2 things

Hey all:

1. Major Jackson did a photo essay from the Poetry Festival and a whole bunch of my images came up. It's on the Poetry Foundation's website here. You can view my full photo set of the experience here.

2. Two of my poems were published today here.

Hope you are all doing well! I'm in dire need of a nap. :)

xox

I was amazed after I finally posted what I backwash of shame I felt. It took four days to work up the courage to come back to the site. So now I'm here I wrote this incantation. It's not really a poem. It's a blurt.

Incantation

Ask.
Knock.
Squeak.
Speak.
The word is strong.
Sound is essential.

Defy the shame.

Come out.
Show up.
Dig up the talents.
Release the light.
Dare.
Vote.
Shout.
Shine
Be still.
Be radiantly,
quietly,
articulately,
completely
yourself.

Hello

Hello,

I am so happy to see all of you have kept in touch. I am new to the blogger world and I just created my own account (very exciting)! I hope to post some of my poetry soon to see what you all think of my writing. I hope you are all well and continue with the creative spirit you showed at the festival.

:0) Jessica

Friday Evening February First

Gratitude for the poems and messages you have posted on our blog. Reading them lets me be with you all again and inspires me to write.

I think we are a rare group of poets, and I am sustained by us.

I rarely miss the past but the fact is that I miss our time together.

Nura

From Eliza, as she tries to learn how to post :)

Dear Friends:

I feel like a mid-night stalker: I don't know how to come out of the dark and actually post! So here I am commenting and filling up the airwaves.

But because my resivion has to do with my conflict about speaking and being heard I'm sending these three poems which are the middle of a set of six called "Revision." They're a response to our gathering and my inability to revise the last poem I brought to the group.

Take Note

What’s alive is never what you think.
What you think is already dead.
No, these words are mis-said.
What’s alive is in between. . .
like Kachinas. . .
stepping down. . .
or across. . . living as they do in the cracks
of dimensions
so they appear – if you happen to see them – spindly,
loose-limbed, gigantic.

Everything you see is questionable.
What you think, more so.

But I still lift my head to look out
the door at the river roaring
with Saturday boats.


The Teacher

I’m sure we all wrote a hundred poems
the Saturday after Malena’s workshop.
Twelve disciples in a room communing
with each other’s work.

What else could we do?

Gurdjieff says we go to church for the sex
of gathering bodies, the electricity of minds
brought to attention. . .
. . . and her stillness,
her clarity
held up before us.


The Work We Do
(Sunday)

1.
My brother the engineer builds giant buoys
that ping the China Sea. Counting fish,
the government says.

2.
Like a whale sounding his sea, mapping passage, gauging
threats - where shallows lie, where canyons rise, or fall,
where others group, where dangers lurk - we gather feedback,
collect echoes, test the limits of our event.

3.
After that first gulp, that first smacking cry, the falling panic
at the grave grip of a dry sea, the hard edged world of flat echoes,
unbearable light, what comfort? Who responds late at night?
Are you angry her cries break your sleep, her aloneness echoing
your own?

4.
The buoy’s pings are so loud they stun whales,
my brother says regretfully,
at the end of his career.

5.
If I squeeze into a small enough box, if I muffle
the sound, will my siblings be safe?
Will I?

These poems feel incidental, trivial. But the process of writing them was interesting.

Thanks to all, e.

Oh, my goodness! I'm here! After all that huffing and puffing and leaving stray comments.

Thank you all for that wonderful encounter. I've so enjoyed reading your posts and amazing poems. It's so good to have this venue. Thank you, Molly.

E.

I wrote a dozen poems the days after the workshop, and this is one of a series of six called "Revision." None of the poems have much gravitas, but they're playing with the event and the issues that troubled me about the poem I failed to revise.

The Teacher

I’m sure we all wrote a hundred poems
the Saturday after Malena’s workshop.
Twelve disciples in a room communing
with each other’s work.

What else could we do?

Gurdjieff says we go to church for the sex
of gathering bodies, the electricity of minds
brought to attention. . .
. . . and her stillness,
her clarity
held up before us.

State to State: Minnesota and New York poetry contest