Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Into the Wild


Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?


I've planned to be a writer since fourth grade. I didn't realize then that I'd be a writer in so many different ways and that being a writer is not so much (for me anyway) about earning a living. Instead, writing and being a writer is connecting to my authentic self and the wide, wide world.

I have many writing selves. I have the writing self that worked with Janet Allen for more than a decade to write curriculum and write professional development and write reflections from inside of the classroom that she included in her own writing. We were literally and figuratively, On the Same Page.

I have the writing self that wrote Reading Amplified, a transmedia book for teachers, and I have the writing self who teaches full time and writes about her practice. Sometimes that writer, writes poetry.


I am confident about many of my writing selves, but my inner poet is shy.

That writing or creating self is not so confidant. In fact, sometimes she is annoyingly insecure. Sometimes, she hides behind the clothes in closets like the one in the upper left corner of this morning's literacy quadrant work. Today was my sixth day as a participant in the writing institute at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.



I drew several of my writing selves in this morning's work, but I am going to step out as the poet while I am surrounded by support and encouragement of this writing table, this community of artists.

I need your help too with this poem.

We are working on presentation pieces for our final day of this two-week institute--and though it can be a work in progress, I want to squeeze another draft out of what I have so far. I have been working on a series of tables. I've been photographing tables for many months.  Some of the tables I'm seeing here, I've curated on twitter with the #table hashtag (search #table +spillarke on Twitter if you want to see them). I've written a poem that weaves in things participants (artists and writers) have shared.

In terms of this draft, I'm not sure about my image strings, line breaks or my ending. If you have a few minutes, I would appreciate feedback.  Tell me what you think.



To the Table

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
                                                                                                        -Franz Kafka

Bring it all to the table,
bring your bags,
plastic bags or rectangled recycle bags,
canvas Totes or Vera Bradley,
bring everything you carry
pens, pencils, paper, journals,
joy at the news he’s coming home
happy bubbles when babies
like new ideas are born
The table can sit in shadow,
reclining in a hidden corner
the paint-splattered utility topped slab
can bear the weight
of the black pit, the weight
of the heavy executioner’s hood
the … wait.

Bring the gun, the pills, the drugs, the alcohol
the modern distractions to the table
Hands up, don’t shoot
Pull the chair in to table’s edge
Sit straight. 

Breathe. 

So often in our hallways, on our sidewalks,
down the wooden-paths, through the woods
around the wilds of this life
we grind the bones of our closet skeletons
to dust and mix them into drinks
quickly gulped to stop the urgent diarrhea
of mind, body, colon.
or we scatter that bone-dust to the winds
on the point of the peninsula where ocean
meets river and pirates sell ice cream from pontoon boats.

Take them instead to the table to be reconciled.
Take the diagnosis your doctor delivered
over the phone as you crossed
the causeway, bridge
Take the dementia of aging parents
and the acne of the middle passage,
take the broken wrists and wrap them like birds’ wings
in gauze and guests’ good wishes for quick healing.

Don’t shove those old bones under the table.

Lay them out. Lay out the wounds
the scraped knees and shattered elbows.
The extra thirty pounds and the pre-diabetes,
the hypertension and the high cholesterol,
the gasping heart attack and the voracious tumor.
Don’t drive them to North Carolina
to hide in cabin in the woods. Don’t sail them
along the intercostal for a sunset finale.
Bring them to the table and invite the guests.

Bring your vigor and health too
your spandex and sports bras,
your green juice and protein shakes,
bring your sneakered feet and Fit Bits
bring your boot camp trainer and Yoga coach.
let them be your guest.

Let the guests  gorge on
the heart break of broken crystal,
and poor choices. Let the guests
eat chunks of cheddar off the china shards
abandoned in the empty nest
of a failed marriage.

Make conversation about hooch and hospice,
and health care and the fault in our stars
that would send us so.
Make conversation about the color of
his eyes, and golden hairs curled around the radius
of his wrist. Talk about the seven colors of the sea
at sunrise and bring out all of the mixed-matched
dishes. Dine on the joy of company, roll in the ecstasy of creation.

Use the good napkins and

set each place with slivers of hope.

The Slice of Life Story Challenge is hosted by the talented team at Two Writing Teachers.
Link up your slice on Two Writing Teachers on Tuesdays. Thanks, Stacey, TaraDanaBetsyAnna and Beth.

12 comments:

  1. Lee Ann, I am no poet but you asked me to read and give you feedback. So take my comments as they are. They are gut reactions of the ignorant and rough writer that I am. I really like your overall message - it come loud and clear. You are asking me to "bring it all to the table" to write. You're inviting me to come even with all the baggage of my life. I love that image because that's how it feels for me. You're asking me to not let my life get in the way of my writing but to use the baggage of my life in my writing. There is one small paragraph that I would suggest you take a second look at - it's the second one in which you talk about guns, "hands up don't shoot". You momentarily lost me there. Just my thoughts. A beautiful poem!

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  2. Lee Ann, I am no poet but you asked me to read and give you feedback. So take my comments as they are. They are gut reactions of the ignorant and rough writer that I am. I really like your overall message - it come loud and clear. You are asking me to "bring it all to the table" to write. You're inviting me to come even with all the baggage of my life. I love that image because that's how it feels for me. You're asking me to not let my life get in the way of my writing but to use the baggage of my life in my writing. There is one small paragraph that I would suggest you take a second look at - it's the second one in which you talk about guns, "hands up don't shoot". You momentarily lost me there. Just my thoughts. A beautiful poem!

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    1. Thank you, Pamela! I went back to that Ferguson line and see how it just sticks. I am going to rework that section-- get more specific with lists-- riots or televised news--the talk from the police shootings maybe. I am an ignorant and riugh writer too. Glad we are reading and writing together!

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  3. I would echo Pamela's thoughts, Lee Ann - it seems disconnected from the overall tone and message of your poem. Wow...you should not be shy about your poetry-you have a gift!

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    1. Thank you, Tara. Such a nice compliment from a teacher and writer I admire-- i appreciate the pat on the back! I'm going to rework that section.

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  5. There are a few things, but I do get it. In other words, please do bring that elephant from your living room! I think I understand the guns, but can't make 'hands up, don't shoot" work, because to me that means giving up. Unless that is what you mean. It's hard to critique in a comment, FYI. Here are a few notes: Totes-should it be in caps? Utility topped should also be hyphenated. Instead of 'stop' the . . . diarrhea, how about "stay"? After 'causeway' - no comma. Guest should be plural. After born, a period. After 'home' line 7, a comma. You have lots of good alliteration, Lee Ann, like 'rectangles recycle', 'diagnosis of the doctor' & "point of the peninsula". I suggest that you look for other ways to do more. For instance, you could change "take the broken wrist" to take the broken bone" although since you've used bone(s) earlier that might not be a great example. When I've taken poetry classes, they keep saying look at each phrase for sounds like alliteration, assonance, etc. I do love your poem, regardless of all I've suggested. It would make a wonderful slam poem share! Best wishes!

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    1. Thank you so much, Linda, for your caring and close reading. I appreciate the gift of your feedback. I was thinking slam or spoken word piece when I wrote it-- which is why I think I went long with this first draft. I will go back and look for places where I can poeticize with sound. Thank you, thank you!

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  6. Lee Ann,
    There are so many things I like about the post I hope I can remember them all as I comment. First all, I love the peek into your writing life. I was unaware of your work with Janet Allen and found that little fun-fact fascinating. I was also interested in your thoughts on your writing selves. I hadn't really thought of it concretely like that, but we do have different writing selves. Mine wrestle with each other all of the time over the time available to write.

    The work you are doing while in "writing camp" (...and can I day just the words writing and camp together sound fun) is also interesting. It sounds like you have found a wonderfully supportive group. As a matter of fact, I smiled more than once over the similarity in our two slices today.

    I was surprised to find you aren't as confident in poetry writing. You have such a great way with words, I guess I never would have guessed you aren't as comfortable in poetry. The idea to write around one object, a table, really gives you opportunity to think deeply about something. Just thinking about the many meanings of tables and the ways we gather around them brings thoughts flooding to the surface. (You may have inspired a poem or two for me. Thanks!)

    As someone who works to write and struggles to be honest in that writing, I felt your message. Bring it all to the table. Don't be afraid to put it all on the table and really look closely at it. You have many powerful words and lines that create images to support your message. I found it interesting that you set out "Breathe" and "Don't shove these old bones under the table." I had to smile over "fault in our stars" and its multiple meanings and loved the peaceful thoughts from "seven colors of the sea at sunrise." Loved the ending, "set each place with slivers of hope."

    Thanks for sharing your process and letting us walk beside you in your writing journey. I can't wait to see your final product at the end of your two weeks.

    Cathy

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    1. Hi Cathy,
      When I read your slice about the digital literacy work you are doing with your National Writing Project group, I was all smiles too! It is work that I love-- meeting the writer in digital spaces and curating the writing process online, sometimes socially. It is moments like those, as a reader in a digital writing community, that I know I am not alone. I am not alone in what I practice in my classroom, in what I believe about readers and writers, in what I think or even as I write. Thank you so much for your readerly response to the post and the poem. I'm glad you noticed the purposeful placement of those singular words and lines and also glad the John Green reference wasn't too much with the fault line. Thank you, Kathy.
      You, Linda, Glenda, all of these comments remind me how important specific, honest, encouraging feedback is to writers--that is something I will take to heart and take back to my classroom next year. I need to do more with feedback loops next year. But until then, today and back to work on this piece. Three days until the camp showcase finale!

      Co-laboring and wishing you well,
      Lee Ann

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  7. Hi Lee,
    I stopped by earlier today and read your post. I've had a few hours and a trip to the gym to contemplate your request for feedback. First, I like the idea in the line "bring it to the table" and the way you thread that throughout the poem. It occurs to me that the poem needs some kind of progression that moves it along in less of a random way. For comparison, I thought about what Tim O'Brien does in "The Things They Carried." The opening story begins w/ concrete things the men carry and moves to the abstract; in doing this, O'Brien balances, on the one hand, the literal heaviness of objects against, on the other hand, the figurative heaviness of emotions and other intangibles. Does that make sense? I'm looking for and missing that kind of tightness in this draft. There are some places that make me wander if you're working a tad too hard for a rhetorical literary device effect; for example, "hooch and hospice." That said, as a lover of alliteration, I totally understand the impulse to experiment w/ language that way. This poem reminds me of one in "Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon Silko. I can't remember the name of the poem but it has something to do w/ being a skeleton keeper.

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    1. Oh, Glenda, thank you! You are spot on. I was talking to one of the professors here about the progression and she said something to the effect of our coming to the table is circular and like a cycle ( first morning, noon and night). But you suggested moves speak to me on a different level. I will look for how I can tighten the piece and work on the progression. I knownwhat you mean about me grabbing at the low hanging literary or rhetorical fruit-- I just love the sound of hooch and hospice together when I say it. Will look up the Silko piece-- they might have it in the library studio here even. Thank you so very much, Glenda. I appreciate your thoughtful response!

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