware of what the prompts were before I got to them. So, time had to be spent putting together a year of prompts. Cue me sitting in front of the tv, watching favorite shows as I created prompts. Multi-tasker is what I am. After all, I raised a flock of kids. I divided the prompts into months, then weeks. I numbered them within each week, Days 1-7. I created a folder and filled it, ready to keep going. It didn't take long however for me to decide to veer a bit from the <i>never change a prompt no matter what</i> plan. December 2012 bought an event that shook me right to the core of myself as a human being, as a mother, as a poet. Evil walked into a school in Connecticut and took the lives of children and teachers and staff. Evil walked right in and did that. I don't remember what my original prompt was for that day. I just know it was too much to write about something else. My poem,<i> Lessons From First Grade</i>, was the poem I wrote instead.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Lessons From First Grade</i></b></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>In the front row, a boy fidgeting </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>with the buttons on his shirt. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>His mother lets him do them on his own</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>because it’s what mothers do</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>for their first grader sons. He hears</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>a sound and looks up to see a shadow:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Is it his dad coming home early? His</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>cousin bringing cookies for the party?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>A loud noise. All the buttons </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>pop off his shirt as he falls to the floor.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>— and no time to call for his mother.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></div>
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; white-space: pre;"> </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12px;">— for the children of Newtown, CT</i><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
I broke my promise to myself for these broken children. How could I not?<br />
<br />
One thing we learn from undertaking such a discipline as this one, is that we poets, writers, artists of all kinds have the rare opportunity to stop and look carefully at the world, then render it in ways that help others see what we are seeing. We hold up a mirror and ask the world to look, to see what we see.<br />
<br />
After the Newtown poem was written, I could hardly go on. Once I became aware that there was going to be no reckoning on behalf of these children in terms of changes to our laws, to our mechanisms of protecting the most vulnerable among us, I became sadder and more deeply afraid for what we might become as a world.<br />
<br />
I was not ready to continue writing. But I had to.<br />
<br />
The only other time during the year's discipline that I veered from <i>the plan</i> came in spring of 2013, four months after Newtown. A pair of crazy men decided to create death and havoc at the running of the Boston Marathon. Evil walked the route of the marathon and turned a beautiful day of sunshine into a rain of metal, killing and maiming runners and spectators. This was not supposed to happen, but Evil knows no bounds. Of course the day's prompt had to be replaced. I had to do something. <i>Mirror, world: how do you look as you gaze into it?</i><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Marathon</i></b></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Birds of spring swoop in low and land.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Runners gasping, sucking for breath</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>don’t think they’re in a race with death,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>know nothing of the evil plan</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>of someone on this festive day.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Boston town, where patriots stood</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>their ground for freedom’s cause of good,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>bloodied, cleft by terror’s sway.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Birds of prey, of metal pieces,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>spew death and mayhem in the crowd</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>as two sharp blasts report out loud.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Helpers run straight into the fracus.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>They give quick aid to everyone,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>risking all to aid the dying,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>staunching wounds, comforting crying</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>kids looking for their dads or moms.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Guardian angels overhead</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>watch with woe o’er the grisly scene.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>With haloed heads bent low, they keen</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>a dirge for all the newly dead.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Heaven opens reluctant gates</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>to welcome those newly arrived.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Those whose bodies did not survive</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>an act of terror and of hate.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>As darkness falls to darkest night</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>the city birds forget their flight</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>but perch the tops of wrecked remains,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>a cordoned street of blood and brains</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>spilled out in such a gruesome deed,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>its evil such an awful breed</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>which glories in its brutal ways</i></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>on such a happy peaceful day.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
Once more, Evil had to be called out. What kind of discipline can we find to change things?<br />
<br />
The next day, I resumed writing to the proscribed prompts with a gusto. I seem to have gained strength from weakness. I finished the project on October 31, 2013. I was not even tired.<br />
<br />
After the disciplined writing was at an end, I wondered what would become of these prompts and their resulting poems. Each month, week, day had taught me something about writing, about myself as a poet, and about the world around me. I had to share. But I needed time and distance from the poems to gain perspective. So, printed out and put into file folders (as well as in folders on my computer), they sat. Occasionally I'd dig out a folder and read a bit.<br />
<br />
I knew the poems were not quite finished, needed editing and revising. A few months ago, I got busy with them again, folder by folder, week by week, day by day. I began putting the prompts together into a manuscript, along with comments and sample poems. Maybe someone else would like to have the prompts, and a little insight from my discipline. Just maybe this was worth publishing. I decided to go for it. I decided that there also needs to be somewhere for people to read ALL the poems I had written in that year of discipline. 365 prompts and 365 poems. BIG book.<br />
<br />
Perhaps there is another way. What about two books, companions to one anther, to be sold separately in case the reader only wants one or the other. Still, what publisher would want to take on such a project?<br />
Time will tell. At this point, I have completed both. I have a cover and a title. Not sure if I am going to send it out or if I will publish as an eBook. At any rate, here is the cover.<br />
<br />
The art work is my own, done in the late 80s. It is a digital drawing, Bird Heart.<br />
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Enough from me for today. I need to do laundry and call about getting my revised web site hosted. April is coming and it needs to be ready to roll out then. No time like the present. After all, I am a disciplined person, right?<br />
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Tomorrow? hmmmm<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-56197265387139458062018-03-15T18:26:00.004-04:002018-03-15T19:49:01.186-04:00Welcome Back BachofnerHere I am, the prodigal blogger. <i>Mea culpa, mea culpa</i> for wasting the opportunity to connect with all of you via my blog-o-sphere! It’s not that I’ve had nothing to say… THAT never happens. I have just been busy writing. I guess that is not me being lazy, just not being communicative with all of you. So, here’s what I have to tell you. I’ll try to be brief.<br />
<br />
1. I have been traveling<br />
<br />
Where did I go? I went to Prague in November and spent three days wandering around the city, amazed by the architecture and the culture. This is a city to which I will return for more. From Prague on to Nuremburg, Germany and boarding the Viking longship, <i>Gullveig,</i> for a cruise on the Danube all the way to Budapest, Hungary. What a wonderful trip. Maybe later a few photos. took so many of those.<br />
<br />
More travels coming in the future, including an Alaska cruise (to keep a promise to my fahter who always wanted to go there, but did not live to do so) and in 2019 a BIG trip to the Vking Homelands: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, Poland, Berlin, Iceland. Wow, cannot wait for that one.<br />
<br />
2. I have been writing (well, of course that is what I am SUPPOSED to be doing)<br />
<br />
<i>What have you accomplished, Carol</i>? you ask…<br />
<br />
a. A new book out inlate 2017 <i>The Boyfriend Project </i>is a collection of poems about girlfriends and their boyfriends, a look at the stories I have and stories other women have shared with me, translated into poems. Some who have read it tell me they were immediately brought back to their “love experiences” and took that stroll into the past. One woman thanked me for not making the poems <i>all mushy and sentimental. </i>Indeed they are not. Sweet and soulful some, dark and dangerous others. Everything in between. I am actually thinking of a sequel.<br />
<br />
b. A new book, <i>Test Pattern; a Fantod of Prose Poems, </i>soon to be relased by Finishing Line Press (May 2018). These poems are a real departure for me, wandering off like Old Pima into the realm of prose poetry. There are a couple postcard poems and a Q & A poem, along with some poems that defy labeling. I am particularly happy with this collection because it was a wild ride from start to finish, 21 of the drafts written in a single week. Yes, of course there was the massive revision process later, but quite a production for a wekk just getting the drafts of these done.<br />
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I can hear you now: <i>what is a fantod? </i>Ha!<i> </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
A fantod is defined as<i> a state of discomfort or unreasonableness.</i> Nod to Edward Gorey here for creating his amazing Fantod Pack of “tarot” style cards, from whence came the inspiration.<br />
<br />
c. Ther has been some adding to the family and other amazing family events<br />
<br />
Since last we chatted here, we have added 4 GREATgrandchildren to the family:<br />
Althea Rose (Justin & Brittany)<br />
Emily Christeen (Alex & Elizabeth)<br />
Calvin R. (Nick & Allie) <br />
Charlotte Joy (Justin and Brittany AGAIN)<br />
<br />
Two granddaughters went off to university this fall, one to Univeristy of California at Santa Barbara and the other to Univeristy of Washington. I am writing them letters and sending care packages. Isn’t that what grandmothers do?<br />
<br />
<br />
Okay, now to what's on my mind right now? Oh so much but here are a couple things:<br />
<br />
1. I am so distressed at the state of our country<br />
2. I am so distressed over all these mass shootings<br />
<br />
About 1. I plan on exercising my voice at the polls as my contribution to "righting the ship" The madness, ignorance, and complacency has got to stop before we have no nation left.<br />
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About 2. I stood with our students this morning as hey silently remember the 17 students murdered by a gunman in Parkland FL a month ago yesterday. I am working (as a school board member here) on issues and policies around school safety.<br />
<br />
I will not belabor these points. Not today.<br />
<br />
<br />
On a very happy and positive note:<br />
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Soon, in the next couple of weeks, my web site www.carolbachofner.com will have a new look and new content. It will feature not only my writing but also my art (original watercolors) and my photography. It will be an interactive site where you can order books and ask me questions about anything art/writing related.<br />
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I have another new book in the making. It came from my 365 Project (a prophet and a poem a day for a year. I will put this out as a pair of eBooks which will be VERY reasonable in cost. It is in two books, one book of the prompts, one book is my response poems to those prompts).<br />
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The prompt part consists of a daily prompt arranged by months and weeks. Each month's entry has a bit of writing advice and a sample poem of mine from that month. The poetry book part has the same divisions, but features all of the poems I wrote in response to the prompts.<br />
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This will be FUN, INSPIRING, and really low cost to the purchaser. I am working on how to offer subscriptions to it without violating my own intellectual property rights.<br />
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Look for this by end of summer, if not sooner. It will be announced in the Bookography section of my web site, so be sure to visit to find it.<br />
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I am featured as a guest blogger on Luanne Castle's blog site. Luanne was one of my professors at California State University San Bernardino. Later we became friends and are colleagues in the world of writing.<br />
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My contribution to her blog is in two parts. The first is me discussing my new book, <i>The Boyfriend Project, </i>the second (to be published in a few days) is the upcoming book, Test Pattern: a Fantod of Prose Poems, soon to be released by Finishing Line Press. You can visit the website to order this book at <a href="http://www.finishinglinepress.com/">www.finishinglinepress.com</a> Look under new releases and the letter B.<br />
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Please visit Luanne's blog at <a href="https://writersite.org/2018/03/15/bachofner-on-the-boyfriend-project/" style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">https://writersite.org/2018/03/15/bachofner-on-the-boyfriend-project/</a> While you are there, investigate her book, <i>Kin Types</i> and order a copy for yourself. You will love it as I do. <br />
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On a not so happy note:<br />
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I have suspended the magazine which I had edited and published since 1996,<i> Pulse</i>. Reason: lack of contributions that were publishable, especially in fiction. This is painful. But, I do not throw in the towel. <i>Pulse </i>may rise again under a new name and new format. One thing at a time though.<br />
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Well, my promise to be "brief" here has been broken. As I like to say, <i>Like to say.</i><br />
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So<i> adieu </i>for now<i>. </i><br />
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Stay tuned.<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-25157765077925074032016-07-31T08:49:00.004-04:002016-07-31T08:58:55.542-04:00Trump and Through the Looking GlassWe are through the looking glass these days, where everything real isn't and everything unreal is. We have allowed crazy upsidedownness to thrive. We do it by seeing politics as a place to be "funny" at the expense of others. We seem to like the loudest mouths and the biggest booming threats. We believe that if we elect a CEO, we will get benefits from that person. We ignore things of moral value in favor of flashy rhetoric, even when the flashy rhetoric is false, PROVABLY false.<br />
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We allow, even celebrate, those who lie and are inhumane and threatening to others (those others are people who are not like"us.") We choose to believe lies because the lies seem "entertaining" or because those lies seem to offer change. Some even say "he thinks like I do" (which gives me a shudder to think how many might be like <u>him</u>)<br />
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We prefer ANY difference in or challenge to the "status quo" versus truths or facts that can be verified. We prefer to let sound bytes "educate us" and believe what others tell us to believe, maybe because we are so confused we don't recognize our own beliefs, our own values. We are part of a problem we cannot see as we cheer the emperor with no clothes in a kind of sad mob mentality, sad and dangerous mob mentality.<br />
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Do we think this fear-mongering stance will not be "real" in its dire consequence after November? It is going to get "real" real fast, people. Step away from the funhouse mirror.<br />
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I for one, am scared that should Trump take office, only people like him will survive. And that one of his tantrums of xenophobia and racism will end us, literally end us in a puff of nuclear smoke and ash. Listen to what other people around the world are saying about him and pull your heads out of his butt.<br />
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If you are not a rich white male you will soon realize Trump doesn't care about you at all. He is a vapid, self-serving, man. HOPE: get every person of color, every middle class person, every young voter, every woman you know to vote against this terror of a man. And PLEASE understand that a third party vote will GIVE the election to Trump, will hand him the nuclear codes and double-dog-dare him to use them.<br />
<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-11735380513056498992015-12-31T21:13:00.001-05:002015-12-31T21:13:11.256-05:00winding down 2015It's been a busy year. Not that this blog is evidence. I have not posted since LAST New Year's Eve, sad to say. But I shall do better.<br />
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To my credit I have not been idle. Many poems written, much work done on local school board, progress on the Wilbur book, and lots of living lived. But I am remiss in my posting. Mea culpa.<br />
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So... expect more from this poet in 2016<br />
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I have a few goals:<br />
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1. finish the Wilbur book.<br />
2. get two manuscripts out there<br />
3. write for 2 hours a day on SOMETHING<br />
4. take more art classes ( I took up watercolor this year after a 35 year hiatus... more of a lack of confidence as an artist than a hiatus)<br />
5. did I mention finish the Wilbur book? yeah that.Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-39299132946902352412014-12-29T16:02:00.001-05:002014-12-29T16:03:53.867-05:00As the year 2014 winds down, sliding along the wet ground like a shadow, I think of times gone by, of poems written and read, of friends made and kept, of walks along the boardwalk and countless sunsets that made me want to cry and sing at the same time. I think of family weddings, graduations, losses, triumphs.<br />
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If there is any message I'd like to impart here it is this: <br />
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Be for one another.</div>
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Don't worry about the days and nights gone, don't regret, don't wallow. Just be for one another.<br />
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I credit my Abenaki and Scots ancestry for the ability to access long memory, the sense of being part of something that began long long ago and continues infinitely through what we leave behind, a fingerprint on the pages of history we turn, the book we leave open for the next reader. To that end, I have placed here on my blog the Scots version of Auld Lang Syne. It's melody is different from what is sung elsewhere. I prefer it. But whatever version YOU enjoy, the message is clear:<br />
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Be for one another; be kindness; be of long memory.<br />
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2015, I welcome you, with a full heart and a full pen.<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4873636167406910107.post-41699908459537516472014-08-17T06:55:00.003-04:002014-08-17T07:07:59.689-04:00Nature vs Nurture really?We are in trouble. We are in so deep I often wonder if there is a way out. Gun violence has risen to the point that I cannot recall a day in the recent past without some news story about an unarmed person getting killed by the police, or some kind of mass shooting somewhere. We have a segment of our citizenry defending gun rights as if the guns were their firstborn children. We have politicians behaving as if stepping up to enact safety laws is their own kiss of death.Truthfully, it is in many cases... the kiss of death for their political careers. They act expediently, with no political will do right by their constituents for basic safety of all. We act self-righteously indignant when we hear of, read about these senseless killings. We snicker and sneer over stories of rape and violence all the while not doing one whit to stop it all. Oh sure, we sign petitions asking for change, for help, but these go to political hacks who have not enough courage to even try to make a difference for us. When and how will it end?<br />
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I studied psychology in college... many many courses (if I had a declared minor, that would have been it) and in those courses, one of the big issues was an ongoing debate over whether nature or nurture made the difference in a person's moral outcome, the resultant world view/behavior of that person. I have studied philosophy and there the debate is similar: is a person inherently good or does "good" have to be learned? (I have, by the way, had THIS discussion with my 14 year old grandson and my 15 year old granddaughter who stand on opposite sides of the question). Nature vs Nurture. If it is Nurture, why do some of the BEST (defined as morally upright i.e. "good", kindness, acceptance of others over self) come from homes and environments where there is rampant moral turpitude and some of the WORST come from homes where there are good and loving parents who exemplified and taught uprightness?<br />
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Some religious people would have us look to a purported baser nature of mankind or womankind that derives its origins from the Fall of Adam. They say that humans naturally revert to "sinfulness" or lawlessness without regimentation and control by others, particularly those in authority. Areligious folks might argue that it is this very hemming in or control that pushes some folks toward the brink of bad behavior. Others might argue that worldy influences and fear are the roots of evil. I do not have the answer. I do believe that people are inherently good (seen any evil babies so far? I have not) and that something has caused hurt and that some may lack the life skills to seek peaceful resolution to their hurt. I also believe there are people (a tiny percentage) who have short-circuited brains that misfire enough to change personality in that person.<br />
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These are the folks with no apparent "conscience" or moral compass. These, I believe are RARE. This certainly does not fit with the tidal wave of violence that we face right now, which I believe comes in large part from a learned fear of others. I also believe that we are facing a time where we have been taught to fear thinking. I just cannot understand this at all. Mankind is so much more likely to be swayed into mob action if kept undereducated and marginalized.<br />
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I believe we must keep asking questions, holding one another accountable for our actions, and be brave enough to call a wrong a wrong when it happens rather than rushing to find/make excuses for it. We cannot hope to eradicate rape, for example if we keep blaming the victim, saying "this is just boys being boys," or looking the other way when women and girls (and some men too) come forward to tell us what has happened to them. We cannot rush to find a reason an unarmed teen is gunned down, or a woman is beaten by cops avon the roadside, or a deaf man is beaten because he didn't hear what the cops were asking him to do, or a man is beaten and dragged out of his car for simply telling the policemen that his son is autistic and cannot understand what they are asking. We have to say WRONG and hold these folks accountable. We have to say that their training (nurture) is flawed and change it. We have to say that their nature is being overcome. We have to promote peace and not supply tools of violence to anyone not seeking and acting on peacefulness. We cannot keep taking sides in armed conflicts. <br />
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I swear I do not understand what the point is to the arrogance, "me me me" attitude that is running rampant these days. It sickens me. Makes me want to escape to an isolated spot and wait for the shooting to stop. But then, I would not be part of the solution. So I have to blame myself too if nothing changes for good.<br />
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We have to ask ourselves the hard questions and not give up until we have answers and solutions. Why are guns more important than peace? Why is money to be made from doing harm more important than people? Why do we glory in some people being advantaged at the expense of others who are already struggling? Why do we look at others who are not like us and see with eyes of fear rather than seeing how we might learn from them and become more ourselves in the process? Why is hatred more attractive than love? Why are we less interested in being helpful and KIND to those we come to us for help and safety? I do not think or believe that it is at all Nature vs Nurture. I believe it is fear vs peace.<br />
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Therefore I will be peaceful no matter what. I will promote peace by voice and example. I will keep saying it is better to be happy than "right." I will keep believing that we are better than who we appear to be right now. I will not live in fear.<br />
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And I will pray that there are more people interested in peace than there are people picking up guns to defend their own fears.<br />
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<br />Carol Willette Bachofnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10851607014763514265noreply@blogger.com2