Who We Are – Page 3 – Tanita S. Davis

{npm24: 17}

April 17, 2024

2:02 pm

NPM, Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories, What We Do, Who We Are

Mom has what she calls a “Senior Moment” when she walks into a room and forgets what she came for. I have what I call ‘Dyscalculia Moments.’ Today it was the date – I literally read the 1 and the 7 on the calendar as a 1 and a 2. I often invert numbers and/or completely make them up, so it shouldn’t surprise me. And, yet it gives me a double-take each time.

John Hopkins University has a Mathematics of Music course. The American Mathematical Society has a whole page exploring the intersection of mathematics and music. For a long time as a kid, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t “get” reading music, remembering time signatures and what all the little patterns meant. As an adult, learning about the way my brain works and does not… well, now I get it.

This will never be effortless for me. This will never not be a problem. I’m learning to be unembarrassed, and to accept the good. Look at the intricacies of sheet music, and I can understand that! Look at me claim the weird little things that I do to make my life function: see the tiny notations in my music, places to put my pencil so I can count? It’s not ‘Touch Math’ as its taught in many school districts, but it’s close – and it works for me.

Everyone has coping mechanisms, I remind myself. May yours continue to work for you.

Mistakes Were Made

Mistaken, yet again
My blunders make me sigh.
“This too shall pass.” But when!?
Perhaps before I die?

My blunders make me cry.
Burnt cookies in the bin!
Perhaps before I’ll die,
I’ll know twenty’s not ten?

Burnt cookies in the bin…
“Too late to reapply.”
Can’t rely on my brain,
My calendar’s awry.

“Too late to reapply.”
And can’t apply my brain.
My whole schedule’s awry.
Numbers drive me insane.

Can’t rely on my brain.
This too shall pass. But, when
Math gives me a migraine
Mistake are made, again.

{npm24: 11}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 11, 2024

1:51 pm

7 Comments on {npm24: 11}

Musings on Extemporanea, NPM, Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories, What We Do, Who We Are

I enjoyed writing with a mentor text so much the other day that I’m going to try it again… (and to be honest, this is the easiest way for me to gently move into blank verse, and avoid my pathological need to rhyme things…) I was introduced to this poem in my small writing group, and just loved its simplicity. But, as I’m practicing not evading, its simplicity turns my eyes a new way.

One of the simplest truths about humans is that they are fear-based species. About a year ago, the National Geographic did a whole piece on how our fear drove our evolution (yay?). It’s an unpleasant truth, isn’t it? But our ability to fight or flee or freeze has made us who we are…

Others have used Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Valentine for Ernest Mann” as a mentor text and taken it a new direction – today I’ll be replacing courage with poetry. Or is poetry actually courage?

Getting to Grips with the Gift

You can’t order courage like you order fries.
Move up in the drive through and, say, “two orders, animal-style”
and wait for the shiny-faced young person
to hand you a waxed-paper box.

Still, it’s a worthy quest.
Demanding of the cosmos, “Give me courage,
I need to be brave,” rates something in reply –
Maybe more than the expected:
Courage collects. Behind the bunker called Fear,
it is bunched up under a drift of “fight” or “flight. It
crawls from beneath the bed, but crouches, trembling
at the edge of the stage
when it is our turn to step out into the spotlight.

It erupts at the call of karaoke,
sometimes with no notice.
It pulses to life when your section stumbles.
In realizing, “I recognize this part,” you’re reminded,
And your voice rings out, flaring
bright against the formless dark,
pointing out the path. Your singing,
no better than it has been before, but for
love of song, you break ranks and shove aside
silence. When courage layers a chord,
it discloses the secrets that fuel it,
forcefully vouchsafing that though we fear,
fear can be forced away.

Maybe if we refuse what secrets and silence suggest,
we cultivate courage. Spread your shutters, loose
your lion heart, and approach the subject which distresses you.
Let courage grow.

{npm24: 9}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 9, 2024

10:27 am

3 Comments on {npm24: 9}

NPM, Part and Poetry, What We Do, Who We Are

The Poetry Sisters’ recent pantoum project reminded me of how much I have disliked repeating poetry forms – but the pantoum was fine. However, I recently compared the pantoum to the villanelle. For a rigid topic, a villanelle works SO well – short lines, direct ideas. It’s good for inescapable truths. A pantoum sometimes leaves more wiggle room…

Pivoting back to my examination this month of those “deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being,” that T.S. Eliot mentions, I started thinking about growing up poor. Talk about an inescapable truth. I remember seeing an hourly pay stub of my mother’s when I was in the seventh grade, and being …afraid. I remember murmured, late night conversations that were probably my parents trying to figure out what to do, what not to pay, how to stretch what we had. That they owned their home was their sole saving grace.

My life is so different! I don’t own my house. I don’t own much. Yet, am I better off?

inescapable

Couch cushions never hid cash
We winkled every last cent
Never allowed to buy “trash.”

Squirreling away in a cache,
So youth could not be ‘misspent.’
Couch cushions never hid cash.

Washed and pressed – neat, not slapdash.
“Who do you girls represent?”
No one could call us poor trash.

Concocted “cures” for a rash.
A doctor’s care? Infrequent.
Couch cushions never hid cash.

In school we read of the Crash,
Kids worked in fields for the rent
They even reused their trash.

Treats – cash and candy – I stashed
Where I hid my discontent.
Couch cushions never hid cash,
We were never allowed to buy trash.

How’s that for not “evading,” my truths, Mr. Eliot?

{npm24: 5}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 5, 2024

1:51 pm

2 Comments on {npm24: 5}

Musings on Extemporanea, NPM, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Sleeper Stories, Who We Are

Extended family isn’t something I ever talk about, or write about, I realize. Those… extensions run a long way, and while I don’t love them any less for it, those extensions rarely ever lend themselves to poetry. However, this morning I considered the OTHER extended family I have, by law.

Cousin Mary Lee’s prompt to the Inklings’ poetry group this month was a haiku sequence in which they, using a mentor poem, talked about the topic of poetry without mentioning it by name. I was inspired to approach my own connections thusly, in a roundabout, gingerly fashion, carefully not naming – but letting the outline of a thing define its shape. I used both religious and forensic metaphors, which reflect specifics, and I was amazed by how much I wanted to reveal, when the object is to, in part, hint and obscure. I’ll have to try this again sometime…

A Last Supper

Actions speak louder
Than the space between silence –
Would you pass the salt?

hearts hide in plain sight
seeking, though silent. Something
Sings out its presence

prodigals plead for
reunion, not reckoning
choke on fatted calves

if we measure life
not in time, but in heartbreak
we’d call time of death

crisply chalked outline –
officially declare it
done: on to dessert

Poetry Friday today is hosted by Irene @ Live Your Poem.

{npm24: 4}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 4, 2024

2:53 pm

Inheritance

Quantum
Defined by blood
Explores questions of “sum.”
Does mere birthright change Us to Them?
How come?

{npm24: 3}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 3, 2024

12:18 pm

1 Comment on {npm24: 3}

Mi Familia Loca, Musings on Extemporanea, NPM, Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories, What We Do, Who We Are

Relationships with parents remind me that their parents had dreams, goals, and expectations which they passed along, pressed into them like clay, and which affected… us, their progeny. From the other side, my mother’s experiences with me must have been somewhat terrifying. I wasn’t the first child – by far – but the one who was so different than the others, it must have been a little off-putting.

Materhood

She told me, at birth
I was like a new gadget:
Boxed, with no handbook.
Just rows of shiny buttons.
Just so many ways to break.

{npm24: 2}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 2, 2024

3:23 pm

1 Comment on {npm24: 2}

Mental Health, Mi Familia Loca, NPM, Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories, What We Do, Who We Are

From the beginning of my life, my relationship with my Dad has been… fraught. This year began with health issues, and aging issues, and though I am trying to reframe that relationship, I am learning that I must first take the time to look at it… Have you ever wondered what went wrong in a relationship which was supposed to be easy? Family – you’re born with those people. Why aren’t they your easiest relationships?

Pater

In early memory I said, “No,”
His opposite in every light,
His preference for my sisters clear
He left me home rather than fight.

His opposite in every light,
My busy fingers matched a mind
He left me home rather than fight
Me, whimsy-filled more than with sense.

My busy fingers matched a mind,
Head-deep in books and story-blind.
Me, whimsical, not filled with sense,
My world a foreign one to him.

Head-deep in books, I, story-blind
There was no chance we’d meet as friends
My world wholly foreign to him
Two aliens, too alien.

Never a chance to live as friends
Since children reap what others sow –
Two aliens, too alien
We failed to thrive, too starved to grow.

{npm: 2024}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 1, 2024

4:42 pm

3 Comments on {npm: 2024}

NPM, Part and Poetry, What We Do, Who We Are

Every single year, I think of nineteen National Poetry Month projects, and every single year, the first of April catches me wholly unprepared to enact said projects.

I’d say “Why am I like this?!” except… I know why. Reasons. This is who I am – over-thinky, wildly creative, too many zipping thoughts, colliding midair, and too scattered to actually settle on one. Right now, I’m still behind on rewriting my manuscript (one more month to catch up!) trying to be supportive as my family goes through various woes, as Himself job hunts through month six (uggggh) and striving to surface from the worst bits of Spring with my sinuses intact. As there is in every life, there’s a lot going on.

And, that’s why I’m here. That’s why I deliberately force myself to engage in poetry for a solid month …to tackle this idea of praxxis and practice. Making poetry forces me to stop, to look, and to listen… to both others, and to myself. As T.S. Eliot said, in his book The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933), “Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.” Dear April, let me not evade. Let me step out in other shoes, onto other paths, into others’ footsteps, and …find a new way.

beginning

first, step off the porch
make the adventure begin –
the other shoe drops

P.S. – One project that is actually quite prepared is the PROGRESSIVE POEM, which I’m taking part in for the first time this year. Check out the progress:

April 1 Patricia Franz at Reverie
April 2 Jone MacCulloch
April 3 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 4 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
April 5 Irene at Live Your Poem
April 6 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 7 Marcie Atkins
April 8 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a God Forsaken Town
April 9 Karen Eastlund
April 10 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 11 Buffy Silverman
April 12 Linda Mitchell
April 13 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
April 14 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
April 15 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
April 16 Sarah Grace Tuttle
April 17 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
April 18 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
April 19 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
April 20 Tricia Stohr-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 21 Janet, hosted here at Reflections on the Teche
April 22 Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 23 Tanita Davis at (fiction, instead of lies)
April 24 Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone
April 25 Joanne Emery at Word Dancer
April 26 Karin Fisher-Golton at Still in Awe
April 27
April 28 Dave at Leap of Dave
April 29 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 30 Michelle Kogan at More Art for All

{pf: the poetry peeps love a letter}

by Tanita S. Davis

February 23, 2024

5:09 am

19 Comments on {pf: the poetry peeps love a letter}

Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, What We Do, Who We Are

Welcome to another Poetry Friday Poetry Peeps Adventure!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of March! Here’s the scoop: We’re writing animal pantoums. This delightful Malaysian poetic form will pair perfectly with beasts of all kinds – wild or domesticated. Are you game? Good! Whatever way of seeing that you choose, you have a month to craft your creation and share it on March 29 in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

From Process…

I love letters, and I don’t think it’s unfair to say that I could write a pretty good love letter if I put my mind to it… but somehow writing a poetic epistolary felt beyond me this month. Mainly because I am… burnt out to ashes. There’s been a lot of drama going on (2024 CONTINUES to be that special snowflake) PLUS I have a bunch of editorial notes and a big fat revision going on – which is honestly great news, my editor is brilliant, but… I’m just pooped. My body tends to respond to stress by… stressing out further. There’s some switch in my brain that trips that keeps me up, unable to quiet my mind, because SOMETHING IS WRONG AND I MIGHT BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING TO FIX EVERYTHING IF I JUST STAY UP AND OBSESS.

Yeah, it hasn’t worked so far, but my brain remains determined.

This month is supposed to be about writing love letters, but I have no love for insomnia, and that’s all I could fixate on. Kelly helpfully suggested that I might flip that script, and write about insomnia’s love …for me.

…To Poem

Honestly? I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about anything but how grinding this was. Insomnia is like your worst night, on repeat. I knew I wanted a repeating form to work with, but I couldn’t think beyond that. The minute Kelly gave me her suggestion, I was able to shift my viewpoint, and found an entry point to writing not one, but two epistolary poems, in conversation with each other. After all, doesn’t every love story have two sides?

There’s the unhinged pursuit…

Pursuit
A fascinating flame as bright
As lightning streaks the thoughts fly through
A moth to flame, I crave the light
Of neuron’s fire. Of minds. Of you.

As lightning streaks, your thoughts fly through
From deepest darkness, just the sight
Of neuron’s fire. Of minds. And you –
Forgive me! – whet my appetite.

From deepest darkness, oh the sight
Of signals sparking, rendezvous
Forgive me for my appetite –
I know you’ve things to attend to…

Those signals sparking, rendezvous –
The surge and twist of thoughts delight
I know you’ve things to attend to,
I pause your sleep, but not from spite —

They surge and twist, your thoughts. Delight!
A fascinating flame so bright…
I pause your sleep, but not from spite –
A moth to flame, I crave your light.

And then, there’s the pointed refusal…

She Resists
Insomnia, your sobriquet
Sounds sweet, though lately, in the night
As sleepers sway at sleep’s threshold,
You feast with gluttonous appetite.

Your ‘som’ shapes softly somnolence
I sink in with a grateful sigh…
And wake – abruptly – all pretense
Of resting peacefully passed by.

Why me, Insomnia? Reply!
Explain your wearying campaign!
Your ardent interest I defy
Desist! You’ll not leave me insane.

Oh, well. Better luck next time… I guess. Insomnia will, doubtless, keep trying…

I spent a lot of time giggling writing this, so thank you, sweet Kelly, who is always a positive energy in the universe, for making me laugh, and reminding me that there’s ALWAYS another way of seeing things.

There’s more love stories, or anti-love stories waiting, thanks to our Poetry Friday host Tabatha, at The Opposite of Indifference. Want to see what everyone else came up with for love poems? Sara’s epistle to February is here. Mary Lee’s love letter is here. Laura’s affectionate missive is here, and Tricia’s loveliness is here. Michelle’s epistle to a sparrow is here, Linda B’s first heartbreak poem (it counts, Linda) . Carol V’s poem is here, and Linda M’s poem is here. More Poetry Peeps will be penning tender phrases to all manner of animal, vegetable, and minerals this weekend, so stay tuned and I’ll post more links as I find them.

Until then, dear ones – keep your pillows soft and your screens off. This too shall pass.

{pf: the poetry peeps are piñata-ing}

by Tanita S. Davis

January 26, 2024

5:36 am

15 Comments on {pf: the poetry peeps are piñata-ing}

Mental Health, Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, What We Do, Who We Are

Welcome to another Poetry Friday Poetry Peeps Adventure!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of February! Here’s the scoop: We’re writing …love letters. Epistolary poetry in the form of a love poem can pull us in any number of directions. We’re writing our ways of seeing love as an animal, vegetable, mineral, emotion, decision – or anything else. Are you game? Good! Whatever way of seeing that you choose, you have a month to craft your creation and share it on February 23 in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

From Process…

Mere weeks ago, I can remember thinking to myself, “If I can just make it through December…” Hm. Well. January is proving to be its own special level of Hades so far. First, I got roped into just “beefing up the choruses” for a Pergolessi piece, and somehow ended up doing a solo and a duet on top of the chorus pieces. Then, I was given a draft deadline a week before said concert for next year’s middle grade novel, and I figured out one day that the act of opening the document for my draft made me physically ill, I hated it so much, so obviously then I started rewriting THE ENTIRE THING a week before said deadline… and, THEN one of my parents had the temerity to have a minor heart attack. Oh, 2024, you’re a special snowflake already.

You’d think this would mean I would a.) bow out, or b.) sensibly at least cut my research short for our first Poetry Friday venture of the year.

…*crickets*…

That would have made sense, wouldn’t it? ::sigh::

It’s been a joy to revel in the work of Roberto Benavidez, the South-Texas sculptor who specializes in the piñata as an art form. The color and light and movement in his work is a serious treat on these gray, soggy days. From poking around on the artist’s Instagram page, it appears that it’s done via layering the thin pieces of crepe paper. Some of the paper is impregnated with glitter, but a lot of the effect is simply light filtering and refracting through the thinnest layers of paper, and it is… *chef’s kiss* WOW. We Poetry Sisters gave ourselves the latitude to write an ekphrastic poem on any of his wide body of work, and that, in itself, was a little daunting. Initially I found myself fixated on his treatment of birds, and thought that’s the direction I was going… until I saw the Medieval Bestiary from his Illuminated Piñata show. The basilisk isn’t a bird… but it’s also a bird? Or something. I obviously needed a deep-dive into the medieval mindset on monsters, didn’t I. (I mean, what deadline?)

Before I get too distracted, you should see what Sara did. Or, what Laura came up with (when she wasn’t serving as the Poetry Princess Archivist, and updating all of our challenges since sometime in 2007. Thank you, Laura). Cousin Mary Lee’s way of seeing is here, Tricia’s piñata poem is here, and Liz‘s project is here. Denise K.’s poem is here, Linda M.’s celebration of the artist is here. Michelle K.’s sandpiper piñata poem is here, and Linda B.’s meditation on the Hieronymus Bosch piñata is here. (*snicker*) You might discover more Poetry Peeps checking in throughout the weekend, so stay tuned for the full round-up as I find them. Meanwhile… Poetry Friday is ably hosted today by Susan @ ChickenSpaghetti, who I “met” blogging sometime back in 2005. Here’s to the blogosphere, which, when it’s not giving us nonsense, sometimes gives us both good friends and good old friends.

I won’t bore you with all of my reading, but I had to share a few of the hysterical historical images I found, as well as a couple of significant points: one, a basilisk was mostly a basilisk in Europe. In Britain, it was referred to in the main body of literature as a cockatrice. It’s essentially the same thing, but the Brits have always strove for distinction, historically and to the present moment. It’s part of their brand. ☺ Secondly, from Pliny the Elder on down, no one could… agree quite on what a basilisk/cockatrice looked like (I mean, the CROWN. Jeez Louise, Pliny, how much poppy was in that wine???). Or, really, even what it did. Some swore that the beast was like a giant gastropod, dragging poison via its belly and even killing plants and soil beneath it, in a wide swath, while others say its mere breath did the slaying – not to mention its gimlet gaze. So much fear! So little… detail! That… got me thinking.

…To Poem

As I inarticulately tried to explain what I was working on in our Poetry Sisters Zoom meetup, Cousin Mary Lee said that my description of what the basilisk was – and wasn’t – sounded like politics. I kind of laughed at that, but then the thought returned insistently. So much of what we hear via the churn and spin of the news cycle regarding the Sturm und Drang of current events is like …well, like trying to swim by committee. Too many people are trying to manage the arms and the legs, trying to coordinate the strokes and the breathing as we beat the water into a froth, aerating our fears into some whipped up thing that we cannot see through. Boy, do we need to step back! Scoff. Doubt. Question. Interrogate. Take a moment and let things settle, and really look at what’s before us. Sometimes, when we truly examine circumstances, situations, and individuals which terrify us, we will find that they really are ludicrous… and then we can laugh.

This poem makes it sound pretty darned easy to do all of this – just pack up our troubles in our old kit bag, or some folksy nonsense. Friends, we are all well aware how easy it’s NOT. Fears are sometimes a serious, crippling business, and I will freely admit that this is just my first-ish draft of this idea. But it’s an idea to which I’ll be returning this year – because I am sometimes a person deeply in need of getting out of my own head. Doubting our fears is the first step away from them… and I hope it’s an one which gives you a different way of seeing things.

And if your 2024 is beginning with a seismic shift the likes of mine, take heart – we are in the year of the Dragon, and we can a.) start this New Year thing over and b.) immolate what isn’t working, and move on. Breathe fire, friends, and make your fears take wing. Who knows, you might be the basilisk.