Ida Kotyuk, Poet

Genius

2012-02-07T05:25:00.003-08:00

Before I was a genius, I was a drudge. (Ignace Paderewski)

Books

2012-01-15T15:38:00.000-08:00

One day a friend was discussing his problem to find a place for the books in his house.

"How many books do you have," I asked?

"Almost fifty."

"Fifty! That's nothing. That only makes you an amateur."

"Well. How many do you have," he asked?

"Almost a thousand," I answered.

"Almost a thousand! How can you find room for almost a thousand books?"

I said, "Easy. I made room for bookcases."

Ida Kotyuk

www.portraits-oils.com

NYT's "Civility on the Brink"

2011-11-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

There is an article in today's New York Times called "Civility on the Brink." It is about being taught and practicing social graces in a mock receiving line in Augusta, Ga., at Social Inc., a business that for more than 30 years has been teaching students Southern graces.

I was reminded of my trip east early this year and the drive through South Carolina with a friend. This is a friend who turned to me and said, "people are really nice in South Carolina."

"No." I answered. "No one's 'nice' in South Carolina. But everyone is 'gracious.' And I will take 'gracious' over 'nice' any day."

Ida Kotyuk ©

www.portraits-oils.com

The Plaid Shirt

2011-09-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

I never dreamed I would wear it to bed every night. At first, it was simpler to reach for it, hanging on my “nightgown” nail in the closet. How did it get there? Did it follow me home?

The shirt was never a favorite—never an obsession. But, every night I depended on it to help me sleep. Also, I could throw it into my laundry bag along with my other cotton clothes. A plaid shirt doesn't need to be coddled. It only needs to be worn.

I have no memory how it got into my home. The shirt began life and lived in another state. I would have had to drive across state borders, carry it out of that house, and walk up one flight of stairs into my apartment. My first memory is to see it hang on that nail in my closet and the many nights I grabbed for it. No matter. Startled, I would feel its softness as I slid my arms into its sleeves. I would feel its embrace.

I wore it night after night, month after month, laundry after laundry. The shirt lost its original colors and faded into neutral. It began to look like a dust rag.

"I can't give it up," I said one day at lunch. "It's beginning to shred and, once it's gone, I know I won't sleep again."

"Does it have a pocket?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you cut off the pocket and sew it onto something else and wear that to bed?"

Only a quilter would see and understand the importance of a pocket and find a place for it. I would never look at quilts the same again. But I also knew it was time to say goodbye. To cut a pocket off and sew it elsewhere is not who I am.

That night, I prepared for bed. I found one of my frilly silly nightgowns, put it on, walked to the photograph of my mother and father, and said, "Goodbye Dad."

I slept that night.

Ida Kotyuk©

www.portraits-oils.com

Writer's Prompt

2011-08-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

I love to work with writers’ prompts. Following is my most recent:

You come across a pack of matches that sets off a series of uncanny events. Start your story with “My mother always told me not to play wire fire.” End it with “And that’s how I ended up in the middle of nowhere—naked.”

My mother always told me not to play with fire. That is why I stood there in the middle of the night with a book of matches in my hand—naked. It was all her fault, you see.

I must have been around six years old; one year before the age of reason.

My mother, the first of a thousand adults in my future, who would come up with confusing adages; as an example, a watched pot never boils. What’s that about? But, there in the dark, naked, was my first moment when I would began to experiment and test my mother’s advice and experience a glimmer of the adult world.

I wondered “how” can I play with fire. I only understood it was hot because of the coal-burning furnace—which I was never to touch. I still remember that hot, steamy, night I crept from my bed into the kitchen to look for those matches; a kitchen that was way too close to my parent’s bedroom. I knew to be afraid to strike the match in the house. Slowly I unlocked our back door and tip-toed out to our back porch.

I was really scared, you know, there in the dark with my bare butt. Luckily my feet stepped on nothing icky or I would have raised the neighborhood.

I struck that first match to learn how to “play” and held it to the wooden railing until the flame became too hot to hold.

Nothing.

Hmm…. I must be doing it wrong.

I struck another match, held it to that really thick wooden railing until my fingers got hot, again.

Something’s happening… So I struck my third match, and saw the wood begin to char. That char scared me and I gasped.

Ooops. That’s when my mother heard me. Talk about a mother’s big ears. I could have been in the next state and she would have heard me. My kindergarten school teacher with her eyes in the back of her head couldn’t hold a candle to my mother and her ears.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Me, “Oh oh.”

Out onto the porch she came in her nightgown. How could she wear a nightgown in this heat? She took hold of both of my arms and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Trying to play with fire.”

That’s when my world became real strange as I turned upside down across her lap.

Whack. Whack. Whack.

Now in the dark and scared for an entirely different reason my childhood world sparked with an adult understanding of “that’s wrong.”

It is that moment. And that’s how I ended up in the middle of nowhere—naked.

Ida Kotyuk©

www.portraits-oils.com

The Candle

2011-06-20T14:41:00.000-07:00

The candle’s flame chatters, brawling

with the overhead fan’s draft;

its best friend and worst enemy.

I watch that flame lean and stretch in its quarrel,
to seek its nearest ally to command “join me.” Then,
its chatter and brawling slows to a flicker.

A lonely combatant and no surrounding flammable army.
Facing an evenly-matched foe it strengthens and becomes silent.
Fearful of neither bully nor death; it calms,
to never flicker or loose its footing,
and serves me—its master.

Ida Kotyuk©

www.portraits-oils.com

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

2011-04-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

I think Shakespeare’s sonnets are throwaway monologues that would not/ and did not/ fit into the character's speech in a particular play. The sonnets are taken out of context and therefore are confusing for us to understand, as they would have been to the audience of his time.

©Ida Kotyuk

www.portraits-oils.com

On Writing

2011-04-09T08:25:00.001-07:00

There are times my laptop tablet behaves like a skittish virgin, when I wish she worked like an old whore.

Did a Mesopotamian or Babylonian writer have as many problems with his clay-baked tablets?

Did he have problems with weather; was it too damp or too dry? I am sure he wielded no precocious tablet; while my electronic laptop misbehaves with either extremes, or fair weather.

I’ll bet his chiseled reed didn’t miraculously reappear elsewhere as he smoothed his too-deep gouge with his thumb. His touch had to be as light as mine or he would have been a stone mason. I have no such alternate choice.

Those clay-baked tablets built from surrounding nature would have grounded that ancient writer. He would be one with his world. And, over the years, as those archived tablets piled up in some room, numbering beyond the thousand, he understood where he fit in. He would belong. He knew his value within his community and to his King.

We shall never know, nor do his tablets reveal, his thoughts as he and his reed leap and turn as in a paired ballet. He wrote with greater purpose than I, tracing his fingers over his labor, each tablet containing precious information, fire-hardened, for posterity.

While, unlike him, my ephemeral dancing letters capture my ephemeral dancing thoughts.

©Ida Kotyuk

www.portraits-oils.com

On Writing

2011-04-03T07:52:00.000-07:00

There are nouns so powerful they do not require an adjective; i.e., mother, father.

* * *

We have moved far from the realm of direct experience.

©Ida Kotyuk

www.portraits-oils.com

Would you Like Fries With That?

2011-03-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

Latin

Latin is a dead language, dead as dead could be.

First it killed the Romans, and now it’s killing me.

(Unknown)

While reminiscing one morning, my sister-in-law and I compared our high school classes and experiences. She had gone to a school in another town nearby and we would meet in our first year at college. Two goofier girls you couldn’t find with more widely diverse temperaments. She eventually married my brother and became an elementary school teacher, and I went on to become a portrait painter.

That morning, our topic drifted over to classes that we never again used in our careers or personal life. In music she took chorale while I, instead, blew into my clarinet. As an asthmatic it couldn’t have been a worse choice unless it was the tuba. She took all the arty classes in high school while I studied the heavy-duty stuff like math, biology, chemistry, etc. To this day I have no clue why I would consider such a program unless like the salmon I have this strong urge to swim upstream against the river.

Our one shared study was language. We both enrolled in Latin. Why? Well… we had a choice between French, German and Latin, and she and I were at the tail-end of the “classical” education.

Lovers of learning and education, we both see the classes in school as doors opening and leading to opportunities later in life. And so my question was, “What doors opened for you in life because you studied Latin?” Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. We picked each other up from the floor.

We could only come up with one profession that might use Latin.

It is good to have a sister-in-law.

©Ida Kotyuk

www.portraits-oils.com

Mankind’s Future Battleground

2011-02-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

Science fiction writers always say that mankind’s future battle ground will be us versus the robots. But I believe they are half right. My battle with technology is my computer’s cursor. [Now I know why this laptop was on sale for $300.] The computer’s cursor has a will of its own and I believe it is here where we will find tomorrow's battleground; to track and control a hopping cursor. Fifty percent of my time is spent locating what new site my cursor has disappeared into. Luckily, it stays within the same Word document. Though who knows what intelligence it is gathering.

©Ida Kotyuk
www.portraits-oils.com

Technology

2011-01-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Technology has simplified my labor, but complicated my life.

©idakotyuk©January 16, 2011

www.portraits-oils.com

500 Words Part I

2011-01-05T15:11:00.001-08:00

When journaling was first suggested to me, I thought I will never “journal.” In my mind, journaling requires a beginning, a middle, an end, and, it has to be about something. Or, if I skip a few days that new young habit fades away.

I do carry a notepad with me to jot down ideas and/ or to do(s). But to commit to writing; hmm….I don’t know. Whereas, I can commit to type 500 words-a-day. So, a few years back I committed to typing 500 words-a-day during my first cup of coffee in the morning. These 500 words are nonjudgmental words. They have no meaning: no beginning, no middle, no end.

Some mornings I type a to-do list for that day, or what I will have (or did have) for breakfast. Other mornings I type a “done” list from yesterday. And within the past few years there were three days when I typed “la la” 500 times. Sometimes my 500 words are the starting outline for a blog or a poem; usually made up of ideas to be researched.

My 500 words take less than one hour and many times only half-an-hour. On those occasions I take more than an hour are days that I am in “flow.” These 500 daily words can total over 3,000 to 5,000 words a week.

I probably bore my family and friends with my talk about my daily 500 words.

A family member had asked, “are you writing your memoirs?”

“Hardly.” Because I live a remarkably ordinary, if not dull, life.

Eventually, it was within conversations with others, I notice who I have become; a change that happens after years of 500 daily words.

Think of going to your local gym to work out for one hour a day. What are the physical changes that hour would bring to your life? Clothes will fit better, one can bend over and get up again—gracefully, etc. Nothing changes overtly other than there is an ease to life, a fluidity to one’s motions. Unnoticeable after-effects, until one walks a few blocks with a friend.

A similar, but more subtle, change happens after years of typing 500-daily words. There is an ease to thinking, a fluidity of thought and expression. Like the health-nut, unnoticeable after-effects until one is in conversation.

©idakotyuk©January 5, 2011

www.portraits-oils.com

Figment(s) of My Childhood

2010-12-14T08:52:00.000-08:00

Watching the iceman

lift from his shoulder

his large block of ice

which slip slides into our kitchen’s oh-so-dark recessed hole,

lined in tin, and I place my finger on ice and marvel at its cold;

And no matter where I play outdoors

the sun will follow because

I am the center of the universe;

And I am the Palomino pony

who gallops to and from school

whinnying and neighing

both faster and more beautiful than all others.

©Ida Kotyuk, Portrait Painter, MA

www.portraits-oils.com

Golden Wedding Anniversary

2010-11-28T13:20:00.000-08:00

[On the occasion of Terry and Ray Johnson’s (Villa Park, IL) February 4, 2011, Golden Wedding Anniversary.]

Alchemy

Who of us on a wedding day think

to meet again in 50 years? But we knew

that when you said “I do” you would. That when

you became husband and wife, you would

choose to keep that friend for life.

You knew each offered heart is a rare

and fragile gift to be held gently

in both hands. A gift both given and received

even as one-by-one each year goes by

for fifty years side-by-side.

What lies within that circle of your

gold wedding band but a shared committed life

as one, a keepsake of the heart.

Others’ keepsakes rife with

careless acts or jealousy their rings

too loose, too tight, but yours fit just right.

Poets, playwrights, songwriters

say little about enduring marriage:

one-or-two stanza poems; poor witticisms,

and “toast roasting” speeches. But marriage is not

slap-stick farce as paper slowly turns to gold.

idakotyuk©November 28, 2010

www.portraits-oils.com

The Hard Part IV

2010-11-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

I could revise until the day I die. The hard part is to know when to quit.

idakotyuk(c)November 17, 2010
www.portraits-oils.com

The Hard Part III

2010-11-13T06:40:00.000-08:00

Were the distractions of the internet, television, telephone, family, and friends that we experience today just as disruptive as those experienced by Austen or Dickens. Or were their distractions just as frequent, only “different.”

Dickens lived in the city. Therefore, he was surrounded by noise; not to forget about all those children he fathered. He must have been a bear when a toddler accidentally wandered into his peripheral view. And yet, he managed to write a number of classics. Of course, money is a great motivator. I believe once an artist works for money, it becomes harder not to work for money.

Eventually writing must have become habitual for them. They knew where they were going and how to map out their ideas to get there. I imagine that rarely would they approach their writing having to crank themselves up to get started. We hear of later writers who face that blank page and promise themselves five (or however many) pages of type. When to my mind, sitting down at the typewriter and rolling in that first page, or sitting down at the table and sharpening that quill, or booting up the laptop, is the hard part. Or, as I like to say to myself, the hard part is to get there or to be there.

idakotyuk©November 2, 2010

www.portraits-oils.com

The Hard Part II

2010-11-10T06:25:00.000-08:00

I wonder if all previous (ancient and contemporary) literary writers had a problem with a drifting mind while trying to write. Did the mind of Charles Dickens drift over to some inconsequential problem while he wrote A Tale of Two Cities? Or was he focused when he sat to write.

Jane Austen wrote at the family table! Did she have to deal with interruptions in her flow of thinking? Did she have a problem getting back to the character in Emma? Or, did her family sit with her feeding her with ideas.

Those early writers must have spent eight hours a day writing with that quill. I wonder if it was the manual process of writing: sharpening the quill, dipping it in ink and watching the black flow against the white paper that lured them and kept them working. Words typed onto a laptop appear more as a herky jerky staccato, with a cursor that beats out the rhythm, “I’m waiiiitng.” There’s nothing “pretty” in watching words appear across a computer screen—always static, always the same size. There are no inkblot accidents indicating the human hand; a remainder of a moment in time for humanity to see centuries later.

No. Words now appear as little soldiers, not even as generals or admirals. We see their little serif feet the exact distance apart. Would Dickens or Austen have written their novels if they had a laptop. Or would the beating cursor have reminded them time is…

idakotyuk©November 10, 2010
www.portraits-oils.com

Looking for Girls

2010-10-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

Watering can in hand, slowly I go,

another drought-ridden summer.

Soak and wait to wait and soak,

til this brown-bent reed I see.

One of those stick insects.

What are they called?

Oh, yes, the praying mantis!

He at the top-most reed, sits,

regal, immobile, quiet.

He didn’t move a stick.

I haven’t seen one since I was a child. Our

science an efficient assassin against nature.

He sits watching. I do not know what.

His ancient ancestry thousands of years older than mine.

He has become humanity’s teacher—

that non-movement is as important as movement.

He instructs us in nature’s rhythms

to discover our personal energy.

Teach me, my little totem.

Teach me to blend, to become invisible.

To waken the ability to hold this certainty;

perception through stillness.

I ask, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just a bug, looking for girls,” he answers.

Solemnly, we gaze at each other, until

I accept I am not the girl for him. Though

never have I been wooed

in a more subtle fashion.

And he, his lonely courting, continues.

idakotyuk©October 28, 2010

Portrait of van Gogh’s Boots

2010-10-18T09:34:00.000-07:00

Ah, Vincent…You knew. You knew. You knew.

Our allies who speak loudest for us.

Leaning, laying, Mercury scorned,

disreputable, unfashionable, society spurned.

No reliquary bone but a sacrificial reliquary

frozen in time, boots from a fallen saint.

Does that top rolled down indicate blisters?

Did that right foot feel a martyr’s pain and torture?

Worn, cracked leather, caked from servitude.

Leather which had to give in, to compromise;

leather that never gave up.

Laces loose here, tight there; fatigued

icons that did not coddle.

One boot parts from its sole.

Another boot, overturned, uncovers white-dotted hobnails.

Each hobnail a stigma of a rebuff, a snub, a rejection.

Rejections which pierce our heart if not our palm.

Each hobnail a testament to prophecy unfulfilled.

Dense brushwork that squeaks and squawks.

What language speaks that tongue? What tales?

Disreputable, clumsy, rustic boots

for a disreputable, clumsy, rustic man;

without illusion. You knew. You knew. You knew.

Tired

2010-10-15T15:18:00.001-07:00

Uh Uh. One eye is closing to take a nap while the other tries to remain vigilent.

General or Specific

2010-10-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

“It is a good deal easier for most people to state an abstract idea than to describe and thus re-create some objects that they actually see.”

Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners, Occasional Prose.

A question I ask myself—when I wear my poet’s hat: is it easier for me to expand on the beauties of nature or is it easier for me to describe a scene outside my window? Hmmm… I believe I would take whatever object I see outside my window and turn it into a metaphor for the idea of nature; that is, whether the idea of nature is ruthless or beautiful.

To Love

2010-10-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

If you say you love me and I
accept your love, you and it become
my responsibility to protect.

Never will I purposely hurt you;

not physically, not emotionally, not mentally.
But, you must know the real me.

Past Tense

2010-09-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

Was, or not was--that was the question:

Whether it had been nobler in the mind to suffer...

* * *

I have had compared thee to a summer’s day.

Then art was lovely and temperate.

To Garrett and Ashley

2010-09-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

Intense and focused, he commands sound.
He commands language.

They bow and bend to his will and
Dance with poetry’s muse.

She with her fingers lightly laying on the beat of her

Pulse; listened and decoded their rhythm into words.

Getting It Wrong

2010-09-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

How awful to be at bat for the first time in your life, and then to hit a home run. People will say that was luck, and the batter never understands how he got it right. I call it to be cursed.

I think of Olympics when I think of getting it right, especially the ice skaters. There they are with their ten minutes to rise or sink with or without glory. Then again, I think of football, I think of baseball, I think of basketball, and picture a player scoring. Or, I think of performers on a stage.

They work in an environment that everday permits them to be wrong.

How many years do they strive for those few moments they get it right. Little upsets me more than getting it right the first time. My first thought is, What! What happened? How?

Small Stuff

2010-09-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

“Before I was a genius, I was a drudge.”

Ignacy Jan Paderewski

We walk, eat and breathe in a spatial world, but make linear choices, make linear decisions in a linear insisting brain.

Study and learn from past poets. Not to do so is to believe the world is flat.

Older Than My Car

2010-09-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

A Found Receipt

Ball joints loose $473.00

Cooler line leak $305.00

Driver’s side, rusted metal floor $200.00

Battery light on Free

Total $978.00

My knees are tight, No leaks,

Yet. Wrinkles, but no

Rust. My batteries charged. No

Dashboard lights. And—
I am older than my car.

Lost

2010-09-15T05:45:00.000-07:00

It’s in Section G I know it is. I made sure to read the sign.

Now it’s late at night and I have no sight of that which is mine.

No sight of F, no sight of H, where can they be?

Then I realize the alphabet has run away from me.

Abandoned and deserted I wander in the dark. I

Show no fear though obviously clear I don’t remember where I park.

Somewhere in the night in an ever-shifting hostile lot

Alphabet and my car have left their parked spot.

The Hard Part

2010-09-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

The Hard Part

“He drew his grandparents and he got in every single wrinkle!”
“Well, that just makes him a dermatologist.”
The hard part is knowing what to leave out.

“When you do his portrait, can you leave his braces off?”
”Well, I’m not an orthodontist. But I’ll do my best.”
The hard part is knowing what to put in.

The human mind is incredible. It is always at work. Eventually, a portrait painter recognizes she does not have to paint every eyelash on a portrait, just as a landscape artist does not have to paint every leaf on a tree. The human mind recognizes the tree without every leaf drawn and it recognizes the face without every eyelash painted.

Ode to Marjory M

2010-09-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

A thank you poem for my 92-year old rhyming—and much better at rhyming than I—friend for buying dinner last night.

It isn’t what movie we see,
Nor when nor where we meet.
It isn’t about the restaurant,
Nor what we will eat.

It is about two friends
Who love to sit.
It is about the joy
Of two friends who visit.

idakotyuk © September 10, 2010

Rimbaud’s “Alchemy of the Word”

2010-09-08T09:03:00.000-07:00

The Burden of History

I hate history. I hate tradition.
I hate to be burdened by early
Voices that came before me.

I want to make my own history, my own tradition.
There is no room for newcomers.
Rigid rules in place: Don’t do this; Don’t do that;
That’s not how it’s Done. Who cares what, when,

I make My own history, My own tradition, on My own terms;
Do those early voices have something of value to say.

Much more easy to wipe a slate clean—
Daily, like a blackboard in school;
Always crisply clean until
My arrival as My teacher slowly fills it with
Words and numbers during My day. Why isn’t
My Life like that?
idakotyuk © September 8, 2010

Response to a particular series of words found in the first few paragraphs of Rimbaud’s “Alchemy of the Word” in which poor poets of Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia, can neither write a word nor take a step without reminders of Humanity’s 3,000 years of existence, and the age-old problems to be faced by every new generation’s artist.

Mouthwash and E.M. Forster

2010-09-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

My pleasure reading is a Regency romance novel. I try to limit those novels for the early evening hours. [I don’t have cable television.] Occasionally, I call those novels my “popcorn” reading; but to best define what they do to my brain, I call them my “mouthwash:” fresh and tingingly, and clearing out the decay and rot of the day. How better to end each day than reading about men and women who like each other. [E.M. Forster wrote (in Aspects of the Novel, but quoting another) that without marriage and death, there would be no novelists and no novels.]

“…the more the arts develop the more they depend on each other for definition.”
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, © 1927, p. 149; discussing pattern and rhythm in novels.

“But we must visualize the novelists of the next two hundred years as also writing in the room. The change in their subject matter will be enormous; they will not change.
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, © 1927, p. 171; discussing eight novelists picked from the past 800 years, one for every 100 years, placing them in a room; and their subject matter versus who they are as men.

A Little Reflection

2010-09-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

Learn compassion. Life is never
done with you . Somewhere in Time, you
are destined to walk in another’s shoes.
idakotyuk © September 2, 2010

One day long-ago, to keep safe,
became important to me. Not
things, but all earth’s mortal creatures.
idakotyuk © September 2, 2010

“The last of the witches—very lonely. The rest have committed suicide during the eighteenth century—they could not endure to survive into the world of Newton where two and two make four, …”
E.M. Forester, "Aspects of the Novel," © 1927, p.114; writing on the birth of science and the death of magic.

The Poet and the Composer

2010-09-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

In yesterday’s poetry writing class, Professor Snart played a number of videos from YouTube of recognizable music; ranging from the classics, popular (i.e., Gershwin), to jazz. The first piece was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Duh, duh, duh, daaaa…. Duh, duh, duh, daaaa…. He would play a few seconds stop and ask us do we know what’s next; play a few seconds, stop, etc. That moment was when I understood poetry’s rhythm, and the potential power of words. That words are similar to notes on a music sheet. But for both a poet and a composer, alone in their compositions, a similar problem arises—how to communicate. Not everyone knows how to read sheet music. I certainly don’t, though I studied an instrument for eight years. [Obviously, wasted money on private lessons.]

Perhaps that is why poetry has fallen on hard times. For a composer, a musician translates notes on a sheet. Any musician could pick up a 400-year-old music sheet, and fairly accurately translate it into sound. I, the listener, do not have to read sheet music. I do not have to rely on my ability to understand the rules and language of written music.

I am aware of individuals who, when attending a concert, take with them, the entire score of the music to be played, and follow along with the conductor. “Why?” I ask.

“Because I want to see if the conductor makes a mistake.” Based on the expression on my friends’ faces, believe me, I know when the conductor makes a mistake. Those few people in the audience with their scores are the music. Regardless, though I cannot read the composer’s notes, my enjoyment is not diminished.

Think! How many are involved to create a concert. How few need be involved to create music.

Whereas, the poet… What is the lone poet to do? Where is the poet’s venue? A street corner? A subway station? At times, when the poet reads his own words; listeners laugh. Who laughs when a composer plays his own music.

What have we done to the word? Has it become too flexible and we have lowered it to the common denominator?

I read somewhere, on the internet—of course (and I paraphrase):

If the pen is mightier than the sword [which we all seem to agree to and take for granted] should not the pen be held to the same responsibilities and restrictions as the sword?

Alexandrian Library

2010-08-31T08:08:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have been reading about our ancient civilizations; particularly, Egypt and the Alexandrian library founded around the 3rd century BC. What is/ was surprising to me is the ancients early dedication to history; to collect mankind’s knowledge in that era in the form of fragile papyrus and codex. The Alexandrians picked and chose who warranted to be shelved in their library, the best of their and previous generations: the best poets, the best story tellers. What dedicated effort to collect, organize, and classify an estimated 400,000 to 700,000 scrolls. An archive of humanity’s written thoughts all pretty much slowly destroyed, lost, and nibbled away, by the time of our 13th century. A fascinating story about the slow (sometimes accidental, sometimes furious) destruction of anything that holds a thought different from our own.

Slowly, my question became, what today, August 31, 2010, holds a similar fragile repository of mankind’s thoughts? Hmmm… Not too much of a trick question. We have all become a part of a live breathing internet which pretty much mimics our expanding universe; though, I heard no bang, only a whisper.

Luckily, there are hardy souls who find pleasure in collecting, sorting, and archiving information. But, our digitized text, video, and sound is as susceptible to extinction as 3,000-year-old papyri. That’s what I like about reading—the old stuff. Stuff the ancients did right, stuff they did wrong. Wrong in the sense of short-changing humanity 3,000 years later.

Deep Reading

2010-08-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

I am a reader. No matter what I read, I sit there with blue ink pen, red ink pen, pencil, and 6” blue ruler in hand; in special preparation for that special place in Hell—those of us who mark-up what we read. Newspapers, magazines, backs of cereal boxes, novels, poems, any pieces of paper are victims of my mark-ups. I cannot read without responding and make “mine” what I read.
Blue ink pens are for underlining an author’s major point within a paragraph. Sometimes for a too-dense sentence or paragraph, I am forced to find and underline the noun, verb and direct object. A big blue asterisk in the margin says, the author/ poet made a unique point.

Red ink pens are to underline a word that I do not know, recognize, or a word the author/ poet has used in an unusual way. Along with the underlined word in red, I put a little check mark in the margin as a cue, here it is; where later, I write the dictionary definition. Oddly, it is writers for whom English is a second language; who have the greater vocabulary. These writers frequently send me to the dictionary.

The 6” ruler, of course, is to keep my lines straight, and for the pencil I occasionally write a comment to the author’s or poet’s statement or imagery. Yes, sometimes, there is a WOW! Other times I may write, “WRONG.” Am I right, who cares for now, the book or poem is mine.

It is in the margins of what I read where all the action takes place. If the writer has made me laugh, I draw a smiley face. If the writer has made me angry, I draw a straight-lipped face. If the writer has left me confused, I draw a question mark with two eyes; and if I am surprised, the margin gets an exclamation point, again, with two eyes. [What else, possibly, could a portrait painter do?]

The idea is that either poet or author, and I, are having a conversation. When one reads, one never reads alone; and at times, there is a crowd in the room. I am driven to make mine that which I read. It’s about being a reader, and we are compulsive creatures.

Emily Dickinson

2010-08-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

Whenever I, or others around me, talk about our favorite poets, or poets we admire, I always bring up Emily Dickinson. She, who is always in the forefront of my mind when I/we speak of poets. She, who I sort of liked in high school because her short poems had a noun, verb, and direct object. In college she never got the same amount of lecture time as let’s say: Tennyson; Coleridge; Bryon, or [fill in the blank]. But if I ever found an anthology of poetry laying around (in some surprising places), I would pick up the anthology to see which of Emily’s poems were included.

She rarely disappoints, you see. She’s all about “simplicity.” Some poets and their poetry strike me as crossword puzzles. Let’s see, if I figure out eight across and four down will I then get the meaning? Or are you all about rhythm? Are you all about beats? Are you all about rhyming? You have left me no clues, no crumbs.

What truly surprised me about Emily is every year my admiration for her poetry increases. Until today, I ask, “How does she fit an entire universe into a four line stanza?”
She’s a little walking camera. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click here, click there. Then into the darkroom to cut out and scramble the images. She takes the ordinary image and reassembles it to make it extraordinary. There are times that after she has reassembled her images into another picture, they don’t work. She is such an honest poet that she says, It didn’t mesh.” As an example, and I paraphrase her here: “a grave is a lovely place, but none there do embrace.” Yes, I see her in her darkroom trying to create this embrace between tombstones. And it doesn’t work.
She always brings a new insight to the ordinary, which she holds up, changing forever our view. We, then, are enriched by her unbelievable simplicity.