Wild Fridays #31: I Wish I'd Written This

Do  Not Let Them Train You Do not let the news man train you how to see. Do not let the pundit train you how to feel. Do not let the teacher train you how to think. Do not let the preacher train you how to love. Do not let the banker train you how to value. Do not let Hollywood train you how to be. Don't let them train you. They were appointed by the powerful to teach you how to live in a world that is small, too small for wild humans. Too small for humans who haven't been house trained, groomed, spayed and neutered, and taught parlor tricks like how to ignore life's intrinsic breathtaking majesty. Too small for humans who perceive their own boundlessness, their own vast unpredictable inner wildernesses, their own beauty, their own holiness, their own worthiness, their own innate equality with those holding their leash. So they train us. They train us to believe the world fits neatly into flat, finite conceptual boxes. That life is predictable, that our nature is well-mapped. That we live in a 2-D colorless cage from which there can be no escape and about which everything is known. As though narrative could even touch this blazing cacophony, let alone encapsulate it. They are lying to you, my beloved. They are lying each and every time they open their pixelated mouths. This life is so much more than they will ever allow you to believe. So very immense. So very unexplored. So very unpredictable. So very juicy. So very sexy. So very, very, very beautiful. The unknown unknowns dwarf the known unknowns, and the known unknowns dwarf the knowns. But they will never let you know this. So don't ask their permission. Take off that leash, wild apeling. Unblinker those eyes and unshackle those legs. Those chains are not there to protect you from the world, my beloved. They are there to protect your trainers from you. – Caitlin Johnstone – Yes, her again. Told you I was pretty impressed. I had been thinking that after all the heavy, serious stuff I've been dishing out of late, you might be due for some relief.  Something sweet and lovely, I thought, as counter-balance to all the stressful and horrifying things we face. Then I saw this. I couldn't not share it. (And after all, we've recently had Sanaa reminding us not to overthink and Rommy inviting us to focus on what makes us smile, so it hasn't been unrelievedly serious around here.) To be truthful, while I think Caitlin Johnstone is a brilliant journalist, I don't think she's all that wonderful as a poet (though she's not all that bad either). But her journalism has taught her how to make her points powerfully. And oh boy, the things she says! That's what I wish I'd written.  I think that we poets and storytellers, because our writing teaches us to analyse words and meanings, are probably better than many others at resisting being told how to think and feel.  The training is insidious, though. When we're bombarded with certain viewpoints over and over, particularly the ones we get from all sides all our lives, do we even realise they're not necessarily (a) correct and true, (b) intrinsic to our human nature, or even (c) arrived at by our own mental processes? So how do we not let 'them' train us? Perhaps the first step is to be vigilant in noticing when and how they are. We can pay attention to what's entering our heads. When I was at primary school, we were taught a subject called Clear Thinking – logic for children, applied particularly to the news media. We were taught how to notice the hooks in a headline, or the way an advertisement appealed to the emotions. We learned how to précis a news article to get to the guts of what it was really saying, without all the fluff around that. We learned to recognise when something was presented in 'coloured language', slanted a certain way rather than being told straight. It was very useful stuff! But it's a long time ago that I was in primary school. It's pretty clear that kids aren't now being taught to read critically like that. Perhaps we need to hone our own critical skills and teach them to our children and grandchildren. I'll leave you to mull it all over. I'd be interested to read your thoughts in the comments. Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. Thanks to Chaz McGregor on Unsplash for the picture of the chained tiger.

Wild Fridays #23: I Wish I'd Written This

'The Muse needs quiet in order to be heard.'  
(Joy Beaudette Cripps)


Lost and found in space

Letting go of thoughts
Of self of time and space
No I, nor me, nor you exist
Just this expanding sense of space

This space so empty
Boundless
Free.
Invisible
But gently, sweetly holding me.

Now falling deeper
letting be
Tumbling blind
With empty mind
Space opens up and swallows me

Each part of me
My flesh, my soul, my story
Consumed by space
All matter melts
In endless realms of glory.

Peace rolls in as I dissolve
The mystery of life is solved
The lost is found in empty space
And lost again in endless grace.

No separation now
No sense of small aloneness
Consumed by space I grow
and grow
Lost in heaven's foundness.

– Angie Churchill

I think this is a beautiful description of the meditative state.

Angie is one of my offline writer friends. When a Village of Women (VOW) group was formed at a local Neighbourhood Centre, both of us joined, in mentoring roles. The group was formed to bring together and empower women who'd been through major trauma, and were also experiencing isolation in a community where most of them were new arrivals. (If you're thinking pathetic and needy, think again. They were brilliant, creative, proactive women who went on to perform miracles of success in their lives, together and individually.) Quite soon, a number of the women expressed a need for a writers' group. Having facilitated many writers' groups, I offered my services. Angie was among those who joined.

The major task for me has been persuading the VOWWriters, most of whom had been scribbling poems, stories and reflections all their lives, that they were indeed writers. Angie was one who insisted she wasn't – despite revealing that she regularly rewrote Bible stories to present to modern Sunday School children in a way they could understand and relate to.

We were invited, as a group, to  present a written piece on the benefits of the group for an Australia-wide newsletter to community organisations. It consisted of selected writings from our members, including a very affirming short poem by 'non-writer' Angie, composed on the spot. Space was limited for our contribution; I had to make arbitrary decisions as to which writings could be included. There was never any doubt hers would make the cut.

But that was all. She continued to be a great contributor to our discussions, and swore she got lots out of being a member, but no more writing happened. (She even retired from the Sunday School volunteering.) Until....

Our isolation for the pandemic began shortly before our school holidays, when the writers' group normally takes a break, as some members are mothers of young children. After the holidays, with Australia still in lockdown, we eventually had a video meeting. To my amazement, Angie turned up with this poem and a few shorter ones. The result of doing some reading on mysticism and meditation, she said. I was blown away by the beauty of them all, and immediately asked her permission to share.

Others in the group – some who'd mainly only been writing in our fortnightly sessions and not between times – had also become surprisingly more engaged with their writing since we'd last met in person: revising previous writing, reading books for writers (from our group library) and writing new things, such as this.

 Angie told me in a message, after I exclaimed about all this:
You have awakened us to the beauty of poetry, and shown us how to reach into our souls to discover pearls within. Thank you for your patience and wisdom. We've been slow to respond, it's true. But we are getting in the flow now.

Her lovely words of thanks were very sweet to receive. Yet, while I don't discount my influence, I think that these new developments must also result from the period of isolation. And so I'm reminded of the wise advice a fellow poet once gave me, when I was complaining of a lack of inspiration. (It was long before the days of the internet, let alone regular prompts.) Knowing I was very busy, she said – and it bears repeating, even for those of us who do now use prompts – 'The Muse needs quiet in order to be heard.'

************

Our Own Success Stories

(This will be an occasional addendum to Wild Fridays.)

Ayala Zarfjian, of the blog A Sun-Kissed Life, recently won an award for her book Second Chances published by Golden Dragonfly Press – namely, the Next Generation Indie Award in the Poetry category. (I found out on Instagram.)

Congratulations, Ayala!

For more about the book, including the opportunity to buy it, click here.


Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors.

Wild Fridays #19: I Wish I'd Written This

Show Me An Old Rebel 

Do not show me a young rebel,
whose eyes are bright
and whose tail is bushy.

Young rebels are fine and good,
but they are merely doing
what the young are meant to do.

Show me an old rebel.
One who keeps punching
when his hands are arthritic,
when her hair is white,
when his friends are all dead,
when her knees are shot,
when it hurts him to pee,
when her shoulders are so bad
that it would be much easier to punch down
than to punch up.

Show me an old rebel
who keeps standing up after being knocked down
over and over again,
year after year,
decade after decade,
who after the thousandth blow
merely spits out a tooth
and says "Son, you have no idea what you're dealing with,
do you?"

Are you a young rebel?
Are you Sticking it to The Man?
Are you upsetting the gray brainiacs
and knocking over their word castles?

That is fine.
Youth will youth.

But show me a young rebel
who became an old rebel,
who stuck with it through the setbacks
and the beatings and betrayals,
and the beatings and betrayals,
who watched the hippies become yuppies
and the protesters become pundits
and still kept a fire lit
amid the monsoons of infiltration
and the hurricanes of disappointment.
Who will close their tired eyes for a final time
without ever once having cast them to the ground
or peered up in imploring subordination.

That, my friends,
that is a true spirit.

If you are still a fiery rebel
even as everything is ripped away from you,
I will be humbled and awed by you,
because I will know that you will carry that with you to the grave.
And I will know that whatever you find on the other side
will be met
with that same defiant glare.

And I will sing your song when you are gone.

– Caitlin Johnstone 



Yes, I’m somewhat enamoured of Caitllin Johnstone just now. This poem turned up in my inbox this morning, and I immediately gave a mental cheer for the sentiments expressed. In fact I’d love to think I am one of the old rebels she depicts!

When I visited the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1998, my husband Andrew – who had been there before, and was keen to show it to me – obviously found Lincoln's statue and the Gettysburg Address deeply inspiring. It’s not that I didn’t, but I was surprised and even more moved by videos of the great freedom marches of the late 20th Century, in support of racial equality and women’s rights – so moved that uncontrollable tears poured down my face as I gazed.  As a young woman in Australia, I took part in our version of such marches, and in some of the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and later peace marches, too.

Further, I’ve always found the Marseillaise the most stirring of all national anthems – even though a translation of the words, when I looked for one, revealed them to be very bloodthirsty, which gave me pause. I fire up in much the same way to some of the songs from Les Miserables. I want to grab a flag and start defending some barricades! (But do I want to kill or die? Well, no.)

Recently, a psychic who had only just met me channelled the phrase, referring to me, 'a woman who wants freedom'. It hit me in the middle of the chest, as a core truth about me. And yet, when it comes right down to it, I have to admit I’m pretty law-abiding despite some fiery convictions. And when I look back over my life, I see very few restrictions on me. So I’m not sure where this rebel spirit and freedom impulse come from, but this poem thrilled me this morning.

Perhaps that makes sense. After all, poets have always been in the forefront of freedom movements. If we don’t march, we do write. I remember Joan Baez (a great revolutionary in both words and actions) saying, when she herself had become grey-haired, that she had been wrong to try and shame Bob Dylan into coming out and marching with her and others. ‘He was writing the songs we marched to,’ she said, ‘It wasn’t his job to be on the streets as well.’ (Or something like that. I’m quoting from memory.)

I will aver that it's true I watched 'the hippies become yuppies / and the protesters become pundits / and still kept a fire lit', even if I have more stamina these days for signing petitions than marching.

As Caitlin herself told us, in the post I shared last Friday – and as she so exemplifies – our words can be our weapons: our magic wands, ‘mightier than the sword’.

Yes! White hair and arthritis (I have both) notwithstanding: ‘Aux armes, citoyens'!  



 

(Yes, that's me – posing defiantly in 2016. The graduation which the t-shirt refers to actually happened in 1962, when I was a young rebel.)

 Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. However, Caitlin Johnson states at her blog that 'Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.'

Wild Fridays #15: I Wish I'd Written This

Pandemic

pandemic
stifling a cough
on the checkout line

deli encounter
giving my neighbor
the Vulcan salute 

pandemic meal plan
stretching the pasta and sauce
to last a second day

pandemic
my hands raw
from washing

pandemic news
I take a break
to do my taxes

panning for gold
finding hand wipes
inside my purse

pandemic
eating all
the chocolate

out for a quick walk
a wren warbles on the top
of a weeping cherry

pandemic
eating days-old
pizza

pandemic
even the deer
disappear

pandemic
the dogwoods
wait to bloom

pandemic
the anxiety
of extroverts

pandemic
millions of lab rats
in cages

home not alone
a couple watches TV
in separate rooms

empty cities
the sound of a virus
spreading

pandemic spring
the weeping cherries
bloom without me

– By Amy Losak

This is a small selection of haiku and senryu inspired by the current pandemic, which Amy has shared in my facebook group Haiku on Friday as well as on her own facebook page. (Sometimes she goes for the traditional 5-7-5 syllables per line; most are simply short-long-short, which is acceptable nowadays too.) Although they can't help but build up a collective picture, each is to be read separately. I just grabbed some of the ones I like best – so far – from even more which she's been posting over recent days. (These were not necessarily written to follow each other in the sequence you see here.) I don't expect she'll run out of inspiration any time soon!

The first two above were labelled as being written before the stay-at-home orders, and I read them in a facebook group she recently asked me to join: Haiku in the time of COVID-19.  (The group is administered by Johannes S. H. Berg, whose own one-liner there is superb: 'we'll meet as winds over the mustard field'.)

In fact, although I plucked individual pieces from Amy's various postings, the sequence I arrived at is roughly chronological and does (even unintentionally) reflect the progress of our response to the disease, from stifling a cough at the checkout line (before lockdown) to couples watching TV in separate rooms!

And yes, by now a number of people are writing on this topic – after all, it's the subject uppermost in all our minds – and even writing haiku on it. Just now, of course, members of this community have been focusing our attention on it together, in response to Magaly's Weekly Scribblings #15. (Scroll back one post if by any chance you missed that.) And I have recently discovered that Rajani, who blogs at Thotpurge and is no stranger to this community, has been doing a wonderful series of haibun since March 24, recording her reflections during India's lockdown, under the ongoing title Curfew – deeply thoughtful and original work, as one has come to expect from her.

But Amy's haiku on the subject, which began even earlier, were the first I saw – surely among the first to be written so consistently, with such commitment to documenting all the small yet momentous experiences involved. I was immediately enraptured, by the verses and the whole concept. I love the pithiness with which she uses this form to address the subject; and I love that she is doing such an extensive series of them, presenting the topic with many fine shades of meaning. I like that I instantly identify with so many of them (e.g. the third above) and also the momentary surprises, or surprised recognition, in others (such as 'pandemic / the anxiety / of extroverts'... I'm an introvert, you see).

Most of them are senryu, dealing with human behaviour, sometimes with a humorous twist.  The few nature-based haiku here might not seem to add up logically – but then, when was poetry about logic? In haiku, juxtapositions of ideas or images can allow for a wealth of meaning in the unsaid. So the dogwoods and deer, whilst presumably factual, might also be suggestive of a mood; and the final piece above is all too clear, and poignant.

When I asked her for some details about herself and her writing, Amy kindly sent me the following, adapted from her bio-sketch on the Haiku Foundation’s website  (its registry of poets):

Amy Losak is a veteran public relations professional specializing in healthcare and science media relations. After decades of excelling at top PR agencies in New York City, today Amy freelances and consults.

Amy's mother, Sydell Rosenberg , was a New York teacher and published writer, and a charter member of the Haiku Society of America in 1968. After Syd's unexpected death in 1996, her family decided to publish one of her poetry manuscripts for children. One of Syd's long-held dreams had been to publish a picture book.

In 2018, Penny Candy Books released Syd's H Is For Haiku: A Treasury of Haiku from A to Z, with illustrations by Sawsan Chalabi. This collection consists of 26 "city haiku"; a number were first published decades ago in leading journals. It also includes a short essay by Sydell which first appeared in Wind Chimes #3, 1981, and a new introduction by Amy (available on Amazon, etc.).

H Is For Haiku has been honored by the National Council for Teachers of English as a "Notable Poetry Book" in 2019.

Amy also is a member of a group of award-winning Jewish children's authors and illustrators, all women, The Book Meshuggenahs.

Today, Amy writes and publishes her own short poetry. She hopes to publish a second picture book that combines her and Sydell’s haiku. 

Penny Candy Books also has on its website a very nice, and more personal account, of Amy's own development as a writer, as well as the details about her mother's book.

At The Book Meshuggenahs, Amy says (and I very much agree):  

Haiku poems are the briefest form of poetry, but arguably the most expansive. While they are traditionally taught to be written in three lines of 5-7-5 syllables, today’s haiku are usually shorter. Content–capturing moments, experiences, feelings, observations–is more important than syllable count. Haiku poetry celebrates “small moments” in our daily lives, and makes them “big.”

It seems to me a particularly apt form of expression whilst so many of us are in social isolation, inevitably turning our immediate focus on the small and everyday, even while staying up-to-date on the global picture.


Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors.

Wild Fridays #1: I Wish I'd Written This

I Am Back to Open the Old Pages

Suddenly I welcome myself back.
The reference point is no longer seen,
and last night’s dream is full of illusory images.
The walls that help stop the winds and the rain
have formed a corner of warm space.
The flickering candles
evoke the incense perfume of a New Year’s Eve.
It rains.
Inside the house, dinner is served.
A few leaves of coriander
bring back the forms of the homeland.
Suddenly all frontiers are removed
just because of the midday storm,
and everything is revealed.
Isn’t today’s sun the same as yesterday’s?

Birds seen against the color of the purple evening.
The two ends of time join
and tenderly push me
into a new opening.
The curtains of the evening,
destined to catch space,
suddenly become weeping willows.
Clouds are calling each other
to meet at the mountain’s summit.

I am back. I find myself opening the old pages.
The blazing sunset has burned up all certificates.
Wordy mantras have proven to be powerless.
The wind is blowing hard.
Out there at the end of the sky,
the flapping wings of some strange bird.
Where am I?
The point of concentration is remembrance.
The real home is childhood with its grassy hills.
The violet tia to leaves
contain an Autumn that is fully ripe.
Your small feet treading the path
are like drops of dew on young leaves.
My letters sent to you
are like the church bells.
A golden sky of flowers is contained in a mustard seed.
I join my palms
and let
a flower bloom
wonderfully in my heart.

By Thich Nhat Hanh
from Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems. 

This poet would be a well-known name to many of you, I think – though best known as a Buddhist priest and teacher.

(I have it on good authority that his name is pronounced as in the English spelling Tick Nah Tarn, with the first and third syllables stressed.)

Plum Village, the website of his ‘mindfulness practice centre’ of the same name in the south of France, says of him:

Zen Master Thich Nat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered around the world for his pioneering teachings on mindfulness, global ethics and peace.

The section on his life story quotes him as saying, ‘Our own life has to be our message’ and adds:

Ordained as monk aged 16 in Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh soon envisioned a kind of engaged Buddhism that could respond directly to the needs of society.
He was a prominent teacher and social activist in his home country before finding himself exiled for calling for peace.
In the West he played a key role in introducing mindfulness and created mindful communities (sanghas) around the world. His teachings have impacted politicians, business leaders, activists, teachers and countless others.

Wikipedia tells us that in the sixties he taught courses, at different times, at Princeton, Columbia and Cornell Universities.

In 1967 Martin Luther King nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize (but some of the conditions for nomination were breached and the prize was not awarded that year).

We are told that Thich Nat Hanh has published over 100 books, including The Miracle of Mindfulness and Peace is Every Step, which are described as classics. 

This book (the ebook version) was a Christmas present to myself. I read the title poem somewhere and decided I wanted more. The title poem is wonderful, but I suspect it is well-known. I know that if you Google it you’ll find it easily, whereas this one isn’t so easily found and may be new to you.

And it seems to me that, although Thich Nat Hanh is Buddhist – a Buddhist monk, in fact – the reflections and reminiscences in this poem would resemble what many of us have experienced recently with family gatherings for Christmas or Hannukah. I expect that, whatever our spiritual traditions, we are all conscious of New Year’s Eve, which he mentions. I’m sure many will also relate to his nostalgia for the childhood home.

He suggests that things in the present are perhaps not so great:

‘Wordy mantras have proven to be powerless.
The wind is blowing hard.’

We can relate to that too! There are the personal losses and traumas which many of us have suffered. Grief is a very individual journey. At least we have poetry and stories to help us through – the catharsis of our own and the comfort of others’. Good friendships help too, not least the online bonds we forge through groups such as this. Then there are the ongoing global crises of various kinds, the apparent inadequacies of governments to address them well, and the deep anxieties they cause. I admit that I personally have been writing some unusually (for me) despairing poems lately.

Yet also there are scientists and activists working constantly for solutions to our unprecedented problems; activists, educators and journalists working hard to make people aware of the desperate needs and how to address them; and already some particular solutions to particular parts of the mess are being implemented. It’s hard to avoid despair, but I believe we must resist feeling helpless. I think it’s important to find what oases of joy and peace we can, not only as urgent respite, but to give us the strength to go on.

Hopefully the pleasures of family, home, tradition and nostalgia – or at least our fond memories thereof – can fortify us against whatever trials we face in the coming year.

Let’s read the poem one more time, and return a moment longer to that ‘corner of warm space’.

************

After preparing this post well ahead of time, I visited Sherry’s last prompt for 'imaginary garden with real toads' and found her making similar points very strongly, with a particular focus on the planetary crisis we face, and pointing us to some powerful possibilities for continuing to address it. If you haven’t read that yet, please do.


Material shared in this post is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. The picture of the book cover is used according to Fair Use. The photo of Thich Nhat Hanh is shared under Creative Commons Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0