No Shirking

Last night, I told someone I haven't had time for poems though I saw poems brewing. The truth is images and ideas come to me fluidly, serendipitously. They are brilliant like the fiery sunset I watched last night as some friends and I descended from the mountains from a special time together in love and meditation.

Images like that leave their imprints. They are gifts, metaphors already written. . . .

I told my friend I hadn't time to catch them, just yet. Putting them onto the page would have to wait. I would have to mix them into lines and stanzas later, whenever time permitted.

It's 5 a.m. I have been awake since twenty to three after only having slept a short time.

I haven't written much in the last year. I have finished a journal, intermittently made myself sit down to free write and I know better. All of this is fleeting and the filter through which I see any of this right now changes. Plus, the memory -- it can't be trusted. Memory is such a tricky thing.

The poems are brewing. The gifts present themselves. I must be willing right now, no matter how busy I am, to give something to it. My conscious tells me so. The nervous sour smell in my room tells me so.

I want to sleep and I want to sleep soundly.

The Poetry Library at Art from Ashes

This is just a very quick post about the main project I am working on right now. Info follows below:

The Poetry Library at Art from Ashes


The Poetry Library at Art from Ashes aims to build community surrounding Art from Ashes, the Denver Poetry Community, the poetry community at large, and the youth that Art from Ashes empowers on a daily basis. This is a community outreach project, just as much as it is a community support program.


For news updates, and more, please check out our blog: http://afapoetrylibrary.blogspot.com/
To watch the poetry library grow, check out our Library Thing:http://www.librarything.com/home/ArtfromAshes

Comics at Thirty Plus: Introduction

My foot is in my mouth about comics. Throughout my teens and early twenties I believed that comics were not worth my time. I was your run of the mill snooty-toot on the matter. I had plenty of friends with comic book collections, some of whom had boxes and boxes of them carefully packed away in their plastic wraps. I was curious what the allure was, and at times, I looked over the shoulders of someone who was reading a comic, but I never committed myself to reading one cover to cover. I never asked to borrow one. I never searched them out in the library (nor did I know they could be found there). I never really gave them a chance until quite recently, something like wintertime, 2009.

At that time, I had been invited to join a group of writers and artists at Denver's Drink and Draw, which meets at Leela's European Cafe every Tuesday. I was introduced to many artists and a few writers with whom I became enamored right away. It wasn't difficult to see the amount of talent contained in one room. It also wasn't difficult to see that the main emphasis at this particular shindig was comics.

Because I was so impressed, I began asking some of the artists I met what their top five comics suggestions were so I could become savvy to the medium. I wanted to be able to talk about comics with the Denver Drink and Draw Crowd. I had my mind blown by quite a few of the suggestions, which resulted in my deeming comics as a medium more than worthy of respect and study.

That is why I have decided to do a series of little articles featuring these top five lists. I hope to relay what I have learned from the artists and a little bit about the artists surrounding Cellar Door and Denver's Drink and Draw.

I hope you enjoy what is to come!

originally published at the Cellar Door Anthology Blog (http://cellardoorbook.blogspot.com/2011/03/comics-at-thirty-plus-introduction.html), March 27, 2011.

Last night, while preparing for an upcoming shindig that will feature poets, musicians, actors, and more, I noticed this poster (pictured left) on our hostess's wall. I was reminded of some of the conversations we have had in R.A.W. about the pertinence of growing our own food.

This is something I would like to discuss further. I know that there are many people, locally, nationally, and globally working on this, practicing this, teaching others, etc. I would especially like their input, ideas, and expertise. How can this be done? Is it feasible?

Also, what are we giving up if we are not participating in the creation of our own foodstuffs? Some of this is evident to me, but I want to hear from others on this! Let's talk. Let's continue this conversation:

This post originally appeared 3/27/2011 at the R.A.W. blog.

faux haiku on being a poetry judge for a student literary magazine:

I wrote this very quickly the other day after reading a few very good poems and many poems that flustered me (maybe I just didn't get them?) in a packet of poems sent to me by the editor of a student literary magazine. I am honored they thought of me to be a poetry judge. It means that I have perhaps done enough in my community to merit this (what seems to me) recognition.

I realized quite a few things while I was reading, most of which could be summarized in this faux haiku:

let me get out the gavel....

i've learned the reason

editors delegate.

I hope that the faux haiku at least evokes a few giggles. I also hope to remember to utilize what I've learned here, not to judge others' work, but to consider graceful ways in which to frame how a writer may create more effective poetry and why some of the commonalities in each of those poems should be avoided.

I consider the term "poetry judge," strange and unsettling, quite possibly because I consider poetry an art I am still and will always be learning. I am a student and I hardly consider myself an expert. I also think that poetry is for everyone.

I found myself wanting to write all over the poetry pages with yearnings, suggestions and questions for the writers. While I read, I had a general feeling of reaching out so that each writer could eek out of the abstractions, used as crutches, what they really meant. I yearned so much for the stories that were hiding behind those tall, tall abstractions....

I suppose that means that I should definitely pursue, amongst other things, my MFA. My heart seems to be in it, even if it takes ten years before I am able to formally coach this craft.

I want to share something with you:

A lot of people know about the poetry therapy and other therapies workshops that Art from Ashes (AfA) uses to empower youth. Many do not know that AfA also hosts poetry therapy workshops for adults. I have attended two of their workshops now, have seen many youth workshops, and have adored the work that the folks at this organization do. I have adored the organization for many years now. What they do is powerful, beautiful, effective, and very close to my heart.

I want to share the following because I deemed the exercise as helpful and I really love what came out it. Reading it almost every day has been empowering, and I plan on continuing in this vein. I want to live a happy and empowered life, to make decisions from my heart, not from my hurt, and to transform my view of everything about me that seems to me as broken into blessings, or gifts for myself and those around me. I hope that doesn't sound silly, grandiose, or egoic. I hope it sounds true, because this is what I mean it to be; true and healing. The experience, both times with the workshops, have been healing ones for me. I am grateful for the work that the organization does and I am grateful for the ways in which the workshops have begun transforming my mindset.

i.
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I choose to let others be where they are without expecting them to live up to their promises or my hopes, wants, or expectations.
I choose to enjoy my own company.
I choose to make myself the beautiful meals I would make for a lover.
I choose to love what I have considered my deepest faults.
I choose to believe that the colors green, orange, and red seeping in through the window blinds as the sun rises as healing colors. I see them, and they are healing my deepest wounds.
I choose to believe that I am as wise and strong and powerful and beautiful as the sign on my door says I am -- the one I read just before leaving my house.
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I hope you are all well, whoever is reading this.
Peace.

...an apple is a pome...

This is a decided prompt based on some Facebook comments that came after my post, "...an apple is a pome...". Here are the comments I received:

Jaime: "A potato is a pomme de terre..."

Nancy: "beware the bad pomme..."

Piper: "and a poem is a pomegranate. :)"

Here is my go after all the comments and ideas mixed (a quick three minute poem):

to eat, or to be eaten by the inevitable edit:
beware the poem that has eyes!
it is hungry, and can see you from any angle,
but so are you. The water pot
is already boiling and the knives
are poised to peel
away the skin and extract
its knotted vision.