My Poetry Year: Entry #44

In which Your Humble Blogger spends more time on the train, this time focusing her attention out the window:

"Demolition"

Everything built on the backs of years
Can be undone in a few days, if only
The other guy would get back from the yard
With more of that yellow caution tape.
But no one else is coming right now
Except the woman in the middle of the street
Who's doing what she normally does around noon,
Which is to walk past these hollow buildings,
With bricks that don't follow their frames
And windows that hold shut, like eyes
Against bad dreams, while in front of her,
A child sleeps in the stroller she's pushing.

* * *

Seen from the Metra train window as we sped alongside the Dan Ryan. It almost looked like the woman and the construction worker idling outside the abandoned buildings were headed for a standoff, the way she held herself as she approached the spot where he stood.

This is one of a series of narrative poems that occupies this chunk of my notebook. I think, at this point last year, I was itching to get back into story writing, but I couldn't figure out how to parlay what I saw into fiction. I wish I had done more with this image, though; there's something to it that doesn't quite get developed in this poem, although it might still have potential.

My Poetry Year: Entry #43

In which Your Humble Blogger continues singing her love for actual, tangible letters, even if they don't arrive through the USPS:

"The Letter"

Out with the stars, you'll find a letter
That I sent you just after we met.
It didn't get lost. But to tell you
Everything I had to say about
The way your echoes resonated
In me – how could I write that letter
And then ask the wind here to lift it?
If you look up, you'll see Jupiter
Approaching the moon, which is smiling
While it dreams of dreams. Their cheeks will soon
Touch. That's where the letter should be now.
The stars and I, we hope you're awake.

* * *

Not the most logical poem, just more dreamy fun with syllables. I initially skipped this and jumped to the Canada poems before I should have. Oops! It wasn't intentional; the pages just stuck together when I was flipping through the notebook to see what I had to post, and I missed this one on my earlier pass.

I really do love tangible media. ("What?" I hear you gasp. "I never would have guessed!" I know, I know! Contain your shock!) Not that I'm against working digitally at all; if I were, I wouldn't have a paying job right now! And there are definite perks that come with the electronic age. Being able to pay your bills quickly or send a message to a friend as soon as you think of it? Pretty nice. If you're like me and you struggle for hours trying to narrow down the field when it comes to selecting books to bring on a trip, I can see how an e-reader is handy.

But there's a warmth that comes with art and communication produced in tangible form that I don't think I'll ever get over, or ever want to. And that should make the next project I have in mind interesting. Mwahahaha.



MWAHAHAHA!

My Poetry Year: Entry #42

In which Your Humble Blogger tries not to mess this post up:

"October"

Out for a walk in October,
I saw leaves parceled into the sky.
Gold as well as brown, every color delivered.
I wished I had sent more letters to friends.

Out for a walk in October,
I thought about old friends.
They had long ago settled their winds on either coast.
And suddenly, I began to miss the leaves.

* * *

My notebook reminds me that I was pondering alternate versions of the last line. The first version I wrote down was, "And I had already begun to miss the leaves."

This was one of the few poems that I didn't type up and save to my flash drive as a backup. Why? Because it was actually written for somebody else. Once I copied it down for the intended recipient (having hemmed and hawed over the last line, heh), it felt like I had done all I needed to do with it. I had made something that I hoped would let a friend know that I missed her, and if something happened to my notebook, that was alright; I would have already sent the poem off to do what it was intended to do.

[Of course, at that time, I had no idea that I would be doing this blogging project! However, the poem's recipient has very graciously given me permission to share it, even though she certainly didn't have to. :)]

I think that art is, to some degree, necessarily self-indulgent; someone sees the world a certain way inside of his or her own head and feels the need to share it. However, just because a piece has its beginning within one person doesn't mean that it's confined to a selfish vein. Art draws on symbols and words and sounds that, for whatever reason, trigger similar emotions across many people. Art can be used to join us socially, to make us laugh or make us have those "A-ha!" moments. And if we're lucky, art can also be used on a smaller scale, to carve out an image from the world and present it as a thank-you to someone who's inspired us that way.

(For Meghann, 2010-2011)

My Poetry Year: Entry #41

In which Your Humble Blogger puts aside her wariness of sequels long enough to write a follow-up to the last poem:

"The Canada of My Reality"

Not long after I wrote the other poem,
I received a phone call from a strange number.
My phone informed me of the call's origin.
Nova Scotia.
Nova Scotia!
Briny grey seashore of my dreams,
The one I've loved past the saltwater
Frozen in your beard!
Exactly where, as a kid, I wanted to live.
Oh! My younger self
Had read my poem and liked it, then.
Canada thought I was worth talking to!
So I began to listen to the voice mail
(I never answer my phone –
I'm American and I don't have to),
And I presumed from the voice's friendliness
As well as the caller ID info
That the voice was indeed a Canadian's.
Then the voice told me about
All of the irresponsible behavior
Of Political Candidate A,
Who was my incumbent state representative,
And what Candidate B would do differently.
Oh.
But why were they calling from Nova Scotia?
Then I remembered the call a few days before
Made on behalf of Political Candidate A
From an area code in California.
Oh.
Nice new trick, guys.

Weeks before this, I had read an article
About a phenomenon scientists are observing:
This year, the aurora borealis
Is dimmer than in other years recent.
It seems to be a cyclical occurrence.
If the scientists want an outside explanation
For what passes with the Northern Lights, though,
I hope they ask me.
I think I've got it figured out.
It's because we, down here,
And in an election year no less,
Are touching them.

* * *

Didn't 2010 seem to be a particularly nasty election year here in the U.S.? Such anger, such hostility, such... snippiness. I know that Canada recently had its own election drama. Still, I couldn't help feeling, as November approached, that we were really wallowing in the muck.

This poem is inspired by true stories. I really did get calls on my cell phone on behalf of local political candidates from Nova Scotia and California. Did anyone else get those last year? It was a smart trick -- an out-of-state area code did get me curious enough to listen to the automated message from each number. (It also irked me enough afterward to think twice about voting for certain candidates.) Additionally, the Northern Lights really were in the dim part of their cycle.

I should probably conclude this post with an admission: I've never actually been to Nova Scotia. I just have the same romantic image of it that I used to have of Maine. And I actually liked Maine once I finally got there two years ago. Perhaps, in time, Nova Scotia and I shall also meet face-to-face.... *swoon*

My Poetry Year: Entry #40

In which Your Humble Blogger writes a love letter to her youthful idealism, the personification of which has seems to have taken up residence across the border:

“The Canada of My Dreams”

See, in the distance, that perfect arc
That's binding the shape of the heavens?
That's not the horizon. That, my friends,
Is Canada, bridge of ice and light
And tempered growth, meticulous bridge.
Up north there, even the blacktop's snow white,
And after walking it for a while,
A potential expat becomes blessed
With Canadians, darling bundles
Of flannel and warmth who present her
With hot chocolate and evidence of
Overwhelming literacy. There,
Everything beams, and though the décor
Depends largely on mounted deer parts,
Everyone knows that those were procured
Through conservation measures; the effect
Is responsibly charming. Often,
For those reasons, I've gazed at the span
That is Canada, and on lucky days,
I've even see my younger self there.
Normally, she sends me angry notes
Through the mirror, while I'm up weighing
The circles under my eyes or dropping
My bulk onto the scale. Or washing
My hands after doing nothing with them.
When I see her in Canada, though,
That young me seems happy, probably
Because she's going to the doctor's,
And in Canada, health care is fun.
Sometimes, however, she regards me
With such sadness that I almost feel
Sorry for the snow that finds her cheek.
It's all I can do to tell her
Not to worry, because she forever
Has Canada, and its glittering
Promise, and because of that, she will
Never be the one who's cold.

* * *

Ah, my fellow doe-eyed liberals here in the U.S. Raise your hands if, at some point in your youth (or, hell, even at some point recently, probably before the hockey riots), you found yourself thinking, "Screw it, I'm sick of how they do things here, and I'm gonna move to Canada, where they do things right!" ;p

And to everybody reading this: Raise your hands if you think about the way you are now, compare it to the way you believe you used to be, and wonder, "Man, what happened to me?"

Stereotypes can be interesting to play with, if treated carefully and not assumed to be absolute reality. I think the best comedians can use them successfully to make us think about how we behave as members of society at large, and that usually means that they use such exaggerated forms of the stereotype that we know they don't really feel that way. (I also think the problems with stereotypes arise when someone assumes that people are going to behave like a stereotype before she even knows them, or when someone assumes that stereotypical behavior is all that an individual has to offer.) My belief is that we all engage in stereotypical behavior at some point; the question, I guess, is what we do knowing that.

The image of Canada that I think a lot of people have conjured is a little different from reality. My youthful idealism is a bit detached from my current reality. That doesn't mean that I didn't find it worthwhile to spend some time thinking about them.

What's interesting to me about this poem, looking back at it, is the way that it came about. This is one of the few poems for which I had the title before I had anything else; normally, I struggle for a title after I've already laid out the basic elements of a piece. The night before I wrote this one, though, I had had a dream about visiting Toronto, and that's where this explanation gets weird: The world of my dreams has a consistent alternate geography to it. For example, I've repeatedly visited San Diego in my dreams, and while it's the same every time -- there's an old blue house smack in the middle of the downtown area -- it looks nothing like the real San Diego. I was thinking about the fact that there's a certain Canada in my dreams, and lo, there a poem took hold.

So... does anyone else do that?

Shirking My Duties

Hi, kids! Sorry to report that there won't be a post from "My Poetry Year" today. We spent the morning without power, stress is a little high over here, and I've got a few hours' worth of work to catch up on. Rest assured that, barring any serious calamity, all will be back in order on Monday, when I intend to share a poem that is an ode to both Canada and my teenage optimism. Happy trails!

Beyond My Poetry Year (or, I Failed at One Thing and Succeeded at Another)

In which Your Humble Blogger briefly discusses why she's more suited to staying inside and writing instead of, say, going outside and trying to help injured birds:

I initially thought that today's post was going to be nothing more than a quick, dirty thing that I got done early in the morning. We're in the thick of work over here, so I wanted to meet my posting obligation as minimally as possible before going on to what I had to do.

That was before my morning got taken up by me finding a beautiful cedar waxwing outside, sitting on the sidewalk with one wing askew.

After running back to the house, getting some info, and waiting about twenty minutes for it to fly away, I headed back to find the bird still there, at which point I called the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors (a name that makes me think of auto body repair specialists), who instructed me to try to get the bird into a box so that a volunteer could come get it.

Here's something I didn't know until today: Birds with an injured wing can still muster up enough flight to get into a tree, out of your reach, as you approach to pick them up. Seems I was too slow in scooping it up. I also didn't mention before that I had found the bird outside of a neighbor's house while I was on a quick walk. The tree that it flew into, then, was in someone else's yard other than mine. D'oh. So much for keeping an eye on it.

I thought that this meant the bird was in better shape than I had initially thought, but when I called the rescue group back to inform them that the bird had flown off, the response of the woman on the phone was, "Oh, that's a shame. It'll probably die that way."

Wha? Gaaaaa!

That was my morning. Not very successful. So it seems a little perverse to share the tidbit of joy that I had initially planned on posting, but here we go anyway: Remember my red notebook?


I finished it the other night. Filled it up. As you can see, it's not all poetry, but getting to the end of a 256-page notebook still made me feel good. In fact, I was pretty darn happy at the idea of finishing it. Almost as if I was soaring. Flying a little.

Oh.

Aaaaaand we've come back down.