Day 6 National Poetry Month

sun-dazzled ocean 
under blue line horizon
draw arabesque sky


Happy birthday, Dad!

Day 5 National Poetry Month NaPoWriMo

April 5, 2014

cherry blossoms dance
along branch's edge not there 
but here home at last

Day 4 of National Poetry Month

April 4, 2014

after five hour 
flight coast to coast, words won't spring
free - but must crawl on

Day 3 NaWriPoMo

April 3, 2014

Capitol pilgrim
paying homage to women
amid good old boys

dressed in marble shine
Mother Susan, Lucretia
and Elizabeth

I give my silent
thanks to women of courage
who walked before me

April 2, 2014 - Day 2 of NaWriPoMo

4/2/14
White House clearance rules:
no cameras, purses, knives,
no photos inside.

White frosting covers
red and yellow and blue rooms
like petit fours on

gilded plates. Untrod
spotless rugs with saucy touch - 
fringe mussed just like mine.

April is National Poetry Month - I'm taking on the NaPoWriMo Challenge!

I've been writing a haiku or haiku-esque poem every day (or sometimes night) since the first day of this year.  So far that means 90 poems this year.  Until now I've been posting these to a private group on Facebook.  Trying to be profound and poetic every single day is a daunting task so until now I've posted these haiku to a private group on Facebook.  That makes me feel safe from my sternest critic:  my own fearful self.  But I've decided to go public for the entire month of April.  I can't promise that all my poems will be good or interesting or poetic.  I'm sure there will be some who tsk-tsk at my western attempts at a form of poetry that originated in a very different culture and language.  So it is with some trepidation that I offer you my first offering for April:

                     forgot to water
                     my tulips - out with orchids
                     much more exotic

Only 29 more to go! Happy National Poetry Month!

Celebrating Women's History Month

As I announced a few weeks ago, five of my poems were just published in this anthology, Aspiring to Inspire.  I have to admit I was a bit worried about giving so many of my poems to a small publisher of e-books, but I was wrong.  After receiving my own copy, I was quickly impressed by the range of writing.  
 
Each women's selections start with a short piece about a woman who has inspired her. I wrote about my friend and teacher mentor Carolyn.  I don't think I had ever told her how inspired I have been by her, so it felt good to let her know.  Also included at the beginning of each section is a quote from a famous woman.  I was pleased to find that the quotation introducing my own work is one of my favorites by Eleanor Roosevelt:

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

Since tomorrow I am embarking on a solo trip for the first time in over a decade, I'm taking this to heart. While each new trip brings a certain level of anxiety, going alone heightens that nervousness.  So I'm taking Eleanor's advice to heart.  What a great way to celebrate Women's History Month.  

What woman has most inspired you?  I'd love to hear. Anyone who would like a copy of the free e-version of Aspiring to Inspire can respond by May 2, 2014, and I'll send one to you.

 

Aspiring to Inspire Anthology: Read My Five Poems!

Five of my poems will appear in the Aspiring to Inspire Anthology published by Durham Editing and E-Books.  In all the years I've been submitting my work for publication, this is the first time that editors have taken all the poems I sent!  So this is a very exciting even for me.  





Two of the poems, Sunrise with Mountain and Hike to Box Canyon, New Mexico were inspired by my time at the AROHO writing retreats in 2011 and 2013, so the theme of inspiration from women in my life is particularly appropriate. 

The anthology will be available online, so check back here for a link to the e-book.  There will be an official Facebook Launch Party this Saturday, March 22nd.  
Join in if you can. You know I'll be there!

Celebrating International Women's Day: In the Name of Malala

This year I will finally celebrate International Women's Day.  I have always wanted to commemorate this day, but never have.  I'm not sure what makes today different from the past.  Perhaps it is the fact that my niece Felicity is growing up, and I want a better world for her as she becomes a young woman.  Perhaps it is because I am fed up with the many politicians trying to erode women's rights in our country right now.  Whatever the reason, this is the year.

I had always believed International Women's Day to be a modern invention, but discovered it had its beginnings in 1908.  I was amazed - and proud - to find out that it all started with women marching through the streets of New York City to demand shorter work hours, better pay and the right to vote (http://www.internationalwomensday.com). That I didn't know this embarrasses me. After all, I spent quite a few weekends in the 1970's marching for women's rights. Having prided myself on my knowledge of the history of women in our country, obviously I still have a great deal more to learn.  But first I need to get back into action after many years.

How appropriate it is that for my celebration I had already planned to march in San Francisco this afternoon. Once again, women will take to the streets to protest for their rights.  And this time I'll join them. I love this event even more because of the name of the group organizing the march:  WORD.  What writer could resist that?  Not this one.  I want to be there just because of that!

Adding to this synchronicity, I have been reading an anthology of poetry titled Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai.  Published by FutureCycle Press, it contains poems written in response to the horrendous shooting in October, 2012 which made Malala a household name as a defender of girl's and women's rights.  The editors Joseph Hutchison and Andrea L. Watson have compiled  an inspiring collection of poems sparked by Malala's courage in the face of brutality.

This beautiful book contains many poems illuminated by too many powerful lines to mention.  However, here are a few that particularly struck me.  Such as these from Ode by Judith Terzi:  "She is a luminous lagoon./She is our hands, our pen".  Or "Malala, there is music in your name/and something bitter between your teeth/that, swallowed, turns sweet" in Letter of Intent to Adopt by Barbara Rockman.  And this from A Young Girl by Ed Baker: "no easy way to gain the freedom/to explore-/a young woman bravely goes"  

Isn't that what makes Malala's story so poignant to us all?  Few of us would have the extraordinary courage of that young school girl.  We only can feel awe that she was brave enough to do what we fear we couldn't have.  

All proceeds from the sale of this book are donated to the Malala Fund, an organization dedicated to fighting for girls' education around the world.  As Joseph Hutchinson asks in his foreward, "Is it possible, too, that one poet, one pen, and one poem can change the world?" I believe such change can happen. The poems in this book are proof. I'm glad I bought it.

So today, as a poet and a teacher and a woman who hopes for the freedom to travel the world, I am marching for Malala.  And for all the young women she represents.  It is the least I can do.  Happy International Women's Day!

“One child, one teacher, one book and one pen

can change the world.”

—

MALALA YOUSAFZAI

“Malala Day” speech to the United Nations

July 12, 2013

Post AWP Re-entry Was Not Easy

I played teacher-hooky last Thursday and Friday to fly to Seattle for AWP 2014.   Thus began four wonderful days  surrounded by more writers and books too numerous to count.  

Never seeing more of the Space Needle than a little blip over the rooftops, I was nevertheless one happy writerwoman content to stay within the confines of the conference center.

 




A real highlight of the entire trip was visiting and dining with the incredible friends I've met through the A Room of Her Own Foundation's summer retreats.





Returning to my middle school classroom this morning hit me hard.  As with most writers, I often feel the conflict between the writing identify I struggle to cultivate and the demands of my teaching job.  Today that struggle felt particularly difficult.   

Faced with an early morning parent conference, piles of ungraded papers and then another meeting after school, I couldn't believe that only a few days ago I attended poetry readings by Robert Haas and Gary Snyder and listened to Ursula Le Guin talk about how even she still faces rejections of her work.  

Today before going off to work, I spent a few minutes digging into my AWP carrier bag filled with books, postcards, flyers, pencils and buttons.  Maybe I can get myself through the week by dipping out a few of these goodies every morning. 

Who knows what inspiration I'll find there?  

How do you reconcile the conflicts between your writing life and the demands of the outside world?  What helps you stay connected to your writerself?

My First Time at AWP - Hello, Seattle

One more advantage to having become involved with AROHO is that I found out about the yearly conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs or AWP. So yesterday evening, after only a one hour delay out of SFO, I flew to Seattle.  Over 12,000 writers have converged on this city known for rain and coffee.  Unlike San Francisco, it has been warm and fairly sunny.

As expected, the coffee is good.

And with books and writers everywhere, who couldn't be happy?

Can You Haiku?

The far reach of AROHO lives on, this time with the inspiration of Nicole Galland, one of the wonderful writers I met in New Mexico last August at Ghost Ranch.  Nicole had a friend who had written one haiku each day for an entire year.  Not being a poet herself, Nicole still thought the challenge of trying to write in this very tight form every day sounded interesting.  So she put out the call on Facebook.  Like myself, many of the people who responded were AROHO alumnae, but the circle widened with friends of friends of friends joining in.  Nicole created a group called The Haiku Room, and the fun began on January 1, 2014.

Since that time, I have written a haiku every day and received copious haiku from other people. I read each and every one although I find it difficult to "like" or comment on each.  But I love the fact that my inbox is filled with poetry instead of just advertisements or pleas for money from the Democratic Party.

I will admit that many of my haiku have been written out of desperation; the end the day is looming and I haven't found the time or subject to write.  Even so, I post those as well as the ones I'm proud of.  It's the discipline of writing them that I am finding so valuable.

That was a result I expected from the start.  After all, I'm still reaping the results of my early morning writing ritual (it's 6:10 as I write this on the 161st day).  What I didn't expect is how writing poems with such constraints would effect my writing.  I found an article about writing haiku which said many modern haiku in English no longer stick to the 5-7-5 syllable format.  However, I decided that I would keep my poems within that constraint.

And that has made a real difference in my writing.  I have had to hone and pare every unnecessary word while trying to convey as much with those words as possible.  I've had to struggle to actually make the poems say something worth reading with only those 17 syllables as well. And I've found that struggle to crystallize imagery to be spilling into my other poetry writing as well. I'm surprised I didn't think that would happen when I started, but am glad just the same.

In my post Last Post of 2013: Inspired by David Hockney I wrote about wanting to look more carefully at the world around me, to record what I see in vivid detail like Hockney did in his paintings.  That is another result of writing these haiku: looking at the smallest moment as a source of inspiration.  I find what I have come to call haiku mind to be a wonderful form of meditation for me.

I have now written a total of 27 haiku having yet to compose my poem for today.  Here are a few of my favorites so far:

1/1/14
winter city view
sun splash on dirty windows
watch the plum tree dance

1/4/14
gulls white-ride windward
over mist-mountains bay to ocean
winging stories home

1/8/14
after-school walk home
behind chain-link sharp-eared growl
thrill of near peril

1/9/14
night glow through curtains
pursue Artemis moon dreams
not human-lit streets

1/12/14
flock of daffodils
golden feathers bob and sway
winter's flown awry

1/14/14
moon, softly rounding
train whistle pulls my heart - wild
and just beginning

1/20/14
dun dried hills riven
by drought my tongue swollen
with dreams of water

1/27/14
Queen Anne's Lace, she wrote
pansies, fireflies awoke
childhood prairie fields
--for Tania

So I ask you again, can you haiku?  I highly recommend it.

Happy New Year to Me!

I'm very excited to see that A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO) posted my #radbrief that I submitted to them last year:

Post by A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO).

Last Post of 2013: Inspired by David Hockney

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I can think of no better way to spend a lovely San Francisco afternoon than to go to the museum. Two days ago I went to see the David Hockney exhibition at the De Young Museum in San Francisco.  This is one of the largest current exhibitions of his work in the United States.  Of course it has been wildly popular, so I had the bright idea of joining the hordes of people flowing into the museum on a holiday weekend to view it.  My friend Charlotte had told me it was life changing, which made me both eager to see the work and a little skeptical. I didn’t know much about Hockney other than that he painted a lot of pretty blue swimming pools in L.A. back in the 1970’s.

At first it was difficult to enjoy the art, especially since I kept stumbling over people with audio guides glued to their ears. I was cranky, not happy to be trapped with all those strangers, but as I started to weave my way through the crowds, the art did what art always does: it took hold of me.

What was it that grabbed me, that shook something loose in me?  Partly it was the color and scale of the work. I loved having to put my head back to gaze up at his huge canvases full of vibrant color as well as individual works mounted in groups high up to the ceiling.   

Partly it was his use of technology. I was mesmerized by the drawings he had done on his iPad and iPhone. I loved the fact that this man in his 70’s continues to embrace new media to accomplish his art. The quality of those drawings is different, soft and with a rather mysterious air about them, as if the world they depict was misty, with a haze in the air that put everything into soft focus.

However, it wasn’t just the vibrant color that enthralled me. I found out that recently Hockney has been working in charcoal to record the same views of his native Yorkshire countryside at different times of the day and season.  I’ve always been such a sucker for color that I’ve never been much interested in drawings.  But those series of charcoal drawings stunned me.  Running up and down the walls, they made me stop and look slowly at each one. I thought about how I have forgotten to do this very thing – sit and reflect and record the passing of the day and what is happening around me.  I’ve been too busy worrying about the twists and turns of my own mind to sit and observe what is going on around me.

I did that last summer at Ghost Ranch – every morning going outside and gazing at the sky, trying to experience what each day brought. But recently, after the initial euphoria of establishing my writing routine, I’d forgotten to lift my eyes from the page to look at the stripe of sun that falling across the page of my journal. Or watch how I  make shadows dance with my pen as I carry it along the pages. I have forgotten to notice the sweet, spicy scent of the candle that burns among my jumble of rocks and flotsam that I’ve gathered to remind me of the person I want to become. 

What I got from the exhibit:  the reminder to look up, look up, look forward. And take hold of everything at your disposal to create.To make sure I don't forget (at least for a little while), I bought this print of one of Hockney's watercolors.

100 Days

On August 24th, I wrote about my experiences at the AROHO Writer's Retreat in my post "Open the Door."  In part I wrote:  I want to stay on my writing path, just as I stayed true to the trail up to Chimney Rock.  I opened that door at the AROHO retreat, and so far have been walking my writing path during this first week back at teaching.  And I'm determined to keep going.

Well, here I am on Day 100 of my new writing practice.  In the last 100 days I have gotten up a half hour early to write. When I realized this, I was reminded of how elementary teachers celebrate the 100th day of school with their students by computing all sorts of statistics about school, so here is my list:

• I have gotten up for every morning for 100 days.
• I have written for 50 hours in those mornings (and sometimes more on the weekends).
• I have drunk 100 cups of tea from my thermos.
• I have filled 3 1/2 notebooks (and just started a new one).
• I have written 10 poems.
• I have written 1 essay.
• I have written 2 short memoir pieces.
• I have read 4 books of poetry by fellow AROHO writers Diane Gilliam, Ruth Thompson, Barbara Rockman and Leslie Ullman.
• I have written an estimated 200 words per page (since I am one of those neat freaks who fill the entire surface of every page with writing, I was able to extrapolate this amount by counting the words on a random number of pages).

When I first went to the AROHO retreat in 2011, I bought a stone with an eclipse symbol carved into it:  a moon and sun joined together.  I read that this is a symbol of merging opposites, representing unity and compromise instead of conflict.  I envisioned that stone as a symbol of how I want to join my two sides:  writer and teacher. 

I talked to my new AROHO friend, Tania Pryputniewicz about my dilemma in the Albuquerque Airport.  I made a pact with her that I would write every afternoon after returning from school.  Did I keep it up? Nope.  I found my mind too filled with all the noise of the day to keep myself writing.

Then this year, at the Albuquerque Airport once again, I made another pact with Barbara Yoder. This time I vowed that I would get up early every day.  I had been resisting this idea for years, but had finally faced the fact that early morning was the only time I could reliably call all my own.  Did I think I would be able to do it?  I admit I was skeptical. I still doubted myself.  But here I am 100 days later...

Now that I've finally given myself the gift of time, I feel I've  joined those two sides of myself.  Although there are many times of conflict when the stresses of teaching keep my from writing as much as I wish, I now know I can always find that morning time to sit quietly with the my notebook. 

So on this day before Thanksgiving, I can only say thank you to all the wonderful women writers of AROHO who have helped me find my way.

I finally turned left!

A few weeks ago my sister-in-law Barb came to visit.  She was excited to be the first one in our family to see the new house and to explore our new community.  Luckily there was fine fall weather during her visit, so we were able to take daily walks through the neighborhood. On the last walk, she joked, "Next time I'm here, let's turn left." 

That was when I realized that every time I go for a walk, when I get to the end of the drive leading to the sidewalk, I do indeed turn right.  Even though I have only lived in this house for six months, I'm already in a rut!

Lately I've been trying to shake things up in my creative life. Having made a resolution to get up a half hour earlier every day to write, I have gotten up every single morning since then. I can proudly say it has been 90 days as of today.  I also decided to take a poetry workshop that not only focused on writing, but also memorizing a poem each week.  I thought trying to use my brain differently could help me shake loose even more creativity.

So last weekend, when I took a walk during which I planned to practice memorizing a poem, I thought of Barb's words.  I turned left.  Pacing down the street, I recited Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I could not stop for death..." over and over to myself.  Perhaps it was the new direction or the strangely beautiful words of Dickinson's poem, or a combination of both, but I did seem to see the trees and houses around me differently.  I noticed the details of leave patterns and the sidewalk heaved from tree roots with more clarity.  And I even got an idea for a new poem of my own.

This reminded me of how important mental disequilibrium can be for the creative process. By shaking things up for our brains, we can uncover ideas and images we might never have found otherwise.  What wonderful gifts those become.  If we never break loose from what is comfortable or routine, that gift of creation might be lost to us forever. I'm determined to catch as many of those moments as possible. 

Even though I know all this, sometimes it is too easy to forget.  So, thanks to Barb's wise words, I've added a new resolution to keep turning left, in whatever ways I can. 

What are some ways you have "turned left" in your life? How are you shaking up your life to let your creativity flow?  

 

Another publication

My poem "Pilgrim," which I wrote after my trip walking a very small part of the pilgrim trail to Santiago Compostela has just been published in RiverLit Journal.  If you'd like to read my work and that of other talented writers, check out this beautiful journal.

A Red Woman Was Crying by Don   Mitchell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book totally surprised me!  At first I was unsure if I would enjoy it, but I kept reading. There was something that unsettled me about the voices of the characters I met. And then I realized that what was unsettling me was also bringing me into the world of the novel, a world so different from my own.

My favorite story of the whole collection was "My White Man," partly because it was told by the only woman narrator in the book, partly because that story revealed so much about Eliot, the White Man who was so changed by his time with the Nagovisi. 

This was a good read.



View all my reviews

My Guest Post on Mother Writer Mentor

My friend Tania Pryputniewicz asked me to write a guest post for Mother Writer Mentor, a website offering practical advice for writing mothers.  I've had the great honor to collaborate with Tania on other writing projects.  As a writer-mother herself, she has pushed me to explore my own role in the lives of children. In 2011 during her stint as poetry editor, three of my poems, Childhood, Daughters, and Uneasy Grace were published for the online journal The Fertile Source as well as an interview, Celebrating the Foregoing of Motherhood: Poetry in the Service of Spiritual Quandary, Lineage, and Teaching Adolescents.  Here is a taste of the latest:

Advice for New Parents of Adolescents: What Twenty-Two Years of Middle School Has Taught Me

“He used to be such a nice little boy!”  That lament voiced by a student’s mother at a Back to School Night presentation has stuck in my mind for years.  I can even remember the student’s name although he must be almost 30 years old by now.  As a middle school teacher with 22 years of teaching experience, I have heard a variation of that parental cry many times.

With no children of my own, I have always hesitated to offer advice to the my students’ parents, but when my own beloved niece turned twelve, my brother and sister-in-law turned to me for help. That is when I realized that as a veteran teacher who has spent over two decades in a classroom with thousands of twelve and thirteen-year-olds, maybe I can offer some advice to mothers facing an adolescent child for the first time.  And as a writer who struggles to balance writing with my very stressful job, I can sympathize with mother-writers who have an even harder balancing act. 

To read the rest of my post, go to Mother Writer Mentor: Practical advice for writing moms

The Power of the Internet or How I Wound Up in an Art Exhibit in Germany

Last year, I wrote a blog post, The Greece I Saw, June, 2012 in which I described my impressions of traveling in Greece during their economic crisis.  Included in that post were photographs I took of protest graffiti in Athens.  Then in June of this year I had a rather unusual comment left on my blog:

Dear Lisa,
Street Art and Protest Culture in the city of Augsburg, Germany and we are interested in showing your photo of the graffiti wall you posted on this site.

If you are interested, please mail me.

Beste regards,
Lisa 

Stunned that someone in Germany had read my blog and quite pleased that they wanted to use my photograph, I didn't hesitate to say yes.  For months I heard nothing more, and when I searched for information about the organization, I couldn't find anything about it.  Finally, I emailed Lisa again, asking her about what had happened with my photograph. She was kind enough to send me photos of the exhibition as well as a link to their Facebook page:  COLORREVOLUTION! Street Art und Protestkultur. It looks like the event was fascinating.  How I wish I could have been there!  I'm just grateful that I have these images of it.

Here are the photographs Lisa took.

If you have better eyesight than me, you might be able to see what it says on the plaque,  Foto:  Lisa Rizzo.







That small photograph in the corner is mine.

Once again I am awed at the power of the internet to get my work out into the world.