Blog Archives - Marianne Murphy Zarzana

Poems from Prison

3/11/2011

This Tuesday, March 15 at 7 p.m., Jim Reese will be reading from his new book of poems, ghost on 3rd, in the Whipple Art Gallery at Southwest Minnesota State University. Jim has been the National Endowment for the Arts' Writer in Residence at the Yankton Federal Prison Camp since 2008. Here are two poems based on his experiences teaching at the prison. Jim is a terrific writer and performer. I hope you can join us. Please spread the word. Let's fill the seats.

Jesus Christ Pose

I walk both sides of the fence.
I have no sympathy for those who premeditate
and execute heinous crimes.

In a theatre practicum in San Quentin
I watch you, a prisoner, standing
in the center of the room.

You raise your hands, palms up,
head dangling down,
your Jesus Christ pose.

You begin to stand on one foot.
The room is quiet. People begin
shifting in their seats.

Minutes pass. You begin to lose your balance.
Every morning, you say, after my foster father left for work,
she made me stand in the corner like this.

When your desperate left foot
hits the ground
you scream in the voice of a child

being beaten.
And now I understand why
some of you are here.

* * *

Habit

I suppose it's just habit,
when I pass the guys in the yard that I ask,
How's it going?
Always since I was a kid, I'd ask,
How's it going? To strangers--to friends.

Today, as I pass men in their prison-issued khakis
and numbered shirts, one stops and tells me,
Don't you know--you're not supposed to ask us that?
And those few seconds that we stand face to face--
I try to conjure up what I should have said before a guard
orders him away.

What I should have said was,
No, I didn't know. How stupid of me
not to think of something smarter to say.
Me, the teacher, who can leave this prison camp
any time I like.

Prayers for Bobby: A Mother's Coming to Terms with the Suicide of Her Gay Son

3/10/2011

While on spring break this week, I finished reading the book Prayers for Bobby: A Mother's Coming to Terms with the Suicide of Her Gay Son by Leroy Aarons. One of my SMSU students had recommended it to me last fall. At the time the news was filled with stories of gay teens taking their own lives as a consequence of brutal bullying and vicious harassment.

Here's the synopsis: "Bobby Griffith was an all-American boy ...and he was gay. Faced with an irresolvable conflict--for both his family and his religion taught him that being gay was 'wrong'--Bobby chose to take his own life. Prayers for Bobby, nominated for a 1996 Lambda Literary Award, is the story of the emotional journey that led Bobby to this tragic conclusion. But it is also the story of Bobby's mother, a fearful churchgoer who first prayed that her son would be 'healed,' then anguished over his suicide, and ultimately transformed herself into a national crusader for gay and lesbian youth. As told through Bobby's poignant journal entries and his mother's reminiscences, Prayers for Bobby is at once a moving personal story, a true profile in courage, and a call to arms to parents everywhere."

Some of the resource information is dated (the book was written in 1995), but the message is still pertinent for gay and straight audiences.

Lifetime aired a movie version based on the book with Sigourney Weaver playing Bobby's mother, Mary Griffith. I haven't watched it, but it received good reviews. Here's the trailer (which made me cry, as the book did--a tough ride): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBVcTCpKx3g

As writers, we all know the power of telling our stories--no matter what struggles we face. Writing our stories--telling the full truth--takes courage, the courage to open our hearts and become vulnerable. But by doing so we feed others who are hungry for our words, for affirmation of their humanity. And in turn we receive a priceless gift--the sustenance we need for our journey.

Jim Reese to Read from ghost on 3rd at SMSU on Tues., March 15

3/9/2011

As part of the SMSU Visiting Writers Series, Jim Reese will read from his new book, ghost on 3rd, on Tues., March 15, at 7 p.m., in the Whipple Art Gallery at Southwest Minnesota State University. The event is free and open to the public, and Reese's books will be available to purchase.

Here's what Reese's website has to say about his new book:

Jim Reese’s newest collection, ghost on 3rd, is riddled with love, latent violence, humor, and prison life. Critics who said that his last collection kicked “like an old pump-12 gauge” will be happy to find the barrels sawed off in this book. Reese shows no sign of putting the hammer down—he takes his reader on the daily routine and long nights that are an inescapable part of raising two small daughters—shows us how family is not a burden but a complex source of joy. Ride shotgun with him down the lonesome byways of the Great Plains westward into San Quentin prison, where he has full access and isn’t afraid to ask the hard questions. Author John Price writes: “Reese’s beautiful and powerful poems are born of ‘wish and skin and bone,’ of dirt and dignity, of faith and fry grease, of laughter and lament. To read them is to be carried to a place where risk is a promise fulfilled—whether it be the homing memory of a grandfather or eating suspicious pastries or raising children or teaching poetry to inmates. It is a place where the familiar opens into the extraordinary, and even, at times, the miraculous.”

Recommendations:

We call it the heartland but we seldom drop by for a visit. Jim Reese catches the dying fire of the small town wasteland that staggers on with meth, desire, and neglect. These loving poems open the door to the real little house on the prairie. Time to step inside and finally have one honest moment with the forgotten center of our people. - Charles Bowden
author of SOME OF THE DEAD ARE STILL BREATHING: LIVING IN THE FUTURE

Here’s a poet of extraordinary talent who juxtaposes the voices of ordinary people with those of his young family. Reese is most moving, however, when he writes with tenderness about his wife and children, and the delicate place that the young husband and wife create for themselves in the midst of everyday small town life and in the odd, precious moments when their children don’t need them. These poems will make you laugh and cry. Ghost on 3rd is one of the strongest books of poetry I’ve read in a very long time. - Maria Mazziotti Gillan
winner of the 2008 American Book Award for ALL THAT LIES BETWEEN US

In Ghost on 3rd, everything is connected, and everything is fragile. In these poems, ordinary life with its children and neighbors crackles like a mirage, and shifts and opens, and we find we’ve been all along in San Quentin prison. What is it we just saw?—a five-year-old child swinging on the monkey bars, or a tattooed convict, crying? Reese’s eye is the eye of a father, and he finds his world both alien and comforting. These are poems of praise and poems of warning, infused with love and latent violence. Reese makes us feel the threat throbbing inside the song. - Kent Meyer
author of THE TWISTED TREE

"Marked By Ashes" - by Walter Brueggemann

3/8/2011

A friend emailed me this prayer poem, and I share it here for Ash Wednesday. I love the fresh, unsentimental images and direct language, the honesty and bluntness of "that taste of ash in our mouth: of failed hope and broken promises" balanced with the hope of "Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom / Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth."

I hope amidst the burdens and "tasks of the day," you find a sense of "gift and newness and possibility" in your writing life.

Marked by Ashes

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
     halfway back to committees and memos,
     halfway back to calls and appointments,
     halfway on to next Sunday,
     halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
     half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
   but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes --
     we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
       of failed hope and broken promises,
       of forgotten children and frightened women,
     we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
     we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with
   some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
   anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you --
   you Easter parade of newness.
   Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
     Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
     Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
   Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
     mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

- Walter Brueggemann (b. 1933)

For over thirty years now, Walter Brueggemann (b. 1933) has combined the best of critical scholarship with love for the local church in service to the kingdom of God. Now a professor emeritus of Old Testament studies at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, Brueggemann has authored over seventy books. Taken from his Prayers for a Privileged People (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), pp. 27-28.

"Antilamentation" by Dorianne Laux from The Book of Men

3/7/2011

I'm a fan of award-winning poet Dorianne Laux, and I enjoyed her poem "Antilamentation," which is posted on The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor today. It's from The Book of Men, her new book of poems just out this February. Here's what Zinta from Portage, Michigan, wrote on the Better World Books website about Laux's new book:

"Mushrooms and stamens and pollinating bees, all bursting from a man’s briefs … this new collection of poetry by Dorianne Laux. . . is as seductive and enticing a literary treat as one has come to expect from one of America’s most delicious poets. If a treatise on boys and men, men on their own, men in the poet’s life, men observed at a distance, men in the moon, then it is also very much a collection for women and by one."

Dana Yost story, "Through Anxiety and Back," in today's Des Moines Register

3/6/2011

Here is the link to an excellent feature story, "Through Anxiety and Back," about Dana Yost, former award-winning editor of the Marshall Independent in today's Des Moines Register:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011103060302

Dana will be reading from his new book of essays and poems, The Right Place, at Southwest Minnesota State University on Wed., April 6, at 7-8 p.m. in CH 201. Please join us.

AARP Driver Safety Program & Travel Writing

3/5/2011

Today my husband Jim and I spent our Saturday morning and afternoon taking an AARP Driver Safety Course at our local Adult Community Center here in Marshall. Why? Probably for the same reason as the other 25 people there: to get a 10% discount on our car insurance. You can take the course online, but we figured we'd go together and get it done in one chunk. Besides saving money, I was surprised to take away another bonus from the day--a trunkload of images and ideas for my travel writing.

Although my favorite genre is poetry, I love writing non-fiction as well. In grad school at Minnesota State University, Mankato, I took a great non-fiction writing workshop from award-winning writer Richard Terrill. Then a couple summers ago I took a wonderful class on literary travel writing from Lon Otto at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. For that class we read Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, billed on the book cover as "a classic tale from one of the world's best-loved travel writers." We also got to pick a book to read for the class, and I chose Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. After focusing on my poetry writing, it's been freeing to have a more expansive canvas such as non-fiction.

Who are some of your favorite travel writers? What are your favorite travel books?

The Chain Letter of the Soul - by Bill Holm

3/4/2011

In addition to receiving daily emails of The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, you can subscribe to Writer's Almanac Extra, a monthly email newsletter. Here's what Keillor wrote in this month's Writer's Almanac Extra about Bill Holm, a former professor at Southwest Minnesota State University:

"Bill Holm was a great man and unlike most great men he really looked like one. Six-foot-eight, big frame, and a big white beard and a shock of white hair, a booming voice, so he loomed over you like a prophet and a preacher, which is what he was. He was an only child, adored by his mother, and she protected him from bullies, and he grew up free to follow his own bent and become the sage of Minneota, a colleague of Whitman though born a hundred years too late, a champion of Mozart and Bach, playing his harpsichord on summer nights, telling stories about the Icelanders, and thundering about how the young have lost their way and abandoned learning and culture in favor of grease and noise.

"He thundered with the best of them though he had a gentle heart. He was an English prof who really loved literature, and he could buttonhole you and tell you he'd just finished reading Dickens again and how wonderful it was. He got himself into print pretty well, and anyone picking up his Windows of Brimnes or The Music of Failure or The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth will get the real Holm." — Garrison Keillor

Yoga and Writing

3/3/2011

"The more completely we inhabit our own bodies with both their strengths and their flaws, the more compassionate we become towards all of life." -Krista Tippett on Being, the weekly public radio program

This week Tippett focuses her show on yoga as a spiritual practice with an interview of Seane Corn, a renowned yoga teacher and founder of "Off the Mat, Into the World."

Over the years, I've found that practicing yoga supports and energizes my writing practice. On my green mat, I move into poses that open my chest (camel or ustrasana), make me feel vulnerable and call for courage (handstands and backbends), root me deep (tree and warrior pose), and remind me to play (front lying boat pose, supta navasana--my yoga teacher calls this the "supergirl" pose). Seated at my writing desk, I take all of that with me--open heartedness, courage, rootedness, and playfulness--as I face the blank page.

Christine Stewart-Nunez to Read at SMSU, Thurs., March 3, 7 p.m., CH 201

3/2/2011

Christine Stewart-Nunez will be reading from her new book of poetry, Keeping Them Alive, at Southwest Minnesota State University, tomorrow, Thursday, March 3 at 7 p.m., in CH 201. I love the "voluptous rapture," as poet Lee Ann Roripaugh describes it, that Christine captures in this praise poem about pregnancy.

In Praise of a Pregnant Body

Some women count calories, step on the altar
of weight each week, mourn the loss of waist--
jeans too tight to button, I prefer to blossom.
I surrender to coconut salmon in banana leaves,
miso soup with prawns, paella, lasagna, seafood
risotto, mangu and tostones, salads of blueberries,
blood oranges, and papaya, the bloom of belly,
breasts spilling over seams, petals of areolas darkening.

I’ve abandoned the lunch-break park with its tire swing
and picnic of stale chips for the circus, lion tamers,
dogs with purple tutus, magicians pulling doves
from top hats, trapeze artists somersaulting
through the air. I want the Big Top’s pillows
of cotton candy dissolving in my mouth, mounds
of popcorn shiny with butter, globs of caramel
apples, hot dogs drenched in mustard.

Blood thickening and milk springing from nipples
remind me: be open. Enough of this suburb
with its square meals served in look-alike
houses. Give me Paris with its artists scattered
on sidewalks, painted confetti, dancers
in discotheques stretching onto streets at dawn.
With more body to envelop, I’ll browse boutiques
at the Rue du St.-Honoré, lounge sipping café-au-lait,
nibbling a croissant’s flakey layers. Order coq-au-vin
or pot-au-feu, decorate the board with baguette,
brie. Will mousse aux fraises complete me?

If I’d been born with different genes--
petite, straight-hipped, willowy-tall—would I enjoy
fat bowls of kalamata olives, sliced avocado,
desserts of mangoes in cream, pumpkin pie?
I surrender to possibility, to joy, to feasts
of seven-grain breads, lamb stews, chocolate
soufflés. I thank this baby whose growing bones
demand wheels of provolone, sticks of mozzarella,
cubes of sharp cheddar, cups of vanilla yogurt
at two a.m., whose kicks remind me to taste
roast beef, venison steak, the cream of deviled eggs.