Unprepared, with a case of asparagus

Last week I finally watched my dad’s favorite movie, which he’s been referencing for years: Never Cry Wolf. It’s based on the memoir of a naturalist who gets dropped off in the Arctic (alone with a canoe, a bassoon, and cases of beer and asparagus) with the purpose of studying wolf behavior. At the time (the early ‘80s), wolves were believed to be killing off the caribou herds. With the help of the wolf pack he observes, and the Inuit who saves his life more than once, he learns that the wolves live on mice during the winter, and that they actually keep the caribou herds healthy by hunting down the sick and weak.

We know all this now, but I think it’s interesting to look back to a time when facts that are taken for granted were unknown to modern science. Also, though the movie depicts actual events, I couldn’t help seeing it as a fable. The hero sets out on an adventure, at first idealistic but soon apprehensive of what will occur. He almost dies several times. He meets people along the way, and some who seem friendly turn out not to be, while others who might be discounted as old-fashioned are really wise. Many of his assumptions and expectations are turned upside down, most significantly that the wolf finds and observes him before he has any idea where the wolf is. Ultimately, he finds new definitions of peace and home.

Will wolves become my new obsession? Probably not, although I was really taken with the wolf pack in this movie—their social structure, their struggles and loyalties. Two years ago, around this time of year, I read two YA books, Julie of the Wolves, and its sequel, Julie, by Jean Craighead George. Though aimed at a young audience, these books are based on true observations of wolf behavior, relationships, and communication. The animal parts of me recognized and loved the human parts of the wolves.

The Idea Store

I love the MFA program at Goddard College. I just returned from my third residency there (it’s the start of my third and next-to-last semester). This time I am working with Rachel Pollack, a brilliant cross between rabbi, shaman, and favorite English teacher.

We were blessed by a visit from octogenarian poet Marie Ponsot. I was not familiar with her work, and while I enjoyed her reading, it was in her workshop that I really learned. Marie stated that she believes the sentence is the “keystone in the arch of literature,” and that all forms of writing have the sentence as their origin. The exercise she had us do was to take a sentence (we used William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”) and rewrite it five times. There are no rules- you can be literal and grammatical, or you can immediately spin out into figurative language. Then, once you have five new sentences, pick one of them and rewrite it five times. She didn’t put a limit on the process, but I did a series of three rewrites.

Marie said, “Students always ask me, where can I get an idea? Well- you can’t send someone to the idea store. But- you can have them do this exercise.” By the third rewrite (we went around the room and each read ours), most people’s sentences were miles away from the original. The process was fascinating and rich. I started out with, “The cistern contains, the fountain overflows.” I ended up with things like, “Rain changes everything,” and “Water will flow uphill.”

One of the assignments I had from Rachel was to tell a story (beginning, middle, and end) in five sentences. After I wrote my first draft, I used Marie’s approach of rewriting one sentence at a time. I actually hand wrote each sentence by itself on a piece of paper and rewrote it five times, dealing with it individually before trying to rework it in the context of all five sentences. When I slowed down and took my prose poem apart so meticulously, each sentence became a doorway to a more complex meaning. Pushing myself to do five rewrites for each component also helped me see multiple possibilities for the piece. Now I have one more trick in my writer’s toolbox!

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.