A Woman and Her Words

Fairy Tales and Other Stories of Our Lives

2010-07-17T09:51:00.003-04:00

Lately I’ve been living in fantasy. Not all the time (thank goodness!), but the Young Adult (YA) books I’ve been reading take me to some places that don’t exist (and several that do, like San Francisco and Paris) for some pretty wild adventures. The novels are by Irish author Michael Scott (http://www.dillonscott.com/). I picked up the first one, which turned out to be the second in a series, The Magician {The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel} (Delacorte Press, 2008), and winged through it in about a day-and-a-half. The next day, I ventured out and purchased book one, The Alchemyst (which I’m reading now), and book three, The Sorceress (maybe I’ll take a break in between, with a non-YA book before picking this one up, or maybe not). Those of you who devoured the Harry Potter novels are likely to enjoy these as well. But that’s not the point of this blog entry…

Witnessing such incredible imagination woven into a series of stories set in contemporary times, using mythic and legendary characters as well as fictional ones, led me to several thoughts, which I list below and will attempt try to explain further.

1. I believe that imagination is the primary tool of a successful writer.
2. Imagination fires our storytelling.
3. All creativity is storytelling, in whatever form the artist chooses to express it.
4. There are no new stories. What is new is how each individual tells her/his story.
5. Telling our stories is healing because there are no “new” stories: by choosing to tell our story our way, we – and our readers/listeners – discover the universal thread between them and all humanity.
6. In this way, there is the potential for both the teller, the reader/listener and the planet to heal.
7. Because of this healing potential, it is critical that all people find ways in which to tell their stories.
8. In his excellent book, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers & Screenwriters, Christopher Vogel says, “All stories consist of a few common elements found universally in myths, fairy tales, dreams and movies. They are known collectively as The Hero’s Journey.”
9. We are the heroes of our own lives.
10. Everything in these lives is fodder for writing our stories.
11. To tell a story is to witness.
12. We witness our own lives, the lives of other people, the life of the planet and the universe. It is incumbent upon each artist (and we are all artists) to show the world how s/he sees the world.

Whew! Lots to chew on there, eh? Yet I have a feeling most writers know all this. Why else do we write?

On the other hand, artists are good at battering themselves with self-doubt. How many guilt trips can a writer fit into one day (to paraphrase some old jokes)? There’s the I didn’t write today (or yesterday… or for the past week…) trip; the I wasted half-an-hour on Free Cell or Spider Solitaire on the computer when I could’ve been editing that poem guilt (I confess to this one!); or the I’m spending all this time on reading (or whatever) when I need to be submitting my work guilt trip. It goes on and on. So it’s tough to pull a reminder up in our heads that we are on a mythic journey ourselves and that we have precious words to fashion together, as well as other creative work to accomplish.

In Your Mythic Journey: Finding Meaning in Your Life Through Writing and Storytelling, Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox advocate, “To be a person is to have a story to tell. We become grounded in the present when we color in the outlines of the past. Mythology can add perspective and encouragement to your life. Within each of us is a tribe with a complete cycle of legends and dances, songs to be sung. We were all born into rich mythical lives; we need only claim the stories that are our birthright.” Perhaps that is a starting-point for many: figuring out their tribe and its legends. If we have little more than a few fragments of our tribe’s mythology available to us, then we make it up. Imagine it.

Years ago, I led a workshop at the International Women’s Writing Guild summer conference titled “Reading and Writing the Fairy Tale – with a Feminist Twist.” As I researched the topic in preparation for the six sessions, I was struck by the connection between fairy tales and other categories within the folklore genre. Some take on different formats (poetic verse, bardic) and are labeled Epic. Legends, prose in the present or recent past, are supposedly true (or hold a grain of truth). Myths come out of the distant past and they tend to be reflect social norms or values; they are also likely to be sacred and try to explain how things came to be. Fairy tales evolved out of these traditions and include heroic characters with archetypal attributes (the Warrior, the Mother, the Crone, etc.).- just as other folklore categories generally do. For me, what sets the fairy tale apart from these others is the imagination involved. The teller of the tale creates her/his own story, usually complete with magical characters, objects that might take on human attributes, and journeys taken in the name of valor and/or love. In today’s world, this might seem simplistic but it’s the plot of any excellent movie or book, if you look deep enough.

I could go on and on about fairy tales, about the fact that they weren’t initially invented to entertain kids but for adults’ enjoyment (and to enable them to satirize the societies in which they lived); about how they evolved into a mostly children’s genre; about how feminists sometimes dub them as anti-woman but, looked at as reflections of their times, they paint a different picture—including one that affirms that women were the ones who first embraced the genre and brought it into their salons and other peoples’ lives. But again, not my point here.

The point is IMAGINATION.

If you let your BRAIN (critic) go, let it release your MIND (memories, creativity) to play—MAGIC happens. Just sit down with pen and paper, or laptop running MS Word, and tap into Creative Mind.

Here are a few prompts that might help that along-

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YOUR TURN:

~~ What are some of the fairy tales of your childhood that you can recall? Did they sometimes send a message that perhaps doesn’t ring true for you today? Can you re-write them? Give them a different ending? Try it, à la Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (Macmillan, 1994) and Once Upon a More Enlightened Time (Macmillan, 1995), both books by James Finn Garner (I particularly loved Garner’s revision of “Cinderella,” ending with Cinderella rejecting the sex-crazed prince and opening her own clothing co-op, selling only comfortable, practical womyn’s clothing!). Don’t worry about whether or not you’re remembering the story exactly as it was told or read to you. Just start with “Once upon a time…” or “In a village long ago…” or a similar fairy tale, belief-suspending opening. Write.

~~ Fairy tale characters are flat. They have no depth. These stories express conflict through action and/or symbols. Choose some common object that might symbolize a goal of a character. You can gild it with gold or make it the enchanted diary of an ancient witch. Maybe it’s encrusted with gems or hidden in inaccessible mountains or seas. Let the object steer your story. Like the The Magician {The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel}, perhaps you might set the basic story in modern times with the ancient magical object the goal, for whatever reasons your character(s) desires attaining it. Aren’t we all seeking the Holy Grail in our own ways? Start with the object and write.

~~ Write a poem inspired by a fairy tale. Perhaps it might be easier to focus on a particular fairy tale figure. For example, did you ever think back on Red Riding Hood’s rash decision to go traipsing off into the woods alone? To speak to a wolf? Could you ask her the question, “What were you thinking?” Or how about all the women in these stories that are just waiting for their Prince? What if the prince turns out to be a real toad – like after the marriage, it’s not so “happily ever after”? Many writers have successfully created poetry from some aspect of a fairy tale. Examples: “Against Cinderella” by Julia Alvarez (http://www.proaxis.com/~calyx/excerpts.html); “Gretel in Berkeley” by Eve Sweetser (www.endicott-studio.com/); “Fairy Tale” by Ron Padgett (http://poets.org.com/ – search the author’s name or the title); “The Witch Has Told You a Story” by Ava Leavell Haymon (also http://www.poets.org/). Others you might find in books, a couple geared toward children: “Once Upon a Time She Said” by Jane Yolen (Seeing the Blue Between: Advice & Inspiration for Young Poets compiled by Paul B. Janeczko, Candlewick Press, 2002); “Ginger Bread Boy,” a haiku by Jane Yolen (also in Seeing the Blue Between); “Cinderella’s Diary” by Ron Koertge (Writing the Poetic Life: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry by Sage Cohen, Writers Digest Books, 2009). If you can’t think of where or how to start, pick a well-known character and start with “What were you thinking, Cinderella (or Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, etc.), when you…” and go from there. Start! Now.

~~ Maybe you’re in the mood for an essay? Write about memories of parents or grandparents reading fairy tales or telling bedtime stories to you. Or about your first fairy tale book (was it your very first book?). Or about how Disney films based on fairy tales reflected the culture of the ‘50s, with the heroines always waiting for their Prince—and how that supported views of gender views at the time. If you were of those generations, how did it affect you? Or write about reading fairy tales to your own children, grandchildren, children at the library, etc.

~~ Read a few of the transformed fairy tales and bedtime stories written for today’s children, such as some of my favorites: Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood by Mike Artell, illustrated by Jim Harris (Puffin Books, 2001); Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson, illustrated by Kevin O’Malley (Lathrop, Lee & Shepard, 1994); Rapunzel: a groovy fairy tale by Lynn Roberts, illustrated by David Roberts (Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2003); and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf, written and illustrated by Jon Scieszka. Or go to http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/, a great site for history and texts of tales and more. If you’d like a site that can help you transform your personal stories into fairy tales, try http://www.storydynamics.com/, a site helpful for oral storytelling. Let any of these resources prompt your writing!

Note: The witch picture at the top of this blog is an Artist Trading Card (size of a baseball card) of my own creation. Aha! Another prompt-- create your fairy tale in pictures! or colors! or wild and crazy shapes!

Thank You, Rochelle

2010-06-27T14:29:00.007-04:00

What does your writer/artist-community look like? This week, I’ve been thinking lots about my community, or communities to be specific, and find myself evermore grateful for all the support I’ve managed to find for my creativity over the years. This is not without effort, of course, because the world does not usually come crawling to kiss your feet. Maybe especially the writing world. In many ways, to be an artist is to go it alone – so to gather together, to create, a circle of like-minded or like-creative friends and acquaintances is not an abracadabra-it’s-here happening.

For me, first there was the group that poet-therapist Rochelle Brener led at the Capital District Psychiatric Center years ago, called Relatives Writing Workshop. These were the gatherings that brought me back to writing. To join, you had to have a relative or close friend with a mental illness. Finding this group – and Rochelle – in 1992 was a god(dess)-send, all the way through to its closure in 1995. It was Rochelle who handed me my first brochure for the International Women’s Writing Guild summer conference, which I finally attended in 1995 (and haven’t missed since). When I decided to create a writing group emulating the inspiring, supportive IWWG event’s atmosphere, it was at Rochelle Brener’s newly opened Mandala Center for Creative Wellness that WomanWords first came together. We continued to meet there for almost five years, until my friend moved to Sedona.

I think of all the networking – the communities – that have come out of that life-changing moment when I first saw the tiny blurb about Relatives Writing Workshop in some newsletter. IWWG led to WomanWords, WomanWords to meeting so many gifted women, who led me to the active open mic scene in the Upper Hudson/Mohawk River area of New York State, to the Hudson Valley Writing Guild. WomanWords also resulted in my organizing smaller writing groups- Wild Women Writing, Beach Writers, a 4-person poetry feedback group. Through writers and artists encountered in all these communities, I’ve gotten acquainted with others, attended workshops, friended folks on Facebook. The connections go on and on.

No wonder the WomanWords logo includes a spider web, symbolizing the ever-widening connections between women writers. It goes beyond women to ALL writers. Each thread affirms the spirit and enthusiasm with which we honor our words. Our stories are everyone’s stories, individualized and universal.

Rochelle passed away in Sedona two years ago this past March. How do you thank someone who gave you a gift you already possessed but needed to own? What do you say about a person who gave so much of herself to everyone she encountered, yet would tell you she received as much and more in return? You can’t “miss” an angel when you know she sits on your right shoulder always, and yet sometimes you’d love to hear her voice, get another e-mail from her with her latest poem or announcement about her activities.

Here’s a poem I wrote at a workshop with John Fox, author of Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making (http://www.poeticmedicine.com/), late last year. I believe the prompt was to write to someone asking their assistance with something, perhaps in letter or prayer form. For me, the result speaks to all Rochelle was, as much as it entreats her spirit for a little help in areas in which I could use it! (Still haven't figured out how to stop Blogger from destroying my poem's format, so this one's off too!)

INVOKING ROCHELLE*
by Marilyn Zembo Day

Teach me to listen, dear friend,
for the bubbling undercurrent,
the spring from which heart and soul
erupts, where words attempt to describe
a life, a vision, a world unseen by others
yet real in its gifts and inevitable losses.

Show me how to focus, to bring myself
inward, to scratch away unnecessary
scrabble that pulls me further from
streams of consciousness, threatening
to scatter me like white wisps of dandelion
to impotent corners far from my creative self.

Rochelle, bring me to your place of discovery,
shared with so many, that I might produce
even a fraction of what you imparted to a broken
weeping world: words, visions, confidence,
empathy, sympathy, joy — folded into star-studded
packets of poetry, prose, expressive arts.

Keep me from spilling into my tendencies toward
over-doing, spreading into multiple layers
of plans, workshops, appointments. Take me,
instead, into the silence I am learning
to cherish where you, my Muse, remind me

I am called
to create.

I ask this, my once and always friend,
in the names of all goddesses we invoked,
in honor of countless lives you enriched,
for warming light you brought to shadowed faces,

because your torch burns still, in our hearts.

Blessed Be.

*Rochelle Brener (1945-2008), writer, editor, poet-therapist, Senior Poet Laureate of Arizona, artist, photographer, mask maker.

Do I think this is the best of poems? No. But, for me, it is healing. It addresses the woman who showed me how to create real community and to sustain it. Remember that movie title, Pay It Forward? This is what I do, for Rochelle, for Judi Beach, for Hannelore Hahn, for every person (most of whom have been women) who inspired and supported me. And for myself, because my mentors have taught me that to nurture the world, one must first nurture and love one’s Self.

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YOUR TURN

• Make a list of your “communities” – groups of people in your life, however formalized or freeform they might be. Writing groups, co-workers, community action groups, art organizations, neighborhood friends, family, etc. Jot down notes about how each supports you. Note also if there are negatives, i.e., do they pull you down sometimes? call your goals pipedreams?
o Choose one group, one member of that group, and write a letter to her/him. Ask their help with something: a project, a personal matter, etc. (Note: all “letters” in this exercise are meant to be “Unsent Letters” although you could really mail them if you like.)
o Write a Thank You note to each community.
o Write a Letter to Self, promising that you will spend more time with the supportive community folks than those making you feel that you can’t write/create, that nothing you will do will ever be good enough, or that you should re-focus on the money-making side of life.

• I re-contacted my favorite high school English teacher years ago, after WomanWorder Judith Prest wrote about letters and meetings with her old English teacher at a WW session where our theme was “Mentors.” While Judy’s teacher has since passed away, I still occasionally have lunch with mine (she moved back to the Capital Region several years ago), often bringing books for the library in her community of Roman Catholic sisters.
o Write about someone who nurtured your desire to write or create art of any kind. Can you recall what s/he looked like? Her/his scent? Put it in the context of the period in time (what did the clothes look like? automobiles driven by this person, if any? anything that will put your mentor in a time and place). How were you mentored? Did this person have faith in your abilities when others didn’t, when you didn’t? Were you reluctant to accept help or encouragement? Do you know where your mentor is today?
o Write a letter to someone who nurtured your creativity. Thank them. Tell them how they did it and what you’re doing now with what s/he taught you. This person may not be alive today; or you might know where s/he lives.
o Write a letter to someone you think needs encouragement, especially in the realm of writing/creativity. Point out specific talents you’ve witnessed in her/her, and give them hope that they can enrich the world with their work. Make them want to make more art, to develop their talents. Tell them about what they may encounter on their artistic path and how to counter negativity.
o Often our mentors aren’t real people in our lives. They’re people in history or books, writers we’ve never met, subjects of news stories who’ve inspired. Write about someone you’ve admired from afar, real or unreal, living or dead—what they did/said that impressed you; how you might like to emulate her/him. This could be in letter form, if you like.

Writing, Like Yoga: Good for You!

2010-06-25T10:04:00.004-04:00

Many of my friends manage to make entries on their blogs regularly, some every day. I am in awe. How do they do it? It’s been a year since I’ve touched this blogsite. Luckily, it hasn’t been a year since I’ve written anything, although I’m not as consistent at that as I’d like to be either.

Like yoga, I know a regular writing practice is good for me. Like yoga, I feel better after even one session of at least 30 minutes. And yet here I am, once again, attempting to build into my day (or at least into my week) a pattern in which both yoga and writing co-exist with the other necessities in my life. Like eating, sleeping, cooking, housecleaning (ok, not so regular about this one!), breathing…

This week I’ve spent 30-35 minutes minimum, 3 out of 4 days, greeting the sun with yoga poses, i.e., I’ve been up early and it’s the first thing accomplished. As for the writing, this past year my Wild Women Writing and Beach Writers groups have met sporadically and scribbled words as well as created art together (in fact, five WWWers took a 5-day retreat together at Wellspring House in Massachusetts, http://www.wellspringhouse.net/, in November). Except for a lengthy winter layover, I’ve managed to draft and e-mail several WomanWords E-Newsletters, even as I struggled to convert the distribution list from topica.com to a Google list. I’m currently in the middle of leading a WomanWords series of workshops at Still Point Interfaith Retreat Center (http://www.stillpointretreatcenter.com/). Not to be overlooked, Spirit of a Woman: A Journey of Power, Passion & Place, led by Dorothy Randall Gray and myself last month, brought 17 women to Still Point for an incredible weekend of writing and the making of WomanSpirit dolls. (Note today's photo above: I am holding a WomanSpirit doll and reading what I've written from her.)

So I have written. Several poems, most of which I love, have come from many of these gatherings. Some even emerged from solitary writing sessions over chai lattes at Barnes & Noble cafes.

At WriterSister Leslie Neustadt’s urging, I created a purposely-small poetry feedback group (first meeting early in May) in which the four of us bring poems for positive, in-depth critique. Positive doesn’t mean saying, for every work presented, “This is great!” (even though these poets are amazing wordsmiths). It means that we always start with a positive comment about the piece, what we especially liked, and all other suggestions are couched in wording that honors the fact that this is that poet’s work and it is her decision about what gets edited: “I’d have liked to know more about…” “I love these lines, but wasn’t clear about…” “If it were my poem, I might’ve…” Always, always, always, we are encouraging the writer to keep writing (which is also how every WomanWords session and event operates). Out of this group, in just a short time, I now have five honed poems plus two more from our session this week to-be-further-edited.

Another “event” also encouraged me to write/edit more (this reminds me of a t-shirt I received from Rochelle Brener years ago, still worn around the house occasionally- down the left-frontside, black letters against white, it exhorts, “write/ edit/ write/ edit/ write/ edit.”). Award-winning poet D. H. Melhem (http://www.dhmelhem.com/) invited me to participate in her “Poetry One-on-One” class at this year's International Women’s Writing Guild conference (being held for the first time at prestigious Brown University in Providence, RI, http://www.iwwg.org/). A few years ago, I applied to and was accepted for this individual poetry critique and discussion with D.H. and came away with both an affirmation of my creativity and excellent suggestions for editing many poems (a couple, she thought, were actually finished, no changes needed!). To be “invited” back to One-on-One felt like both an honor and a challenge. It forced me to review my work, pull out 10 pages of poetry for the master-poet’s review, create a 75-words-or-less statement of theme for a proposed chapbook or full-length book of my poetry, and draft a possible table of contents. A worthy exercise capable of making any writer focus. My pages, statement and table of contents have been in D.H.’s hands for a few months, and the effects of such a review of my poetry continue to have a ripple effect—the new critique group, pulling out old poetry to hone them for the anticipated book, and a smile on my face as I look forward to the conference and my One-on-One.

The other effect was to look over a life and its purpose. This year, I moved into the Social Security age bracket. My words spread before me—well, poetry only, in this case—it seemed like there should’ve been more. I should’ve been more engaged with words during my 20s, 30s, 40s. But then, adding in the other writing (fiction, nonfiction, newsletters, a play...), plus writing-related activities, I begin to see why others tell me that I “find more energy in one day than [they] can muster in a week [or a month…].” It wasn’t/isn’t about just my words. It’s about YOUR words too, which I’d encapsulated in this short poem last fall:

MISSION STATEMENT
by Marilyn Zembo Day

Here is what I do:
I scatter seeds
I tell you, You Can.
I give you tools:
paper, pen,
permission.

Seeds require
soil, water, sunshine
Given attention, they birth.
You are Woman.
You are Creation.

Birth. Walk out into the world.
Scatter your seeds.
Tell your stories.
I give you permission.
I give you my seeds.

Still, it’s important that one make time, make space in a life for her/his own writing. To write is to go deep, to witness, to acknowledge one’s place in the world. On that note, I’ll leave you with one of the poems written about my life, my place in the world, originally published in the Akros Review (out of U. of Akron) in 2007 (unfortunately, the formatting for each "date" seems to have gotten lost in the copying from MSWord - something to figure out later on, i.e., how to prevent that).

PROBABLY SOBER
(after Deborah Harding’s “How I Knew Harold”)
by Marilyn Zembo Day

Sometime in 1971 Carol, Chris and I throw snowballs at each other outside Stonehenge Apartments. It is 3:30 a.m. and the bars closed half an hour ago. Our much older neighbors slumber in their beds. Probably sober too.

Sometime in 1947 Mom climbs three flights of stairs to Aunt Mary’s and Uncle Champ’s flat, eats spaghetti and meatballs and goes into labor. I am born with a pointy head. Mom later tells me, over and over again, that I looked like Dinny Dimwit.

Sometime in 1968 Roy sends me six red roses for my twenty-first birthday.

Sometime in 1958 I spend the night at Susan’s house. We practice kissing, just in case Richie corners one of us near the school yard and wants a smooch. Susan tells me how a boy and girl do it but I don’t believe her. It sounds gross… and impossible.

Sometime in 1959 my father buys me a clunky, gray, used Remington office typewriter. He says, “Girls should learn how to type.” He also tells me girls shouldn’t go to college.

Sometime in 1987 my daughter and her friend are in the kitchen with me. I am making cookies for Sunday school youth group. Kristen asks, “How old were you, Mom, when you first did it with a guy? I drop my spatula.

Sometime in 1956 my brother George’s teacher pulls me out of my fourth grade classroom to witness her yelling at him for failing a spelling test. “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” My mother is pissed off but she won’t call Mrs. Benson to complain.

Sometime in 1969 Roy and I park on Krumkill Road to make out. I toss my underpants out the window before he drives me home.

Sometime in 1965 I am accepted at State University of New York at Albany, early decision plan. They require a $50 deposit. My father says girls shouldn’t go to college. My mother takes out a loan against a life insurance policy to cover the deposit and Christmas presents.

Sometime in 1971 Lloyd sends me two dozen roses. He tells me he is married. His wife is expecting their second child. Oops. The night we met, the song playing on his car radio was I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.

Sometime in 2006 my cousin Mary spends an entire day of her vacation cooking her mother’s famous spaghetti sauce with meatballs and sausage. She and her husband are staying with my brother George. I bring home sauce and sausage to freeze for future consumption.

Sometime in 1978 Bill and I host a party. Roy brings a date. Mary says to Carol and me that Roy is probably the only guy at the party who’s slept with four of the women in the room (assuming he’s already slept with his date). We compare notes.

In mid-November 1972 my water breaks at 6 a.m. during the first snow storm of the season. After a half hour of Bill’s digging the VW out of the snow and seventeen hours of my own labor, I have a caesarean section. Our daughter’s head is perfectly rounded.

Sometime in 1968 I quit college, for the first but not the last time.

Sometime in 2005 I begin seeking an agent for my novel. First choices are those who take e-mail submissions because they’re just a few easy keystrokes away. Girls should learn to type.

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YOUR TURN

o Can you write a Mission Statement? What is it you DO or want to Do? This doesn’t have to be about poetry or even about writing. It’s about looking inside yourself and witnessing your life. Look for themes—what ideas, causes recur in your life? Perhaps, these have changed over time (which would be normal!). Make a list of what mattered to you during different stages over the years. Can you trace a pattern, a moving-toward your current needs and desires? Pick up your pen or get into MSWord and let the words flow. If it needs to become a poem, it will. If it’s meant to be prose, that will happen. LET IT HAPPEN.

o What “regular practice” (writing, yoga, t’ai chi, jogging, painting, etc.) would you like to encourage in yourself? Make a list of those potential practices. Choose one and write about why you aren’t already deep into this practice. If you’ve tried and failed to make it a habit, talk about why it didn’t work out. Don’t beat yourself up for it, just note what stopped you and ways you think could counter that happening this time around. Close with an affirmation that encourages you to follow that practice (but won’t set you off on a guilt trip if you falter at times).

o My poem, “Probably Sober,” came out of an exercise published in Steve Kowit’s In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop (Tilbury House, 1995). Kowit provided Deborah Harding’s “How I Knew Harold” as an example of “a collage of memories out of which the poet created an appealing self-portrait.” He suggested that readers “write a poem with the same structure” as Harding’s, noting that the chronology is “jumbled” so that memories don’t move in a clear progression but jump back and forth. He also says to be sure that at least three of the items interconnect, if only tangentially. He also mentions that you should “hold to a chatty voice… you do not want to get self-consciously eloquent or lyrical.” This exercise worked well enough for me—it even helped me to write a poem that got published. Try it. Let me know what happened!

Getting REstarted: The Guilt of NOT Writing

2009-06-21T06:26:00.004-04:00

I can't believe that my last post was in April. But then I can.

Under the best of circumstances, it's tough to find time for many of the things we love to do (there are so many!). Working part-time (I've been retired from my NYS job since December 2002) took a good chink of time out of my writing/art activities, and then there were the usual things to accomplish as a family member, friend and part of the general population. On top of that, I was planning the WomanWords retreat (which came off beautifully) and getting ready to attend a week at the International Women's Writing Guild summer conference this month. All of this lead to NO blogging and consequent guilt for not getting to it.

You'd think my guilt over not writing much (well, not writing enough, in my own estimation) in recent years would've been sufficient fuel for my Inner Critic. All those short stories, poems, essays, plays and who knows what else... lost forever. And then I decided to start a blog. Another thing over which I could ruminate for not having written. At least I was creative in coming up with something else about which to feel guilty. Evil Critic was dancing for joy.

I wanted to be the writer consumed with her work. I wanted a place in the woods on a lovely pond or, better still, oceanside, away from the busyness of the world, soothing surf and hovering gulls the only sounds, out of earshot of televisions and phone calls; where I couldn't see the spider webs growing at the intersections of ceilings and walls, or dust bunnies nesting in corners and on bookcases and end tables (not all because I sometimes actually did write either). Of course, I know these are ideals which become excuses, so I still eked out time to draft enough work to qualify me as a writer (especially if there was a deadline-- I'm good with real deadlines), something I was proclaiming as I stood in front of writers who trusted that I could tell them how they too could tell their stories.

Well, I'm not consumed. I love to write and I think I have something to say, but none of that exactly eats at my innards. I didn't have a horrific childhood. We were lower middle class, tottering sometimes on the edge of upper lower class. I'm a Baby Boomer: my father worked (he was somewhat of a workaholic); my mother didn't, at least not until Dad died when she was 43 years old and went to work for New York State as a file clerk. Dad was the son of Polish immigrants. He fought in the Good War and came home to take a few courses at Albany Business College, quitting to enter the working world. We didn't even have a car in the family until my younger brother George got a license and a Ford Falcon at age 17. Neither George, our "baby" brother Bill or I were abused or neglected. Some might say, why bother to write at all-- isn't this kinda bland stuff?

Ah, but I have stories. My nose sniffs a faint scent of something familiar and a memory emerges. My hands explore a texture and I'm traveling back in time to a place I haven't seen in years-- maybe it doesn't even exist anymore, except in my own mind. I come across a picture in a cookbook of a long-ago favorite, something a grandmother or aunt cooked or baked, and my tongue longs for it, my mouth waters. I have eyes and ears. I have a heart and a brain and a good imagination. All of these add up to a great recipe for pen-to-paper, fingers-to-keyboard. The problem has always been with Me.

After the dinner dishes were done, which was after dinner had been prepared and consumed (this kind of consumption I am very good at)-- which might've been after a few stops on the way home after work, which might've been after leaving the office somewhat later than expected-- I was reluctant to sit down at the computer to write. Oh yeah, when the kids were young, there were other things going on as well. Once I get started, however, if it's a really good start, then I'm driven to keep going (OK, I can get consumed under the right circumstances). I lose track of time. It's 2 or 3 a.m. before I finally stop typing (with reluctance, eyes drooping, chest filled with exhaustion). Try getting up at 5:30 for work after that. I am my father's and mother's daughter and that middle class work ethic sometimes hounds me: get up, get there, do the best you can at least 98% of the time. Your best doesn't happen when you can barely keep your eyes open, at least not in a government office. When that happens, there's another sort of guilt than sets in. Same Critic, shifted into a different gear.

Not that this blog wasn't (and still is) a great idea. I've come to believe that one of my inspirations for writing is an incredible community of writers that surrounds me, both locally and at some distance, the latter a result of attending the IWWG conference since 1995. I love organizing and following through on all the intricacies of making writing and creativity workshops and retreats happen, whether or not I'm the person facilitating the sessions or I've brought another IWWG person to the area for that purpose. Sometimes I think I get more excited researching and pulling together agendas and handouts for sessions than when they happen-- I am imagining how this prompt or that exercise will tweak somebody's Muse into action. Starting a blog to prompt writers (or wannabe writers) back to their pens and computers is a natural extension of all this.

And here I am... back at it. The difference this time is: I quit the part-time job three weeks ago. I'm back from last week's IWWG conference, newly inspired, its Magic (the theme is always "Remember the Magic") having somewhat muted if not silenced the persistent Inner Critic. I am committing myself to at least once-a-week blogging on A Woman and Her Words and, believe it or not, I'm planning to start another blog in the near future related to my other passion, sacred space (stay tuned!).

In the meantime, let me get you writing...

**********

YOUR TURN

What do you feel guilty about? Something you've done? Something you haven't done but think you should be doing? Write about it. Ask yourself if the guilt is self-imposed and how. From a childhood religion? From strict parents? From some other source outside family?
Write about a secret. Any secret. Yours or one someone else once told you. Was it ever revealed? If so, what were the repercussions? Were you the one who told it? Did you feel guilty about it, or was it important that you tell someone (and why was it important)?
Write a letter to your Inner Critic. Tell him/her off, or try to bribe him/her into toning down the negativity for a while. Give reasons why s/he should do this. You might even give him/her a name (why did you choose this name?).
Imagine that your Inner Critic sits on your left shoulder and your Writing Angel on your right. If they were arguing over something, what would it be? Write the dialogue and the results.

Poetry as Memoir: Writing from Photographs

2009-04-01T19:26:00.008-04:00

A photograph is one of the best writing prompts going. Subject matter doesn't matter, origin doesn't either. What does matter is that something in the photo attracts or repels you, enough so that it triggers a desire to write from it. It may bring back a memory. It could simply spark an essay on a topic about which you have an opinion. Maybe there's a short story possibility in what you see. And if the photograph is an old picture that includes family, friends and/or acquaintance? Same options, except I happen to think these types of pictures are especially loaded for memoir... and poetry that smacks of memoir.

I've always loved collage and, in recent years, there's a particular kind of this medium that's drawn me in: soul collage (www.soulcollage.com). It was developed by therapist Seena Frost, who uses it with her clients and has seen its healing affects. I won't go into detail about the process but you should know that it involves exactly what I mentioned above: selecting images that attract or repel you (actually, it seems that the objects select you) and putting them into a 5" x 8" collage on pre-cut mat board. Each collage becomes a card that might, if you choose to go further, be delegated to one of four "suits" in a deck of cards. You can think of the deck as sort of Jungian, or like a Tarot deck, from which you can select a card or two each day and ponder what it might "tell" you (how you feel, what might be bothering you, are you going in the right direction, etc.). It's an tool for introspection. The card becomes more than what you were seeing and feeling at the time you created it--what you "see" can be different each time you view it. Which is why they make great writing prompts.

My favorite "suit" is the Community suit. For this one, it's a little more than just letting a card pick you. There's a little planning involved, which means you bring pictures to the table--of friends, family members, old neighbors, pets and more. These are supposed to be the individuals who form your community, who might've been mentors, who had something to do with how you became the person you are today. In a sense, they are your support group. As with all soul cards, the suggested prompt is to start with, "I Am the One Who..." and speak or write from there.

It can be the same with any old photograph. Speak/write as though you are that person and something falls onto the page. We pour our memories into a piece not worrying about fact, more concerned with truth. After all, memoir is not autobiography (a person's factual life, start to finish, or at least up until the age of the author when written). Memoir is about your own recollection of things, your own perception. What shaped you wasn't just what happened to you but also how you perceived it and how you reacted. And, unlike its cousin autobiography, it can cover only a small period of your life. We don't tell lies-- but we can fill in missing information with our questions and mention our assumptions, pondering what might have happened or why others acted as they did.

Poetry, I find, is a great tool for putting some of those memoir/memories into a short piece that conveys specific images yet doesn't have to convey exact dates. You want details in a poem, but it's a place where metaphor and simile is particulary welcome. Maybe the picture that inspires the poem isn't even a picture of the people you choose to write about. Recently, in a poetry workshop led by Therese Broderick at Eastline Books and Literary Center in Clifton Park, NY, my eyes were drawn to an interesting picture in the magazine that Therese provided to each participant. In it, a woman was playing a violin outside of what appeared to be a public building in a country-like setting. A small crowd gathered around, listening. I noticed small details such as the fact that the woman had a detachable lace collar around her neck, although otherwise casually dressed, and that every male in the crowd sported some kind of baseball cap. But my attention kept going back to that musical instrument, which I saw as a "fiddle"-- which brought me to memories of a favorite uncle and aunt. Here's where that took me:

GHOSTS
by Marilyn Zembo Day

My husband calls from Willey Street. Honey, there are ghosts
here, he says, and I know what he means. Over the phone line,
I hear the crackle of shuffling cards, the echo of Uncle Charlie
calling Deuces wild; clattering dice tumbling across the dark wood
of a well-scratched kitchen table, Scrabble tiles snapping into place.
Laughter backs up shouts of May I, and the slow fizzing of caps
twisting clear of Budweiser bottles mists over my eyes.

No one loves a game more than a Willey or a Boyd. No one
enjoys a beer better either. In the basement making adjustments
on a boiler that will soon hum for new residents, Bill listens
for the rattle of pans in the kitchen, thinks he detects the scent
of frying brook trout and bass. A distant memory flickers:
he is supporting the backend of a rowboat as he and my uncle ascend
a steep Adirondack hill, intent on better fishing streams beyond.

My young husband huffs and puffs, barely able to keep pace
as he grasps at his slippery end of the craft. Charlie, 70-year-old
fisherman, carpenter, weaver of baskets, doesn’t break a sweat.
If you put his fiddle in hand, Charlie Willey might easily call
a mountain square dance as they climb, keeping time with passing
clouds, the flight of a bald eagle, the migration of deer, elk
and star-eyed wolves. I do not wonder at this man’s imprint

on a house he built, on a street he once owned, in a town in which
his name meant something. I don’t ask my husband if he heard
the click-clacking of Aunt Helen’s knitting needles or the quiet
whirr of her sewing machine upstairs. I imagine a gentler impression
like the steady skilled stitches of her embroidery, creating a pattern,
an umbrella-logo under which family sheltered and blossomed,
nourished in her garden, by books and warm homemade cookies.

At my aunt’s memorial service, her grandson Doug predicted
the unthinkable: Soon, he said, there will be no more Willeys
on Willey Street. Wrong, I thought. When you spend decades
in a house built with your own hands, its one-time green-shingled exterior
cradles your spirit. If new owners are worthy, perhaps walls will whisper
secret strategies to them: how to win at Jacks or Better, how to catch
the biggest fish, when to let it all go to just love and be loved.

YOUR TURN

1. Pull out an old family photo album. Choose three photographs and let them inspire some writing. If you don't know where to begin, become one of the people in the photo and start with I am the One who... Don't worry about exact data like dates and time or even place; the details can be about the expression on the person's face, what s/he was wearing, did s/he seem comfortable posing, what is s/he doing (if you don't know, imagine).

2. Grab some old magazines and thumb through them, pulling out a batch of pictures that either attract or repel you. Gather at least 10 of them. Create a collage with a few of the objects in the pictures. Perhaps one of them will provide a background for the collage. Try not to do too much thinking as you create; just do it. And don't worry about artistic composition. Once it's together, take a few minutes to decide what it is saying to you. From the jumble, can you find a memory? Of a person, an event, something that was important to you? Does a part of the picture you've created bring back smells and sounds of another time? Does something move you to imagine a relative's or friend's life? Write whatever comes.

3. Take your camera and yourself somewhere that you can take plenty of pictures. Go crazy with that shutter button! (Digital is best, if you have one, since you can download right away and not have to wait for development.) Choose one of your new pictures from which to write-- what made you snap that picture? what sensations surround the object(s)-- joy? sadness? pain? violence? where are you in all this (observing only? commentator on an issue? appreciating its beauty? chronicling a place and time?). Write whatever comes.

Finding the Right Words

2009-03-31T03:33:00.006-04:00

Writers love words. Writers love paper-- filling it with words, word-images, word-related images. When the words don't come, sometimes we panic. We think we're "blocked" and we'll never write another inspired piece again. We begin to listen to that Inner Critic again, who loves to tell us that there's nothing new in the universe and therefore why bother to try to write something worthwhile. Inner Critic takes delight in trying to convince us that we have nothing to say, it's all been said before, we couldn't possibly say it better than...[fill in your favorite writer(s) here].

I tell writers who attend my workshops that everything we do is about the writing. About our stories. When we aren't actually committing our stories to paper, we're gathering information for them, researching anecdotes, picking up on the best way to express what is, in essence, often not amenable to expression on paper (or verbal expression of any sort, for that matter). If you aren't writing in the conventional sense (pen to paper, fingers to keyboard), you're still creating. The words will come.

Years ago, writer Susan Baugh helped me put into words this same concept. I took her workshop on writing the fairy tale at the International Women's Writing Guild conference sometime in the late 1990s, and my WiseWoman character's quest paralleled my own: finding the right words. In the end, she discovers she had the words all along:

GRANDMOTHER TURTLE: a fairy tale about finding the right words
by Marilyn Zembo Day (with thanks to Susan Baugh)

In the beginning, Grandmother Turtle knew all the words. She had seen the books in the moment before time began, run her gnarled fingers over their richly textured leafs. She knew the magic words on the rough-hewn pages of the bronze-toned volume. Her fingertips had traced its deep-furrowed lines and the blood-red rubies encrusted on its cover. She remembered the quieter, simpler lines in the silver book, adorned with turquoise, more beautiful than the distant mountains glimmering in Mother Moon’s reflection.

Especially, she loved the feel of the amethyst-strewn cover of the golden book. It was the one containing the special words, the spells of intention, the very sacred notes to live by. Grandmother couldn’t recall them all now but she knew they were out there… waiting for her. It was not an urgent need to bring them back into the fold, at least not until most recently. Life had been peaceful. The Mother had been good to them.

Now, however, Grandmother was troubled. Just this morning, as Father Sun slithered early fingers of light overhead, she had seen Raven alight jauntily atop her daughter’s hut. Today, on the day her first granddaughter would be named and taken into the clan, the cocky ebony bird dared scamper in a backwards circle, cawing and cawing, proclaiming his supremacy. Now the entire village knew he had staked his claim, and it was up to her to challenge his insolent declaration. To do so in safety and in absolute certainty she would not fail, she needed the words. And they remained just out of her mind’s reach.

*****
As the younger women bustled about the village carrying water, pounding grains for bread and cakes, and preparing tasty treats with succulent berries and crunchy brown nuts for the ceremony, Grandmother Turtle pulled in her head. She covered it with the elder shawl her daughter had woven for her when she first sought to leave the house of her birth to nest with Ran. The finely constructed garment attested to Seeda’s expert skills and reminded the elder Wise Woman of the pain she felt when she realized her daughter was not the one to whom she would pass on the Wise Woman ways. These many years, she thought it would be a woman from another nest—and she watched each village girl-child with heavy heart, from the moment of birth, searching for a sign. When Seeda told her mother that her last moontime was long before first snows covered the mountains, Grandmother dared not hope the Mother would give them a girl-child. It was almost too much to wish for… and yet the Wise Woman knew in her bones, heard the whispers of the ancestors that this was to be so.

Serana came into the world squealing and kicking, greeting her mother with pain and joy. Grandmother counted three stars shooting across the midnight sky on that evening. And she heard Wolf howl as she buried the baby’s wombnest under the window of Seeda’s hut. Until today, Serana’s destiny rested easily in the hands of Great Mother. She would be named and welcomed this day, and Grandmother Elder would proclaim her the next Wise Woman of the Clan. All of this was as it should be. And then Raven arrived.

*****
The Wise Woman shuffled quietly away from the village, toward the blue-black forest. She needed to think. She must solve the dilemma of the words. It would be disastrous to give the child a Wise Woman name without the magic words of intention. She would sit beside the talking stream and meditate on the problem. As she sought her place on the large boulder next to the water, she did not see Raven soaring above. She knew not that he hid in the boughs of trees beside the brook as she pondered her next steps.

Presently, Grandmother grew weary of searching her mind for words. Her head began to nod and her eyelids grew heavy. The shawl slipped from her head as she decided to move from the rock to the soft green grass. She spread the elder garment out, lay down upon it and promptly fell into a deep, deep sleep.

In due time, she felt a tugging at the shawl beneath her. Opening dream-doused eyes, she was amazed to find Wolf pulling at it. She had never been this close to Wolf before, always honoring his need to run free in the wilds yet paying attention whenever he called to her. She knew he did not dally frivolously. He brought messages of great import.

Cautiously, Grandmother opened her eyes wide so that Wolf gazed full into her violet depths. “Wolf,” she murmured quietly. The magnificent creature stopped tugging but continued to grasp the shawl in his mouth, mesmerized by her gaze.

“Wolf,” she repeated, more affirmatively.

He dropped the cloth from his mouth and stood at attention, waiting.

“Wolf?” This one was a question. The great animal needed no further words. He knew of the books and of her need.

“You know where the bronze book can be found,” he told her. “You were there in the moment before time.”

“Yes,” she replied, “but I do not remember the way. It has never been necessary to take that journey again and the path is not clear for me.”

“Clear or not, it has never been an easy route,” Wolf intoned. “The forest is thick and lush, and you will be tempted to stray from the path for rest and water many times. If you hesitate or falter, all may be lost.”

“I understand, Friend Wolf. But will you guide an old woman on her journey?”

“Aye, I can do that. If you will give me this rich shawl in exchange. It will warm my lair on cold nights.”

“It is yours the moment the words are mine.”

And they set out through the thick woods, moving quickly through foliage so thick and trees so tall that Father Sun barely touched their essence. Fleetingly, Grandmother wondered about the naming ceremony, knowing the clan would wait for her return for only just so long. It mattered little—the naming meant nothing if the words weren’t blessed. On she trudged, following Wolf deeper and deeper into the unknown.

The path narrowed as they walked and began to climb steeper trails. The old woman moved more and more slowly, sometimes losing sight of Wolf up ahead. Soon, when she had not seen her guide for some time, her pace slowed and she began to think of the little brook and the pleasant nap she’d been having when Wolf found her. “A deep drink of that water –that would be wonderful right now,” she thought, and suddenly she sighted an old stone well in an unexpected clearing ahead. Next to the well, a worn, smooth boulder invited tired, sore hips.

“Just a moment’s rest and then I’ll be much better,” she said aloud. She started to walk toward the well, her parched throat urging her forward. Reaching it, she drew on the frayed rope, pulling the bucket closer to the surface. s she pulled, in the distance she heard Wolf howl, a long, wailing warning. But the thirst was greater than the risk. “An old woman needs water and rest,” she said, for no one to hear but herself.

As she brought the water bucket closer to the edge of the well, a bright red-tinged light flowed from the vessel. Grandmother was at once full of both fear and curiosity. In awe, she reached into its depths and pulled from it the first book, the Bronze. She let her palms caress the perfect red stones. She opened the volume, fanning red-tipped pages, letting them fall open as the Mother saw fit. Carefully, she moved toward the boulder where she would rest and gather the knowledge needed.

But this was not to be, for as she lowered herself to the stone, her grip on the book loosened and, without warning, Raven swooped down and caught the Bronze tome in his beak. Without looking back, he soared skyward and then on into the deep woods beyond the clearing. In the distance, Grandmother heard Wolf’s mournful cry once more.

*****
In despair, Grandmother Turtle slumped to the ground in front of the huge stone. She no longer wanted the stale water of the well. Her only hope now lay in the two other books. But where were they to be found?

Just then, she heard a gurgling sound—almost as if she were back at her little brook. Thirst once again urged her on. A few feet away, at the edge of the forest, the bubbling sounds got louder. Not long afterward she found herself following a bustling stream to where it became a lake so clear it was almost silver. The sky, as it touched its shores, shone turquoise. Birds chirped contentedly and fish gaily leaped in and out of glistening waters.

Grandmother Turtle sighed and bent down to drink. When sufficiently refreshed, she looked up and was surprised to see the whiskered face of a huge catfish bobbing out of the water only a few feet in front of her. This was unlike any fish she’d ever seen, however, as its eyes caught hers in its direct gaze and it seemed to smile.

“Ho!” greeted the fish. “I see you have mighty thirst.”

“Yes, Great Fish. I am on a journey and the road has been long without water or rest. I very much needed the gift of your beautiful lake. Thank you.”

“I think perhaps you have a greater need than this water or you would not be here.”

“Why, yes, that is true. I am seeking…”

“You need not explain. I know of what you seek. It is simply difficult to understand why. After all, the books were yours before time began.”

“I know this but the words have been lost to me for some time now. If I do not find them, all is lost for my tribe. We are a small group and, without a Wise Woman when I am gone, they will lose the magic and perhaps soon lose all.”

“Grandmother, I can help you if you wish, but it is a long journey at best and sometimes dangerous. And you must be careful not to eat anything along the way. The woods along the shoreline are full of tempting fruits and nuts—but to ingest anything endangers your goal.”

“I have quenched my thirst and rested a moment. I will have no need for anything else. I will be nourished by the discovery of the books.”

With that, Catfish directed the elder to follow him. She trekked for miles along the shoreline, climbing over vines and fallen tree limbs, scratching her calves and sometimes tearing the edges of her long skirt. Always, she watched for Catfish to leap again from the ever-more-urgently flowing waters. In time, the waters began to rage and she lost sight of Great Fish as the flow dropped off ahead. Where the water dropped in a crystal shattering waterfall, the land too dropped and she began to scale rocks and earth beside the falls to seek the lower waterway. The movement downward was time-consuming and exhausting. Grandmother’s stomach began to call to her, reminding her it had been a very long time since she’d appeased it. Her energy was waning.

As she reached the smooth surface at the bottom of the falls, she noticed bushes filled with scrumptious red berries and tempting brown nuts. Catfish was nowhere in sight. Hungrily, Grandmother turned toward the abundant bushes and, as she turned, the crystalline falls looked as though a blue-green light was emanating from behind its waters. Curious, she stepped closer and realized she could actually walk behind the waterspill. She followed the light into the cave behind the falls and beheld the much-desired silver book, round turquoise stones adorning its cover, sitting on a plain stone altar within. Without hesitation, she walked to the book, took it into her arms and brought it to her breast as though it were her new grandchild. She turned and exited the cave quickly, hesitating only long enough to reverently touch the place which had held the book for so long and to open randomly to glance at a single silver-edged page.

Outside, her stomach growled once more. “I have it now,” she remarked to the wind whipping at the berry bushes. “I can eat a berry or two for energy on the long trip back.”

She reached for the most succulent of the fruit in front of her and, as she did, the winds grew stronger and caused her grip on the precious volume to loosen for just a moment. In that instant, Raven swooped from his perch above the waters and stole away with her treasure. Up into the sky he escaped, vanishing into the mist.

*****
Trembling, Grandmother Turtle brought her hands to her face and began to wail. “Oh, Great Mother, all is lost! My foolishness has cost my granddaughter her rightful place as Wise Woman. Our clan is doomed. I do not deserve to be Wise Woman myself—I have listened to my body and not to my spirit.”

Grandmother cried and prayed, prayed and cried, for some time, until she looked up and noticed the long scaly body of Snake at her feet. Snake’s large head undulated above the ground, yellow-green eyes glaring at the elder woman.

“Snake?”

“Grandmother.”

“Do you stare for a purpose?”

“Yes, Grandmother. You moan and you pray to Our Mother, yet you have nothing about which to grieve.”

“Ah, but Honored Snake, I have much to grieve. I have brought disaster upon my people.”

“You have done no such thing. Your people await your return as we speak.”

“I cannot return without the words.”

“You know the words. They were given to you before time began. What is the problem?”

“I am an old woman, and the words escape me. Without the books, I cannot be certain of these truths. Will you help me in my quest?”

Time remained as suspended in air as the Great Snake’s head, while Grandmother waited for his response. Finally, fangs flicking in and out with each word, Honored Snake assented. “You may follow me to the Golden Dragon’s lair, where the Book of Intentions can be found. Once there, I can slither into the cave and let you know when the Gold One sleeps. While he rests, you can sneak past him and grab the book. Only you must not be distracted by anything in the cave and you must especially not speak a word. If you do, all will be lost.”

Grandmother agreed and they went on their way. The terrain covered was less rugged than her earlier path and the old woman was beginning see hope once more. But then she heard the terrible roar of the angry dragon in the distance and she was not so certain.

“Do not fear,” Snake advised. “He will sleep and you will get the book.”

Not long afterward, Snake’s expectations proved true. He returned from the cave, nodded silently to Grandmother and she crept past the entrance into the bowels of the monster. Immediately, she sighted the brilliant golden book. She focused on the soft purple amethyst stones encrusted on its cover, noticing the perfectly chiseled edges from which lilac and white light flowed. It was easy enough to attend to the beauty of this tome yet, as she streaked out of the cave with the book clutched to her breast, a rustling sound from somewhere deeper in the cave distracted her. The moment’s hesitation caused her to stumble. She quickly regained equilibrium but the small noise disturbed the dragon enough to make him rise and sleepily evoke a half-roar.

Grandmother picked up speed and raced outside with the golden volume. Out of breath and jumpy, she stumbled once more, dropping the book to the ground. For one brief second, she saw the golden pages as they flew open on the ground. Then Raven again honed in on the treasure and carried it off beyond sight.

*****
Bereft, the old woman fell to the ground. She didn’t care if the Dragon awoke and came looking for the book thief. It mattered not if she ate or drank or rested any more. Raven had stolen all the books, and Serana would not be the Wise Woman. In fact, there would be no Wise Woman when she died and her clan would cease to exist.

Just then, she heard a small voice say, “Return.”

Looking up, she spied Grandmother Spider weaving her web in the vines overhead, hanging between bushes and trees. “Return,” Spider was saying. “Go back to your people.”

“How can I return empty-handed?” she asked.

“Return. You are full now. Return.”

Without another alternative, Grandmother Turtle decided to listen to Wise Spider. She walked away from the dragon’s cave, climbed back up beside the crystalline water fall, followed the silver lakeshore and passed the stone well before coming to the end of the path at her meditation brook. There, on the boulder beside her brook, lay the three treasured books, shining in the sunlight.

Grandmother walked to the boulder, thanking the Mother for her kindness and understanding. As she approached, she noticed a spider web spun across the base of the rock. She reached to open the bronze book and gasped as it fell to dust. The silver and gold tomes also turned to ash as soon as she sought to open them.

For a cold stale moment, she froze and then, in a moment before time began, she sought the path back to her home. The elder shawl slipped from her shoulders to the ground, as Wolf howled in the near-wood. Grandmother held her head high as the path before her glowed. he was returning to her village, where she would lead the naming ceremony for Serana, Daughter of Joy, Woman of Truth.

YOUR TURN

1. Write about a time that you couldn't find the right words. Maybe it wasn't about writing a poem or a story. Maybe it was a time you needed to impart bad news. Perhaps someone was hurting and you didn't feel there were adequate words. What did you do? What did you say? How were your actions/words received?

2. Make a list of 5 to 10 of your favorite words-- ones whose sounds you love, or whose definitions intrigue you. Choose three of them-- write a short piece that includes them all.

3. I once led a workshop on the fairy tale at the IWWG conference, adding "a feminist twist" to it. What's your favorite fairy tale? Can you rewrite it, modernizing it, perhaps even adding a feminist twist? or a gay twist? or another "twist"? Maybe you'd like to make it a poem, or a play!

4. Fairy tales, like myths, include hero(in)es who are sent on a quest. Usually they encounter at least three challenges, sometimes they meet three or more "guides" who help them along the way. Using this structure, you might set up a three-stanza poem (verse or prose) in which you are the hero(ine). What might be your three challenges (in a day, week, year), where might you find your guides (pets, the homeless guy on the corner, a hummingbird in your garden...)? Write your tale, perhaps adding a stanza before and after the three challenges to bring it all together.

5. When you think you're in a Writer's Block stage, write this title at the top of your page: Why I Write. Then start writing with "I write because..." Don't stop to cross out or re-read or change anything. Let it flow. Unlock. Be a writer.

The Writer as MapMaker

2009-03-27T14:51:00.003-04:00

The writer is an explorer.
Every step is an advance into new lands.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am thinking quite a lot about maps of late. Mostly, this is because the WomanWords 2009 Retreat is just around the corner (last weekend in April – see the program schedule at http://www.stillpointretreatcenter.com/) and I have many more “organizing” tasks to accomplish, as well as pulling together my workshop program and materials. Our theme is “Directions: Mapping a Woman’s Life.” The problem: the more I read, the more ideas bubble up; the more ideas, the more I wonder how I will boil it down to the couple of short hours and the few related handouts that will be mine to fill (I’ve invited two other writers as additional presenters for the weekend so the onus is not totally on me). It’s a daunting yet creativity-enhancing task in itself.

The seed planted for this theme came from a sister writer’s workshop at the International Women’s Writing Guild (http://www.iwwg.com/) summer conference, an event I attend every year. Colorado poet Marj Hahne (http://www.marjhahne.com/) has offered “Poem as Map” at the conference more than once and, as with all her sessions, it was crowded with participants last June. Over the years, Marj became so enamored with maps (and their potential as writing prompts) that she developed a weeklong set of classes that sparked many Creative Fires, leading to some fabulous poetry (and a few prose pieces as well, I’ll bet!). There is so much fodder for writing here—maps, plans, directions, signposts, geography, paths… the list goes on.

Think about it. The writer sets up a sort of road map for the reader. In a novel, it can be more extensive, taking that reader not only to myriad scenes in different locales, but possibly into other time periods, worlds or universes. What we do, as writers, is set up our piece so that we lead the reader (and ourselves, as we scribble words) into a world we are developing. Setting up a story (or any prose piece) usually demands a plot. A plot is a plan which gives you direction, tells you where you’re headed. Maybe you don’t stick with the original road map, but it’s a guide. As in life, we take side trips or veer off in a totally different direction—but the plan got us started.

The poet also creates a world, inviting readers in for a glimpse. Most poems, however, do not reach Homeric lengths (not novel-length) and so likely do not require elaborate planning. In fact, overplanning a short poem reeks of overkill, as in murdering your Muse. Still, we start off with a thought, a direction in which we expect our writing will proceed. Do we always wind up where we expected? Have you ever begun a poem you thought was about one topic and discovered that the finished work addressed a different one (maybe in conjunction with the starter thought, maybe not)? Ah, visions of “The Road Not Taken” (Robert Frost’s classic)—if you had not veered onto a different path than the original idea, would you ever have written on this theme? If you had forced yourself to stay with the first thought, would it have led to a better poem, a more publishable one, something more universal? Or would the original path have taken you to a dead end?

Aside from the obvious mission of writer-as-explorer, there’s the simple fact that maps—cartography— offer plenty of great writing prompts. Years ago, at a women's spirituality conference, I attended a workshop led by Becky Holder, a popular storyteller in which participants drew maps of the inside of a house/building/flat where they had once lived, preferably in childhood, definitely removed from their present situation. Stories subsequently shared with the group came from that exercise. My friend Judith Prest wrote a wonderful piece from a writing prompt in a memoir session led by Hannelore Hahn, Founder and Director of IWWG, that suggested describing the entrance to a childhood home. That prompt led Judy back to her beloved home in Delaware, where she walked the path to her country home once again (a short essay which eventually aired on public radio).

Marj offered a few “structures” that were helpful too, along with plenty of examples of poems. Although I don’t usually write much during IWWG conference week (I'm there for networking and inspiration), except during classroom sessions, I took time to hone the following poem written in “Poem as Map” because it was the piece I wanted to read during the Evening Readings:

MY HOME TOWN
by Marilyn Zembo Day

If the Oscar-winning actor with the bulldog face
called it the armpit of the world;
if the governor of the state cannot see but has vision,
and the sense not to consort with high-end hookers
(but not sensitivity enough to keep personal affairs in his own pockets;
if you checked the mayor’s closets for a tanning machine
or his desk for Coppertone coupons;
if your car discovered potholes deep enough
to reach cobblestones and trolley tracks;
if film directors searching for early American architecture
drive north to squander cash on sweating thoroughbreds
under the unrelenting August sun;
if winding paths bring bikers past old locks of the Erie Canal
where picnickers toss neon Frisbees
along the muddy Hudson’s shoreline;
if the world can’t remember it exists
because downriver sits the shinier, busier Big Apple;
if every other street, park or landmark sports
a name more common to a tulip-toned country
dependent on dikes and dams for survival;
and if those tulips, early in May, adorn hundreds
of parks and gardens and walkways—
you’re in the only state capital in the country where
a government building masquerades as a giant egg
nesting in its cold, concrete coop.

Another IWWG workshop leader, Maryland poet Carol Peck, has inspired many a writer with an exercise designed to bring back childhood memories. While the specific workshop had nothing to do with maps, per se, it had everything to do with scanning your childhood for sites/sights that evoke memories. Memories of sounds, textures, and more—all of which enrich the writing. As Carol emphasizes, these writing exercises come from other sources and they are to be shared—and so Judy and I sometimes pull out this exercise when we co-lead a journal writing workshop. I often use the following poem as an example:

WHERE I COME FROM
by Marilyn Zembo Day

Where I come from
trees don’t touch the sky
they whither and sometimes die
set in impotent dirt squares
wired against the wind
roots searching for sustenance
slithering and gasping below concrete slab.
no catalytic converters controlled poisons
and the streams were those of Fords and Chevys
wending their way to offices, apartments
and perhaps, occasionally,
toward places where Tree Gods flourished.

Where I come from
huge plate glass windows
threw our reflections back at us
screaming our needs
transistor radios, Frigidaires,
Barbie dolls, G.I. Joes,
Playtex girdles, Timex watches
grab the newest technology
purchase the perfect fad
and your life won’t require
juicy shiny apples, budding green leaves
fresh living air

Where I come from
three dark flights of stairs brought visitors
to blue collar linoleum
cracked walls, cracked wallets
love silent but an undercurrent
flowing beneath poker games and bingo
soap operas and True Confessions
plaster-pitted walls and plastic dime store curtains
better than drafty castles and echoing mansions
bourgeois, lived-in

Where I come from
nature is a picture in National Geographic
or a visit to Aunt Naomi’s
a ride to Uncle Charlie’s camp
Tree Gods still play
where Uncle Charlie fished and rested
and they dawdle and dance yet at my aunt’s
although houses now encroach
not yet concrete graveyards
not like where I come from.

I am intrigued by the routes I might take as I journey toward the 2009 WomanWords Writing and Expressive Arts Retreat. The highway to Still Point is clear enough: I drive Route 9 north from Albany for maybe half-hour/45 minutes and it’s a few more turns and about 10 more minutes until I’m there. But the path to my workshop, to creating road maps for women who want to write that weekend, to making further connections on this short-lived roadtrip of life—these are all part of the mystery, the magic, that is Creativity.

*****
For the folks who might be interested, here’s a list of some books I’ve acquired as I pull my workshop together:

Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi
You Are Here: Person Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination by Katharine Harmon
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow Jr.
How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon

YOUR TURN

1. Let my poem, “My Hometown,” inspire you. Marj Hahne suggested using the “If…” starter, leading to the “then…” conclusion (you don’t have to actually include the word “then” in the poem; I didn’t). What town/village/city do you consider to be your home base? You might make a list of specific memories, definite objects that you recall before starting out. Perhaps you’ll research poems written by others about place and, liking a particular format, you could style your poem similarly. Take your reader there. Make him see the space, feel the emotions, detect the scents. You might name the place or you might not.
2. Another possibility: start with “Where I come from…” and continue on. This works well for many people. Try to use specific images. Work with metaphor (your room was Nancy Drew, paper doll cutouts and dried up watercolor boxes…) and simile (your room was like the mother cave [warm? safe? welcoming?]) to enrich the writing.
3. Where do you go in your mind when the world becomes too chaotic or too wild? My husband was in the Air National Guard years ago with this muscular, seemingly down-to-earth guy who, when someone got bent out of shape about something or seemed sad, would say, “Now go to your happy place.” Maybe that’s a prompt too: who’s the most unlikely person to come out with such a statement? Is there a story in that? Imagine a top exec at a failing manufacturing company coming up with that statement in a strategy-planning meeting, or a terrorist toting a bomb. Write about your imaginary place, or your character’s.
4. Go to a store and buy a map— of a place some distance from you. Or pick up one of those tourist-type maps of an area while visiting a place other than where you live, the kind with cute little icons of houses and hotels and tourists-trap stores. Open the map and let your eyes wander the surface. Let something catch your eye: a name of a place, a river, a juncture of two roads, a continent. Let your imagination go. Write.
5. One of the essays in Chabon’s book (listed above) starts out with the sentence, “I write from the place I live: in exile.” Start an essay or poem with, “I write from the place I live…”
6. Consider the title of another book listed above: How to Lie with Maps. In his introduction, Monmonier states, “A book about how to lie with maps can be more useful than a book about how to lie with words. After all, everyone is familiar with verbal lies, nefarious as well as white, and is wary about how words can be manipulated… yet education in the use of maps and diagrams is spotty and limited, and many otherwise educated people are graphically and cartographically illiterate. Maps, like numbers, are often arcane images accorded undue respect and credibility.” When did you feel a map lied to you? Did you get lost? Was the mileage incorrectly represented? Or did you read the map incorrectly? Another prompt-- from the quote: tell about a white lie you told that backfired on you.
7. Tell a road trip story. Don’t name the places—just give the details about the places, using all, all most, of the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste).

So What Is a Sestina Anyway?

2009-03-22T08:45:00.007-04:00

I started blogging because I needed a place on the web where I could post new poetry written from writing prompts offered from the cyber space group Poem (or JustOnePoem, as it's called on Carolee and Jill's blog). Of course, I'm an eclectic writer so this is about more than poetry. But today is "posting day" for our first writings based on our group's first poem-prompt(s), which happened to be "Delta Flight 659: to Sean Penn" by Denise Duhamel. It's a sestina, a form in which I'd never written. In fact, I generally write in what I guess is called an "open form" since it offers more freedom (I am assuming, based on its definition, that "free verse" is an open form). Mind you, we were not directed to write in any particular format-- just to let something about the poem become a writing prompt for us. I happened to like the challenge of adhering to a form yet letting it allow me to voice whatever I needed to say. In fact, two poems came to me during our "writing week"-- my Voice had a few things to say!

At the International Women's Writing Guild conference at Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY), writer/artist Jan Lawry has led a workshop for several years. Even though there's a multitude of workshop options, I try to drop in on at least one of her six sessions because she always offers something that tweaks my Muse into action. A few years ago her prompts were actual poems by both other writers and of her own. Like JustOneWriter, she suggested we find our prompts in the poems offered-- including the possibility of using the same form, or format, as the author. I found this "spin-off" idea not only helpful but inspiring. I didn't always attempt to follow the same structure but when I did, something seemed to magically flow onto the paper (maybe not in perfect shape, but later to be honed into a final piece).

Before I include the two poems into this blog entry (and I'd like your feedback on them, if you so desire to click onto Comments below and offer it), let me first recommend a book in case you're inclined to try your hand at a specific poetic form. Once I'd read Duhamel's Sean Penn piece, I consulted The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland. It gave me the basic structure of the sestina, some history of the form, its contemporary context and plenty of examples. I highly recommend that, if you're curious about other poetry formats too, such as the villanelle, the sonnet, the pantoum, or the ballad, you check this volume out.

And now, my new poems. Duhamel's poem, in addition to urging me to create a sestina, also prompted me to write a poem addressed to a celebrity. I'd recently viewed the film "The Great Debaters" and was moved by the true story of the courage of this group of young African-American college students who dared to debate issues that, in their time and place (Texas, 1930s), could have gotten them lynched. It helped that Denzel Washington is a star that I admire. Having lived through the 60s and walked in a few local equal rights/anti-war marches, this was a no-brainer as to why I'd choose the topic-- but how to put it into a poem? I discovered that the form served me well, although I didn't follow the specific pattern of words within each stanza to the letter. [Note that I've included a picture from those days, a local march, me & my friend Roy!]

PSEUDO-Sestina:
After Viewing The Great Debaters
by Marilyn Zembo Day

What are we left with, Denzel Washington,
when the music stops and dancers
depart, hopes dashed against white-washed wall,
strung-out children setting a place
for freedom at a skewered table,
imagining Martin, Malcolm… waiting

for Barack? If it doesn’t feel like dancing,
Denzel, if dreams cloud the wait-list,
which hopes then get forever tabled
while corruption pervades Washington?
Opposing agendas from wall-eyed
senators hinder, delay replacement

of archaic laws etched on placemats
from Greensboro, where obedient waitstaff
balked at Langston’s crumbling wall,
legal feet accustomed to a slow-dance
of separation, their guts awash
with the bounty of rancid tablefare.

Picture a traditional southern tableau:
straight-backed Negro servant placing
the evening meal before George Washington,
this man who would not be king, awaiting
the two-step of master-slave dinner-dance.
I ponder the miracle of an image wallpapered

onto a stone-and-cotton cultural wall,
blistered by the fires of a thousand washerwomen
who refused to take the bus, disrupting the waiting
hangman and dictating the tempo of the dance.
I could not envision an emerging replacement
yet I took a seat at the apocalyptic banquet table.

Tell me, I wanted to know, how you choreograph
a revolution. Assure me that the weight of irrefutable
truth will someday uproot complacency.
Denzel, I wanted peace. Handwashing
the feet of exhausted walkers, I, the wallflower,
indulged. I played the game of waiting.

But no one waits forever, Mr. Washington. Elijah’s
unattended place at the table requires attention.
I would’ve danced at the wall just as joyously for Hillary.

The idea for the second sestina came from a picture that my friend Leslie Neustadt sent to me via Facebook, an image of the "melancholy" Mary Magdalen painted by Renaissance painter Artemesia Gentleschi. Leslie knew of my interest in the Magdalen but she hadn't known I'd also become a "fan" of Gentleschi's work long ago-- back when my daughter Kristen did a college paper on this gifted artist. I had never heard of her at the time, but then who knew about women artists from that era? First of all, few women would've been given the opportunity to study art (Gentleschi's father was a painter)-- and then there's the fact that the winners write the history and the "winners" in those days were men (no comment on current status; suffice to say things are improving but we're not there yet).

I'd also read Susan Vreeland's novel, Artemesia, and loved it-- highly recommended. Vreeland takes what she researched on the artist and the times and imagines her circumstances: her art, her being raped and (being considered "property" of her father) having little recourse, and more. Between the novel and the painting of Mary Magdalen, the poem took form-- a sestina form, that is.

Paintboxes and Whores: Inspired by
Artemesia Gentileschi’s Mary Magdalen as Melancholy
by Marilyn Zembo Day

I am writing this poem, Artemisia, hidden
behind a cheap library desk, body
hunched into the absurdity of paintings
of women toting sacred oils, called whores,
and saintly men who thrust that sharp-
edged label upon them. A curve, a breast,

a body should not incite rage. Breast-thumping
testosterone motives aside, what hidden
agenda did he harbor, what sharp-
textured dream haunted his body
that he would violate, then call you whore?
Artemesia Gentileschi, is there enough red paint

on an artist’s pallet, in an entire paintbox,
to depict what lurks below your broken breast?
I am drawn to your golden Magdalen, whore
of your unforgiving Church, and I imagine you hide
behind your easel, building a mythic body
of work, slicing into your abuser with sharp

Biblical strokes, a woman’s sight sharpening,
narrowing, with each layer of paint.
No one said to you, “Love your body.”
Perhaps wrenched from a reluctant mother’s breast,
sensuous touch became something to hide
lest you emulate the first-century whore.

Once someone said we’re all whores
for something or someone. Whether sharp
or soft, sound still breaks into the silence. Hidden
messages, cryptic or decoded, continue to paint
the landscapes of women’s lives. To keep abreast
of terror wreaks another kind of trauma on the body.

Beyond the wall of my bookish enclave somebody
drones on about overdue fines, while I play word-whore,
seizing on every trick to lure the Muse to my breast.
My Critic batters every image, his voice shrill, sharp.
His laugh is a coiled rattlesnake. How could you paint,
with so many ghosts, so much to hide?

Somebody scraped the paint away, Artemesia:
Sharp-tongued whore, in the bosom of feminist truth,
like Mary, I invite you to come out of hiding.

YOUR TURN

1. Try writing a poem, or a letter, to a celebrity or famous person. Perhaps s/he's a particular favorite of yours. Maybe you want to tell her/him how s/he's inspired you, or that you like something s/he's done recently (a film, a song, lending support to a charity, etc.). How were you inspired by this person? Or was it the opposite-- did her/his actions anger or sadden you? What questions would you ask of this person?

2. What's your favorite movie? Or what film most recently evoked strong emotions for you, made you think about an issue or an era? Go with those emotions, thoughts-- let words draw out what needs to be expressed.

3. Either go to a museum or Google a favorite artist. Choose a painting and see what it evokes in you. Think about what the artist was seeing but also let it speak to your own history and feelings. Does something that's happening in the work of art bring back a memory, pinpoint a particular time or person in your life that you hadn't thought about in a while (or have been thinking about but not doing anything about it)? At a recent workshop I attended led by Therese Broderick, one of her prompts worked particularly well for me: start with "This reminds me of..." and, whenever the flow gets blocked, write the same starter-phrase again and keep going.

4. Are you a Baby Boomer? Do you remember the 60s? (Try not to start with the cliche, "If you remember the 60s, you weren't there.") Did you march? Were you a hippie? Did you go to 'Nam? Did you embrace Free Love? Were you a big Beatles or Stones fan? Write the memories. Maybe this becomes a book, or a chapbook-- to be published or not.

5. Write about courage. What is it? How does one find the courage to sit at a lunch counter when your actions could lead to death? How do you survive rape and become an accomplished artist? How do you get from wake-up to sleep-time each day? Give examples. Tell when you've been courageous (and yes, you have-- just acknowledge it).

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR/MY AURA?

2009-03-17T21:17:00.001-04:00

I have a new car: a 2009 Saturn. It wasn’t our (hubby Bill’s and my) intent to purchase a new car this year but our daughter’s need for a new/used transport was coming to a critical head (maybe she could take our old Saturn), and then there was that new jumpstart-the-economy tax deduction as an incentive (buy a new car this year, claim tax paid on it as a deduction in January 2010). We couldn’t find a decent used car for her at a reasonable price—at least not quickly—and so the idea of Kristen’s acquiring my beautiful (in my eyes anyway—it’s served me well) white station wagon popped up. In the end, we decided to pay off one car loan to acquire another.

But that’s not really what this blog entry is about.

I am not a car person. I almost never remember what kind of a car someone drives, although maybe its color might be recalled (I know Grandpa Boyd had a blue car and that my mother always said that he never had an accident but he probably caused a few because he drove in the middle of the road). I don’t have the name of auto manufacturers and their model names on the tip of my tongue. Some remain familiar for one reason or another: in my younger days, I recognized Corvettes, Carmanghias (although I probably still don’t spell that one right), Volkswagen bugs, Ford Falcons (my brother George’s first car) and... aw geez, now I can’t even remember the name of that cute little white foreign job that my cousin Diane drove (she’d pick me up at the bus stop on campus my freshman year at SUNY Albany, announcing her arrival a half-mile away with its noisy muffler). I thought the Datsun Z was ultra-cool, but then I was unduly influenced by the fact that a guy I had a crush on drove one.

I don’t even like to drive. If a car runs well enough, has automatic transmission, sports little enough rust on it so as not to embarrass me and, nowadays, doesn’t consume gasoline faster than a camel slurping water at its first oasis in days—I’m a happy camper, uh, driver/owner. I also want a CD player that works.

When I walked into the office the day after we’d looked at new Saturns, I wasn’t jumping for joy at the prospect of a larger car payment—but I could tell my co-workers that we would be submitting paperwork to the credit union to see if they’d approve the loan. Asked what model car I’d chosen, I said, “Oh, it’s a Saturn Acura.” Oops. Wrong model for that dealership (I’m still not sure—would an Acura be a Toyota? Nissan?). We’d considered the Saturn Vue, which had much more room for art materials to be carried to my workshops, but it was worse on gas mileage and much more expensive.

Once the loan was approved and Bill had corrected my model mistake, I was again asked what kind of car I was buying, this time via telephone by my friend Mary. “A Saturn Aura,” I replied. Mary hesitated a mini-second and then said, “How appropriate for you.” Of course I knew exactly what she meant. I have earned a reputation as a more-or-less New Age-y person, mostly because of interests in feminist spirituality, labyrinths, personal altars, mandalas and things of that nature; thus, “Aura” would trigger her reaction. In response to her next question, about its color, I had to say, “Well, I don’t want to tell people that my Aura is gray.” That evoked a laugh.

I am not into “auras” as in the New Age definition (whatever that is) but I do understand the concept. I think it’s really not far from the definition in my Webster’s, which reads, in part: 1. a distinctive and pervasive quality or character; air; atmosphere; 2. a subtly pervasive quality or atmosphere seen as emanating from a person, place or thing…

Years ago, when I worked part-time as receptionist at Mandala Center for Creative Wellness (one night a week to offset the cost of renting space for my writing group), I got to know a well-known, local psychic who sometimes leads workshops on detecting auras. Theresa offered walk-in readings on some of the evenings I sat at the desk, and we hit it off quickly as we chatted—especially once I realized how down-to-earth she was. Once, I asked how she can “teach” someone to see another person’s aura. She told me that we all have that ability but it gets lost as we grow older and more acculturated to Western values. In other words, I surmised, we stop trusting our intuition—which can tell us lots about a person when s/he walks into the room, when s/he first speaks, when s/he gestures in any way at all. What she was doing was telling people how to access their natural psychic abilities.

“But,” I queried further, “what if you just don’t see a color, what if you don’t see anything around that person?” “Make it up.” “Make it up? No way.” “Yes, make it up.” If we don’t “see” anything, we should still feel something. And colors have emotional meanings to us. Is there anyone who hasn’t thought of red as passionate, or painful, or exciting, or sensuous? How about blue as peaceful, or nurturing, or cleansing? It is Theresa’s position that we begin to see auras after we learn to trust our own feelings/ intuition about our people-judgments.

My friend Leiah Bowden creates gorgeous Energy Portraits (www.lightspeak.com), and she teaches others how to do the same. At her workshop, ever the feet-on-the-ground skeptic, I couldn’t follow her into a deep meditation (I have too much “monkey mind” to meditate well) yet I immediately took to the process of adding colors to my Energy self-portrait. Without prompting, I applied Theresa’s make-it-up theory to the activity—only I found that I wasn’t making anything up. Here was the red passion of my creative fire; there, a violet sensuous love of life; in this corner, golden sunlight, my general optimistic nature… and more. Leiah’s portraits are auras on paper. A fleeting glimpse of the soul using color.

My Aura is gray. My 2009 Saturn Aura, that is. But then perhaps, if I want to imagine it, my other aura is tinged with a bit of gray too—steel gray, a gentle but firm courage that buoys me up in harder times and allows that “general optimism” to flourish into abundant joy in better periods. Mary was right: how appropriate.

**********

YOUR TURN

You’ve read about my Aura/aura—now it’s your turn, reader/writer/artist. Here are a few options:

Stand in front of a mirror and imagine your own aura (who knows—maybe you’ll actually see one!). What color is it? How far out from your body does your aura extend? What do you think the colors represent? Does the aura change while you’re watching yourself in the mirror?
Write a story about a wo/man who’s never seen an aura before but all of a sudden starts seeing them. One of them, emanating from a co-worker, frightens her/him. Why? What happens, once she sees the aura?
Write a “car memory”—your first car; the family car growing up; the first time you made out in the back seat; the last time you went to a drive-in movie; how you met your mechanic, whatever memory that emerges in which a car somehow shows up.
You buy a new car with a mystical name. It takes you on an adventure. Where do you go? How long are you gone? Include feelings, sights, smells, noises. Make it a fairy tale or a myth, if you like.
Go to Leiah Bowden’s website and check out the Energy Portraits. Try creating one of yourself or someone you know. Make a meditative afternoon of it. Better yet, sign up for one of Leiah’s workshops!

**********

Let me know if you created anything—writing or visual— from the above prompts. Make my aura shine a little more golden!

Love,

Marilyn

Getting to Know Me...

2009-03-15T21:54:00.006-04:00

How much ego does it take to create a blog? I mean, one has to think, "I have something to say..." or, more to the point, something to say that someone else might want to read-- right? On the other hand, there are plenty of people in the world who seem to just talk (or write) to hear/see their own words. Most of us can make a short list of some of those acquaintances in the time it takes to start-up your computer. I don't think I fall into the latter category (?) and yet I still find myself cataloging the reasons why I'm clicking away at the keys on my laptop at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night-- when I could be delving further into the latest book that's caught my imagination or at least washing a few dishes lingering in the kitchen sink.

When I joined the cyber "poem" group started by local poets Carolee Sherwood and Jill Crammond Wickham and touted on Facebook, I read that poetry written from their prompts should be posted on our blogs or websites so members of the group could offer their feedback. Unfortunately, I had no blog (although I'd been saying I was going to start one for over a year) and my WomanWords website fell off the online wagon a few years ago for lack of time (both mine and my daughter's-- Kristen was doing the set-up for me). I sent a note to the FB group saying I wasn't sure what to do about this. Carolee assured me that I could post my poetry on FB in the Notes section. Given recent hype about FB in the press, I'd been careful NOT to post much there that hadn't already been published somewhere else. So this was the kick-in-the-butt I needed. Reason #1 for A Woman and Her Words.

Reason #2 is simply that I love to write. At times I'm driven to tell a short tale or two about growing up, about something I heard, about something too good not to share. I have a friend in California, Pat G., who says she loves it when I "go into story mode." According to Pat, there's a distinct change in tone in my e-mails when this happens, which is when her eyes open wide and she pays close attention. Lots of times this is when I tell a story about growing up in a large family-- not of siblings but of a multitude of aunts, uncles and cousins. Pat and I have been friends since my first attendance at the International Women's Writing Guild summer conference in 1995, when she was housed for the week in a room next to mine. She's only been able to attend that event perhaps two or three times since then (once my husband Bill and I picked her up at the airport and drove her to the campus), and yet I'd bet she knows me better than many of the people with whom I worked for years in a state agency. Stories do that. Shared words can create bonds.

Under other circumstances, I would say that #3 Reason had something to do with my love affair with paper. I love the look and feel of paper. Paper entices me to do something with it. Fill it with words. Cover it with images, color. Tear it up for collage. It's probably why I started writing. I can remember long afternoons as a kid, no one to play with (my brother was off somewhere, most likely), when I'd open a black-and-white composition book and fill its pages with "lesson plans" and lists of imaginary students. Once I walked the block to Woolworth's, a crisp dollar bill rolled up in the palm of my hand, and bought-- instead of a few comic books or something "normal"-- a rent receipt book. It just called out to be purchased and filled with imaginary tenants. More recently, on vacation in the Maryland/ D.C./ Virginia area, I kept my husband, daughter and two friends waiting while I drooled over tons of items in a "paper" store in Old Town Alexandria (I wound up buying four large, and not cheap, sheets for collage). But certainly blogging isn't about paper, not unless I print my entries and put them into a binder. Hmmm... maybe...

This blog is about Expression. Mine and my readers (I'm assuming I'll have a few). My WomanWords E-Newsletter seems to have been well-received since Day 1, with its Quote, Writing Prompt, list of Books I've read and copious suggestions for submitting work, creative events and other possibilities. Some of that is likely to find its way into A Woman and Her Words, but I'm thinking this is more than a newsletter. The plan is to not have a plan. In the beginning, it will be more like the freewrites we writers should be allowing ourselves to do: it will be allowed to evolve. Especially, it will be about my creative process and I'll be interested in hearing how my process resonates and/or differs from others'.

As an opening, I posting (below) a poem written at the IWWG conference several years ago in a class called "Writing from Our Religious Pasts." The workshop leader was Kathleen O'Shea, a former nun and a writer previously nominated for a Pulitzer for her nonfiction book, Women on the Row. The crux of this class was that so much of our religious past forms us. During the week we wrote from childhood and other "religious" experiences, but our final assignment was to write about what we currently believe. As an introduction to Marilynology (I stole that term from a fun exercise currently going around Facebook-- using your name and adding the "-ology" after it is part of the game), here's the result of Kathleen's final writing prompt-- for me-- at that summer conference:

BELIEF STATEMENT, 6/24/04
by Marilyn Zembo Day

I believe the Divine
is Within and Without
but that those who do not seek Her
Within
will find it difficult to experience Her
Without.

That sometimes the answer
is a question
and the question may lead
to more puzzles
the complexities of which
in themselves
might be answers.

That knowing that I will never know
with absolute certainty
all of the answers
or even a considerable amount of the questions
adds to the mystery and affirms
that life is deep and changing
and linked to something greater than ourselves.

I believe that I can name
my Inner Divinity as I choose
but that She is really nameless and genderless
balanced in her love for humanity;
I picture her saddened, tearful
at the violence done in her various names
wanting to pull all men and women to her breast,
to comfort, reintegrate us into her womb
that we might re-learn our Oneness.

I believe that all life is a circle
and that we return, return, return
that, as science informs us,
our energies, atoms, do not dissipate;
all energy in the Universe continues to exist,
simply evolving into different forms
just as all of our stories
shapeshift in our many voices.

I believe in the Soul
insofar as it is somehow linked to our own Divinity
and in that it speaks to us through our creative urges
and that if our creativity is stifled
we become as broken bits of glass tossed aside by the Creator
when we might have been a stained glass window
reflecting back to the world
all that we have become and
all that we leave behind.

Now here's what YOU, reader/writer, can do. You can pick up your pen and start with "I believe..." and just let go. If you get stuck, start again with "I believe..." or try "I don't believe..." This doesn't have to be spiritual or intellectual or anything at all. It only has to flow from your pen (or through your keyboard). It could be that, at the moment, all you can believe in is the t.v. remote and its ability to take your mind off the crappy job or the possibility that your husband is having an affair or your empty nest. Don't judge what you're writing. Writer Emily Hanlon says you get it down and then you pick out the jewels later on. And if there are not jewels this time, there will be eventually. If you don't write at all, there will never be jewels. Write.