Join me in creating the Republic of Poetry

I am so proud to be a Hampshire College alum. The college is exemplary in so many ways and continually allies itself with people I admire. The speaker at my commencement in 2004 (chosen by a student vote) was brave and pioneering journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. This year's speaker, also chosen by students, was brave and pioneering poet Martin Espada. His inspirational speech advocates justice and love as strongly as it does resistance and determination.

Espada wrote: "In the Republic of Poetry there is no war, because phrases like 'weapons of mass destruction,' 'shock and awe,' 'collateral damage' and 'surge' are nothing but clichés, bad poetry by bad poets, and no one believes them. They bleed language of its meaning, drain the blood from words. You, the next generation, must reconcile language with meaning, restore the blood to words, and end this war."

Read the whole speech.

Small Poems in No Room

It would be great if I had a room of my own, with a door I could shut, a comfy armchair in the corner, and a desk by the window. I would write there for long hours, noises filtering in faintly from outside. Alas, I have no such room, and neither do many other writers who do their best to scrape together words as hastily as I grab my breakfast before running down the stairs on my way to work.

So, Virginia Woolf said a woman deserves a room of her own. Well—deserves and has are two different things. Sandra Cisneros said (and I paraphrase) that poetry is the particular art form of the poor, busy, working woman without a room of her own. It can be written on scraps. It can be written at the reception desk between calls. It can be written on lunch breaks—I take mine by a fountain, which sometimes splatters my page when the wind blows.

Poetry is often at its most powerful when it is most condensed. Think of how the haiku is revered. Think of Emily Dickinson and her four-line landscapes. This is different than the epic, grandiose work of Whitman or Ginsberg. I realized the other day that in my writing goals for grad school I’d written that I wanted to write longer, more complex poems. Do my poems have p*nis envy? Or too much American super-sized pride? Why not hope to write shorter, more complex poems?

Part of me (the scared part) is still searching for the ONE answer to how to write well…. I guess that scared part is the same part that looks to blend in with the American monoculture. But the diversity of the world, of art and nature continually throw monkey wrenches into the gears of those creaky assumptions. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for the challenge of juggling work, school, relationship, self, and writing in a corner of the living room early in the morning when I’m the only human awake, when I almost have a room of my own.

Gotta love New England

I'm so excited! I've been avoiding the news this week because I got overloaded on tragedy, so I missed the good news that New Hampshire has legalized civil unions for same-sex couples! Yay! It's one more step in the direction of the acknowledgement, respect, and dignity that everyone deserves.

Since I grew up in the Episcopal church, this article was particularly wonderful.

Talk about efficiency

I am in love with most things Indian. It's been over six years since I returned from visiting my aunt's family in Mumbai, and while the detailed memories are fading, my feelings of fascinated affection and appreciation remain.

I am really busy these days planning my lovely lesbian wedding, AND taking some time off from school (having fun & relaxing takes time, too).

So, instead of sharing my own random thoughts, I want to share this article.

I wish I could get lunch this way!

Unusual Beauty

If I had kids, this is one of those stories I'd tell them dozens of times, until they rolled their eyes: I had an art teacher and he changed my life. He turned my ideas of color inside out, and my ideas of subject matter upside down. He took my art history class on a field trip to a junkyard. He showed slides of graffiti he'd found inside abandoned buildings. He taught at my small private school for four years, long enough to shock some parents and just long enough to affect me forever....

Read the full story on Minds Island.

Irony In Experience

I have yet to explicate here the theory I developed after reading John Cage’s lectures: that reading a published text to oneself is a performance that can never be replicated because the environment is continually acting upon the reader, thus influencing the reader’s experience of the text in that moment…. Well, now I have. That’s basically the theory. I’ll give you some examples from my own life later.

The point is, I just had a very ironic experience of said theory. I was sitting at my work computer during my lunch break, reading an essay about Language Poetry (or, writing in “Open Forms”). The argument goes that Open Forms invite readers to create the meaning of the text along with the author. The author ceases to be an absolute authority in the making of meaning. Personally, I love this idea, even though some people shirk at “experimental” art, calling it the most elitist of all forms. But initially hard to understand in a traditional way isn’t the same as elitist.

Anyway, here I am reading about how to write in ways that don’t constrict readers, and in walks a woman who wants me to hang some posters for her festival. She says, “Ok, how many posters do you guys want?” I say, “I think two would be enough.” “Well,” she tells me, “you usually take three, two for the door and one for somewhere else.” “Well,” I reply, “I guess we’ll take three!”

I couldn’t help laughing to myself. She asked the most closed question possible! The universe is snickering.

A Voice for Peace

Wednesday night I heard a wonderfully life-affirming poetry reading by Naomi Shihab Nye... If you haven't read anything by her, you should. What a beautiful and caring person. She's the type who can have everyone waiting at an airport gate start talking to each other. She goes up to soldiers and engages them in warm conversation, then writes empassioned anti-war poems with the conviction of a mother who cares for the world so much it hurts.

Read more at Western MA Poetry Reviews.