Stedfast as thou art

"Bright Star"

still dreamy...

Letter in November

The Recipient

in response to "The Couriers" by Sylvia Plath

See the snail, its word

cross the vein of a leaf? The tree,
its leaf are yours.

Accept these genuine offerings
like bare skin
like seeded beds and dance
a ring around your own.

No one is golden
or shines like you and no
these are not lies.

If you let it or allow, your heart
can warm this frozen leaf you sprout
for every season.

If allowed, the leaf is yours to thaw
but quick!
before its many pieces scatter

before it cracks like broken glass-

(Photo courtesy of Smith's Mortimer Rare Book Room.)

A Certain Slant of Light

I am captivated by this book, "The Ms of My Kin"(2009) by Janet Holmes. On these chilly days, I stroll past it on the shelves of Small Press Distribution and picture myself cocooned inside a blanket and reading its pages, cover to cover. Part of this intrigue I must owe to my ongoing obsession with another text that takes on Emily Dickinson.



Susan Howe's radiant "My Emily Dickinson" (1985) is one of the leading texts in my personal canon of inspiration. It's the wild combination of poetry and poetics, translation and explanation, and admiration and reclamation that places this work on a pedestal. Simply put and unprecedented, Howe unveils Dickinson's brilliance and timeless prevalence through close readings of poems. She explores the solitary poems themselves, but she also looks at them as coming after and in relation to other texts. She calls to light the influence such works (from such influential figures as Emily Brontë, William Shakespeare and John Keats, to name a few) had on Emily. Part of Howe's approach stems from literary criticism and it is from this angle, from this limb, that I learned to reach inside myself and embrace the critic within. Note to self: read poetry and enjoy, read poetry and question, falter, stumble, read poetry and write!

As for Holmes' book, I am eager to experience how she tackles Dickinson's poems. From what I've learned from my few times flipping through, I know that she uses erasure (see 1st image above) to further ignite and free Dickinson's original text. I wonder how she feels about Howe's groundbreaking book, almost 25 years old now. I also wonder what it was like for her, as a writer, to re-imagine Dickinson. Once I've read, will report back (and hopefully soon).

A Certain Slant of Eye

Funny, the thing I see. Or, not funny but
funny, the way I go toward, strange
the direction it heads
we go.

Swept up like the branch to sun, or
it's undecided whether
they face north, south, east or west
whether they are taken-elsewhere,
into memory-or it's my foot
they set off course, whether it is me
they handle.

1. Mombaruzzo, Piemont. Lounging by lavender in Italy with Heather, my sister. August 2008.

2. California State Route 92. Alone and on my way to a poetry reading in Half Moon Bay. March 2008.

3. Matt Davis-Steep Ravine Loop, Mount Tamalpais State Park, Marin County. The early-morning, blurry-eyed start of a hike. Labor Day, 2009.

Much Ado About Benedict

Check out how my Sunday morning brunch was taken to a whole new level. Liz made, yes homemade, this favorite breakfast specialty. Variations happened, primarily the switch from "bene" to "flo" as the cook is a proud vegetarian and I happily and healthily oblige. In fact, when it comes to ordering this dish off of a menu, I usually go Florentine because tomatoes, spinach, avocado (whatever they put on to spruce it up)--oh, so much more refreshing than bacon a la Canada. Home style, the impressive aspect of this preparation is the foolproof Hollandaise sauce and poaching the eggs without the messiness of a bad break-up. I can't attest much to what all went down in the kitchen (I was too engrossed in the Sunday NY Times Style section reading about LA teenagers who break into celebrity homes) however I can vouch for the richness and perfection. It tasted and looked like the real thing. Anyone can do it! So, much a-do!

Note: the recipe is from the Cook's Illustrated's Holiday Entertaining Issue (on newsstands now) but for some reason I can't find it online. Good luck in your search!

Everyday Zen

"To make a stone stony: that is the purpose of art."
- Viktor Shklovsky

Here's hoping this weekend is as good as the last! I wish I could spend every morning like I did last Sunday, wandering over the Golden Gate Bridge to the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The visit was specifically to hear poet and Zen Buddhist priest Norman Fischer give a dharma talk, in which he spoke of the process of learning. Using Japanese culture as a model, he encouraged students to seek out the mystery of the unknown as it is then when we will know ourselves. The lecture made me want to learn something new everyday and it also made me want to go to Japan. I'm starting to really cherish my visits to the Zen Center.

Norman Fischer's talk was an inspiration, however I walked away with more than just mindfulness and understanding. In addition to offering tea and freshly baked carrot muffins, there was a farm stand set up, with fruits and vegetables a'plenty. While snacking on muffins, Liz and I stocked up on a red kuri squash, sweet apples, and buttery lettuce. As it was my first time at Green Gulch, I was exceptionally excited and somewhat crazed to be there. So much in fact, that I almost took a photograph of one of the alters outside of a resident's room. But I had to stop myself. Some things are just too precious to steal from memory and onto a digital card. And anyway, it was the kind of crisp, fall day you barely have to remember or frantically capture because another like it is soon to come. And I look forward to it. But for now, I will stay in the present and enjoy these quiet thoughts of calm.

Performing Diaspora Festival

Last Saturday night, everything moved before my eyes. Mesmerized and wide-eyed, I watched dancers perform in what was the 1st weekend of the Performing Diaspora Festival @ Counterpulse. This space on 9th and Mission consistently presents exciting performing arts from emerging artists and cultural innovators. I heard about the festival through my friend, Sarah Jessee, who works as their Outreach Intern. Appropriately, she "reached out" and promoted this jaw-dropping night to me. I had no idea what to expect, but literally, I have a jaw and it dropped.



The evening was split into 4 performance by 4 different artists. The first was "A Conference in Nine," by Charlotte Moraga. This piece was a collaboration between Moraga and the musicians. Her style of dance is called Kathak and she embedded her own storytelling through her body's rhythm and ferocious movement with the musicians' song. The next piece was called "Alma Llanera-Spirit of the Plains," a work inspired by the novel Bless me Ultima. I have not read that book since junior high school, but the piece dealt with similar themes as the book, like coming-of-age and the power of good and evil. The choreographer, Gema Sandoval, juxtaposed the past and the present by using both contemporary and traditional Mexican music. But the highlight, really, was the group of dancers. These energetic performers (some as young as 12) danced joyfully in Mexican regional dance styles coupled with some contemporary moves. I loved this piece because the dancers appeared so genuinely glad to perform. With every smile and every impressive synchronized sequence (of which there were many), I felt their proud spirit sent into the audience.



The last performance was called "Ampey!" and it really brought down the house. I wish I knew how to talk intelligently about dance so I could properly articulate the beauty that I saw on stage. I don't really have the lingo, or the terms or glossary of dance. I suppose translating one medium into another isn't the easiest of things, but I can confidently say this work was powerful, inspired and enchanting! Choreographer Adia Tamar Whitaker, a master of Afro-Haitian folkloric dance, says that her festival piece was inspired by "ampey," a rhythmic game played by young girls in Ghana. In this show-stopper of a piece, she combines dance, media and music. It is a work in progress, but its lyrical tightness and overall strength was perfection. Readers can listen to Adia talk about work here. Also, the Counterpulse website has more information about the festival and its upcoming 2 weekends. It's not to be missed so shimmy on over as fast as you can!