Flowers in November

This is one of the poems I wrote for the 30 Poems in 30 Days fundraiser. It's also included in the event anthology published by Center for New Americans. When I sent this poem out as a thank you to my sponsors for that event, my dad wrote back and asked if witch hazel blooming in November is a sign of climate change. Nope — there's no need to worry about this particular plant. This variety normally blooms in the fall.

Hamamelis virginiana

In November
you can still find dandelions
blooming, half buried
in dirt and gravel by the road.
In the woods, witch hazel
waves gnarled petals
every cockeyed way at the sky.
Bare, gray or brown is everywhere
you look, except for these
tiny yellow messages.

30 Days, 30 Poems, 30 Plants

This November, I intend to write 30 poems, each one about a different plant. Why 30 poems in November? It's a fundraiser for the Center for New Americans in Northampton, MA, which provides education and resources to immigrants and refugees. Why plants? Because I love them, I've been writing about them for years, and I enjoy well-defined writing challenges.

A more-than-head-sized head of lettuce
from Mountain View Farm in Easthampton.

Some people like writing in forms (sonnets, villanells, etc.) because the form gives them a parameter within which to explore difficult or unruly topics. The structure of a writing time period has a similar comforting yet challenging effect on me and my creative process.

If you'd like to help this project, please donate (and ogle at a giant head of lettuce) on my fundraising page. And if you'd like to sign up for the challenge yourself, do that here. For locals, there will be a reading on Wednesday, December 5 at 7:00 p.m. in Stoddard Hall at Smith College.

Many thanks for your support, whether in dollars or in spirit!

Atheism Billboard 2

Here's another poem inspired by these atheism billboards. This poem was also influenced by an article (that now I can't find) about how technology isn't inherently egalitarian. Some people like to think that more access to technology will solve all our problems, but until we work on ourselves and our society, technology will still reflect personal prejudices and societal inequality.

On the First Day Man Created God

So what? “Man” has created many things.

Tape measures, Big Macs, hula skirts ...

God, however, is still in development.

God beta was divisive and unevenly

distributed. God 2.0 was supposed to solve

everything & put love first.

Now interactive multimedia God promises

true equality, etc.

Wanna bet how that will turn out?

Atheism Billboard Pulled

I wrote this prose poem last month after seeing this post about three billboards put up in Ohio by an atheist group. They were pretty thought-provoking (and controversial, as we might expect).  The title is based on the billboard's message.

 

Reason Is a Virtue

We are as mice. Someone always wants us dead. Only in the garden can we be safe, but that place has been lost to us—if it ever existed beyond legend. The wheel turns, the hand of one who hates us cracks a whip. They tell us a story with a before and after, but the sun knows better. There is only turning.

Blueberry Memories

Here's one of the poems I wrote last month during National Poetry Month. It's part of a series I'm working on, a memoir told through plants. This prose poem combines a happy childhood memory with an adult's perspective on the oblivious selfishness we all have as children and must overcome to grow up as considerate people who will take care of our world and respect each other. The title is the scientific name for wild blueberries.


Vaccinium angustifolium

I was sent to summer camp. We made things: bracelets, a tipi. We swam and sang. Every Saturday, a yellow bus took us with our brown bag PB&Js to the foot of a mountain. Climbing separated customary clusters of friends. I saw strange trees. My feet learned about rocks. At the top, all that wind and more sunshine than we knew what to do with. Handfuls of tart little blueberries proffered themselves from short bushes with tiny leaves. Was everything in the world designed to care for us? We left our orange peels on the rocks.

Subways, Instant Oatmeal, and Poetry

Recently I heard this interview with poet Aracelis Girmay. I really liked what she had to say about how poetry helps us slow down and is in many ways completely the opposite of all that's fast-paced about our lives. I was driving on Bay Road in Hadley through beautiful foggy farmland, and this poem came to my mind.

On the Radio, a Writer Describes How Poetry Is the Opposite of Instant Oatmeal

On my morning commute

soil, puddles, corn stalks, two-hundred-year-old maples, dogs, houses, line of pine trees, yew windbreak, rutted mud, rusty wheels, fog, pink sky, a man walking a dog, a woman standing in a driveway, mailboxes

and through them I can already see

blue cubicle, computer screen, coffee maker, Coffee-mate, struggle, window, notepads, agenda items, folders, chairs, notes, lists, schedules, flip charts, the need to retreat

but the existence of poetry

smoothes my gritty alone into a silky alone, paints the man and the dog into a scene by Van Gogh, cheers the woman in the driveway onto a stage.