February Chill

Photo by Kathleen Tyler Conklin

My friend Cindy remarked that she thought February was the dreariest month of all.  I always gave that award to January in my childhood, because not much exciting happened in that month.  For me, February brought Valentine's Day, two school holidays and the most egotistical turn on of them all---my birthday.  Even something happened during Lent (which often began in February)---ashy foreheads, meatless meals and church rituals , which strangely managed to enliven the routine of dull January days. 

However, I notice that my "special" day in February isn't quite the fun event it used to be because I have to now celebrate it in the chilly environs of "elderhood".  Friends, food and wine do warm things up a bit, but I know as I swallow the last piece of birthday cake, it will be time to face again one of the major tasks of my mounting maturity---the dreaded downsizing. I'm working on it slowly, as are many of my friends. The angst of it all inspired me to write a poem.  Take a moment to chill out and read it.

 

 

Divestiture

 

Sorting, tossing, throwing.

Investing in divesting.

 

Memories circle, whirl into piles on the floor.

 

Regrets, remorse sail into garbage bags...  puffing out

with projects not completed.

 

Brittle papers cackle…testifying to procrastination.

The ceremony of divestiture, sad but cathartic

surrendering a lifetime of debris

in a solemn procession to the curb.

 

Poetry Gets A Bad Rap

Lost in the poetry of music at the Inaugural Parade - Kathleen Tyler Conklin

Several "Washington Post" writers have given poetry a bad rap in the last week.  One questioned whether Richard Blanco's poem "One Today" was even poetry.  Hank Stuever called it an "essay-like" poem and Alexandri Petri wonders whether poetry is obsolete.

Whew!  I'm pleased it got so much attention…but are they really paying attention? Was its  'poetriness' questioned because it didn't rhyme?  or because it was easily understood?  or because it didn't cause us to "keel over" as movies do according to Petri's column?

Petri claims we no longer need poetry and the playwright Gwydion Suilebhan declares "Poetry is dead." She says that is is blather, nonsense or gibberish. Take that poetry.  And as a final blow she adds "It's zombie poetry."

Well I beg to differ. I am ready to fight for the right of poetry to exist. It is alive and well and living in the hearts and minds of many non-zombie human beings. It is all around us in books, poetry readings (Natasha Tretheway, the poet laureate working and reading at the Library of Congress for one example), poetry workshops, writing groups, and yes even in rap and song lyrics.

It is on TV in the current PBS program "Shakespeare Uncovered" (yes, Shakespeare is a poet) and on radio thanks to Garrison Keillor. Bill Moyers does his part online.

It is all around us and still has power. Petri claims because it gave us the news, it had prestige in the old days. It isn't vital according to her because we have nothing so urgent like the wounds left by World Was I to express.

She asks, "What now is so urgent that it can be said only in poetry?"  My answer is---whatever has been urgent all these years is still urgent…love, death, war, suffering, joy, nature, connections, confusion, pain, cruelty, beauty, betrayal, loss, happiness.  In other words the human experience.

How better to express it than in poetry? Poetry has the power to focus our minds, express what we feel in distilled language, move our hearts, and to let us take a moment to breathe (as Blanco said in his poem)…breathe in the images of our country, our homes. our roots, our loves.

I thought it was a good poem and a good moment for our nation.

Poetry lovers unite.

The Ecstasy of Poetry

Christmas shadows by Kathleen Tyler Conklin

It can happen.  Ian McEwan, the writer, has said you can "be so engrossed in reading poetry that you barely know you exist."  He speaks of reading the Elizabeth Bishop poem "Under The Window:Ouro Preto" and being so concentrated and carried away by its images that he found he was unaware that his friends who were with him had left the room.

Not every poem has this power to completely absorb us so that we are lifted to a place outside ourselves. Some do.  I suppose it is the confluence of certain things coming together…our own experiences and the magic of the poetic words sparking to transport us to a moment of ecstasy.

Ewan speaks of the effort it takes to "step out of the daily narrative of existence and to draw the neglected cloak of stillness  around you."  I love this image of drawing the stillness of a poem around us like a cloak. Sadly, we must return to the daily grind of existence.  However, McEwan reminds us that the poem leaves something with us. He suggests it is " a feeling of being lighter, softer, larger. The feeling will leave…but never completely."

So this  winter season, I hope that you will take some time to wrap yourself in the cloak of stillness. 

 May the ecstasy be with you.

The Poetry Of Daily Life

A friend planted an indoor rose plant in my back yard years ago. It was fragile and delicate, but has managed to survive to the present day.  I looked for it this morning, curious to see if it had survived the beating rains and gusty winds of hurricane "Sandy".  There it is, bedraggled but still standing, cheerfully showing its soggy pink blooms!

I too recently experienced a storm of my own, not as vigorous as Sandy, but one that knocked me down, but happily not out.  Follows my poem as a reaction to that experience of a not so poetic reality.  I have tried to keep a light touch.  Humor can be a lifesaver…or a least a place to rest between storms.

The Comeback Rose

The bloom is off the rose

It's a slightly different color

Whichever way you look at it

You cannot say it's yeller.

The sun has beaten it down

Turned its edges brown

It doesn't stand as straight

Its leaves are pointed down.

Ragged though it is

Its thorns are still intact

If you try to toss it out

It's gonna prick you back.

You may wish to cut it off

And throw it in the trash

I wouldn't give up on it yet

It could make a late day splash.

The bloom is off the rose

It's a slightly different color

Whichever way you look at it

You cannot say its yeller.

The Poetry of Silence

I am a strong advocate for the necessity, value and power of words--- spoken or written.  I champion the importance of finding and expressing one’s own voice.

However, lately I have been feeling that many of these voices are adding to the cacophony that assaults us daily.

I feel as if I am thrashing about in a turbulent sea of noise---the noise in my own head, the noise that comes from our electronic devices----TV, cell phones, e-mail, Face Book and from the written word---newspapers and magazines.

It is everywhere and it is unrelenting.  Everyone is talking.  Everyone has an opinion, something to say, a need to be heard.  No one is listening.  In order to listen, one has to be quiet.

We need to take a breath.  It is ok to be quiet, to refrain, to keep secrets, to let words fail us, to let what is inside us to stay there, at least for awhile. 

It is good to recognize that sometimes we have experiences which will not be caged by words, that need to remain private, that do not need to be held up to the glaring light of exposure.

We can live in silence for a minute, an hour, a day.  We can honor that silence. And we can listen…to the poetry of that silence.

The Olympics Of Poetry

Westminster from the London Eye by Kathleen Conklin

We all have been watching with great interest and appreciation the 2012 Olympic Games.

Perhaps you’re feeling a bit obsessed and in need of a change of pace… as in a little exercise for the mind.  Try tuning in to NPR.

NPR has revived the ancient tradition of the Olympics of Poetry.  At the Greek Olympics, poetry was very much part of the games.  Poets were hired to write odes praising the athletic champions and even competed in official poetry contests. The Poetry Event at the Olympic Games was revived from 1912-1948 (London), but eliminated after that because of the volume of entries and the difficulties of translations.  However, this year NPR has presented an Olympic Poetry Event. NPR has invited poets to compose original works which were read on their “Morning Edition” broadcast (August 6-10) and published on their website at npr.org.

Check out the NPR website and read some of the “official” entries as well as others.  My favorite so far is James Miranda’s “Olympians”. 

Let the voting begin.

Meanwhile, I have begun thinking about the nature and value of competing for poetry awards...perhaps some thoughts for my next blog.

Speaking the Unspeakable

We have a new poet laureate named by the Library of Congress on June 6th. Natasha Tretheway is a young (46) writing professor from Emory University in Atlanta Georgia. She has written three volumes of poetry including “Native Guard” which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. Her fourth volume “Thrall” will be published in September 2012, the
month she will begin her tenure as our poet laureate. She will live in Washington and work directly in the Library’s poetry room from January through May 2013.

She is a versatile poet, using both traditional forms (sonnets and villanelles) and free verse to express many historical and cultural themes. As the daughter of a mixed-race marriage, that experience is an important thread found in her writing.

The catalyst for expressing herself in poetry seems to be a horrific event she experienced when only nineteen years old. Her mother was murdered by her estranged second husband. Natasha says, “I turned to poetry to make sense of what happened.” Her book “Native Guard” contains several elegies to her mother.

The poet in her own words…
“I started writing poems as a response to that great loss much the way people responded for example after 9/11. People who never had written poems or turned much to poetry turned to it at that moment because it seems like the only thing that can speak the unspeakable.”