winding down 2015

It'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.

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.

So... expect more from this poet in 2016

I have a few goals:

1. finish the Wilbur book.
2. get two manuscripts out there
3. write for 2 hours a day on SOMETHING
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)
5. did I mention finish the Wilbur book? yeah that.

As 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.

If there is any message I'd like to impart here it is this:

Be for one another.

Don't worry about the days and nights gone, don't regret, don't wallow. Just be for one another.


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:

Be for one another; be kindness; be of long memory.

2015, I welcome you, with a full heart and a full pen.

Nature 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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And I will pray that there are more people interested in peace than there are people picking up guns to defend their own fears.

An Uncomfortable Poem

We hear of the bombings in Gaza and Israel, the air strikes in Iraq, and think "thank God not here" until we watch what's happening in cities across America, large and small. Young unarmed people of color gunned down in a "shoot first, duck responsibility later" mode. This mess with out of control "law enforcement" has overtaken whatever joy there has been in our summertime. We shake our heads and wonder what got us to this point. The truth of the matter (as I see it, MHO only) is that we have lived for so long under a false coating of peaceful diversity when in fact racism has never really gone away. We elect a person of color to be president and there it goes, BAM! Out of the shadows the KKK (turned TEA) has erupted in angry off-the-wall and OPEN fear and loathing. It is dismaying to see this. The situation of immigration has fanned the flames of racism as well, with people being taught to fear anyone not like them, to decry these fellow humans as somehow taking away something to which only THEY are entitled, i.e. jobs, benefits, health care, education. The face on these people is decidedly BROWN or BLACK this time around. Forget the 20s and 30s when we feared the Irish or the Italians (though we did fear them, thinking the same thoughts "they're coming to take OUR jobs, apartments, schools, way of life). Forget the 50s and 60s when it was the Cubans or Puerto Ricans. Same thinking, same fears. Now it is a return to the slave days when Blacks were kept "in their place," but now there is mass media, social media, instant video feed, so we see it up close and in real time. Our rampant (and persistent) racism and xenophobia is on every TV or computer screen, on our phones as it happens. We can spin it, whitewash it, call it something else, or deny it is happening. We can wait for someone ELSE to fix it, or hope it goes away somehow. But it is not going away. When we as a nation, militarize our police, hand over control of daily life to fear, we will only go from bad to worse, and life as we know it (or thought we knew it) becomes a memory.

As usual, feeling frustrated at not being able to DO anything, I can only shine a light in the way I know best: through my writing. Therefore, yesterday, discouraged and angry, I penned this very uncomfortable poem.  Please, readers, see it as what it is: commentary. I do not hate police, but I do hate what some of them are doing. We need to see the drastic situation for what it is: a tipping point.

So here goes (the "we" of the poem implies the voice of society):

Police

We’re killing black kids, young men

ready for college or just shopping the sales

at Wally World. We choke hold ‘em,

shoot ‘em, would lynch a few if we could,

and maybe it’s heading back to that.

We don’t like brown or black, too dark

for us ‘cept on the beach where we risk melanoma 

to get browner, but the palms of our hands 

stay lily white as we grip 

our weapons of choice for tonight. 

We make sure the cops are armed for this: 

semi-automatics, riot gear, tear gas 

for all. Don’t worry officer, ain’t no one

gonna give up your name after. 

We got your back, your white entitled back.

Hey you over there! Don’t you dare stand up,

hands up or not, just oughta stay the hell

in your place I say, one down 

or cowered back like your grandaddies did. 

You go tell your mama you did right.

We’re killing anyone and everyone

who don’t pray to the right Jesus, who ain’t 

gonna stay inside tonight. We coming 

for you, Mister Protester, Miss Civil Rights. 

We're gettin’ closer and closer. We’ll kill you all.

Post Mortem, dona nobis pacem

I don't know where to start, but something about this world is making the most brilliant among us heartsick to the point of no longer being able to cope or stay. Robin Williams just couldn't stay. We will be the poorer for this early departure, the loss is feeling unbearable.

Private demons, the weight of celebrity, whatever it is, we are dying here. We are being killed by invisibles that haunt us at night, chase us by day, and hover over us always waiting to pounce.
Robin Williams' suicide is one in a long long line of these sadnesses. Many (most) we never hear about because they happen in bedrooms and garages and barns and cars all over the place to "ordinary" folks who just cannot endure another living moment. We hear of and are publicly shocked by celebrity suicides; we have claimed these brilliant people as "part of us" and cannot stand the thought they were not strong enough to stay. What a waste, we say. Indeed. but what of all the other sad, shortened lives we do not see in the public arena, the people we pass in the streets, know in our work, play with at school? They are lost to darkness too. The dark that is all around us.

I recall an incident from my childhood where a nine year old boy hanged himself in his grandmother's barn. Nine. He and his grandmother went to our church. He was in my class. I did not know what could possibly make him do this thing.  But I do know, I did know at least a part of his darkness. This boy was bullied unmercifully — for having red hair and freckles and large ears that stuck out. He was called Howdy (after the Howdy Doody puppet on TV's Buffalo Bob Smith Show). He was never without some kind of sneering comment. The worst part of it was that no one thought anything about that at all. (I will say I did not make fun of him, but neither did I come to his side and tell kids to stop, so I bear a load of guilt too). When he died, I was shocked beyond belief. We had no grief counselors coming to school, no one talked about it whatsoever. No teacher intervened. It was right there in front of us and we all did nothing. But he did. The most awful something was what he did.

This visual will never leave me: One day his desk was spilling over with papers, the next day it was REMOVED from the row and put in the back of the room until the janitor came at lunchtime and took it to the school basement. I remember going down there (it was where our bathrooms were) and sitting in his chair and crying. It was so sad.  I never knew anyone who had died until then. It was life-altering for me. To this day, I can close my eyes and see his face, his sad little freckled face. I mourn for him. I am ashamed.

Later I would encounter two more suicides: after high school, one of my classmate's father shot himself between their house and the post office, and in high school a girl a year ahead of me came home one day to find her mother, dead from hanging. What kind of terror is that? But no one much talked about these deaths either. It was whispered about and tongues clicked about what kind of horrible people these were to have done this to their families. NO ONE spoke about what life was like for these two desperately sad people, nor did anyone see the signs and intervene.  I struggled then as I do now to find words or to figure out the whole of it.

I have been depressed in my life. Deeply and drastically depressed. After my divorce, with four young children to raise alone in poverty, I spent weeks barely coping, staying in bed most of the day when the kids were at school, wishing I were not alive. I was barely dealing with the kids, though I managed to hold onto that part of life as a thread back. We ate, I oversaw homework, washed the clothes, etc. I credit my kids too with providing me with so much unconditional love that it kept a light on in my heart. (Many people with depression cannot find that light... not their fault, just how it is sometimes, so families ought not to think they failed if the depressed person cannot see their blessings there).

I did not die. Fortunately for me, I had ONE loyal friend who saw what was happening to me and did the best thing any adult can do: she was THERE. She never told me to "get over it" or to "snap out of it," nor did she make me feel guilty (I was doing a great job of that myself). She simply came and sat with me, offered to make food and did so. She took me out to breakfast once in awhile, or came over to help me with the kids, took over when I couldn't do one more thing... she talked to me about nothing and everything. She LISTENED to me cry and didn't accuse me of being a bad person for my inertia. She commiserated with me when I wanted to moan and groan about the sack of lemons I'd been handed. Slowly, but surely, with her hand in mine, I dragged myself out of the abyss, the pit I'd fallen into. I got counseling too, but it was NOT the professional help (the counselor actually told me that if I "became" a lesbian, I'd be happier because men are toxic. What???) Not that I think counseling is a wage for coping. Just was not what helped me. It was the FRIEND who helped the most by riding the terrible seas of my depression with me. I know she saved my life by being there for the worst parts of it. Thank you Maxine.  Thank you.

We have lost a great guy in Robin Williams. Not a perfect guy of course; not one of those exists, but a great guy. He gave so much of his best self to all of us. He triumphed over and over again in his own darkness. Ultimately, the darkness came for him and he went with it. We do not, nor will we, know what that darkness was like for him. It is private, intimate, and powerful. We can only let his spirit be as free now as it could never be before by celebrating his life and being GRATEFUL for him and his beautiful place in our lives.

To put things into a form that comforts me, poetry, I have turned to a favorite passage from Whitman's Leaves of Grass and written this poem about the darkness that is depression. The form is a variation on a glosa, which employs the use of lines from another source as the foundation for the resultant poem. It is also a persona poem, written in the voice of another person, not my voice.

I sure hope you can hear me reading this heartfelt, but imperfect poem for you, Robin:

At the End, a glosa variation

                      — for Robin Williams 

It’s hard to know who’s watching

so I stay in character until the weight 

of the mask starts killing me, sucking my marrow.

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me. 

I watch the others, the hawks in the audience

or on the streets, where brass stars

in the sidewalk make false promises about us

He complains of my gab and my loitering, 

this one hawk, the one with poison 

on his beak. He swoops to peck

at my neck, but today I manage to hide.

I too am untamed, I too am untranslatable

I tell him. We are alike, we are dark

and prone to loneliness, have pierced

hearts, exist on our own carrion. I sound 

my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world.

But he persists, circling day after day, waiting

just waiting for me to relax, to let go

a little. His yellow eye sees everything I am.

His blood-tipped beak opens and closes for me.

8/11/14

Distance learning in poetry; it can work

I signed up for, and have been doing, an online open university, course in writing poetry. It was offered by the University of Iowa Writing Workshop. Me, with over 3,000 others (of all abilities and sensibilities and aesthetic stances for their own work). Two other poets I know and admire have been doing it too and I have read their work and they mine.

How does this work? Hmm, we listen to (watch) video lectures on craft and then do the assigned work and post it. Others can  weigh in and comment as is the norm for writing workshops. No, all 3,000+ poets are not commenting on all the work, rather picking and choosing at random or finding one person and looking at that work.

Skeptical but game, I got on board. We're in our final week.  And I must say:    LOVE

This experience has been a most remarkable opportunity to learn from a variety of poets, some I knew already (Michael Dennis Browne, Marvin Bell both of whom I have learned from in person at the Univeristy of Iowa) and others I do not know even by way of their poems. Only one was a total bore (IMHO) and only because she simply read from her notes. I do not engage well, if at all, with that kind of lecture/talk. I felt checked out the whole time. But, taken as a gestalt, the topics have been far-ranging and eager.

I have diligently written and posted. I have brought the things I learned to my poetry group and (I think) got them excited about trying a few new strategies. I have tried (and succeeded I think) in writing my first-ever CENTO, done and LOVED doing a mindfulness writing exercise. I will repeat that as a way IN to my daily writing practice.

Today was the final author talk. Well!

Today I wrote my first, purposefully-attempted, prose poem. YIKES!

The poem was based upon two ideas/strategies: parataxis and the prose poem. You who know me well know that I have been engaged in a battle with myself over the existence of the prose poem for a very long time. I now might just agree that the genre, sub-genre, exists. I do think that it might be a rare thing however.

What I can say (for myself only) is that it appears to exist in its associative leaps and detailed diction.
It exists in parataxis. Once the writer falls into hypotaxis, it is straightforward PROSE.

I am having lunch today with my friend and fellow poet, DiTa. We will go to an art gallery after to see her show. I am glad of this road trip for that part, but EXCITED to talk to her about today's poetry work.

I also am at work on a poem I began yesterday while looking at the nudes at the Farnsworth Art Museum. (oh is this poem ROUGH at this point!) It's title (the poem) is Eve, After. A bit of a feminist thing and some quirky takes on the banishment from the Garden. We'll just have to see.

Back to the online course: my best moment (and poem) is an epistolary poem, inspired by a couple comments made by Michael Dennis Browne last week. He spoke about how nice it is for poets to write letters (actual hand-written ones) to poets they enjoy, telling them how their work has been influential or admired. He spoke too about what an epistolary poem is: a letter to someone in poem form. I wrote one to him and enclosed it in a hand-written letter and popped both into the mail to him.

I ramble here. But you get the idea: writing is elastic. Keep snapping the band and letting it fly.

The merit in cleaning your office

Beyond the normal notions of cleanliness and organization comes a benefit I had not expected today:

FOUND in an old notebook from the Dodge Poetry Festival 2006: Sitting With the Dead, a poem I wrote for Laure-Anne Bosselaar. I have been very sad about the loss of this poem after I sent it to Laure-Anne in '06. I taught myself to decide it was lost for a reason. I wrote a response poem to it, hoping to honor the spirit of the original. I learned a lesson about backing up my work.

But today comes this little red notebook after so many years. 8 to be exact, my favorite number. I opened the notebook and there, on  page one, the poem I lost. So I share with you this poem in its original state plus the 2nd poem.

This is the original:

Sitting With the Dead
                    for Laure-Anne

In the village church,
the poet reads about Bruges,
how Yochkemke stepped on a mine
in Israel. The only way it was
him for sure was the intact arm
with numbers 743326, numbers
he was given as a baby,
his family tagged like cattle.

The poet does not write mine
except to claim him
as her friend, boy of bells
and marbles with green hearts.
She mentions his talent for whistling
through the hole in his tongue,
how he ran as fast as he could
and kissed her once for luck.

In the churchyard, after,
I sit with the dead, read poems
to them, boys and girls I never knew
living now beyond tipped granite
doors that open on a place
of untold numbers
of unnumbered souls, souls
who would not dare to name God.


And there it is: that which was lost has been found.


Here is the 2nd poem written last year (2013) to try and reconstruct or at least honor the original:

Lost: Sitting With the Dead

— again for Laure-Anne 

In the village chapel, the poet 

spoke about love for the dead 

how it increases, how like sadness 

for what's done in war, she told of all 

the lost loves she's kissed goodbye 

in train stations, in churchyards.

Now I'm leaning 

against the tombstone,

of someone I never knew —

dead tired from walking all day.

I write of Yochemke,

boy-with-the-hole-in-his-tongue

punched like paper by the Nazis.

I write a poem of holes and loss,

read it aloud to those who
can no longer read.

My tongue dries

in the hot afternoon,

my pen runs out, stops

at the final word, shame.

Years later the poem is lost,

like Yochemke

who stepped on a mine in Israel.

Sitting With the Dead

will haunt me as the boy 

with the hole in his tongue.

The two poems seem to belong together. They are about loss and giving in to that loss as a way of survival. I like to imagine the poet and the boy reuniting years from now, and him running as fast as he can to show her his green-hearted marbles and his tongue whole again.

Why I will run for re-election to the school board

I could be selfish. I have a big writing project that has gotten delayed by my service to the school district where I live. I WANT to focus on the book I am doing and just work like mad to get it finished, edited, and sent out for publication. I WANT to do this and not much else.

I am frustrated. The past year and a half have been fraught with disasters, many caused by our school board's lack of vision, lack of basic concern for kids (though these concerns are stated over and over when the TV cameras are running), and a SERIOUS lack of know-how in education (we have a citizen-board made up of anyone who can get elected).  Yes, I am frustrated.

So I won't run again, right? That's what I had planned — until yesterday when 4 different people convinced me otherwise.

1. Have you considered that your not being on the board might undo what little progress has been made? Whoever might take your place might not care the way you do about EDUCATION issues rather than personal power.

2. I, for one, am glad we have a poet on our board; someone who thinks creatively and cares about kids's minds.

3. Oh you have to stay on the board; we count on you to speak up when things are wrong and not care about your own popularity or agenda.

4. What would we do without your willingness to say the hard things and to call out those who are out of line?

I do not believe in coincidences. I believe in messages from unlikely sources that speak sense or call me to act.  4 in one day? How can I ignore this?

So I shall run again for another three-year term. I hope the voters will keep me on. If they do not, well that is a message too. I'll say thanks for everything and go finish the book.

C'est la vie!

thinking too much on a hot day makes me want to fall into the ocean

Heat Complaint

I am really in need of a beach day.
There is nothing more
on this earth for me to say

no idea of how to float on the surface
of hot top, gravel or even the boards of my porch.
I need the beach, its grace.

I could swim out too far
catch a glimpse of how the mermaid feels
not to own a clock or a car.

Thinking too much
on a hot day makes me want to fall
into the ocean. Wet, wild, and such.

Are you hot too?
— not in that sexy way you show me
when daylight is through.

Can we decide (when we have died) to sprinkle
ourselves out far, out there in the sea,
let our sand trickle

like ash?  oh wait — be ash —
burnt up bone and muscle we won't need,
hair and teeth we won't ever brush.

I am really in need of a beach day
really in need of getting
away.

up WAY too early and thinking about dinner out last night (really OUT)

Last night out to dinner with friends at Archer's on the Pier in Rockland, a wonderful place to eat outside overlooking the water. Dinner was great but...

1. We were indeed outside on the deck, but were seated in the boiling sun (not that I am complaining about sun). You might think the owner would get those drop down mesh screens for the awning that would keep the patrons out of the heat ... oh sure we could've gone inside (no one in there!). By the time my hubby & I arrived (a few minutes late), everyone else was seated so asking to move the whole group was not a viable plan. One whole side of the table was hot and in direct sun (we were 12 people ... seated at a long table and at both ends). Grrrr. Everyone complained to each other but no one did anything, including me so I bear responsibility too. The server did not offer to move us. My friend Michelle and I were positively dripping. The ice melted so fast in our water glasses it was not even cooling the water. I was exhausted from the heat by the end of the meal. Never again will I sit in that kind of environment. I will sit inside or in shade only — not 2.5 hours in direct sun. UGH.

2. The tip, since we were a large party, was figured on the bill for us and, lo and behold, was figured on the TAX as well as on the food. Hmmmm. It added nearly one percentage point overall. Since when is that how it works? And the tip was also on the alcohol portion of the bill. I think if we go there again we would ask for a separate bill for the alcohol. I tip on alcohol only when I am at a bar. I do not believe the tip for last night is getting shared with the bartender, so what??? we are tipping the waitress for bringing drinks she did not mix to the table from a few steps away?

But really, the food was great. The view over the harbor was great. We heard music live from the Blues Festival at the Harbor Park. The conversation was good and lively.

Today I am off to a picnic at Round Pond. I will bring my hat and my little old-fashioned folding fan, wear sunscreen, and stake out a spot in the shade.

Stay tuned.

Creative Writing Camp 2014

Today is the first of two 3-day sessions of camp; this week for Middle Schoolers. We have 12 "campers" who are enjoying poetry, character development (fiction) story development, and safe blogging.

We have had our first break and the students have moved stations. Lunch is being prepared in the kitchen of Rockland District Middle School where we are.

I find the students to be eager and engaged. Art is happening too!

A bit of Poet Laureate news

Sorry I forgot this news (have been a bit absent from blogging)

In April, I was reappointed to the post of Poet Laureate of Rockland, Maine, ending my term as the 2nd PL of the city and beginning my term as 3rd PL of the city. Many thanks to all who helped in my first term, most especially the staff of the Rockland Public Library for all their various modes of support!

I have many plans for this term, but the biggest by far is the ROCK CITY POETRY FESTIVAL to be held in Aprill of 2015. Please contact me if you are willing to donate to the success of this effort. I will be doing a KICKSTARTER campaign shortly as we need to raise $35K to be able to make this series of events happen.

Nationally known poets Richard Blanco, Patricia Smith, and Dorianne Laux (native Mainer) will be here to read and engage in workshops.

You KNOW you want to be a part of this wonderful event! Email me for details or to help.

Let the children come

Tomorrow (July 9) is Session One of 2014 Creative Writing Camp. Funded entirely by grants from Maine Media Women and Elks Beacon Grants, there's no cost to the children or their families for the 3 days of writing / art with local authors/writers. All materials are provided as well as lunches, snacks, facilities, and tee shirts.  We thank the Elks Lodge 1008 (Rockland, ME) and Rockland District Middle School for allowing us the use of their facilities for the camps.

Session One is for Middle Schoolers:

Journal Keeping
Poetry
Fiction : character and story development; flash fiction techniques
Art: all art pieces are connected to the writing

Writers:
Carol Bachofner (journaling / blogging)
Stephanie Marshall (poetry)
Paige Pendleton (fiction)
Terri McKensie (fiction)
Margie Kivel (art)


Session Two is for Elementary Schoolers:

Poetry
Art
Fiction: character development; story elements; story boarding


Writers/Helpers

Kristin Gould (book elements)
Carol Bachofner (poetry/director)
Bill Bachofner (co-director)
Terri McKensie (fiction)
Stephanie Marshall (poetry)
Margie Kivel (art)
Anna Walker, Sarah Bernard (helpers)

Thanks also to Sarah Bernard for her generous donation of notebooks both last year and this.

We have a very full program. Last summer we had 23 elementary school students; this is the first year we are holding a session for Middle School. We have 16 MS students signed up to join us 9grades 6-8). We will again have about 22 elementary school kiddos (grades 3-5).

What's next?

I have a plan for forming a writing group specifically designed for teachers who teach writing. Time for walking the talk.

More on this upcoming project soon. Just have to get camps done and packed up for another year!

ONWARD!

What the hell is BuddyHost Proxy?

If I try to look at my blogs, at "View Blog," I get this unwanted black box for Buddy Host Proxy. This kills my ability to view my blog! I am wondering what EBlogger is going to do about this "Invasion of the Blog-Snatchers."

Why revise? After all, the poem was sent by the universe..

What is fascinating to me about writers (not professionals) is that there is some kind of mythology out there about the place where writing emanates which leads them to think (and actually believe deeply) that their writing is so inspired as to warrant leaving it alone once it is initially on the page. I've been doing this thing (writing, editing) for a long time and I see this phenomenon over and over, in fact more now than ever.

Here's a true story to illustrate:

I received a submission for Pulse Online Literary Journal a few weeks ago and decided the poems had something to say, but needed a little tweaking to say that something better. Being the kind of editor I'd want to have myself, I suggested a couple small edits and offered to work with the poet on larger issues (line break, diction, etc). I found an email from that writer in my inbox yesterday with the following:

Dear Mrs. Bachofner,
Thanks for your "acceptance" if that's what you call it.
I cannot believe you would have the nerve to say the poems
were not finished and needed some polishing. When I write,
I am inspired by the universe, my muse or whatever. It is just
wrong to slap that being in the face by changing what was 
sent to me. You call yourself an editor? YOUR JOB is to print
the inspired words you are lucky enough to be sent. You should
be more careful of messing with fate the way you are trying to.
So, to be very clear: print the poems as they are. Oh, and I believe
a thank-you is in order, not the raking over the coals I got from you.


I have to say I am surprisingly shocked whenever I get this kind of email. I can hardly grasp the idea of speaking thusly to someone I'd hope to have publish my work.

I publish the exchange here so you can see the issue up close and persona.

I went back to my sent file to see what possible "raking over the coals" I had sent this writer. Here it is:

Dear __________, Thanks so much for sending the poems. I see potential 
here and would like to accept the following poems [a list follows] IF you are willing 
to do a little revising. While the poems have good bones, there is room to tweak 
in terms of line breaks and removing clichés. I'd like to see a bit more concreteness 
and not quite so much abstraction in ___________ for example. This particular poem 
blocks the way in for readers with its vague references. I hope you will accept my offer 
to work with you on making the poems shine as I believe they can. Please get back to me
if you want to work with me on these poems.

CWB


My final reply to this person was "Sorry you are not taking advantage of my editing help. Good luck with your writing." Where else could I go with this? Sigh.

When I first started publishing poems by others in my zine, I saw this kind of thing from time to time, and our fiction editor saw it even more. Mostly however, poets seem more willing to revise than fiction submitters. Lately, however, there is a resurgence of submissions with "this came from the universe/God/muse and I am not going to change a word I got from [that entity] because it would be against nature." I muse (pun intended) over why this might be happening. I wonder if the social/political/economic climate is so horrid that these folks are turning to poetry as some kind of prayer call and response scenario (a friend suggested this might be the case) and if so, is there a place for the poems that are springing up from this?

I wonder also about the glut of MFA grads being "churned out" from the plethora of universities and colleges which have developed MFA programs in the past decade or so. My zine partner, Lizzie, tells me that she gets so many story submissions that are a mess from MFA grads. She has suggested that these folks are not even close to knowing what makes a good story and how to write one. I admit I do not know what is going on with the fiction folks (why I leave that up to her).

What concerns me here is the bubbling up of poems where it is fairly obvious that the "poet" spent very little time after the initial inspiration to write. I know a man who belongs to a writing group (one I used to attend out west) who would get absolutely insulted when suggestions for revision were made by his peers. Why go to a writing group where critique is a factor and then refuse to consider revisions? I concluded that, for him, he wanted the social part of being in such a group, and was hoping for praise and validation as a poet. He too felt that the poems came from somewhere "out there" and should not be "messed with by others."

I am also amazed by how many "poets" who write prolifically do not have the slightest notion of how to describe the parts of a poem or how to discuss poems using the language of critical assessment. Several years ago, I was having lunch with a man who considers himself a poet. He gave me a poem and I read it right away. It was not what I think of as a publishable poem, but had some good parts, including some fairly fresh language. He is a poet of cliché mostly, so I was very happy to see this poem's language. Wanting to encourage more of this, I said to him, "I admire the diction in this poem." His reply was that he didn't know what diction was. OK, the man has not been formally educated in poetry. He writes "inspired" poems. However, wouldn't you think that a person who claims to be a poet, sees that as his calling in life, would take the time to educate himself in the nuts and bolts of it? This is what concerns me: so many people writing without a clue about what it takes to make a poem a poem, much less a good one. To me, these are hobbyists, not true poets. Nothing wrong with that by the way, but please don't send me your poems for publication.

I do not think a person needs an MFA or take on a formal program in order to become a true poet. A college professor I admire (a really GOOD poet) asserts that the best teacher of poetry is the poetry itself, urging us to read and read and read, then ask "how did ______ DO that? How might I do that in my own poems?" I have to agree with my former professor here. But I believe this method of learning poetry is slipping off the map, at least for some of the "poets" I encounter. And why, when encountering a poem that seems to be organized in a way that is unfamiliar, would one not search out what that might be in order to try it him/herself? Puzzling. Extremely puzzling.

So what to do with those who resist revision? Pretty much nada, nil, zip, bumpkus, zero. I conclude that leading by example is the only thing to do, i.e keep offering workshops on writing and revising. That and holding my ground with the submitters who try to slip a little cosmic dust into my inbox.


I'll end this blog entry with a thumbs up to the poetry group I attend, High Tide Poets. These amazing women are the opposite of what I describe here. The many many many revised versions of poems we share with one another is simply heart-warming to see. These woman WORK. I am up to my elbows in editing an anthology of the writing this group has produced over the past years. Will keep you posted on the details as the project unfolds.

Poetry Challenge, Week 4

NOTE:

I have put 5 days here as week 4, and will post the remaining 4 as week 5, simply for a little balance in numbers.

Day 22

Dream Job in Maine

Simple, you think, to sit

all day and take people’s money,

allow them to drive onward,

to visit the places they’ve only dreamed

of seeing up close. Onward 

to Khatadin, Baxter State Park,

Down East to Eastport with its tides

rising 32 feet, boats on long leashes,

up and down with the moon’s pull.

Simple, you think, to clock 

in and sit. It’s my dream job

I tell people who laugh out loud

until they get that I am serious.

Oh no, not that I want to sit,

or to collect coins, make change

for a twenty, or suck in fumes

from traffic. It’s a way of seeing

that I want, a way to be more.

I want to see people, relaxed 

or stressed, angry or in love, all

driving somewhere, maybe escaping

from lives they’ve sunk to over time.

I want to be able to watch

them eating their sandwiches, slurping

coffee, putting on lipstick, hear music

that keeps them awake as they drive. 

I want to see parents quieting kid uprisings,

or changing diapers leaned over

back seats as they whizz through my gate.

Poet-in-Residence at Exit 7, I’ll write

this microcosm of driving and living.

I’ll make you understand

how all of us are driving somewhere,

all of us have to pay the toll.

Day 23

Flags

Red, white, and blue, waving 

at every ball game or parade.

We stand, hands over hearts, tears 

streaming like the banner itself.

But what of the humble purple flag

flower that grows in the garden, 

raising itself to the sky

without a single hand over a single heart?

How short the life it lives, how much

it depends upon the passion of bees

to carry itself forward another generation, 

how it lives in the shadow of broader blooms

with more impressive leaves. Is the flag

it waves, each petal it presents to the sun,

less important than a patriotic thrill,

a political review? I venture outside today

to drop a tear on it, to water it well

with my admiration, to see it’s brief day

as something blessèd. This is my patriotism. 

Day 24

Night Music, circa 1973

When the quiet hours that wait 

beyond the day...

music plays on the stereo

and in my head, burning from too much 

of too much. The songs try to settle me,

but rain storms my memories, 

making sleep unlikely. I shut off the light, 

try to banish visions

I can’t control, the shade of you 

in the corner that won’t leave me alone tonight. 

I curse you and pray for quiet sleep. 

Love steals my dignity. I watch the fools’ circus 

play on and on. Here’s to the songs 

we used to sing, the times we used to know. 

I hear it. I hear it. 

Your breathing fills the house.

Amazing grace is all I need, 

what I am denied tonight.

There is such a lot of world, so many

lovers, but all I see, all I hear

are ghosts and clowns as the past

floats in through the window, keeps me

awake, falling into nightmare.

NOTE: italicized phrases come from Neil Diamond’s lyrics in If You Know What I Mean

Day 25

Notes on Notes

I am Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, play

past bedtime and into moonrise,

my notes on notes that cleave time

and leave me dangling on twine

above the bed, like a dreamcatcher

with spider weaving mad music

to keep all of us safe in darkness,

to filter carnival dreams from nightmares.

I am strains of melody, running

under stars dead already — beyond

the 186,000 miles it took them

to get their light here for us to admire.

If you make note of my notes, play

them again in daylight, they have flattened

or grown too sharp for your palate,

for the smell of bacon frying

or the splash of juice in the jelly jar

your mother calls “glasses.”

I am fine-honed music, or jazz or rap,

but always playing at night, in shadow.

I am not a brass band on the street

or a booming car stereo. I am steady

bars, glissando or lente. No fortissimo

will do for my score. Eine Kleine Nacht

a little bit of note on notes, a little musik

to make it worth opening your eyes, singing.

Day 26

How To Do It

When you wake up lonely, feel yourself in quicksand

or a bowl of stars a few light years away

from midnight, grab the last thread of the last dream

you remember, hold on and swing down 

into a pond or the edge of a still pool, where trout

can fill in the blanks, hold up a mirror

to show you where you’ve been and the way home.

When you fall asleep lonely, feel a sucking sensation

in your feet, or a sudden lift of your body

onto the lip of the universe, grab the first hot beam

of light that goes shooting by, hold on tight.

Think hard, recall the names of all your lost loves,

say them aloud as you begin to rise and go.

Keep your eyes open as long as the clock chimes.

Losing all senses one at a time, 

finding them again in reverse order —

A dance or a kiss, a wrench or a bullet. 

A rolled out blanket of stars.

AWP, a community of writers

This weekend is the annual AWP (Associated Writing Programs) conference. This year it is in Boston. It is one of the two or three annual events that keep me going as a writer. This is a rarefied experience where I get to listen to panel discussions and talks and readings while spending quality time with other writers, most of whom I only see once a year.

I am nearly packed for my trip, going down on Wednesday by train. No parking issues, no driving in the city. Ahhhh. And then there is the hotel stay. Pricey sure. But totally worth it. I am feeling great about the events and the dining and the drinking of fine wine. I am looking forward to seeing fellow alums from Vermont College and some poets whose work I admire. All in all, I am fired up, ready to go.

I hope to be blogging the conference this time... something I haven't done before. So stay tuned.

Pluralism is born in schools; but are we killing it at its source?

I've been thinking heavily about the problems with our larger society, relating to the stalemate that exists at every level of government. We seem to be (again) a deeply divided country over issues like gun safety (school safety is a huge part but not all of that heated debate at the highest levels) and budgetary concerns, and on and on, often ad nauseum.  We are divided on the role of government in the daily lives of citizens, voting access, and access to quality education for our young people. We seem to be on a continuous loop and cannot extricate ourselves from the "problems" long enough to sit down and think them through rationally (in many cases). I am left wondering where the fissure opened and swallowed reason, which used to be a virtue and now seems utterly vilified by the "powers that be" in DC and state legislatures. When did the funhouse mirrors become the lenses through which we observe and engage?

I believe with all my heart and mind that education is the last best hope for solving our problems. However, we can't seem to agree upon what constitutes "quality" education in this country. We measure and measure and grind our teeth to stubs over scores. We blame and shame. We revile teachers and accuse them of being "the problem" along with their unions. There is plenty of blame being slung and teachers have become easy targets. I have ideas about why, but the purpose of this entry is not that... stay tuned though as it is coming! For now I want to address something that may be a can of wriggling worms unless it is actually a safe harbor where we might moor this sinking ship and regroup.

We open for-profit charters thinking businesses must know how to educate, how to run schools, how to weed out the best and brightest from the chaff of the ordinary. We blather on and on about curriculum and standards. What I am not hearing is a solid mission statement that outlines in PLAIN language why we educate in public schools at all. Oh sure, there is the flavor-du-jour message about "preparing today's students to compete in a global economy (or "on the global stage") message that seems to have gotten huge traction in the media and at school boards and education committees across the land. BAH. This is what I'd call a load of bullshit, but just say psycho-babble if you are not into expletives.  Let's unpack that message for a minute:

Prepare our students... :  This sounds like we are operating a training facility of some sort, a place where the only thing that matters is rote performance of tasks. I can't help but question this. I am also reminded grimly of the final part of that old B & W movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still, where we see the cookbook which says it all, portrays the real message that was so understood: To Serve Man. I personally prefer the word, "empower," but maybe I am being too lacking in commercialism here. Can't have that.

to compete... : We must ask ourselves whether we believe education is a zero-sum-game? Is it an event or series of encounters where there are winners and losers? We have gone from a country of states and towns and cities where local schools were the norm to large conglomerate systems of unified districts and consolidated schools. We believe, or have come to believe, that we must make it a race to some finite goal line. Arne Duncan has dismantled the notion that smaller is better. He has promoted this new flavor du jour, Race to the Top. It is  putting lipstick on the pig yet again, making No Child Left Behind into Some Children Will Be Ahead while all others do get left behind. For a race, is by its very definition and denotation comprised of a top few "winners" and a bottom multitude of "losers."

in a global economy... :  How's that global economy principle working out? Ask Greece, Spain, and others whose economies fall or rise (so far none of that rising part) by ties to a "global" monetary unit (the Euro). It seems to me that economic motives in education are less about personal and community success and esteem than the more rote, competitive motives that pit people against one another in a zero-sum game modality. We say we are looking for students to be "successes," but our plan to get them there is more like a series of job-tied constraints with a different label slapped on the process for education to make it palatable. Ask whether it's our end result to gin out worker bees who are measured by what monetary contributions they might make later on. Are we asking our young people to settle for an education that will assure they work in jobs that bring home a basic salary? Are we dressing up the model in order to "feed the queen bee" with skill sets and production figures as measurements? I think we are. It is worrying.

I did not take up writing as a way to earn a living wage, although it would be nice to have a society believe that this thing I do has economic benefit for me and for all. For the "earning" part, I turned first to nursing, then to teaching. Always however writing was part and parcel of who I am as a human being. Yes, I admit it: I am first and most of all a human being.

and on the global stage:  Perhaps most insidious and sinister of all the psycho-babbled parts of our "message" is this idea of humans as mere actors in the schema of society. In all plays and films etc there are the protagonists, the villains, the do-gooders who are just too nice to survive, and above it all the director and the producers. Is this thing we like to call education some grand production, and we the players? What script are we following and who is in charge? Is this a grand comedy where all of us are fools who manage to marry and ride off into the sunset at the end, or a tragedy where everyone dies?

I am worried. I am deeply worried. Gone are the days where children/students went off to school to improve their minds and learn citizenship and other community-based values along with languages, penmanship, math, science, and clear thinking. CRITICAL thinking it is called now and yet so many people give it lip service and fail to see it AS critical, other than as a piece of a resumé that lands a good job perhaps.

Seemingly gone too is the garden of ideas that flourished over discussions and debate. We have enmeshed ourselves in the process of actually smothering pluralism by insisting upon the artificial values of competition and one-upsmanship, brinksmanship, and rigorous high-stakes testing that competes for instructional time and blurs the lines between true success and pseudo-success. Pluralism is the belief that there may be several good ideas and good approaches and good points of view that are valid. Sounds good. Is good. But...we have allowed ideologues to replace a search for larger truths with fact-absent rants and verbal bullying tactics that can only polarize and enforce a me vs you, a we vs them life. Pluralism has become a bit of an archaic term and certainly is not at all the focus of an educational message coming from boards and school committees. More often than not, when I use the term, I get quizzical looks, raised eyebrows, and the question: what is THAT?

Civics is dead, and in its place AP History (US and World) that only marginally passes for anything related to how people co-exist in a much more immediate and smaller political environment. It is AP because that label certifies an excellence, an ADVANCED PLACEMENT in the competing arena of education. It is a please pass go, please collect $200 School Monopoly game. The problem with that is that it leaves behind many bright and accomplished learners who do not have the AP opportunity, or who do not fare well on the artificial instrument that is the exam. But AP "success" is a meat and potatoes entity for school systems. It beefs up school numbers and reputations. It just plain looks good for a school to have large numbers of AP students who do well on the exams. Money follows. Loads of money. This is true for the rest of the high-stakes testing panoply. In resisting high-stakes testing (which leads to more testing, less instructional time beyond test prepping), schools actually LOSE funding. "We have to do it or we don't get the money," is what I hear over and over from school board members and not just a few administrators.

We tout STEM courses as what is "the" important curricular thrust, ignoring the fact that we have a Congress that refuses to accept the outcomes and findings of Science and Mathematics. The Engineering and Technology sides of the rectangle are utilitarian enough to be acceptable because they can be justified in that they fit the business model that is so popular today. Social studies, all social science, is suspect and looked at as some kind of witchcraft in terms of trustworthiness.  Social Studies is not even ON the SAT now. There is a writing component, because there was an outcry for it a few years ago, but it is a joke. Rubrics developed for scoring are artificial touch points and do not allow for any kind of writing that shows creativity or thought. If the rubrics' buzz words are found in the writing, the score is high even if the writing completely lacks style, mechanics, or creative thought. It's just too damn bad for that student who dared to take any kind of out of the box approach. We do not reward thinking whatsoever in our quest for "success" on these tests.

Where is the chance for healthy debate of ideas here? At this rate, it is seemingly nowhere. But why does it matter in the short term if our long term goals are purely utilitarian or commercial? It matters because we are human beings, each of us somewhat unique, with common needs for our shared planetary existence.

But unless and until we turn this train around, we are headed over the cliff. Not a fiscal cliff but an intellectual one, right down into a chasm of group-think destruction. STEM is a good thing: See, Think, Experiment, Mess up, then start again with fresh ideas and approaches and help from the ideas of others. My GRAND WISH for my children was that they learn to stand apart from me, their own legs firmly planted on the ground, doing their best and hashing out their errors with the help of great arguments and collaborations. It is the same wish I have for all of our children.

So what to do now? Indeed what the hell to do? Be a promoter of pluralism in your community. Share openly (with excitement, but not with arrogance) when you have an opinion, but by all means, talk to one another. That person in front of you might just have something important to say.

Truancy; not an old problem

It's a sad state of affairs that, in 2013, truancy is not a faded memory but rather an active problem. There are parents of young children (elementary school age children) who simply do not see it as a value to get their children up, dressed and to the bus in the morning. As a young mother, a single parent with no nearby help, including from the children's father, I got my four girls up, fed, dressed, and to the bus on time every day. Their homework was done, checked, and in their backpacks or book bags. I saw that as the primary responsibility of my adult life. No matter how stressful MY life was (and it was in those days), I knew for my own children to have any kind of futures I had to step up and make that happen for them. My own mother was always there for me while my father earned our living, working long hours and much overtime. They both valued education and saw it as a pathway to the future for me and my siblings. It was not MY responsibility at age 7 or 8 or 9 to get that handled. That job belonged to my parents, more specifically to my mother. And never was there a report card that came home unexamined by my parents in detail, with follow-up conversations with our teachers.

Fast forward to 2013 and my shock to discover there are students in our school district who have missed between 30 and 70 days of school already this year. I was shocked to hear too that there are parents who never look at the report cards of their children, never attend a parent-teacher conference. How can this be? What are these parents doing other than parenting?

I certainly understand that it often takes parents cobbling together several jobs to make ends meet. They are living on a thin string. Often one or the other works nights and both work days. It is hard to live under such stress, in such dire conditions. It is depressing, demoralizing. But the children of these hard-working parents deserve to be top priority, deserve the sacrifice of time and effort by their parents to engage with the process by which their children can break the cycle of poverty and stress in their own lives.

In our school district most children travel to school by bus. Unlike California where so many districts have opted OUT of transporting students, we still do. We provide breakfast and lunch for over 60% of our students, at a free or reduced cost. We put great effort into our curricula and our teachers work very diligently to meet academic needs with rigor and with increasing innovation of methods.

So, what's wrong? Why are so many students in our district and other districts staying home in epic numbers? They are not, in most cases, "ditchers" who go to school and skip out after getting off the bus. No. They never get there in the first place. They are captives in a culture of truancy imposed upon them by the very people who ought to be nurturing them.

As a school board member, I am disturbed and disheartened. I worry about these children. I am angry with their parents. No little girl ought to stay home from school and sit in her parents' apartment all day without playmates, without being part of a classroom of learners. What is WRONG with parents who cannot be bothered to get her up, dressed, and off to a bus that stops two houses away from their apartment?

The State of Maine is in the midst of a fresh look at how to help. I wait to see if help will come. In the meantime, I think it is time for someone to talk turkey about the problem here. It's way past time. This problem will not go away on its own.

A new blog —please visit, comment, and follow

Announcing my new blog Poetry Zone: http://write365poems.blogspot.com

I hope you will enjoy reading the poems of my 365 Challenge. As of today, I am at 102. I am posting them on the blog weekly, after having posted everything from November, December, and January.

Enjoy!