August Column

First published in The Evening Sun on August 22, 2010:


Buenos dias from Puerto Rico! As most of you know, on July first I moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where I will soon begin a doctoral program in Caribbean literature. Though the cruise ship commercials portray island life as stress-free and easy, living in any new place can be both a difficult adjustment and a fun adventure.

My time here has been a rollercoaster, experiencing extreme happiness at times, and at others, stress and confusion. However, I made the decision to come here because I know that change and vulnerability encourage growth of the mind and spirit. I live for the good moments and weather the bad with this in mind.

I am a long way from home; yet, no matter how far a poet travels from home, she can always find a second home among her fellow writers. The Poets’ Passage, an artists’ nook beside Starbucks in Old San Juan, takes the prize for my favorite place here so far. When I stepped into the room for the weekly Tuesday night open mic, I knew everything would be okay. After only four days on the island, I had found the poets!

Reflecting on my time here, I have written a poem, titled “Moving to Puerto Rico.” Though I could write on and on in prose about my experiences, this poem does a better job of expressing my time in Puerto Rico.



Moving to Puerto Rico


You will inhale this land of cologne sweetly,
but exhale it like the hay barn in August.
The heat hits you before homesickness does,
hits you like a crowbar to a windshield:
you shatter before you sweat.
And the tropical sun widens her electric smile
when she sees your pale, American skin.
The mosquitoes love your skin also--
your exotic taste drives them to ignore the citronella,
bite through the sunscreen and Off coating your body.
Be patient.

After you get through this hazing,
learn to breathe the new sky, to crave the clouds
almost as much as the white flesh of the guanabana
from your neighbor’s backyard tree.
Submerse those 43 bug bites in the ocean, a natural cure.
The waves will say, “Tranquilo,” and heal you.
Plant marigolds, rosemary, and catnip,
the plants mosquitoes hate the most.
Then, begin to say, “Buenos dias,” to everyone:
the guy with handcuffs who cells CDs at the track
who claps and cheers for your every lap;
the woman at the Dominican restaurant
who makes your batidas with extra cinnamon;
the coqui frogs who sing you to sleep every night;
the poets who meet weekly to share new work;
the baby lagartijo who crawled into your house
and ate the ants you attracted with guanabana for him.
They will stare at you a little longer because your eyes are blue,
but it’s a compliment.

Since you’re American, people will talk to you about football,
but as soon as the creepy guy waiting at the health insurance office
asks you if you play in a lingerie league,
be sure walk away, muy rapido.
When you pass the old couple perched on the front porch,
use your best Spanish, and your best smile.
In fact, anytime you don’t understand,
use your best smile.
Remember that tastebuds do not judge by sight,
so eat the fried fish even though it still has its eyes.
You won’t regret it.

Learn to cook arroz con pollo with Puerto Rican spices
and how to fry sweet plantains until they are black,
better yet, learn to cook and shop for your groceries
in six-inch heels and extra perfume.
You’ll fit in better that way.
Take a shower at night, when the water is coolest.
Your stick-straight hair will fake like it’s going to curl,
but it won’t. So let it dry naturally.
A blow-dryer is unbearable here.
Drink your margaritas with extra salt
(for all the sweat you lost, especially if you blow-dry your hair)
and then drink the merengue with your hips.

When you are sitting at home by yourself,
trying to find something familiar in your new home,
watch repeat episodes of Seinfeld on TBS.
You’ll feel back in the states in no time.
Ignore the fact that you wear sneakers instead of heels,
cotton instead of silk,
bug spray instead of perfume,
and burnt skin instead of tanned.
Instead, focus on the water here, so clear
you can look down and count
all the bug bites on your feet.

July Column

First published in The Evening Sun on July 25, 2010:

A few weeks ago, Hanover lost one of its most influential leaders. Mayor Maggie Hormel made Hanover a better place in many ways. Today, I’d like to emphasize her magnanimous contribution to the arts, most of all to Hanover’s poetry community. In fact, without Mayor Hormel, this column would not exist because the poet laureate position would not exist.

Hanover installed its first Poet Laureate, Anna Manahan Bowman, on May 8, 2002. Mayor Hormel created this position. Reflecting on her experience, Bowman said, “Mayor Maggie was an advocate for Hanover's history and culture. When approached with the prospect of naming a poet laureate to serve the community, she gained the support of Borough Council and drafted a resolution to create the position, now an on-going tradition—the first borough in the state to do so.”

Bowman holds fond memories of her tenure working with Mayor Hormel. She also remembers the small moments she shared with her: “Another memory I cherish is the time we assembled on Carlisle Street to ride together in a parade and she instructed me on how to wave--never from the wrist, always from the elbow. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘your hand doesn’t get tired.’”

Furthermore, Bowman remembers, “I learned the depth of her caring and sensitivity when she asked me to write a poem for the Memorial Day Service at Mount Olivet Cemetery. A few days before the event, I decided to read my Hanover poem to her in her office. Glancing up midway through my reading, I saw the tears of compassion for our soldiers in her eyes.”

Mayor Hormel, moved by poetry, loved the art, but also intended to make poetry a more influential part of our community. In a sense, she planted the seeds that continue to bloom. With this metaphor, Bowman pays tribute to Mayor Hormel’s work in her poem “Mayor.”

Mayor


You were planting a flower
when we met:
coleus—pale green tipping
to purple
in the borough lobby,
your fuchsia blazer blending
as though spring had sent
a welcome sign.

“You must be Anna,” you said.
And from there we talked of
growing things
like the town you carry with you,
even to Arizona.
Constant are your hands;
plucking weeds,
planting laureates.

I think of you now:
sitting in your brown leather chair,
your head bending over your desk,
eyes furrowing papers, pencil
inclined;
tending garden.

As Mayor Hormel’s plants continued to bloom in our community, she also inspired Hanover’s second Poet Laureate, Dana Larkin Sauers, to preserve her legacy in verse:

In Praise of Our Mayor


Costumed children
and small animals too
ride in Time’s parade,
find comfort knowing
broad shoulders, visionary eyes,
these encircling arms—
our Mayor Maggie’s might.
She rises to greatness
by being tender, genuine,
so small that others barely
notice, except for the Beauty.
She testifies
through freshly painted frontages
flower-bedecked corners,
and cultivates
order and law
by lingering long enough
to keep a promise.
She takes in all
by giving all away,
gives voice and verse to the many
secures a model to preside
over company she serves:
Wisdom, Strength, Pride.
Hanover’s delight.


Both of these poems speak to the beautiful grace with which Mayor Hormel led our community. Sauers writes, “She takes in all / by giving all away.” These lines capture not only her work, but also her character in general.

Though I did not have the opportunity to work directly with Mayor Hormel, I had the chance to meet her at the Poets Laureate reading at the Eichelberger Performing Arts Center in April. She graciously took my hands and expressed her pleasure in seeing the progress of poetry in our community. She said this humbly, not acknowledging that the blooming came from seeds she had sown. Today I want to acknowledge Mayor Hormel’s influence, and the wonderful poetry community grown out of her passionate leadership.

“She will be sadly missed,” said Anna Manahan Bowman, “but what she began will continue. Her vision and goals for Hanover remain; her influence remains.”

Article About My Recent Move

Hanover Area Poetry Critique

If you are a writer or are interested in reading/writing, please join the Hanover Poets for their monthly critique. They meet the 3rd Monday of each month at 7:30 p.m. at the Giant Market Cafe on Eisenhower Drive. Come with some copies of a poem or just bring yourself. All are welcome! Led by former Poet Laureate, Anna Manahan Bowman, the group is always a lot of fun and a great learning experience.

Next meeting: Monday, July 19 at 7:30 p.m.

June Column

First published in The Evening Sun on Sunday, June 27, 2010:

“Good fences make good neighbors.” Robert Frost ended his famous poem, “The Mending Wall,” with that line. Though I have listened to many professors and poets argue about Frost’s sentiment in “The Mending Wall,” one thing is clear: Frost intends to highlight the tensions present on either side of any fence.

Fences always bring tension with them because just as fences keep things in, they also keep things out. One cannot deny the tension in this famous dialectic. If you need an illustration, just drive down the road, and look at all the gardens in the area with fences around them. In this case, the goal is not to keep the plants in, but to keep the rabbits and groundhogs out. Hence, the fence is a concrete representation of the tension between the animals and the farmer’s dinner, or the predator and the prey.

Another example of the tension fences create is the cliché “the grass is always greener on the other side.” Without the fence, sides would not exist, and everyone would be able to reach the better grass easily, relieving that tension.

When people build fences, they often have a goal in mind, in some cases containment. For instance, sometimes people with dogs will build a fence around the yard so the dog can go outside and run, but not run away. However, even though the fence can keep the dogs inside, it cannot always keep everything out. Local poet Gary Ciocco explores the tension his fence creates between his fenced-in beagles and the squirrels that he cannot contain in his poem “Good Fences Make Fine Beasts”:


Good Fences Make Fine Beasts


It’s a nice gesture
on a Sunday morning
to warn the squirrels
even though
they seem able to avoid
the beagles naturally.
The wild thrill of the hunt
in one of the least-contoured backyards
of an anal-retentive development.
I vow to cut the grass less
and brush the dogs more
as my contribution
to civility.
Either the artist or
the animal in me
makes me want
to frame this game.
And I have no retort
when a squirrel
knocks my Coke
off the fence post
in retaliation.
He’s just a squirrel
after all, and he and I
are ecstatic to be alive,
kicking and gesturing
in the mainly tame
weekend breeze.

In this poem, the fence takes on a bit of a different role than in Frost’s poem. It is meant to contain the beagles; yet, fences like his cannot keep animals like squirrels out. So, this fence creates a bias. It allows the squirrels to cross back and forth, but if the dog comes after them, the fence allows them to escape. About the poem, Ciocco said, “I relish my backyard being a frame for wildness and for all these tensions—including the ironic fact that I required a fence in order to make it wilder.”

When I asked Ciocco about being compelled to save the squirrels, he said, “The stories are real. I have 2 beagles, and in 2007 had a fence put in. Squirrels are everywhere, and my dogs are relentless chasers of them, so I do sometimes try to tap the window hard or otherwise ‘warn the squirrels.’” As the dogs hunt the squirrels, he is torn between his loyalty to his pets and his reverence for the squirrels’ lives, creating yet another tension in his poem. He writes, “It’s a nice gesture / on a Sunday morning / to warn the squirrels.” Thus, when he feels the tension of the hunt, he feels compelled to save the squirrels from impending attacks.

After all this discussion of fences and the tensions they create, my challenge to you for this month is to create your own poem modeled after Frost’s and Ciocco’s. Write a poem in which a fence creates some form of tension for you, animals, plants, or whatever you wish, and post it on my blog: http://poetlaureatehanover.blogspot.com.

Sometimes poems begin in the most practical moments. If you need some inspiration to get started, here is how Ciocco began writing his poem: “This poem actually was written last fall, right after I had a rain garden put in my back yard. My landscapers, Nickie and Ed James, actually told me the story of the squirrel knocking their Coke off a fence post while they were working in my yard, and I appropriated it to myself for concise poetic movement.”

May Column

Published in the Evening Sun the last Sunday of May:

People define poetry in many different ways. For example, William Wordsworth once defined it as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” In a similar vein, Robert Frost wrote, “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." However, in its simplest form, I define poetry as a translation. After all, to get an emotion to the page, you must first put it into words. Though we usually associate the word “translation” with different languages, it can take on many different connotations.

During my last week of teaching writing at Columbia College Chicago, I had the opportunity to witness translation first-hand, as my students presented their final projects. Their assignment was to reflect on the research paper they spent all semester writing and to then translate their words and ideas into another art form.

For instance, one student, who had written a paper on heroin abuse, made a short film about the typical day for an addict. Another student created a sculpture to symbolize the main epiphany he had come to while writing a paper about the movie “Forrest Gump.” Yet another student, who had written an essay on the role of nature and nurture in religion, composed a song on her guitar and sang it for the class. While this project gave my art students a chance to be creative and do what they love, it also taught them a lesson about translation. Sometimes, to really understand something, we must translate it into a different form, one we are more familiar with.

This idea about understanding brings me to poetry and the poet’s comprehension of the world. Just as an architect can design a building to emphasize eco-friendliness, the poet can write a poem about the same subject. Neither the building nor the poem are the idea itself; however, they both are the idea translated into another form.

Essentially, the process of writing involves merely translation. Poets see something and translate it into words, while others might see something and translate it into a photograph or into music. In fact, in order to teach students about the poetry term “image,” I first teach them translation. To begin, we read a short poem together as a group, and I ask the students to draw it. As the students draw the poem, they actively translate it from words to images. Then, I reverse the process. I show them an image and have them write down words to describe it. This reflexive process shows that ideas can be understood in many ways, words being one of them.

Just as writing poetry aims to translate some aspect of the world, whether it is an idea, a memory, or an image, reading poetry also engages the process of translation. Have you ever read something and had to look up a word you didn’t know? In this instance, you practiced translation. After looking up the word, you replaced it with the word you already understood. Thus, you translated the word into a language that your sensibility recognized, that it could associate with other ideas and memories.

Yet, sometimes poems are difficult to understand, especially poems written in a language or context that seem foreign to us. Thus, translating the poem into our own sensibility, language, and context helps us better understand the general meaning. Take, for instance, “The Solitary Reaper,” by William Wordsworth. Here is the first stanza:

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

Words such as “Yon” and “Highland Lass” seem foreign, and though we can get an idea of the time period and what is happening, let’s see what happens if we change the context of the poem and make it more contemporary.

Here is my translation of Wordsworth’s first stanza:

Look at her, alone in the garden,
That solitary farmwife!
Picking beans and humming to herself;
Stop the car, or keep driving!
Alone she nips and jars the crop,
And hums a sad song;
Listen! The rows of corn and tomatoes
Overflow with the sound.

When I thought about a modern workingwoman to replace the “Highland Lass,” I immediately thought of a farmwife working in the garden because I grew up on a farm. Thus, my translation reflects my sensibility.

However, I’m sure each of you might translate the “Highland Lass” in a different way. My challenge to you for this month is to translate this stanza into your own idea of whom the “Highland Lass” represents in our contemporary world. What would the stanza look like if it better reflected your sensibility and experience? Please feel free to post your ideas on my blog: http://poetlaureatehanover.blogspot.com.

Heather Hallman wins SW poetry contest

In honor National Poetry Month, South Western High School also had a poetry contest which I judged as Poet Laureate. I'm pleased to announce the winner is Heather Hallman. Her poem, "Winter Morning," won the contest.

Winter Morning


Winds like deep, slow breaths,
Leaves askew on the surface,
White blanket rests,
No dreams in this fitful slumber,
A door creaks open,
The blanket shifts,
The sun is reavealed,
Nature's yawn.