the wind is LOUD, the wind does HOWL

Posted on January 21, 2019February 3, 2019 by admin

Selfie in b&W

Today is the Second Sunday After Ephiphany. It started warm and misty. The temperature dropped and dropped. Now the wind is howling. A full moon with a most poetic moon: The Super Wolf Blood Red Moon will be eclipsed in a few hours. If the wind was not howling and the temperature not sooo low, I’d go outside and watch the lunar mass slowly disappear.

Today is the Second Sunday After Epiphany and here is my own little sermon:

Because of the weather the service today at Saint John’s did not have all the bells & whistles some in the Anglican tradition love–incense etc. Mother Shelley preached down in the nave on spiritual gifts. The choir was not there so we had to sing. I was today’s lector and had the great joy of reading First Corinthians. where St. Paul enumerates “spiritual gifts” always claiming they come, but from the “same Spirit.” I grew up in the Pentecostal Church, so I know about Speaking in Tongues. I’ve been to Quaker meetings so I know about waiting until the Spirit moves you (quake). I know that some friends are healers, others seek into the future, others are wise. Still others are

flowers & shells, Captiva Island, FL, 2018

adept at expressing joy.

We are in the midst of a great crisis, the Church for me is a ballast against the the volatility of these times. Without the love of God, my family friends and church community, I could not do half of what I do as a human being on this planet. I am not sure what my spiritual gift is. But I do know why peace is sought, Why quiet is necessary. Why those who scream loudest in the public sphere make the least sense. Do what ever you need to do to find space for your own being’s health and sustainability–the horrors of these times will continue. Find your place of peace and use it to fight for justice and love. Find your Beloved Community.

Just before the solstice

Posted on December 20, 2018February 3, 2019 by admin

window lights–home base

The weather is December–bright some days, gray others–chill even when the temperature reaches in the 40s. The weather is December and now we stay inside and look inside. One of my students titled her chaplet-Internal Struggles and yes, there they all are. But out of that internal struggle, comes external personality–and with great hope, a good one.

This has been a year of travel, teaching, keynotes and risks. Many risks. I am glad to making them at my age–most of my friends are retired and doing interesting things: new kinds of jobs; more artistic work; volunteering; more travel. Many are grand parents now. As an unmarried woman with no children, I do my best with my nephews.

Two residencies kept me from New York City for a total of 9 months! First, thanks again to Rauschenberg Residency in January and February this winter. Captiva Island is a place of great beauty, serenity and a wonderful place to make art. Then later in July and August I went to France-to my first international residency. Both places were on the ocean–the Gulf in Florida; the Mediterranean in France. Even though I live in New York and see the Atlantic on occasion–just go to Coney Island, there was something truly transforming about the coast of France. It may have been the light.

And light has been so needed–the light that illuminates, that sparkles, that bring out the best. There are other kinds of light that appear to do these things, but we all know that’s not even close to true. And we also need the darkness that allows the sight of stars, the moon, the myths of the sky–and this year I got to see many celestial light sky un illiuminated.

The Super Moon, Captiva Florida

And in France, I saw the lunar eclipse. It was magical. And there were shooting stars. I can only say how thankful I am to the BAU Institute for the opportunity and the Camargo Foundation for housing us. The time in France was also time away for the U.S. and I started in Paris with a visit with my good friend Margo Berdeshevsky. She wined, dined and walked me about the city and I finally got to see Shakespeare and Company where I was able to buy Margo’s book for the large and diverse poetry section. While there, my poem “Seraphim” was about to be published by The New Yorker and there was no place to get an actual copy of the magazine there. The French really know how to put we English speaking, English using people in our place. But my poem had been recorded and is at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/30/seraphim. Last night in Paris, we dined with Alice Notley, the perfect way for a poet to prepare for the morning train ride from Paris to Marseilles. During the residency–I got to travel to Marseilles and to Aix-en-Provence where I was the perfect tourist.

Bookstore in Marseille, France, August 2018

In France I stayed in the Panorama Building at the Camargo, Foundation on the 3rd floor with a huge terrace and the light was bright. . On a day as gray as this one I so miss that light and the heat–which could be oppressive except for the French families cavorting in the sea.

my terrace at Panorama Building, Camargo Fdn.
Cassis, France

I am glad to have gone to Chicago, Denver, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Rutgers, New Brunswick, Winston-Salem, Provincetown, Connecticut Circuit sites, and Buffalo. And it was great to read at The Schomburg for the Pauli Murray Book Launch, Poets House for the Fay Chiang Tribute, CUNY Grad Center for the June Jordan conference, at the Poetry Foundation with Kimberly Lyons, and for Belladonna. Moreover, via Patricia Nicholson Parker and Art for Arts/Vision Festival, I performed with Jason Hwang at Roulette and Luke Stewart at Weeksville Heritage Center. These were amazing experiences. I want to thank all of the hosts for conferences, workshops and reading series. The people who develop these programs work very hard to bring a range of poets and writers to their audiences so all of these fine people are in my Angels Book List.

The Vision Festival, Jason Hwang Duo Roulette, May 2018

This year took away some seriously important voices esp. women’s voices: Barbara Barg, Ntozake Shange, and then Meena Alexander, whose struggle with cancer I knew about. We were to have read together with Kimiko Hahn for Meen’a newest book, Atmospheric Embroidery–alas her final hospitalization took place the day before that reading. I miss her. I miss Barg, who grew up in our mutual hometown of Forrest City, Arkansas. And yes, I am one of those people who happened to be at the premier of For Colored Girls at The Public Theater before it went to Broadway–all who were there saw the stage levitate. We did. For that, I salute Ntozake who navigated fame’s stormy seas –sometimes well, sometimes not. So glad she left quietly because she was not quiet in life and for that every woman poet should show gratitude. On the shortest day, remember those who brought you inspiration, joy, challenge or opportunity and thank them.

Ntozake Shange and Patricia Spears Jones 2016

Ntozake Shange and Patricia Spears Jones photo by Coreen Simpson

VOTE 2018 as if your life depended on it

Posted on September 30, 2018February 3, 2019 by admin

Mural-San Antonio

Everyone laughed at the impossibility of it,
but also the truth. Because who would believe
the fantastic and terrible story of all of our survival
those who were never meant
to survive?

Joy Harjo “Anchorage”

Sort of quick update and an even more sense of urgency: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, the backlash and out right lies made towards her and about her. The elevation of a mediocre jurist to the Supreme Court are shocking but not surprising. Power and privilege by wealthy white people are on full display. The presidency which was a minority election means that all of the people making policy for this nation were not elected by the majority of voting Americans. We are really in an awful state. But as Joy Harjo’s poem reminds us we “survive.” Indeed, we can thrive, but we gotta fight for that nurture.

This is a very crucial year for this Republic. We have a chance to put into place new and different Representatives, governors, et al in the Congress. But that will not happen if people are not registered or do not vote.

I am from Arkansas and I still remembered the many roadblocks placed in way of voting by Black people. Folks died across the South trying to exercise a right of Citizenship, the right to vote. It is also telling that once acquired, Blacks begin to exert serious political power and once that happened the Republicans began to use every trick in the book to undermine that power. We are where we are now because Black and Brown people have been “legally” removed from voters’ rolls. Voter suppression is a wound in this nation’s governance. A serious one. Russians have not done as much to harm the electorate as state legislators from Wisconsin to Georgia.

On 9-29-2018 I joined women poets including a trans woman to read in an event to raise $$ for the Democratic Party. I tend to see myself as independent, but I am a registered Democrat and this year that makes me know that I am on the side of civil and human rights; gender equality; environmental protection; education; and health and the protection of Social Security.

There is little poetry in politics, but if the political culture changes even more, and sooner or later poetry will be at the core of politics–why not dream.

VOTE as if your life depended on.

Cutthroat Journal pub this amazing collection 2-2017. Proceeds go to ACLU

Traveling lady Year 2018 and her shadow(s)

Posted on July 8, 2018July 8, 2018 by admin

Airport, North Carolina

Just got back from Provincetown, from Tampa, from Chicago, Winston-Salem or Sanibel Island or St. Petersburg, Florida, that is. Just got back from (soon France). I’ve had my share of travels, but the past two years, I have seen many air ports, train stations, bus stations, people’s messy cars, taxi cabs, even an Uber or Lyft. It is not thrilling, mostly it is for the business side of poetry–readings, keynote addresses, panel member. I do my best to provide a good speech or reading or serve well on a panel–at this point I love that I am a true professional. Not sure about where I am in the game, but I am in it.

But it is not easy. It is not easy for any writer really. It is not that we are all introverts, more we are all used to our own company. So when you’re to be on the dais, at a dinner, by the pool, under a spotlight, no matter how well-organized or supported, there is that strain. I thank all of the people who have made my trips bearable. Arts adminisrators, bookstore proprietors-thanks Jeff Peters at East End Books, and readers, who tell me how important a poem is or that my work gave them guidance or inspiration. So I was happy to be put me up in nice hotels, have them chauffer me when I needed to get around. Glad for their kindness when I got ill. The entire staff at the Rauschenberg Residency are like the platinum standard–they gave me all I could wish for and more. But also Juliet Emanuel at College English Association or Paolo Javier from Poets House at AWP or the lovely administrators at Rutgers Summer Program, Michael Slosek at Poetry Foundation in Chicago, and Kelle Groom and Dawn Walsh at Fine Arts Work Center–all of you get serious thanks. And I am thankful that I joined the roster of illustrious writers at Leslie Shipman’s new agency https://www.theshipmanagency.com/. Her professionalism makes things so much easier.

Jeff G. Peters, proprietor, East End Books, P-Town

Next I go to France for a month under the auspices of The BAU Institute–will I write many new poems or chapters for my memoir; will I drink too much wine; will I dance a fandango–who knows, but in a few days I will get on an airplane and go off into the wild blue yonder and hopefully land easily in a very volatile world. I think about Anthony Bourdain because he seemed to have found that balance between openness and quiet–when he was eating, he was eating. And listening. Maybe he heard too much. We will never know. But I hope to eat well and listen and bring back a bit more of the world to my humble abode in Brooklyn. Who knows maybe I will fall in love. I love casting a large shadow. Here’s the one from Provincetown made on the 4th of July.

leaving the bubble–Rauschenberg Residency 29

Posted on February 14, 2018February 14, 2018 by admin

On Friday, I return to New York City, to Brooklyn after 5 weeks on Captiva Island in Florida. The Rauschenberg Residency has been an enormous gift to my mind, my spirit, my writing and creativity. The staff is so open and helpful and skillful and happy to be working in a place that is all about allowing artists to make whatever work they can while here. I stayed in the Print House with an International Artist , Minouk Lim,

on North Captiva–boat trip day

who has started to make huge waves in the art world. I met dance theater people who have worked or known people I’ve known from the theater and dance world. One of the artist is disabled but makes super huge sculptures. One of the writers here was working on the first major book on Norman Lewis. Every residency I’ve done reminds me of how many amazing poets, painters, dancers, composers, actors, scholars, etc there are and how this culture allows a few of us to be part of places designed to take care of our needs, our desires. RR29 has lived up to all it has set to be be. A place where the staff will help you do what you want to do or show you that you can do it. Amazing. I wrote new poems. Drafted essays on June Jordan and poetics. Read Angela Jackson’s bio of Gwendolyn Brooks, Eudora Welty’s wonderful book One Writers Beginnings and of course We’re On: A June Jordan Reader (Alice James Books), a must have for serious students of American poetry. And Laura Penny murder mysteries. With fellow residents I saw The Post where Meryl Streep chewed up some lovely scenery and journalism is celebrated.

Now I have to leave this beautiful bubble and return to the “real world” but of course this too is the “real world” just not the one we get to hang around in too long.

patio The Print House

Dog Tags by Jane Hirshfield on tree in “the Jungle”

Beach House writer’s studio

sunset spectacular

beach front

beach

the Jungle

New York is very much alive

Posted on November 4, 2017November 4, 2017 by admin

At CUNY Grad Center, Victor Hernandez Cruz, David Henderson, Ammiel Alcaly

Empire State, Halloween

New York City is very much alive. While 8 people died from a terrorist attack even as tiny ghouls, smurfs, pirates, heros and sheros walked about with huge bags demanding candy. Meanwhile those with little or nothing on shivered in the chilly Halloween weather.

New York City is very much alive. While the mayoral race is on, many people are learning what they can and cannot do politically. Politics in this state must change-new people should be allowed to run; new voices need to be heard. Too much is done as if this was the 19th century.

New York City is very much alive. At the CUNY Grad Center Victor Hernandez Cruz read from his latest book and one of his oldest and best poems to a group of grad students, fellow poets like Don Yorty and me and then he sat down for a public interview. It was fun.

New York City is very much alive and moving and dealing with possible deaths and awful disruptions and yet the masks and costumes; the candy and liquor; the poets and critics were all out and about. Truck drivers, shoe bombers, radicalized racists won’t stop the music of any great city.

good bye John Ashbery

Posted on October 3, 2017October 3, 2017 by admin

sign, St. Mark’s gate

It seems fitting to post this picture of a humble sign placed on the gates in front of St. Mark’s Church. Today’s morning sky was BRIGHT as in BRIGHT and the air a soft chill. Adam Fitzgerald, Emily Skillings, Eileen Myles and the staff at The Poetry Project organized an informal, intimate farewell in the church’s austere sanctuary. A place where John had sad many a time. The last time I went to an event like this was the one organized for Amiri Baraka, which I chronicled in an earlier post. Since it was early and I live in Brooklyn, I got there about half hour into the proceedings just in time to hear David Shapiro, shaking and frail, tell anecdote after anecdote, mostly it seemed about himself, but really about the relationship he had with Ashbery. He read a letter Ashbery sent to him when he was 15! He read a beautiful poem. He made me want to just sit him down. I did not cry. But I think Emily did as she played an audio of John reading from a recent poem–every once in a while he would cough, but then his voice would regain vigor–that performance thing that kicks in no matter what. I had not realized that Emily was one of Ashbery’s many assistants.

Marcella Durand talked about his inscriptions–they were often lines from specific poems in the books and she read the inscriptions and then the excerpts from the poems. Fred Moten told us he never met John, but had some words to say and so he said them–it was a fine salute. Dorothy Friedman talked about being part of Ashbery’s first class for the Brooklyn College MFA program back in 1974. Her voice boomed out and she noted that a week or so after Ashbery’s demise, she got a letter from him (the post office is really getting slow) thanking her for her review of his recent art show. Todd Colby also talked about that program, but by the time he got to Brooklyn John had left–that MacArthur grant made a huge difference.

I think that because John travelled, wore suits on occasion and was a most courtly of gentlemen poets, some folks thought him rich–he was not. He worked hard all his life and you could see the range of that work in the kinds of pieces poets used. Bob Holman talked about creating a performance script from Girls on the Run, Ashbery’s booklength poem based on the Henry Darger art work. And he read a fine tribute poem. Jeff Wright told a joke that John liked to tell. And Paul Muldoon read the final poem Ashbery published in The New Yorker.

I was going to read from The Vermont Notebooks, which is not the most sophisticated of Ashbery’s ouvre but maybe the most fun–it’s the collaboration with Joe Brainard. And there they are on the cover looking super masculine-lots of hair, work clothes oh so 70s! Oh before AIDS. Anyways, I left the book in my living room and well basically said I represented all the Black poets (Fred included) who really loved John’s work and also the ones who knew him. And I read my poem for John’s 90th birthday: “Le Tribute

Le Tribute

Funny you request 90 words for 90 years

Okay the thing about Ashbery

Is that he makes us

unsure of which direction is the direction home

But, there is always home in Ashbery’s work, now isn’ t there?

Home & fame’s odd wit.

John tells me about seeing Marlon Brando Boston tryout

in A Streetcar Named Desire. A new masculine norm.

The abstracted beauty of it all & odd tempered music

and the ears ready to hear.

That he has

Something to say

and will just

Say it. So there.

Then Adam Fitzgerald gave story and anecdote and quip and love in the form of stories, anecdotes, quips expressing his deep love for his mentor and friend. I did not hear John sing Old Man River–that might have been too much, but I got back for le restroom to hear Rachmaninoff-Ashbery’s favorite music. Tres romantic.

Walking out into the bright mid day–I knew that a mass murder took place in New Orleans, that our President seemed to have an inability to communicate with people who are not White, rich and male, that there are more people sleeping on subway benches and that the subways frequently breakdown and the sun will set and it will rise as we humans regard:

“The climate, the cities, the houses, the streets, the stores, the lights, people.” John Ashbery, The Vermont Notebooks.

He’s got many friends in Poetry Heaven–I bet the party has started.

ijustcan’t even

Posted on October 1, 2017October 1, 2017 by admin

First I am deeply honored to be a featured guest of the University of Arizona’s Thinking in Presence (TIP) conference–here’s the link: https://www.thinkingitspresenceconference.com/

That’s like the really good news. There are other personal and spiritual things that are really good too, but the heart of America is rotting by the minute. A President who instead of finding better ways to assist the peoples of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where actual American citizens live, tweets nasty remarks about the mayor whose resources are at best limited. Is the President over the age of 10? Is he?

There is so much more, but what has been great is that the literary, performing and arts community across racial and ethnic lines have stood with the people of Puerto Rico. We understand that a man who so easily picks and chooses the winners and loosers from NATURAL DISASTERS is not to be respected or trusted. Whatever dignity the office confers upon him is gone.

So really & truly Ijustcan’teven say his name or wish him well. Ijustcan’t.

Houston under water, America troubled

Posted on August 28, 2017August 28, 2017 by admin

The news has been of Houston flooded and more rain coming. There is a FEMA director which is good, that’s about it in terms of federal support. The governor and mayor are fighting over the evacuate not evacuate issue. Even with a natural disaster, we cannot get along.

Our President has set a divisive tone from his bizarro world take on the White Supremacists rallies in Charlottesville and the spirited resistance and response to Nazis, White Nationalists and Klan members and the death of law enforcement officers and the murder of Heather Heyer. If ever someone wanted to illustrate a definition of the phrase “speaks with forked tongue” it would be of Trump at that news conference a few days afterwards. This is deeply disappointing, but unfortunately not surprising. 45 is a man of few words, but most of them hurt: Muslims, women, transgender people, refugees, migrants esp. from Mexico, and of course Black people–he was the guy who created the “birther” narrative. But mostly he hurts this nation and so few in his party have either the power, courage or concern to actually stand up to him and his ilk. The more obvious White nationalists are off the White House staff, but the ideas are there and will not go away.

I hate racism. I work hard to uphold the beauty and power of my tribe: Black Americans are amazing group of humans. Everything that could be done to humans has been done to us by those who adhere to White supremacy–even those who claim”I am not a racist”. Well maybe you’re aren’t, but your comfortable life is based on institutional racism: it curbs competition for education, jobs, political power; it upholds the cultural idea of who is supposed to “look American”; it allows for policies that ultimately hurt everyone-esp. the militarization of police departments across this nation.

The irony about Houston under water and what will have to happen for funding to recover this part of Texas is that the very legislators who voted TO NOT FUND SUPERSTORM SANDY RECOVERY are now going to have to ask for help. Many of these Congresspeople do not think climate change exists and they are often elected on their anti-science, anti-environmental, racist attitudes disguised as pro-law enforcement–they like the President speak with forked tongues. In this nation and in this world, our troubles are man made.

Black women make beautiful poets: E. Hunt, H. Mullen, T. Foster & E. J. Antonio

In an era of intense #resistance to what is now the status quo, we need to remember how important it is to know history; to honor those who love and built our nation, not those who fought to tear it apart; that those in power esp. those who bully and dishonor their positions need to imprisoned, not pardoned. #Resistance is important, but sometimes fighting back is also and ultimately, replacing those who create, produce and support racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-environmental, anti-science, anti-rule of law policies. If we do not, the clownish concentration camp that Sheriff Joe once ran will be in every city and state in this country. We deserve so much better than what we have right now.

San Antonio has many accents

Posted on July 26, 2017July 26, 2017 by admin

one of the many bridges over the river.

I am not sure what I was expecting when I agreed to be a featured speaker and workshop leader for the 2nd annual Gemini Ink Writers Conference. I knew that I would be paid okay and I’d have a hotel room and meet some really great writers from all over the country because that is what conferences do. But I had no idea of how much I’d like San Antonio. The hotel was straight out of the 1950s and yes it was LBJ’s campaign headquarters. The Tiki Bar was small and tacky-the music was great or awful depending on the lounge lizard on the floor. The staff was attentive or not depending. San Antonio is majority Latino, but you can see that power is in the hands of Anglos. And the place is all about male vanity. Indeed, the hats, boots, well ironed cotton shirts–every man had some sort of attire that said this is who I am or what I do. And women dress to please them. The heels high. The necklines flattering. Or they dress to defy them. Either way the patriarchy is rules Texas even in its gentler form in San Antonio.

That’s the human sort of thing, but what was thrilling was the shape of the city, the architecture, the sun blasting all creatures, buildings, streets and water. There was this engagement with the river and the street and the sun that really enthralled me. The heat is serious. The colors are bright and then blasted by the sun light. The black and white mural on Navarro Street seemed to say-we have to seek the very basic of colors–black and white, all the others wil

Mural-San Antonio

l be bleached away. The conference was a great success I think. But for me it was revealing–a reminder that the history of this nation is varied and complex and one 300 year old city can showcase the greatness and the smallness of our ideas, ideals and civility. It was pointed out that 25% of the local Hispanic population is illiterate. It was also explained to me that there is no unified school board, no citywide

support of public education. That illiteracy rate goes to show how power is not shared in San Antonio and why there are many many people exploited each and every day even as the flowers blossom and the river curves its way into the heart.

Tile work is important in San Antonio