WORDS...WORDS...WORDS

I don't ordinarily blog about my writing, which most specifically is poetry, and I am not exactly sure why. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am quite aware that poetry is a generally unloved form of writing. People have a tendency to think it is dense, inaccessible, high-flautin', hard to read and uninteresting to listen to. I have had people tell me most directly that they 'don't like poetry'; 'it's o.k. if it's set to music'; 'I never read poetry'; 'poetry is hard for me', etc.

Me, I love poetry, some more than others. My all time favorite poet is Ranier Maria Rilke, and my favorite of his works is in The Book of Hours, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows. I also love poetry by Jim Harrison, Julia Alvarez, Muriel Ruckheiser, Billy Collins, and Mary Oliver, to name just a few. I try to read a few poems every morning, I think this helps me write.

Last evening the La Farge Public Library hosted Essential Writing, a Read Local event. Last year, March of 2010, The Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse, WI, held the first of an annual writing contest. The categories were poetry, fiction, non-fiction, essay with a top prize in each, and an over all Grand Prize. A simple book was published with the winners and those who got Honorable Mentions, as well as work by a group of women who met bi-monthly at the FSC to write. I entered three poems in the contest, and was deeply honored to have one of my poems selected as the all around Grand Prize winner. Two other local women had work in that book as well. This prompted our local librarian to host the above mentioned event. (April also happens to be National Poetry Month)

I must say I had grave trepidations in giving my portion of the readings, as I was the only 'poet' among the readers. Knowing that the general public just does not value poetry, not only did I feel uncomfortable, but I also felt my work would be unappreciated. I anticipated a small 'crowd', and was surprised to find that there were at least 12 people in attendance.

We took turns reading, and honestly, the evening went so very well, and my trepidations were for naught, as I truly felt my work was not only appreciated, but deeply appreciated at least by many in the group.

This is the poem that won All Around Grand Prize:

February Morning

Bitter air
suspended like a fragile curtain
nearly shatters its sharp-edged crystals
in its brittleness.

It hangs together enough
for me to traverse its fragility

and articulates the Divine
like no summer day ever could.

There is majesty in this cold...
magnificent denseness
belies itself in transparency
so acute I slip easily to the
other side

and lose my sharp edges
to fleetingly become the vast unknown,
which burns with an intensity
that could incinerate
were it not God.

Following is a poem I wrote while I was engrossed in reading Rilke:

On Rilke

I can barely imagine his writing room
dark desk, dim light
dark young man...
bent heavy with love
and intensity
penning words
that preceded me by decades
yet seem to be mine.

I read with a devout awe
and a stinging jealousy...
and think that now, having been said,
I cannot drag these words
up from my own anguished soul.
They were taken from me
before I ever was...
both riveted
and torn,
grateful and distraught
honoring yet coveting

I know these were my words,
these were my aching soul in Rilke's tortured web of love

and he pulled them out one deep night
set them down
lifted them up into the holy mist

and I down these many years
anointed by such grace
wander and search and wonder
what words are left for me?

and another, quite different poem:

Midnight Madness

I awaken at midnight
with worries leaden
enough to sink me
as though anchored
in night's darkest pocket.

The air
stifled by motes
of dire thoughts,
is a dense armored wall
halting sanity.

The clock,
with a fearful eye on me,
ticks my heartbeat into eternity...
the night an unending catalog
of worst case scenarios,
which, trembling
I scour with a seriousness
and devotion
that is manic.

...and here is a poem that is a wish of mine...

On Words and Music

Why can't words
like fingers on the fret
pull crescendos
of astounding sound?

Why must words
be mere words
and not an instrument...
for instance, a guitar?

Why can't I construct
a poem
words laid down
like fret-lines
phrases taut like well-tuned strings

and of their own
when read
or said
drive the rhythm
into spheric splendor
eyes closed tight against
the brilliance...

body pulsing past itself
riding off the whammy bar?

Why can't words
play out in sounds
that make you weep?

Mark Knopfler, Roger Waters, Dickie Betts,
Santana, Neil Yound, Derek Trucks

sometimes I'm lost in listening
and emerge directly from their strings
tightly tuned
'til I am what's strummed and picked
stretched so high within their notes
I burst into
a crystal of pure sound.

Oh, that words be strummed like strings
to such high pitch
they, too, would break out
on the other side.

I have been writing every since I can remember, and have box after box of poems and stories tucked away, under cover, on the porch. I also have envelope, after envelope of rejections tucked away somewhere. I belong to two writing groups, which just happen to be made up of only women, but it is both inspiring and motivating for me, and keeps me writing.

So, if you've made it all the way through to the end of this post, I thank you for reading!




...and happy spring!




(There seems to be this huge space at the end of my post and I keep trying to fill it up, and it just won't get filled??????)