Why Arsenio Hall Owes Women an Apology

I never missed Arsenio Hall in the 1990s. The  historical perspective alone drove me to the show. Then, it was consistently funny, offered cutting edge musical guests, was socially conscious/sensitive, culturally relevant, the whole package. And in the words of Warren Zevon, his hair was perfect.

The night that LA rioted, his was the only live broadcast and it was stunning. I was a loyal fan, devastated and indignant when he got cancelled; therefore, when I heard he was coming back on the air, I had high expectations and was delighted.

I watched and found that I was underwhelmed, a certain disappointment, but I figured I would let him catch his stride. I would be a supportive fan and be patient.

On December 10, 2013, shortly after the death of Nelson Mandela, I tuned into the monologue. There were two significant news items that he was addressing: one situation in which some people were disturbed by other people who attended a function in Afrocentric  clothing and the removal of the mayor of San Diego for repeated and flagrant sexual harassment. In the first case, he spoke passionately about the absurdity of someone feeling threatened by people dressed in traditional attire, the ludicrous offense of the whole notion of fear of people of African descent. I shared his indignation and was pleased that he brought it to my attention, since I do my best to be aware of bigotry and injustice, much less sheer stupidity.

After speaking his peace on that issue, with a round of applause from the audience, he moved on to the ouster of the mayor. The bit was set up as if he was interviewing one of the many women who had come forth to expose this  abuse. The woman was young and attractive and Arsenio asked a series of of appropriate questions, although it was becoming evident that she was an actress. Then Arsenio asked how the mayor had acted inappropriately toward her.  The response floored me. She said something to the effect of, "Oh no, he never hit on me. And what's up with that?! I am attractive! Why didn't he approach me..." etc.

I was dumbstruck as the audience responded to the applause sign. Arsenio backed out of the bit with his chuckle. I caught my breath and became irate. I immediately turned to Twitter: "@arseniohall After tasteless bit on San Diego ex-mayor, I can't watch. Offenses toward women as insulting as racism. Not suited to bad jokes.."

I received no reply or comment from Arsenio's social media team or anyone who tweets. It has taken me 7 weeks to clear my head to address the offense and I have never watched him since. 

I am a woman who has experienced rape. I am among millions. I have also experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. I have witnessed the same of other women and supported those who were devastated by violation, sometimes still trying to find a way to heal decades later. Everyone knows someone who carries such a scar. The statistics bear the truth of violence and insult towards women. And it is no joking matter.

What it takes to bear the shame, much less come forward, requires great courage. Often the blame is placed on the victim. Often the claim is completely dismissed. Every woman who stood up to be counted as one of those violated by that  man who denied and discounted his egregious offenses exhibited great strength.  And still, it took a long time before the  community realized that there was a crucial problem and he was a liar as well as an abuser.

Arsenio: I am going to give you the  benefit of the doubt, as well as that for your writers, most of whom I assume are men, that you meant no harm. But you cannot express your righteous indignation for the racist foundation of the absurdity of the one situation, then turn around and try to make humor of the plight of abuse towards women. I am going to continue to feel embarrassed for the actress you hired for the bit. She probably needed the money for rent. But you insulted her by implicating her. You dismissed and insulted every woman who was hurt by that man and then chose to come forward, no matter what that would do to them in the public sphere, much less in their private lives.

And you insulted every woman. Your own family. Your friends. Your employees and colleagues. Your audience. More than 50% of the American citizenry who do not benefit from equal rights under the law. And women worldwide who are violated and abused every minute of every day.

When you have the strength of character to apologize to each and every one of us, I will try again. But you have to gather your strength and humility and "man up.."           

  

  

Just Keep Doing the Good Work...

Late fall, I received a phone call from the offices of Syracuse University's Hendricks Chapel that I had been selected to receive one of four awards of the Unsung Heroes honor bestowed to members of the Central NY community and campus at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration held at the Carrier Dome. This is the largest campus observation of Dr. King Day in the nation and, for 29 years, always starts the year in our region with inspiration and recognition of the tenets of Dr. King and how peace, diversity, acceptance, and perseverance better life for us all. It is also a reminder of both the victories since Dr. King walked among us and how far we still need to go.
 
My fellow honorees, Joseph Bryant, Deborah Person, and Dorothy Russell, are remarkable members of our community, each taking much of their time, energy, and likely income, to be of service to others. I am  in exalted company and humbled by their commitment.

As we were waiting to take the stage for our part of the evening's offerings, I was moved to tears to think that I was considered to be one of those carrying the torch of Dr. King's mission. I am one who says yes often and take entirely too many meetings to brainstorm, plan, strategize, coordinate with friends and colleagues with brilliant vision, in an effort to be supportive and create opportunities for those who live in this community. I have dedicated my life to being of service in ways that are not always obvious, or so I thought. But as news got out that I was to be so honored, I have received hundreds of messages in my inbox, text messages, and on social media from people in my region and throughout the nation that this award is well deserved. I am so flattered and to be seen as valuable, as a change agent, as a mentor, a contributor is a blessing. But I am also just one poet moving through the world doing my best to honor others and amplify their abilities to be true to themselves, to speak, to have voice. I have signed petitions, I have been in some marches in my time, I have been bold and outspoken. But my sacrifice is small compared to so many others.

I thank my beloved friend, Jill Ouikahilo, for thinking so highly of me that she would submit my name in nomination. I am grateful to the committee that looked at my efforts in such a way that they believed I was worthy. I will cherish this award, this touching recognition as a treasure always, and will do my best to remember that there is so much more to do.

As a society, we are mired in confusion and distrust as a nation, as a globe, as humanity. Bigotry is rampant, poverty cripples us. I believe many are tired and feeling hopeless. We have a broken system in both houses of our Congress and the class war is at appalling proportions. The media fuel the differences, and fan the fires of fear, more than serve to inform and educate. 

We must all be strong. We are all capable of making change. Perhaps not in huge ways, but we have the ability to object to statements of bigotry, sexism, hatred, disdain every day. We have the ability to look other humans straight in the eye with a smile and say, "Have a good day." We can send a note of encouragement to those who do good work or who are struggling. We can make small contributions that add up. We can each be an example of what it takes to be a human being in good stead. We can be bold in gentle ways. It is up to each of us to take a stand. In so doing, we build our numbers and we are not alone. We are all heroes, if just for one day, according to Bowie.

Proceed and be bold.

And as I have been advised on countless occasions by my dear friend, Sue Stonecash, just keep doing the good work. Don't be concerned with drawing attention to it. It will happen of its own accord. Darn, Sue...you were right. Of course you were right. Now to keep doing what I do. Onward...

How Cora Thomas Keeps Me Grounded for My Week Ahead

I start my Sundays with Ms. Cora Thomas' gospel show on WAER 88.3. It is my ritual to wait for her weekly closing before putting my feet on the floor. Every week, Cora offers, "If  you put everything in the Lord's hands, eventually you will see the Lord's hands in everything." Then she plays the great Hezekiah Walker's "I Need You to Survive" and I listen, often singing along:

       I need you
          You need me
          We're all a part of God's body
          Stand with me
          Agree with me
          We're all a part of God's body
          It is his will that every need be supplied
          You are important to me
          I need you to survive

          I pray for you
          You pray for me
          I love you
          I need you to survive
          I won't harm you
          With words from my mouth
          I love you
          I need you to survive

          It is his will that every need be supplied
          You are important to me
          I need you to survive

Now, some of my friends will be concerned that I have become fundamentalist, others will stop reading just because I said "God" and "pray" publicly. But I have been concerned about the discourses of late, in the media, on Facebook, the general tone of attack, of snarkiness, as if that is an admirable quality. The fact is, fear pervades everything.

Over the holidays, Ernesto Mercer, wonderful poet and conscious being living in DC, posted a stunning and simple reminder of the grave issues none of us who has the privilege to pull out their smartphones and check notifications and like each other's statuses has to face any given day. Yes, I used the hot button word "privilege." There is a lot of vitriol being spilled over the notion of privilege.

I listened to the news once Cora's show ended, "...I need you to survive..." still my echo. Then I listened to NPR Sunday Edition. There are bombings all over the Mideast. There was an interview with a man who has willingly gone deep into the atrocity of the war in the Congo to make the rest of the world possibly pay attention. 

I thought of the Sudanese children who I teach on Thursdays as I heard an update on the painful atrocities occurring right now in South Sudan. I thought of my Jordanian poet, now an 8th grader and member of the Young Authors Academy, who traveled home in early summer to visit family and spent the week cooking for Syrian refugees alongside her cousins, aunts, and other family members. 

I have been tracking Fukujima and the flow of radiation throughout our global water and air, and we haven't seen the worst of it. I have been considering that human trafficking is still a daily experience worldwide, that slavery is still alive in so many parts of the world. The polarity of the earth is shifting as the ice cap melts. There are monster storms and record-breaking sub-zero blasts over the top half of the nation. There are wildfires. There are rapes and murders. There is so much to be concerned about.

And I reflect on all of this from the relative safety of the beautiful home in which I live. I struggle to pay the mortgage but I am warm this moment and I will find a way to make everything work. I am living in relative comfort and faced with opportunity, even when I most fear that all is lost.

I am privileged...and not necessarily because the level of melanin in my skin is so low. That does mean that there are elements of advantage that I enjoy, yes. But from my underemployed, under-educated, 60-year old woman's perspective, having been self-supporting since I was 17, with no health care since I was laid off 5 years ago, and of a certain age that is not necessarily attractive to employers, etc., that privilege may be a tad bit limited. Here, I am opening myself to vitriol by saying any of this but we have to remember that women in America still do not have equal rights by law, so inherently our privilege is restrained. Seniors are not respected, in general. I am a woman at the door of "senior" and standing on very shaky ground. And Lord knows I don't have tenure.

I have been posting quotes from Nelson Mandela because I have been listening to the conversations around Ani DiFranco's extremely unfortunate, unthinking error. But I have to say that, although I do understand the need for us, all of us, to be hyper-vigilant in addressing injustice and racism, at what point are we going to agree to meet in the middle and heal the deep wounds? The scars of the Middle Passage and slavery in America will always be there. But do we need to keep standing still in the effort of developing trust enough to move forward in peace? We need each other to survive. As long as we maintain a stance of distrust, fear, veiled hatred and suspicion, we will not survive.

As a white woman, I am aware that I am always held suspect as probably clueless, a likely racist, maybe well-intentioned but can't possibly understand, at best. When am I going to "turn white?" At the Split This Rock poetry conference a couple of years ago, during a panel on white writers writing on race, there was a clarion call regarding the panelists' fear of "not getting it right." One of the writers was overtly challenged when she released a book based on a famous lynching, told that she did not have the right to write about that because she was white. Ironically, there was also a white man hanged in that event. 

Why would it be that we, as humans, cannot examine atrocity and racism if we do not have the "right" skin tone? Don't we need to share the truth? Is it not possible to have compassion and empathy, if not direct knowledge, of the wounding? And don't we move toward the goals of the great Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr., if we are able to put our fears on hold and presume, for just a moment, that maybe there are similarities, or at least opportunities to educate and understand, together? Do we remember the Freedom Riders?

The myth of a post-racial America is just that. We are mired ever deeper in the dangers that fear and racism create. We are falling further and further into both. I see tweets and FB posts that are disparaging of others, often couched as humor. This has gotten some media folks in some deep shit, because snarky overstepped both propriety and respect. And Ani, not withstanding her obvious lack of consciousness in allowing her producer to confirm a booking for her retreat at a plantation site, has been deemed "a racist oppressor." The feminist icon has fallen from her perch in one seriously flawed business move because she failed to be hyper-vigilant in recognizing how deep the wound is. It seems a no-brainer to me that the venue was not a viable consideration but does she need to be publicly stoned? Perhaps she had fallen victim to believing the post-racial America myth herself. I wonder how Sekou Sundiata would respond, were he still walking among us? Would he yank his work from Righteous Babe? Would he say, "Oh Ani, you know you messed up, right?..." Would he accept her apology?

There are many other incidents and comments around this general theme that I have been mulling over for a long time, way beyond this week, but I have probably gotten myself into enough trouble just for saying this much. So I close with a few more thoughts:

"If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." Nelson Mandela (From Long Walk to Freedom, 1995)

"Great anger and violence can never build a nation. We are striving to proceed in a manner and towards a result, which will ensure that all our people, both black and white, emerge as victors.” Nelson Mandela (Speech to European Parliament, 1990)

And: "I won't harm you with words from my mouth...I love you...I need you to survive."  Thank you, Ms. Cora, for another Sunday start.       

Six Decades...Mind Boggling...My Annual Birthday Letter - 2013

Good morning to all those who honor and bless my life in innumerable ways...and thank you for making this a life of rewards and bounty.

It is my custom to send a note, an update, a message of gratitude to colleagues, acquaintances, friends, and family, all those I admire as the first act of the day on my birthday. Some of you will receive this for the first time, some of you have gotten every one since I started this tradition, which I believe is tied to the move into my home in 2000. I have lost track. I never really pre-plan the message, I just sit down to the keyboard and speak my heart. So here is the 2013 version...the beginning of GAP Fest 60.

It is hard to imagine that 60 years ago today, on Scott Field Air Force Base in Illinois, my mother was in labor with me at this time. She once shared that doctors told her I was likely to be stillborn and that she was in jeopardy due to toxemia. She was 18, my birth father was 22. Betty Ann put everything she had into bringing me into the world and at 4:40 p.m., I made what I can only imagine was a grand entrance. We always joked that I came in time for dinner.

It has been a very tumultuous journey in so many ways. But there is also a great deal of evidence that I am rich beyond reason with the love that surrounds me and how it manifests for my highest good always. That is the sum of all of you and everyone who benefits me with their own light, including all of my students over the years, the teachers I am honored to work with, the people at the many jobs I have held, and especially my family, who are those who have weathered the storms with me all this time.

I am the first born of the first born. That has always seemed to be a very significant legacy. It came with certain responsibilities, even at an early age. Now, as I look at it all thus far, I am also looking forward to what I can accomplish and how much there still is to embrace.

This year I have contemplated turning 60 with a host of emotions. It is different than other birthdays, even the milestones. There is something sobering about it all. I was very challenged by the concept, particularly because I did things rather backwards in the life plan and I have witnessed so many I know in my age bracket making plans to relax and take life more easily because they have reached retirement age. I was concentrating on my fear of the instability and vulnerability that is evident and unsure about how I will ever be able to afford to be elderly. But I am not as afraid today. I have worked through still another dark period and I feel renewed.

Last year this time, I adopted Enza, the puppy whuppy...she has been such a positive force in my daily life. For one thing, she makes me laugh. She is a wonderful dog and being. She and I have acclimated to each other and we have a great life together. I am so very grateful that she is here, even when I forget and leave the bathroom door open so she has access to the dirty underwear or I leave something on the counter thoughtlessly that she devours. Those problems are all on me...she is a dog. It is her nature to get into mischief.

The day before my birthday in 1999, I did a viewing of this home in which I now live. It was for sale at a price that is unfathomable and, with help from a dear friend, I pursued the purchase. It was the kitchen that spoke to me. I knew I was destined for this home. I had declared it more than a decade before when I lived around the corner on S. Beech St. From the back porch of that apartment, I could see the big deck that the owners at the time had built and I said to myself, "I would love to own a home with a deck like that someday." I did not realize it was a prophecy. I thought it was just a dream. Now it is my joy.

I love to entertain and to cook for others. I love the sound of laughter in my home. For that reason, I chose to celebrate this landmark birthday with an open house to welcome all who are able. It seemed the most fitting, especially since I did not make it to Tuscany for the celebration, as I had hoped for a couple of years. It is just not in the cards right now but I will return at some point and spend a long time writing and enjoying the sun. But this year, the door is open all day and evening to any and all. I hope to see many of you who live locally. The rest of you...you are in my heart so you will catch the vibe, that I am sure.

This year, I think I have achieved a turnaround from all the fears of the last few years. It is still new that I feel confident that everything is okay. But there are some key indicators. I love my work and work is becoming more available again. I spend less time in schools than I did throughout the first decade of this century. But I have steady work again and all of it is centered on my skills and true identity as a writer. I am most grateful for this and look forward to this continuing for a long time. I like a pay stub that has my job title listed as "writer/editor."

I am writing consistently and I have achieved a level of craft that fills me with joy. I used to dream that perhaps one day I would be able to write fine poetry. I am reading the work that is new and I see the glimpse of what I have always hoped to be able to create. It is a level of artistic maturity that can only come from years of pursuit. I hope this does not sound too bold. I do not mean to brag, but I marvel at what the creative inspiration has gifted to me to bring forth. I am never complacent in my writing, as you know.

The greater indicator is that I can announce that my third collection of poetry, Psalter: The Agnostic's Book of Common Curiosities will be released by Tiger Bark Press in early 2015. I am so very honored and excited about this. It would take me a long time to articulate all the reasons so take it from me to be the case that I am giddy. And rather amazed that I can say "My third book of poetry...my fourth book in print."

But I have two other books at least half done and am diligently working on them. I have some essays for the memoir project with my dear friend Linda Moore, and I am starting a book on the craft of writing as I view and teach it. I have much to get to the page before I am willing to move on from this body consciousness. I pray for the time to do so.

I also am moving toward completing my BA in the next couple of years. This unfinished business is surmountable and I will finally do it. In my invitation to the birthday open house this coming Saturday, I mentioned that I certainly need no more stuff to jam into this house. But if folks were inclined to, contributions to the college fund would be gratefully received. I will meet this goal, just as having the house with the deck, the books in print, the full life I live have come to fruition. And that will be a great unburdening when I walk the stage at graduation.

I have always envisioned being quite an old woman when my time comes. I hope it is true. But I can also say that I expect no guarantees and take a daily inventory of my life. I ask myself just about every evening before I sleep if I am at ease with it all. If I were to close my eyes this evening and drift off, if it were the last time, I am fine with that as well. I have an understanding of living in the moment that is natural to me now. I get the value of the moment. I don't have any answers about the universe and life. other than it is here to make the most of with a sense of humble marvel. And all of it is made worthwhile by the company a person keeps. Therein lies my storehouse of riches...each of you.

Thank you for making life beautiful. Thank you for bringing me into your lives. There is no greater honor...I am so very grateful for the opportunities you present to me. You have supported me in so very many ways.


Have a glorious day and remember that you are cherished, each of you, especially by me.


g.

Special Purpose Redefined

 

So it has been a rough few years, as I have bemoaned in my last few, sparse postings. It was a time of deep digging to my own truth and often it was not pretty. There was a darkness that was as thick as tar, as persistent as eczema, as stark as the tundra. But enough of the metaphors. I am returning to the light heart, the sun, the optimism that has fueled me through most of the storms of my life. I am choosing to look forward with joy.

I have always known my selfhood is anchored in being a poet. There are those whose lofty sensibilities cause them to say, "I cannot claim the title of poet; only the greats can do that." I wholeheartedly disagree. I claim it fully and truly. I spent a decade questioning, even denying it, but my world is more balanced when I acknowledge that poet is who I am, what I do, what I crave, what I teach, how I live. And at last, I am producing work that is a glimpse of that level of development and persistence that I have dreamed of achieving. It is rather remarkable because it is just appearing on the page.

I am not a complacent person. Especially with my writing. I will not accept too many iterations before I annoy myself. I now strive to be a poet with many dimensions in the work, when I once accepted a 2-dimensional postcard with a pretty image and perhaps a clever metaphor. This means I do not write every image or sound that drifts through my head. I also wait for the poem that refuses to not be written, the poem that will not silence itself, that one that requires ink and attention. Sometimes they slam onto the page with no prior warning. Sometimes they tarry in the gray matter until they feel fully prepared to reveal themselves. But they are arriving with regularity and I am thrilled.

I will be seeing my third collection of poetry come into physical being in about 14 months. My fourth is half complete, a fifth is a third complete, and I have nonfiction working at me. I will also plan on blogging much more often, with regularity, about anything that I feel like writing. 

I started this blog to share my experiences as a teaching artist. That led to the writing and publication of Our Difficult Sunlight. Now I will share whatever, with a focus on my perspective on what it takes to write a good word, line, stanza, poem, cycle, chapbook, collection. It will be fun, I hope. Outrageous at times. Silly or poignant. Not sure. I do know it will be me...Georgia A. Popoff, Community Poet, Human Being.

She's BAAAAACCCKKKK!!! And some other things...#poetshappydance

Dear readers...I have been on a rocky little journey but it is time to get busy with my blog once again and share the marvelous discoveries I encounter as I teach and clarify what I believe about poetry...and life.

This summer I have been teaching two short courses at the Downtown Writers Center that have been joyous in the student participation and the conversations around the table. The first 4-week class was "Why Is This a Poem?" The course was at the special request of a wonderful regular of our classes and he kicked it all off with a packet of poems he had come across in his reading. Then I found all sorts of poems that would make us challenge our own suppositions about the building blocks of a poem, starting in the early 20th century through very current poets. We came to the conclusion that the most significant factor of whether or not a piece is a poem was that the poet declared it.

There is no limit of possibilities but one thing I truly believe: there is nothing I can do as a poet that will change the course of literature in general or poetry, specifically. Everything that could possibly do that has already been done, by poets such as Basho, or Whitman, or Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, e.e. cummings, Anne Waldman, and countless other innovators.

What I can do is always strive to listen to the poems that ask me to bring them to the page and do my very best to honor them with craft and intention. I can attempt to give every poem the time and consideration it requires to achieve its fullest potential. I can work at not rushing a poem beyond its natural maturation. And I can encourage my students to do the same.

The second class I have been teaching is "Cycles and Series." This was the result of an urge to look with students at their bodies of work and recognize the patterns, habits, obsessions, and trends that are present, whether we intend them or not. I will be sharing thoughts from this class over the next couple of weeks and I am intending to develop the course into an on-line opportunity. 

So often we are so concerned with the single page before us and the black scrawls scarred into it. We look at the page and quietly say, "I love you so much...you are so good..." or we shiver with how we feel we have failed the poem, which is simply an opportunity to try a different approach. We frequently do not think in terms of the relationships they set up of their own volition. There is a surprise hiding in those files. Go look...you will possibly have reason to do the what I lovingly refer to as the poet's happy dance.

I will write again soon with more. In the meantime, you can also follow me on Twitter: @gappoet and look for little thoughts under the hashtags of #poetshappydance and #invisiblereaderbehindthewords.

Early Daylight Saving Time and the Darkness Is Lifting

http://www.ymcaofgreatersyracuse.org/arts/programs.aspx?ac=141

As I have mentioned in my brief blogging in the past months, I have been coping with a rough road. Redefining my career twice in 5 years has taken its toll, particularly as I am, as in the sage words of my dear friend Cathy Gibbons, basking in my late 50s and fearful of the vulnerability I face in a multitude of ways, not just in aging. I loved my work with Partners for Arts Education and I have loved my work in schools, for the most part. But this last couple of years of cobbling things together, hinging so much of it on the hope that Our Difficult Sunlight would translate into miraculous opportunities to deepen that work, I am seeking focus and stability. I need to find ways to continue doing what I do well and to support myself while fostering my work and identity as a poet.

I love everything I am involved with, most particularly my work with the Downtown Writers Center and the Comstock Review. I have been scattered over much of 2012 and now I feel there is more solid ground, I am clarifying my focus and commitment to both. One is a job, one is a volunteer act of love. The job is part time so, satisfying as it is, it is only a portion of what I need to keep the wolves at bay. I am working on additional income that is reliable, satisfying, and close to home.

I love working in schools but I am weary of it, all the stress, the travel, the negotiation, the ways I have to always be ready to shift in the immediate, the walking into classrooms that are unprepared for my lessons, the compressing a carefully designed program into half the time the process of learning actually requires. I do like the teachers (mostly), the students (mostly), the ways I learn more about teaching, and I love sharing my passion. I also love the checks when they arrive. I just am exhausted by it all, after 13 years of pursuing it as a career. And I am tired of being a living "Where's Waldo" book for my family and friends. I see much of the sacrifice that this career has entailed as well as the gains.

The real issue is that I have known my identity most of my life, at least since 3rd grade. I am a poet. I am relentlessly committed to that truth, even in the quiet decade in which I did not write and my faith was seriously challenged. But the words came back, as I had prayed. In the 20 years since, I have published consistently, with a chapbook, two complete volumes, and the textbook all in print. I have another collection being considered by a publisher now (I asked if he wanted first rights of refusal but am hopeful). I am working on two other collections of poetry that I am really excited about, a food memoir that is languishing somewhere in files on my computer, and now I know I am ready to start the notes that will result in a book on the craft of this confounding, amazing art form that is the spine of my soul.

There was a moment in the quiet time of my 30s to early 40s when I knew that I was being delivered back to the channel that results in poetry. No one but me would be able to decipher the difference. It was a cellular memory of what translating experience into image and language feels like. But now, I am experiencing another deepening of that jolt in the work I am producing. There is a maturity of craft that has come through years of teaching others what I believe about poetry and expression. It helps that I teach people in so many circumstances with such a wide range of age and skill. I have to make it tangible for anyone.

But the poems are surprising me. That is a great thing. They are mirroring to me how much I have embraced the notion that we teach what we want to learn. I hear and see the influence of all the poets I have taught as examples echoed in the images that unfold before me as I strive for the best word and challenge every syllable to earn its right to be spared the slash of my revision pen. I see complexity without obscurity. I hear musicality that makes me wonder where it even came from. The poems are in control and I am a diligent listener as well as servant.

I am close to solving the income problem but I also have the pining to spend my days just reading and writing and pondering and doing all those things that make a poet's life. Instead, I am sneaking things in around the obligations, even this blog post, and somehow getting books written, the bills paid once again, and seeing family and friends more frequently. I even have a dog. I think the spring will bring more growth, stronger roots, and maybe cause for celebration.