Blog Archives

Heroic Yes!

12/18/2011

A couple years ago I met Jason Freeman, a wonderful poet and an extraordinary person, at the John R. Milton Writers' Conference at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion. Since then, Jason has moved from Sioux Falls to San Diego to follow his dream of becoming an inspirational speaker.

To promote his new business, Jason writes a blog on his website, Heroic Yes! Productions. Check it out--well-crafted, fun, thought-provoking. And to spark your own dreams, read his free e-book "Who's the CEO of Your Life?" If you need an inspirational speaker who is professional, motivational and way outside the box for an upcoming group or event, I guarantee Jason will deliver.

0 Comments

Christine Stark to Read from New Novel at SMSU in January 2012

12/14/2011

0 Comments

Christine Stark, author of the groundbreaking new novel Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation, (published by Modern History Press) will read at Southwest Minnesota State University on Monday, January 23, 2012 at 7 p.m. I'll be posting the location soon and hope that many of you will be able to join us.

Here is a review of Nickels: "This is the book we've been waiting for. Christine Stark has crafted a language and a diction commensurate with the shredding of consciousness that is a consequence of childhood sexual abuse. She brings us a wholly original voice in a riveting novel of desperation and love. Stark enables the reader to inhabit the intricacy and chaos of this potent inner landscape, and we have not seen this before. Every sentence vibrates with a terrible beauty. Every sentence brings the news." - Patricia Weaver Francisco, Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery

According to Reader Views website, "Christine is an award-winning writer and visual artist whose work has been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies. Christine has also spoken at numerous conferences, rallies, and universities nationally and internationally. She has been on National Public Radio's Justice Talking and she has appeared on national TV. She has been a community organizer and activist for nearly twenty years. She is a 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee and a 2010 Loft Mentorship winner in creative non-fiction. In 2011 her poem, 'Momma's Song,' was released as a CD in collaboration with musician Fred Ho. Christine teaches writing at Metropolitan State University. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner, April, and their dog and cat."

Here is the synopsis of Nickels from the Reader Views website: "Nickels follows a biracial girl named 'Little Miss So and So,' from age 4-1/2 into adulthood. Told in a series of prose poems, Nickels' lyrical and inventive language conveys the dissociative states born of a world formed by persistent and brutal incest and homophobia. The dissociative states enable the child's survival and, ultimately, the adult's healing. The story is both heartbreaking and triumphant."

Christine is also a co-editor (with Rebecca Whisnant) of Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography,an international anthology about violence against women.

I'm looking forward to reading my copy of Nickels when I finish grading end of semester finals, research papers and journalism portfolios.

Best wishes to all the other teachers out there wrapping it up for the semester and heading into the victory lap.

0 Comments

"Two Gates" by Denise Low

12/11/2011

0 Comments

If you haven't already read Ted Kooser's poetry columns that I've posted here on Fly-over Country or discovered it in your local newspaper, I hope you enjoy this poem and possibly become a regular visitor to the American Life in Poetry website.

As a writing prompt based on this poem, write a letter from your future self (you choose how far down the path--one year, five, 10 or 30 years) to your present self. What would you like to tell the person you are now?

American Life in Poetry: Column 350
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

The persons we are when we are young are probably buried somewhere within us when we’ve grown old. Denise Low, who was the Kansas poet laureate, takes a look at a younger version of herself in this telling poem.

Two Gates

I look through glass and see a young woman
of twenty, washing dishes, and the window
turns into a painting. She is myself thirty years ago.
She holds the same blue bowls and brass teapot
I still own. I see her outline against lamplight;
she knows only her side of the pane. The porch
where I stand is empty. Sunlight fades. I hear
water run in the sink as she lowers her head,
blind to the future. She does not imagine I exist.

I step forward for a better look and she dissolves
into lumber and paint. A gate I passed through
to the next life loses shape. Once more I stand
squared into the present, among maple trees
and scissor-tailed birds, in a garden, almost
a mother to that faint, distant woman.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Denise Low, from her most recent book of poetry, Ghost Stories of the New West, Woodley Memorial Press, 2010. Poem reprinted by permission of Denise Low and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 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.

0 Comments

Miracle on 42nd Street

12/7/2011

4 Comments

Writing is my passion, but if I had another life to live, I'd be a dancer. I LOVE to dance, and I love to watch dance performances. Here's a YouTube video of Zac Hammer, a dear friend of ours and of our daughter Elaine, who lived in Marshall and is now dancing professionally in New York City. His dance partner is Alex Karigan. This video is guaranteed to make you smile, get you in the holiday spirit, and get you up from your writing desk and DANCING!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZqz94ODz18&feature=endscreen&NR=1

On 7/22/11, when Zac was in Marshall to teach dance camp for the Southwest School of Dance, I posted a poem on my blog by SMSU Professor Emeritus Philip Dacey, which I post once again below if you missed it the first time. Phil loves dance too and loves to write poems about dancers.
ZAC HAMMER

“A peanut butter bagel,” he orders. “Breakfast
for a dancer. Protein.” We’re midtown, 8th Avenue,
near where he’ll rehearse at noon. But first
his dancing’s all in words for this interview:

“I can eat like a pig, and drink like a fish--
water, that is; by the gallon jug in the studio.”
Outside the cafe window, the morning rush
does its own dance, a classic of color, noise, and flow.

“Ballet, modern, post-mod--I like it all.
But I’m at home with modern, how it gets down
on the ground, so much so even a crawl
can be part of it. That feels more human

“to me than ballet, which favors the vertical,
transcending the earth. But modern’s bare feet bring
us close to the source, the mother. Sole on soil.
My god is gravity; let it do its thing.

“Still, I remember my first ballet shoes.
I bought them at K-Mart in Marshall, Minnesota.
I thought they were beautiful. And they were. But I was
no aspirant to the world of Anna Pavlova--

“to my sister’s, yes. One day she’d come home from class
and shown off her developee. One leg held straight out
at right angles to the other, arms raised. The stress
made her tremble; I trembled in awe at the sight.

“I want to do that, I told my parents, who
weren’t surprised, given the shows--song and dance--
I mounted for them in their bedroom all through
childhood (I was now ten). My first audience!”

Pause for coffee, bagel, and fond thoughts.
Then a turn: “The smokers in dance are what I don’t like.
Whole corps de cigarettes, trashed lungs. I don’t get it.
The smell of sweat sure beats the smell of smoke.

“And there are the jobs one takes to make ends meet.
For many summers, I performed at Mary Kay
conventions. Once I was hired to impersonate
a dancing bottle of champagne--Veuve Clicquot!

“But the pleasures make the struggles all worthwhile.
You wouldn’t believe the endorphin rush. It’s addictive.
And to pursue the same line of work as Angel
Corella...Well, it’s not a bad way to live.

“Corella’s great because he combines the virile
and the tender, the muscular and the lightest of
touches. As to the dead, Nijinsky rules:
his Rite of Spring pissed everybody off.

“I’d love to dance it someday. To throw myself
percussively to the floor as the music pounds.
To hulk and make the most of the body’s heft.
Beauty’s not what’s pretty but what offends.”

That’s Whitman, too, I say. “Yes, he wore his hat
indoors or out, right? If I could dance in the role
of Walt, I’d portray him as both athletic and sweet.
Hey, a poetic version of Angel Corella!

“In fact, I’ve long believed the arts should serve
each other. What fun, and more, to blur the line
between arts! If I had two lives to live,
I’d live one as an art historian.”

A book about dance? “What influenced me most
was Zen in the Art of Archery. It taught
me to see that the dancer at his or her best
is all at once archer, arrow, bow, and target.”

The clock’s hands are doing their usual soft-shoe.
“Dancing with the David Parsons Company
has made going to work--what I’ve got to do
now--a pleasure. My one-year anniversary

with them is coming up soon. I’m riding a wave.”
Goodbyes, and then the wave and he are gone
down 8th Avenue--a stage where every move
he makes is spotlit by a midday sun.

4 Comments

Heroic Yes!

Christine Stark to Read from New Novel at SMSU in January 2012

"Two Gates" by Denise Low

Miracle on 42nd Street

Author

Archives

Blogroll
Arts Beat
A Year of Being Here
Bearded Vegan
Becky's Blog
Better World Books
Birth Breasts and Beyond
Carrie Etter
Christine Stewart-Nunez
Dana Yost
Heroic Yes! Productions
James A. Zarzana
Landing on Cloudy Water
Nicole Helget
No Ideas But in Things
Story Guru
The Marsco Saga
Write Right

Categories

Heroic Yes!

Christine Stark to Read from New Novel at SMSU in January 2012

"Two Gates" by Denise Low

Miracle on 42nd Street

Author

Archives

BlogrollArts BeatA Year of Being HereBearded VeganBecky's BlogBetter World BooksBirth Breasts and BeyondCarrie EtterChristine Stewart-NunezDana YostHeroic Yes! ProductionsJames A. ZarzanaLanding on Cloudy WaterNicole HelgetNo Ideas But in ThingsStory GuruThe Marsco SagaWrite Right

Categories

Blogroll
Arts Beat
A Year of Being Here
Bearded Vegan
Becky's Blog
Better World Books
Birth Breasts and Beyond
Carrie Etter
Christine Stewart-Nunez
Dana Yost
Heroic Yes! Productions
James A. Zarzana
Landing on Cloudy Water
Nicole Helget
No Ideas But in Things
Story Guru
The Marsco Saga
Write Right