between starshine and clay

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For Women's History Month:
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untitled by Lucille Clifton
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won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
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Also see Clifton's poems, "blessing the boats," "a dream of foxes," "poem in praise of menstruation," and essays about Clifton's representation of "the female experience," here.
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(Some time in March I hope to post a women's poetry reader. Any suggestions?--Let me know.)

rebel fronts

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For Black History Month:
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America
by Claude McKay

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

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see also "Africa," "The Lynching," and "The City's Love."
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very cool cows

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I have a new friend who is very cool, and this very cool friend has a very cool website/blog. Actually, two very cool websites/blogs. You can check out the first site, which the drawing above is from, here at somecows. The second one is a suitable surprise, and its link can be found on "somecows," whose name, by the way, reminds me of a great Bob Hicok poem ("great Bob Hicok poem" -- how redundant) called "My new neighbor." An excerpt:


The cow had a metal tag in its ear,
orange with the black numeral 42.
... 42 has large brown eyes and lives in a field
beside a small Presbytarian church.
I guess this makes 42 a God fearing cow
and all cows have large brown eyes if 73 and 12
are a fair sampling. They pretty much do
what 42 does seven days a week, which is eat
and which suggests they are atheists after all.
... It is comforting to talk
to large animals, whether they listen or not.
I said, it is comforting to talk to large animals
whether they listen or not.


(from This Clumsy Living)
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I think I'll take this opportunity to say eat butternut squash, not cows.

Or at least less cows, more butternut squash.
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happy national poetry month

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and a belated happy women's history month




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Anne Sexton, "Her Kind"

the last day of black history month: etheridge knight

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Etheridge Knight, "The Idea of Ancestry"
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The Really Really Really Real

is the title of a poem, by the super-cool-poet-super-cool-guy Matt Hart, that appears in the most recent issue of Siren (read the poem here), but this title could also be used to describe the sculpture of Ron Mueck, a hyper-realism genius from Australia, whose life-size and often larger-than-life-size work (shown below) is being featured at The Warhol museum in Pittsburgh from now until the 30th of March.

The exhibition showcases seven of Mueck's sculptures that were created between 2001 and 2006. (By the way, if you decide to visit the museum in my hometown, let me know so we can meet for coffee or cocktailing, or if you need any kind of information on where to stay, poetry readings in the area, setting up a reading of your own, etc., etc.)





Mueck and his work, and some discussion of it, has also shown up on Brent Goodman's blog, as well as Deborah Ager's.
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timely

The poem below, by Tony Hoagland, was first published (in Third Coast) in 1997, but ten years later it reads as if it was written yesterday in expectation of the season that officially starts today.

Congress wasn't even back in session yet when this past summer, now just slowly receding, the newspapers and newsprograms were saturated with the humiliations of Larry Craig, who was driven into public bathroom stalls by Senator Larry Craig, whose voting record on issues impacting the lives of queer citizens earned him a rating of zero by the Human Rights Campaign. And Congress was not yet back in session when we witnessed the blatant homophobia evidenced by the double standard of many Republican members of Congress who enthusiastically applauded Senator David Vitter (R. - Louisiana) in July after he was caught on the phone list of a D.C. "madame" and admitted to hiring prostitutes, but who then crossed the distance they put between themselves and the apparently gay or bisexual Idaho Senator only to urge him to resign. And now, with elected officials all across the country going back to their work in the federal and state legislatures, and with the Primary Campaigns in full swing, we will most likely be hearing a lot about gay marriage, and gay men and lesbians in the military, and any other related topic that the fearmongering among the representatives and candidates can exploit to grab headlines or votes, or both.

Ahhhh, the fall season. I love it. But along with sweater-weather, good films, and nature's blatant and awe-inspiring beauty, we get to look forward to the perennial bullshit. Happy First Day of Autumn.


HEARINGS

Autumn and the trees decide again they don't
need leaves. Mothers add more blankets to the bed.
Yellow lights in windows of the junior high
mean that nightschool is back in session,
tired grownups sitting in the plastic desks
learning to bisect the hypotenuse,
how to say spreadsheet in Japanese.
This week on the televised hearings,
we get to watch our congressmen
nervously pronounce the word homosexual
in public; the committee trying to determine
whether queers are good enough
to pull the triggers
on machines designed to foreclose lives
contrary to the national well-being,
--but the Congressman can't
pull the trigger on his own tongue
to fire out the word without
tripping over it, fumbling, stumbling
into the ditch between home and sexual.
--You might say his defense industry is troubled,
as if he had a subterranean suspicion
that to say it might mean, just a little, to become it,
which might be right--since language uses us
the way that birds use sky, the way that seeds and viruses
knit themselves into a mammal's fur
and hitchhike towards the future.
When you say a word,
you enter its vocabulary,
its got your home address, your phone number, and weight;
it won't forget;
the way the parents who finally bring themselves to say lesbian
enter, through that checkpoint,
the country where their daughter lives.
Tonight, all over Washington, senators in mirrors
will practice
until they are as fluent saying homosexual
as they already are at saying Mr. President and first strike option.
Sometimes we think the truth is the worst thing that could happen
but the truth is not the worst thing that could happen.
Now it is autumn and in stores
the turquoise wading pools,
spangled with starfish and shells,
are stacked against the wall, on sale,
implying what was costly yesterday
is cheap today, and may be free tomorrow:
all our yearnings and our fears
--so many seahorses
galloping through bubbles.

Happy Birthday Dear Sylvia

Sylvia Plath was born today, 27 October, in 1932. She would be 74 years old today, had she not ended her life in 1963, at the age of thirty. Thirty.

How many writers, who live to ripe old ages, do or have done what she did by the time most of us are, if we're lucky, getting a chapbook published? ...The classic Bell Jar, one of the all-time great, "gold-standard," collections of poetry, Ariel, as well as her other books and exceptional influence.

She would be 74 years old today. That's younger than John Ashbery, A. R. Ammons, Kenneth Koch, Denise Levertov, Adrienne Rich, Gerald Stern, David Wagoner, Derek Walcott, to name a few active and honored poets of today. 'Only about eight years older than others like the youthful Billy Collins and Robert Pinsky.

So today is bittersweet. How sad it is to ponder, not only all the life she missed, but also, how much more -- more elevated, more informed, more embracing -- more we all might be if she were to be blowing out candles today. But in thirty short years, although she experienced much despair, she left us with so much to cherish. She should have been given more to celebrate in her own life; she should have had many more years in which to celebrate; we are left to do it for her, and she left us with much to celebrate.

In the words of Lucille Clifton:

won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
...what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

I'm Pre-Pregnant

I go barefoot a lot. I mean I love to dance around in my slightly-cowboy-slightly-R.E.M. harness boots, I have always made sure to have at least one pair of "these-boots-were-made-for-walking" boots, and I love putting on my little black dress and completing the ensemble with a pair of my two-and-a-half or three-and-a-half-inch-heeled "I enjoy being a girl" shoes. But when I come home, or after I've gone out to dinner and am taking a walk down city sidewalks, or decide I want to dance unencumbered, and many other scenarios, the shoes are off. Taking out the garbage, walking to the corner mailbox to send a letter, getting some fresh air with a walk in the rain, gardening, anything on green grass -- all done in barefeet.

But I think I might be wearing shoes a little more often now, because since the Bush Administration has now deemed me "pre-pregnant," simply because of my age and gender and the fact that, sorry Mr. President, I'm not currently pregnant, I refuse to be Barefoot and pre-Pregnant.

But maybe now that this new category, a close cousin, or mother, to the category of "pre-born," has been created, Mr. Bush will support tougher environmental protection laws -- since so many women are now seen as pre-pregnant with the pre-born, he of course wouldn't want them to be exposed to dangerous toxins and pollutants....? Curiously, um, no. But certainly he'll reverse the cuts in health care for poor or other uninsured pre-moms, right? No such luck. But wait, the vaccine for cervical cancer! Bush must have changed his position that this would just encourage more young girls and unmarried women to have sex -- I mean women with cervical cancer probably couldn't be considered pre-pregnant, so.... "So what?!" is I guess what our governing executive branch must think, because no, this vaccine is still facing all the same political obstacles.

But, seriously, it follows that men of a certain age group will now be considered pre-impregnators, and be reminded of their health responsibilities on cans of beer and packs of cigarettes....

Phew! I bet it was a close call, but at least for now, men can sigh a sigh of relief that they are still, well, men. Sovereign, self-determined men.

All of this political posturing on reproduction has reminded me of a poem I wrote several years ago, probably about ten years ago, after I inadvertently listened to Pat Robertson go on about women and their pre-ordained calling to "multiply" the number of little so-called Christians out there. Unfortunately, I could write this again now, not just prompted by the lectures of a conventional-wisdom-crazy, but by the positions of -- the Office of the President.

Moral Majority Dream

After falling asleep to the television, on which “The 700 Club"
was airing an episode about motherhood and women’s role in
society

I go in
not knowing if I will ever
come out
or come out the same.
Jimson weeds grow
from the ceiling, the tunnel
beats its heart over mine.
The Christian Army nurse sits
folding birds into nests.
She tells me it’s
Pregnancy Day
and my prayer time has come.
The screaming, swollen cat under the sink
turns quiet
and the nurse measures the needle
against my skin.
My stomach burns in its seizure
and swells with sweat,
still unholy.
The nurse, now proud with gospel,
leads me to the waiting room.
Pain sits squarely on my lap.
It unloads its thickening waste
and gives me a story I’m afraid to tell.
There I spend everyday
scrubbing Bibles and belt buckles,
and every night putting my pennies
into my pillbox, counting them up,
saving for the rainiest day to come.