Adrienne Rich, Memory and Poetry

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The poet Adrienne Rich passed away last week at the age of 82.  For those of you who have not read her work, please go to the Poetry Foundation or The Acedemy of American Poets where you can read some of her poems and see for yourself why this loss is so great.

I first read her work in college and I instantly recognized who she spoke for. You see, my mother’s idea of entertaining her three pre-school aged children was to play “I am woman hear me roar…” from her 1970’s songbook on our Wurlitzer organ. It was an organ she had won on the game show, “Sale of the Century” before we were born. She also won some household appliances, but I think the organ got more use.

I got the message early on that women have a voice and they should make a point of roaring like tigers at injustices.

I remember the first time I read, “Diving into the Wreck” and “Planetarium” in some anthology along with “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers.” Life would never be the same. Adrienne Rich made me want to be a poet. I went on to buy more books, finding them each to be different from each other as snapshots of time.

In her essay, “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying,” she says that “The truth of our [women's] bodies and our minds has been mystified to us. We therefore have a primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each other.” I ripped this quote from one of my college papers. I love the idea of woman having a “primary obligation” to support each other. Isn’t that the way it should be? Is it the way it is?

It feels strange to write a prompt this week because I don’t feel like writing. I’m resisting the urge to say, forget writing poetry today. Rich already did it. The teacher of my teachers, the ironic essayist who inspired the first feminists is not writing anymore.

Take today to be silent if you want, but tomorrow, make sure you get back to the desk.

WRITING PROMPT

“Deliberately, long ago/ the carcasses/ of old bugs crumbled/ into the rut of the window/ and we started sleeping here…….the snout of the vacuum cleaner/ sucks the past away.”

  • What you have just read are lines from the poem,  “An Old House in America,” by Adrienne Rich. What is this old house? Where is it? Who lives there? What remains?
  • Read one of the numerous books of poetry or essays by Adrienne Rich. The next morning, get up and free-write in your journal. What stuck in your mind? What do you need to say?
  • April is poetry month. Bring your journal and go to a LIVE reading. Support your local poets. Write on the train ride home or if you’re driving, record the thoughts and feelings those spoken sounds have left in your mind once you get home. What spoke to YOU?

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING (or maybe before you start):

  • Come on back and hit “Reply” to post your story, poem or excerpt from this prompt. Visit my website: www.stefanielipsey.com for event info and blog, writingyoga.com for all things writing & yoga. Say hello on Facebook.

Thank you mom for letting me share that wonderful childhood memory.  Thank you, my friends for returning on Mondays. I consider each click an honor.

Thank you, Adrienne for your life and work. You will be missed.

Well, hello there, Jennifer. (Writing Prompt # 25).

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Who’s Jennifer? That’s what I’d like to know.

When I worked in NYC as an accessories manager, merchandising handbags on the main floor of Macy’s Herald Square, there was one executive who insisted upon calling me Jennifer.

When I worked my first gig as a librarian, the event director insisted upon calling me Jennifer, even after I corrected her many times.

In my yoga training, two women, separately from each other called me Jennifer. One of them even called my house saying, “I thought her name was Jennifer?” Oops.

I looked up the name Jennifer. It’s derived from Guinevere and uh oh, do I want to be Jennifer??

According to the Academic Dictionary of Mythology by Ramesh Chopra,  Gwynhwfar “was a [Celtic] cloud-goddess who often, for mischief, took mortal form and entered the world of the humans to cause havoc.” If you know the Arthurian legends, well, then you might know that she caused so much “havoc” in the court as Queen that she eventually is blamed for the fall of Camelot. That sucks.

I’m sticking with “cloud-goddess.”

WRITING PROMPTS:

  • Re-frame an Arthurian legend. Write Guinevere’s story in your hometown. Write about the kingdom of ——–.
  • Be the cloud-goddess or god in a new myth. What would the modern cloud giants come to earth to do?
  • Open up a dictionary of mythology and free-write. Growing up, we had our red, thick, copy of Bullfinch’s on the shelf. It was from one of my Dad’s college classes back in ancient times. It was always one of my favorites. I would open it up and read random stories. Go ahead, read a story and FREE-WRITE what the story churns up in your own subconscious mind. 

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING:

Thank you for visiting each week. I consider each click an honor.

Can you see? Women’s History in Photos (writing prompt #24)

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California photographer Ana Elisa Fuentes sat across the table from me at the Metropolitan Bistro in Sea Cliff, NY. It was the night before the opening of her photography exhibit, “Women’s Activism and Empowerment: A Global Perspective.”

I almost missed it.

Fresh off the yoga mat, quickly dressed in jeans and a fluffy white sweater, I greeted my table of friends, one of whom happened to be hosting the exhibit, others who sat in anticipation and admiration, and my new friend, the artist herself.

I almost missed it.

Why do we sometimes miss important things? What do you miss when you run from mat to car to table? Is your lens blurred or can you stop and focus?

Copyright Ana Elisa Fuentes

Don’t miss it:

“Twenty-five images, Nobel Peace Prize Winners, 1960′s civil rights rights activists and founders of a peanut cooperative in Haiti.” Fuentes uses her camera as “a tool for social change, human rights and social justice.”

It made my pen want to do the same.

As an American woman who grew up benefiting from the fruits of 1970′s activists, it’s easy to miss the violence, abuse, and inequality that women and girls around the globe still face. This is 2012 America and last month, a congressional committee of all men actually had the audacity to debate the reasons why women should not be entitled to basic health and reproduction rights.  It would be funny if it were not so pathetic.

Outside my sunglasses, I know what dims the light. Yet, in this exhibit, women look you in the eye, out a window, smile, work, as if to feed some triumphant undercurrent running though each moment of time and place.

Copyright Ana Elisa Fuentes

What did you almost miss? What story do you need to tell?

WRITING PROMPTS:

  • View Ana Elisa’s Photographs, a book of photographs, or your local library’s Woman’s History Month exhibit. Write about a woman from the past or present whose name you never heard before. Stick to the facts. Emotions are up to the reader.
  • Too many girls around the world are treated to the same mistreatment as their adult counterparts. This is the hardest. What does that little girl need you to know? Be her voice.
  • Celebration song. Write a song of praise. Make it a poem, story, essay. Who can you celebrate? Is it celebration in spite of….

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING:

  • Visit her photography exhibit in a former mansion that now houses the Holocaust Museum and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in Glen Cove, NY. APRIL 11, 2012 is the last day so get there fast.

Thank you, Ana Elisa for the inspiration and use of your photograph. Thank you readers, visionaries, artists and activists for stopping by. I consider each click an honor.

You Are a Storyteller: a St. Patrick’s Day Prompt

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Ireland on busImagine you are traveling by bus along a beautiful road, just a short distance from Dublin, Ireland. The driver stops to let a few faeries pass by and continues on his way. You decide to get off the bus too because all of the stories seem to live down by that river. (So you think.)

You walk for miles. You aren’t tired. Or thirsty or hungry, wet, or cold. The river takes you to places greener than the place you were before and finally, you reach the home of the storyteller.

Is the storyteller there?

Yes, he has just finished outsmarting a giant and is now having a cup of tea to relax. Please sit. So you do. The storyteller works in an office in the city, but he used to travel from house to house where he would be fed and put up for the night. Luckily, his investment in stories has paid off nicely.

How did he do it? Well, it was just one story because it is always just one story. You lean in closer. He sips on his tea. You sip on yours.

The story was told one way when he was young, but then, like the river, it changed over time. Even the master storyteller never tells it the same way twice.

But, still, you must hear how that story sounded on the day it was born, if he could just tell it right now, you would leave and never ask another question! Luck is with you today, the storyteller says….

WRITING PROMPTS:

  • I told my students today that on March 17th, they all get to be Irish. This week, you get to be Irish too, but since you are a storyteller, please take the whole week to enjoy your temporary identity (should you choose to accept the challenge).  Let your imagination go until, just like a true weaver of tales from any culture or tradition, you are fully convinced every single word is true.
  • Explore the myths, poetry, novels and stories from Ireland. Giants, wee folk, poetry, writers like Eavan Boland and James Joyce. Don’t forget Brigid, poets.
  • Listen to some Irish folk music while you write. Start on Youtube and if you like something, buy it. It’s okay if you get up and dance with the a few of the leprechauns outside the door – just as long as you make it back to your notebook.

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING:

  • Spend some more time with the stories, myths, music, poems and artwork of Ireland or any culture outside your own. Get immersed. And if like me, you do have some Irish blood, read and write on this theme beyond the 17th. Who are your favorite Irish writers?

Thank you so much for stopping by, storytellers. I consider each click an honor.

Rocking in Walt’s Cradle: Poetry in Performance

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From the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association Website

Louisa gave birth here, rocked the cradle while her husband stacked cedar shingles in layers and rows.  Today, on the grounds of the house where it all began, you can see poetry readings and take workshops. Quincy Troupe, Daniela Gioseffi, Brendan Constantine and musician, Kelvyn Bell, graced the interpretive center on the WWBA grounds yesterday.

Constantine comes from L.A. and I think you still can catch him read in NY at the KGB bar before he flies back. Loved this poem, “Before the Flood” from his new book, Calamity Joe. Listen to this, “My father remembers nothing. Or rather/ he remembers where it used to be-See/ that building? When I was a kid there was/ nothing there. And next door, where/ that school is,      nothing.”

Did you hear your dad too? I did.

And then Daniela Gioseffi read, “Unfinished Autobiography for My Daughter,” from Blood Autumn, “Now, I take you, Daughter,/ to the woods to meet the scarlet maples,/ feed the wild deer, crush the leaves/ and acorns with your steps, dance/ in the moonlight, your mother is no orphan, / like hers was….”

Her voice quivers passionately when she reads and professes her religion called poetry, Whitman, Dickinson, Emerson, transcendental all.

I’m listening now to Quincy Troupe’s “My Poems have Holes Sewn into Them.” and “they run searching for light and the end of tunnels they become trains….”

My husband the musician listens in, our worlds meet.

George Wallace, the host, is not only a talented writer, but he knows how to curate readings. The series is called Walking with Whitman: Poetry in Performance and it runs all year. (check the website for schedule & the list of famous poets you won’t want to miss, www.waltwhitman.org)

WRITING PROMPTS:

  • Gioseffi spoke about American poets, transcendental writers. Where do you find the divine outside of your religion? Is poetry your religion too? In a certain slant of light, what do you see?
  • Whenever I’m at Walt’s birthplace, I always think of his mother. Must be the word “birth” in the landmark’s title. Or maybe I just pick up on her vibe. Imagine you are Walt Whitman’s mother or simply imagine you’re someone else and write a persona poem.
  • Listen to some Miles Davis as you free write. (Quincy wrote his biography in case you’re wondering where this prompt fits in.)

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING:

  • Go visit your local dead author’s house. Walt’s on Long Island and Camden, NJ. Emily’s in Amherst, MA. I remember walking in London in the rain just to stand outside Virginia Woolf’s house & again in Dublin for Joyce a few years later. The sun is out. Plan a road trip.

Thank you so much for visiting. I consider each click an honor.

Flying in the V – Writing Prompt #21

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I’m the last person in the world to talk about sports, but when I read a poem to my students by Eloise Greenfield called, For the Love of the Game, I wish I had paid better attention to basketball. It’s about someone who had observed Michael Jordan play as a kid.  Michael Jordan who

stands right there
on a little piece of air

But Mrs, Lipsey, can he stand on air?!  I think of the writer and storyteller, Joseph Bruchac, when students ask me such questions. (I have seen him at speak at conferences and hear his wisdom sometimes when I read. It is the occupational hazard of being a librarian – you tend to hear voices!) In many of the folktales that he retells, the listener has to suspend belief, but he doesn’t say that something is not true.

I like to let the kids live in metaphor – even if it is just for a few moments each week. What can you do on a little piece of air? Dance, sing, write, balance?

before he lands, smooth
as a gliding plane,then
turns and smiles
at the memory of flying.What memory of flying?

Do you remember flying? Go and ask a bird to fill you in.

PROMPT:

  • Write about an encounter with a bird, about being a bird or a mythological hybrid.
  • What game do you love? What would you do for the love of the game?
  • Create a character that is named after a bird. There are tons of them already. Raven, Allard, Jay. It’s hard to do this without being goofy or obvious, but give it a try anyway.

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING:

  • Go bird watching.

Thank you so much for visiting. I consider each click an honor.

The Bib, Writing Prompt #20

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Last night as I drove past the Bayside Diner on Northern Boulevard, I had a flash of memory. Grandma and I had our last meal together there years ago when I was six months pregnant. I had questioned her eating choices (hamburger and fries) and then beat myself up for it afterwards. Had I known the future, I would have said, “Go ahead Grandma, load up on the salt .”

But we don’t know the future. That is why when we are done crying, questioning, and in the process of missing, we take small comfort in words.

THE BIB

Aren’t you supposed to be watching your cholesterol?
I lectured my Grandmother under Bayside Diner’s neon lights.
What? I should never have a little piece of meat and a couple of fries?

She pulled out a lobster bib to the sound of forks scraping plates.
It was saved, like her plastic bags in the closet, Sweet and Lows,
balls of foil and I wanted to crawl under the table

but smiled instead while she ate her French fries.
I wondered why anyone needed all that jewelry, her lovely costume jewelry,
just to have lunch at the Bayside Diner.

Two days later it filled a plastic bag at St. Francis hospital where in fleeting moments of consciousness she said, What’s wrong, Steffie?

Nothing.  Must be that they have you on too much medication.
I reassured her,
Septic shock. The nurse said later when her body started to bubble,   turned purple where drips stuck into the back of her hand like needles
from the pin cushion at home beside her sewing chair.

I was afraid to touch her hand but did, held up the baby’s
blue bib across my pregnant belly, the one she’d been working on since my sonogram showed “boy,”
a bib she carried to the hospital in a portable sewing bag as if there would be plenty of time to sew.

WRITING PROMPT 20:

  • The Symbol.   Take notice of how everyday objects act as triggers. Allow one symbol (diner) to lead into another (bib.)This week, think of memory triggers that are bitter-sweet. I smiled when I passed the Bayside Diner last night, remembering how Grandma thought nothing of pulling out a plastic lobster bib to protect her suit. She was always dressed up and every strand of her dyed blond hair perfect thanks to weekly visits to the “beauty parlor” and tons of hair spray. No wonder, she had the protection of a lobster bib even when she ate hamburgers.
  • Not Another Grandma (or Great-Grandma) Poem.  You are not writing this poem for publication, but you write to stir up the memory of someone you loved  who shaped your life. This post’s for you, Grandma Rose.
  • Hit the Journal. Are you writing everyday? Keep your hand going and free. Pick a line or two from your own words. Let that be the prompt for your next piece.

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING:

Thank you very much for visiting each week. I consider each click an honor.