Category: writing

SoCS: “yes, and” and “no”

When you are doing improvisation exercises in theater, there is an understanding that you will do “yes, and” to build on whatever came before you. It’s the way that you keep the improvisation going.

I have found, though, that saying “yes, and” on a regular basis in life quickly leads to being overwhelmed.

Sometimes, you need to say “no” – no matter how worthy the cause. Or, at least, “not right now.”

I managed to illustrate this lesson over these last few months. I had planned to spend them concentrating on poetry, learning to market my first chapbook, Hearts, and preparing for the Boiler House Poets Collective residency in late September-early October.

What happened was that I wound up heavily involved with the launch of the Third Act Upstate New York working group and needed to devote extra time to my activities with the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton, where I sing and also sit on the Board.

I’m not sorry that I did these things; they were valuable and I gained new skills and friendships. They were also all expressions of things that are close to my heart and ways to serve others. It was just that saying “yes, and” a bit too much led to a lot of stress and was unsustainable for more than a few months. It also, unfortunately, meant that something had to give, which turned out being my efforts at book marketing, which was the only thing I could give up without having to sacrifice a group goal.

Realizing all of this, I was able to say “no, at least for now” to being on the Communications Committee for Third Act Upstate NY after our successful launch. The Boiler House Poets Collective residency was a great experience, with the BHPC members coming together to divvy up the work to prepare for next year that had largely fallen to me this year. (I really do need to get to a wrap-up post for the BHPC residency. Coming soon…) Madrigal Choir made it through our first concert of the season with flying colors. The next few weeks will be busy as we prepare and present our annual Lessons & Carols concerts the first weekend in December; there will also be Board work ongoing.

Still, things will be calmer and more manageable than the last few months have been.

I’m excited – and a bit nervous – about an upcoming manuscript consultation for my full-length collection, which I’m hoping will clarify where to seek publication for it. I have a bit more editing to do in advance of that. I’m getting some writing done with the fall season of Binghamton Poetry Project up now and have some more editing and possible new work following up from the BHPC residency.

Oh, and Top of JC’s Mind! Although I’m perpetually behind where I would like to be, I was able to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the blog in September, including the launch of joannecorey.com as an author site with access to TJCM as a feature. No worries if you continue to visit here at topofjcsmind.wordpress.com. That is the permanent address of the blog for all time – or while we still use this technology.

There are some other projects waiting in the wings and, of course, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s are coming and I have done literally no planning for them so far.

I don’t know if I can find the impetus to go back to trying to learn book marketing or not. I may have used up my energy for learning new things and being outside my comfort zone for the year.

Maybe if I manage a few months of “no, not now” instead of “yes, and” I’ll be able to recharge…
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week was “no” used alone or as part of another word. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/10/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-28-2023/

Concert (and American) Reflections

Yesterday, the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton presented the first concert of our 45th anniversary season, “American Reflections.”

Our artistic director, Bruce Borton, chose the program to commemorate a number of anniversaries. We sang a set of pieces by William Billings in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party; Billings was a Boston resident at the time and two of the pieces we sang directly referenced the revolutionary period. Special guest soprano Christina Taylor sang four settings of Walt Whitman poems by Ned Rorem, in honor of Rorem’s centennial. We also sang Randall Thompson’s “The Testament of Freedom,” a setting of Thomas Jefferson texts composed in 1943 for the University of Virginia’s glee club commemorating the bicentennial of their founder Jefferson’s birth. We rounded out our all-American program with pieces from Aaron Copland’s opera, The Tender Land.

I’m pleased to say that the concert went well and was enthusiastically received by our audience. We owe our thanks to Theresa Lee-Whiting, who relinquished her role as singer and president of Madrigal Choir to serve as guest conductor for this concert after Dr. Borton needed to take medical leave. We were grateful that Dr. Borton was feeling well enough to attend the concert and hope that he was proud of the work we had done.

I admit that rehearsing and singing this program had its challenges from a historical perspective. For example, in “Stomp Your Foot” from The Tender Land, the text is very explicit about the devaluing of the work of “ladies” versus men. The story is set in the farmlands of the 1930s Depression era, so it is accurate for the times, if a bit galling to sing these days.

The more problematic text for me was Jefferson’s words in “The Testament of Freedom.” The bulk of the text Thompson chose to set is from the “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms.” There are a number of references to bondage or slavery as a consequence of the colonists not taking up arms against the British. For example, “We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.” It’s difficult to sing the text with the knowledge that Jefferson was holding hundreds of men, women, and children in “hereditary bondage” as he wrote these words. He also writes that the colonists must take up arms “for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our forefathers and ourselves,” as though the work of those he enslaved was not also adding to his wealth, although he would have considered those people part of his property. I wonder if Thompson would have chosen the passages to set differently if more modern scholarship on the colonial and Revolutionary War times had been available to him in the 1940s.

Given that he was composing this work during World War II, the final movement, using text from a letter Jefferson wrote to John Adams in 1821, is poignant. “And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them…” Some of the young men premiering this work would have been about to enter the armed forces to fight in Europe or the Pacific theater. Both my and my spouse’s fathers were in the service during World War II eighty years ago. It was sobering for me to sing these words at a time when democracy is again assailed by authoritarian and fascist influences in Europe and here in the United States.

The fourth movement begins with these words from Jefferson to Adams, “I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance…” On July 4, 1826, both former presidents died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence they both signed.

May light and liberty – and music – continue to advance.

SoCS: Woman Prime

When I saw that Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week was “prime,” the first thing that leapt into my mind was Gail DiMaggio’s first book of poetry, Woman Prime, which won the Permafrost Prize from the University of Alaska.

Gail was one of the original members of the Boiler House Poets Collective, now retired from attending our reunion residencies, but still a much-admired legacy member. I especially admire her ekphrastic work and her remarkable ability to write about difficult topics with insight and grace.

I invite you to check out Woman Prime or Gail’s other work and experience its power for yourself.

You’re welcome!
*****
Join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/10/06/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-7-2023/

A poem for Banned Books Week

In honor of Banned Books Week, I’m sharing my poem “The Banned Bookmobile” which was first published in the Fall-Winter 2022 issue of Rat’s Ass Review.

THE BANNED BOOKMOBILE by Joanne Corey
 
Do you need a special license to drive
a bus of books? Children
 
are more fragile; books,
more combustible.
 
Children’s minds need fire,
need those books to start a blaze.
 
How else to know that a pair of penguin
dads can raise a chick?
 
That witches and wizards can be evil
or good or somewhere in the flawed between?
 
That even the bluest eye cannot
confer beauty and love?
 
That it’s a sin to kill
a mockingbird?


(You can read a bit of backstory for this poem in my blog post here.)

BHPC ’23 reading at The Bear & Bee!

Yesterday morning, the 2023 members of the Boiler House Poets Collective did a reading at The Bear & Bee Bookshop in North Adams, Massachusetts.

It was a lot of fun! We had a mix of family and friends, folks from the community, members of the writers’ group that meets at the Bear & Bee, even someone who came in after a yoga class at the studio next door.

I acted as emcee. We presented in reverse alphabetical order: Wendy Stewart. Eva Schegulla, Kyle Laws (who was unable to attend in person, so I read her poems), Hope Jordan, Mary Beth Hines, Nancy Edelstein (who presented a video of her artwork in relationship with light), Jessica Dubey, Merrill Douglas, Jessica Bane Robert, and me, Joanne Corey. Okay, I broke with the reverse alphabetical order so I could go last and moderate for questions and answers. It wound up that there were no questions, so my job was easy.

Several of us, including me, chose work that deals with the North Adams area. Several chose to incorporate the themes of light and darkness, which ties into Nancy’s work and video and which has been a theme for us this year during our residency. It was a joy to hear so many voices and perspectives concentrated in a short amount of time.

Already making plans for next year, so stay tuned!

Marika Maijala at MASS MoCA

I am here at MASS MoCA, in residence with the Boiler House Poets Collective, where there are always new things happening. MASS MoCA has recently opened the Research & Development Store, which yesterday hosted an artist talk by Marika Maijala, a Finnish artist, illustrator, and author that I was fortunate to attend.

Marika was in the United States for the first time to appear at the Brooklyn Book Festival in celebration of the English translation of her book Rosie Runs, her first children’s book for which she also wrote the text. (Translation by Mia Spangenberg) She was very engaging, self-effacing, and friendly in her talk and in answering numerous questions. She very kindly signed books for us with special messages.

Then, we were all privileged to go to the also recently established studio and gallery of Gary Lichtenstein Editions. During the day, Marika and Gary, an artist with over forty-five years of experience in silkscreen printing, had collaborated to design a new print for the occasion and we got to see Gary do some pulls as they collaborated on the final color run. It was amazing to see Gary’s skill with the press and the subtlety of color he was able to achieve!

I was so grateful to see and hear from both Marika Maijala and Gary LIchtenstein. You can find the work of many artists working in collaboration with Gary at the gallery in North Adams or online at the link above. You can find Rosie Runs at an independent bookstore near you or online at Amazon and other sites. It’s been translated into quite a number of languages, so check to see if it is available in the language of the children who are dear to you.

New Poem in Mania Magazine!

Yesterday, the Boiler House Poets Collective began their annual workshop-in-residence with The Studios at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) In North Adams.

Yesterday, my new poem “drinks” appeared in Issue Two of Mania Magazine. Mania Magazine is “a small, independent literary magazine dedicated to your 3AM works!”

It’s ironic that it came out on the opening day of our residency because this poem was written during the 2015 residency with Jeffrey Levine of Tupelo Press at The Studios, only a few weeks after residencies began, that gave birth to the BHPC. (Anyone who is curious can read my blog posts about that experience.) The short version is that I was in waaaaaaaay over my head, and was not sleeping well and overwhelmed most of the time. I did not write this poem at 3 AM but my brain was definitely in that mode, resulting in a somewhat atypical poem for me. I’ve sent it out a few times over the years to journals that had a more expermimental or quirky bent but it has never been picked up until Mania arrived on the scene.

This is only their second issue and I’m so pleased to be included. There’s prose, poetry, art and photography – and you can read and enjoy at any time of the day or night.

Even 3 AM…

reflections on ten years of blogging

As I promised in this post announcing the creation of joannecorey.com, here are some reflections on ten years of blogging here as Top of JC’s Mind – a little later than planned, but what else is new?

Ten-ish years ago, I was just starting to write poetry as a serious pursuit and writing a lot of commentary on fracking and related topics, which I sometimes cross-posted to Facebook. I also posted on Facebook articles and comments on a wide range of current issues. Several friends suggested that I start a blog and, as preserved for posterity in my first post, I fell into it on September 13, 2013.

Of course, as in so many other things I’ve chosen or been compelled to do, I didn’t really know what I was doing. [Embarking on projects for which I do not have sufficient training/background is somewhat of a life theme with me. I’m forever grateful to Smith College for grounding me in the liberal arts and schooling me in how to think critically and creatively, so that I’ve been able to branch out into different activities without making a total hash of it.] I had planned for Top of JC’s Mind to be an eclectic blog, hence the tagline “eclectic like me.”

While I have found a number of other blogs that deal with anything/everything, it’s usually recommended for blogs to have a theme, like food or music or travel. It’s also recommended to have a set publication schedule, every Monday and Thursday, for example. It’s strongly encouraged to incorporate images into all your posts.

So, I flew in the face of all that advice, not because it isn’t good advice, but because it didn’t work for me. Sticking to one topic is much too confining. My personal schedule, if you can even apply that term, has always been unpredictable and became more so as I dealt with multi-generational caregiving. My nod to regular posting has been to often, though not always, participate in the series from Linda G. Hill’s Life in progress blog, One-Liner Wednesdays and Stream of Consciousness Saturday. I’ve also participated in her initiative, Just Jot it January, in which we are challenged to post every day for the month. My One-Liner Wednesday and Stream of Consciousness Saturday posts are accessible through entries in the main menu.

I did initiate a series of my own, JC’s Confessions, loosely modeled after a recurring segment in the early years of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in which Stephen “confessed” to things that, while not really sins, he felt badly about. Of course, Stephen is humorous and I am not. A link to JC’s Confessions is also in my main menu.

I also started a series How Does JC’s Mind Work? but it only has two entries so far. It’s inspired by the slow-dawning realization that my mind works in some atypical ways, as an INFJ who is also an HSP. I’ve only recently started to learn more about these categorizations and it’s helped to explain a lot of things that were puzzling to me. For example, studies have shown that brains like mine are wired differently and process thoughts, emotions, stimuli, etc. differently than the majority of people. I think we all tend to default to the position that others’ brains and minds operate the same way ours does; I know that I tended to do so. I do find myself sometimes explaining to people what I’m thinking or feeling because I’m often misinterpreted and then get in trouble with people based on their perceptions rather than my reality. This series is also a place for me to talk about personal history and influences that shaped who I am today. And, yes, I really should get back to this series, at some point..

One of the things that I intended to do was to share poetry, which I do, although seldom with poems that aren’t already published elsewhere. What I didn’t realize when I started Top of JC’s Mind is that, for many journals and publishers, even a personal blog post with a handful of views is disqualifying. I usually only post original work that I don’t foresee being able to publish in a journal, such as current event poems that have been rejected by the couple of venues I know that publish such things or ekphrastic poems that I aren’t chosen in response to The Ekphrastic Review‘s Writing Challenge Series.

What I didn’t foresee was how much I would post about the process of writing poetry and learning about writing poetry. I didn’t know that I would be part of a workshop-in-residence at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams with the Boiler House Poets Collective. Or that I would be publishing in anthologies with the Binghamton Poetry Project. I certainly had no clue that I would eventually publish my first chapbook, Hearts.

I also didn’t realize how much I would write about my family. For their privacy, I chose to refer to them by initials or nicknames, so only people who know us in real life can easily find them. Ten years ago, I didn’t know the paths that the final years of my parents and mother-in-law would take or that I would have two granddaughters who would be living across an ocean from me.

I certainly didn’t know that I would post extensively about a pandemic. I’m continuing to add an occasional COVID-19 post. (I’m getting my updated vaccine on Monday, so another post will be coming.) One of the local historical societies decided to keep an archive of how the pandemic affected daily life in our area and I’m proud that they chose to include print-outs of my COVID-19 posts in that collection. Maybe, a hundred years from now, someone will stumble across them while doing research…

I do weigh in on current events, which are often disconcerting. I’ve written about gun violence and hatefulness in US society because of their sad, overwhelming prevalence. I’ve written quite a lot about government and the bewildering lack of attention to the Constitutional call to “promote the general welfare.” I mourn over the continuation of racism, sexism, bigotry, intolerance, and hatefulness that are so much in evidence and seem to be worsening rather than lessening. I try to show my values of love, respect, inclusion, and care for others and the world. I strive to express my authentic self here at Top of JC’s Mind and take care to be factually correct.

I welcome comments to my posts and do my best to respond. I will engage in respectful debate with those who disagree with me. It doesn’t happen often but I have had instances where I’ve had to delete or edit a comment. This is my platform and I will not have it used to spread misinformation or hatefulness. (I also don’t allow coarse language. My inability to swear or engage in vulgarity is a bit of a running joke among my poetry circles. Somewhere in the back of my head is a voice from my childhood saying, “What! Were you raised in a barn?”)

One of the things that bloggers are supposed to do is amass readers and followers. It’s suggested that a blogger spends a third of their time reading others’ blogs, a third writing posts, and a third writing comments on others’ blogs and responding on their own. That way, you connect with others in the blogging community and get noticed by more bloggers and readers. I really did try to do that early on but, as demands on my personal time grew, I found I only had time to write posts and tend to their comments, with occasional frenzied bouts of reading. Consequently, I don’t have tons of views and followers.

Of course, bloggers are also supposed to track stats. WordPress has a handy page to do this – and I don’t usually – but I will put my all-time stats in this post for the sake of posterity. Ten years of Top of JC’s Mind has ammased:
1,839 posts
7,107 comments
62,805 visits
34, 983 unique visitors
1,950 subscribers/followers

The subscriber/follower number is somewhat inflated. It includes people who have followed me through WordPress, liked my Top of JC’s Mind Facebook page, signed up to receive posts by email, and followed me through Twitter (now X and no longer available for automatic sharing through WordPress.) This means that some individuals are counted more than once. A few that I know of are now deceased. Many of the followers through WordPress are folks who found their way to one of my posts, hit follow, and never visited again. I do have a small core of readers who visit frequently and comment often, which I appreciate so much. You know who you are! I can’t really tell you how many readers I have for a typical post because I can only track site visits; I have no way of knowing how many people read posts sent via email.

I do, though, want to thank everyone who has ever visited Top of JC’s Mind, liked a post, commented, followed, or subscribed. While the process of writing helps to clarify my thoughts, writing for others challenges me to express those thoughts in a cogent way. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss different topics and share thoughts, experiences, and feelings with whoever happens to drop into my tiny sliver of the blogosphere.

I try to keep growing as a blogger. I’m being forced to trying to improve my use of images in order to crosspost to Instagram, which requires an image. (But, seriously, Instagram! Why do you insist on .jpgs only? Why not allow .png and .webp? And why do you have this thing with squares?) Instagram is the reason that so many of my posts lately, including this one, have my photo at the top. I’m trying to decide if I should get a new headshot taken of my post-cataract surgery, post-Invisalign self but I’ve used this photo that spouse B took of me to accompany this poem for so long that I’m loathe to replace it.

So, will I blog here for another ten years? I can’t guarantee, but I do have hope. I hope at least a few of you will stay tuned and journey with me.

Peace,
Joanne Corey of Top of JC’s Mind

One-Liner Wednesday: Ten!

To celebrate today’s tenth anniversary of Top of JC’s Mind, I’ve finally upgraded to having my own domain, joannecorey.com, so you can read Top of JC’s Mind selected from the menu there or, as always, at topofjcsmind.wordpress.com.

This shameless bit of self-promotion brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/09/13/one-liner-wednesday-nostalgia/

New domain!

Tomorrow will be the tenth anniversary of Top of JC’s Mind!

To celebrate, I’ve (finally) upgraded my plan and have my own domain address, joannecorey.com. There is a link to Top of JC’s Mind in the main menu and topofjcsmind.wordpress.com will remain active as the blog address indefinitely.

Things are super simple at the moment. I’m using the same Twenty Sixteen theme but without the side bars, widgets, and banners, at least to start. It’s been exciting enough just to get the site up and running this afternoon!

I’ve decided to keep the Author Page in the menu for Top of JC’s Mind, at least for now. Most of the content on joannecorey.com is taken from that page, although divvied up into more reasonable chunks across three pages. Now, though, I can claim to have an author site.

You all can probably guess what my One-Liner Wednesday will be about tomorrow, although I hope to also write a more substantive post about making it through ten years of blogging later in the week.

Enjoy!