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.