Pre-Marathon Post 2017
This year my marathonning will be complicated by life, but then again, what creative activity ever isn’t?
I’ve become a cliché, a writer who pays the bills with bartending job. That means weekends are most usually all work and no writing. In addition to that, my Saturday shift (a. k. a. the first day of the marathon) falls on my boyfriend’s and mine 5th anniversary. Just before he’s about to move to another country to study.
For the start of the marathon I will be at work, and join in a bit later, afterwards, while simultaneously having celebratory drinks, and continue on the Sunday while having leaving drinks on his going away party. I signed up for the half, but I’m aiming for the full, and even if I fail… I don’t think anyone really fails this, even if I write only 5 poems, I will have succeeded.
And I hope this will give me the kick I need into starting to juggle my life much better than I’m doing it now. Wish me luck.
Hello From Houston…
Well this is my first experience at this. I write poetry and song lyrics. After 2.7 years of living and working in the UK I moved back to the US. I really love Europe. I recently started writing again. Look forward to meeting new people and like minded writers. I hope to get some of my poems and short stories published. Look forward to your advise stories or questions.
Cheers
Runnerguy
Hey Everyone Happy Monday!
Can’t wait for the madness to begin 🙂
Another Year, Another Dream
Hello marathoners and poetry lovers.
The Poetry Marathon feels like the true new year to me. Not just because I’m up the night through, counting down the clock, but because it brings me a fresh sense of hope for my future. I look forward to it for months ahead. I feel a sense of accomplishment when it’s over- even when I have to submit work I feel is sub par. And turning over a new leaf just seems to make so much more sense at the height of summer than in the thick of the cold, dark, bleak British winter.
Among other problems, I suffer from a mental health disability called Anxious and Avoidant Personality Disorder. A year for me has become a string of fears, hurt, and hesitation. Yet for two years running, soon to be three, since discovering the Poetry Marathon, I have, for at least 24 hours, been able to let go. When that happens I am free and I am me. It gives me a boost of spirit and a burst of inspiration that last for anywhere from weeks to months, which in turn makes me feel just a little bit closer to my dream.
If that’s not something to look forward to, I don’t know what is.
So happy Marathon, poets and readers! Rhyme on!
A First Post, and Hello.
Good evening. It’s an interesting day for me to be making new acquaintances. I’ve spent the afternoon bar-tending for the memorial of an old friend. Cycle-of-life and all that, I guess. As they leave, so do they enter.
The e-mail regarding this endeavor encouraged me to make an introductory post to familiarize myself with the system. My own blog is on Blogger so there’s certainly a learning curve but it seems pretty intuitive, so far.
The aforementioned epistle also encouraged me to let you know a little about myself. To quote Doctor Evil, “Very well. Where do I begin?”
Part of me wants to answer jokingly with something clever but I’ve been trying to crawl out of my introvert’s shell recently and I believe I’ll try being honest. Honesty is good, yes?
I’m a native of Minden, Nebraska and I’ve Iived in several places in the wonderful state. I have a fondness for ranch country and one of my passions is the Nebraska Sandhills. I never tire of them. If I feel the need to reconnect with who I am or to slough off something unfortunate that has been thrust upon my psyche, a trip to the Sandhills and I’m fine. The only place in the world that I feel as passionate about is Rio Arriba Couny, New Mexico. Must be a desert thing.
I’ve also lived as a homeless vagabond in Paris and Heidelberg, so my life hasn’t been all tumbleweeds and branding irons. I’m a former auto mechanic. I’ve run kitchens and fed hundreds at a time. I ran a kitchen for the Salvation Army and fed their summer camps and day camps. Through them, I taught children to cook. I lived on-site and worked in a kitchen in an assisted living facility for the mentally ill. Although not a resident, I sometimes didn’t leave for weeks at a time. My companions being, for the most part, schizophrenic or paranoid or bi-polar. Once upon a time I found myself bagging groceries for tips. No wages. Just tips. I’ve been a Benedictine monk hopeful. I never made the vows but I’ve lived in two monasteries and spent time attending Mass in two more. I still go on retreat to one of my former homes. It’s been a wild life and I’m happy to have gotten this far, still vertical and breathing.
With the exception of a span of just over three years, between 2009 and 2012, and parts of 2007, 2008, and 2009, when I was living either in those monasteries or Maryland, I’ve been at home on Fort Collins, Colorado. It’s a fascinating town that may have finally grown too big and pushy for this old farm kid. Or maybe I’ve just grown too old for such a young and vibrant place. My 52nd birthday was yesterday, so that may be the case. I’m told you’re only as young as you feel and it doesn’t seem that ‘old’ has reached all of my bones yet. Perhaps it’s because I work with a crowd of youngsters who never let me slow down long enough to feel my age. Or maybe it’s the knowledge that I’ve just gotten to be twice as old as my father the last age my father attained in life. Either way, I’m still usually found in sandals and hoodies and short pants, even in three feet of snow. I’m a kid at heart, complete with cool bicycles and toy ray guns.
I’m a poet because I love to be. I wrote as a young man but in the late 1980s I gathered everything together and slowly fed it to a smoldering barbecue grate. I started writing again when I was wandering around Europe in the early 1990s. Little scraps of writing happened periodically until about 2007, when I realized that I wasn’t writing honestly. Certain that I couldn’t and never would, I wrapped everything: bar napkins and coasters; scraps of brown grocery bags; the backs of receipts, etc.; in Hefty bags and duct tape, including my European notebooks, took the bundle to the landfill, tossed it in front of the dozer, and watched it go under the blade. That pile of scribbles won’t be seen again until Judgment Day. Not even then, if I can help it.
I swore that I would never write again. Not being ‘good enough’ was too much of a disappointment.
In 2011, a friend who knew I enjoyed poetry and had tried my hand at it ‘once-upon-a-time’ asked if I could help him write a love poem for his girlfriend. I gave him some pointers, which included advising him of the use of random sentences, my own example being, “With the egg money, I bought a kite.” He asked if I could write that poem and I said that I thought I could. When I came back to him the next day, he had decided that poetry was ‘too hard’ and he was going to try something else to impress his girl. I, on the other hand, had this:
“THE OTHER EGGS”
With the egg money I bought a kite,
strong and flat,
that would stand on its tail and
howl at the moon.
With gut twine and hope I flew it at night;
and the strength of its heart poked holes in the
white-soft pupil of the blind lunar eye.
white-soft pupil of the blind lunar eye.
With a thrill and a cry, I felt its tug,
I knew not where,
and it danced out of sight and let me believe
that it was high in the wind and beyond;
that it was the jewel of my wandering dreams
cast up from the far volcano of sleep.
We were awake in the night, my kite and I.
With a broad knife and bold I severed the twine
that spread between the moon and my sighs.
As a bark high and wide my kite leapt
and it flew away on the tide of the wind;
swinging not on gut twine but on a rope of random stars.
And soft down we fell in the dark,
my kite and me.
With the dawn came the cock and the crow
and the hen and the egg and the clutch
and I stole the hen’s new eggs . . .
and I sold them . . .
And with the other egg money . . .
I bought a kite.
After composing it, I sat down with a pen and paper every day, for the rest of the summer, and for over seventy days, I was able to scribble at least one poem a day. Not all of them were anything readable, but I was enjoying their composition. For the six years since then, the poetic well has sustained me. Sometimes to a greater degree, and sometimes to a lesser, but poetry is increasingly a real source of sustenance. Food for the soul.
– One side note – I recently entered ‘The Other Eggs’ in a bards battle and it placed in the top ten, out of over a hundred pieces submitted. I’ve entered the same contest four times in five years, eight poems total, and placed six of them in the top ten. I’ve never won but twice I’ve had both of my entries judged as Top Ten Finalists. To my way of thinking two in the ten is better than one at the top. –
I discovered that the poetry that had disappointed me earlier in my life, the poetry I had destroyed, had done so because it was based in the anger and disappointment in my life. It was very ’emo’, as the cool kids say, but I’m not ’emo’ myself. I’m a vagabond and a happy-go-lucky wanderer. I’m a painter with bright colors. When I make love, it’s with great joy and reckless abandon. Or was. That’s something I gave up in order to be a monk and when that dream was set aside, I never took it back up again. I’m sure you know what I mean. It’ll come back around one of these days, almost certainly. I love to laugh and scratch in the dirt with sticks like a child. I play with toy trains in the middle of the night, just to watch the lights race around my house. I build model airplanes. I play video games. I do things that bring me joy and I love to share joy. My ‘now poetry’ is romance and joy and happiness, for the most part. Back then, it wasn’t. It was me recording misery and then using the words to inflict it back on myself. Some people can write misery very well and in a way that doesn’t seem maudlin. I can’t. Or not often enough to make it a forte. I simply thought I could. And should. Hence the disappointment. It was feeding misery and it was starving me.Since the writing of ‘The Other Eggs’, though, poetry can fill me with an exultation that I don’t get from so many other things. I also write love letters for the same reason. Sometimes I write them anonymously and leave them in little nooks and crannies downtown, for strangers to find. I get the same thrill from that as I do when I write a sonnet for Louise Brooks or Queen Victoria or Anais Nin, just a few of the goddesses of my idolatry. Sometimes I write them for Dulcinea, my own ideal, not unlike she of the love of Don Quixote. Those I share on my blog for my friends. I will still occasionally compose something not especially happy, something ‘dark’ such as
“One Day in the Clover”
One day,
five by five abreast,
we’ll walk
with little steps.
All of those who will
not
be the same,
homogenized,
we’ll walk.
And the artists will stand
with the poets
and the prophets
who saw
for themselves
and not for the mob.
To the dim
behind the paint sheds.
I wonder how
the dandelions
will taste
on the wind that day.
I wonder if
the wind will be sweet
. . .
sweet like clover jam.
I hope so because
I know
I’ll be among them.
I am not the mob,
nor of it.
Perhaps I was
once,
but at the calling
and the rolling
of the
paradigm shift,
I stepped back
and I looked forward
. . .
to the paint sheds
. . .
and I chose
to smell
on the wind,
and
to feel
deep inside,
the dandelion.
The clover.
The wind I cannot change.
Or stop.
Not the paint,
the benzine,
the blood-honey
diesel splash
that will blaze
and smoke in cylinders,
flash-burn like life
used to
in true hearts.
It will burn,
you know,
beside the roads that day.
And I won’t smell the cordite
that will drift calmly,
after the fact,
behind the paint sheds.
I’ll lie down beneath it,
amongst
the dandelions
and the clover,
staring heaven-ward
just an
old-fashioned poet
who made a choice
rather than to yield to
the mob.
I hope that they notice that the clover
is sweet . . .
and soft . . .
and what it cost them.
For me, it was free.
I can do dark. I just don’t like to. Those poems are notable in my catalog also because they’re free form. I prefer sonnets and sestinas. I love to try to find the door that opens inward into a closed form, to push on it, and to see the wide world that’s in there. I’m more confined by free form than I am by sonnets. Strange, I know.
That poem, by the way, was a response to a particularly galling day among the savages, watching what modern media does with words and with feeling. I’m still not convinced that that won’t happen, by the way. That we won’t all be taken out and shot one day for thinking outside of an unfortunate norm. For meaning what we say and saying that which isn’t ‘beneficial’, whatever that may mean. By and large though, joy is what I do.
~~~
And that’s an introduction to me as a poet and as a person. One poem on a hot June day has turned into 200+ sonnets, several odes, numerous rhythmic rhyming pieces and about an acre-and-a-half of free form. I couldn’t stop now if I tried. And I’ve tried.
It should be worth mentioning that I idolize Elizabeth Barrett Browning and ‘The Sonnets from the Portuguese’.
Emily Dickinson, I would give almost anything to spend a morning baking coconut cake in that Amherst kitchen then devouring the entire thing with her over a pot of tea. I have the recipe for that cake and someday I’ll bake it with someone whose writing I admire. Maybe just someone whose poetry I want to sit and listen to all day long.
One of the prizes of my poetry collection is a good condition first edition of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s ‘Wine From These Grapes’, still with the dust jacket and rice paper insert. I found it sitting on top of a stack of bad, paperback science fiction, next to a dumpster, when the college kids moved out. What sort of savage throws something like that away?
Rabindranath Tagore. What a joy to read his ‘Gardener’.
Pablo Neruda.
Anna Akhmatova.
Maria Tsvetaeva.
Billy Collins, especially ‘Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes’. I frequently have to explain that one.
‘The Song of Solomon’ from the Old Testament is such beautiful love poetry.
I adore Maggie Estep’s ‘Scab Maids on Speed’.
I am crushed to the depths of my soul by Wilfred Owen, especially ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. Just because I don’t willing ‘do’ dark, doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy and admire it.
Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Soldier an’ Sailor Too’ is why, although I have MacMillans and Bealls, Calders, Taylors, and Edmonstones in my background, I wear a Black Watch kilt. ‘But to stand and be still to the Birken ‘ead drill. Is a damn tough bullet to chew.” The Birkenhead Drill. Such nobility and sacrifice.
The list goes on and on.
Will I ever write anything that deserves to be on the list with those poets and their works? I hope to. If I have an ambition, that would be it. I’m not there yet, that’s for certain. But I have hope. I have joy. Although I may be disappointed in the end, I believe I will always have a love of poetry to keep me trying.
That’s why I’ve joined this marathon, or rather ‘half-marathon’ in my case. I work on Sunday morning so, logistically, I wouldn’t have the time to finish a 24 piece marathon and still get enough sleep to see me through work. I’ve joined the marathon because it’s another challenge, something less competitive and therefore more enriching than a bard’s battle.. We don’t improve by being complacent and we can’t best a challenge if we don’t face it. I’m looking forward to facing this one with all of you. Best of luck finishing. I look forward to reading, and hearing, what you all have to say. I’m grateful that you’ll let me listen.
m
2k17, The Re-Introduction
My real life began a few short days ago when I became a grandmother for the first time. I’ve had practice as a “step-step grandparent to 4 boys. I am married to the love of my life and have three grown children. I am a supervisor of special education programs in Cadillac, Michigan. I would retire, except I honestly cannot think of a better or more rewarding profession.
This is my third poetry marathon and although I still cringe at my early morning poems, they have provided a springboard for some amazing creativity.
Although I can’t remember a time that I didn’t write, I have come into my own through the poetry marathon and subsequent poetry group, Some Poets. I am producing a one night poetry reading on September 30th for the “Night of 100 Thousand Poets” non-profit group for social change. (If you are going to be in the Cadillac area on 9/30, please let me know. There is mic time available.)
Life is wonderful.
Introductions & a Poem
I was born in a city, its name is Seattle, where rain falls often and beaches are cool. I married at 19, and still love my husband, you just might say that I am a fool. Thirty some years later he still makes me laugh, there is no doubt that he’s my better half. We had two lovely children, then fostered many more, some still call me Mom, when they knock on my door. I like to write poetry, I like to camp, I like to read and I like to take baths. Playing the ukulele and painting are fun. I could spend literally hours at the beach in the sun. The thing that I love on this earth, most it seems, is spending time with other people, soul to soul, or on teams. I dearly love nature, and being outside, this world is amazing, the creator can’t hide. I give praise and thanks, for all that I have. Even on hard days, my life is not bad. Stay positive and smile, look for gifts on the way, and life will be good, at the end of the day.
Well that was fun! I am looking forward to participating this year. I have been writing poetry for many years. I am currently trying to compile all of my poems in one place. I want to self publish a book of them, if for no other reason, then for my children. As you can see above, I have many. Many of my poems were written for them. Most of my children are adults now. I only have one 15 year old left at home. She is a gem, but parenting teens is never easy. I wrote the poem below this morning, after thinking about how hard these teen years are, on our children and on parents as well. I hope to get to know some of you better through this process. It will be fun!
Broken Kisses
By Mary-Jeanne Smith
Leaves, don’t fall, stay green and growing; let us remain in the sweet abyss.
No more changes in these seasons; young girls please stay, forever un-kissed.
Innocence lost, their colors are turning; long before they’re ready to fall.
Drifting, twirling, crinkled we watch them; never listening to our call.
This world has broken us all.
A trial run
I plan to cut and paste my work from word documents, and I want to see how that might go, make sure I know what I’m doing. So here is a test run with a poem I wrote this weekend. As a bit of introduction, I took my parents to visit the Holocaust Museum this past week, and out of that this poem arose.
Aktion T4
In October of 1939
Hitler instructed doctors and hospitals
to murder
the mentally challenged
the physically handicapped
those incurably sick
all those considered lebensunwertes Leben – “unworthy of life”
At first, they were just to be denied medical care and nourishment
to die slowly of neglect
Later, patients were injected, or gassed
to make the process quicker
By the end of 1941
93,521 hospital beds had been emptied by the policy
There were several suggested reasons for the program:
It reduced suffering, therefore it was compassionate
It cut costs
It eliminated pressure on the welfare budget
– Hitler was making Germany great again
Dear Mr. Trump –
Your health care bill is so slow
killing the undesirables by denial of medical care
And, besides, some weak or low energy people
might slip through
A program like this bigly guy’s (he was huge, let me tell you!)
would be much more cost effective
Think of the savings!
And how compassionate
when these people, uncomfortable to look at
are finally gone from your sight?
I suggest you call your program
Action Trump4
Test, test, test
Greetings!
Just want to be sure I’m on the right page – literally!
Best to all,
Maggie