Preparation
This Wednesday, December 16, 2015, I am participating in something awesome. You can come, and read a poem in your pajamas. I’d love to hear your words. There’s a link to RSVP on my events page. Details are below.
8pm – 9:15pm (Eastern)
Format for the Meeting:
Kelly will interview the special guest for 20 minutes
You will then have 10 minutes to ask questions & discuss TLA, your own practice, goals, or vision
We’ll devote the next 30 minutes the open mic poetry readings
You do not need to be a member of TLAN to participate in the discussion or open mic!
How to join the discussion/poetry reading from your phone:
This meeting is free and open to the public, and you can join from your by phone by calling 1-857-232-0155, code # 885077.
I have been misquoting/half-quoting the introductory paragraphs of Muriel Rukeyser’s The Life of Poetry all week, like an asshole. Here’s the real start:
In time of crisis, we summon up our strength.
Then, if we are lucky, we are able to call every resource, every forgotten image that can leap to our quickening, every memory that can make us know our power. And this luck is more than it seems to be: it depends on the long preparation of the self to be used.
On Saturday, in this unexpectedly beautiful weather, the boys and I went for a hike by the river, which is one of my favorite things to do. They prefer sitting on the couch playing video games. Except that they really like to scramble over rocks and get muddy once I actually get them out. My older son jiggled rocks with one foot before putting his weight on them, checked for a way back up before sliding down a steep face. Skipped rocks clear across the water to the other bank. I remember his four year old self with sticking out ears and a large stick in his hand, wearing the headband he always wore, made of a piece of white elastic with marker-drawn stripes, learning those things that prepared him for this little walk into the woods with his mother and brother. And this walk in itself may well be the preparation for large and small things none of us can imagine.
Consider the Generosity of the One-Year-Old
who has no words to exchange with you yet,
and instead offers up her favorite drooled-on blanket,
her green rhinoceros as big as she is,
her cloth doll with the long blonde pigtails,
her battered cardboard books, swung open on their soggy pages,
her limitless heart.
If you were outdoors she would hand you a dead beetle,
a fistful of grass, a pebble,
by way of introduction or just because.
And if, a moment later, she wants it back
it would be for the joy of passing
these simple symbols back and forth,
freely offered, freely relinquished,
This is me. Here is who I am. Oh.
In the same way, sun
drapes a buttered scarf across your face,
rose opens herself to your glance,
and rain shares its divine melancholy.
The whole world keeps whispering or shouting to you,
nibbling your ear like a neglected lover,
while you worry over matters of finance,
of “relationship,”
important issues related to getting and spending,
having and hoarding,
though you were once that baby,
though you are still that world.
by Alison Luterman
Our opening phrase comes from Brendan Constantine’s workshop last week.
“One day I’m gonna…”
Write. Remember that before you were here you were somewhere else. You’ve come a long way, and all of the people you’ve been prepared you for where you are. Where you are now prepares you for what comes next. Summon up your strength. Figure out what strength you need to do what you’ll do next. Send me the writing (or read it on Wednesday).
