- Are you ready? It's only like 24. Are you ready? We can welcome you to 5 Wooden Coats 25th anniversary reading.
- we're going to begin with a group poem. It's going to be a little more restrained than last year's group
- poem. For those of you who remember, you know, Wellington Boots and so forth. It's not really like that.
- The 70s. Trends. Jonestown. Est. TM. Jogging. Cycling. Fast walking. Purple tee. Health food.
- Singles bars. Swinging singles. Micron spandex. Hard pants. Burst shoes. Pant tops. Polyester leisure
- shoes. Mood rings.
- Pet Rops. Have a nice day. Happy face. I'm okay, you're okay. TV radios. Mopeds. Macramé. Streaking.
- Disco. Hustle. Miz. ERA. Roe vs. Wade. I Am Woman. Fear of flying. Joy of sex. Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
- Happy day is the fun. The total moment. String bikini. Watership down. 74. Mainstream news.
- The wounded knee trial begins February. Charges dismissed September. Senate ratifies 1925 Geneva Protocol
- banning chemical and biological warfare. Mariner 10 reports Venus not as closely related to Earth as
- scientists once suspected. Golda Maire resigns. Maria Estella Martinez de Perón becomes president of
- Argentina. Patricia Hearst kidnapped. Agnes Garrity, holder of 10 women's swimming records, dies. Jill
- Kerr Conway becomes first woman president
- What never changes, Ethiopian and Eritrean
- Here explodes nuclear device. Pakistan will develop nuclear program. Pope Paul VI reaffirms unequivocal
- opposition to birth control. Pope claims Pope Pius XII knew by 1942 of Nazi deportation of Jews. 100,000
- die of drought in sub-Saharan region of West Africa. What was invisible, unmentioned, battered and abused
- women and children, women's music and culture, homophobia,
- the old, the different, the land, the animals, the plants, the water, the air. Invisible to myself,
- my longing for women's country, which I took 20 years to enter. Myself. Early 70s, I'm underwater,
- snowed in, bogged down, kids everywhere, toys, diapers, dirty dishes, dust balls growing under the bed,
- my world, the yard, the block, the park, playground, the grocery store. One day,
- casual conversation as I pick up the kids from nursery school. So you like theater? Come to a puppet
- rehearsal. Then I'm learning, acting, dancing, writing at 1 a.m., going back to school, fitting it in
- somehow with all the mother stuff. And here's Helen in a class, her poem's full of the land, local ways.
- She runs a nursery garden, is an oasis among the college youth. They move on to other courses,
- And we, with nowhere to speak our words, make our own place. Like a garden, it's grown and changed,
- good years and bad, the workers come and go, yet it keeps on, and here we are, 25. How I wish I could
- say, here's to another 25. But on this side of the hill, it's not very likely. So I take each meeting
- as I do each day, the one that
- Thank you, Tonya. I'll let you all get comfortable. It's nice to see this lake of faces, not exactly
- a sea, but a full room of those of you who wanted to help us celebrate tonight. I, too, remember 1974.
- I was mother of toddlers, not yet 30.
- and sure of my rich and married future. Psychics were predicting the planet in upheaval as the century
- turned 25 years. Volcanoes, earthquakes, climactic changes, storms, floods. Penetubo, Mount St. Helens,
- Turkey, Taiwan, Nicaragua, El Nino, La Nina, North Carolina, Andrew, Floyd,
- and they predicted that human lives would reflect the planetary. Viral epidemics, environmental diseases,
- physical, emotional trauma, classroom violence, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress.
- Kali chakra, dances of universal peace, commit random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
- one day at a time. Transformation? Indeed. Those psychics knew better than to tell what 25 years would
- break for me. But they could have said, take heart in hard times. Your work will have meaning. You will
- find your tribe. You will make a new kind of family. Be proud of your children. You will learn you are loved.
- and worthy, you will find women, many women. And some of you will sit together, poets in a circle, marking
- your transformations, bringing each other courage and delight. This is a little note to Floyd. Have
- you ever noticed they name the great forces of nature as women?
- La mer, the sea, mother of us all, and used to be hurricanes. I miss that. I figure we could all stand
- remembering the consequences of a woman's rage. Thank you. This next piece was inspired by a note from
- Tanya probably a little over a year ago.
- Lifeblood for a crone, the full harvest moon emerging from a cloud, crickets in the rain, a blue jay
- in the spruce tree, a clear droplet at the end of each dogwood leaf, the queenly cat and the silly one,
- dogs who visit my office, babies whose mothers hand them to me, strangers who smile back
- Pleasantness in traffic. Sunday morning public radio. Reading anything. Cooking for friends. The window
- seat. My desk on the sun porch. The vine that blossoms on the fence. Quiet in the house. A new dress.
- Old sweatshirt. Coffee at sunrise. Rehearsals. Women writing.
- Women singing, dancers, actors, backstage with the crew, on stage in the airy light, making a room full
- of people laugh, holding a woman who weeps, being held anytime. Women. This came from a meeting of a
- poetry group at Meadowood
- It's easy to think of regeneration as leaves dry and fall into spring, seasons of transformation. What
- will I find come spring under the compost left from this autumn? September always like school starting,
- the smell of newness on the air. Fresh crayons, shiny brown oxfords, starched and iron dress. Standing
- up straight and proud, a school girl once again,
- on her way to adventure.
- Where are you? Well, we're now going to hear from Deborah Campbell, and you can find some of her wonderful
- poetry in the chat book for sale in the lobby for Amir Pitten's. I've enjoyed what I've seen in the
- chat book. I'm looking forward to hearing more.
- Yes, I'm Deborah Campbell. I left Bloomington, though, in 1981. So I'm a stranger in Bloomington now.
- But it's really nice to come back. I was in that 74 group. I wasn't with Sandra Gilbert. I was with
- Ruth Stone. But I joined the group right after the class. And it was really great. But there are no
- pictures of us from that time, because we had no sense that this was going to go on and on and on like
- this. So we were there.
- I'd like to read first the blizzard. Three rooms on the ground floor, a small apartment, walls close,
- yellow light at the centers of rooms, leaving corners of warm beige. Flurries of effervescence rising
- in the glass of beer half drunk. A refrigerator and pantry of food waits. Two cats sleep.
- one filling the hollow of a chair, the other on the floor that covers the hot water pipe running to
- the baseboard radiators. Beyond the sheetrock, insulation, and mortared brick, beyond the wood frame,
- glass panes and electric wiring, winds sweep knee-high snow in broad sheets and funnels
- Curling waves, sharp bridges, mounds, buttes and palisades, now like water, now like rock,
- now like sand. Forming and reforming, the snow conforming to shapes nature loves. Through the camera,
- I view the snow subject. Through the frame of the viewfinder, focusing the two halves of the split image
- rangefinder.
- Lining frame with the frame of the window, first focusing on the frame, then on the snow beyond. The
- screen blurs the image. The frames of the panes cut the ridge of snow like boxes on a design graph.
- Typing this into the computer with its straight lines, right angles, boxes within boxes, all functions
- neatly labeled.
- I, subject, format this object phrase. I, subject, view this object text. The poem, an object in a box,
- in a box, in an architecture of boxes, does not line up with, does not conform to. Trying to grasp,
- shape the scene, record its forms,
- I cannot reach outside the shelter of my walls to the space beyond where gale force wind cuts across
- all human possibility. The next poem is Nathaniel and the Freight Train. To get home, we must cross
- the tracks. He looks to the left. I look to the right.
- as we have previously arranged. This night, in the distance to the left, a light appears. The track
- is a straight shot for miles. How far off is the light? How long do we have to wait? But wait we must,
- for Nathaniel must see the train. I park the car and carry him to the tracks to better judge.
- The light does not seem to move. He leans forward slightly in my arms and says in a voice firm with
- toddler expertise, it's coming. With a small Indiana town at our backs and corn and soybean countryside
- ahead, the air is still. Not a sound from the recycling plant nearby. On the grassy bank across the tracks,
- are three white wooden crosses barely visible in the light of the plant's loading dock. Memorials to
- three teens who died before the gates went in. Finally, the faint whisper of whistle at a crossing at
- the line. The volume grows. Two long, one short, one long. The warning spelled out with escalating urgency
- The circle of light grows. Nathaniel is eager, but he signals me to move back. The gates come down.
- His body is tense. I see his wide eyes in the advancing light. Then the avalanche of metal is on us.
- The rumble and screech of rolling stock.
- Nathaniel holds on tight, 25 cars, 50 cars pass in the dark, the screens of wheel meeting track, the
- Russian spiral of hot air meeting flesh. The last car passes, and with the suddenness of epiphany, on
- the other side of the tracks, the three white wooden crosses glow in the ambient light, in the still
- shuddering air.
- turn is up. And next we have Heather Good. Hi. I joined Five Women Poets in the summer of 1998 and I
- came to the group as a dancer who was interested in
- creating performance pieces that combined movement with poetry. And what I've done since I joined the
- group is to write a lot of poetry. So I'm going to read some of it for you. Legacy. The women in her
- family are made of stories of how they married badly and plowed the fields while their drunk husbands slept.
- How they pulled their own children out of their wounds. How they always lived alone except for each
- other. How disease took their loved ones and carved up their capable bodies. How they educated themselves
- when the world would not. How they built wisdom out of war and poverty and loss. She has listened at
- their bedsides as they died too young.
- and written their histories in brittle pages on her bones. Only the strong can bear such things,
- she knows. She examines herself without hope for signs of weakness. Duet. I see a self within myself.
- A self that walks with me inside my skin, a heart that beats inside my heart, and hands that fold into
- my hands. Skin inside skin and blood inside blood, like a child rocked in the cradle of my arms within
- arms. My eyes look forever inwards, holding someone smaller in their embrace.
- So we gave ourselves sort of an assignment to write a poem about 1974, which is the year that five women
- poets started up. So this is my 1974 poem. 1974, the year I learned to write, not just childish scribbles,
- but two real letters of the alphabet.
- H. Two vertical hatches sliced by horizontal. O. A curving line reaching around to meet itself. H-O.
- H-O. Ho. My crayon signature. My magic word. My first.
- Deborah Horne. Yesterday I was in North Carolina, and tomorrow I'm on my way back. But this is one event
- I really didn't want to miss. Being with this group of women has been an important part of my life through
- the late 80s and early 90s. The first poem I'd like to read tonight is called Patches.
- Imagines of my past drift timeless on stratosphere, whisked along on whim of some crafty quiltmaker
- intent on random, wild design. Suddenly, a jagged, pain-red swatch whirling on gust of furious wind
- drops and fits itself into the fiber of my day. No sooner done than silken star design, a moment brightly prized
- settles milkweed light beside the red. An updraft floats this fabric of my life while patches tumble
- into folds and corners. The quilter smiles at patterned disarray while stitching captured patches into
- the texture of my day. Stone Soup Gallery.
- on bent branches in Anna's yard. Aluminum saucepans wink at sunset, dripping ham and beans onto a hungry
- lawn. Pan handles lodge and garden loom at angles determined by their velocity. In summer heat, flies
- scavenge piles of boiled potatoes and turnips strewn from doorstep to white picket fence. Skillets caked
- with gravy rust
- rain. Behind lace curtains in the kitchen window, Anna admires her gallery and waits for the next time
- Edward comes home, sperms the meal stirred from her cache of time, and leaves her alone with a boiling
- pot and her anger. Housekeeping. Balancing the sleeping house on her shoulders,
- She tiptoes in ballerina shoes under shifting moon shadows through fields of frozen mud. A floorboard
- creaks. She stiffens, eyes wide as lily pads, fearful that as little as a mouse traveling the baseboards
- could tilt the awkward load. Send it crashing earthward, spilling chairs, china, credit cards, and children
- through broken panes and unhinged doors into a wasted heat.
- The house, silent again, pushes down and sends spasms through her back. She lifts one soundless foot
- and extends it one step closer to dawn. Truck stop of America. Daddy always said, if you want a good
- meal, eat at a truck stop. Mother, meanwhile, eagle-eyed her plate and napkin rubbed her fork.
- Today, at truck stop of America, each elbowed me in memory through aisles of trucker's logs, CB radios,
- headlight lamps, peppermint stars, Waylon and Willie and Roseanne Cash, wild and free t-shirts, dusty
- tins of Redman, and 83 Louis Lamour paperbacks. Finally, seated in vinyl padded boots inspecting fork
- and glass, I ordered Harky Fair.
- Two truckers' cat brims tilted down mumbled roots and weather. Waitress pushes back a strand of hair,
- jokes with solitary cop, and plants my port of steaming soup before me. I plunk a quarter in the jukebox.
- It blasts out Mississippi Squirrel Revival as I reach across the table for a cleaner spoon. Mom nods.
- Dad eyes my soup. Twenty minutes later, I drop a crumpled bill by half-empty bowl.
- I smile. Before I rise, I feel a knowing elbow on left and right. I nod. They smile. The final poem
- is called Trucking South. All my worldly goods loaded on the largest rider truck hover behind me as
- I take a deep breath, clutch the steering wheel, and wave goodbye to neighbors.
- Long curves mold my hands to the wheel, my eyes to the road. I dare not exhale, look right or left,
- speed up, or think of the next 600 miles. At Louisville, the road narrows to a single lane over the
- Ohio where the bridge reads, bridge under construction. Finally, as I slide onto the two lanes of Route
- 64, I exhale, turn on the radio, and check the mirror for my backup, the Taurus,
- that provides me cover to change lanes. My foot sinks deeper on the gas. I'm trucking. Heeds,
- hills speed by. I move into the left lane, leaving lesser cars behind. No cover car tails me now. I
- let up on the gas and annoyed. I have a hang of this. Where is my Taurus? I break and slow to 50. In
- the mirror, the Taurus spins slowly into sight. I urge the truck to 70.
- The tourist drops back, and I grumble as I slow again. I am woman. I am trucker. Let me roll. A fingernail
- of moon scratches the graying sky. My shoulders ache as I exit to the West Virginia Motel. I set the
- brake and jump to the pavement, strutting a bit with trucker pride. A lecture on speed from my tourist
- friend does not deflate me. I'm a trucker. At 2 AM, I awake.
- I know I can't get back into the cab, wind over miles of mountains, and live. No longer a trucker, I
- lie awake, weighing options. I can risk my life and goods, or I can live here in this two-restaurant
- town for the rest of my days. Coffee in hand, I climb onto the truck and dare it to slip out of my control.
- Past Charleston, mountains twist and climb, and I learn the force of gravity as I slope to 40 and 30.
- Downhills begin to thrill me, and I'm trucking again. I pull through a weigh station, an official trucker
- now. I gas up with the fellows at a truck stop. I'm getting into this again, leaving terror to the night.
- Blasting country songs on the radio, I sing along. Now it's easy sitting high above traffic, hauling
- my life to a new home. Regret seeps in as I pull to a halt. I'm ready for another hundred miles, and
- now it ends.
- I hop to the ground, the feel of the road still in me, and I know that while I will never make this
- trip again, I am a trucker. The next set of poems are Beth Kelly's and Andra Royce will read these.
- I'm really sorry that Beth couldn't be here because nobody can read her poems like she does. But they're
- such good ones that we thought we would give you an example. Coffee Grounds. Damn, love is a hard-hearted
- woman. She stands with red hands strong on them broad hips and scowls your hunger into silence till
- you're sorry you asked for bacon and eggs
- Coffee, just coffee, if it's already hot. Yes, that'll be fine, thanks, fine. And she fixes you with
- her eye as that hot black brew pours bitter fire down your throat. But you drink it down, careful watching
- her watching you while your heart's brought back to knowing you don't even like coffee. Just sometimes
- the way it smells.
- You dream of fancy foods your heart ain't yet to taste, but somehow remembers anyways. Then you smell
- the coffee and wish that old dog image of love would move her fat ass out of your kitchen and let you
- get to the stove yourself. This is called After the Farmer's Market. I am almost 40.
- Middle-aged and stiff from arthritis and professional posturing. But the sun is too sweet. The morning
- too new was summer to resist. So I sit on this warm concrete step, eat fresh strawberries from a brown
- paper bag, and watch the cars go by. And the last one is Elegy. Her heart was a buried stone larger
- than the ground that held it.
- cracked from years of the earth's deep fire yearning toward the sun. No drink was ever sweeter than
- the water of this lonely fountain poured out, not for many, nor for the forgiveness of sins, but into
- the roots of the sycamore and katalpa for the simple task of living, for the simple need to love. Ben Kelly.
- Our next poet is Antonio Macchi. I'm going to start off with a joint poem. Helen is going to read it
- with me. It's a true story of taking my young children to a poetry reading. And there are two voices
- in the poem. That's why we're going to read it as a duet, so to speak.
- At the reading. The poet is reading about the white slavers. At the back of the auditorium, John finds
- a tick crawling out of his hair. To suit that on a young girl. Holds it between his thumb and forefinger.
- To seize her in the streets. And as she weeps and shrieks. Tries to flick it off. Carry her away. It
- doesn't want to go. To far countries where unimaginable things happen. But falls at last.
- Belly up, legs kicking. Only in this case, the family laid in wait. We all stomp on it. It still lies
- there kicking. And a total of a getaway car. Finally, I get my house key, press down on the tip,
- slice it up, poke it in a nail hole. Thus saving the family honor and the child. As the poet finishes,
- we all clap loudly.
- Thank you. I'm going to read two short poems from the chapbook. A gray day. The room, cold white. Walls,
- chairs, floor. French windows showed us a corner of the autumn garden. A flower bed along a mossy red
- brick wall, a tree
- Not quite bare of its pale yellow leaves, around it on the bent grass, fallen ones, large feathers
- overlapping. Their color lit the room. So when the poet stood and read, she shone. The words from her
- mouth, bright birds that settled in our hearts. What?
- We sit upstairs in your small room. You ask, what does a poet need? I remember a cat crouching in the
- grass, a chipmunk between her paws. She was eating it whole. Driving one evening, two deer galloping
- towards the road. I expected them to stop, but they came on, charged across, looking straight ahead.
- I turn to you, say, I need to eat the chipmunk whole to risk all for where I am going. The last part
- I'm going to read is from our first chapbook, which is also for sale. It's a historical chapbook. There
- are only those copied out there.
- So splurge a little. We'll sign it for you. This is a poem I've always been fond of. It's written about
- a woman who was very important to me when I was growing up. And at this time of remembering our 25 years,
- I would like to honor her. An act of remembrance for Mercia. I drive past your house, my wartime home,
- always my home from home. Surely, I just missed seeing you this time. Surely, you are out of town. The
- stone lions and the climbing roses are not there, nor the wartime potato patch in the flower bed, nor
- the bricked in windows that made our basement air raid shelter. Yet, I can imagine if I put up in front
- got out, opened the gate, and walked up the gravel drive. You would be there in the doorway before I
- had reached the steps, stout and smiling, ginger hair crinkled, arms wide, Tonya, my dear, embracing
- me beneath the enormous engraved picture of Wellington's victory and Queen Victoria's words. Please
- understand that no one is depressed in this house.
- We are not interested in the possibility of defeat. It does not exist. All through the party, I kept
- looking towards the door, listening for something I couldn't hear. I was expecting you to arrive, bringing
- that laughter I counted on for years. But one winter morning, getting up early, as you did through air
- raids and holidays, fog and sun,
- to make your cup of tea, you fell and left without saying goodbye. I have not cried for you. Like you,
- I have not said goodbye. I imagine you still in the doorway, arms wide to greet me. How else can I bear
- your absence, as real and permanent as the loss of the alms
- at the end of the garden. Thank you. Thank you. It's so wonderful to see you all out here and for you
- to be sharing.
- in this special time for us, where before we take our ten-minute intermission, there are a few brief
- announcements and acknowledgments. What would be a torture for you? You've got to do it. Nancy, I should
- have asked you to burst into song. Would you like to sing? There was one about Frere Jacques.
- The women's copy house, we have little rude rhymes we sing before the announcements. Stupid announcements,
- get them over with, get them over with. However, these are genuine thanks.
- Thank you to the staff of the John Walton Arts Centre for their help, especially Carol North, who started
- the booking process for us, and Louise Roncaiola, who carried it on. Laura Green, who had an unfailing
- cheer, answered questions and took messages, and E.J., who worked very hard on the lighting for us.
- Thanks also to Fiona Stoner who has taped two of our readings. We're grateful for her expertise. Annette
- who has been our ticket taker not only once but I think before and Jennifer Cash who today is our bookseller.
- Special thanks to the two newest members of the group, Heather Good and Carrie Spatter. Heather put
- the chat book together and dealt with all the emails and with kinkos. And Heather is being a gypsy at
- the moment, so this may very well be the last time that she reads with us, and she's been a wonderful
- addition. Carrie, who is our newest member, handled all the PR and the program, and we could not have
- managed without them.
- And while we're mentioning the book, many, many thanks to Nancy Quen, who has been designing our flyers
- for several years, and this year also designed the cover for Choice Words. We love her unique creativeness,
- and we hope that you'll buy copies of the book. When we first started, Jean Elchamont designed our original
- poster with the mother of us all, Susan B. Anthony, exhorting you to attend our reading.
- Carol Pye, Varsheri Wreath and Anya Peterson-Royce have also done designing. And talking about Mothers
- of Us All, a tribute to Sandra Gilbert, who inspired and still inspires many students to type it up
- and send it out, and without whose energetic teaching this group would never have got started.
- We also have been inspired by other teachers, among them for myself, Roger Mitchell, Terry Wisniewski,
- Chris Green, Jean Myers, Shana Ritter, Hannah Haas, all the women of FW3 from Ithaca, and the Memoir
- Writing Group from Roamington.
- And by other poets, especially source women writers, I know that at least three of them are here, and
- other writers and performers who have shared our stage, Val Cuevin, Donna Faye Reeves, Janice Bagwell,
- and Deborah Phelps. And of course, all the women who have been part of Five Women Poets over the last
- 25 years, thank you all wherever you are.
- We regret that Nikki Nicholas and George L. O'Lian, who have poems in the chapbook, could not attend
- the reading, and that Onus Sipporan was not able to contribute or come and read. If there are any of
- you who remember the group reading of her, Girl on a White Gate at the Unitarian Church will know why
- we miss her. Special thanks to Helen, who has been a steady and wonderful writing companion all these years.
- and to our faithful audiences, old and new. And it's been especially exciting to have some members from
- Collins Living Learning Center here, because they do such wonderful things and they bring with them
- a special sort of energy. Two upcoming events that might be of interest.
- Saturday, October the 9th, the Bloomington Poetry Society has its first reading here in the Rose Fire
- Bay, and there's a poster outside about it. Saturday, November 6th, there's a women's coffee house, 8 p.m.
- at the Unitarian Church. And now comes the intermission. We hope that you will take a bagel offered
- in celebration by the Bloomington Bagel Company. If you don't feel like eating it now, take it home.
- You will also look at our scrapbook. You will also look at our 25 Years of Awesome Babes cake. And at
- the end of the reading, you will enjoy having a piece with us. So now about a 10 minute intermission,
- please enjoy.
- So again, is the sound turned off? I would like, well now I have to get out notes to make sure I take
- the right thing, which is kind of sad because this is a self-brandizing sort of an announcement. I'm
- going to be doing the full length one woman presentation of Dear Mrs. Roosevelt on Saturday, October
- 16th at the Unitarian Universalist Church. It starts at eight o'clock.
- Thank you. Tickets are available at the door, seven o'clock, five, seven, eight o'clock performance.
- Tickets at the door, five dollars for students, seven dollars for the rest of us. Our next poet has
- a place in my memory, not necessarily as a member of Five Women Poets, so I'm grateful to her for being
- one of the spirits that kept it going, certainly.
- But also because years ago, Womenshine Theater did a production called Miss Lily Jane Babbitt Hates
- Poetry. And we had such a wonderful time with her words and with her sensibility. So I'm very happy
- to turn the evening over for a little while here to Bonnie Maurer.
- That was a great time in Bloomington when we did that woman shine happening. Also, it's been great to
- be part of Five Woman Poets. And the last time I was here is in 84 when we did this reading. And so
- I was just thrilled that Tony got in touch with me to come back again. Since then, I moved to Indianapolis,
- and I got married, and I had two kids, and I'm on my second pair of bifocals.
- But poetry has always sustained me through all the ups and downs and thick and thin. I was lucky in
- 1997 to go to the Mary Anderson Center. It's in southern Indiana. It's a retreat for the arts. And I
- was sitting at the lake, and there was a sign there that said, no swimming.
- except with the Franciscan friar. And so that became my inspiration. And not only, I haven't stopped
- with that one. I have a series now of swimming with religious leaders. But I actually think I'm skimming
- on the surface of religious cliche, but we'll see. I'm having fun anyway. So this one is,
- No swimming except with a Franciscan friar. A water spider is too single-minded. The dragonfly dips
- and departs. And the lily pads, floating hearts, don't reach far on their separate stems. What calls
- a Franciscan friar to the water? Does he shed his garb
- Or let his brown habit spread before you as a watery pasture? And what kind of companion in the lake
- is the Franciscan friar? Do you near his strokes? Does he lead you to the other side and back again?
- Do you walk to the end of the brick red dock, talk of weathered boards, sage old knob holes, then dive
- in? Or begin your journey one step at a time
- down the dream ladder. How deep do you go at first? Do you free float with him through the shadows,
- black as names you don't recall? Does he lose himself in sister water? Would he lead you toward heaven
- on earth, billowing parachute of clouds on water, diamond glitter of brother sun? Would he explain the
- insistent opportunity the woodpecker confirms from the maple?
- the persistent swim from your old life tangle, the taste of water pure and chaste. Would you emerge
- clear and reflective as water and stand by the bones of the dead catfish on the bank, spine and bony
- whiskers, tail fin still intact, skin, parchment thin, soggy white flesh, fine and delicate as milkweed
- blossoms and ask
- Where does the spirit of the catfish sail? And would he have asked the sacred catfish to intercede for
- us in our holy swim? Would he stand dripping, opalescent as rain holds to the poke fairy and preach
- the fish's story? Could we all curve back, our spine as gracefully arranged, our tail fins splayed for
- balance, our head laid low, humble dead on those mud laden rocks at the water's edge?
- The ripples find this old carcass and accept this design on the water, sure as faith. Then would we
- lift our eyes to the three young swallows darting a new maze over the water and call it a day? This
- one is swimming with the zen master.
- How long would we sit before we are ready? We are one rock in 1,000 ripples. The pair of goldfinch,
- excuse me, the pair of goldfinch dip in and brush the answer, spin water and sky. We are one mind swimming
- in the universe. We emerge, merge.
- The water spider is always in us. The next one is a little bit different, Swimming with the Poet. And
- it's very much influenced by living in Bloomington close to Griffey Reservoir. I never could spend enough
- time there. Swimming with the Poet. It is dark. The stars are silver. You wish it were that simple.
- At night you say the moon's surface grows colder than any place on earth. You step into the warm reservoir.
- He takes the straps off your shoulders. He is naked but guilty of more, swimming in the moonlight of
- more than a half million craters. The kiss will last 1,000 years. The water spider swims in circles
- around your elbows.
- You have seduced the poet in your own neighborhood. The water is dark. The Luna Moth emerges translucent
- green. It is summer, and the reservoir satisfies the thirst of the city. I think I'll just quickly read
- one more that's rather new. It's the first time I've read this to an audience,
- Ironically, it involves swimming, but I didn't intend it to be part of the series. It's actually a little
- more serious, but maybe it will be part of it eventually. The answer, stereotactic cryobiopsy,
- July 15th, 1998. Specks of light prove suspicious. Melon moon, geologic wonder of areola, nipple,
- ancient mesa for his lips, milk trees and sea of sponge that shimmies its own earth-shaped dance they
- see in the x-ray. Nurse, surgeon, radiologist, I am a mountain target, their fingers climb, my breast
- in black and white and gray. They compress against the glass, numb, probe with the needle and pull out,
- shining like mica, small as grains of salt, the cells
- the secrets of the world, benign or otherwise. Cells that make me think of my daughter's question as
- we swim. How did the world begin, Mama? And I tell her, in water it all began. Lightning hit the skin
- of the sea, and I show her the backs of my old hands. Specks of light danced on the water. First oneself,
- then two, then fish of all kinds.
- And one day a creature climbs out of the water. And I held you to my breast, milk spout, berry and plum.
- And now you swim at my feet through the tunnel of my legs, swimming like a fish. Thank you.
- I'm working on my MFA and I didn't have any job and she helped me. Thank you, Bonnie. I have some very
- short poems tonight. I have also written a 1974 poem. We'll start with that one. October, 1974. Maple
- leaves burn summer.
- bearing the world for winter. Rain-wet sidewalks are glazed with autumn light, the leaves lacquered
- on them shining from within. It is October, once again. A year ago, my mother died. Too soon, too slow,
- and that October was no conflagration. Dullness was on everything. The world subdued with mourning.
- But this year, trees glow like lanterns. Leaves swirl, gypsy dances with the wind. Too soon. Too soon
- to find maple so fickle. These shallow-roofed trees forget too soon." And this has to do with living
- in the limestone area
- Fossils. Standing in a limestone-bedded creek, water flowing over my bare toes, recognition as I bend,
- pick up a small doughnut of stone, a bit of fossil crinoid stem, remains of a creature that lived when
- this creek bed was the floor of a summer sea. I hold it up, look through it at the sky, and laugh, nearly 60,
- a potential fossil, I salute the real thing. The Crow. A crow strutted his patent leather shine along
- the length of my garden wall. He took up all the room like a chains and leather biker on a sidewalk.
- The gimlet look he threw in my direction said,
- I know you, I know all about you. Down in the dungeon, all my sins rattle their chains. And this is
- about, Paul again for some reason, ricking wood. The sun's weight on my back and shoulders, sour smell
- of sawn oak,
- Heavy green wood pulling at hands and forearms, coarse comfort of canvas gloves between skin and splinters,
- the chunk as wood meets wood. The company of my shadow bending and lifting beside me, satisfaction of
- neat stacking, anticipation of winter nights beside the fire, I began to sing.
- Our next reader is Carolina Capito. She's been gone a long time. We miss her still, and we're awfully
- glad she could come back tonight. Thank you, Ellen. I was part of the group when I lived here between
- 1970 and 1980, and it was always a source for
- Learning, really, friendship, and plus we had a very good time. Which kept people there. Now I live
- in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I teach poetry in the schools for the Arts Council there. And I've really
- enjoyed that. I've gone around to all over the state, really, to public, private, parochial schools.
- It's been very interesting.
- I continue writing poetry and publishing. And this first poem is about the area where I now live. In
- Baton Rouge, we're about 60 miles from New Orleans. I enjoy going there. This is about a jazz funeral,
- which is a custom when a good musician dies there. They prayed along the street, taking the casket to
- the graveyard.
- playing music fellow musicians come and play and they play very solemn music until at some point as
- they get near the graveyard they cut them loose and they cut loose with their music also and that's
- when they play the things like when the Saints come marching in all the wonderful tunes. This is New
- Orleans Jazz Funeral. Spring comes rollicking in hot and brass
- hits the streets. People swarm and bare their skin, mopping sweat, hurry to bury the body. Blue shadow
- in a silk lined box. First blast of the trumpet cuts you loose. The sax gets inside your head, dyes
- your clothes, crimps your hair, sets you tapping in the streets.
- The other poem I wrote during the time I was here, and in the 70s, as we were reminded through the group
- poem, was the time of feminism, and this was my feminist poem. Up till now. Later, she saved for later
- her lament. I was the only woman alcoholic in Paoli, Indiana. At first, she only let you know she was
- a journalist beginning.
- Now she finds herself behind glasses, clipboard, pencil, digital watch, siren. Her body, a nervous dirigible,
- scrapes uneasily, table edges, chair backs. Not yet likable, she carries too much heavy stuff. To quit
- drinking, do it all cold sober. He was never even mentioned, so an imagination grew large.
- ogreish, threw plates against the wall if he disliked the meal, and gave her a shiner the day before
- her sister's wedding. Told everyone the can opener is her best friend. But in Paoli, you've had to keep
- up a front, and it was all so sad and distracting. Until now, she lives in a tiny place but her.
- Okay, our next poet reading is going to be Anya Pearson Rice, right? Or are you going to read poems
- by Sherry Reed? Okay, all right. Okay, Helen May will read some poems by Sherry Reed. I just have two
- very short poems of Sherry's.
- We're sorry she couldn't make it. We hoped to the last minute that she would be here. Masks.
- Lack of space, lack of time, superior convergence, inferior convergence. From where I stand hanging,
- I'm a heavy load. Letter. Delivered into my hands from the sea of life,
- living silver fishes in a net of words. And that's all she said. Our next reader is Ami Royce. She's
- been with our group several years now. And we just find her invaluable.
- I used to have the distinction of being the newest one and I don't have that anymore. So it's actually
- been about eight years I think. But once a month when we get together it's a very special time for me
- and I really appreciate the support and the warmth and the humor and the laughing of this group. It's
- been wonderful. Like Heather, my first mode of expression was dance and so
- I began to say to myself the challenge of trying to talk about what it feels to move in words. So this
- is one of those poems, The Waltz. His gloved hand on the small of your back, insulated by white cotton
- and heavy brushed satin. There were the back tapers, narrow and concave, just before the flare of hips.
- All command and abandon, distilled,
- in this isthmus of the body as the shifting pressure of his fingers directs your figures in the waltz.
- Lean into the cup of his hand, feel the pull of whipping turns and the belling of your skirt. Beneath
- the satin, the white kid gloves, the long arched back and sleek coiffed hair. Your muscles melt, bones
- flow like water, a thousand butterflies beat against the cage of your ribs.
- release they and you cry. It is too sweet, this subterfuge of the waltz. This next poem is the first
- time I've ever written anything to order. I was asked this year as the 75th birthday celebration, the
- whole year, of Janos Starker. And I was asked if I would write a poem
- for the book that they were publishing for him. And I said, no, I can't. I can't write to order. And
- I just put it aside. And then this poem came, like they often do, although not always in time for our
- monthly meetings. So this is called The Cellist, and it's for Janos Starker on his 75th birthday. Hands.
- Inviting, connecting, coaxing, embroidering, caressing, demanding, enfolding, resting, releasing. Hands,
- magical in flight, in repose, still hovering. They pluck images out of the air whose echoes lodge themselves
- in our imagination. Hands, wedded to the wood, it and they sing as one and fill all the silences we
- hide in our hearts.
- Head, inventing, probing, imagining, questioning, reflecting, resolving, pushing, pushing, pushing,
- stop. Head, what if and why? The restless questions that give us bath like strings of jewels, joyous
- and no two alike. Head, escape to the edge, a landscape polished by the courage of those who dare to
- come and taste
- the universe condensed. Heart, strong, willing us to hear, faithful, weaving the inevitable, cascades
- of sound like water in the desert, fearless, desired and exiled because it throws our timidity up like
- huge shadows on a wall. Heart, winging straight, it brings the whisper of imagined eternity as gifts
- from the edge, which we can neither claim nor lose. Heart, impeccable, unstained by sentiment, passion,
- rather, that suspends constraints of time and place and lets us, wingless, grounded creatures, soar.
- The last one I want to read comes from a
- A 3,000-mile car trip I took through New Mexico and Arizona at the beginning of the summer to photograph
- places where Apache and Navajo and Hopi live. And I was there on Memorial Day. Memorial Day in Indian
- Country. American flags sprout overnight like red, white, and blue flowers bowled against gray headstones.
- Yellow rabbit brush and dry Johnson grass. Families begin arriving at dawn. Women's shawls whipping
- in the wind off the mesa. Grandmothers tell stories. Men clear the brush on the tombs. Women arrange
- plastic flowers and mugs filled with boiled coffee. The dead get thirsty. Children race around playing
- with the cemetery puppy. In silence, they assemble by the graves to place the flags.
- It is Memorial Day in Indian country. The older dead here volunteered to fight before they had the right
- to vote, gave their lives, valueless to most white eyes, were called chief by their buddies, whom they
- carried wounded away from death. Biker vets on their pilgrimage to the Vietnam Memorial stop at Window
- Rock, seat of the Navajo Nation. Bikers and Navajo embrace
- Fears flowing freely and remember friends of all colors, outcasts like them. Another memorial day in
- Indian country. Dead from many wars honored every powwow by flag songs. Their names kept alive in memorial
- parks and highways. A marker on Zuni Road 4 reads, the Zuni people thank you for your faithful diligent service.
- to make our country a place of peace and freedom for everyone to enjoy. Freedom for everyone this Memorial
- Day in Indiana.
- My last poet is the newest one in the group, Carrie Spader, but she's brought wonderful gifts to us,
- and we hope that you will stay or stop through. Hi. I am the newest member of the group, as you've heard.
- And you'd think that they fixed it,
- The first initial of my last name was S so that I could go last and be even more intimidated about this
- thing. Tonya asked us to write a poem about 1974, but 1970 was a very tumultuous year in my family's
- life, so I wrote a poem about 1970. It's called Downpour. 1970, early afternoon.
- One temper tantrum would change their lives forever. She just wanted to go to the park to play on the
- big silver monkey bars that looked like a giant spider, to swing above mud puddles made from dragging
- feet, to ride red and blue seesaws that always gave splinters. The pain was a part of the fun. She doesn't
- remember being driven to the park or saying goodbye to her mother,
- Only the horrible thunder and lightning, only the cracks in the sidewalk as she fled down the street
- in the rain with her sister, cutting through the backyard of a family friend, running up cement stairs
- into the kitchen, wet, out of breath. A neighbor burst in and said at first something about an accident,
- someone dead, their mother's name in the same sentence. The temperature of the air changed. Everything
- in her view looked as if heat was rising straight out of it.
- She tried to speak, but no sound came. Grandma's car pulling in the driveway. Daddy home from work in
- the middle of the day. Neighbors running around and screaming. Sirens blaring. The sun drying drops
- of rain off the window pane. Someone was shouting, keep the girls away from the windows. She ran to
- the familiar front room. It was just the same as always. Board games, Crayola crayons, freshly glued
- models of cars and monsters.
- From the window, her father on his knees, fire trucks, ambulances, red, red, red, red, red, red, red.
- 1970, late afternoon, a pan of bloated hot dogs on the stove, paper plates and napkins on the countertop,
- stale rolls split open and waiting. The promise of lunch spoiled and rotten.
- She and her sister sitting on the blue shag carpeting of their den, grandfather sitting on the couch
- above them, his hands twisting and turning around each other, around and around, thick old fingers damp
- with sweat. She sat there watching his hands move, imagining even then, her penance. The viewing room.
- The line of mourners twists out into the quiet parking lot. Drops of rain streak against an ornate window,
- shadows revealed through panes of green and yellow glass. Near the doorway, our family name stands in
- black letters on a dimly lighted sign, a last confirmation. We gather around your body. The color of
- your skin stops our breathing for a moment, each one of us alone with memories of you. The kitchen table,
- Heavy ceramic bowls filled with saucy pasta, bread being passed and torn, ideas discussed over raised
- voices and Italian wine. My sisters struggled to compose themselves, standing in line for the third
- time in less than as many years. Their ivory silk blouses dotted with dark mascara and the lipsticks
- of neighbors. Mary places an uneasy hand on Christine's arm. They turn and look at each other, saying nothing.
- The nephews stand around in borrowed death suits, hair combed for the first time in weeks, faces streaming
- confusion. Tomorrow, they will balance the weight of your casket on their boyish shoulders. Your poker
- buddies are here, gaunt and worn and sharing stories. Promises of get-togethers are spoken over cigarettes
- in a room just past the vinyl kneeling rail. Even my high school boyfriend is here, wrapping his arms
- around me.
- just like on that first date. Now we're hushed and ancient. A final prayer is spoken. I stare at the
- sculptured veins of gold in the carpet under my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, floral arrangements,
- white and red carnations jammed into unnatural shapes. Ribbons across them read brother, father, uncle,
- grandfather,
- The fragrant smell reminds me of Nana's backyard. That of poppies on fire in the July sunshine. Sticky
- green juice of tomato vines on my hands. Aqua blue barn where the stray cat had her kittens. If I listen
- hard enough, I can hear them crying. Okay. Get a little break after that one. The last poem I'm going to read
- I thought would be appropriate for tonight's event. It's called How to be a Woman. Be prepared for anything.
- Store aspirin, tropical flavored antacid tablets, tissues, and a knife in your glove compartment. Place
- flares, blanket, flashlight, picnic basket, and crowbar in the trunk of your car. Carry cell phone,
- mace, pen, and paper on your person.
- A good book of poetry could also come in handy in case of an emergency. Create your own definition of
- beauty. Acknowledge the beauty in other women. Accept your own beauty. You are beautiful. Avoid the
- exploitation of your beauty at the hands of others, but especially your own. Your beauty is as tender
- as a new bud on a sweet pea plant. Nourish it.
- Share your most intense experiences with the ones you love. The rape, the eating disorder, the betrayal,
- the loss, the birth, the joy. Speak the truth in all of them. You know what truth is. Speak out against
- what hurts you, what hurts all women. When you look in the mirror, tell yourself you are a woman until
- one more thank you before we get to the cake. Tonya Matthew stood here and thanked so many people, and
- we want to thank her for 25 years of service to her art, to other women, to all her many causes, and
- her diligent attendance to every detail of this evening, and many other evenings.
- for her hospitality, for her devotion to this work. Thank you, Tom.
- There's an old joke about two people in a rowboat and having your cake and Edith, too, but I can't remember
- it. Except punchline, of course. There's plenty of cake here. Please enjoy it. And lots of bagels to
- keep. Oh, yes. Fistfuls of bagels. Fistfuls, pocketfuls, pursesful, take the bagels. Please.
- Please join us, enjoy some carrot cake, have a little time to talk, and thank you very much for helping
- us celebrate.