The happy genius

My father is an amazing man and one day I will write something for him or about him that will do him justice.  For today, though, I will rely on one of my poet loves, William Carlos Williams, and a poem he wrote about himself.

Danse Russe
by William Carlos Williams

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

Rebecca Woolf is my Oprah (but like new and improved)

16. Read 30 books I haven’t read before and blog about them. (9/30)

Rockabye
by Rebecca Woolf

I promise to make a concerted effort not to squee all over this post.  As stated in my previous post, I have a massive girl-crush on Rebecca Woolf.

Rebecca, long story short:
*Living the cool life in L.A., party girl, scenester
*Pregnant at 23 by guy she'd been dating for a few months
*Kept the baby, got married at 5 months pregnant
*Named son Archer (such a cool name and such a cute kid)
*Writes an awesome blog, Girl's Gone Child, and writes/participates in other sites (Babble, Momversation, HuffPo)
*Now married around five years and has a second child, an overwhelmingly cute daughter named Fable

I said to a friend the other day that Rebecca Woolf is about five years younger than me but I want to be her when I grow up.  Unfortunately, some of it is too late.  It's too late to have a wild time that I won't regret later.  It's too late to pursue everything I want, throwing caution to the wind - and I'm cautious by nature, so that would have never worked.  But I envy that ability of hers. She's naturally beautiful, but also impeccably stylish.  She even posted a makeup tutorial on YouTube (confession: I've been trying her eyeshadow technique over the past two days and love it so far; I even bought new mascara and am going to try some MAC stuff when I have a bit of cash to spare).  It's unfair how pretty she still is when she doesn't yet have any makeup on.  I always feel beautiful when my husband says the same thing about me, but I think he just hasn't seen her without her makeup on (and I'm not sharing).

I found Rebecca through Momversation, which I found through Dooce (whose book, It Sucked And Then I Cried,  I will begin reading tonight).  Rebecca so intrigued me that I went back in her blog archives and read through her whole blog, starting at the first post.  This took a few days and when it was over, I was sad that I couldn't get a new Rebecca fix anytime I wanted. 

So, I read her book. The book reads just like the blog.  If you don't like blogs or Rebecca's in particular, you will not like this book.  She's the type of writer who is totally relatable and who you don't feel bad about agreeing or disagreeing with.  For example, I have always hated the idea of L.A.  I've never been there - drove by it once, but that's it.  As a die-hard NYC fan, I do not have a pleasant opinion of L.A.  Rebecca changed that, though.  I have a respect for the city and those who live there that I didn't before.  I still don't love it, but can really understand why some do.

Rebecca's struggle is the balance of motherhood and individuality and independence - a struggle I have always anticipated myself having.  Her words have quieted many of my fears about wanting to have it all, although I take issue with her claim at the end of the book that one can have it all.  I think that it's been a bit easy for her (though she would laugh heartily at that claim) because she's driven, resourceful, and mainly a really talented writer who's had professional experience writing since she was a teenager.  Not everyone is lucky enough to have their one great talent be one that allows them to work from home - AND not everyone who has a talent like that has the luck or opportunity to make it work out that way.  It helps when you're beautiful and young, too.

But it all only makes me love her more.  She doesn't take anything for granted and feels very lucky to have what she does.  (Did I mention yet that her husband is hot, too?  Yeah, the luck.)  I even envy the names she chose for her children: Archer and Fable.  I'm seriously considering stealing the name Fable because it is the best female name I have heard in a long time.  I worry, though, that I'm just not cool enough to have a daughter named Fable... or that one day, should I be so lucky as to meet Rebecca, I'd have to fess up to stealing the name.  That would suck and ruin any chance at friendship, I'm sure.  (But in this instance, I swear to all that exists, imitation really would be the sincerest form of flattery.)

The thing about Rebecca is that she's truly inspirational.  This is going to sound crazy and beyond cheesetastic, but I feel like I've become a better person just in time since I read her blog and her book.  I feel funnier and kinder and happier.  I feel like she has so much gratitude for everything that it can't help but seep out and that some of it landed on me.  And what, for a writer, could be better than to be able to create change and affect a person?  Not much (other than maybe massive book sales).  And it's not that type of icky, annoying "I keep a gratitude journal" gratitude.  It's naked and honest and sometimes raw, but always beautiful.

So, you know, I know she and I aren't ever going to become BFF or something, but she's changed my outlook in a way that only those types of people can, which is incredible.  And she friended me on Facebook, so yeah, we're like already on the road to being BFF anyway.

One last thing... The last line of Rockabye: I twist my ring and it sparkles in the light of Archer's bedroom and everywhere I look there are rainbows. I don't know if she did this on purpose - she is a writer, so I do suspect she knows this poem - but, for me, this totally chimed of the last lines of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "The Fish": everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! (Full text of the poem here.  Do yourself a favor and read it; it's incredible.) Rebecca Woolf creates rainbows.

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

One of the things I love most about poetry is how it can seamlessly intersect with my day, even when I'm not looking for it to do so.  The poem below caught my eye today and I've been puzzling over it on and off, between tasks:

Before the World Was Made
by William Butler Yeats

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can't quiet my mind enough to develop a theory as to what this poem is getting at, which is probably why it's continuing to stick in my head.  But I've also been thinking a lot about someone very dear to me who is suffering from chronic pain and various daily life difficulties.  I can't say much about it because I would prefer to keep it private, but also because I will not be able to avoid crying at work, which would not be good. So I will just go on to say that I think there is something now connecting in my head about that poem and about wanting that person to hang on and not give up - not give in to the seemingly overwhelming prospect of ongoing pain.  Hang on and remember the you that was there before the world was made. This troubles me so much that I am having trouble breathing and am beginning to get a stress-induced headache.  There are people I can be there for and there are those that I absolutely need to be there for me, ones I cannot live without.  This person is the latter but needs me to be the former and I really don't know what to do and how to do it.  Hopefully just doing whatever I can do is enough.

Some assembly required

Growing up, you think that your adult life just falls together - that you get there, to this magic state that is adulthood, and you know exactly how to go about managing your life.  Because I have honest and down-to-earth parents, I understood that life threw you curve balls, but lately I've been thinking about the ways in which many people I know seem to have to work at reclaiming their lives.

I started writing poetry (bad, bad poetry) in high school.  If I remember correctly, I figured that all the cool, depressed people did it and so I wanted to, too.  I think I also really needed a creative outlet.  Even though my verse was terrible, I enjoyed putting it together.  I took poetry writing in college and eventually did a creative writing senior project that was comprised of a ten page paper and fifteen pages of poetry.  I handed that in at the end of April 2005 and haven't written a poem since.  I wanted to take poetry writing in grad school, but by the time it was offered, I really wasn't on the creative writing track anymore and the professor that taught it was so intimidating and smart that I didn't feel qualified to sign up for the course (he was my thesis adviser, though).

So most of what I feel like I know about poetry writing comes from my undergrad years, where I was fortunate enough to have some amazingly wonderful professors.  One note that often pops into my mind is that "poets need free time."  By this they meant that you can't write poetry if you don't take the time to slow down and notice what's going on around you.  But this couldn't be passive, either - you have to go out and live a life; it can't be so slow that you're just at home all the time (even Emily Dickinson had some personal interactions).

These are the two situations that I have struggled with since handing in that senior project.  I was either so busy that I felt like I never stopped running around and, when I did, I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open OR I rejected all of that so strongly that I holed up at home and did away with most human interaction and recreation.  This is why "Write 10 poems" is on my 101 list; not only do I want to write ten poems, but I want to get myself back into the balance where I can.

These days I can feel it once in a while and it is so refreshing and enlivening.  I've even had a few lines of verse pop into my head.  I haven't written anything down, though.  The machine isn't ready to produce any product yet; it's just getting warmed up.  The next two months are very busy, though - there isn't a single weekend where I don't have something to do, whether it be work or travel or some social obligation, so slowing it down is going to be difficult, especially since I also don't have fully free evenings.  I can't help but get angry sometimes that I have to work this hard to get some time for myself, that I have to push away people and activities and responsibilities just so I can gain some head-space, but it's a must.  I'm a happier person when I have that time and my brain is in a thinking, creative space, and that will make me a better friend so it does work out in the end.  This blog is actually helping quite a bit; I've found that taking the time to compose my thoughts on one idea is helping me slow down.

We may ride the see-saw as a child, but creating balance is really the work of adulthood.

Praise Song for the Day (the inaugural poem)

by Elizabeth Alexander

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

~~~

I like this poem a lot.  I only got to see her read some of it and wasn't moved by it at that moment, but poetry is interesting that way.  Sometimes the poet is not the best performer of his or her own work (and sometimes they are, like Robert Pinsky, a phenomenal reader of his own work).  But in taking the time to read it today (in a few moments of quiet), it definitely speaks loudly from the page (err, screen).  I love how it captures this moment in American life and how it echoes our founding American poets (Whitman, especially - and I even read one person compare the poem to some of William Carlos Williams' work).  I love the use of the word "sparkle" (a personal favorite, both as a word and as an item - I'm a sucker for things that sparkle); I love the idea of our ancestors on our tongues... we DO talk and act based on what we know of our family.  We carry that with us; it is so true.

I think Ms. Alexander did a wonderful job and I'm grateful to President Obama for having an inaugural poet present.  (I have this crazy idea about starting a campaign to have Mark Doty be the inaugural poet next time.  It certainly would have done some work making up for the Rick Warren invitation.)

With all oddness and tumult

Today is one of those days... one of those days where you just don't feel in sync with the movement of the world around you.  I work in the field of education and today starts new classes for the students at one of my jobs (I have a full-time and a part-time).  So after a few weeks of quiet and solitude, the building is now buzzing again with young adults and their very unique concerns ("Like, oh my god, she did NOT buy the same Uggs as you!  Seriously?  She did?  Ugh, what a bitch!"  Seriously?  Biggest concern?).  It's also the first real day of work after the holidays and there's a bit of that post-holiday depression, by which I mean there really is a depression, an indent, a lack, where the holiday spirit was.  It's all back to work and the grind now.  Also, my brother flies back to Florida today for his final semester of law school.  It looks like he will be moving back to NJ when he's done, so hopefully this is the last of these good-byes there will be for a long time.  I cannot describe how hard it has been to let him go back every semester because I will cry and tears are not something I have time for right now.  (I miss having an office with a door.)

So there's this swirl of sensations in my heart and gut today, complicated further by listening to the students talk about their lives and remembering, like it was yesterday, what it was like to return to school after the winter break.  What I wouldn't give to be a grad student forever (without the financial ruin of all those student loans, of course).  I'm really not "feeling it" for my job today and sorely miss my old lives: both that of a grad student and, prior to that, my other job in academic administration (which I left because it wasn't in the field I desired).

Usually I feel really uplifted by the start of a new year, but this year feels like it has all the lift of a lead balloon.  My husband needs a permanent job or we can't afford to move out of my parents' house.  I need to find more joy in my present circumstances because I am not the sort who can live with being unhappy upon daily waking.  My 101 in 1001 list is helping because it gives me a purpose, however artificial that purpose might seem.  My goals have always involved self-improvement, usually through education, and this list involves a lot of work towards self-improvement.  It's kind of like having my own life syllabus for the next 33 months.  I am a syllabus junkie, so that is probably why this works so well.

I was looking for a poem that could adequately delineate how I feel today, but I did not find one during my somewhat brief search.  I did, though, find this work by one of my favorite writers, Margaret Atwood, and it moved me today (as her work never fails to do).  It's tapping into some of what I'm feeling without getting at it exactly:

You Begin

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

~~~~

Since I couldn't find a poem that taps into exactly what I'm feeling today, perhaps that means I should attempt one myself.  I do feel something from the subject line of this post.  Maybe it can become something more.

A poem for the new year

If I had to make a list of my favorite poems, this poem would certainly be on it.  (Which gets me thinking... could I make a list of my favorite poems?  How long would I be able to make the list?  Could I get it down to ten all-time favorites?  I think this poem would make the top ten.)

~~~

Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
translation by Stephen Mitchell

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

~~~

For the more visual among us, here is a picture of the sculpture referred to in the poem:

The first time I heard this poem, I was participating in a summer intensive creative writing course (intensive meaning it was a full two week course - 9am to 5pm, sometimes later - not that the writing was somehow extra intense).  I believe the class was during the summer of 2003.  In the morning, we had mixed group sessions with the university's writing staff.  In the afternoons, we had sessions with visiting writers.  There were groups for fiction, non-fiction, and poetry writers.  I was in the poetry group and we had the remarkable fortune of having the poet Mark Doty lead our group.  I hate to admit that I hadn't heard of him prior to that summer, but I haven't stopped following him since.  If you are interested in contemporary poetry, check him out:  Mark Doty.  I really cannot say enough about both his poetry and prose.

I made the mistake of reading his memoir, Heaven's Coast, while commuting. The memoir is about the process of losing his partner, Wally, to AIDS.  The writing is so moving that I found myself nearly sobbing... on the PATH train.  The book is a truly amazing account of love, loss, and community.  His book Dog Years is like Marley & Me for the more literally minded, and another book that made me sob.  In that book, he is so adept at moving through the moments one shares with one's dogs that I would still be sobbing from a particularly sad passage but already be laughing out loud at a humorous anecdote.  His writing is so amazingly fluid that you move through moments and emotions like water flowing downstream.

I was really excited to read that he was nominated for and then won (!) the National Book Award for Poetry this year.  His writing is amazing and, without a doubt, my poetry top ten list would include one (if not two) of his poems.  In fact, I'd probably have to expand the top ten to include more of his poems.  To file in the "it's a small world" category, his partner (also a remarkable writer) graduated from the same graduate program I did and had the same thesis adviser I did.  When I friended them on MySpace, I made sure to point this out, lest they think I was just any other fangirl.

Anyway, one afternoon Mark read this poem to us... in that way that he reads a poem... a way that makes you want to get naked and take the poem to bed with you.  Every time I read this poem, even if I'm reading it out loud to students of my own, I hear Mark's voice in my head for the last line: "You must change your life."

Poets.org has a short talk Mark gave about the poem: On "Archaic Torso of Apollo".

"Change" is the theme for January's NaBloPoMo, so I probably could have saved this entry for January 1 but sometimes a poem just hits you and you have to take some time with it immediately.  This poem wasn't going to wait for Thursday.  It embodies the urgency of its last line.