where's poetry

I have not written a poem in three years. That is a terrible sentence to look at. I continue to publish poems, but not write them. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever write again in this way.

I stopped writing poems after a graduate seminar in poetry, during a semester in which my mother got very ill--I so desperately wanted to write about the experience of seeing her again, of visiting Boston, of the statue in the courtyard of the hospital, a mother and child sculpted in dark granite. My mother's doctor told me that in winter, snow filled the mother's lap. I could see rowers on the Charles River and the black skeletons of trees from my mother's hospital window. I really couldn't come back to school and write of these things in the way I wanted, or let them "simmer" awhile. It is hard to lose poetry, which is the thing I really am drawn to; losing it was the very thing I feared most about going to graduate school.
There are certain experiences I can speak of only in poetry.

Still, today I bought The Wild Braid, a small book on Stanley Kunitz, and realize now what had been so destructive during that semester, forcing poems the way people will force bulbs out of season--there is a point in the book in which Kunitz says, "You must be very careful not to deprive the poem of its wild origin." I honestly think now that is what happened--that in forcing the poems, I ignored the wild root of how poetry really does work in me. I can't believe still that I have not yet recovered, but I do see hints of the "wild origin" coming back as I continue to do Morning Pages. I realize now why the process is called "artistic recovery." Hopefully as I keep puttering around, a poem will put its leaf out for me again, maybe when I least expect it.

Caspar Weinberger Dead at Age 88

Woke this morning to the usual rain; the climate here in Santa Cruz is beginning to resemble the weather in the movie Seven: incessant rain. I know this means lots of wildflowers and a very happy garden for me this summer..but still, sun would be nice.
I have sweet peas and poppies already planted, and hope they haven't been drowned out.

I saw on the news today that Caspar Weinberger died--CNN has the story today. Weinberger spoke at my graduation from the University of San Diego in 1981. It capped off quite a year for me. I have no love lost on the institution where I got my bachelor's degree--when I went there in the late 1970s/early 1980s, some perfectly awful things happened to students which the university did nothing whatsoever about (as a Catholic institution, it seemed to hold itself to a different standard, protecting those who should never be protected). One of these incidents involved a friend of mine who had--let's just say--for the purpose of privacy and safety, so as not to rile the blogtattlers--an altercation with a priest that wasn't just a friendly discussion about transubstantiation. The priest was a very popular guy, extremely handsome (all the women wanted to go to him for confession)--and when I heard about what he did, a couple of years later, and how there were no repercussions on him, but plenty on my friend, I was shocked, but not surprised due to something in my own experience with the university that year (an experience during which many of my friends were unbelievably unsupportive, and that's being extraordinarily generous--in many of my friendships then, I was "going to the hardware store for milk," as they say in recovery, but still). Capping off a year of bizarreness was Weinberger delivering a speech at my graduation (the protesters were much more interesting). Seems that time was the start of a very long string of both political and personal chaos. Cap's joining of the Choir Invisible brings a lot of it back to me today.

Instead of going on a rant about Iran-Contra, the Catholic Church, the Reagan administration, and all that jazz, I've decided to link to an interesting blog today. I won't be following this philosophy, nor do I advocate it--but I wanted to link to something today that wasn't a news article. I like the part about the Bush bobblehead figure.

Rakassah memories

I had a great time at Rakassah (for those of you who don't know what this is, it's a bellydance show in Oakland). My troupe shared a dressing room with Suhalia Salimpour and her dance company! :) I didn't go broke at the vending tables, just bought some pieces for my coin belt from the Fat Chance Belly Dance folks.

So, it's back to practicing now--I decided to step up the practicing a lot, as I want to know the troupe's dances like the back of my hand.

I am still tired from yesterday--there is always a big build-up to a performance and then the next day is like the day after Christmas for me. So it goes.

busy bee

I have been blog-neglectful again due to major dance performance coming up this weekend (Rakassah in Richmond, California). I have been working on my eternal camel belt, which has 50+ tassels that each need a rim of mozunas (sort of like tin sequins) all around each tassel) and other costume repairs and alterations.

I have also been crocheting the "ruffled corset belt" from the new book in the Stitch and Bitch series, entitled The Happy Hooker. I am crocheting this in Manos del Uruguay yarn, which is handspun and hand-dyed, in a very deep and variegated red. Therefore it is bulky, so I will probably leave off the bottom ruffle, which seems to end up looking skirt-ish in bulky yarn, and go for a jagged picot edging on both edges. This belt is to wear to classes as a break from hip scarves. The pattern shows a crocheted tie to the corset belt, but Prada (daughter) has informed me that it might be more stylish to lace the belt with French ribbon. I do not know yet whether I will go for tribal or tarty. I will also be attempting my first pair of gloves, for Prada, the lace-up gauntlets from AlterKnits. It is a pleasure to be working with really nice yarns, pricey as they can be at times--they simply have a better feel to me.

So that is all--and, yes, I am working on my book, having finally found the path into a very difficult chapter. Ciao!

Thomas Kinkade: I Hope God's His Lawyer, Too!

Don't get me started on Thomas Kinkade, Painter of *hite. The man had at least two galleries (no, I think three) in Santa Cruz alone. I recently discovered he LIVES someplace just outside this county..which accounts for the fact that I once saw him at his now-defunct store on the Pacific Garden Mall, late at night among all his light paintings. I didn't see a sign of the Thomas Kinkade La-Z-Boy recliner, though.

Turns out the man who has said that "God is my art agent" is alleged to be a little shadier than his sun-drenched, rosy-cottage-garden-amber-light persona might let on. I have always had a personal thought that the man must have a shadowy side. He also has famously said that Picasso had talent, but never did anything with it. At least Picasso didn't mass-market tiny figurines of himself sitting pensively on a John Deere tractor, "contemplating his next masterpiece" (as unbelievably surreal as that might be--and Kinkade really sells something like this).

Rachel Brice

Mr. Strega and I went to a show at the Attic in Santa Cruz last night--it was a rather cool music group called The Toids (yes, I know what that sounds like, but their music was quite good). Their special guest stars were none other than bellydancer extraordinaire Rachel Brice and two women from her troupe, The Indigo. Mr. Strega and I greatly enjoyed the show--the dancing was awesome, American Tribal style, mostly, but lots of fusion, including gypsy stylizations. Plus, the Attic is a teahouse as well as a terrific performance space, so Mr. Strega and I sampled rosebud tea (just rosebuds, steeped, which tasted wonderful--amazing how the most simple things often taste incredible), an incredibly robust green tea chai (heavy on the ginger), and a "silver needles" green tea. When the show was over and we started walking towards our car, we saw a street band playing Irish music. People were waltzing around in the street, and I asked Mr. Strega for a waltz. We waltzed our way down the sidewalk (even though the music had stopped) and, when we finished, a nice old man said to us, "You'll do great in life if you learn to dance without music!"

And, yes, for those who have asked, it did snow in Santa Cruz! It was pretty, and the lightning storm was awesome here. I have had bolts touch down very close to the house, though (just the way it is when you live among trees), so it gets exciting. And the hail was intense.

I hope this is just winter getting itself out of its system, so we can have a nice spring. I have gardening fever and can't wait to get out there and plant..but not yet.

The Oscars, Larry McMurtry, and 300 pages

Yes, Ms. Strega took time from her book to watch the Oscars. I was very disappointed that Brokeback Mountain did not win Best Picture. I was happy that Philip Seymour Hoffman won for Capote, because his performance was really quite incredible. The fashions ran from the weird (Charlize Theron eclipsed by the Godzilla of bows) to lots of nice gowns in predominately muted and neutral colors. Prada (elder daughter) and I both agreed that Uma Thurman especially needed just a touch of color in her palette--she was champagne all over. Many of the actors and other performers looked refreshingly like they had started to eat again, 'cause a lot of them seemed to have gained some weight (JLO and Queen Latifah looked especially great, but also Jennifer Garner, who's keeping on some of that "baby weight" and Salma Hayek). It was wonderful to see Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry pick up a screenwriting Oscar--the script for Brokeback Mountain has been around since 1997, and they originally bankrolled the project out of their own pockets after Diana Ossana saw Annie Proulx's story in The New Yorker. By the way, I am SO disappointed that when Diana Ossana mentioned that Annie Proulx was in the audience, the camera didn't show her! Speaking of writers who had late success in the profession, Annie Proulx didn't begin writing until she was well into her fifties. I loved Larry McMurtry's comments about the abiding magic of books.

Jon Stewart was, in my humble opinion, a middling Oscar host (one or two comments were funny, but he got a bit annoying--I was disappointed, because I do watch his show with my youngest son and even find something to laugh about when I do). In fact, I think I am starting to watch entirely too much television. Last night, I nearly started watching the show "Dirty Jobs," featuring the scintillating topic of "Hot-Tar Roofing," over working on my book.

So, I'm glad I retired to the office and hit the keyboard. The Strega's Story has passed its 300 page mark. It will probably be 375 pages or so when it is done. I have never written 300 pages of anything! Usually I berate myself emotionally for being a sloth, but here's some proof that I actually am working on this thing. So, I am getting to the finish line, writing now and spending a couple of hours editing every day (my editing practices are a little strange--I line-edit all the time and tinker, if nothing else). I'm moving my time up to trying very hard to pull at least 4 hours a day on the book, two hours editing and two hours writing. I was reading up on Larry McMurtry's writing habits and found that he plunks away on his Hermes typewriter unfailingly for two hours in the morning, but then goes and has an ordinary day, eating at local restaurants and working in his bookstore.

Off to the writing--I wish everyone a good day.

been away from the computer awhile

Sorry, dear readers--Ms. Strega has had a busy week, starting on the weekend, with lots of get-togethers (there was a reunion of sorts of folks from my MFA program, which was a great deal of fun, and my women's ritual circle met). This week, I have been trying to work on my book, with little success (I got three words written today--but, hey, that's three words more than I had).
So it goes.