Snack Time - New Culinary Discoveries...

When I visit classes in elementary schools, there is an inevitable session that falls just as snack time is ending or scheduled. The students' desks are topped with an array of finger foods and crunchy treats, juice boxes, carrot sticks in zip lock bags, cookies. The teacher will often have big barrel-shaped plastic containers of snack mix or pretzels as thick as a thumb. They would have paid for that staple out of pocket at Aldi's or the Dollar Tree.

One of the treats I have been introduced to I find addicting is the junk food delicacy of Takis. A Taki is a Nacho Dorito on steroids, combined with a hint of salt and vinegar potato chip flavor. They stain your tongue and fingers red. They cause your tongue to tingle and pucker. You can only eat about 10 before maxing out.

I cannot find a bag of Takis in upstate NY so I bought a couple of them in Newburgh before I left Orange County at the end of my 2010-11 contract with Middletown Schools. I finished one bag about 6 weeks ago. I am hesitant to open the second because I know that, once I do, there is no turning back. I will devour them over the course of about a week. Then they will be gone.

My Treasure Files

Over the years in which I have worked in schools, both daytime and afternoon programs, I have received many small gifts from students. Often these gifts are little drawings that children have made, perhaps even while listening to our lesson. Sometimes they are portraits of me, a lovely reflection of who I am to the young humans before me. Other times the gift may be a poem, either handwritten or printed off a computer. These will likely have colorful, creative fonts and clip art illustrations. Teens give me gifts as well, Anime pencil drawings perhaps but mostly copies of writings that they want me to read and to remember them by. Poems they hope I will affirm. There is always something positive to state about the work. They often linger until most of their classmates have transitioned out the door toward the next class. Their need is earnest. Often my name is spelled in creative ways.

Students also seem somewhat surprised that their gifts are appreciated. I tell the elementary students that I will keep their gifts in myTreasure File. In the early days of my work with youth, I started a file folder for the little scraps and pieces of construction paper, notebook paper unclipped from 3-ring binders, origami cranes of various sizes and colors, friendship bracelets braided from embroidery floss. I graduated to the larger document pockets when I outgrew the first folder.

Sometimes students give me other gifts, little trinkets or bookmarks from the school library. This past school year, one 3rd grader slipped an ice-blue rubber bracelet over my hand to my right wrist from his own on my last day with his class. "Ms. Popoff, I want you to have this. I won it in basketball in gym..." I told him I was not sure that I should accept the gift since it was his and it represented his achievement but he insisted. I accepted but still I questioned, did I have the right to take this child's marker of doing well? I was also conscious that he was not a child of privilege. But I remember his face as if he were right before me now and I remember his huge grin in the act of giving. I had given him something of value and he was reciprocating. That is a basic human act and we are bonded by a small circle of rubber.

I noticed later that the bracelet was imprinted with a slogan something to the affect of "Remember Autism" and an Autism support organization web site. I have close friends who parent children with Autism and related processing abilities. I have taught many students who process differently than I do. For the next couple of days, every time I looked at my right wrist, I thought of my generous young man as well as my many creative students in supported classrooms.

Three days later, in the school hallway near the art rooms, I passed my young benefactor in line with his class. I have a little sign of greeting I share with students so we can be excited to see each other in the halls but maintain the decorum expected in the common areas. It is like a private handshake and it avoids most outbursts of "HI MS. POPOFF!!!" in the library or outside the lavatories. After sharing the our coded greeting, I caught the eye of the boy and pointed to my wrist, the band of blue. His eyes got big and he exclaimed, "You still have it!" I placed my index finger to my lips as a reminder we were in the hall and then I whispered with a genuine and gigantic smile, "Of course I do."

I knew at that moment that I was right to keep the bracelet. I wore it every day for nearly 3 months. I never took it off. After awhile, the white print of the organization and its motto wore off. The summer heat soared to 100. The sweat under the band was annoying so I took it off. Right now it is in a small dish on my nightstand with some Silly Bands that my nephew gave me. I will add it to the Treasure File when I am ready to not notice it every day, when I remember his face without the visual prompt and I keep the talents and skills of my students with special needs and abilities in the forefront of my consciousness.

The Natural Rhythms of Summer and a Foreboding Forecast

It has been a rough-n-tumble summer, given the huge impact of the current state of the nation and how it will affect everything, most certainly how it will hobble the world of education. I am piece-mealing my way through the summer months with some freelance work and a bit of teaching here and there. It has been cause for anxiety and a lot of soul searching. The cloud banks on the horizon are ominous and tunneled for most of us, not the least of whom the art educators like me, working independently and without a net. We are quite vulnerable, even more so than we have known previously.

But this afternoon I am curiously at ease all of a sudden. I have been in deep self-examination since May, no stone unturned. At times it has been a fire walk. I have managed to achieve a great deal of clarity.  I have taken a magnifying glass to my reasons for the career path I have chosen. In spite of the disruptions of our current economic and political climate, I believe that this is the work I should be doing.  I will persevere. 

I experienced a lengthy poetic quiet time. It lasted throughout much of the 80s and into the early 90s. In the silence of my pen, I invested a significant course of study in my spiritual understanding, learning principals of metaphysics. Poetry had fulfilled my spiritual need throughout my life until my early 30s, when the words ran dry in the face of constant frustration and roadblocks to living my truest identity as poet. It was a crisis of faith and I searched for understanding. This was equally frustrating since the questions, I have discovered, are often confounding, rarely answered and, if somehow there is an answer, it is  generally anything but concrete.

I had a caring teacher who opened me to an understanding of healing and connection that is based in faith and intuition, the metaphysical realm of being that became an even stronger part of who I am in all ways. Rev. Joan D. Lee had a classroom in the basement of her suburban split ranch that served as a conduit to community in so many ways. There are countless ones such as myself who have reasons to honor and thank Joanie for all she presented to us, the keys to our knowledge, faith, and talents, that we then used to open a multitude of doors. For many of us, we embraced our life work. Our circle grew quite wide.

Rev. Joan has been on my mind this week, as is generally the case in August. It is her birthday month. We are no longer in touch. I knew that her husband of 55 years, Raymond Lee, made his transition this past winter. I wondered how she was going to get by. Joanie didn't drive.

This morning, as is my habit, I checked the obituaries on line. There was a notice with Joanie's name, stating that she passed into the Light on July 17th. I gasped. Then I offered my gratitude and bid her well in her journey. Thank you, Joan, for opening my eyes to my own capacity at a time when I needed both a mirror and a guide. Tonight I will light a candle in the garden for both Ray and Joan. I will place it between my two rose bushes that struggle on in their bed with not enough sun. I wonder who will inherit your rose beds. Will they understand how much you loved them? How long they have danced their seasons for you?

During my poetic quiet time, I learned much, including a healthy regard for the quiet times; an artist needs them. I also reflected often to the universe, If I may be of service with my words, please allow me to have them back. That was 17 years ago.

In these 17 years, I have created my life based on my true self, the one I knew intimately when I was first comprehending that I loved words. I am a poet. I take this very seriously. 

In those 17 years, I have built a pedagogy and a sound practice that may be summed up in a 3-word motto: Empowerment through Language. I thank my friend Amanda Gormley for assigning the task that led to this summary. I have also written and published three books. There are at least four in my brain right now, waiting for my fingers to translate them into written language. One of them carries the title Psychometry. I will dedicate it to Joan.

In my work as a writer educator, no matter the age or circumstance of the students before me, I approach my work with intention and integrity. I have no agenda other than to foster the ability of others to engage truly with themselves, with others, and with their own connection to language, and earn a living sharing the knowledge and perspective I have developed over the 50 years I have identified as poet. I hope that what I have to say has relevance to others. I hope that people will cross more bridges of understanding the poets of the world provide to us all so we may learn of the world beyond the small stamps we each create on this planet. 

This is a devoted path. It is my life. And now I trust that the recognition for my work will be expressed in a way that I am able to continue to earn my living and build some sense of security I do not have now.

It is a bit intimidating but we are all faced with fears in this moment in history. It is a crossroads for us all, one way or another. The horizon may appear dark but the sun is always just beyond, sometimes just beyond reach as well. But honor your belief in the sun. It is a constant.

Complacency Is a Slow Death - Last Part (for now...)

Our workshop met for the last time yesterday, a 6-week cycle of sessions that I hope directed the writers to new ways of thinking about their work and, for a few, created fuel for new poems and directions.

They took the assignment seriously. Each brought a revision of my poem or a complete rewrite as they would envision it, as I had instructed. Several were still reticent to mess with my poem, others were quite comfortable taking it apart and making it something different and new.

I learned a lot about what the poem may be able to accomplish and why. I also recognized how completely buried I had become in the clever language that enamored me in the first place. It has been more than 2 years since the first draft and at least 18 months since the last so now I have a remarkably clear vision to rely upon in bringing the poem to its potential. I appreciate the efforts of each of the participants and I trust that the activity gave them something to consider as writers and editors.

I spoke last Saturday to my dear friend, Phil Alexander. We make a habit of sharing a weekend morning of puttering in our respective homes, his condo apartment in Brooklyn, my Victorian home in Syracuse, our headsets in our ears or phones on speaker, coffee cups probably in hand, and the little chores that need to be met.

We were talking about process and writing. I was discussing the purpose of being a poet and suggested that it is simply to make art, to investigate and experiment with language. Phil added that it was to use language to share a thought, feeling, or inspiration. I countered that I considered that the goal, but that to make a poem is about the discovery of the possibilities of language as a painter discovers the possibilities of paint in the experimentation. To me, in this stage of my life as a writing artist, the goal is secondary to the making; the product is secondary to process. 

Then Phil suggested that the poem communicates to another the essence of the artist and the artist's beliefs and understanding. I suggested that, to me, that is the mission. The process is for the purity of making art. The goal is to make art that another responds to, and the mission is to make art that translates meaning and experience to others in a valuable and conscious way. In speaking with my dear friend, once again, I clarified my own mission statement. Thanks Phil!

Thanks to those members of my poetry workshop too. Not only did they share process and craft with each other while they created new work, they also supported my efforts to continue to be a teaching artist. I am blessed with abundance in this life because I have such people to share it with me, who believe in me, who see me through, and show me the way to all things, including the potential of my own work.

Complacency Is a Slow Death - Part 2

The workshop conversation regarding critique and how we may learn from each other, provide new lenses with which to observe our own work was such a prod to me that I chose to take a tact that I have done before: I distributed copies of one of my own poems that is particularly troubling me and assigned the homework for the week - rewrite the poem. I instructed the workshop members to take full liberty. They were to read the poem and try to find a better way for the poem to reach its potential. There were no restrictions on how to do this.

I have done this before, mostly with introductory classes after I have driven home the revision process and its value. I have received comments from colleagues that this is "brave," "courageous," even "How can you do that? I never could." 

I don't see why this is so brave? I want to drive home a number of points: I am just as prone to be stymied by a poem and the best way out is someone else's perspective on the poem itself and as well as their sense of the craft; although we honor the work, it is not so sacred that we can't let people play in it a little bit; and the process of discovery is the point. If I grant permission to mess it up, then have at it with hole heart and see what may be found. 

Additionally, in having to reinterpret a poem, or to reflect the style of another poet, one gains as well. Having to respond to a poem by another writer in this way eliminates the emotional attachment that blocks some writers from comprehensive revision. The habit of revision must be cultivated and this is a fine exercise to support that cultivation, or so I believe. Plus, I am not so attached to my poem that I mind new interpretations. If I do not find anything that I value in the comments, it is my choice to not employ them, as is always the case with workshop comments. We, the poets, must always listen and then determine which of the comments support the essence of the poem, if any, and then make some changes based on what was gleaned.

I am looking forward to the results of the assignment. We will meet on Thursday for our last session of the summer. We will compare and contrast all of the interpretations of my poem and I will listen well. Then maybe I will distill all the comments in a way that I find the success that has eluded me thus far. I will report out to the blogosphere later in the week and share what resulted from this little foray.

Complacency Is a Slow Death

This summer, as I focus on teaching adults rather than classrooms of school kids, a conversation surfaced in the poetry workshop regarding critique and suggestions from one writer to another.

One of the workshop participants took issue with another participant for the habit of offering rewrite suggestions. He felt that it was against protocol to rewrite another poet's work. This gentleman stated that he was very interested in receiving "harsh criticism" but that no one should rewrite his draft. Meanwhile, another member of the workshop was grappling with receiving comments from the other writers that did not suggest options for revision; he felt that simply stating what a reader felt was or was not successful does not deliver enough to help him make critical decisions for the growth of his work. He wants to be given examples of "how to fix it."

Here we have the age-old debate concerning workshopping. Workshop is the best way for any writer to take the work to a "control group" to ascertain its effectiveness and strengths. It is necessary to maintain an air of mutual regard. It is also supremely important to remember the difference between "critique" and "criticism." The difference also connects directly to ego issues on both sides. There must be an air of safety and respect among all participants for a beneficial exchange. A skilled facilitator will set that tone in the beginning and expect it to be maintained throughout the life of the workshop.

There are those who believe that there is no place for one poet rewriting another's work but I do not concur. In fact, my answer to the first gentleman was "Yes and no." No to the concept that a poem brought to workshop is so sacred that it cannot benefit from the ways that other writers may see the potential for the language and offer suggestions in tangible ways. Yes to the point that if, in the editorial suggestions, the person offering critique changes the context of the poem, that is not appropriate. We must strive to maintain the intention of the poem, but to provide viable options for the poet to consider. Then it is the poet's choice as to which suggestions will help deliver the success of the poem for the greatest readership.

In workshop, a poet has two jobs: to fairly offer critique to peers that will show a writer how much the poem is connecting with readers in a positive manner and to listen to comments about one's own poem in order to weigh the considerations fairly in developing the work. The fundamental difference between the words critique and criticism is that the first is a positive commentary that provides a constructive opportunity for discovery in the work; the second is based in negative response and can be hurtful. There is no place for criticism in workshop but critique is the foundation of the workshop process.

I have often heard poets who participate in ongoing workshops say that they were not planning to attend a session because they did not have any work to share. This misses the first responsibility of a workshop participant, that which each writer brings to the others. This is based on just getting one's own needs met without reciprocity. I believe it is a selfish  indulgence and negates what we all give each other in the workshop process. It also negates the ability to hear something regarding craft that will teach or illustrate something that may be incorporated in one's own work as the commentary flies. As members discuss one poem, all that craft discussion is applicable to the whole. Listen well.

Two other elements of a successful workshop experience are that of nonattachment and the willingness to revise for discovery. Do not bring a piece of writing that you are delighted with and feel is complete. If you are so satisfied, fine. Send the work out to be considered for publication. Mail it to your mom. Don't bring it to workshop for a pat on the back; stretch your arm over your shoulder and give that to yourself.

Do bring a poem that you either believe is very close and could benefit from the last phase of tweaking so every word brings value to the whole or bring a poem that stymies you. Make the workshop experience productive, one that shows you new approaches and opportunities that will benefit your poetry.

You must be able to develop a thick skin, a nonattachment to the work that will give you free reign to discover what the poem wants to be more than what you believe it is. We must be the navigators, holding the map and watching the road, but we benefit by letting the poem be the driver.

This nonattachment features strongly in the profile of a mature writer, one who knows that it is not about the end product as much as it is about the process. The life of the writer is of writing and creating but many seem to think that it is about publishing and there is a crush to meet that goal that results in work that is almost meeting its own potential but falls inches short of the true finish line. Again I ask, "What is the rush?" Honor the poem first! Take the time to fully serve its potential. Be willing to cut and change, to look up words and search for the perfect synonym. Be willing to let the poem fully evolve and take its time in so doing. Be willing to allow others to offer suggestions that they recognize, potentials they witness, in the off chance their vision as a reader will give you a key to another door of possibility for the life of your poem.

And for heaven's sake, never indulge in complacency. If you cannot be open to grow and experiment, you are not a poet, you are someone who writes poems, and that difference is as vast as the two definitions I cited above. There is no place for complacency in making art.

What a Difference a Day Makes - Some Thoughts on Memoir

This summer I am teaching another in a series of memoir workshops. My approach in this class is somewhat different from previous classes. Instead of offering a number of writing prompts and approaches for initiating the story lines, I asked the participants to determine a thread or theme for the entire 6 weeks, creating the goal of a completed piece or series, declaring the outcome of success and achievement from the start.

In reading memoir in the last few years, I keep encountering the profile of the privileged woman with a loyal and committed husband, a successful career (often as a freelance writer), even a great cat or dog, and a malaise that can only be satisfied by taking a year off in some exotic land or ritualistic endeavor. Of course, there is likely the complaint of a decrease in discretionary funding but it will all work out because these women also have book deals.

Another model for a successful memoir is often the pot-boiler tell-all that shares the sordid and painful details of a troubled life, the horrid things that an individual has endured and every skeleton uncloseted for the shock value and loads of book sales, especially if the author is famous or the child of someone famous.

Then there are the exceptions to these two examples, the well-written, touching, and authentic sharing of one's personal story. Anne Lamott is a prime example; Patti Smith, Stephanie Hubbard, Kathleen Norris all meet that mark as well.

Everyone's story is important. We are losing the stories of previous generations, the ties to our families, our heritage, history itself. Start your story. Start it simply...what was the first day of school like, your first job, your first date, how did you learn to cook, describe the bathroom of the home you grew up in. Dedicate a file folder on your computer. Purchase a spiral notebook or a blank journal. Don't worry about whether or not you are a "good writer." Write the way you would tell a friend. Just start...

Found Post: "Sunday - The Night Before..."

In the process of tweaking the blog site, I discovered this last post that I did not publish from the school year. I still want to share the sentiment, even though it is now summer and this moment is long gone. It is like my own blogosphere time machine. Please enjoy:

This is the time of year when the drive from Syracuse downstate to teach for the week is the most subtle and encouraging. The snows are not so far behind that there is no evidence. The trees along the hills and shoulder have a hint of green, as if someone sifted pale green powder over the branches. Others are tinged red as malbec. Everything is waking up from the hibernation and the sun will soon be gold again, instead of silver.

I will start my last residency of the school year tomorrow. I will meet approximately 75 more 3rd graders at another school. I will invite them into the magical world of my poetry game and I will likely succeed in getting them all playing with me. I am probably at my best with 3rd graders. I have an appreciation for every age group with whom I work and share poetry. Each age, even generation, brings something different to the experience. But when I am in elementary schools, the imaginative play is still there. And, given this time in American education, it is probably the most valuable thing I can offer the teachers and students alike - the chance to find another way of learning with creativity and imagination. We are all hungry for it these days but it is more noticeable in our schools.

There is a thirst for the opportunity to teach with a freedom that teachers once had. So I get to deliver a few moments of play and poetry together. I get to laugh and bounce through the room and prod and pose countless questions. With 3rd graders, I get to invite them to think of themselves as quite extraordinary and offer them a special mission. Inside that new grouping of words rests the solution to a mystery. The words are not always attainable in the first reading and that is not a bad thing. That is an opportunity to put our detective skills to work.

In the "Poetry Detectives" virtual video game, the full impact of the premise is realized with elementary students. They are willing to buy my spiel...they put on their "official, imaginary, invisible Poetry Detective thinking caps" with flourish. They brandish their "official, imaginary, invisible Poetry Detective badges" as they claim their identities as word sleuths. Then they peer through their "official, imaginary, invisible Poetry Detective magnifying glasses" as they ponder every word; their first hint in the game being that there is never a word in a poem by accident. Each word the poet selects serves a purpose in determining what we think the poet wants us to know, feel, think, or understand from reading the poem.

In middle school, the video game construct works well but we lose the imaginary play that makes it so vibrant with the younger children. The competition takes precedence over the imaginary factors. The students still strive but in a different way. 

High school is different still and the coolness factor creates greater hurdles to leap to create and sustain engagement. But the metaphor still works.

On Sunday evenings, I start to think of the smiles, the questions, the schedule, refreshing my memory of the school map, etc. I think about the cafeteria specials that each school is noted for. I remember the names of staff members such as the Library/Media Specialists, the school secretarial staff, the front desk security folks who check my license and welcome me in. Soon it will be time to boot up the game.

Fate, Discovery, & Sunday a.m. Television

I woke to a gray, heavy July Sunday morning, thick as flour, damp to the nose, quiet. I am reading Patti Smith's tender memoir, Just Kids, and I waited to make coffee for at least an hour. Then I infused the moist air with the incense of coffee perking, the syncopation.

Next, I immersed in my weekly ritual, "CBS Sunday Morning." That program always airs something that makes me wonder, something that makes me more aware, and always an amusement, along with a thoughtful meditation on humor.

Afterwards, I stumbled on "Kool: Dancing in My Mind" on Sundance. Choreographer and director Robert Wilson documented his journey to find his collaborator from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, Japanese dancer Suzushi Hanayagi, with whom he had lost touch.

His dear friend, a dancer, an artist equally gifted in both Japanese traditional dance and the most avante garde modern, was in a facility in Japan for elders with Alzheimer's. Graciously and gracefully, the 30-minute documentary illustrates the essence of their art as dancers and philosophers, and how they collaborated to make dances. The reunion and its implications were poignant. The dance expansive and impeccable.

I adore any book or video that illustrates the creative process, no matter the artistic discipline or medium. In this film, it was Robert Wilson's articulation of making a dance, making a piece that caught my ear. Dancers make a piece; poets write one. The context for me is one of active involvement somehow. Making a poem opens the potential for the work to guide us more than writing a poem seems to imply to me; it expands the promise, the vow of discovery.

At the beginning of the film, Mr. Wilson avers, "The most important thing, as an artist, is not to say what something is; because, if we know what it is we're doing, there's no reason to do it. The reason to work is to say What is it?"

Anyone can be safe in making art. Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe danced that difference between each other and within themselves, I am learning. Safe is okay for some but seems somehow mundane to me, at this point. Writing a poem seems safe. Making a poem must somehow involve taking a risk, refusing complacency.

The making of a poem is about process. The writing of a poem is a concern rooted in product. Again, I am prompted to my repeated question of myself and to my students, "What's the rush?" The act of making a poem is the glorious mystery of what it will achieve, given its own journey, what it make aspire to express. In making a poem, the poem is the driver, the poet holds the map and navigates. Our fingers dance what the poem asks of us, leaving a notation of that choreography on the page.

No Crying in Baseball or Over Spilt Milk...

My week started with the disappointing news that I, among many who applied, did not receive a NY Foundation for the Arts Independent Artist Fellowship once again. I was so disappointed for any number of reasons and frustrations, not the least of which, the leg up that $7,000 of unrestricted funds would have provided at this point in my life. But the other significant disappointment was the artistic let-down, the competitive fear factor of not being "good enough" to warrant the award. That doubt preys at the back of my psyche, nagging in a raspy whisper, while logic attempts to talk louder, reminding of the crap shoot, the numbers game, and how many colleagues with bigger "names," tenure track teaching positions, and impressive publishing deals are also not receiving fellowships this round.

I indulged my perch on the pitty pot for about 24 hours of lingering pouts, several hours of really mourning the death of my hope. Then I got busy with next steps. 

It was still a productive week in moving forward. I have a support team of colleagues who believe in me and I am taking steps every day to push the course of my career and my writing along in a positive direction. I have concrete action items to complete as I strive for the national recognition of the work I do independent writer/educator, as well as a collaborator with Quraysh Ali Lansana and our work with Our Difficult Sunlight. I am blessed in countless ways to be surrounded by the astounding talent and generosity of my friends and colleagues; I search for ways that we can work together to support and foster each other's successes.

I also have skills to share. I teach workshops, I help friends edit their materials and creative expression, I connect people who need to know each other, according often to my intuition more than anything. In the dry time of summer for my work, I will likely have to turn these skills into temp work because the bill collectors don't care about my community networking.

The end of the week, when I was just about resolved to my fate of no fellowship, I received notice that I did not get the adjunct position I applied for, again a stretch and a hope in even applying. I indulged my place on the pitty pot again for about an hour, and now I am back at the next phase of "Okay, what next?" This is the resilience that is required of any independent artist, teaching artist, contractor, consultant, and/or entrepreneur.

This resilience is a necessary armor. And when all else fails, loud rock 'n roll and r & b from back in the day, ignoring the phone, avoiding any email or text message provide the rebound. Lou Reed says it best, "Some people like to go out dancing; there's other people like us, we gotta work...She started dancing to that fine, fine music; her life was saved by rock 'n' roll..."

Random Thoughts on Language for a Friday Afternoon

This summer I am more focused on teaching adult writers than on K-12 classroom experiences. This is a shift in my own consciousness as I am only teaching elements of writing and revision instead of ways to be a better reader. There is something I keep coming back to in this teaching, as the summer storms keep swirling around the house: we cannot be good writers if we hide the full intention behind our language.

I have had several discussions on the big words, those abstract universals such as happiness, sorrow, beauty, humility, the universe, joy, etc. When we use these terms, we are also relying a great deal on our reader's back knowledge and programming. If we do not illustrate what we interpret these words to be, in metaphoric and imagistic connections, we ask our readers to do all of the work. I liken it to Pavlov and the pooches. When this happens, we ring bells that our readers respond to in patterned ways, rather than navigating our readers to a unique landscape in which these big words can be experienced rather than conjured, crafted by our own imaginations and then shared. 

This evasion of the true message, or relying more on the reader than our own sensibilities to derive the essence of the poem (or any written piece), makes for dull writing. It does not say anything of consequence that will make me, as a reader, want to go back and back again to the piece. It is also a way to be very safe but not captivating. If something cannot be exposed fully, don't write it until it can, until you feel safe as a writer to be open as the sky. Wait...there is no rush. But be authentic and be tangible and clear with your writing, as well as inventive and engaging.

TGIF...and what a magificent thunderous sky!

The Symphony of Summer Rain

It is the second day of summer; at 5:30 this morning, a spectacular thunderstorm marched through Central New York, depositing more rain than the remainder of June has afforded us. I woke to open the blinds and watch the lightning and sheets of water from my bed, then fell asleep to the rhythm of the rain once the excitement died down.

Now I am moving slower than a slug, and I have resisted any sound but the raindrops. Periodically, the clouds let loose with curtains of rain falling straight down, soaking the soil and the roots of all the lilies, hostas, bee balm, and other perennials waiting to do their dance. 

I am being intentional in my slow pace as well. I read 30 pages of Patti Smith's "Just Kids" while nursing a tumbler of iced coffee. Once in awhile, just enough breeze jostled the wind chimes into performance. Now I am upstairs in my office that resembles the inside of my brain...an informed chaos.

This is the beginning of my summer. I have no book deadlines to meet this year. I hope to attend to my poems and the stack of memoirs I want to read. I need to weed and reorder the gardens front and back. And I am teaching a couple of workshops that will be most fulfilling. I hope that work centered on "Our Difficult Sunlight" presents itself soon and that all stabilizes for my bank account. 

But this morning, I am being slow and conscious of the blessing of rain.

Summer Solstice & the Poet's Life

First of all, I can't believe that it has been nearly 8 weeks since I last posted an entry. In that time I have had book launch events in Syracuse, my hometown, and NYC, when it was nearly 100 degrees and the city was already a bit limp, I have started two salon classes in my home, pulled a few handfuls of weeds when I need to do major excavation of unwanted growth, journaled nearly 100 pages, and started at least six poems that lay fallow on lined white paper waiting for me to concentrate. 

I am not sure how the world is to be negotiated all the time but I know that, if I am to succeed in meeting my goals, I must be diligent in constantly putting one foot in front of the other.

There are people who say they can help, they want to help, they intend to help in our lives. There are people we pay to help us. There are people we ask to help us. But it is always really about how we help ourselves.

I have embarked on this path of full-time poet, as a teaching artist and a writer, after years of losing faith that I could always be anchored in this identity. I developed a lot of skills in the process and now, more than ever, is the time to put my skill set to good use in marketing my work and my books. I have what it takes to sell the concept of my work and I am certain every day to make at least two strides in so doing.

And I am constantly trolling for opportunities, searching the web, reading blogs and posts by friends, sharing my passion about my work with other people in the hopes that they have ideas that will guide my progress further. 

Many years ago, a wonderful woman of faith, my dear friend Mrs. Gainer, and I would talk of God. She would say to me over and over in our discussions, "Like I always say, Georgia, you take one step toward Him and He will take two steps toward you." I have to echo that to myself constantly.

Yesterday, I had a moment of disappointment. Months ago, I applied for a particular fellowship, AGAIN, and got the email that said I was not one of those awarded, AGAIN. The list of things I would have put that $7,000 to good use in resolving was quite long. I really could have used the leg up that the award would have provided. I prayed about it for months. I tried not to be too attached to the outcome and certainly not to rely too heavily on the potential. 

But it hurt to be told no once again. It hurt as an artist and it hurt as a human. But today, I am grateful that I woke up to this first day of summer. I will figure out a way to pay the mortgage, all the bills, etc. I always do. Sometimes because friends help me, generously believing in me and aiding me to believe in myself. And sometimes, I just have to keep walking forward.

Here's to a beautiful summer and all we will discover in this season of sowing and growing. It is the journey, not the outcome, in which the real poetry resides.