Haikus by Diane

Slashes of scarlet
birds in a mass of gray twigs
at rest in the cold


Amidst the purple
clouds like spilled ink in the sky
then peach-pink of dawn


Deer huddle in snow
silhouetted in stark white
just head and ears now.


This shell, this vessel
can succeed or disappoint
fighting fat daily


Many years gone by
I believe much more in that
which I cannot see


In my creation
a solitary journey
to heights unknown


Brought to each new day
fellowship in mere living
survival of love

Tremont and Visible Voice Bookstore

There is a wonderful area of Cleveland called Tremont on the near west side. The neighborhood streets are lined with interesting old homes interspersed with upscale restaurants, art galleries, shops, a lovely park and a great bookstore called Visible Voice. Last weekend we actually had a free night and we ended up in Tremont. It was one of those perfect June nights - a slight breeze, warm but not hot, no humidity. We ate a delicious meal at the Bistro on Lincoln Park on the sidewalk patio. Then we walked down the street to Visible Voice to a wine tasting. You can sit in the garden courtyard, sip wine, listen to music (this night a steel guitar) browse the bookstore and just enjoy the relaxing ambience. Visible Voice has an entire Garden Courtyard music series, poetry readings,and author signings. Tremont has activities all summer - art walks, farmer's market, cultural festival, even a civil war encampment.

Our neighbor Dave owns Visible Voice and I have done a poetry reading there (see above!)- but I would be a big fan anyway. So if you are looking for something to do off the beaten path that is always interesting (with great restaurants) visit Tremont - just one of the great things about Cleveland.

Ordinary Genius - A Guide for the Poet Within

Poet Kim Addonizio has a new book out entitled "Ordinary Genius - a Guide for the Poet Within". (She co-authored "The Poet's Companion" with Dorianne Laux in 1997. ) You get your money's worth of lessons in its 300 pages. I was a little disappointed at the beginning, reading ideas like keeping a journal or writing a poem with the first line of someone else's poem, but the book got meatier and more in-depth with every chapter. "Ordinary Genius" is dense with inspiration, poem starters and exercises as well as chapters like "Your Genius, Your Demons" that contain Addonizio's well thought-out philosophies on poets and poetry. She offers adoring insights on everyone from Shakespeare and Whitman to Cleveland's own George Bilgere.

She dares to have a chapter called "Love and Sex Poems" and somehow brings a fresh approach to those time-worn subjects. Addonizio is honest in her assessment of poets when she warns: "When you explore your own life in poetry, it's useful to remember that nobody really cares." And "If you want to be a poet the way some people want to be a rock star without actually learning the guitar, playing scales and practicing - then you are free to fantasize."

Addonizio teaches the sonnet and pantoum in understandable terms. Other chapters include such topics as race, class, addictions and fairy tales. All the regulars are there as well - metaphor, imagery, revising, meter, etc.

It's a comprehensive resource that I would recommend to a beginner or to any seasoned, war-wounded poet who is looking for his/her lost muse.

The Abundance of Talents

Yesterday I took my mom to a local arts center to see the opera "I Pagliacci". It was completely wonderful and professional. Every singer, every scene, every instrumental note. The theater held less than 200 people by my estimate. It was a Sunday afternoon in a relatively small town and the talent blew me away. The singers were, in fact, all professionals, all worthy of a professional opera company - but here they were in a tiny theater singing their hearts out. It made me think of all the talent that abounds everywhere and how we choose to pursue those gifts.

Most of us discovered something we could do - or at least wanted to do - in our youth. Then, depending on our life circumstances we may have been given lessons

or taught ourselves - we may have been encouraged or discouraged by the people in our lives at the time.

I have been compelled throughout my life to express myself through singing, art and now, at a much advanced age - writing. I still feel that I am new to writing poetry and yet, I can see that it's a perfect avocation for me to pursue through the rest of my life, and I have been fortunate to have been encouraged in my poetic pursuits along the way. I still love playing the guitar and make occasional attempts at reviving this love - and then I think - Aw heck, who wants to hear an old lady pretending to be a hippie playing her guitar and singing. And yet - hmmmm maybe you're never too old.

My point is that there is SO much talent in us all and of course we can't all make a living at the things we enjoy doing the most. There are only a few who get to do that - or get recognition for their abilities. The rest of us do it for the love of it - as we should.

I'm reading a book called Ordinary Genius by poet Kim Addonizio. She tells of how she tried to be a classical singer with no background knowledge of what that took. She failed and tried a couple other things, but in her thirties discovered poetry. She says that the premier poetry journal called Poetry has about ten thousand subscribers, but every year has ten times that amount of submissions. That could mean that ten times more people are writing poetry than actually reading it! There is so much talent! But should we stop using our gifts? If you've read this blog for any length of time you know that I firmly believe God gives us gifts to be used. I am glad that the opera singers yesterday shared their gifts whether there were 200 or 2000 people listening.

The Lives of Poems

When poems rain down
on my head like treasures
from heaven - I feast on them,
inhale them, rub them
all over me, lay down and roll
in their ineffable presence.

Each image is pondered,
prayed for, decided upon.
Once achieved - I speak my
well-birthed progeny into being.

Then, for a time, like children,
they forsake me, evacuate
the premises and leave me
marooned on a poemless island
of despair and concern.
I quietly wait and pray
for their safe return.

Poetic Inspirations

You must let your poems ride their luck
On the back of the sharp morning air
Touched with the fragrance of mint and thyme
And everything else is - Literature
Paul Verlaine

Many of my shortest and seemingly simple poems took years to get right. I tinker with most of my poems even after publication. I expect to be revising in my coffin as it is being lowered into the ground.
Charles Simic

If I were in solitary confinement, I'd never write another novel, and probably not keep a journal, but I'd write poetry, because poems, you see, are between God and me.

May Sarton

Removal

Removing your existence from this world must

be normal, seem acceptable in the Hughes family.

Nicholas existed in Alaska, a professor

of fisheries and ocean sciences, far removed

from London and the sealed off room he slept in

as his mother gassed herself in the kitchen,

far removed from the poetic lifestyle of his parents.

His father so beautifully wrote of his little son's eyes as

wet jewels - the hardest substance of the purest pain,

as I fed him in his white high chair.

Was the pain frozen on that childhood day?

Or was it the day his stepmother gassed herself

taking his four year-old stepsister with her?
Was the glorification of his mother's death

the deciding factor or the notion that his father's

infidelities caused her suicidal anguish?

What made Nicholas entertain the irrevocable

thoughts before he hanged himself at age forty-seven,

removing his existence from the earth,

just as his mother and stepmother had before him.

(Nicholas Hughes, son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, died March 16, 2009)

Why Poetry?

Earlier this week I wrote about the generosity of writers. That notion has extended into my week with invitations to read my poetry at a couple local book stores. I love reading aloud. I'm a teacher after all! But I'm not an actress. I wonder how effective I will be in reading my own poems and whether they will make an impression out loud. (I'll let you know) However, I am once again grateful for the independent book store owners who are so supportive and encouraging of local writers and I thank God there are still independent book stores around!

Whenever I am faced with a new writing challenge there is always that little voice fluttering around in my head asking Why are you doing this? Where did these poems come from? I don't know and I don't know. But it's a part of my life now, a part of me.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will. Czeslaw Milosz

Because poems are meanings, and even the saddest poem I write is proof I want to survive. And therefore it represents an affirmation of life in all its complexities and contradictions.

Gregory Orr

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. Robert Frost