tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2563891919538726692024-03-13T09:11:51.438-07:00Jane Vincent Taylor - A Room of One's OwnEvery poet needs a place to write and talk the mystery and craft of poetry.Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-59154814065456760122023-11-27T14:38:00.000-08:002023-11-27T14:55:35.637-08:00In Flux<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Now my oldest grandgirl turns eighteen. Laken. So quick. I was ready and not ready. </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">One way I was prepared: her gift. I’d thought ahead and commissioned a lap quilt from the contemporary art quilter, <a href="http://Sarahatlee.com">Sarah Atlee . </a></span></span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-4407e273-7fff-a92b-aef3-42ff45c946c0"><span style="font-family: arial;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVgLaTk9m3Cqbws5-x00C2WjCO_c9WHLpi12o_x11Ej4PKXo3ZlhhiLkrAim3pgForLIX3SL-4zehRnTltZjC5H7uzDS6s57vHUAtrP61ET721sAWpNr2apSOZcKm-K2cQjPgPW4XvdSakmiweW1KAiChPBrYWMSEa8voyxhHbNAOyITsVlmUj8KlbVfm1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="252" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVgLaTk9m3Cqbws5-x00C2WjCO_c9WHLpi12o_x11Ej4PKXo3ZlhhiLkrAim3pgForLIX3SL-4zehRnTltZjC5H7uzDS6s57vHUAtrP61ET721sAWpNr2apSOZcKm-K2cQjPgPW4XvdSakmiweW1KAiChPBrYWMSEa8voyxhHbNAOyITsVlmUj8KlbVfm1=w225-h295" width="225" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’ve followed Sarah before and after she turned from painting to abstract quilting. Sarah now invites ordinary patrons like me to commission a work. The first step of the commission is to engage in conversation and storytelling. Next, Sarah begins to interpret in color and shape the person or event to be honored or remembered within the design of the quilt. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But before I met with Sarah, I wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Laken. To keep it secret, I told her I had a poetry project that required listening to what young women had on their minds post-pandemic. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: collapse;">To put her at ease, I didn’t pose questions that might make her feel her privacy was at risk.</span></span></p></span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What is your favorite kind of weather? <i>Oh, rainy days, for sure</i>. Color? <i>Green and sometimes pink.</i> Think of a few people you love and what color each kind of love is? <i>Blue, red, but sometimes red turns white. </i></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Much of what Laken has learned as a girl, young woman now, comes from playing soccer. We talked a lot about that. How to be in the moment, fully in your body. The Flow. And the pleasure of trusting your teammates. I also asked, what made her sad about the world?<i> Normalizing cruelty. </i> To myself I said<i>, the art of quilting is normalizing love. Loving the old traditional ways and creating new ways.</i></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Some of this conversation stays private, but when I shared the gist with Sarah she seemed to catch the spirit of our Laken. She was ready to design and sew. She asked once if I wanted to see how it was developing. I said no. I trust her creative eye and hand and heart. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">When Sarah delivered the quilt entitled </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><u>In Flux</u></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><u>,</u> I was enchanted.</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZZ97gRWtPAdA2I4qHJs3NV83YhRVQuy7aR9ZMpwg9R2ycl3yh9CbUiKpqxFU7IzbLjhZieglZcYojHJx3cxFaVj3PuzZWfTVUigTxgokYoFs2Yxt9mpFTwoX9oxUIe6-9YijLVPLnYPcLIbFmIb6Fd2RqNZx6xic37TyoExH2jwBnnMzJKsfRoGd_yl8X" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZZ97gRWtPAdA2I4qHJs3NV83YhRVQuy7aR9ZMpwg9R2ycl3yh9CbUiKpqxFU7IzbLjhZieglZcYojHJx3cxFaVj3PuzZWfTVUigTxgokYoFs2Yxt9mpFTwoX9oxUIe6-9YijLVPLnYPcLIbFmIb6Fd2RqNZx6xic37TyoExH2jwBnnMzJKsfRoGd_yl8X=w121-h161" width="121" /></span></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I hadn’t anticipated how much this work of art could also be a kind of guidebook. It seemed to say: mix your patterns, let rainy days bump up against bright ones, let your edges be funky, there’s more than one way to cut a corner, balance without rigidity, run every which way on the pitch, watch the sunset mix her colors, let life be messy and, sometimes, unmatched. Embrace surprise</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On Thanksgiving surrounded by our (crazy quilt) family, Laken became the owner of a one-of-a-kind quilt which also comes with a pocket and dowel to display on a wall. Front or back, splayed or displayed, she has a new grown-up blankie. All of us who love her are just happy to to be near the beauty of her flow as she changes and makes the world a better place, one small patch at a time. There she goes, bravely in flux. </span></span></p><br />Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-25207733065214647062020-07-28T09:01:00.003-07:002020-07-29T10:12:57.659-07:00Let There Be Swimming<br />
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<i><b>Let There Be Swimming</b></i></div>
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Early spring, 2020. I was not thinking of swimming. I was thinking of turning 74, its offerings and its inevitable diminishments. <div>
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For the occasion, I gave myself the luxury of a not-too-luxurious studio on the Paseo, specifically, at the Plunge. It was once a swanky swimming pool. Now funky, it seemed perfect.<div class="MsoNormal">
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I didn’t have a creative plan or a project other than wading around in the words I’d been writing for twenty years. A private retrospective. I was looking to see if there might be a hidden school of fish I hadn't noticed; maybe a tributary to take me forward.</div>
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While I smelled coffee and fresh donuts every morning from below at Holey Rollers,or listened to bookish chatter wafting up from the downstairs Literati Books. I wrote six pieces. Each began: “Now that I am 74…”. I was facing the moment, belly flopping into the new year. I didn’t want to write a book necessarily, but I wanted to find a current current for myself. By way of poetry, of course. </div>
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<br />I had an open house that Friday night, March 6. Friends came and went on their way to Picasso’s or Paseo Grill, or Sauced. Street music was free. Laughter splashed up like birthday Champaign. It was, for many of us, our last big party night. As far as I know, no one got sick from kissing and sharing sips of Merlot. We hugged like we had a million more to share, anytime. </div>
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<br />It was ending days, and it was early days. All of Paseo went quiet, though Picasso’s offered carry out and continued piping dance music into the air. I was allowed to keep my studio, carefully entering through the back door, climbing up to my spare solitude. I moved my desk in front of the balcony. Suddenly it was just me and the Oklahoma skies, a show of tulips down below, and sometimes the sound of a skateboarder bumpity-bumping down the empty street. <br /><br />This week I received a proof of the book, yes, the book, I built. This is the work I began when I was left alone at The Plunge, and finished, finally, at home. <i>Let There Be Swimming,</i> as it came to be titled, often seemed like dog paddling, or being caught in a useless game of Marco Polo. Now, it feels inevitable, the way it feels when you learn to swim. You didn’t know how to do it, but now you do. <br /><br />This book didn’t care my age or creaky knees. It didn’t take pandemic for an answer. I think it made itself of water, pooling here and there, going at its own speed, defying time. It has some shallows, some eddies. If it has anything contagious in it, let it be good for something. <br /><br />If you have read my work before, you know I look for ritual, I dive into the stories of girls in trouble, the run-aways, and the ones who hide or make their hiddenness essential. I try to move forward with the backstroke. I let history have her say, freestyle, fictionalized. <br /><br />Now that I’ve hit 74, and am one of the vulnerable, I’ll wear a mast without complaint. But, I will not let a lock down keep me out of the swim of things. Let there be books, and coffee, and art in our times of trouble; things to share. <br /><br />Please notice the cover art is that of Marissa Raglin. I commissioned her to create the cover. I will post more later about Marissa's work and our collaboration (mraglinart.com). She works her magic with the utmost skill and insight. <br /><br /><i>Let There Be Swimming</i> will be available in August from Lulu.com or locally. Contact me for details. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div>
Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-1673991830550405752019-10-06T11:43:00.000-07:002019-10-06T11:43:05.387-07:00Reasons for Creative Collaboration<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The talented Jane Wheeler.</td></tr>
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Last night we went public with <br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">Defining Commonality: A Handmade Dictionary</span><br />
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a collaborative project between photographer, Jane Wheeler, and myself. <br />
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Thanks to Full Circle and to all the people who came, it turned out to be a party that was not only fun, but one that mirrored the work itself. <br />
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In conversations, I heard a common interest in what language can do, much talk about sustainability in our neighborhoods, plain old catching up, plus, delight in looking deep into at the images. <br />
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I do not claim that collaborating is easy, but there are surprising rewards. Surprise itself, for one.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You keep working toward something you can't know until it's made.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">People talk and ask about your work along the way.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You and your creative partner are forever linked in someone else's hand. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When someone buys your work it's 2x the pleasure.<br />
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Your work becomes grounded and coupled beyond your control,<br />
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Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-52234656023094490592019-09-04T11:24:00.001-07:002019-09-04T11:24:50.758-07:00Defining Commonality: A Handmade Dictionary<br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">Come look what we made:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">a little library of dictionaries, <span style="font-family: "calibri";">handmade references <span style="font-family: "calibri";">sourced with Jane Wheeler’s creative p<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">hotographic eye <span style="font-family: "calibri";">and my companion lyric poems, <span style="font-family: "calibri";">each a one-of-a-kind work of art.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mNG6gpHYNSo/XW_-NXqIk-I/AAAAAAAAGCI/TtPCW7DgKmgVAbajdWTm5L8zaos-dKHNACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_2301%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mNG6gpHYNSo/XW_-NXqIk-I/AAAAAAAAGCI/TtPCW7DgKmgVAbajdWTm5L8zaos-dKHNACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_2301%255B1%255D.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Since the beginning of this year Jane Wheeler and I have been carrying on a conversation about form and color and composition. More specifically we’ve been working together and talking about neighborhood patterns, local beauty, and how to sustain a sense of the common good. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Expressed in these photographs and poems, this conversation is ready to be offered to you, our friends and neighbors. We hope you will join us in discovering what we hold in common, and where and what we find beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">Art Opening</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">Full Circle Books ( in 50 Penn Place)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">7: p.m.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span> </span> </span> </span> </span> </span> </div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-14753176028980770142018-12-17T07:24:00.000-08:002018-12-17T07:24:40.195-08:00In Ghost House - A Fine Collection<div style="text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The Books I Read
in Autumn</span></u></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></u> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: xx-small;">for Kathy, Jeanne, Mike, Chip, Marty, Paul, Josh</span></div>
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<u><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span></span></o:p></u><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9odvDwN_iW8/XBe9i86z_cI/AAAAAAAAF5Q/i15oDjIWho4tZGeZIHRFGV_tK0F382H6ACLcBGAs/s1600/WP_000643.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9odvDwN_iW8/XBe9i86z_cI/AAAAAAAAF5Q/i15oDjIWho4tZGeZIHRFGV_tK0F382H6ACLcBGAs/s320/WP_000643.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">They were all mysteries, flesh<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">and blood; contemporary, all cutting edge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">None were made from a false scaffold.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Each spine listened in the morning light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">No page played the know it all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The plots meandered the way I like.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Someone sat at a prairie sickbed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Love came on hard and sexy. Another love <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">got funny with a gun, and bones. Intermittent<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">were the chapters of forgiveness. Horses, Paris,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cactus, windows,
swaddled babies, tyrants. Each<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>story knew it’s
perfect article, a or the. Each<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>loved its “S”es and was
possessive, sibilant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and strange. Such a book becoming plural </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">gets my full attention. Seven minds</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">together i<span style="font-family: "calibri";">n a small <span style="font-family: "calibri";">adobe room </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">remain this year's best of best. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> .<o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></div>
Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-28851225526296783382018-08-05T09:11:00.001-07:002018-08-05T09:11:31.459-07:00Accidental Collaboration<h2 class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
All my poems and poetry projects grow out of collaboration.</h2>
<h2 class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zW8l-EES2n4/W2cbGGZaxBI/AAAAAAAAFv0/8mC3UwIBpDUP68N9AzpG4r6V9k1OPXLEgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0791%255B1%255D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="320" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zW8l-EES2n4/W2cbGGZaxBI/AAAAAAAAFv0/8mC3UwIBpDUP68N9AzpG4r6V9k1OPXLEgCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_0791%255B1%255D.JPG" width="400" /></a></h2>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My first book of poems, was a collection of companion poems written with the poet, Judith Tate O'Brien. We threw out seed words to each other each Monday when we met to write together. At first, we simply considered these practice poems. Eventually, some of them became a shared chapbook. This kind of collaboration is intentional, ritualized, and requires the push and pull of two different voices and styles. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There is another kind of creative activity I call accidental collaboration. Some image or story falls into my secret pencil case and starts to write itself. This has happened a lot over the years with my grandchildren. They are just walking seeds for creativity. Sometimes their sparks are so bright there is no poem that can contain it. That's fine. There are written poems and lived poems. We all know that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The accidental collaboration can happen anywhere, even on the often banal landscape of social media. A few months ago I was captured by the beauty of a friend's photograph of a slice of moon which appeared to be balanced on a wire making our common neighborhood street appear magical</span> <span style="font-size: large;">and mysterious.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I thought: what's going on up there? I wrote the following poem and post it here with the image and permission of Mary Catherine Reynolds, my accidental collaborator. </span><br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span></u></i><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">Moon on the Line<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></i></div>
<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">Look, a mid-June rocking curve of moon<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">seemingly balanced on a wire, electric,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">like an Oklahoma neon light.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">Did you see the cowgirl, old Calamity<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">Jane, fringe-frayed, but still brazenly<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">brave, smiling at the open door?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">She’s retired her Remington and runs <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">a tiny joint up there on Western Ave.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">called Janie’s Moon on the Line<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if timing’s right, and the bar band’s <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">loud, we sing along here down below<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;">to tunes we used to know. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;">(June, 2018)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-67536782577987322262016-10-25T17:08:00.000-07:002016-10-25T17:08:19.405-07:00Ghost Ranch Fall Writing Festival<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
What was I thinking titling my poetry class Ekphrastic? Obscure.
From the Greek.<br />
Not a welcoming
word.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wGGTj_ozSn0/WA-n82BwxkI/AAAAAAAAE9Y/mXqE8iIFVf8xY7jqtG3FT2ARB4QKlMK9QCK4B/s1600/WP_000757.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wGGTj_ozSn0/WA-n82BwxkI/AAAAAAAAE9Y/mXqE8iIFVf8xY7jqtG3FT2ARB4QKlMK9QCK4B/s200/WP_000757.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
It drew five
participants, but one dropped out after being told it was not, as he thought, a
class on the geology of the southwest. It was poetry based on art. So, I had an
amazing class of four.<br />
</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The thing I love about a tiny group is that we can meet in
the intimacy of Ghost House, the first adobe structure build on the property in
1888.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Through the double cranked out windows we can see the old
rustler cottonwood, the “hanging tree” turning golden. Farther out, the mesa which
is surely about to wear out its ancient name: Pedernal. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w1nuX2XADuY/WA-oXM5N6KI/AAAAAAAAE9g/hTzRkH8vG4gJ9BRYfC3Zbwb0XGs5HIJVACK4B/s1600/IMG_2079.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w1nuX2XADuY/WA-oXM5N6KI/AAAAAAAAE9g/hTzRkH8vG4gJ9BRYfC3Zbwb0XGs5HIJVACK4B/s320/IMG_2079.JPG" width="320" /></a>The other thing I love is that with four writers, five with
me, there’s room to notice all the other invisible spirits who want to hang
around and have their say: living and passed -- a wife, a son, a dog almost
lost to depredation. We welcomed in van Gogh, an artist named Veeneman, songster Donald Fagen, O’Keeffe, of course, and a farm in Namibia called Damara.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The room fills up with newness. The daily grind we left
behind recedes. Language powers us up beyond the tiring talking points lodged
in our heads from dogged media.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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These writers were so creative in that space I almost
decided against a field trip to a gallery in Los Ojos. But the day was ashine
with Aspen and Chimisa, so we went. One the way, a flock of Churro sheep slowed
us down. The border collies and horse-mounted shepherds minded hundreds of woolen
ungulates waving down and up, down and up, Highway 84. Other drivers turned
around. We took turns jumping out the truck to get a closer look. That day in Rio Arriba County something was happening and we were there to see it, smell, and
feel it -- the October ritual of guiding sheep down out of their summer
highlands. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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When the flock turned left and quilted down toward the
valley, we were suddenly less interested in a gallery. Anyway, it was closed.
Tierra Wools was open, though, and we went in and marveled at the brilliant
hues of wool, the looms. We loved the women with their needles clicking,
talking, laughing, by the fire as though it was an ordinary autumn day. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gVjacbo5e8A/WA-pwMrsmII/AAAAAAAAE9w/vAaLyucHx28lgnKeWzcDxSwqDVO4XQfoQCK4B/s1600/IMG_2072.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gVjacbo5e8A/WA-pwMrsmII/AAAAAAAAE9w/vAaLyucHx28lgnKeWzcDxSwqDVO4XQfoQCK4B/s200/IMG_2072.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
Nothing during the week was very ordinary, especially the
poems, a few of which I am happy to share with the wider world. With permission, here is
a sampling.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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GEORGIA
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Georgia
O’Keeffe looked at Pedernal<o:p></o:p></div>
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Everyday
even if<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Only
in her mind because<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Really
the mountain dominated her life,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gave
her<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zU4Wq15EygU/WA-rInrNVgI/AAAAAAAAE94/XbJyiZ6fVD4JUV70WmRJxUNpRC-i6XaGQCLcB/s1600/P1010244.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zU4Wq15EygU/WA-rInrNVgI/AAAAAAAAE94/XbJyiZ6fVD4JUV70WmRJxUNpRC-i6XaGQCLcB/s200/P1010244.JPG" width="200" /></a>Inspiration
to take her<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Artist
brushes in hand and paint.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>Charles E. Colson<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
TRANSFORMATION<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We saw a bobbing sea of walking wool,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A mass of undulating fleece that blocked <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our way. Police directed, traffic stopped,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A cowgirl waved, and dogs insisted on obedience,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Until the crowd of cloud-hued sheep was gone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Proceeding on our way, we came upon<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A shop, where crafty weavers worked their magic.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From skeins of yarn a colour wheel unspooled.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They warped and weft it by design and now<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s done. Now all that wool’s for walking on. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Dianne Hubbard<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
THE ROAD TO ABILENE</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
(from a series of
linked poems entitled <u>HWY 84</u>) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">A gentle turn north
becomes the road to Abilene, I pass a<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Business man, a Sales
man, a Willy Loman, piloting his sixty-grand Ram<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">I feel his lurking
quota, his debts, a desperate book of business hanging over his head<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Like Gollum, failing,
greedy, grabbing for that one ring of power<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Even a sucker, a
rube, a mid-level manager can sense his anger and his hangover<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Now I pass trooper
lights, stopped and popping like the Fourth of July<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Every trooper’s
witnessed desperation, but this one’s gone and he can’t know what I know I’ve
done</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>Gary Alexander</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><u>The Woman, the Horse
and the Sheepdog</u><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Warmly
dressed on a light snowy day<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A
woman stares at something beyond, something<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">we cannot see<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and can only speculate has something to do with<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the sheep behind them – <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Behind
the woman, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> behind the horse and <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> behind the
sheepdog.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
woman, the horse and the sheepdog<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A
unity of being in three parts<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A
perfect Trinity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As
she looks, so then does the horse move<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> sensing her gaze or the<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> imperceptible
pressure of reign and flexed<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> leg
muscles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
the dog, curling around dangerously close to iron<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Hooves,
follows the horse,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> following the
woman<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">following the gaze.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This
is harmony<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the woman,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the horse,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and
the sheepdog<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Can
we respond to a passion more felt than seen,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">more intuited than understood?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Can we hear it,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">feel it,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">trust it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Do
we know what it even is<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And is it a part of us,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">are we a part of it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not
a thing obtained<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But
one nurtured,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">found
within and cultivated.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To
follow a gaze,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> To respond to a gentle pressure,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> To trust the one
we are following,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
woman,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The horse,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And the
sheepdog.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <b>Scott Herren<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-51633171688818799942016-09-16T18:18:00.001-07:002016-09-16T18:18:12.448-07:00OUT OF HIDING<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PoUKscCo4rE/V9yUc3uJAgI/AAAAAAAAEtg/jxhyXRuD_Ko5qKCWf0-K3sTJrxGdN8aFgCLcB/s1600/IMG_1870.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PoUKscCo4rE/V9yUc3uJAgI/AAAAAAAAEtg/jxhyXRuD_Ko5qKCWf0-K3sTJrxGdN8aFgCLcB/s400/IMG_1870.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<h4>
<b>How to coax a poem out of hiding </b>was the general theme of
last week’s poetry interactive at<a href="http://www.1ne3.org/"> </a><u><a href="http://www.1ne3.org/">Artspace At Untitled.</a> </u>I was joined by Ben
Myers (Oklahoma Poet Laureate) and Chad Reynolds (of Short Order Poems and
Penny Candy Press) in talking about methods and meanings of our own practice of
poetry. </h4>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Special thanks to the writers and artists who came out to
listen and who wrote fascinating pieces of their own right on the spot!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To add to the fun of the evening, our favorite influences
showed up in spirit as we traded tips and threw out prompts. It seemed as
though William Wordsworth, Ted Berrigan, Richard Hugo, Bernadette Mayer, and
even, for a moment, Doctor Who showed up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was reminded of my
first poetry teacher, Betty Shipley, who often focused on gathering language,
and continually wrote the code “ww” on my paper. Wrong Word. She was such a
believer in finding the just-right-word. She was a proponent of the scavenger
hunt. Just go look on page 52 of Brewer’s
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Betty would say. She played the sheriff and the
seer and other funny juxtaposed authorities. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, in this spirit of
play and happy exchange, I’m inviting you before time runs out (Sept 22) to
come downtown (1NE3 street) and participate in A Hiding Place. As Betty would
say, there is something in that gallery you need to know. Just be open to it
and let color, shape, contrast, language, texture, sound, story, movement, talk
to you like an old teacher. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And for your scavenge pleasure, here are 8 evocative lines from the participating poet which you can look for on the finely letterpressed poems mounted on the wall. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9_I3p4Hm2i8/V9yVbyC1nlI/AAAAAAAAEts/uUqPnpnpZvw3fdiGPpeCxPxUsHRibMIZACLcB/s1600/FullSizeRender%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9_I3p4Hm2i8/V9yVbyC1nlI/AAAAAAAAEts/uUqPnpnpZvw3fdiGPpeCxPxUsHRibMIZACLcB/s320/FullSizeRender%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Ben Myers, Jeanine Hathaway, Chad Reynolds, Julia McConnell, Anita Skeen, Jane Vincent Taylor</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The result of my body’s friendly fire///once fresh cream now
pinked by Oklahoma dust// / duppies good and ornery vex me here///you have
chosen not to open///the labyrinth of wrong turns taken///we break for higher
ground///on an altar of cardboard box///we each imagine on the other side/// <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before you leave, please thank the Gallery geniuses, Rebecca
Bloodworth and owner, Laura Warriner, for bringing us all together in this
way. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then make something. You know you want to. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-20232157295931280992016-08-15T12:38:00.000-07:002016-08-15T12:38:10.684-07:00A Hiding Place A Hiding Place: Artists Respond to Poetry<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.1ne3.org/#!current/c1xt1">http://www.1ne3.org/#!current/c1xt1</a><br />
<br />
This exhibit at Oklahoma City's beautiful gallery, Artspace at Untitled, will be up until mid September. We, eight poets, wrote poems with a hiding place in mind. Each poem was offered to a cluster of artists who used the themes and images to create a unique work of art.<br />
<br />
I would love to hear what you find most compelling about this collaboration. Please send me your comments after you tour the show.<br />
<br />
Support Art!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-36379887681280753052016-05-19T14:41:00.000-07:002016-05-19T14:41:30.214-07:00PENCIL WORK: notes for a future poem<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J5YSiAKCr0k/Vz4wxi6gHGI/AAAAAAAAAN0/E0wjaOtlENMfYJZgO6B4VV1nIKyXZdM0gCLcB/s1600/IMG_1697.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J5YSiAKCr0k/Vz4wxi6gHGI/AAAAAAAAAN0/E0wjaOtlENMfYJZgO6B4VV1nIKyXZdM0gCLcB/s320/IMG_1697.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drawing by Jefferson Vincent (Jake) LeForce</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Today I’m thinking back to A., writer-in-residence in the 1990s. I enrolled in his class in poetic forms. Each Monday night we brought forth a freshly manufactured sonnet, villanelle, or triolet. The best part of a class with A. was his odd and clumsy entry, his abrupt recitation of a favorite poem. Didn’t he love the Irish and the Welsh – Yeats and Dylan Thomas? He was pretty keen on Roethke. He knew that Lawrence poem about the snake by heart.</span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> But he was not in love with us, his needy budding poets. Early on, he told us he’d moved beyond poetry. Mr. A. was working on a novel about gambling and the people who can’t live without it. Nevertheless, it was in his contract to teach one poetry class, thus these traditional forms, scansion, training the ear to the foot -- iambic, trochaic, spondaic.<br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Reciprocally, there was not much to love about Mr. A. When I saw him running in his sweats around the campus sidewalks in the snow he looked like Rocky played by Steve Buscemi. Like he’d lost something, he was trudging along eye on the old clock tower in case that slipped-away-thing reappeared on the hour, or off the hour.<br /><br /><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Eye contact did not come easy to this visiting writer, but I asked him in an intimate voice, “Why, really, did you scrap poetry?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It got too easy”, he said, puffing himself up slightly. “I could write a poem at the drop of a hat.” Or, I thought, at the roll of the dice or the spin of a wheel, with the speed of a horse. Bingo, he could apparently make a poem fit into the squares of a card of random numbers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amazing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Later he told the class that he wanted to write a money-making novel. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw it some years ago on a remainder table in The Strand. There certainly was no book of mine there on any table, sale or otherwise. So never mind a pay-back silly scoffing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I must have learned from Professor A.: how form works and doesn’t work, what one cannot live without, what to love enough to know by heart. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">My other teacher, Time, taught me not to cheat or bluff or dope the thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For most of us, the novice or the longtime practiced, making a poem get out the gate then cross the finish line with just the right amount of sweat, no more, no less, is hardly ever easy. And the rewards are hard to calculate. You just walk back up to the window and put your earnings on a another horse that strikes your fancy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-43017914386965437262015-07-12T09:40:00.000-07:002015-07-12T09:40:01.397-07:00Looking<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last week the poet, Sandra Soli, tagged me on Facebook, challenging me to write five poems a day for five days, or something like that. Though I had been enjoying this project’s posted poems, I was not entirely “knowed up,” as the folks in western Oklahoma like to say. More to the point I wasn’t “geared up.” Gosh, no! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was my first thought. My second thought and best excuse was that I was late getting my syllabus into Ghost Ranch for the Fall Writers’ Festival course: Writing Rituals. Oh, wait: practice a writing ritual, or think up potential writing rituals for others to try out? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Suddenly, this seemed perfect, but in a different way. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I decided to join in but play the game like my granddaughters do: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>make up new rules to suit the situation. As a daily ritual, I would post not a poem but a video clip of simple daily life in hopes one of these recordings would provide a sensory seed for a poem before the week was out. (I realize this minimized the challenge significantly!)</span></div>
RAIN AT HAPPY HOUR<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first one I uploaded was just rain, a torrent of rain I had captured one evening on a friend’s screened in porch a few days before. And, I already had a line that went something like “rain at happy hour percusses like whisky bottles… “</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">THE OUTER RIM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The next day l tried to get my eleven year old grandson to sing and dance and let me video him. Quickly it became clear that was not happening. Like a good director and sympathetic grandmother, I revised my request: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>read some of this Star Wars book and move rhythmically while doing it. This consisted of Desmond peddling on an exercise bike and reading to me about the clones, but it produced a lovely, random moment which spoke to me of time and youth and the “outer rim of” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">something. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">UNTITLED AIR</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Day three I had to go to work. I’m cataloging and building a database for Laura Warriner’s art books at Untitled Gallery. This work puts me into the most creative light/dark space while doing what I love, routinely. Before I left for the day I took a minute to film the bookshelves, the volumes holding their own among the treasured art. When the windows are open, as well as when they are closed, that loft has a sense of wide open spaces. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When prairie wind blows in the high gallery windows all the spines and skin and pigment turn toward the natural air. Kinetic everything. Everything kinetic.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
SNAKE TALK<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One the fourth day I returned to my summer 2015 obsession : the non-rattler, but no less frightening snake that tried to stare me down at dusk one night. I was going to trap it. I was going to have it caught and killed. I feared it was under my bed at night or hidden in the ironing basket after coming through some leaky pipe of plumbing. Apologies to all of you who listened to me illogically rant reptilian. I’m over it now. Now I look for it in my overgrown yard. I state conditions: don’t sneak up on me, don’t cross the back porch threshold. A minute videoing snake habitat while safe behind my pointed camera has cured me of this irrational fear. Plus, now I have a silly snake poem called HISS. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">HISSSSSS</span></i></b></span><br />
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<em>GETTING TO WORK</em><br />
Here is it day five. Today’s minute-made movie is called, Preparing to Work, or Watch Out, You Might Get What You’re After which is really pretty boring because it's just me heading for my workspace to write while listening to Talking Heads. I think video art is not my forte, but the week was full of play and close looking. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hooray, I have drafts to work with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My notebook is happy. Thank you, Sandra Soli, and all you hard working poets who inspire me. </div>
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Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-39933975960338420072015-05-16T18:18:00.001-07:002015-05-16T18:18:07.366-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Pencil Light: Poems</div>
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now available. </div>
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If you do not want to order my new book from Amazon I will send you a signed copy directly from the homeplace here in Oklahoma City. <br />
<br />
Email me at<br />
<a href="mailto:taylor215@cox.net">taylor215@cox.net</a><br />
<br />
You can sample it and see what others have said at<br />
turningpointbooks.com <br />
<br />
Local folks are all invited to the book launch/art exhibit at<br />
at Untitled Gallery in OKC,<br />
Thursday, May 28, 6:30.<br />
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Other readings to be announced. <br />
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Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-69087709803541764252015-03-04T12:38:00.000-08:002015-03-04T14:18:42.710-08:00Poetry Workshop at Turtle Rock Farm<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">(and other fun ways to spring into poems)</span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC"; font-size: 24pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bring your favorite pencil or pen to Turtle Rock for a day of new writing and fresh poetry. Surprise yourself by playing a game of scribble, or brain scramble, or erasure writing. Ground yourself at this amazing sustainable farm. Talk to the chickens, question the blue sky, visit the pond. Make spring work for you. With us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With lunch provided. With pleasure.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Expect:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "Crimson Text"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">three different ways to generate a poem, </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Crimson Text"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">three ways to enhance a poem </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Crimson Text"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">three ways to offer a poem to the world</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Turtle Rock Farm (near Billings, OK) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">http://turtlerockfarmretreat.com/<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC"; font-size: 24pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who: </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC"; font-size: 24pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jane Vincent Taylor, poet & fan of the Farm<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC"; font-size: 24pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When: Saturday, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC"; font-size: 24pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">May 2, 2015</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC"; font-size: 24pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC"; font-size: 24pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How much: $75.00 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC"; font-size: 24pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How to: register online </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC"; font-size: 24pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">at <a href="http://turtlerockfarmretreat.com/calendar">http://turtlerockfarmretreat.com/calendar</a></span></span></span></div>
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Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-61169704402798225112014-11-04T10:16:00.000-08:002014-11-04T10:23:50.074-08:00<br />
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Dear October,</div>
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Three days gone and already I miss
you. You sent so many letters and surprising enclosures. You are my favorite
mail carrier, sender of leaf and the crisp page. Do you see my notes of
gratitude roosting on the line waiting for the perfect postal wind? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AxQq8TY6wDQ/VFkOk5mf5nI/AAAAAAAAAIs/bN85-dcVMsU/s1600/WP_001919.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AxQq8TY6wDQ/VFkOk5mf5nI/AAAAAAAAAIs/bN85-dcVMsU/s1600/WP_001919.jpg" height="198" width="200" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AxQq8TY6wDQ/VFkOk5mf5nI/AAAAAAAAAIs/bN85-dcVMsU/s1600/WP_001919.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>Your generous days offered me a plethora
of lucky numbers. 4 was the Love-day under my pergola, a story-slam of vows with
mints and buttery kisses all around. There was absolutely no kind of bluster. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks for that, plus the picture light. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><o:p></o:p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
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Oh, October, I know you are connected to
the eternal eight, but for <a href="http://www.ghostranch.org/">Ghost Ranch</a> you were right to send me nine. </div>
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D<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ear Past, Dear Future</i> was shuttled into
a rec room made for younger folk, but we stole pillows and found and took our
comfort slow. By day 3 we’d kicked off our shoes, unfolded ourselves, and
became no small ordinary envelopes. We wrote to the living and the dead and
maybe to the threshold spirits in between. We were letter boxes opened and
gently riffled through. <o:p></o:p><br />
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Thank you, October, for the blood red moon, the matrimonial
trail, for the rain and umbrellas and for those beneath them. Thanks for Aunt
Irene, for the Inuit Inuksuk inspiration, for the Guthrie girl, for dear Brett.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks for Willa and her desert sister
surrogate. I loved Stanley Kunitz and his dancing partner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, thanks for the big heart with her big
pockets, and for all the brave asking. What is a letter if not an act of faith.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>Say, could you please look after any letter poems hidden
under rocks? Ask November to deliver them if they languish in the sage. <br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K4tX3L3-K34/VFkSZYtvcsI/AAAAAAAAAJc/Km4iRLHumZU/s1600/WP_001927.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K4tX3L3-K34/VFkSZYtvcsI/AAAAAAAAAJc/Km4iRLHumZU/s1600/WP_001927.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a> </span>October, you did not leave me much to long for except, of
course, more. Please come again, and wear that gorgeous mesa gown. We’ll be ever grateful. <o:p></o:p><br />
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Yours, forever newly older,<o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>Jane<o:p></o:p><br />
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</span></span><br /></o:p><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-34129637694815630082014-08-17T11:55:00.000-07:002014-08-17T11:55:28.192-07:00What the Owl Knows: Workshop in the Lyric Poem<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P7c6OzeKcNc/U_D0VKNexFI/AAAAAAAAAII/Ggz2yacwgk0/s1600/WP_001806.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P7c6OzeKcNc/U_D0VKNexFI/AAAAAAAAAII/Ggz2yacwgk0/s320/WP_001806.jpg" height="156" width="200" /></a>Report from Creative Arts Week, 2014, with gratitude to my fellow writers, colleagues, and friends.<br />
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Ghost Ranch can be a bit short on creature comforts unless you are a rabbit, lizard, crow or burro. We compensate with luxury of view: mesa, juniper, chimney rock. <br />
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We make do with combustible creativity and hot tea, and stories, and a shared blanket if the sofa seat’s too hard. We feed each other. We take liberties. We swat mosquitoes where they land.<br />
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The Ghost House Poets had their matching owl socks, and like the owl they were wise to each other’s new writing, listening and questioning, opening and closing. In class, they indulged my assignments, drafting spontaneous work that lifted aloft those little paper exercises into double-fisted kites. I was constantly surprised. Once I thought: what a good teacher I am. Pedernal nearly fell down laughing. Burros brayed. Okay, maybe I was just happy to be in the company of poets making poems. <br />
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This group of five (plus all their alter egos and wild personas) mostly played in the afternoons but worked into the night willing to be discomfited, lost, pissed off, confused, or ghosted before they got to the dream state we call inspiration. When I saw them at breakfast, I could tell. <br />
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Together, they answered the unbidden call. They let fear into their poems. One gave us a tango demonstration. One sang a haunting song. We threw the dice. We took our numbers to the page and made them beautiful. <br />
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Woody Guthrie came one day. We rewrote the medicine cards. We gave each other lines. We broke them how we wanted. What a class. Really, what a tonic. Who says there are few creature comforts at the Ranch. Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-24202602428196821712013-10-19T10:54:00.000-07:002013-10-19T11:27:21.004-07:00Your Inner Seven<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Packing to be at Ghost Ranch for two weeks teaching and writing, I decided this time to travel light – one bag of clothes, one sack of books, one bulging file of handouts/exercises, flashlight, and homemade (thank you, Margaret!) cookies to lure friends to my room for happy sugar hour. <br />
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I also carried with me, like a lucky penny, a shiny bit of wisdom which came unbidden from my oldest granddaughter, Laken. </div>
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<i>Why do you always have to go to Neww Meexxico?</i> she complained, and rightly so, since I was going to miss her soccer tournament.<br />
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<i>I have to see my friends, and also teach a class. <br /><br />What class? </i></div>
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Not to complicate matters with words like sense of place, landscape, open genre, memoir, I kept it simple: <i>I show people how to make a poem.</i>Silence. Furrowed brow. Wide-eyed wondering. Incredulity.</div>
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<i>Grandma, I write a poem nearly every day…all by myself. </i><br />
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Oh, for the capacious mind, the confidence and intuitive powers of such a seven-year-old. Oh, for the gift of truthfulness and sudden ego-thumping. </div>
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It was enough to make me consider for just a second staying home and yelling for the North OKC Reds. (It turns out those girls took the trophy and didn’t even need my extra cheering.)<br />
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My Fall Writing Festival class was actually called: This Land – Writing Out of the Places We Know. Laken’s reminder that we probably all have an inner landscape where language is not inhibited by someone else’s sense of form and beauty was more important to me last week than clean underwear or a nighttime flashlight. <br />
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Like seven-year-olds on the cusp of reason but clearly committed to imagination, all the writers who joined me at the Ranch this year took Laken’s exclamation to heart and revisited that place where, as Sandburg said, we were first given a song and a slogan to sing. <br />
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The Spanish have a word : Querencia – the place where you feel you are your most authentic self. <br />
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These talented students mined those places and found ways to revision them– the forest, the creek, the flood, the chine, a sandy parabola, the grain elevator, the dogs in the street, the deadly wave, even the Amazon forest, where one woman had lived, was brought into our small room with the most vivid description of clear cutting I’ve ever heard. Among this group of ten was demonstrated both the child’s wonder and the mature woman’s braided complexity. Trust ensued. Generosity flew around the room like party confetti or at times like Kleenex. Oh, not “like” Kleenex. It was Kleenex. </div>
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In the end, the wave that broke a girl’s neck was given a name, a woman waiting for her lover in the airport made place out of that placelessness we call a terminal, an ancient mother was given voice, a flood was brought to life, erosion was honored, green was deepened and made real, a family that didn’t seem containable was poured into a fine container, the Continental Divide rose up nicely, a raven shook things up, and then at the end of a street where you would think nothing was going to happen, profanity found the perfect place to speak, and speak she did.<br />
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Oh, and that poem which got the whole Ranch laughing on the final night’s performance, The One Good Thing, the one about the passing of the girdle, I know it wasn’t exactly about landscape and sense of place, but the point was taken: let’s not constrict our bodies and separate ourselves from all that moves and jiggles and breathes. Let’s live in the world full of every kind of contour. </div>
And let’s make sure our granddaughters ask us: what’s a girdle? Incredulously. <br />
Thank you, Jeanne, Louise, Marilyn, Rosemary, Susan P., Susan J., Jane, Kathy, Dorothy, and Helen. You are my favorite ten each with a lovely inner seven. <br />
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<br />Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-64076471404432329732013-08-16T13:51:00.000-07:002013-08-16T13:51:54.314-07:00A Letter <br />
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<i>A Letter : with special thanks to the writers who joined me for a week of hellos and goodbyes, classic letter writing, and wonderful experimental letter poems. If any of you are responsible for this winged letter of note, I thank you. </i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sarah Atlee, Terrye Bullers, Sylvia Karcher, Alice Byrd, Debbie Allen</td></tr>
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Dear Friends, </div>
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Yesterday I had a haunting visitor. A large moth had pressed its body against the screen door and it spent the day there in complete stillness. I think it was a Pachysphinx Modesta, a nocturnal creature which should have spent the day sleeping on the bark of a pin oak or poplar. </div>
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Its presence made me do things a little differently -- enter and exit through the back door, shoo the birds away, dig around in the nearby Hosta beds, meet the mailman at the curb so he would not disturb. I paced the day by a different clock as well -- abruptly stopping whatever I was doing to check on the welfare of this napping symmetrical pattern. </div>
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It had startled me at first because from afar it looked like a Halloween bat. An early omen. Up close its wings were perfect twin paintings of desert mesas, what we call the painted skirts out in the canyons of Ghost Ranch. They matched the pocket rock I borrowed recently from the wet stream bed of Plaza Blanca. Those paper-thin wings could have been picture jasper in another incarnation. The quietude was that of chimney rock. The wasps buzzing around it in the afternoon made me nervous, the little buzzards. <br />
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Modesta showed no fear. Her day was night. She seemed alright with that. Nothing seemed amiss except that I had a giant moth. <br />
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This is how it is when I return from the Piedra Lumbre Valley. Notes arrive, letters of no advice, no big news really. They are written in cloud script, to the tune of rain, or, as in this case, a bit of moth borne hieroglyph. Then they disappear like invisible ink on onion skin, and I am happy to be home again. <br />
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Sincerely (wishing this were written with a fountain pen) <br />
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Jane <br />
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Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-69217217706853376122013-03-21T15:04:00.000-07:002013-03-21T15:04:20.416-07:00A place for you in the circle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xXRKtpzeIrU/UUs3Ul3hgsI/AAAAAAAAAFc/5n6jZ_6Nxbs/s1600/WP_000643.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xXRKtpzeIrU/UUs3Ul3hgsI/AAAAAAAAAFc/5n6jZ_6Nxbs/s320/WP_000643.jpg" /></a><span style="color: blue;">DEAR FRIENDS</span></div>
<span style="color: blue;">It's officially spring, and summer will be upon us soon enough. What are you going to do with your beautiful summer? Or, as Mary Oliver asks, your wild and wonderful life? There is a chair especially for you in my class during Creative Arts Week at Ghost Ranch, July 29 - August 4.</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;">I usually try to lure you out with a landscape photo, the valley of shining stone being a on-going siren song. The picture I offer you today is of Ghost House. This has been my classroom for many years because it's small and perfect for six or seven writers. It is an intimate space but outside those windows is the famous mesa, Pedernal, sometimes called Spider Woman or Changing Woman, and later seen widely in the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe. "God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it" she said. Whatever bargain they made, fortunately for us, the living can still enjoy it -- that and many of the other natural gifts of Ghost Ranch. A room with an inward perspective and calling to look outward nurtures the creative spirit.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;">Consider coming this year. My classes offer a circle of shared insight and also provides new vistas, challenges for fresh and unexpected writing. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;">Back by popular demand this summer is Where Truth Is Told: the Art of Letter Writing, a class I offered a few years ago during the Fall Writing Festival. The link to the Ghost Ranch catalog will give you all the particulars of living on the Ranch for a week. Here is the course description but I would like to add that we will study and experiment with the letter as a contemporary art form not simply a mode of communication. </span><span style="color: blue;">
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Where Truth is Told: the Art of Letter Writing</span></h3>
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong>Workshop ID:</strong> G13W753 </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong>Dates:</strong> July 29, 2013 - August 4, 2013 <strong>Price:</strong> $350.00 </span></div>
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Reading the letters of both famous (Ansel Adams, Flannery O’Connor, Emily Dickinson, Woody Guthrie perhaps) and ordinary people (maybe your mother or grandfather) we will discover the way letters rise to the level of art and enrich the lives of both sender and receiver. Through letters, daily routines and deepest desires intermingle. The art of letter writing is not entirely lost to us yet. Come prepared to compose letters worth keeping, the ones you have been meaning to write. While we still have a mail carrier, let’s write some beautiful letters.<br />
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</span><br />Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-70656802164063529132012-11-17T05:32:00.000-08:002012-11-17T05:32:05.345-08:00Return to Reading<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I used to think I wanted to be a librarian. It all started at the Perry Carnegie Library which had some daunting steps for a four year old in a smocked dress. A woman stood on the lean-to ladder pulling down a book. I want to work here, I told my mother, after I began to know the scope of a day in the alcoves of the library. Along with the numbered volumes, I loved the sunlight, wood, ceiling fans. It was a temple in our mundane little town. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I made it through many tests and tight places by the book. In the presence of a book, I was safe from awkwardness. If I’d had a better book on sex, that would have helped a lot. As it was, I married young and read the Russians when my babies took a nap. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I read the Beats. I read the war resisters and the early feminists. Eventually I had to get a job. To avoid the rigors of the cash register, I went back to school. I thought I would make a good librarian.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BGsJBI9Fckc/UKeMzGySOnI/AAAAAAAAAE4/CkyeoCSfs30/s1600/WP_000793.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rea="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BGsJBI9Fckc/UKeMzGySOnI/AAAAAAAAAE4/CkyeoCSfs30/s320/WP_000793.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My grad school application essay spoke of search engines, venn diagrams, Boolean logic. I’d been warned: these days, for heaven’s sake, don’t expound upon your love of books; that’s démodé. Linked bibliographies, collection development by algorithm, self check out scanner, pro and con. People used to say: how fun to be a librarian with all those books. Books were deep background. Information was on the rise. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So I became a librarian just in time to usher in a multitude of databases, a cyber age, techno savvy research, reading with an eye to cut and paste. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I made a living. I still liked the sunlight coming in the atrium and the cart of recent acquisitions. Eventually I had a nice big office.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now I am a recovering librarian, recovering my lifetime love: novels, poems, histories and geographies good enough to read cover to cover more than once. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have a great support group, my avidly irreverent, funny, and opinionated book club. I have wonderful book buddies. I can be completely random in my reading. And if I get too compulsive, or heavy on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you-have-to-read- this-book</i>, my friends forgive me. I’m a recovering librarian and a reader born-again. </span></div>
Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-91421929154043625362012-06-13T07:54:00.000-07:002012-06-13T07:54:30.974-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: large;">Good News!</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Lady Victory</span> </span></div>
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Poems by Jane Vincent Taylor <br />
<span style="color: black;">is available from Full Circle Books in Oklahoma City and at <a href="http://amazon.com./">Amazon.com.</a></span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Poetry of Home</span></span></strong></div>
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a week long workshop at Ghost Ranch <br />
has spaces available. July 30- Aug 5, 2012. Register soon at <a href="http://ghostranch.org/">Ghostranch.org. </a></div>Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-9290020571446395292012-06-13T07:28:00.000-07:002012-06-13T07:28:55.904-07:00<h3>
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I can’t decide if this summer calls for a new routine, or no routine. Where are the new poems, I ask myself. I hope they are in this unadulterated notebook I’ve just unwrapped, dating the first page, performing my secret blank-book ritual. Routines and rituals, what would we do without them? <br />
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When I was a child we routinely went to Sunday Mass, ate fish on Friday, and gave up mostly chocolate bars for Lent. We churned ice cream on 4th of July, sprinkled the clothes with water before we ironed them, fried an August egg on the hot sidewalk, and during the stickiest nights of summer slept outside on cots under a net of fireflies.<br />
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<em>Routine.</em> It’s French : for route -- a path, a road to travel. Both ritual and routine offer ways to get from one place to another. A map or recipe, orderly and prescribed perhaps, but pointing to an unknown door. Rites have always moved toward a threshold. <br />
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One of my favorite childhood journeys was one where we kids, all dressed up, walked from the portico of St. Joseph’s school to the church, St. Rose of Lima, at the far end of the street. It was May, post-Easter-death-and-resurrection. This, a softer feast, we just called Crown the Queen. With blasts of Spirea in our arms we walked two by two. One child loaded down with boughs, the other in charge of a paper-collared candle. The tapers were lit the moment it got dark enough to make a sparkly show. We were flame and flower moving in song toward our goal: to place a wreath of roses on the painted blessed virgin and make her come alive. Actually, it was we who came a little more alive, even if the cloying churchy atmosphere could make a few girls faint away and have to be revivedwith cardboard fans and smelly handkerchiefs. <br />
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Perhaps you, too, were raised on lovely ceremonies. Some of ours brought comfort; some were full of contradiction, irrationality, and fear. But mostly they fed our need for beauty, amazement, and a dose of transformation. Looking back it seems that for routines to become true rituals they need to jolt one off the common path, offering, if only briefly, an awakening.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-883EzsCMW28/T9igSZdeTMI/AAAAAAAAAEc/cuIRdN8QRvk/s1600/P1020685.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" pca="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-883EzsCMW28/T9igSZdeTMI/AAAAAAAAAEc/cuIRdN8QRvk/s320/P1020685.JPG" width="197" /></a>Last week, for instance, to break the monotony of Tinker Toys, I took my granddaughters (aged 3 and 6) for a walk around the neighborhood. It was ordinary: curb walking, rock collecting, bird watching, dog visiting at various fences. At each corner we decided which route looked the most promising, surprise-wise. Nearing home an oddly brindled cat came bounding out in front of us. A miniature tiger/panther mix, we decided. The girls were convinced it had escaped from the zoo. For about a block we were in the wilderness, a very small wilderness, but still. A walk had turned into something extraordinary.</div>
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I think it doesn’t really take that much. Sometimes we escape routine by walking further into it and letting imagination run wild a bit. I’m hopeful for new poems because summer, queen of rituals and not- that-much-routine, is almost here. </div>
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<br />Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-73820438829683752412012-02-27T06:58:00.001-08:002012-02-27T07:07:26.464-08:00Work<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G4WuBdBhhC0/T0uOUrwSoyI/AAAAAAAAAEM/2AnJfpsd8Iw/s1600/P1020615.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" lda="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G4WuBdBhhC0/T0uOUrwSoyI/AAAAAAAAAEM/2AnJfpsd8Iw/s320/P1020615.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I’ve been thinking about work, my work, and also the tradition of work I come from. My father was a telephone man, a lineman; later he ran the switch room. These days one would say he worked in “communications,” as does my oldest son, and in fact, do I. Hey, as you read this, are we not watering the fields of communications, cyber-wise, blog-wise?</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few years ago I retired from a career in librarianship (which is very fine work, indeed) and am now a writer and teacher. I consider this my full time work though I admit to taking lots of long lunch breaks, yoga breaks, and weeks off to garden or paint the kitchen. If I had a union contract it would have to honor the time a writer needs in non-desk activity in order to find the hot wire, the live switch. But if I had a union contract now in the State of Oklahoma I’d be considered communist, a weakling, in cahoots with a leftist devil.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You see, now that my days have elasticity I sometimes find myself reading the local paper. The current legislature is anti-labor and to make that clear is proposing </span><a href="http://okiedoke.com/blog/?p=1670"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">changing the Oklahoma State motto</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> from “Labor Omnia Vincit” established way back before statehood to “Oklahoma: In God We Trust”. In other words they want to dump the quote from Virgil’s poem Georgics (originally calling on more of the Roman people to take up farming) to a well-worn dollar-begging pious cliché. Shall I tell you what I think? I love Virgil. And though I don’t think we should fall for imperial propaganda and all move to the countryside, I like honoring people’s work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My mother worked at home for years, sewing our clothes, upholstering chairs, refinishing furniture, canning (though she hated that) ironing, and doing many of the things a 1950’s wife did to very little fanfare. Later she worked as a waitress (I still love the sound of tip change in an apron pocket), and off and on as a seamstress. Once for a while she drew newspaper fashion ads for our local department store. She also trusted in God though she didn’t insist that everyone around her do so. I don't think she would have put it on a bumper sticker. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On a happier note, I also read in the news that the Oklahoma Book Award </span><a href="http://www.odl.state.ok.us/ocb/obaward.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">nominees</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> have been announced. Congratulations to all you poets and writers. Your labor may not have conquered all but it has won the heart of a State that perhaps still knows the value of a seed well sown. I’m thankful for that. Keep up the good work, everyone, whatever it is.</span>Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-87676708976267199912011-10-21T15:06:00.000-07:002011-10-21T15:06:34.895-07:00Letter Writing at Ghost Ranch<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CPpgY9_LMi4/TqGbqtHLzQI/AAAAAAAAAEE/Z5XARKftQ00/s1600/263.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" rda="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CPpgY9_LMi4/TqGbqtHLzQI/AAAAAAAAAEE/Z5XARKftQ00/s200/263.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Letters. </span><br />
How they are carried and delivered is not the issue. Rather, who composed them and to whom is what drives letters through centuries and what propels them now. That and the need for intimacy/honesty, plus a natural linguistic music.<br />
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Last week in our class, <em><strong>The Art of Letter Writing</strong></em>, a wonderful mix of humor, drama, and imagination –<br />
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Mary Claire explains to her children exactly why she bought (without their advice) her new Dodge Journey. <br />
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Katie writes her daughter on the trials and triumphs of a long marriage.<br />
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Val writes to Ansel Adams asking if there is not a secret behind his famous shot, Moonrise, Hernandez.<br />
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Susan Barney Jones gives me permission to share this fine poem.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>1001 West Mulberry Street</u></span><br />
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This is a letter to my childhood home.<br />
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This is a letter to Mulberry Street<br />
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to its wide paved expanse<br />
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beginning at the eastern edge of town<br />
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ending at the hogback dotted with yucca<br />
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to ghosts of Nash, Plymouth, Chrysler, Ford<br />
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parked at the curb.<br />
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This is a letter to seven trees planted on the lot<br />
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tall sprawling blue spruce, macintosh<br />
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and wealthy apples, delicate Chinese<br />
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maple, prized and protected gingko,<br />
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aggravating Kentucky coffee putting<br />
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up suckers, spicy Russian olive.<br />
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This is a letter to plants left behind.<br />
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This is a letter to the table in the kitchen<br />
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slam of screen door, splash of faucet<br />
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water, decaying picket fence and<br />
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broken gate lock, tilting clothesline pole,<br />
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empty wooden dog house, abandoned<br />
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antenna on the roof.<br />
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This is a letter to things forgotten.<br />
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This is a letter to three bedrooms<br />
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one crowded bath, sticking metal<br />
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sliding closet doors, ceramic<br />
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windowsills, casement window cranks,<br />
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to mildewed shower curtain, damp towels,<br />
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chips of soap in a cracked dish.<br />
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This is a letter to daily life.<br />
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This is a letter to washer and dryer<br />
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shelves of glass jars, canned<br />
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applesauce, homemade jelly<br />
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and pickles, plastic boxes of sliced<br />
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peaches in large white freezer<br />
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to stacks of magazines, folders of school<br />
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papers, dress-up clothes and garment<br />
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bags, nails and tools, photos and<br />
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slide carousels<br />
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to dusty basement<br />
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to past and present. <br />
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This is a letter to all a house can hold. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W6RsEIu6TXs/TqGazc1znqI/AAAAAAAAAD8/NLhqkXlO7aw/s1600/302.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" rda="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W6RsEIu6TXs/TqGazc1znqI/AAAAAAAAAD8/NLhqkXlO7aw/s320/302.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Thanks to Ghost Ranch, the Fall Writing Festival team, and to my wonderful class!Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-23129533659072854492011-08-18T09:02:00.000-07:002011-08-18T09:02:24.496-07:00The Art of Letter Writing<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Art of Letter Writing</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3jzJk0DX0mI/Tk02GaNcFVI/AAAAAAAAAD0/gabBNKHfMKY/s1600/P1020633.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" qaa="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3jzJk0DX0mI/Tk02GaNcFVI/AAAAAAAAAD0/gabBNKHfMKY/s320/P1020633.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Ghost Ranch Fall Writer’s Festival</div><div style="text-align: left;">October 8 – 13, 2011</div><br />
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When I told a friend that I was going to offer a class at Ghost Ranch Fall Writing Festival called The Art of Letter Writing, the truth as he saw it slipped out before he had a chance to censor himself. “If that class makes it will be full of old people.” <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o04GIpFWr74/Tk01IOkoDBI/AAAAAAAAADw/QN7m93qJaQg/s1600/P1020678.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" qaa="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o04GIpFWr74/Tk01IOkoDBI/AAAAAAAAADw/QN7m93qJaQg/s320/P1020678.JPG" width="320" /></a>He teaches college kids so perhaps he doesn’t realize the pleasure and vitality of the over-fifty set. (these are my people, friend!) Besides, have you noticed that young people have taken up knitting, canning, gardening, pin-hole photography and the ukulele, all antique arts now born again with a 21st century sensibility ? Letter writing may be the next new thing. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Letters stuffed into an envelope and sent at the current rate of 44 cents could make a comeback, not for expediency sake, for sure, but for art’s sake. Whoever turns up in my class, of whatever age, will be invited to think about letters and why they matter, both historically and in the current context. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Letters from prison, letters from the road, from wars, and letters of comfort to parents, to children, and love letters. We’ll read letters and write some of our own.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">What role did letters play in keeping alive the marriage of Georgia O’Keefe to Alfred Stieglitz over such long separations? </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The writer Leslie Marmon Silko says to the poet, James Wright, after taking up a whole letter describing the personality of her rooster in the yard: You never know what’s going to happen in a letter. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Charles M. Russell had few grammatical skills but he dashed off illustrated letters and post cards, keeping friendships alive with little more than a savvy sentence or two.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The letter is one of the most familiar forms of communication, and one of the most intimate. Letters can be exuberant, sad, bossy, philosophical, fragmented, long-winded, and funny, but they are most enduring and artful when they are revelatory and honest in personal expression. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Charles Lamb, the 19th century essayist and avid letter writer, said writing a letter is like whispering through a trumpet. Write a letter today. Let it whisper or let it trumpet. Please, let it do more than tweet. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256389191953872669.post-59227287853914616642010-12-20T07:18:00.000-08:002010-12-20T07:23:42.682-08:00The Work We Love<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ip0RIXgdX_c/TQ90DirIpiI/AAAAAAAAADk/QJGHJ9QcJu4/s1600/P1020212.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" n4="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ip0RIXgdX_c/TQ90DirIpiI/AAAAAAAAADk/QJGHJ9QcJu4/s320/P1020212.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>On this winter solstice I feel the amazing circularity of life. So much changes and old things circle back, seemingly new. This post was written a few weeks ago as I embarked on a short stint as “librarian in residence” at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. <br />
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Interim Librarian -- the old fashioned kind. <br />
Okay, this is one of those opportunities to return to basics, embracing, as the Buddhists say, beginner’s mind. Working this week at the Ghost Ranch Library I had to learn again to stand on my feet for hours “reading” the shelves, focusing on the call numbers so as to catch a displaced stray. I searched for missing volumes, organized the overdues, brought the serials log up to date. When I was tired of that, I found the archival glue and book tape and repaired all the dilapidated Star Wars series in the children’s room. After the first day when I had washed my hands fifty times I walked to the Trading Post to buy a tube of bay leaf bee balm. I had forgotten how dust and paper dry your skin out and, in New Mexico, even more so. <br />
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The Ranch was nearly free of guests, but the staff (cooks, farmers, wranglers, maintenance folks, and office workers) use the library a lot. They immediately began singing my praises simply because the place was clean and tidy once again. Anyone could come in and read the Rio Grande Sun and find all three sections of the paper in one spot. It had been a long time since I’d done such simple work and received so much appreciation. I thought this was going to be a breeze, a lovely breeze.<br />
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But on day three I got the key to the two back rooms where all the hidden work was waiting. Anyone who has ever worked in a library knows there has to be a rat’s nest where what you don’t have time to do gets stored and often falls into a variety of confusing heaps. This is where an old professional has to get her hands (and knees) really dirty; where she has to bring some order out of chaos. I was tempted to shut the door . The Ranch is going to hire a full time librarian next year. Let the newbie do it. <br />
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No. I could at least get a start on this. So I sorted all the gift books, all the books marked vaguely “problem” and threw out catalogs and advertisements long since out of date. I fired up the catalogue computer and read the manual for using Bibliofile, a software made to pull down catalogue records, as we say, and print out cards and labels. <br />
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I should tell you right now I didn’t get it all done, but every night as I walked in the dark to my lodging I was tired. I’d done a good day’s work, the kind of work I used to do a long time ago, and could still do, apparently. For being such a way-back week where I had to call upon an accumulation of former skills, I sure felt new. Renewed, I guess the word is. <br />
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I’m wishing all of you good work, paid or unpaid, but always satisfying, as we circle into a new year.Jane Vincent Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975452868000666698noreply@blogger.com2