Marianne Murphy Zarzana
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Joe Paddock - "One's Ship Comes In"

5/31/2011

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Several years ago I had the opportunity to hear a wonderful reading by Joe Paddock at SMSU. 
I was happy to see that Ted Kooser chose one of his poems for his poetry column this week.


American Life in Poetry: Column 323

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Joe Paddock is a Minnesota poet and he and I are, as we say in the Midwest, “of an age.” Here is a fine poem about arriving at a stage when there can be great joy in accepting life as it comes to us.

One’s Ship Comes In
 
I swear
my way now will be
to continue without
plan or hope, to accept
the drift of things, to shift
from endless effort
to joy in, say,
that robin, plunging
into the mossy shallows
of my bird bath and
splashing madly till
the air shines with spray.
Joy it will be, say,
in Nancy, pretty in pink
and rumpled T-shirt,
rubbing sleep from her eyes, or
joy even in
just this breathing, free
of fright and clutch, knowing
how one’s ship comes in
with each such breath.
  
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Joe Paddock from his most recent book of poetry, Dark Dreaming, Global Dimming, Red Dragonfly Press, 2009. Reprinted by permission of Joe Paddock and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. 

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Smoke Break Behind the Treatment Center

5/29/2011

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Debra Nystrom's poem "Smoke Break Behind the Treatment Center," posted on today's The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, put me smack into the uncomfortable shoes of those jittery smokers at the end of the third week of treatment and the start of family weekend. The poem's power resides in its understated, spare approach to a hot topic, such as noting that  in fifteen minutes the patients will "see the ones who've come to find out if / they are changing." 

This poem paints a vivid landscape that hints at the painful inner world of those in treatment:
"this door behind / the cafeteria, where they can look across / to the stubble field, world of chopped-off stalks / that has ripped them up, that they needed / too much from." 

Poems have the power to build empathy by letting us experience other worlds far removed from our own. In this poem, I can see and smell the smoke from the cigarettes, and though there is no description of anyone's face, I can imagine the pain in those eyes.

"Smoke Break Behind the Treatment Center" by Debra Nystrom, from Bad River Road. © Sarabande Books, 2009. 
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The Power of Poetry

5/28/2011

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On May 11, at "An Evening of Poetry at the White House," President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama welcomed renowned poets, such as Rita Dove and Billy Collins, to recite their work for a celebration of poetry. 

One of the presenters was 16-year-old Youssef Biaz of Auburn, Alabama who won the title of 2011 Poetry Out Loud National Champion at the National Finals held in Washington, D.C., on April 29. He read "Mrs. Krikorian" by Sharon Olds, a beautiful poem that pays tribute to one of those life-changing teachers who come into our lives. (Biaz appears 32 minutes into the video.)  Here are the opening lines: "She saved me. When I arrived in 6th grade, / a known criminal, the new teacher / asked me to stay after school the first day, she said / I've heard about you."

I appreciate that President Obama honors the power of poetry, as he notes in his opening remarks: 

"The power of poetry is that everyone experiences it differently. There are no rules for what makes a great poem; understanding it isn't just about metaphor or meter. Instead, a great poem is one that resonates with us, that challenges us and teaches us something about ourselves and the world we live in. As Rita Dove says, 'If poetry doesn't affect us on some level that cannot be explained in words, then the poem hasn't done its job.'

"For thousands of years, people have been drawn to poetry in a very personal way, including me... As a nation built on freedom of expression, poets have always played an important role in telling our American story. It was after the bombing of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 that a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key penned the poem that would become our national anthem. The Statue of Liberty has always welcomed 'the huddled masses yearning to be free.' Soldiers going off to fight in WW II were given books of poetry for comfort and inspiration. 

"Whenever our nation has faced great tragedy, whether it was the loss of a civil rights leader, the crew of the space shuttle or the thousands of Americans who were lost on a clear September day, we turn to poetry when we can't quite find the right words to express what we're feeling. So tonight we continue that tradition by hearing from some of our greatest as well as some of our newest poets.

"Billy Collins calls poetry the oldest form of travel writing because it takes us places we can only imagine. So sit back, or on the edge of your chair, and enjoy the journey."

In this video, Collins reads two of my all-time favorite poems of his, "Forgetfulness" and 
"The Lanyard." Collins makes us laugh and think and sigh as he holds up our lives in all their pain and poignancy. 

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Illuminating Truth -- The Aim of Science and Literature

5/27/2011

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According to The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, May 27 is the birthday of zoologist and writer Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, a book about environmental pollution. 

Her second book, The Sea Around Us, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. I love this quote from her acceptance speech: "The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction. It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.... The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities. If they are not there, science cannot create them. If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry."
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Learning to Fly on Wheels

5/25/2011

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Sheila Packa's poem, "Not Forgotten," recently posted on May 18 on The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor took me back to summer days of wobbly bike riding that turned into the thrill of flying on two wheels. I love the way Packa captures the father-daughter dynamic with such vivid imagery.

Jim and I both become kids once again as we ride our bikes on trails around town and explore trails around Minnesota. Last summer we biked the Lake Wobegone Trail up by Collegeville, and we highly recommend it. While bike riding, I get a good workout as  ideas for my writing "cook."  I often gain fresh perspectives for a particular poem or essay from the passing landscapes.

Happy trails to you, and all the best with your summer writing.
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The Only Safety

5/24/2011

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While on our recent road trip to the Southwest, Jim and I visited Las Cruces, New Mexico. My aunt, Mary Ahern Lawbaugh, my mother's sister, had lived there long ago, and I wanted to pay my respects to her life. It was good to see the home where she had lived, to recall wonderful memories hanging out with my five siblings and my five cousins while on a trip to visit relatives in the West. 

When I came home, I pulled out a poem I wrote about Aunt Mary years ago in graduate school but had never sent out to be published. I've revised it more, and now I think it's ready to go out. 
I share it here.

The Only Safety

for my aunt, Mary Ahern Lawbaugh (1938-1971)

When you died--a shock, a mystery still--my soul cramped,
a shadow of itself. Fifteen and sick that day for no reason, I sprawled
on a yellow bed. Then the phone call. A heavy curtain dropped.
The news, incomprehensible. The whole world's face going blank.

In first grade, I clutched a rabbit puppet in my plane seat flying
from O'Hare to Omaha to see your exhibit. At the Joslyn Art Museum,
I posed for a snapshot by the pillars, your name on the sign--
woman, mother, artist--your paintings alive on the walls inside.

At twelve, the next and last time I saw you, our family visited yours
in Las Cruces. You let me pick one of your paintings, "Jungle Moths,"
bright-winged, red, azure, orange, amidst bold tropical-green leaves.
Your moths still float on our kitchen wall, your presence at every meal.

After your passing, did I allow fear to keep the poet hidden, her words
hoarded in the dark? But words, like trees, crave light. Let me believe
this to be the only safety, the truest way to honor your life, your art:
throw open the door, let words, like seeds, loose upon the land, let trees
spring up where they may to give shelter and shade, bear fruit and beauty.

-Marianne Murphy Zarzana
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"Peace Lilies"

5/23/2011

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American Life in Poetry: Column 322

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Cathy Smith Bowers was recently appointed poet laureate of South Carolina, and I want to celebrate her appointment by showing you one of her lovely poems, a peaceful poem about a peaceful thing.

Peace Lilies 
 
I collect them now, it seems. Like
sea-shells or old
thimbles. One for
Father. One for

Mother. Two for my sweet brothers.
Odd how little
they require of
me. Unlike the

ones they were sent in memory
of. No sudden
shrilling of the
phone. No harried

midnight flights. Only a little
water now and
then. Scant food and
light. See how I’ve

brought them all together here in
this shaded space
beyond the stairs.
Even when they

thirst, they summon me with nothing
more than a soft,
indifferent furl-
ing of their leaves.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2004 by Cathy Smith Bowers, whose most recent book of poetry is The Candle I Hold Up to See You, Iris Press, 2009. Poem reprinted from A Book of Minutes, Iris Press, 2004, by permission of Cathy Smith Bowers and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

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"We are like eggs"

5/22/2011

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C.S. Lewis, an Irish-born British writer, is one of the world's most influential Christian thinkers and writers. He's written 30 books, and some of my favorites are The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, Surprised by Joy, A Grief Observed, and Till We Have Faces. 


Several years ago when we took a group of SMSU students on a Global Studies trip to England and France, it was a thrill to eat at the same pub in Oxford, The Eagle and Child, where Lewis hung out with his literary friends, "The Inklings," including J.R.R. Tolkien. 

Here's a quote by Lewis I just came across:
"We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad." -C.S. Lewis


What are you trying to hatch in your writing life? What Lewis books have made an impact on you? 
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Be a Columbus

5/21/2011

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"Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought." -Henry David Thoreau
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Duende

5/20/2011

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What are some of your favorite words? We have a word-a-day calendar, and the word for May 2 was the Spanish word "duende," defined as "the power to attract through personal magnetism and charm." 

I don't know Spanish, but I was familiar with the word through the writing of Federico Garcia Lorca and Pablo Neruda. Here's some excerpts from the Wikipedia entry on "duende":

"El duende is the spirit of evocation. It comes from inside as a physical/emotional response to music. It is what gives you chills, makes you smile or cry as a bodily reaction to an artistic performance that is particularly expressive. Folk music in general, especially flamenco, tends to embody an authenticity that comes from a people whose culture is enriched by diaspora and hardship; vox populi, the human condition of joys and sorrows. Drawing on popular usage and Spanish folklore, Federico Garcia Lorca first developed the aesthetics of Duende in a lecture he gave in Buenos Aires in 1933, "Juego y teoria del duende" ("Play and Theory of the Duende"). 

"According to Christopher Maurer, editor of 'In Search of Duende,' at least four elements can be isolated in Lorca's vision of duende: irrationality, earthiness, a heightened awareness of death, and a dash of the diabolical. The duende is a demonic earth spirit who helps the artist see the limitations of intelligence, reminding him that "ants could eat him or that a great arsenic lobster could fall suddenly on his head"; who brings the artist face-to-face with death, and who helps him create and communicate memorable, spine-chilling art. The duende is seen, in Lorca's lecture, as an alternative to style, to mere virtuosity, to God-given grace and charm (what Spaniards call "angel"), and to the classical, artistic norms dictated by the muse. Not that the artist simply surrenders to the duende; he or she has to battle it skillfully, "on the rim of the well", in "hand-to-hand combat". To a higher degree than the muse or the angel, the duende seizes not only the performer but also the audience, creating conditions where art can be understood spontaneously with little, if any, conscious effort. It is, in Lorca's words, "a sort of corkscrew that can get art into the sensibility of an audience... the very dearest thing that life can offer the intellectual." The critic Brook Zern has written, of a performance of someone with duende, "it dilates the mind's eye, so that the intensity becomes almost unendurable... There is a quality of first-timeness, of reality so heightened and exaggerated that it becomes unreal..."

"Lorca writes: "The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, 'The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.' Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation.". He suggests, "everything that has black sounds in it, has duende. [i.e. emotional 'darkness'] [...] This 'mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher explains' is, in sum, the spirit of the earth, the same duende that scorched the heart of Nietzsche, who searched in vain for its external forms on the Rialto Bridge and in the music of Bizet, without knowing that the duende he was pursuing had leaped straight from the Greek mysteries to the dancers of Cadiz or the beheaded, Dionysian scream of Silverio's siguiriya." [...] "The duende's arrival always means a radical change in forms. It brings to old planes unknown feelings of freshness, with the quality of something newly created, like a miracle, and it produces an almost religious enthusiasm." [...] "All arts are capable of duende, but where it finds greatest range, naturally, is in music, dance, and spoken poetry, for these arts require a living body to interpret them, being forms that are born, die, and open their contours against an exact present."

What musicians, dancers, and poets have duende in your experience? 

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    I love to play with words. To capture moments on the page. To explore the physical and spiritual geography of what I call "fly-over country." I write from imagination, observation and my own experience of wandering in fly-over country--the literal, physical spaces of my life on the Minnesota prairie and the inner territory of the soul. 

    I teach writing at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota. I enjoy cooking and traveling with my husband Jim, reading, practicing yoga, playing tennis, biking, hiking and gardening.

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