Writing the Life Poetic

Submit to Poets for Living Waters

Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the Gulf Oil Disaster of April 20, 2010, one of the most profound man-made ecological catastrophes in history.

The first law of ecology states that everything is connected to everything else. An appreciation of this systemic connectivity suggests a wide range of poetry will offer a meaningful response to the current crisis, including work that harkens back to Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing regional effects.

Please submit 1-3 poems, a short bio, and credits for any previously published submissions to:
poetsforlivingwaters@yahoo.com

Learn more about a call for work for Gulf coast poems.

Maybe love is just a matter of timing and light

Spring has sprung (a leak)!

In celebration of these past, many days of downpour, I share with you an image found on a morning dog walk that has come to symbolize Portland to me!

Join me for a bridge and poetry walk on Saturday, June 5

I'll be sharing poems as part of the 2010 bridge walking series on Saturday, June 5. It would be most lovely to spend a historic Portland morning with you!

The event will be led by Sharon Wood Wortman, author of The Portland Bridge Book, and leader of waterfront bridge walks for Portland Parks & Outdoor Recreation since 1991.

About a mile long and easy-paced, each walk includes a tour of the Oregon Dept. of Transportation’s Traffic Management Operation Center and the tower and bascule pit of the Morrison Bridge. See eight bridges in all.  

Registration not required. Begins at 8:30 a.m. at the corner of NW Second & Everett (steps of the Northwest Natural Building). Ends with lunch (extra $) in Chinatown. $16 for adults, $10 for children.

Bridal, by Sage Cohen

The pond drifts its corsages
along the withered wrists
of trees fallen too soon
The broken vow folds
its paper wings.
No boat, no confetti, today
the leaving falls away
to a float of daisies.
Each opens her hungry yellow
throat to the rain’s staccato,
trodden banks, the simple
untamed thrill of hope. 

***

Here are two bridge walkers modeling the principle of the cantilevered kiss (photo by Marilyn Johnston).

Supporting the Divine, by Sharon Wood Wortman

A kiss is like a cantilever bridge—
Two lips meeting in the middle,
Air jumping up and down
(vortices exciting the molecules);
tension and compression
at such an angle two hearts
can safely walk hope across
no matter how many miles
or old the ground.

Join me at The 100th Monkey Studio this Wednesday at 7!

Hiya, folks! I'll be standing in for Jon Seaman, who just came through a successful transplant surgery, at the Figures of Speech Reading Series this Wednesday. I'd love to see you there! Following is the event announcement.

Figures of Speech Reading Series, http:www.figuresofspeechpdx.wordpress.com

Marie Buckley, Jon Seaman, Sage Cohen at The 100th Monkey Studio

Where:  110 SE 16th St., Portland, OR  503-232-3457
When:  Wednesday, May 19th, at 7 p.m.

Thank you to Sage Cohen for filling in at the last minute for Jon Seaman.  Jon is doing well post transplant surgery and is bummed to miss this event.  Sage will be reading one of Jon’s pieces as well as her own.

Join us for our next event on May 19th at the 100th Monkey for two active OSPA members.  We will have the OSPA contest anthology, Verseweavers available for sale along with other goodies (yes Marv that means cookies) -- a writing prompt and other fun.

Marie Buckley works as an adjunct developmental writing and reaching instructor at Portland Community College. She is co-author of Quartet: four poetic voices Media Weavers 2006 and the 2009-10 president of the Oregon State Poetry Association. Marie is a native of Nebraska, which informs her writing to be straight and honest. She shares her Hillsboro home with six African Grey parrots, six cats, and one husband.

Jon E. Seaman is a poet and activist for chronic kidney disease, organ donation and organ transplants.  In 2008 at the age of 41, Jon suffered kidney failure after fighting renal disease since early childhood.  Today he is one of the more than 78,000 people on the kidney transplant waiting list.  Like 23% of those with kidney failure, he works full time to have health insurance for dialysis, a shot at a kidney transplant, and hopefully, a second life.  Jon's poetry will appear in upcoming 2010 issues of The Ledge and the Naugatuck River Review.  He has also appeared in Willamette Week, Verseweavers and Intertext Magazine.  For information about becoming an organ donor please visit www.donatelife.net.  For more on Jon's poetry and experiences waiting for a kidney transplant, please visit: www.joneseaman.com

Sage Cohen is the author of the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World (Queen of Wands Press, 2007) Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writer’s Digest Books, 2009) and The Productive Writer: Tips & Tools for Writing More, Stressing Less & Creating Success (Writer’s Digest Books, forthcoming in December 2010). She lives with a muse-menagerie that includes three cats, one dog, one husband and the cutest toddler son ever to say "duck."

Hosted by Steve Williams and Constance Hall

The poetry of motherhood

I usually save reflections on motherhood for my Here Comes Theo blog. But today, still high on the fumes of Mother's Day, I can't resist considering the relationship between motherhood and poetry.

In my life, motherhood and poetry have been twin teachers in unselfing. Each asks that I show up, pay attention, tend what needs care, let my mind be relaxed and receptive, and dedicate my entire being to disclosing what is asking to come through.

When Theo was an infant, it was poetry that eased those endless night wakings and bone-numbing exhaustion with the wisdom of sitting with my discomfort, being curious about it and friendly toward it, and grateful for the capacity to feel the full impact of my initiation into motherhood.

As Theo has become a toddler, he has reminded me how much surprise is available to us if we let go of what we think we know. On the day he made it clear with gestures that he believed clouds to be composed of the steam from choo choo trains, my inner eye widened to a far greater range of possibility. When he pointed to the Frido Kahlo magnet on the fridge and pronounced, "Dada," I could see it. And, unfortunately, I had to admit my resemblance to the "but not the hippopotamus" hippo in his board book when Theo pointed it out. I work hard in my regular poetry practice to become receptive to metaphor. For my son, figurative imagery is as natural as laughter.

I have stopped trying to understand any of it: how I have become this thick-around-the-middle, middle-aged mother with a swarm of beloved beings staggering around my neighborhood sidewalks in pursuit of our many clashing pleasures. We are a pack traveling together, stanzas adding up to some greater whole that is being shaped through our daily rhythms into the economies of scale that poetry serves up best: music, rhythm, line, imagery, and the rush toward beauty. The compression of time, responsibility, desire and clarifying love that writes through us a narrative through which we look forward and back in search of who we are.

 

Having waited more than a decade for my life circumstances to line up with my desire to mother, I am grateful for the gift of patience that poetry has cultivated in me. A poem will not be forced forward, and neither will our lives, no matter how carefully we plan or intend.

This blessing of life with Theo feels so much of the time far too enormous for words. I have to let my looking go dim, and gather impressions from the periphery of observation. I stand inside and outside myself, senseless, exhausted, bleary and besotted. I sit with him on our little rug in the kitchen as he drinks his morning milk, and I think how our greatest bliss can be nursed from the most simple of rituals. This is the poetry of motherhood. The repetition. The ordinary. The obvious. When I am far too deep to know, I simply slow down and witness. The names of our shared world bubble up like laughter, like grief. The tickle is contagious, until our kitchen is spinning.

Readers Write In: Lisa Janice Cohen

Dear Sage,

I wanted to share some of my recent work, inspired and encouraged by your lovely book.  I think what I most appreciate about it is not necessarily the specific exercises, but the permission to free write and dump out all sorts of drek on the page before taking all that raw material and forging a poem out of it. 

I can honestly say that it has pushed me to dig deeper and into places that would have frightened me too much to write about.  

Best, Lisa

[Editor's note: The letter above was shared with permission. And wow, am I honored to be affiliated in any way with the poems Lisa shared with me! Here is one of my favorites.]

* * * * *

Unsealing the Records

By Lisa Janice Cohen

When you were born blue
eyes owl round, dark downed
there was no one to ask if loss
too was passed through placenta and blood.
Sixteen now, when you meet my gaze, looking
glass familiar, no relative
wonders who you take after. Born
on your grandmother's birthday, one more
gift for a woman terrified of too much
fortune. I was far younger than you
when I learned some questions were weapons
even in the right hands. How words
could be strung on a necklace
or garrote. I swear there is nothing
you could say as sharp or shameful
as silence. I am here.
Ask me anything.

Join me for a free workshop at the PDX Chinese Garden on June 7

I'm going to be teaching a free workshop in a most exquisite setting (who can resist a room called "Celestial Hall of Permeating Fragrance"?) in early June. Won't you join us?

WRITING THE LIFE POETIC: A workshop with Sage Cohen

Poetry is one of the great pleasures in life, and no one needs an advanced degree in creative writing to reap its rewards. Sage Cohen, author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry, will share some of her favorite approaches to living and writing a poetic life. Through prompts and exercises, she will invite writers of all backgrounds to experience their life through a poetic lens. Participants will discover new ways to think and write about the subjects that interest them––and get inspired to start capturing those observations on paper immediately.

Monday, June 7
11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Lan Su Chinese Garden
Scholar’s Study (Celestial Hall of Permeating Fragrance)
239 Northwest Everett Street (@ NW 3rd)
Portland, Oregon 97209
www.lansugarden.org

Workshop is free, but requires paying the price of admission to the garden:
$8.50 Adults
$7.50 Seniors (62 & above)
$6.50 Students (6-18 & college students with I.D.)

Spring is a great time to hone our receptivity to poetry. Bring your notebook and pen to one of the most poetic places in Portland, and we'll simmer together in the possibilities of poetry. No advance registration necessary.

Tell a new story

When our son Theo was a year old, "kitty" had been his one and only word for months. All he wanted was to glimpse of one of our cats, sneak a quick stroke of fur. But nothing doing. The cats made themselves invisible when Theo was awake. A lurching, shrieking munchkin chanting "kitty" clearly wasn't their cup of milk.

So we did what any reasonable family with two dogs, two cats and an infant son would do: we adopted a kitten. Our theory was that a kitten growing up in the company of a baby wouldn't  know to be afraid. And we wanted Theo to have the sidekick he yearned for. In this one, blessed instance amidst the endless unknowns and mistakes of new parenthood, our theory proved spot-on.

Snow Pea came to us through a friend of a friend. She had been found abandoned in a tree and needed a home. The deal was sealed instantly: the kitten loved Theo, and Theo loved the kitten. She supervised his baths, helping to play with toys and bubbles. She shared my lap in his rocking chair at story time, she slept in his crib when it was unoccupied, and would spoon Theo on the changing table to ease the diaper transitions. This kitten was clearly one of the most confident, relaxed and loving beings I'd ever come into contact with. She was assured of her right to be the center of all attention; and every being in the house respected her tiny, feline authority. We fell head-over-paws in love with her. 

Our grown cats had a different opinion. Valentino, who had always considered himself the baby/prince of the family had been mightily insulted when a human baby showed up on the scene. The final insult of a new, feline youngster in the mix was just too much for his ego to handle. Any time Snow Pea entered a room or a lap, Valentino exited it. A (literal) pissing match began on our bed, on the high-status side where my husband sleeps. If the bedroom door was left open for even a minute, we'd spend the next few days laundering bedding. Worry about Valentino's hardship clouded my delight. And so it went from October to April.

Then, last night, something new happened. For the first time since Snow Pea came home, Valentino snuggled up with me as I was reading in bed -- he'd been avoiding our bedroom in protest, except to mark it. When SP promptly appeared to join us, Valentino didn't leave in a huff. Instead, he patiently accommodated her dramatic head-butts and tail-hugging, and even allowed her to settle down between the two of us. The clincher was Valentino grooming Snow Pea's head.

It occurred to me in that moment that what had shifted for Valentino was his story -- and Snow Pea's role in it. Whatever he believed last week about Snow Pea stealing his thunder, his baby-status, his prime real estate on the bed had suddenly yielded to the revelation that this kitty was kind of nice, fun to lick, pretty ok to snuggle up with.

In my experience, six months is a pretty quick turnaround for a cat to rewrite his turf war story. The question is, how quickly are we humans willing to rewrite ours?

When we remember that how we relate to our circumstances is truly a choice, to be managed with great care, we have far more range in navigating the joys and challenges of our lives. When life takes turns we weren't prepared for, what kind of stories are we going to tell?  What is the gain to be dusted off and polished up after the loss settles in? Do you choose to see the enemy taking your special couch cushion, or find the friend who might just make the cushion a cozier place to be?

If you're telling a story that's keeping you unhappy or uninspired or at odds with someone important to you, maybe it's time to start telling a new story.