This afternoon I attended the graduation of my niece, Anastatia Spicer, at The Cambridge School of Weston in Massachusetts and discovered firsthand what an amazing education she received. All the graduation speakers were excellent, and I was especially struck by the honesty and courage of one of the Senior Speakers, Raekwon Samir Walker. He ended his talk by reciting one of my favorite poems, "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes. It's a poem with vivid, concrete imagery and deep humanity, and as he read it, I was moved to tears. We gave Raekwon a standing ovation. A good poem to tuck in your backpack for whatever journey you're on. Thanks, Raekwon.
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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. 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. According toThe Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, today is the birthday of poet Shel Silverstein who was one of our daughter Elaine's favorite poets when she was a child and one of my favorite children's poets as well. We bought all his books and read them frequently. Some favorites: "The Bear in There," "Sara Sylvia Cynthia Stout," and "My Beard Grows to my Toes."
Silverstein's book Where the Sidewalk Ends is one of the best-selling volumes of poetry ever written. If you're looking for gifts for young readers, pick up some of Silverstein's books. Not only do the poems make for fun, out-of-the box reading, Shel's drawings make readers of all ages smile. Who are some of your favorite children's poets? How did you learn to cook?
I learned from watching my mother and father in the kitchen, both good cooks, from cooking classes in Calico Lassies, my 4-H club, from relatives, from friends, and from years of cooking with my husband Jim, an amazing cook, particularly well-known at SMSU and throughout Marshall for his Famous Zarzana's Spaghetti Sauce (sorry, the recipe is not available). Jim learned how to make this delicious sauce from his mother and his Sicilian grandmother right in their kitchens, not via Skype or webcam as in the poem below. Prompt of the Week: What's your favorite dish or dessert to make? How did you learn to make it? Write a poem, story or non-fiction piece using your cooking experiences as a catalyst. Use vivid images and concrete details, put us in the scene so we can see, taste, touch, smell and feel that we're there. Have fun playing with this prompt! American Life in Poetry: Column 339 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE People have been learning to cook since our ancient ancestors discovered fire, and most of us learn from somebody who knows how. I love this little poem by Daniel Nyikos of Utah, for its contemporary take on accepting directions from an elder, from two elders in this instance. Potato Soup I set up my computer and webcam in the kitchen so I can ask my mother’s and aunt’s advice as I cook soup for the first time alone. My mother is in Utah. My aunt is in Hungary. I show the onions to my mother with the webcam. “Cut them smaller,” she advises. “You only need a taste.” I chop potatoes as the onions fry in my pan. When I say I have no paprika to add to the broth, they argue whether it can be called potato soup. My mother says it will be white potato soup, my aunt says potato soup must be red. When I add sliced peppers, I ask many times if I should put the water in now, but they both say to wait until I add the potatoes. I add Polish sausage because I can’t find Hungarian, and I cook it so long the potatoes fall apart. “You’ve made stew,” my mother says when I hold up the whole pot to the camera. They laugh and say I must get married soon. I turn off the computer and eat alone. 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 Daniel Nyikos. Reprinted by permission of Daniel Nyikos. 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. By now, you've probably read, listened to and watched countless stories related to 9/11 on this 10th anniversary.
Here's a poem about 9/11 that I love because it takes me right into the heart of the story--the beating hearts of real people. Bill Holm, one of my former colleagues at Southwest Minnesota State University who wrote this poem, passed on February 25, 2009. His spirit lives on in all the words and books he left behind. I encourage you to get your hands on some of his books of poetry and prose listed below. If you want to get a better sense of our corner of fly-over country here in Southwest Minnesota, Bill's books are a good place to start. An Early Morning Cafe I One hundred and seven stories into the air the Windows on the World Cafe served pate and poached salmon to diners staring over Manhattan, but early this September morning, the sommelier and maitre d’ were still asleep in their faraway flats, only the sous-chef and banquet staff had arrived to peel the shrimp, trim the artichokes and wash the leaves of the escarole. II Simple work with your mates in a quiet early morning cafe is a pleasure: jokes, mild complaining, a hummed tune or two, when suddenly a berserk machine decides to murder a building with fire. Like a badly shot elephant, the hundred-and-six stories holding up your peeling knife and lettuce drier wobbled and shook a little while, but when flames melted the bones it all tumbled down on top of itself in a gray heap, shrimp, artichokes, escarole, fifty thousand bottles of elegant wine, and you yourself, unless you leapt out one of the windows of the world to finish with imaginary wings the flight to the city of angels. Ill Humans so riddled with hate they turned from men to bombs smashed the girders under your cafe, though they’d never met you, to murder you for the glory of God with your apron still smeared with shrimp guts. It was always thus. Try to kill an abstraction by murdering a building from the air, but all you kill is Bob and Edna and Sollie and Rodrigo and Mei-Mei. A building is only a set of artificial legs to hold up human beings in the air, and an airplane only a sheet of folded paper. But fifty thousand bottles of good wine and a hundred pounds of fresh Gulf shrimp, and Bob and Edna and all the rest– that is something real! IV If you think you’ve bagged the one truth and that truth wants final sacrifice, then you’ve stepped outside the human race, and your plane will not land in heaven wherever you think it might be. Heaven is an early morning cafe wherever you are. –Bill Holm (Copyright © 2004 by Bill Holm. From Playing the Black Piano published by Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, Minnesota. All rights reserved. www.milkweed.org) ————————————- Though born in the middle of the North American continent, Bill Holm was a devotee of islands as well as an essayist, musician, and poet. His books include Windows of Brimnes, Eccentric Islands, Coming Home Crazy, Playing the Black Piano, The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth, The Dead Get By With Everything, The Music of Failure, Faces of Christmas Past, Chocolate Chips for Your Enemies and Box-Elder Bug Variations. ————————————- Have you ever experienced or helped to create public art? Poetry on buses? Murals like the new one in Marshall on the wall outside Johnson's Paint and Wallpaper? Poetry read over the public address system in high schools?
That last idea was hatched by Billy Collins when he was U.S. Poet Laureate. He created "Poetry 180: a poem a day for American high schools." On the web site he explains, "Poetry 180 is designed to make it easy for students to hear or read a poem on each of the 180 days of the school year. I have selected the poems you will find here with high school students in mind. They are intended to be listened to, and I suggest that all members of the school community be included as readers. A great time for the readings would be following the end of daily announcements over the public address system." Here's an excerpt from "Pinwheels of Memory," a story about public art in last Friday's Marshall Independent: "Barb Hawes is a guerilla artist, and on Friday morning after weeks of careful preparation she led a guerilla raid on the green traffic island across from Liberty Park in Marshall. A group of seven local artists created 77 pinwheels using a variety of media, planted them in the grass, and chalked the text of the e.e. cummings poem "i carry your heart," on the sidewalk in front of it. "Barb asked people to paint pinwheels and she set them out this morning," watercolor artist Jane Balch said. "She was waiting for a beautiful day." And here's a Marshall Independent blog by Elaine Zarzana in response to the Pinwheel Project : "i carry your heart." What do you think of guerilla art? Public art projects? When you live in Minnesota and own a home, you need a lawn mower, a snow blower and possibly a weed whacker. You also need a skilled small engine repairman to keep everything in good running order.
In Marshall, we're grateful to have Pete's Small Engine down on Highway 59. Here's a link to the poem of the day on The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, "Prayer for the Small Engine Repairman." I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I'm heading out to our raspberry patch to pick the ripest of the juicy, ruby fruit. It's been a great summer for the berries, and it's been fun to share our bounty with friends. Every summer the Southwest School of Dance in Marshall, Minnesota holds a week-long dance camp at Southwest Minnesota State University. Zac Hammer, one of our daughter's friends, took lessons at the dance school in town for five years, 10 to 15 years old, went on to study dance at Southern Methodist University, and now dances professionally in New York. Last winter he danced in the renowned Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, and he'll do so again this year. For the past four summers he's returned to Marshall to teach at the dance camp. At the end of the week, the dancers present a showcase of dances, and the dance teachers each perform as well, always a treat, a bit of NYC right here in fly-over country. Tonight Zac performed a modern dance duo with one of the other teachers. The artistry and intensity were beyond amazing, one of those "out-of-Marshall" experiences.
Phil Dacey, poet and SMSU professor emeritus of English, who now lives in Manhattan, loves the art of dance and loves to write about it. While Jim and I were at a writing conference in NYC, we introduced Phil to Zac. Later Phil interviewed Zac and wrote the poem below (published in The Raintown Review, Dec. 2008), which he gave me permission to post here. He captures Zac's spirit and energy, and the form he chose makes the poem move like modern dance, creates great music. Enjoy! I recently found a quote by Voltaire that encourages us to read and to dance, two of my favorite things: "Let us read and let us dance, two delights that will never do any harm to the world." 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. Last Friday afternoon the town of Marshall and our surrounding region got hit with a devastating storm. When the sirens began wailing and the sky turned a nasty green, we headed for our basement with flashlights and candles. After the 80-mile/hour winds had passed, after the hail stopped beating on our house, and after the rain let up, we stumbled outside, amazed to see our neighbor's tall old elm tree pulled out by the roots and stretched on its side, totally blocking our street. Dazed, we wandered around talking to neighbors, all of us assessing the property damage, picking up chunks of hail the size of golf balls. Almost immediately, we all began cleaning up downed tree limbs, and buzz saws whined. (For disaster photos and storm stories, see www.marshallindependent.com)
Since then, the clean-up has been constant with pick-ups, dump trucks and large flat-bed trucks rumbling by stacked high with tree limbs on their way to the city compost site. The other constant activity? Storytelling. We ask each other the same questions. Where were you? How's your home? Did you lose any trees? Did you have any damage? And then the stories start. The retired doctor who was driving in his van when the storm hit and had to dodge falling trees. The honeymoon couple who returned to their farm to discover all the outbuildings along with the ducks, geese, chickens and cows had disappeared, only their farmhouse left standing. On and on. In 1993 when Marshall was pounded by torrential rains and hail, the storm sewers were overwhelmed and many people had sewage back-up in their basements. As we were cleaning up from that storm, a writer friend gave me a copy of the wonderful novel Labrador by Kathryn Davis. This quote from a slice of dialogue stuck with me: "Luck and disaster are the same thing, and that thing is the gift of motion." It ended up on our fridge door, giving us a sense of hope as we sloshed around our basement in our Wellies. That storm brought loss to many, but it also gave us "the gift of motion" in countless ways. What memorable storm stories, poems or essays do you tell? What storm stories have you found to be compelling reading? Storm stories have built-in tension, conflict, trouble, strong images, intense dialogue, colorful characters. And there's a sharply defined story arc, a "before-during-and-after" sequence. We may have survived, but we're changed, sometimes in ways we don't realize for quite a while. Just as much as we need to clean up the tree limbs in our yards, we need to tell each other our storm stories, our stories of loss, of devastation, of mourning and letting go, of survival. It's an essential part of being human. One of my favorite storm poems is "How to Tell a Tornado" by Howard Mohr, former SMSU professor, (from his book with that same title,) which I post here with his permission (thanks, Howard!). The shape of this poem on the page, the vivid images, and the technique of treating a "hot" subject, such as a tornado, with understatement allow the reader to absorb the full impact of such an event. HOW TO TELL A TORNADO Listen for noises. If you do not live near railroad tracks, the freight train you hear is not the Northern Pacific lost in the storm: that is a tornado doing imitations of itself. One of its favorite sounds is no sound. After the high wind, and before the freight train, there is a pocket of nothing: this is when you think everything has stopped: but do not be fooled. Leave it all behind except for a candle and take to the cellar. Afterwards if straws are imbedded in trees without leaves, and your house--except for the unbroken bathroom mirror-- has vanished without a trace, and you are naked except for the right leg of your pants, you can safely assume that a tornado has gone through your life without touching it. (Published by Minnesota Public Radio, Inc.) Howard Mohr wrote the must-read (especially if you live or travel in Minnesota) best-selling book How to Talk Minnesotan, which is approaching its 25th anniversary of publication by Penguin/Putnam, with another printing imminent. It was also turned into a wonderful musical with all original music, which was performed at SMSU and then up in the Twin Cities for a long time. We love to play the soundtrack on CD, and two of my favorite songs are "Hotdish Hallejuah" and "Minnesota Men." Mohr also wrote the entertaining book A Minnesota Book of Days (And a Few Nights), which I highly recommend. For the past month, I've enjoyed taking a sabbatical from the blog, traveling, gardening, biking and doing other summer activities, but it's good to be back posting on Fly-over Country. Thanks much to all of you who have visited the blog and emailed me your comments. I appreciate your feedback! |
AuthorI 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. Archives
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