Month: October 2016

{no makings for a song?/sing anyway}

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October 25, 2016

9:41 am

3 Comments on {no makings for a song?/sing anyway}

Part and Poetry

This morning, a death in my family. And as I wait to see what I can do (nothing, now), and where I am needed (nowhere, likely), I am thinking of what other friends and community are going through – a friend caring for her older brother, as her aging parents don’t know how to help after his 5150; two other families reeling at the loss of their mother; a dialysis machine turned off on a father; a treacherous discovery of cancer. Add to that, the continuing heartburn of the national conversation, the new names added to the list of the women (Deborah Danner, Renee Davis). And I realize, as always, there is just. so. much. grief. So, so much grief to go around.

It may not yet be time for unrestrained rejoicing, but I need to take a turn around the room, to dance through the fire that seems intent on burning me down to ash.

A LITTLE BIT OF TIMELY ADVICE

Time you put on blue
shoes, high-heeled, sequined,
took yourself out dancing.

You been spending too much
time crying salty
dead-fish lakes into soupspoons,

holding look-alike contests
with doom. Baby, you
need to be moving. Ruin

ruins itself, no use unplanting
what’s left of your garden.
Crank up the old radio

into lion-looking-for-food
music; or harmonica, all indigo,
breathing up sunrise. Down

and out’s just another opinion
on up and over. You say
you got no makings

for a song? Sing anyway.
Best music’s the stuff comes
rising out of nothing.

~ Mekeel McBride
reprinted from Dog Star Delicatessen, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2006.


{“my life is in the falling leaf”}

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October 11, 2016

9:53 am

2 Comments on {“my life is in the falling leaf”}

Essay Musings

Finnieston 232

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears…

I’m in that post-production process of cleaning up all the little scraps of paper littering my work table, bits and pieces that have to do with my last manuscript. And, as usual, I am profoundly depressed. Since being the editor of my school paper as a high school senior, I have known this about myself – that when I put the paper to bed, I had to go to bed myself. I’m grateful to this day that it was only a quarterly paper; the weekly rag was mostly gossip and fun, no real effort, but the one that went out to parents and board members and constituents – oy. That one took it out of me. Kinda like novels do.

I went to a wedding this weekend, which was in itself bittersweet and depressing (specific to this event, #NotAllWeddings), and my introvert soul was in rags after smiling my way through three and a half hours of reception with a sit-down dinner. I knew I’d be wrecked before I went, and planned accordingly; Tech Boy worked from home Monday to hang out with me, I scheduled a visit to the chiropractor, I literally only got out of bed on Sunday to use the bathroom. (These little crashes always work so much better if you can get someone to agree to feed you, and I ache for my sisters and brothers who don’t have that luxury. I used to drag an electric kettle next to the bed and eat a lot of things like instant oatmeal, before Tech Boy. Now I get tamales. This is a distinct improvement in Profoundly Depressed Meal Plans.)

This morning, I’m staring at the keyboard. Literally. I have had just… long stretches where I come back to find myself… staring. At nothing in particular. I feel like I’m all out of stories, all out of thoughts, all out of …anything but echoes in my head. “I have no wit, no words, no tears…” Even aside from the deeply religious/Easter themes of this poem, Christina Rossetti encapsulating her existence in the metaphor of a desiccated autumn leaf sounds about right. Even though I rather like desiccated autumn leaves, most of the time, they clearly have only one job, which is to lie still and be crunched into the tree-dust that feeds the soil so need trees can grow. I have stuff to do, though; can’t lie down and be crunched up for anyone else just yet.

It seems I’ve written my well dry – so it’s time to fill it up again – in whatever way I can. Other than being patient with the process, knowing that the current mental fog is made up at least in part of disgust for our national conversation and dismay at the constancy of stupidity, what does one do when in need of refilling mentally? Do you see a play? Go to a concert? Take a class? I’m open to suggestions. Christina Rossetti suggests throwing her broken pot into the first to start over — and while that is dramatically Victorian and surely possible, I need some realtalk options. What do you do to get your vessel-self ready to hold water again?

{p7 – ekphrastic on l’arlequin}

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October 7, 2016

5:04 am

8 Comments on {p7 – ekphrastic on l’arlequin}

Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

the poetry seven

The OED explains that the “arlequin,” is, a. A character in Italian comedy, subsequently in French light comedy; in English pantomime a mute character supposed to be invisible to the clown and pantaloon; …he usually wears particoloured bespangled tights and a visor… (In reference to quot. 1590, it may be noticed that the arlecchino is said, in Italian Dictionaries, to have originally represented the simple and facetious Bergamese man-servant. Cf. the stage Irishman.). Meant to be many amusing things – the arlequin is part of the fun, a figure to be made fun of, and a “funny” racial minority – Irish, if one is English, or, if one is Italian, Bergamo (a province in the state of Venice), a people ridiculed as clownish in manners and dialect by, among other famous folk, Shakespeare in 12th Night. Clowns. Based on real people.

Image from page 135 of "Masques et bouffons; comédie italienne" (1862)

The image to the left here dates from 1862, and was printed on the program for a theater troupe. So amusing, those eyes. Those exaggerated eyes remind me of blackface, actually. Punch, the viciously violent, wife-killing puppet from the Punch & Judy Victorian plays – started out as a harlequin called Pulcinella – with those same exaggerated eyes, the emphasized nose, and those hilarious murderous tendencies. Hah-hah, he’s subhuman, that Punch. Hah-hah, what a clown. The French sculptor responsible for this 1879 image, Charles René de Paul de Saint-Marceaux, recreated it in myriad forms – clay, bronze, marble, small, large, plain, painted. The arlequin is an eternal figure of fun, after all.

Which helps me understand that humor – and all things – change over time.

arlequin

As I looked at this image Kelly chose for us this month, I did some freewriting, and produced words like romance (because my mind is ever with the Harlequins, I guess) smirk, insouciance, cheek, hidden, obscure, veil, misunderstood, concealed, suppressed – and a few more in that vein. I found that I was reacting mostly to his mask… apparently because, Mask = Somehow Not Good. Additionally, here’s this dude standing, arms crossed, stance wide, looking down – maybe in that down-then-up eye-flick thing that people do once they’ve looked you over and found you wanting. Flick. Dismissed.

Ugh.

Ugh on two fronts, really. I mean, REALLY, Tanita? All this angst? I keep rolling my eyes at myself for reading SO MUCH into a piece of artwork, but – well, ekphrasis by definition means description – and I’m describing, I guess, how this artwork makes me feel at first blush – granted, against the backdrop of everything else going on in the world that’s getting into my “feels.” Look at him, standing there. I’m ready to laugh with the joke. Resigned, equally, to being the joke. I’m uncomfortable, yes… but could he be, too?

Digging deeper past our first flinch responses is what creates a higher consciousness in the human animal than in the average mammal. I know I had to think deeper than my first response – often – when I was teaching. So, this poem goes out to all my clowns, all my little smirkers, and fast-talkers, the cocky little turkeys who drove me nuts with their attention-seeking — dragging the attention of the class from the lesson and onto them with their constant caprices and blethering. Did you derail the lesson because you couldn’t understand, and were afraid to ask…?

Come, be brave, my lads, my ladies. Take off the mask.

NOTES TO A MALAPERT
FACING MIDTERM REPORT CARDS

Imperfect paste, insouciance, affixing scorn to sneering mask
And closing minds to fresher things – for it ASSUMES and does not ASK.

Assumption traps the imprecise, beguiles wit to buffoonery
It builds a faith in rank surmise and makes “an ass” a guarantee.

Incorrigible, too cute to care that laughter only lasts so long
Consider that the spotlight’s gaze may soon become your siren song —

Ask, knock, and seek – old-fashioned tasks – find facts the proven way
Don’t stand and smirk and “guesstimate” – and lead yourself astray.


head-arlequin



You’ll not want to miss the rest of the gang who could make it this week. We wave and blow kisses to Andi, under her pile of blankets this week, but Sara starts us off with wondering what this guy’s up to. Laura’s pretty sure she already knows. Liz remembers him as that one guy in high school. Despite a busy week, Tricia sneaked in there, too. And Kelly – who saw the trickster first – is the cherry on top, even though she’s still working on her poem.

Poetry Friday’s roundup is hosted today by Violet Nesdoly.