I tell a story about her, and she is me.
When we tell a story about our past selves, we are in fact telling a story about another person. And we, the one telling it, are quite different than that person.
The Story Doesn’t End
CBAW had our Memorial Day observation reading yesterday. Ten veterans/service members, many of whom I met during very very difficult times in their lives, came together to perform and hold space for the particular grief that is especially tied to the camaraderie of military service. During the month of May CBAW’s visual art programs were dedicated to a collaborative art project of remembrance for Memorial Day. Designed by Joe Merritt and Ashy Palliparambil and assembled and marketed by CBAW’s own Rob Haney, nineteen artists contributed tiles. You can buy a print here.
Who is Seeing
The poem is not about what you saw, but about who is seeing it.
the shadow is
From The Wild Unknown Archetypes Guidebook by Kim Kearns:
“We often think that The Shadow can be purified, illuminated, and made right through effort and achievement. However, it is typically the case that our lofty pursuit of ascension and perfection is the very source material of the shadow itself.”
Inside & Meanwhile
Prompt from last week’s workshop. Trying not to be too precious about this shit. To be a writer is to make some messy sentences.
How do you pray?
The leaves have opened completely outside my window, and my neighbor’s honeysuckle bush expands over my deck, a little more each year, though he leans over his deck and apologizes and trims it. The first summer we lived here I think I saw a hummingbird come drink from one of the small white flowers, and…
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Editing + Recalibrating
Toward the end of last week I got sick with a 24 hour thing that left me pretty beat up and dehydrated and I am sort of getting back to myself (I didn’t drink coffee for TWO DAYS). My sister brought me all kinds of things to eat and drink and I got back into…
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When Shall We Tell the Children?
Next Thursday at 6:30 pm, please join me IN PERSON for a writing workshop at the beautiful Strathmore Mansion. Tickets are available here. Today is the last day of national poetry month and I’m doing it up big. In the morning I went to a middle school to meet 12 children (a few quite skeptical)…
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What it means
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen the celebrity review of A Constellation of Half-Lives.* In the video, the celebrity (my mother) says, “Seema, please explain,” and reads a line of the opening poem out loud. It’s very funny, because of course, she turns the “your mother” into a question about my mother which is to…
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The Dream Sequence
Friday I’m reading at East City Bookshop with Faisal Mohyuddin and Simone Roberts. They are stunning humans and you should come. A few weeks ago I reread The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I first read it some time ago, then lent my copy to someone. Then a month ago I had the…
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