It's a good day to be alive.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
North American Time by Adrienne Rich
North American Time
by Adrienne Rich
I
When my dreams showed signs
of becoming
politically correct
no unruly images
escaping beyond borders
when walking in the street I found my
themes cut out for me
knew what I would not report
for fear of enemies' usage
then I began to wonder
II
Everything we write
will be used against us
or against those we love.
These are the terms,
take them or leave them.
Poetry never stood a chance
of standing outside history.
One line typed twenty years ago
can be blazed on a wall in spraypaint
glorify art as detachment
or torture of those we
did not love but also
did not want to kill
We move but our words stand
become responsible
and this is verbal privilege
III
Try sitting at a typewriter
one calm summer evening
at a table by a window
in the country, try pretending
your time does not exist
that you are simply you
that the imagination simply strays
like a great moth, unintentional
try telling yourself
you are not accountable
to the life of your tribe
the breath of your planet
IV
It doesn't matter what you think.
Words are found responsible
all you can do is choose them
or choose to remain silent. Or, you never had a choice,
which is why the words that do stand
are responsible
and this is verbal privilege
V
Suppose you want to write
of a woman braiding
another woman's hair —
straightdown, or with beads and shells
in three-strand plaits or corn-rows—
you had better know the thickness
the length the pattern
why she decides to braid her hair
how it is done to her
what country it happens in
what else happens in that country
You have to know these things
VI
Poet, sister: words—
whether we like it or not —
stand in a time of their own.
no use protesting I wrote that
before Kollontai was exiled
Rosa Luxembourg, Malcolm,
Anna Mae Aquash, murdered,
before Treblinka, Birkenau,
Hiroshima, before Sharpeville,
Biafra, Bangla Desh, Boston,
Atlanta, Soweto, Beirut, Assam
--those faces, names of places
sheared from the almanac
of North American time
VII I am thinking this in a country
where words are stolen out of mouths
as bread is stolen out of mouths
where poets don't go to jail
for being poets, but for being
dark-skinned, female, poor.
I am writing this in a time
when anything we write
can be used against those we love
where the context is never given
though we try to explain, over and over
For the sake of poetry at least I need to know these things
VIII Sometimes, gliding at night
in a plane over New York City
I have felt like some messenger
called to enter, called to engage
this field of light and darkness.
A grandiose idea, born of flying.
But underneath the grandiose idea
is the thought that what I must engage
after the plane has rage onto the tarmac
after climbing my old stair, sitting down
at my old window
is meant to break my heart and reduce me to silence.
IX
In North America time stumbles on
without moving, only releasing
a certain North American pain.
Julia de Burgos wrote:
That my grandfather was a slave
is my grief; had he been a master
that would have been my shame.
A poet's words, hung over a door
in North America, in the year
nineteen-eighty-three.
The almost-full moon rises
timeless speaking of change
out of the Bronx, the Harlem River
the drowned towns of the Quabbin
the pilfered burial mounds
the toxic swamps, the testing-grounds
and I start to speak again.
by Adrienne Rich
I
When my dreams showed signs
of becoming
politically correct
no unruly images
escaping beyond borders
when walking in the street I found my
themes cut out for me
knew what I would not report
for fear of enemies' usage
then I began to wonder
II
Everything we write
will be used against us
or against those we love.
These are the terms,
take them or leave them.
Poetry never stood a chance
of standing outside history.
One line typed twenty years ago
can be blazed on a wall in spraypaint
glorify art as detachment
or torture of those we
did not love but also
did not want to kill
We move but our words stand
become responsible
and this is verbal privilege
III
Try sitting at a typewriter
one calm summer evening
at a table by a window
in the country, try pretending
your time does not exist
that you are simply you
that the imagination simply strays
like a great moth, unintentional
try telling yourself
you are not accountable
to the life of your tribe
the breath of your planet
IV
It doesn't matter what you think.
Words are found responsible
all you can do is choose them
or choose to remain silent. Or, you never had a choice,
which is why the words that do stand
are responsible
and this is verbal privilege
V
Suppose you want to write
of a woman braiding
another woman's hair —
straightdown, or with beads and shells
in three-strand plaits or corn-rows—
you had better know the thickness
the length the pattern
why she decides to braid her hair
how it is done to her
what country it happens in
what else happens in that country
You have to know these things
VI
Poet, sister: words—
whether we like it or not —
stand in a time of their own.
no use protesting I wrote that
before Kollontai was exiled
Rosa Luxembourg, Malcolm,
Anna Mae Aquash, murdered,
before Treblinka, Birkenau,
Hiroshima, before Sharpeville,
Biafra, Bangla Desh, Boston,
Atlanta, Soweto, Beirut, Assam
--those faces, names of places
sheared from the almanac
of North American time
VII I am thinking this in a country
where words are stolen out of mouths
as bread is stolen out of mouths
where poets don't go to jail
for being poets, but for being
dark-skinned, female, poor.
I am writing this in a time
when anything we write
can be used against those we love
where the context is never given
though we try to explain, over and over
For the sake of poetry at least I need to know these things
VIII Sometimes, gliding at night
in a plane over New York City
I have felt like some messenger
called to enter, called to engage
this field of light and darkness.
A grandiose idea, born of flying.
But underneath the grandiose idea
is the thought that what I must engage
after the plane has rage onto the tarmac
after climbing my old stair, sitting down
at my old window
is meant to break my heart and reduce me to silence.
IX
In North America time stumbles on
without moving, only releasing
a certain North American pain.
Julia de Burgos wrote:
That my grandfather was a slave
is my grief; had he been a master
that would have been my shame.
A poet's words, hung over a door
in North America, in the year
nineteen-eighty-three.
The almost-full moon rises
timeless speaking of change
out of the Bronx, the Harlem River
the drowned towns of the Quabbin
the pilfered burial mounds
the toxic swamps, the testing-grounds
and I start to speak again.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
And Now for the Annual Solstice Nervous Breakdown
It's that time of year again. Crazy beautiful, with long warm days, and cool nights; sunny, azure morning skies giving way to clouds in the afternoon, blessed rain in the early evening. In past Junes, this would be the time when we go to bed with the inimitable fragrance of the entire state of New Mexico on fire wafting through the windows. But not this year. This year, everything is wet and green. It is an indescribable luxury.
The days are long. Very long. First light comes around 4:30, and last light fades well after my husband and I have retired for the night. This should, theoretically, be the beginning of the sweetest part of the year: Plentiful harvests, gorgeous weather, plenty of food for goats and all living creatures, warm, soft air in the day, cool, frangrant air in the starry, starry nights, barbecues, pizza parties in the horno, storytelling around the firepit. Baby chicks, baby goats, baby bunnies running everywhere. Pronghorn and elk herds on the road as one comes home at night. Farmers' markets booming, and people constantly reassuring us that what we do has value and meaning and makes a positive difference in the life of this valley. Young, healthy, vibrant interns learning so much, working so hard, wanting so sincerely to make a difference in the world.
Unfortunately, this also tends to be the time of year when my long day's journey into night peaks.
Perhaps it's because we are just, finally, coming down from May, arguably our toughest, busiest, most demanding month of the season. Everything happens in May. We have our most intense period of bed preparation, planting and transplanting; the farmers markets start; goat babies are born; new interns arrive and need to be trained; the work increases dramatically. This year, as often happens, May leaked well into June. But this year, unlike last, we have a great group of interns and an apprentice to help see us through. Sure, we're still behind on everything, but when are we not? The goat babies are doing well, the chicks are growing, we're in the "market groove," and the harvest is still a manageable, modest size.
Perhaps it's the fact that things continue to break down faster than we can fix them, problems continue to materialize at a faster rate than they can be solved.
Perhaps it's the fact that the front door blew open the other night, stayed open all night, and a lovely, furry rat we've named Joffrey has made himself at home in the house. Yeah, you read that right. There's a rat living in my house. Ah, the beauty of the natural world. Until we catch him, my husband's and my sleep ranges from bad-to-nonexistent. [update: when rat babies appeared, we changed Joffrey's name to Cersei]
It doesn't help that I'm just so damned tired all the time. Some online quiz tells me I have adrenal exhaustion. Yeah, sure. Okay. Well seven years of the greatest cumulative stress and the most difficult, intense work of my life might have something to do with this.
Perhaps it's because this is when things just start getting a little more nutty than we can handle around year. We thought we might avoid that fate this year, but no.
Two nights ago, we were all wakened by the fierce, sharp crackle of a thunderbolt. It was so extremely loud and incredibly close that we were certain the attendant lightening must have struck our wind tower. But that was the second experience of the universe messing with us. The first happened earlier that evening when our beloved and extremely competent apprentice, whom we've been counting on to stay through November, informed us that she is very unhappy here and that we, and the stressful life we have created and continue to create here each day, is a major part of the reason. Hence, she may bail. Soon.
This hurts on all kinds of levels, not the least of which is that my hubbie and I don't do abandonment well. It's way too woven into our DNA, and we had yet to fully heal from the worst ones we've survived when we moved onto the land and it became an annual occurrence.
Another level, of course, is that we admire and deeply care about this woman. We don't want to be the cause of emotional suffering for her.
Then there's the very real fact that, if she leaves now, we are really screwed in terms of the work for the season. We'll get by. We always do. But it will be a hell of a lot harder.
But honestly, deep down, I think the hardest bit is being told you're pushing someone away because of who you are. Not because of some specific thing you said or did, some pattern of behavior that's changeable, but because you and your life are the way they are.
And the way they are is stressful, although this year has been much less so than previous years. And although we can definitely concede her point, we're just not sure there's very much we can do about it. She hasn't reached that point in her life wherein work being stressful is just normal, and for most people, unavoidable (although, to be fair, she has survived the extraordinary "Whiplash"-like stress of music school; doubtless she's still recovering from that).
That's not to say I wouldn't like our lives to be much LESS stressful--we're both working to that end--but the main thing we need for that to happen is to have more people here, full-time, committed to this vision and way of life. Without that, just to survive, we have to take on sufficient work that is, well, pretty much always too much for us.
I know this entry isn't very coherent. I'm terribly fried. In fact, we've renamed Friday (tomorrow) "Fried-day." Just figured I should check in and let you know how things are going on my end of the world.
Oh, and I did finish another draft of my Sleepy Hollow spec. I'm waiting to hear back about it from my mentor. Fingers crossed. Writing remains my joy and salvation.
The days are long. Very long. First light comes around 4:30, and last light fades well after my husband and I have retired for the night. This should, theoretically, be the beginning of the sweetest part of the year: Plentiful harvests, gorgeous weather, plenty of food for goats and all living creatures, warm, soft air in the day, cool, frangrant air in the starry, starry nights, barbecues, pizza parties in the horno, storytelling around the firepit. Baby chicks, baby goats, baby bunnies running everywhere. Pronghorn and elk herds on the road as one comes home at night. Farmers' markets booming, and people constantly reassuring us that what we do has value and meaning and makes a positive difference in the life of this valley. Young, healthy, vibrant interns learning so much, working so hard, wanting so sincerely to make a difference in the world.
Unfortunately, this also tends to be the time of year when my long day's journey into night peaks.
Perhaps it's because we are just, finally, coming down from May, arguably our toughest, busiest, most demanding month of the season. Everything happens in May. We have our most intense period of bed preparation, planting and transplanting; the farmers markets start; goat babies are born; new interns arrive and need to be trained; the work increases dramatically. This year, as often happens, May leaked well into June. But this year, unlike last, we have a great group of interns and an apprentice to help see us through. Sure, we're still behind on everything, but when are we not? The goat babies are doing well, the chicks are growing, we're in the "market groove," and the harvest is still a manageable, modest size.
Perhaps it's the fact that things continue to break down faster than we can fix them, problems continue to materialize at a faster rate than they can be solved.
Perhaps it's the fact that the front door blew open the other night, stayed open all night, and a lovely, furry rat we've named Joffrey has made himself at home in the house. Yeah, you read that right. There's a rat living in my house. Ah, the beauty of the natural world. Until we catch him, my husband's and my sleep ranges from bad-to-nonexistent. [update: when rat babies appeared, we changed Joffrey's name to Cersei]
It doesn't help that I'm just so damned tired all the time. Some online quiz tells me I have adrenal exhaustion. Yeah, sure. Okay. Well seven years of the greatest cumulative stress and the most difficult, intense work of my life might have something to do with this.
Perhaps it's because this is when things just start getting a little more nutty than we can handle around year. We thought we might avoid that fate this year, but no.
Two nights ago, we were all wakened by the fierce, sharp crackle of a thunderbolt. It was so extremely loud and incredibly close that we were certain the attendant lightening must have struck our wind tower. But that was the second experience of the universe messing with us. The first happened earlier that evening when our beloved and extremely competent apprentice, whom we've been counting on to stay through November, informed us that she is very unhappy here and that we, and the stressful life we have created and continue to create here each day, is a major part of the reason. Hence, she may bail. Soon.
This hurts on all kinds of levels, not the least of which is that my hubbie and I don't do abandonment well. It's way too woven into our DNA, and we had yet to fully heal from the worst ones we've survived when we moved onto the land and it became an annual occurrence.
Another level, of course, is that we admire and deeply care about this woman. We don't want to be the cause of emotional suffering for her.
Then there's the very real fact that, if she leaves now, we are really screwed in terms of the work for the season. We'll get by. We always do. But it will be a hell of a lot harder.
But honestly, deep down, I think the hardest bit is being told you're pushing someone away because of who you are. Not because of some specific thing you said or did, some pattern of behavior that's changeable, but because you and your life are the way they are.
And the way they are is stressful, although this year has been much less so than previous years. And although we can definitely concede her point, we're just not sure there's very much we can do about it. She hasn't reached that point in her life wherein work being stressful is just normal, and for most people, unavoidable (although, to be fair, she has survived the extraordinary "Whiplash"-like stress of music school; doubtless she's still recovering from that).
That's not to say I wouldn't like our lives to be much LESS stressful--we're both working to that end--but the main thing we need for that to happen is to have more people here, full-time, committed to this vision and way of life. Without that, just to survive, we have to take on sufficient work that is, well, pretty much always too much for us.
I know this entry isn't very coherent. I'm terribly fried. In fact, we've renamed Friday (tomorrow) "Fried-day." Just figured I should check in and let you know how things are going on my end of the world.
Oh, and I did finish another draft of my Sleepy Hollow spec. I'm waiting to hear back about it from my mentor. Fingers crossed. Writing remains my joy and salvation.
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