A couple of months ago I had the pleasure of reading on KBOO FM’s wonderful on-air poetry program, Talking Earth, hosted by the amazing Barbara LaMorticella. Barbara also runs the new KBOO poetry blog, and I’m honored to have three poems featured there: “Lazadae,” “For the Daughters” and “Sand.”
Thanks.
Two upcoming writing workshops in the Portland area will help give the budding writers in your family something to write about when the weather goes from hot to beastly at the end of July and beginning of August. Visit the workshop page to learn more, and rest assured there will be shade, cool water and a/c to keep their writing hands comfortable and the words flowing freely.
If you like, download this incredibly useful and creatively written Summer Writing Camp flier, which provides all the information you’ll need in order to register.
Looking forward to writing with you.
The following entry is in response to a New Year’s Day Facebook post by friend and fellow writer Lisa Nichols. She wrote the following: “Can you tell me, how do you maintain your independence while in a loving relationship?” I started to leave a comment but decided to post it here. Happy New Year.
INDEPENDENCE
I go into my office and close the door. Sometimes I wedge a chair in front of the door to keep people from opening. Once I’ve blocked out the world, the next thing I must do is escape from myself. I open the window, sit at my writing desk, unzip the back of my neck and float outside, leaving my body at the desk.
I strip from whatever clothes my soul might be wearing, leave them folded against my house and walk the neighborhood.
I sit and have dinner with whole families of strangers who can’t see me. The babies can see me, the toddlers especially. They don’t care that I’m naked. They laugh at my face and play with it, because my soul’s face, like my body’s, is funny and interesting to look at and touch, all full of jagged angles and slopes.
After dinner I leave through their windows, never the walls, because windows are made of water while walls are made of fudge, and therefore harder to pass through.
I walk until I find a street I’ve never walked down, usually near a church or bingo hall, some place where seniors gather. Some of the seniors can see me. When one does, it becomes a joke among the other seniors. Everyone’s mood lightens. My mood lightens.
I like to sit in the church and listen to people recite prayers. I get lost in the monotone nature of their praying, how their voices form a steady droll that becomes one great, many layered voice.
I wait until the last hymn then float through the top of the building and watch as the moon reaches the center point of the sky. Then I start the long walk back. I cut through as many windows I can, watch television in bed with couples, stand in corners until the family dog barks at me. I put my clothes on when I reach my house, float through the window and land inside my body, which has been slumped for hours pretending to get something done.
–
Wordstock’s here – one of the biggest literary parties on the whole Left Coast. With plenty of words to chew on, I’d like to mention a few things in which I’ll be involved.
FRIDAY NIGHT, 10/9: WARM UP WITH POETRY AND WINE
Come enjoy the poetry and wine with four of Oregon’s most cherished poets. Peter Sears, Shaindel Beers, John C. Morrison and Pamela Steele will be reading their work at Blackbird Wine, 4323 NE Fremont St. in Portland. Blackbird’s Friday night wine tasting starts at 6 o’clock, and includes a $6.00 cover; poetry starts at 7, and is free for one and all.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY: VISIT SUPER WRITING FRIENDS
While you’re walking around between readings at the Portland Convention Center, stop by booth 423 and say hello to this year’s crop of Super Writing Friends – writers and independent publishers from the Pacific NW.
Joining me this year includes the following cast of characters:
MORE WORDS ON MONDAY
I’m happy to announce I’ll be joining local writers Arthur Smid and Dennis Yates at Three Friends Coffee (201 SE 12th) for a shared hour of reading, between 7 and 8 p.m. Monday, 10/12. I’ll be reading a few pieces from Backwards on the Train, my soon-to-be released chapbook from Imperfect Press. The reading is part of the ongoing series put on by Show and Tell Gallery.
Looking forward to seeing you over the long weekend.
–
I’ll be facilitating three new writing workshops starting September and continuing through the end of October, two that focus on business & marketing communications, and another on launching personal narratives and memoirs.
Please visit the Workshops page for more details. Thanks.
–
It’s time for another installment of everyone’s favorite public display of self effacing storytelling: BackFencePDX.
THE FACTS
WHERE AND WHEN: Get to the Mission Theatre (1624 NW Glisan) to enjoy some strutting swimsuits (with bodies in them) by 7:15 this Wednesday, 6/17 (the stories start at 7:30)
THEME: “Caught Red-Handed”
WHO: This month’s storytellers include stripper and author Viva Las Vegas, UX engineer Rael Dornfest, Saint Cupcake owner Jami Curl, playwright and ghostwriter Pema Teeter, geologist Eric Schniewind, comic artist Nicole Georges and preacher’s son Jeff Hardison.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Frayn Masters and Melissa Lion, the BackFence ladies!
BUY TICKETS: Go here.
ONE MORE REASON TO COO: It’s BackFence’s one-year anniversary show!
I can’t remember ever writing a villanelle before. The first line, “I’m having an affair with my wife in sleep” was with me all day. Later I went to see Peter Sears read – he shared a villanelle and I wanted to try the form. The result is below.
AFFAIR WITH MY WIFE
I’m having an affair with my wife in sleep.
She knows. She doesn’t care.
Unsure who’s there across the sheets.
I grasp straight from a dream
of rising too quick for air.
I’m having an affair with my wife in sleep.
It’s not anything too deep.
I just shoot up like a flare.
Unsure who’s there across the sheets.
My mind lags as hands reach
to her skin, pink and bare.
I’m having an affair with my wife in sleep,
who whispers the promise we keep
as I whisk her hair.
Unsure who’s there across the sheets.
No light, just sounds that seep
as our parts begin to pair.
I’m having an affair with my wife in sleep.
Unsure who’s there across the sheets.
-
(NOTE: Thanks to ReadWritePoem for prompting some rhyming fun this week.)
There’s a sink where I eat sometimes. There’s a window above the sink where I watch birds. There are phone wires where the birds sit sometimes, and there are other places too. The piece below is fairly rough – a first draft in fact. I hope you don’t mind me sharing.
OUTSIDE
(Upon standing at the kitchen window)
At first it takes my eyes and mind a minute
to agree on what they’re seeing,
because none of us, me or them
have ever seen birds bathing in the gutters
of a pitched roof before. Building a nest –
sure. Dive-bombing into the slippery
morning grass. Perched on wires
outside my house, singing blindly tucked
into the currant tree out back. We’ve seen
these things, this brain that can paint
the scene without thinking, eyes that
in a blink can reconstruct such thoughts.
But bathing in the squared-off white gutters
on my neighbor’s new roof – shaking their wings
as a dog would its fur, running up and down
the pitch like children from knoll to spring?
Four of them, then five, then a sixth – if you
could imagine smiles on beaks, if any of us
were close enough to see what they thought,
I know they wouldn’t be wondering why
they hadn’t done this before but thanking
some bird god they were doing it now.
-
Everything is new to a child; each step is an act of courage where no notion of being courageous exists, only the notion of being.
Now go, write, and know your words are good.
My good friend Pattie and I got together for coffee last week to talk writing, and we accidentally wound up collaborating on a little something, which I’ve pasted below. Not sure if you’d call it a poem or fragment, but it’s the result of two people talking and writing down what the other was saying. (And I’d like to give a nod to Dana and Nathan, who introduced me to the idea that poets can collaborate.)
BLUE HERON
How do you write about the blue heron
flapping its wings, rising out of water
in so few flaps and slow.
My childhood was gone faster that it takes
the bird to lift and go.
Some things are too beautiful
for a box of words, though Basho
could make it work.
© 2008 Dave Jarecki. All rights reserved. | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS)
