Tag: poem

MoCA Monday

I did sleep some more after writing this middle-of-the-night post, although I wanted to get up early to shower. I know I said that I wasn’t going to revise The Octagon Room until after I got home, but an idea presented itself so I plunged in and did another draft before breakfast.

I met a high school friend downstairs at Brewhaha, where we enjoyed delicious waffles and conversation. It was great to see her, although we didn’t have much time, as she needed to get to work and I needed to get to the studio.

I did a little more revising and printed two poems for workshopping today, just in case we get two sessions in again. My main goal, though, was to get into the Museum, as I had not yet taken the opportunity to do so and wanted to see the new exhibits.

The museum does not open until 11:00, but the grounds are open sooner, so I went back to our beloved Boiler House. I think it may be the first time that I have been there totally alone, which allowed me to fully engage with the soundscape. I climbed the flights of open metalwork stairs all the way to the top. MASS MoCA has added many more solar panels to their buildings. Being on the top of the building gives a new appreciation for the vastness of the museum site and a spectacular view of downtown North Adams. It was poignant to look at their landmark steeples, though, as one is missing. St. Francis was torn down this year; I could see the remnant that is left, waiting to be hauled away. I am planning to write a poem about it as a postscript to one I wrote last year.

At 11:00, I did an hour-long spin through the first floor of the main museum building where the new exhibits were. Unlike most museums, MASS MoCA does not rely on having a large permanent collection. Frequent visits reveal new works, so the experience of visiting is always fresh. I drafted one poem in my notebook, honoring advice from one of the poets who came to speak to us last year. There were several other pieces of which I am in awe, but don’t feel that I can expand on poetically. Maybe later, or maybe never. Still, I am glad to have experienced them.

After lunch, we went on a formal tour of the museum. Unfortunately, the group was large and we weren’t able to visit too many pieces. I did appreciate being able to accompany my poet-friend Jessica into the Sol Lewitt exhibit. She had helped workshop a poem I had written about it, so it was nice that she was able to experience the art in person. The large exhibit hall is currently closed as the next major exhibit, Nick Cave’s Until, is being installed. We were able to see some of the installation going in and hear a bit about it from our guide. I feel that I will have to try to come back to see it after it opens on October 15. I think there may be a poem there, although it may be too overwhelming for me to write about. Fortunately, it will be here for a whole year.

After the tour and a bit of delay due to a sudden downpour, we reconvened at the Studios for workshopping. I decided to present my new version of The Octagon Room, which was well-received. There are more edits to make, including a new title, but I feel that I will be able to improve it enough to include in my manuscript.

Being back here at MASS MoCA makes it seem that completing a collection is possible. The trick will be keeping the momentum going after I return home. There will need to be more writing, more revision, assembling the collection, sending it out to readers for feedback, more revision, editing, cutting, and adding, and, eventually, sending it out to presses for consideration.

Wish me luck…

 

Hitting the ground running

Today, I discovered one of the advantages of a reunion residency: you can immediately settle in and get to work.

This morning, I drafted a new poem about Drury High School and transcribed notes from our inaugural residency on Mark Dion’s The Octagon Room. It may well become the longest poem I have ever written. I finished a first draft which I may offer for critique later in the week, even though I would get teased for using a lot of paper!

The morning was punctuated with some local fun. Jessica and I took a break to shop at the Farmers’ Market where I bought some local goodies. A fun feature was the costumed dogs getting ready for the Dog Parade that was part of the Fall Foliage Festival. We also headed up Main Street to the Fall Foliage craft fair where I picked up a few local craft pieces, including some cards featuring local scenes.

A new feature of the residency for us this year is that a daily meal is provided. We are able to send our lunch orders for the MASS MoCA cafe in advance, so at 12:30 we can all grab the box with our name on it, sit in the cafe, relax, and eat. It was fun to have a chance to chat and listen to the folk tunes that a group of musicians was playing.

After lunch, we returned to the studio to workshop poems. I am in awe of the talent in the room. Our two new poets slipped seamlessly into the group. The discussion was insightful and reached beyond the particular poem at hand into more general craft talk and technique, which I, as a community rather than academically trained poet, find immensely helpful.

We ended just before four o’clock, so I decided to cross the street to attend vigil Mass at St. Elizabeth of Hungary. The building is familiar to me because it was my grandmother’s church, although at that time it was St. Anthony of Padua. The homily began with a story about the first weekend of October in 1987. Father Cyr reminded us that there was a huge freak snowstorm that weekend, which immediately brought to my mind my in-laws, who lived near North Adams in Stamford, Vermont. They had come out to visit us that weekend and wound up staying an extra day because a state of emergency had been declared so that they could not travel home. They were both public school educators, but schools were cancelled due to the heavy, wet snow, which broke many trees because they still had their leaves and could not to take the additional weight. The moral of the story was not to personalize unfortunate experiences. A snowstorm is not about you! Instead, as was seen in the Scripture readings of the day, we are called to have patience, to have faith, to gather spiritual strength, and to act for good. Given the animosity that has been on public display in these last months, I took heart that we can still change and act in a positive way. I needed that reassurance.

We spent the evening in various constellations talking and eating and talking and walking and talking some more. I love how our conversations flow so easily through family, travel, our work, change, poets and poetry. And Ezra Pound, whose name I have heard more today than any other day of my life…

 

 

Reunion residency – welcome!

Friday morning, my poet-friend Jessica picked me up for the drive to North Adams to begin the Boiler House Poets reunion residency at MASS MoCA. (To check out my blog posts from the original Tupelo Press/Studios at MASS MoCA residency, use my archive dropdown list entry for November 2015.)  It is a reunion for me, but not for Jessica whom I invited to fill in a slot for one of our original group who was unable to attend.

In the MASS MoCA parking lot, we ran into residency coordinator Emily with Ann and Kyle, who are my and Jessica’s apartment mates for the week. Emily gave us our keys and info and showed us our apartment, which is on the third floor of a building kittycorner from the museum complex, just across the hall from the apartment I stayed in last year. (My header photo here at Top of JC’s Mind was taken from that vantage point.)  We each have our own bedroom, with shared kitchen and bath.

Emily also showed us our studios. Last time, I was in studio seven, but this time I am in studio two, with a view of the Airstream trailer art installation which is connected by walkway to the top of the Boiler House which gives our group its name due to this video we made during our inaugural residency.

One of the special moments yesterday was when Ann gave us copies of the new book she edited of poems we created in an exercise with Jeffrey Levine of Tupelo Press during our 2015 residency.  It is called Verse Osmosis and is available here. I am honored to be a part of this book and this group!

In the couple of hours before our welcome dinner, I had the chance to catch up with our other apartment’s returning poets, Marilyn, Kay, and Gail and to meet our other new addition this time, Catherine. I was sad to learn that Donna, one of our original members who had hoped to come visit us on Saturday, was taken ill and wouldn’t be able to come see us. I am consoled, though, to have a copy of her new chapbook <Periodic Earth>, published by fellow Boiler House Poet Kyle’s Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press and available here.

Since we were in North Adams last year, a new Italian restaurant, Grazie, has opened on the first floor below our apartments and it was the site for our welcome dinner. We were happy to have another of our Boiler House Poets, James, join us, along with a friend who was celebrating her birthday. Like me, James is from the North Adams area and was back visiting. We had a long dinner with lots of lively conversation. I was happy to have James sign my copy of Verse Osmosis and we passed James’s copy around the table to sign for him. Unfortunately, Vicki, another of our inaugural group, was also unable to make the trip to North Adams for the reunion, so her signature will be missing from our books, too.

By the time dinner was over, it was after ten o’clock and I was too tired to join in the additional visiting that was going on and too tired to write this post. At least I am able to get this out early this morning. I hope to be off to my studio soon…

 

 

Secret poetry mission revealed!

Earlier in September, I cryptically alluded to having a secret poetry mission. I know (a few of) you have been waiting with bated breath for the revelation of this secret, so here you go!

Of course, this will be the long, chronological version of the story…

Over the third weekend in August, I got a message from the current director of the Binghamton Poetry Project, asking if I would like to write and present a poem at the annual Hearts of the Arts awards dinner. The dinner is a fundraiser for the United Cultural Fund of the Broome County Arts Council, which provides one of the grants that keeps the Binghamton Poetry Project functioning. The poem needed to be a 2-3 minute response to the arts in our community, as the two Heart of the Arts honorees, Emily Jablon and Peg Johnston, are both very active in public art.

The Binghamton Poetry Project has been very important to my growth as a poet. I have learned different craft aspects and how to write from prompts. My participation with them led to my joining both the Bunn Hill Poets and Sappho’s Circle; I also continue to attend the Binghamton Poetry Project workshops, which are organized in five-week units three times a year. I wanted to take on this special mission to help the Binghamton Poetry Project say thanks to one of our funders and to raise its profile in the local arts community; I also admit that it appealed to me to have the opportunity to present myself as a poet to the arts community which would not recognize me at all, except, perhaps as a long-serving member of University Chorus. (It’s the hair and the fact that I am short, so usually in the front row.)

As much as I wanted to do this, it was also a daunting prospect. First, there was the actual writing of the poem. Although I have been writing a lot of ekphrastic poetry, which means poetry about another (usually visual) art form, I had never written a poem for a public occasion. Second, I would need to read in front of a full ballroom with a stage, podium, and microphone, wearing relatively formal dress. Most of the readings I have done are informal and for a dozen people or fewer, so the prospect of reading for 150 or more made me pretty anxious.

Third, there was the timeline to consider. I decided that I would need to write the poem within the next few days so I could workshop it, revise, and have a final copy before my mom’s diagnostic heart catheterization on August 31st.  Then, I would have time for practice readings before the September 19th event.

So, I accepted the challenge and got to work. I did a bit of online research on the artist-honorees, Emily Jablon and Peg Johnston. I was familiar with their public art projects in downtown Binghamton, but made plans to go down to visit early the following week to take some photos to help inspire my writing.

My usual writing process is to swish things around in my head for a while before writing. Given my timeline, I was very lucky that a basic idea and structure for the poem came to me over the weekend, so that I had the bones of the poem together even before I got downtown to view the art.

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Stencil from Water Street Parking Ramp art installation

Peg Johnston was the director of a large stencil and mural project in the parking garage now located on the site that once housed Bundy Time Recording Machines and Link Pipe Organs, which later became Link Flight Simulation.

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Mosaics along the Chenango

Emily Jablon was one of the lead mosaicists for this project where Court Street meets the Chenango River.

With new details in hand, I finished my draft in time for a planned Wednesday meeting with the Bunn Hill Poets, my main workshopping group. I explained the situation, read the draft, and then got really apprehensive in the silence that followed. When one of the poets, who has many published poems, readings, and commissions to his credit, started out with, “I have to be perfectly honest,” I got even more worried, but it turned out that he was just surprised that I could write this style of poem. Whew! Everyone was very positive about the poem, so I sent it off to the current and the former directors of the Binghamton Poetry Project for additional feedback, did a round of revisions, and had the poem finished by my August 31st deadline.

I was very grateful that I did, as family issues did take a lot of time and energy over the following weeks. Despite my intentions, I didn’t do much practice reading until the last couple of days before the awards ceremony. I admit that I got super nervous. I was fortunate to have daughter T here to listen to me practice and help me figure out which dress to wear, which sandals, which necklace. I was also lucky that the dinner organizers made provisions for family members to attend the performance, so both my spouse B and daughter T were there for moral support.

The performers were all tied to the Arts Council in some way, most representing organizations that receive funding through the United Cultural Fund. It was an honor to be on the same program with actors and musicians from the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton, Tri-Cities Opera, the Binghamton Youth Symphony, the Binghamton Community Orchestra ,and the Cider Mill Playhouse, as well as this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winner Dr. Timothy Perry from Binghamton University.

I am pleased to report that my reading went well and the poem was well received. The stage lights were pretty blinding, so I couldn’t see myself, but T told me that Peg Johnston gave my poem a standing ovation, which was a huge honor for me, given that the poem was inspired in part by her work. In her acceptance speech that followed, she gave a shout-out to the Binghamton Poetry Project, and, after the event, sent a friend to ask me for a copy of the poem to take back to the Cooperative Gallery, of which she is a founder.

It also meant a lot to me to have Clara Barnhart, current director of the Binghamton Poetry Project, and her predecessor Heather Dorn there lending support, as well as Vernon Boyd who is a fellow BPP poet who also contributed an art poem for the event.

It was especially close to my heart that B and T were there with me. I don’t read often and an opportunity to read at such an auspicious event is unlikely to present itself again, so I’m glad they could share the evening with me.

So, now you are probably thinking, why am I not publishing the poem in this post? Because I wrote it under the auspices of the Binghamton Poetry Project, I want them to have first publication rights. When our fall anthology comes out in November, I will share the poem here at Top of JC’s Mind as well, so stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

re-jiggering part 3 – or 547?

One of the running themes of this blog – and my life – has been my constant need to adjust my plans. The last post that I titled re-jiggering was actually my second by that name, so this is part 3 in terms of blog titles, but some much larger number in terms of reality.

As my more frequent visitors know, we have been dealing with health issues with my mom, known here as Nana. On August 31st, she finally had the long-awaited diagnostic heart catheterization, which confirmed that she has two heart valves that are severely compromised. They need to be replaced using a technique called TAVR, which involves working through the blood vessels to get to the heart rather than cutting through the chest as in open heart surgery. Our local hospital is not equipped to replace multiple valves in this way, so we are in the process of referral to Columbia in New York City.

One of my sisters lives in NYC and the other has already offered to go the City to help Nana and Paco, so the current plan is that I will stay here to hold down the fort at their apartment in a nearby senior living community.

Timeline to be determined, but we are hoping it will be a matter of weeks. I hope that readers will send out a prayer, healing thoughts, and/or positive energy for Nana.

In the post I linked above, the other re-jiggering that was going on had to do with my writing. True to form, I wound up re-jiggering that, too.

I had expected to spend time working on my poetry collection, but, instead, diverted to a secret poetry mission. Excitement! Mystery! Or, at the very least, poetic license. All will be revealed sometime in the last third of September. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, I have revised my plans for the Boiler House Poets reunion residency at MASS MoCA, which begins September 30. I had hoped to have a working manuscript of my collection assembled by then, but it isn’t going to happen. My new plan is to use the residency to get feedback and do revisions on some of the poems that have not yet been workshopped, write some poems that I have been planning, and be on the lookout for new inspirations, including the new works that will be on display at MoCA. In those periods when I am too exhausted/tired/frazzled to be creative, I can do further work on ordering the collection and drafting a forward and notes. My local poets feel that some of the ekphrastic poems, which is the fancy term for poems that are about a work of art, could benefit from a note about the the art piece on which they are based.

Meanwhile, in Tibet…

Sorry, a bit of Boiler House inside baseball there…

Meanwhile, I will transcribe some poems that are still only scrawled in various journals, notepads, and pamphlets into my google docs and buy a new Chromebook, as my current one is getting a bit unreliable and I need it working well for the residency. I also hope to get a few half completed blog posts out to the world. (I am not even bothering to project a timeframe to get back to my reading/commenting routine. Circumstances have pushed that even further into the realm of nebulous “someday”.)

And, of course, fulfilling my secret poetry mission…

 

 

 

re-jiggering

Facebook is not so subtly reminding me that I haven’t posted for a week. (People who are on Facebook are cordially invited to “like” the Top of JC’s Mind page here.)

I had made the mistake of making a plan for the last week. After getting daughter T on the plane to Hawai’i to visit daughter E, I was going to spend a lot of time writing, both here at Top of JC’s Mind and in continuing work on my poetry collection, in anticipation of needing to take a writing break beginning on the 17th when Nana was scheduled to have a diagnostic heart catheterization, part of the continuing saga of the fainting episode in April.

As often happens, life laughs at my plans…

The day after T left, Nana developed shortness of breath and wound up in the hospital with a diagnosis of congestive heart failure. Fortunately, treatment improved her symptoms a lot and she was able to head home within 24 hours. Unfortunately, the episode precipitated  a further delay in the heart catheterization, now pushed back to August 31st.

Not much writing got done in the last week, but I am tempting fate and re-organizing.

I’m pleased to report that I wrote a new poem this morning to fill a hole in the first section of my collection. The poem is about Nana and her father, so it was nice to be able to talk to her this morning and gather some more information that I needed.  I have sent her a copy to review and will plan to workshop it with my poetry group when next we meet.

Yay! I managed to accomplish something in my plan!

And I am writing this post!

Two things!

Crossing my fingers that things will stay calm in the coming days  so I can get some more creative time in before my planned break beginning August 31st.

Or, if something does come up, I’ll just re-jigger again.

I’m really getting quite good at it…

 

 

Poem for the Boiler House Poets!

I am so excited to share this blog post from my poet-friend Gail Dimaggio!

Gail is one of the Boiler House Poets, the inaugural group of poets who gathered at MASS MoCA for a poetry residency in collaboration with Tupelo Press. It was my privilege to be part of this intrepid group of nine poets who shared an amazing, complex, rich, and creative week together.

This month, Gail is participating in the 30/30 fundraiser for Tupelo Press. She is among a group of poets writing and posting a new poem every day. Poems and sponsorship information is available here:  https://tupelopress.wordpress.com/3030-project/.

Today is day 11 and Gail has posted a poem that I sponsored, asking her to write about our experience together. She wrote an amazing poem using the technique of found poetry, in which the poet uses words from another source to create a new work. Here, Gail uses fragments of poems from the Boiler House Poets’ video in her poem “Poets Gather in the Boiler House to Read Their Work”.

Most of the Boiler House Poets will be gathering this fall for a reunion at MASS MoCA. Gail and I will both be there.

I can hardly wait!

SoCS: What’s Next?

Given how things have been going lately – well, honestly, for years now – it is tempting fate to say I have any clue of what’s happening next.

A few things are relatively safe to say.

As in, today we will pick up my sister and niece at the bus station and meet up with Nana and Paco and my other sister and her husband for dinner. The four of them will be visiting for the weekend, which is a treat because we three sisters are only together a couple of times a year.

Early in the morning on Wednesday, daughter T will be heading to the airport to fly to Honolulu to visit daughter E and her spouse L for three weeks. August is turning into sister-togetherness month!

Other things that I think are coming up next are a bit murkier.

On August 17, we think Nana will be have a procedure as part of the continuing saga of the errant CPR/fainting spell.  While we hope it will go forward, it’s been delayed and re-scheduled once already, so fingers crossed. Results from this test will help us move on to what’s next for her treatment.

As for me, part of what’s next is working on my poetry collection. I did a revision of a poem this morning. Yay, me! If my desktop computer and printer co-operate – not a given at this point – I hope to print hard copies of poems to better arrange and re-arrange and re-arrange the poems. I may have pages to represent poems that I plan to write but that aren’t yet written. Then, I can look for holes so that I know how many more poems I need to write.

Meanwhile, I will continue to workshop poems in the collection. Eventually, I’ll have to make a stab at a table of contents and probably a forward and some notes here and there.

And maybe put a call out for some readers…

Oh, and try to have it finished before the Boiler House Poets reunion at MASS MoCA which starts September 30.

Are you laughing yet?

I have my work cut out for me, but, as always, what’s next is not totally in my control.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is to base the post on a word that contains “ex”. Come join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/08/05/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-616/

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Sappho’s Circle poetry reading

One thing that poets are expected to do is participate in readings of their work.

Poets who have books out will give solo readings in bookstores. Famous poets read on college campuses or at public events. There are open mics and group reading opportunities in most US cities on a regular basis.

I have read at Binghamton Poetry Project events and at the open mic at RiverRead Books in Binghamton in the past few years.

But, for various reasons, not in the last year or so…

Tonight, Sappho’s Circle, a women’s poetry group convened by former head of the Binghamton Poetry Project and newly minted PhD Heather Dorn will be offering a reading as part of Binghamton’s First Friday events. We are reading poems that came out of our work with the group, either written from prompts or workshopped in Sappho’s Circle.

We will be reading at 6:30 in our home base, the Annex of the Bundy Museum, followed by an opportunity to discuss our group and answer questions from the audience (she says, hoping that we will have an audience). We want to thank the Bundy for sponsoring our group and hope to attract some new members, as well.

I will be reading two or three poems, which I have printed out in large, easy-to-read type. I have been practicing so that I don’t stumble over my own words – or at least not too often.

It is not at all a high pressure situation, but I am feeling a bit uneasy because it has been so long since I have read in public.

Is poetry reading like riding a bicycle?

 

SoCS: art, poetry, and 30/30

Last November, I attended my first-ever poetry residency/workshop/conference at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, known as MASS MoCA. It was held in conjunction with Tupelo Press, a non-profit independent press located just down the road in the Eclipse Mill loft.

It was amazing, difficult, intense, valuable, exhausting, overwhelming, and dozens of other adjectives. (Poets don’t use many adjectives. Bloggers are allowed.) Anyone who would like to read more about my experience can check out the November 2015 posts in my archive.

One of the many lasting benefits is that I have written a series of poems about art. I had written a few before that residency, but not nearly as many as afterward. There is a fancy name for poems about art, ekphrastic. Note:  spell check does not know what to do with the word ekphrastic.

Some of these poems, along with other poems about North Adams, the city where MASS MoCA is located, and the surrounding towns, will become my first-ever-attempt-at a poetry collection.

It’s complicated.

I grew up in a town about twenty miles from North Adams and went to high school in North Adams. We went there to shop and to visit relatives. The city has changed a lot over the years. I’ve changed a lot over the years. The poems deal with generations of our family, small towns and a small city, home, change, geography, and art.

It’s a lot.

It’s also a new experience.

I am about to print the poems that are completed and assemble them into sections and a manuscript, leaving space for some poems that aren’t yet written. I’ll look for holes that need to be filled.  And try to fill them.

I am hoping to have a reasonable working draft by the time our group of poets, who were the first group to experience the Mass MoCA/Tupelo collaboration, return for a reunion residency in October.

We call ourselves the Boiler House Poets, after an art/sound installation at MASS MoCA where we made a video of us reading poems.

I am giving a shout-out here to one of the Boiler House Poets, Gail Dimaggio, who is embarking on another exciting collaboration with Tupelo Press. She will be one of their 30/30 poets in August. She and a small group of poets will each write a new poem every day for thirty days, which will be posted on a special section of the Tupelo Press website. Everyone is invited to follow along! Gail has a new blog to accompany her journey:  https://gaildi.blogspot.com/.

Come join the poetry/blogging fun!
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “art.” Come join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2016/07/29/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-3016/

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