End of an Era

I had the honor and privilege of being part of a special Big Words, Etc. reading last night. I’ve read at Big Words a lot, and every time I do, it’s wonderful. Stacey and Jess have created one of the warmest events I’ve ever participated in. Last night was special because it featured several teen writers from a school in Colorado and a teen writer from a program for QTPOC at the Brooklyn Museum. What a gift to share the stage and a little of the hanging out time with such excellent young people.

As always, the evening had a theme: End of an Era. And also as always, I couldn’t get anything written until yesterday. I started my piece before I brushed my teeth, wrote during lunch, finished it on the B45 bus on my way to Prospect Heights to the reading, and gave it a quick revision as I sat waiting for the reading to start. This is a bad, bad, very bad, terrible habit I have with Big Words, writing something new that I’ve only just finished in time for the reading.

I suppose I’m ending a teenty tiny era by coming back to my blog after more than a month away. While I finished my 30 poems for April, I didn’t follow through on posting them daily. Alas. But I’m back … and right in time for Slice of Life Tuesday.

Writing up until the last possible moment really is a bad habit, but Big Words always comes through for me, always pulls something out of me that I’m glad to have written. Here’s my piece:

Missing My Carefree Carelessness … or, Not Such a Fool Anymore

I used to be alarmingly casual about my safety, putting myself in questionable situations, in situations that sometimes proved to be quite dangerous, going off with random people, failing to pay full attention to my surroundings, never checking for an alternative exit. 

Certainly it’s true that the most famous period of this casual care was when I was in my 20s, in my early 30s. This was the era during which I earned the reputation among my friends’ parents of being flighty and irresponsible. Quitting jobs to go on vacation, taking paid vacations and overstaying, calling my bosses to let them know not to expect me. I compounded my bad reputation by hitchhiking, by meeting strangers and allowing them to put me up for the night (I really don’t recommend this. Really. I mean, just like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards aren’t good examples of why you shouldn’t do drugs, I don’t make a good spokesperson for not doing the things I’ve done as I’ve clearly survived them all. But still. Don’t.)

I have never been flighty, but I have definitely been quite irresponsible. Not the way my friends’ parents imagined, but yes. 

My inattention to my safety isn’t some kind of death wish but more a belief that evil won’t befall me. When my sister and I first moved to this city, we sometimes found ourselves in questionable or full-on dangerous situations. Fox, my sister, would always look at me and say, “Mommy didn’t have us to die like this.” And, by our own interventions or those of others, we were always okay in the end. Fox’s voice often sounds in my memory when I find myself in a bad place: “Mommy didn’t have me to die like this.”

This is crazy, of course. Everyone who dies miserably would surely have said their mother didn’t have them to die that way, and yet … So yeah, Fox’s true but entirely irrelevant and meaningless proclamation may have comforted me, but it certainly didn’t foretell or guarantee anything like safety.

So, in my 20s and 30s I wasn’t taking good care. Don’t imagine that I suddenly made cautious life choices in my late 30s, in my 40s. I didn’t. I wasn’t hitching anymore, but I was still putting myself in situations that could have ended badly. This continued into my 50s. Starting in my mid-40s, for example, I lived for ten years on the ground floor of a house where I almost never locked the front door. This fact drove my family insane. But there was a big, locked iron gate that someone would have had to come through before getting to my front door, so I just didn’t see the point. (Again, I don’t really recommend this. I’m just saying it’s what I did.)

I think if Covid had never come to town, maybe I could have maintained my casual attitude about my personal safety until the ripe old age of whatever, but no. 

Something about the isolation of quarantine, living behind masks, the subtle and not-at-all subtle changes in the temperament and behaviors of other people, the desperation created by the recession, and the stoking of intolerance that has been fostered and fueled by political divisions have all come together to make me a wary person. 

I am more watchful of strangers now, more on alert for violence. This isn’t a way I enjoy being, in my city or anywhere. It isn’t what I want, but I’ll acknowledge that my heightened awareness has proven useful. I left my subway late-late one night and was instantly aware that my bag had caught the eye of a man who began to follow me. I focused on him and got myself safe. On my way into the subway one Sunday morning, I registered that the man watching me approach the station was angry, unwell and fully zeroed in on me. I turned up my attention and was neither surprised nor unprepared when he came down to the platform shouting about tearing my head off for stealing his energy. To my great relief and happiness, he made the decision not to attack me, but I was ready if his choice had gone the other way. (“Ready,” not in the sense of ready to fight because I don’t know the first thing about fighting, but I’m reasonably strong, and my backpack is heavy and would be good for slamming into the head of a worrisome person.)

I appreciate this discovery of my Spidey senses, but I’m saddened by the need for them. I miss my days of basically skipping through the world trusting everyone. As far as “eras” go, however, this one had a phenomenal run. I was 56 when Covid upended the world, so to have had that many years of running around believing I had a divine safety net is a little amazing. 

I used to tell my grandmother stories about the crazy things I did. My sweet, quietly-snarky paternal grandmother, the one I look like. She always smiled when I was done and said the same thing every time: “God takes care of children and fools … and you’re not a child anymore.” Definitely not a child. I guess it was high time I stopped being a fool.

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In 2017, I took up Vanessa Mártir’s #52essays2017 challenge to write an essay a week. I didn’t complete 52 essays by year’s end, but I did write like crazy, more in 2017 than in 2015 and 2016 combined! I’ve kept working on personal essays, kept at my #GriotGrind. If you’d care to join, it’s never too late! Find the group on FB: #52Essays Next Wave.

Four years ago, I had no idea.

Four years ago today, I had the first in the series of interviews that would result in me getting my current job.

I was nervous and also not nervous. I knew all but one of the five people who’d be interviewing — two of them I’d known and been friends with for years.

I was nervous, but I’d thought about the kinds of things I wanted to discuss and the ways I wanted to talk about their work and how I saw myself becoming part of it. I knew the things they’d want to know about me because I knew what I’d have wanted to know if I’d been sitting on their side of the table.

I was nervous because, a month earlier, I’d had the last (knock wood) of my knee surgeries, and I was still very much at the beginning of healing. I didn’t want to show up walking with my cane. Not because I believed anyone at that table would have judged me negatively for appearing injured or disabled … but … I didn’t want to put any unconscious questions in anyone’s head about my physical capacity. So that day I traveled with a big purse and my folding cane. I stopped down the block from the building, stowed my cane and walked very carefully, concentrating on not limping, to the interview.

I was nervous because I was still running through the list I’d made of people who would have been better candidates for the job. I didn’t know if any of them had applied, but in my mind, all all of them had. They were formidable competition, and that list was too long for comfort.

I was nervous. I really wanted the job. I’d been thinking about it for a long time, about all the ways it would be more suited to who I am and the work I wanted to be doing than the job I had at the time. Knowing how much I wanted the job gave me a stomach ache.

I was nervous because I had La Impostora in my ear — who do you think started making that list of fantasy competitors? — and she chipped away at my confidence, but I knew how good my experience looked on paper, knew how good I was at talking about the work, talking about the field, talking about where I saw us going.

In spite of being nervous, in spite of struggling to tune out La Impostora, I did my best to sit comfortably, answer calmly, and remember that I had decades of experience and that surely all of that time counted for something, had to mean I’d learned and retained something.

Four years ago. It would be another four months (and four days 🙂 ) before I’d walk into my office for my first day of work. Two more interviews, a sample grant proposal (!!), the nailbiting of waiting for my references to be checked, the more aggressive nailbiting of being told my references wouldn’t be checked … because the man in charge would be calling folks he knew in the field to see what they thought of me (is that a thing?! that should definitely not be a thing?!). It was a long four months.

And here I am, almost four years on the job, still learning but also (finally) starting to feel as if I can wrap my arms around the whole of the work. Here I am, so happy to have been invited to join this team, to share this work with some of the brightest lights in the field.

I’m still nervous sometimes, maybe more often than I should be. But I’m also not nervous much more of the time. Four years ago, I had a bit of an idea of what I was asking to sign up for. Today, even in the rough moments, I can’t imagine a better choice, wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else.

* * *

Tonight’s sijo attempt doesn’t quite do what I want, but I’m keeping it:

This is where I've put down roots,
        where I've laid foundation, planned to live.
This new home is still being built,
        the blueprint not yet finished.
I could turn my head, walk away --
        but how? I'd leave myself behind.

---

National Poetry Month 2023: the Sijo

For April, I choose a poetic form, and try to write a poem in that form every day. I’m not always successful, so we’ll see how this year turns out. I’ve chosen some longer forms in the past, which has made my life a bit difficult, but I’ve never gone crazy and chosen something like a sestina or villanelle.

The “Sijo” is the form I’ve chosen for this year. Here is the structure and a little backstory (thank you Poetry Foundation):

Sijo

A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka and comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each, for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line contains a pause near the middle, similar to a caesura, though the break need not be metrical. The first half of the line contains six to nine syllables; the second half should contain no fewer than five. Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure. Modern sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.

What are you writing this month?

This image is the Academy of American Poets’ 2023 poster for NaPoMo. The line is from an Ada Limón poem. You can request your own poster, too!

Time for some book-learning.

I still don’t have a real handle on the sijo. I did some more reading about the form today … which mostly confirmed that I haven’t truly achieved a true sijo yet. And makes me wonder if I will achieve one at any point this month. Alas.

The idea of the form is that the first line introduces the theme of the poem — each line I mention here means two lines if you break the syllable count the way “contemporary sijo” writers (and I) do. The second line elaborates on the theme. The final line does double duty. First, it tosses in a counter theme (a “twist”!) in the first half, and then it draws the poem to a conclusion.

I mean, I knew all of this already. I read about this intro/elaboration/twist-conclusion business when I first checked out the form. And I try to keep these rules in mind while writing. That “twist” throws me every time, however. And yes, I know I don’t have to exactly hit every detail of the rules, but I do like to push myself to come close. And, too, that twist seems like a pretty important component. Is the poem really a sijo if it doesn’t have that? I have doubt.

I’m happy with the website from The Sejong Cultural Society. I referenced info from this page in an earlier post, and it’s where I did my reading today. There are good links for further reading (and for lectures!) about the sijo.

I’m leaving all of that for another time, however. For now, I continue to post my struggle sijo. Tonight’s is inspired by a rabbit-hole-dive I took yesterday, trying to come up with a DIY retreat plan for my birthday:

I am dreaming of Jamaica,
        it's a long time since she's called me.
How have all these years poassed
        without her heat and salt on my skin?
The world's so big and my time short
        but I need her embrace again.

See? Not really a twist. And why don’t any of my poems have titles? Sigh. On to the next.

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National Poetry Month 2023: the Sijo

For April, I choose a poetic form, and try to write a poem in that form every day. I’m not always successful, so we’ll see how this year turns out. I’ve chosen some longer forms in the past, which has made my life a bit difficult, but I’ve never gone crazy and chosen something like a sestina or villanelle.

The “Sijo” is the form I’ve chosen for this year. Here is the structure and a little backstory (thank you Poetry Foundation):

Sijo

A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka and comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each, for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line contains a pause near the middle, similar to a caesura, though the break need not be metrical. The first half of the line contains six to nine syllables; the second half should contain no fewer than five. Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure. Modern sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.

What are you writing this month?

This image is the Academy of American Poets’ 2023 poster for NaPoMo. The line is from an Ada Limón poem. You can request your own poster, too!

My Heart on Walkabout

April 9th, each of these NaPoWriMo years, has almost always been given over to my beloved god-daughter. Today is her birthday, and I have a little collection of poems written to, for, and about her. And this year will follow that tradition. After the sad, downtrodden poems I included in the last post, my Friday poem was still a bit sad and sour … but my Saturday poem picked up, turned a corner. I credit both the book launch event and party I went to on Thursday and the awareness that T’s birthday was around the corner.

So, first Friday’s sour sijo:

"Poison or grapes?" It's always the question.
        "Poison or grapes?"
How can we know what lies ahead
        whether to risk a chance?
I try to have faith --
        But waves so often sweep me under.

Look, I warned you. Still sour. It’s interesting to me how often that Thomas poem creeps into my thoughts, into my writing. “Ears in the Turrets Hear” has been a favorite since the first time I read it more than 40 years ago. It’s not surprising that I think of it often, but I should dig into the “poison or grapes” question, dig into why that it so often on my mind, on my heart.

And here is Saturday’s poem, definitely influenced by sweeter things:

My love is a ranunculus,
        so many petals unfurling.
It is circular, soft and full
        colors bright like morning fire
I wrap it round my beloveds
        my heart walking out in the world.

And then, finally, today’s sijo for T, inspired by the walk I took with her and her brother through the Bryant Park holiday market after Christmas, inspired by how much both she and her brother wow me as they continue to grow into the adults they are becoming:

Who is this woman, her steps marking mine
        keeping pace with me?
She walks at my side -- tall, easy stride,
        face confident, curious.
Shouldn't she be just ten?
        I do a mental double-take.

Who is this woman, bien dans sa peau,
        bright eyes, easy smile.
Twenty-four years of my heart --
        twenty-four years of watching her grow.
I do a mental double-take
        and give thanks for the gift of her.

I still haven’t found a comfortable place with the sijo, but playing with it today felt a little more comfortable than it’s felt the rest of the days. Pushing to a second stanza, using repetition … I felt a little more at home, a little closer to a beginning of understanding this form. I have a long way to go. Let’s see what I figure out in the next 21 days.

---

National Poetry Month 2023: the Sijo

For April, I choose a poetic form, and try to write a poem in that form every day. I’m not always successful, so we’ll see how this year turns out. I’ve chosen some longer forms in the past, which has made my life a bit difficult, but I’ve never gone crazy and chosen something like a sestina or villanelle.

The “Sijo” is the form I’ve chosen for this year. Here is the structure and a little backstory (thank you Poetry Foundation):

Sijo

A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka and comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each, for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line contains a pause near the middle, similar to a caesura, though the break need not be metrical. The first half of the line contains six to nine syllables; the second half should contain no fewer than five. Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure. Modern sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.

What are you writing this month?

This image is the Academy of American Poets’ 2023 poster for NaPoMo. The line is from an Ada Limón poem. You can request your own poster, too!

You Lift Me Up

I wrote that title, and the first thing I thought of was You Take Me Up by Thompson Twins (because I’m old).

I’ve been scratching out sijos the last several days but not having the energy or inclination to log in and post them. But after work on Thursday, I went to the launch event for Cynthia Manick’s new book of poetry. I’ve known Cynthia for a while and loved her poetry even longer, so I was happy to be able to make the book event. In addition, Cynthia had invited to other poets — Marwa Helal and Zakia Henderson-Brown — to read their work as well and moderate the post-reading Q&A. And, as always when I go to readings and book events, there were other poet friends and writer friends in the audience, and I got to see some lovely people I haven’t seen in a while.

Then, at the after-party, a woman whose work I love came over to talk to me. I didn’t think she knew me, so was very pleasantly surprised to find that she did … and that she wanted to talk about my writing. We only talked for a few minutes, but in that short time she gave me so much energy to write, gave me a push that has me thinking in a new way about a languishing project I really want to finish.

That conversation has been percolating in my head and heart the last the last couple of days, and it has convinced me that I should go ahead and post the sijos I’ve been writing this week. I’m not sure why I didn’t want to post them. They aren’t any more terrible than other poems I’ve written. I think my energy level was just VERY low by the end of March, and it was hard to push myself to show up on this page.

Oh. And then I write that and I know that isn’t it. I mean yes, I’m exhausted, but there’s more to this sunken feeling than not getting enough sleep.

There is the big rejection I got early in the week. Of course. An application I’d submitted in January. An application I didn’t truly believe was going to be successful, but something I wanted even more than I’d realized. An application that, if successful, would have been a very specific and powerful kind of “yes” for my writing and for me. And it hurt to read that form letter rejection. It hurt a lot.

I wrote a very sad-sack sijo about it:

My heart is breakable, infinitely so,
        infinitely so.
Sometimes pain comes unexpectedly --
        I am blindsided.
I knew this "no" was coming.
        And still, the pain surprises, shatters.

La Impostora was over my shoulder, reading the “sorry, not you” email along with me, nodding, reminding me that rejection was the inevitable response to my application. I’m not special, after all. I’m not that talented. Certainly not worthy like the people who were selected. She’s much too good at this kind of reminder, much too good at making sure I know just how many doors won’t open for me.

Another sad sijo from this week:

The air is damp and heavy,
        a thick sodden weight overhead.
Rain, poised to fall, floods our breath
        anticipation building.
Children's laughter bubbles like sunlight
        my mood stays grey and stormy.

Sigh. I do know that La Impostora is a liar. Intellectually I know it. In my heart, however … I mean, I must know it in my heart, too. If I didn’t know it, didn’t believe deep down that she is full of crap, I’d have stopped writing years ago, yes? So I know, but it’s hard to pull that knowledge up, to wrap it across my shoulders like a fine silk scarf. Especially difficult in the face of an abrupt slap-down, a rejection I wasn’t ready for.

Before walking to Cynthia’s book event, I went to get my new glasses adjusted. I finally took advantage of the surprisingly good vision plan I have with my insurance and got a new pair of glasses, but they are loose on my face (which is surprising because I have a comically big head, and glasses are never loose). So I walked to the store to have them adjusted. Which inspired another sijo:

A stranger touches my hair, my ear,
        as if that's normal, wanted.
A man I don't know --
        his hands soft, careful, his touch foreign.
Not your touch. I wait --
        he adjusts my new glasses. Thumbs up.

Silly, yes. But it was such an odd moment. I never let anyone touch my hair, and it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d need to check how the glasses fit behind my ears, that he’d need to brush my hair aside in order to check. I’m happy that I didn’t flinch away from him, but it was a close thing. I definitely flinched inside.

Okay, three sijos in one post is surely more than enough. I’ll post the remaining ones with tomorrow’s poem.

There are a lot of reasons to be glad I was able to go to Cynthia’s event. Each poet’s work resonated deeply with me. In addition to the pleasure of the readings, it was so affirming to be in that space with so many writers, to have people ask about my work, to feel so at home. Hence the title of this post. I spent so much of this week feeling every bit of a lost cause, a failure. Thursday pulled me back into the light, reminded me of who I am. So grateful for writing community.

You take me up, oh oh,
You take me up to the higher ground.
You take me up so high
Now I never want to come back down. 

(How do I always forget how much I loved Thompson Twins?)

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National Poetry Month 2023: the Sijo

For April, I choose a poetic form, and try to write a poem in that form every day. I’m not always successful, so we’ll see how this year turns out. I’ve chosen some longer forms in the past, which has made my life a bit difficult, but I’ve never gone crazy and chosen something like a sestina or villanelle.

The “Sijo” is the form I’ve chosen for this year. Here is the structure and a little backstory (thank you Poetry Foundation):

Sijo

A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka and comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each, for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line contains a pause near the middle, similar to a caesura, though the break need not be metrical. The first half of the line contains six to nine syllables; the second half should contain no fewer than five. Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure. Modern sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.

What are you writing this month?

This image is the Academy of American Poets’ 2023 poster for NaPoMo. The line is from an Ada Limón poem. You can request your own poster, too!