poetry – Page 3 – Clara Hsu

Revolutions Per Minute

Marsha Campbell’s book of poetry, Revolutions Per Minute and Dedicated to the One I Love is making its debut on Amazon.com. “From a life born of tears, tumult, strife and trouble, (Marsha) has distilled the essential beauty of her existence. Revolutions Per Minute and its sequel, Dedicated to the One I Love, include perhaps her finest work.” —Quote from Beatitude Press.

One of the best in the San Francisco Poet community, Marsha has yet to find out what it means by having her work “on line” and “print on demand.” It is such a revolutionary idea, as her title suggests, she is again in the midst of change.

To order her book, go to: amazon.com

At the Poetry Salon

Clara, Cake+Jack (1) — Cake for a January Birthday, & Jack Foley

The salon downstairs has become too small to accommodate the monthly gathering. Today Richard Loranger suggested that we should take down the wall that separates the living room and Dore’s office so we might have more space. “Everyone brings a hammer to the next Salon!”

Mary Rudge, featured poet, gave copies of her poems out for the audience to “sound”. Different voices assumed different characters, all under the theme “Occupy”.

It was Anna Wolfe birthday. Steve Arnston brought over a yellow cake topped with two-inch-thick cream. We sang “Happy Birthday”. Last month was Susan Pedrick’s. I like it when people choose to celebrate their big day at the Poetry Hotel.

Marsha Campbell read from the proof copy of her new book. She was ecstatic, gave me one of her framed drawings, titled “Lust”. Jack and Adelle Foley read their choral piece “The Dance of the Seven Veils”. Sensuality crossed paths in the poetic minds.

Photo by Dore Steinberg.

“We Shall Be Changed”

"You must change your life." Rainer Maria Rilke.

” Did they change your life?” Jack Foley asked me, commenting on someone’ s poetry. I never thought of poems being life-changing. At least it is not what I think about when I attend a reading or pick up a collection of poetry. “Life-changing” is a tall order. Do poets set out to change lives when they write? If not to change others, does the poet’s writing change the poet? If a poem is to have a place in the universe, what part of the alchemy does it play?

There are poems that I remember. I remember them because they are meaningful to me. They are meaningful because they touch a part of me that was not touched before. If I get a glimpse of something unknown, I have already changed.

“…but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” (1 Corinthians 15:52)

Seance

Our neighbor across the street is a big sports fan. We see banners and flags in front of his house and windows whenever there is an occasion to cheer the 49ers or the Giants. Since we don’t subscribe to Comcast anymore, Dore goes over to his house to see if he can watch one of the crucial games with him.

“No,” our neighbor says, “I prefer to watch the game by myself. But I’m curious, do you have regular seance at your house?”

He has noticed that once a month people come into our house at a certain time and leave after four hours.

“You’re definitely welcome to join us, ” said Dore, ” if you like poetry.”

How quaint, I thought, for our neighbor to think that we hold seances at our house.

The Year Begins…

The feeling of not having to do something can be surreal. Not having the children at home to take care of, not having a mate, not having a business to run, not having a regular caffeine fix…now, not having to write a poem a day!

No one made me. The incentive came from producing very few poems for almost three years while I was concentrating on writing the memoir. I am, at the heart, a poet; and it was frustrating not to be writing poems. Jannie Dresser’s Poem-a-Day online class gave participants opportunity to post their poems. It was almost like handing in homework, something that I was programmed to do very well since primary school.

365+ poems later, I feel like I’ve graduated. Through this year-long exercise I have discovered my own capacity and know that it is time to move onto something else. This “something” is quite intangible at this time, but it must have space to allow it to manifest. The moment of liberation is surreal, until the path shows itself.

Learning to Write

Learning is a strange process. After writing poetry for ten years I’m beginning to realize there are skills involved. My tool bag? Quite empty at the moment. And it is this lack that propels me to enquire.

Language. We begin learning by listening, not by recognizing the alphabets. Perhaps poetry is the same thing. We begin by thinking (not writing)—that everything is a puzzle and nothing is what it seems to be. From one thought, go deep, branch out, retrieve, manipulate; poetry is art.

Take out logic, what do we have? Capturing random thoughts requires intention. Connecting the conscious and the subconscious and what to do with them? These are my questions. After breaking down one door there is always another. Poetry is mystery.

Listen to many languages to come up with a new language, one that may illustrate my thoughts. It’s English with a new outfit. And I’m fickle, always wanting a new outfit.

Poem Monster

It comes out of nowhere and grows big and bad and soon you run out of space on the page and it keeps spilling and morphing and shaping into something unrecognizable. That’s when you know you’ve created a poem monster. It wants to speak its own language and uses its unique hand writing and it likes to scribble. I have never given birth to one until today and it looks kind of cute in all its rawness. It doesn’t resemble me, at least I don’t think I resemble it but I might be wrong.

What’s IT talking about? At the moment that is not quite important. Sometimes we just like to look at things even if we don’t understand them. I think that’s OK. I have seen other people’s poem monsters and know that they belong to a tribe that doesn’t belong. Just not mainstream, you know, but they don’t hurt anyone, and always wait so patiently for someone to pick them up and give them a weigh on the hands.

Statistically speaking if you keep writing poems you are bound to create some poem monsters. That’s when you know you’ve stepped through a threshold into the unknown and it is WONDERful!

Dead Poet Speaks

The page said, “Read me.”

I read.

“No,” it said, “READ.”

Read. Meaning, out loud?

“Yes. READ OUT LOUD.”

So I did, sitting in my car parked on a Berkeley sidewalk, I read Robert Duncan’s introduction to his book of poems, Bending the Bow, out loud. His words flowed out of my mouth. His thoughts on the Vietnam War, the reader, equilibration… elegant and moving. He wrote his work to be read, out loud.

I first came across Robert Duncan’s name when I was leafing through Jack Foley’s Visions and Affiliations, A California Literary Time Line Part I. Duncan called his poems “passages”. Recently Jack gave me Bending the Bow. “You have to read Duncan.” He said.

Duncan wants me to hear the music of his work. I looked out to the bright winter sky. Yellowing leaves scattered about by the order of the breeze . Duncan might be just outside my window tapping the rhythms with his fingers. Without a physical body he managed to speak through another’s mouth and lived again.

Passing Through

How many doors do we walk through in a day? Have we ever stopped to ponder what will happen when we walk into a room or out of a room? Into and out of the street? A building?

It seems that I’m entering and existing all the time. Each partition that holds me even for a moment is filled with possibilities. I have met strangers who have become friends, found lost things, memories, and food for poetry. Time moves things around, even within my own room. I discover forgotten bills hidden under piles of books.

Try to “go gentle” but oftentimes it is not up to me. A storm may be brewing next door; a new reality when I open my eyes. Each day is as unpredictable as the next. I wonder how I get from there to here.

Eric’s Tentacles

BB-nighttime-storefront — click to Bird and Beckett's website

For a tiny bookstore, Eric Whittington puts in long hours and grows tentacles to keep Bird and Beckett running in the heart of Glen Park. Breakfast cookouts, jazz nights, poetry readings, book clubs, and fundraising events are some of what he does beside selling books. When I first met Eric he was still at his old place on Diamond. After narrowly escaping a fire that broke out in the building next to his, he moved the store to the old public library location on Chenery Street.

With more room Eric builds a stage in the back of the store, elevating musicians and poets to their proper height. He has created and maintained a vibrant community, something that cannot be competed by internet businesses. People gather, touch, speak, listen, feel—all the essential human experiences are for the taking within this space. Eric’s tentacles bring the herd together. We buy books from bookstores.