In Case You Missed It...

A few weeks ago I posted about the delay in the online journal Sugar Mule #41: Women Writing Nature. Now it is up and ready for your reading pleasure. Two of my poems, "Star Coral" and "Come Sing" were published in this volume.  Just download the pdf and find the table of contents. Each name is a hyperlink that will take you directly to that person's poems. As well as my own, there is a cornucopia of wonderful writing by other women. Enjoy!

Continuing Journeys of The Sneaky Observateur

“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes

Outside Hampton Court outside London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

The British Museum, London, February 2012

Drepano, Greece, June 2012

Drepano, Greece, June 2012

Nafplio, Greece, June 2012

Syntagma Square, Nafplio, Greece, June 2012

Ancient Greek Theater at Epidavros, Greece.  June 2012

The Fish Market, Athens, Greece, June 2012

Agamemnon's Tomb at Mysennea, Greece, June 2012

Sugar Mule Delay

I just got an email from the editors of Sugar Mule saying that they are having technical difficulties with the Women Writing Nature issue.  Stay tuned for an update on when the journal will be ready for reading.

Poems Published!

My poems "Star Coral" and "Come Sing" were published in Sugar Mule, an online journal.  The theme is Women Writing Nature.  

Download the PDF and enjoy. You can find my work on page 197! Check them out.

The Greece I Saw, June, 2012

Of course I could write about postcard Greece: the pebbly beaches, the sky stretching out clear, dotted with clouds at sunset. Or the blue, blue sea, the bluest water I have ever seen, unlike any other place in the world. Or about the sun beating down hot and demanding as I walked down the small road from our tiny rented apartment to the beach. Or the food – black and green olives, anchovies and tiny whitebait fish served up crisply fried. All this is what I would expect to see – and to write about. The Greece everyone wants me to tell them about – because isn’t that what we all desire when we go on vacation?

But that wasn’t the Greece that touched me most deeply.  Instead, there was the Greece I could not ignore, the one with the brave face with terror barely hidden underneath. 

The Greece I saw was filled with row after row after row of empty buildings lined up on the road spreading out from Nafplio, a small town on the Peloponnese Peninsula. The lovely town square was filled not with tourists but locals.  I heard someone on the street comment that it should have been crowded in mid-June.  Instead many shops in the surrounding streets were shuttered and closed, and shopkeepers in those still open were desperate for any sale we might give them.  One salesman told us no one was coming to Greece now and certainly very few people were spending money. 

The Greece I saw was the Greece of political rallies before their June 17th election with an edge to the air, a palpable uneasiness, so few smiles but instead nervousness about their future.  The streets of Athens dingy, graffiti-filled with much of the neighborhood around my hotel closed and empty with signs saying “For Rent” - but who would possibly open a business now?  And the cafes stood half empty, the roof garden of my hotel with chairs to spare when five years ago I had to fight for a table. The night our Greek friend, T. tried to find us a restaurant to eat in – one after another gone, gone, gone – and her quiet unease at showing us what must be a daily occurrence to her, this woman whose job has been reduced to four hours a day.

Signs of protest were splashed everywhere – raised fists and slogans painted on walls, the whole place showing peoples' anger and frustration with their broken government.

This was the Greece of high unemployment rates, especially for young people. 29.6% of young people in Greece are unemployed, according to NationMaster.com. What can they feel about Greece's future? Where will their lives lead?

What about those who have worked their whole lives only to find their savings or pensions gone?  When D., a retired teacher, told me in his broken English, “We are very poor,” of course I thought about what I would feel, being reduced to this after giving years to teaching. His few words were filled with so much weight, leaving me with many questions - really none of my business - but I wanted to know where his teacher pension has gone, how he makes do, what this all means for education in his country.  But his English was not good enough for him to explain, and I know only a smattering of Greek.  I am left with only those few poignant words.

That was not necessarily the Greece I wanted, but it was the Greece I feared so much that I almost didn’t go - the only time I have come close to cancelling a trip abroad.  But I decided that I wanted to be a traveler and not only a tourist, to experience more than just the highlights of a country.  So I went.

A Bowl of Words

Today I bought a bowl created by an artist in Swaziland.  It is made out of magazine pages stitched together - a bowl of words.  This lovely and practical piece of art gave me a wonderful idea.  Why not start my own collection of words to put in my bowl?  Maybe a magazine article or a wonderful turn of phrase from one of my students?  Even snippets of conversation I hear while sitting in cafes or riding BART or fortunes from fortune cookies.  For some reason the idea of a bowl full of words gives me great pleasure.  If they are words I simply collect instead of write myself, there will be less pressure for me to be brilliant.  Since I seem to be going through a rather dry writing period right now, perhaps my bowl of words will shake something loose in me.  I like the idea that those words will have their own physical life in their bowl home - a more tangible presence than if they were written in a notebook.



I think the first words I will put in my bowl are the beginning lyrics to the Tears for Fears song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."  Remember that band from the 1980's? Today when I was driving home with my bowl, I heard this song on the radio.  It's one of those songs that I turn up full blast whenever I hear it.  It has become "mine" because it always conjures up the memory of a pivotal moment in my life.  I listened to it while packing for my first solo trip to Europe.  I was 30 years old, and the opening line "Welcome to your life. There's no turning back..." hit me profoundly.  Those were the kinds of words that meant a lot to me when I was 30 and scared to death about what life might bring me. 

See, the bowl is working already.

Teachers Can Never Tell...

Today I learned that a young man I taught about ten years ago is the current reigning heart throb on a Philippine television show titled "My Bonondo Girl"  This exciting news tidbit came to my attention when a news crew from a local Bay Area Filipino television station showed up to film at Ben Franklin Intermediate, our little Daly City, California middle school.


When I was his 7th grade teacher, I knew him as Alex Lim.   My memory could be faulty (after all, I've taught 10 more years since Alex was in my class!) but I think of him as being rather artistic.  He was a sweet boy with a good sense of humor. Nowadays he goes by the name of Xian Lim, and he is quite the good looking young man!  Check out the photos on his website to see how dreamy he is now.  No wonder he's a heart throb.

All this just goes to show that teachers can never tell where their students will end up.  We spend our days together for nine months in a very intense relationship which ends abruptly when they fly away in June. Sometimes my students stay in touch with me, but more often than not, I never hear from them again.  What a pleasure to find about a former student who has made a success of his life.  Of course, I'd like to take some credit for that success; after all, teaching him English must have had some effect on his ability to act!

Writing Odes with Eighth Graders

You’ve all heard it over and over:  overcrowded classrooms, decaying buildings, reduced budgets, furlough days without pay and constant teacher-bashing by political pundits and the media.  These issues weigh heavy on the shoulders of all teachers -- even a 21-year veteran like myself.  More and more these days, I have to remind myself why I chose this profession and have stayed in the classroom – with 7^th and 8^th graders no less – all these years. 

And then, just when I start dreaming of early retirement, the sun shines through the dirty, cracked windows of my classroom, and I forget all the bureaucratic and political hoo-ha to fall in love with teaching all over again. That’s what happened when I spent the day writing odes à la Pablo Neruda with my 8th graders.  

I first fell in love with odes as an English major in college when I read Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” and “Ode to a Grecian Urn” with it’s famous lines “beauty is truth, truth beauty,' – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”  But it wasn’t until many years later that I  thought of odes as a genre for teaching poetry in middle school – they seemed too serious and formal to attract most young people. 

That was until I read Pablo Neruda’s Odes to Common Things.  Neruda’s odes to everyday items such as tomatoes or socks or salt were just the thing to interest adolescents in writing poetry.  The ode’s extravagant praise for something important in their lives appeals to the emotional exuberance of 12 and 13 year olds.  They can swoon over their first love, kiss up to their mothers or proclaim their undying devotion to their iPods or basketball.  They love it, and so do I.   They play with language in a way that makes their voices come alive on the page, and when they read their poems during our poetry reading, every one of them is a true poet.

I wish I could print some of those poems here but there are privacy issues with student work.  However I can provide you with the next best thing:  a link to the odes posted on my classroom website – http://www.msrizzo.org

You can check them out there if you want.

And of course, since I try to practice what I preach, here is my own ode "eighth grade style":

Ode to My Backpack

You backpack,
so worthy
of my praise.
Zippered one,
orange as the sun,
snug and secure
on my back.
I need you!

You are always
with me -
constant companion,
strong, expansive,
heavy or light,
your pockets
ready for my
every need.

Compared to you
suitcases are like
rocks in my hands.
Purses are as useless
as tiny boxes.
Only you, backpack
hold my life.

When we travel together
you keep me safe,
hold my memories:
evil eye from Turkey,
stones from Zanzibar,
shells from ocean waves.

I want to slip
your straps over
my shoulders,
slide into your
warm embrace.
You proclaim,
"We're on our way!"

For you I will
brush the crumbs
from your pockets,
shake the sand
from your seams.
Oh backpack,
lead me
again and again
through the world.

The Joys of Cross-Posting!

I decided to take the advice of  Tania, who taught a blogging class through Story Circle Network and created my first cross-post on BlogHer.  The post appeared today and so far it has gotten 479 reads and several comments and "likes" on Facebook.  How exciting to have my writing reach a wider audience.

Our Missing Sister Writers

My first - and for many years only visit - to Westminster Abbey was in 1987.  I was a young and starry eyed English major who had studied all the classic writers of English and American literature.  I was also a sometime writer who considered myself more of a scribbler than anything else.  Perhaps I was just afraid to hope for more than that -- after all, none of my teachers or professors had ever encouraged me to take my writing seriously.  So when I walked through Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey, I was awed by the graves and memorials of some of the most celebrated writers of England:  Shakespeare of course, but also Byron, Robert Browning, Chaucer and many others. 

I had such fond memories of that first visit that when after 25 years I returned to London a few weeks ago, I was excited to revisit Poet's Corner once more.  I could not have been more surprised by my reaction -- anger and disappointment.  Everywhere I looked, I saw names of male writers.  Where were the women? Of course, there were the paltry few:  Elizabeth Barrett Browning's name stuck like an afterthought at the bottom of the memorial to her husband and an admittedly good-sized memorial to Mary Anne Evans who we all know as George Eliot.  Also, after much searching, I found a tiny plaque with Jane Austen's name almost completely overshadowed by the huge monuments to men that surrounded her.

Why had I not noticed this before?

I was quite the feminist firebrand in my youth, but why hadn't I felt anger over this meager recognition for women writers? Was it my own lack of confidence that made me ignore the disregard for women?  And if that is the case, what had changed to make me notice this so much on my recent visit? To my mind it's a good sign that in my middle years I still have the energy to feel resentment at this inequality. I also think that since I have a better sense of myself as a writer, I no longer question the right of any women to sit at the table of English literature, just as I no longer question my own right to call myself a writer.  Score one point for my development as a person and writer.  Mourn the fact that such a problem still exists in our day and age.

I was not allowed to take photographs among the graves of Westminster Abbey so all I have are my notes about my visit.  How appropriate that I wrote those notes in a notebook with a reproduction of the cover of Virginia Wolfe's famous essay, "A Room of One's Own."  I bought that notebook after having attended the summer writer's retreat sponsored by A Room of Her Own Foundation -- an incredible organization dedicated to nurturing women writers.  Virginia's essay describes what life would have been like for Shakespeare's sister if she had wanted to write.  Instead of flourishing like her brother, she  would have had to fight for every ounce of artistic expression she could manage.  Wolfe passionately argues for the right of all women to have a "room", a place of their own where they can create the lives they want instead of those dictated to them by a society that sees them as less worthy than men.

Near my desk I also still keep my copy of Wolfe's book from my college days with its rather "groovy" cover.  I've kept it all these years as a talisman against the forces that would make me doubt my abilities or those of any other women.  While we all know things have improved for women in the 21st century, Poet's Corner shows that we still have a long way to go before women are considered equals in the world of literature - and in the world at large.

Today was Awards Day!

Today I received my awards from the Bay Area Poets Coalition contest as well had the opportunity to read my poems to a wonderful audience.  There was even a small cash prize! 






Since this is the first time I've ever won a writing contest - even though I've entered many - today I'll bask in the glory.  Tomorrow it's back to the writing desk.

One Woman's Day

The inaugural post for my blog has just been re-posted at One Woman's Day, a blog hosted by The Story Circle Network, an online resource for writer-women.  You can read the entire post by clicking on the link above.

January 27 – The Teacher/Poet or Poet/Teacher?

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Linda Hoye | Leave a comment

by Lisa Rizzo

Today a funny thing happened in my middle school classroom. The teacher stopped “teaching” and became a writer being interviewed by her students. We were watching a video about an author of one of the stories in their textbook. When it was over, someone asked me what my writing routine was. I’ve told my students that I write poetry and have always written poems with them for classwork. But I’ve never really just talked to them about who I am as a writer, what I do and why I do it.

Dancing With The Madonna

One of my favorite paintings in the world is in one of my favorite places in the world:  the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  The painting in question is in the room with Botticelli’s famous “Primavera” and “The Birth of Venus”.  Those two paintings are so popular that the room is always packed with people - even those who have no deep interest in art.  I remember my second visit to the Uffizi – I was traveling alone so I had been spending as much time as possible in museums and churches, soaking up art to my heart’s content. There was no one to beg me to leave, but also no one to share my experiences with.  Every time I turned from a piece of art, excited to see it again, my only companion was my notebook - that trusty shield that protects all solitary travelers.  However, as long as I had the paintings, I could be content. But on this day I couldn’t get near enough to see because of a tour group that flocked together in front of the naked Venus clothed only in her blonde hair.  They made me more than a bit cranky so I sat on a bench to wait them out. This is usually an easy thing to do since most people look at art for so short a time. I sat there feeling - I confess this freely - smug and superior to these "check it off my list" type of tourists.

            On this day, that wait was fortuitous because I had to make do with gazing at the other Botticelli paintings in the room – no less beautiful – but much less famous.  Perhaps because they are subtler, they take longer contemplation.  One in particular caught my eye. Titled “Madonna of the Pomegranate,” what drew my attention was the expression on the Madonna’s face.  Usually Mary is depicted with a sweet, pensive look or even a bit of sadness – as if she were well aware of the end of her story.  But this Mary, instead of gazing joyfully or lovingly at the heavy baby clasped in her arms, looked downright bored.  And why was she holding a pomegranate?  It made me remember my childhood obsession with Greek and Roman myths, of Persephone and her ill-fated bite of the pomegranate that kept her half the year in Hades. It made me curious enough to find out that in Christian iconography the pomegranate is a symbol of resurrection and eternal life (Symbols in Christian Art & Architecture http://www.planetgast.net/symbols/).  In light of that, her expression is even more intriguing. Forgetting my own loneliness, I sat there a long time. Just what was Mary thinking?   

Madonna of the Pomegranate

- A painting by Sandro Botticelli in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

I have waited here for centuries,

clasping this heavy infant in my lap,

beset by the whispers of angels –

always words of

praise and adoration,

alleluia and Ave Maria.

Glory becomes tedious.

Sometimes I think the child

teases me holding

a pomegranate in his hand,

its ripe skin split to reveal its seeds –

glistening rosary beads

which tempt me

to seize something for myself.

Visitors no longer notice me,

never puzzle the meaning

of the strange fruit

my son carries.

They would much rather exult

in the riot of Spring,

the brilliance of Venus.

I long to shake off these stiff robes,

clothe myself in waves,

strew my hair with roses and dianthus.

I’d like to sink my teeth deep

into the pomegranate,

roll the seeds across my tongue,

be-rouge my lips with juice.

To relieve my monotony,

I’d relish anything,

even welcome

the revelation of fear.

How lucky was Persephone!

                             (Poem originally published in my chapbook, In the Poem an Ocean, Big Table Publishing Co. 2012)

Bay Area Poets Coalition Contest 32 Winners List

Find my name among the winners!

Hidden Themes

When I was in college at Northwestern University back in the days when Women's Studies was a new discipline (figure out the years on your own), I had the great fortune to hear Margaret Atwood read to a small group of about 30 women students. I will never forget the question that one of those students asked Atwood:  what are the most important themes in your work?  I have also never forgotten Atwood's reply: I don't think about my themes; I just write.  I leave figuring out my themes to graduate students.

Like Atwood (can I really compare myself to her?), I don't spend much time thinking about the recurring themes in my own work.  However, in the last few months I've had several writer friends point out some interesting observations about my poetry, themes and metaphors I had never noticed myself.  I guess that is why I've begun to think about subjects that interest me most - and not just in my writing.

Those who know me also know how much I love to travel.  In fact, it's become rather an obsession for me.  Like all of my family, I love taking photographs to record those trips.  Recently, I have become aware of my predilection for taking photographs of groups of people going about their lives totally unaware of my presence behind them. There is something I find so provocative about watching these people interacting with each other. I can only imagine what they say to each other, but I love the fact that I can record a snippet of their relationships with each other.  So I have images of school children drawing on the museum floor in Bilbao, Spain.

And a photograph of young Buddhist monks at lunch at a temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand as well as a group of school girls sitting on a dock in Zanzibar.














 And then one of the most poignant images - of these women on a ferry to Istanbul. I found it very difficult to talk to the women in Turkey and this group gazing out at the sea seemed symbolic of our separation.

Just why do I enjoy capturing such images while I stay in the background?  Well, I don't know, and I'll leave that to others to figure out.  For now, I just want to keep traveling and finding more groups like these.

Celebrating the Foregoing of Motherhood: Poetry in the Service of Spiritual Quandary, Lineage, and Teaching Adolescents with Poet Lisa Rizzo

You can read an interview of me conducted by my good friend Tania Pryputniewicz on:
The Fertile Source.

Writer to Writer: Interview with Esther Cohen

If you would like to read the rest of my interview with Esther, here is the link: AROHO Speaks: Writer to Writer.

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Photo: Copyright Jamie Clifford/2011 AROHO Retreat  www.jamieseye.com

AROHO's 2011 retreat brought 90 women writers from across the United States together in a supportive community, with time to write, read, teach, learn and share. The AROHO Speaks: Writer to Writer interview project is designed to continue building connections among women writers.During the coming year, our group will interview as many 2011 retreat participants as possible about their experiences and writing projects. We hope that you will visit this page regularly, post comments, and share the link.  We look forward to hearing your stories!
--Tania Pryputniewicz, Lisa Rizzo, Marlene Samuels, and Barbara YoderDuring the retreat,  I didn't get a real opportunity to get to know Esther very well.  Now, having had the privilege to interview her, I wish I had had more time to talk to her in person.  I certainly hope our paths cross again.  - Lisa Rizzo
Esther, I'd love to know more about why you call yourself The Book Doctor. Could you tell me more about that title?
I've been helping people with their books since I was young.  It was my first job too. I was a publishing assistant at Simon and Schuster and I found myself intuitively knowing how a book is made.  What to do.  How to help.  Maybe because I've read thousands of books and it's more or less what I do - read books.   So, I've worked on countless books, all my life.  I'm working on a few now, including a wonderful advice/memoir book by an AROHO woman, Amy Siskind.

 

My Poetry on The Fertile Source

Please check out my poems, "Childhood," "Daughters" and "Uneasy Grace" posted on The Fertile Source, a literary ezine devoted to fertility-related topics.

The Power of Poetry

Today was not an easy one in the teaching part of my world.  Already exhausted from putting in 10-hour days for the past weeks, this morning I found out that due to changes in our school's enrollment, I will no longer be teaching a class I truly love.  After that news, I felt depressed and withdrawn, already mourning the loss of the wonderful experiences I've had with this class since the beginning of September.

One of the difficult things about teaching is trying to keep up my spirits in front of a class of students. Sometimes I can forget whatever life issue I struggle with, but there are some days when it just feels too much.  Today was one of those.  All I could think of was to get through the rest of my classes until the bell rang at the end of the day.

And then I began my 8th grade class. The new unit they are studying is poetry. On a whim, I decided I would read the poems for the day's lesson. I told my students how important it is to read a poem aloud as a performance with style and grace.  So I began to read two poems by Jacqueline Woodson from her book, Locomotion. This is a book of poems written in the voice of Lonnie, a teenage boy living with a foster family.  Lonnie learns from his teacher that he "has a poet's heart."  As I read - with as much expression and emotion as I could - my unruly, noisy bunch of 35 8th graders sat as silently as any 5-year old listening to a bed-time story.  Anyone who has seen - and heard - this wild group would find it hard to believe their rapt attention to the words.

As I read the last lines of "Almost Summer Sky," with its symbol of Rodney acting as a tree to provide shade for his young foster brother, my heart calmed.  I'm sure I'll feel sadness for my loss at another time.  However, for that moment I was able to forget myself in the beauty of words.  Once again I was renewed by poetry.

The Magic of the Retreat Lingers On

To read my interview about my experiences at the AROHO Summer Retreat conducted by Marlene Samuels, log onto: AROHO Speaks: Writer to Writer