More on Poetry & Poets

Now where were we? Oh yes, we were discussing how poetry should be easy to write. 

My last argument for its apparent ease of creation is that you find it everywhere...

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. ~Leonard Cohen 

The sad truth is this: There's nothing easy about writing poetry...

If the author had said "Let us put on appropriate galoshes," there could, of course, have been no poem. ~Author Unknown

It's a world unto itself...

Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. ~Carl Sandburg
 
It requires the tossing about of impressive yet mysterious words such as abecedarian, acatalectic, clerihew, dactyl and trochee. This is but one reason why so many find themselves in awe of the poet. There are others...

Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind, because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science. ~Sigmund Freud

The poet doesn't see the world differently but he's more in tune with its shadows than are the rest of us. He feels the world deeply... 

A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music...and then people crowd about the poet and say to him:  "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul." 
~Soren Kierkegaard

The fact we almost expect poets to experience a certain degree of suffering is perhaps why they're allowed a great deal of latitude...

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.  ~Thomas Hardy 

We expect to be moved by poetry, and even if we don't understand a certain poem, we know somewhere someone does and that person is certainly moved... 

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. ~Thomas Gray 

However, we also expect poetry to outlast us...

Browsing the dim back corner
Of a musty antique shop
Opened an old book of poetry
Angels flew out from the pages
I caught a whiff of a soul

The ink seemed fresh as today
Was that voices whispering
The tree of the paper still grows.

~Terri Guillemets 

And lastly, why this is true, I don't know. But, it is... 

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.  ~G.K. Chesterton

It Should Be Easy

April is National Poetry Month. Let me greet you here with lines of my own design...

Two tattered hearts
Each quiet with wear,
Each still wondering
If love's waiting there.

It feels finished to me. I'm fond of its conciseness and of what it doesn't say, yet others have cried out for more. If you feel strongly compelled to add to these lines I'll post them here!

On the face of it, poetry should be easy to write. It possesses far less words than most short stories. That is, unless you're of the Beowulf persuasion... 

They have seen my strength for themselves,
Have watched me rise
from the darkness of war,
Dripping with my enemies' blood.
I drove five great giants into chains,
Chased all of that race from the earth.
I swam in the blackness of night,
hunting monsters out of the ocean,
And killing them one by one;
Death was my errand
and the fate they had earned.
Now Grendel and I are called together,
And I've come.  

There are another 3173 lines to this classic of Anglo Saxon literature. I think we can call it an anomaly.

Unlike a mystery, poetry doesn't require red herrings be dropped at every corner. Some poets even find it unnecessary to tie up the loose ends that would wildly irritate readers of the mystery genre. 

Is this how the term poetic license came to be? Believed to have been put into usage between 1780 and 1790, it basically allows lovers of words to follow their heart's desire without dragging the baggage of rules and expectations with them. Write utter nonsense, claim poetic license and all wisely nod, "Ahh...of course." 

There once was a girl with no fanny,
Who had a hard time getting tanny.
The problem was that
Her backside was flat,
And the rays of the sun hit uncanny. 

As many swear they can't understand poetry, one can also be as obscure as they like. Your audience will simply feel they aren't on par with your brilliance or with poetry in general. You sail on your merry way, leaving it to critics and scholars to debate your meaning. I'm quite sure this was the intention of Laura Riding Jackson in her Elegy in a Spider's Web...

Photo by Mike Hall, My Shot

Oh pity poor pretty
How thorough life love
No matter space spider
How horrid reality
What to say when
What when
Who cannot
How cease
The knowing of always...
 
To read the entire poem, click here

I now must go,
Cause I say so.
There's more to tell
It will be jolly swell.
So return soon,
Less you think me a loon.

There is truly more to say on this subject but I now must...well, you read the poem. Stay tuned my friends.

OZ & OC

 Are there any baby boomers for whom The Wizard of Oz wasn't a part of Easter? The newly extended daylight hours of that Sunday night, the new jammies and the day's last doling of Easter basket contents all waited for that opening moment when Dorothy reaches for Toto... 

"She isn't coming yet, Toto. Did she hurt you? She tried to, didn't she? Come on - we'll go tell Uncle Henry and Auntie Em..."
       
I can still bring up the anticipation from the depths of childhood memory. 

And what of that wrenching moment when Miss Gulch takes Toto!? Or when the Wicked Witch leaves Dorothy with time running out!? Good Lord, could Margaret Hamilton be wicked or what?! 

I'm craving a chocolate bunny right now.

But the OZ has always been more for me. It's found me - on more than one occasion - approaching a wicked road. There's a chance it lead me there. Odds are greater the OZ has repeatedly saved me from sauntering down it.

During a pre-AC St. Louis summer - a time in my early grade school life that can only be termed tumultuous - I had trouble sleeping. I self-soothed the hot summer nights away by quietly singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow - over and over...and over. If memory serves me, I usually nodded off by the fifth or sixth time.

The brilliant remedy of a young insomniac or the road to obsessive compulsive? Let's skip through the poppies with option one.

Only a few summers later, I decided to read Frank L. Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - alone, aloud and with perfection. Any mishap meant starting over at page one. 

It was on the second afternoon after having started over countless times and never making it past the first chapter that it occurred to me...maybe this isn't normal. I finished the book in the usual fashion of fourth graders.

Was I inching towards the twister that is obsessive compulsive? Let's fly like monkeys with a notable...perhaps. Yes speaks of too much surety...and perfection. 

When The Great and Powerful Oz opened in my part of the world on March 1st I was giddy with that old anticipation. I HAD to see it on opening day. Yet, March has found me so seriously steeped in a such myriad of activities that a theater outing should have immediately been seen as impossible.

But I had to see it on opening day! I HAD to. I just HAD to. 

I didn't. Again came that moment when I "fortuitously took my mettle out of mothballs". Balance ruled my pretty!

Perhaps I lean. I sway. I may even lightly touch the heart of OC but...Ding Dong! I believe the Doctor of Thinkology would say it IS the OZ that saves me. 

Are you wondering how I fared when reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West? My family didn't go hungry but they did forage for themselves for an evening... 

I did see The Great and Powerful Oz yesterday. LOVED it.

To read interesting tidbits of Oz trivia, click here. You can even see a scene that didn't make the final cut - the Jitterbug song where the Wicked Witch sends a mosquito like bug to bite Dorothy and her travel companions, causing them to fall into a dancing frenzy.

I've Learned My Lesson

Let me begin by relating a true tale, usually told roughly half way through my vintage fashion show, The Stories My Clothing Can Tell... 

...I was especially happy to find this gorgeous black, silk shirtwaist because I'd just read the shirtwaist of the 1890s was one of America’s few original contributions to ladies fashions. Throughout its entire regime, haughty Paris dressmakers sniffed at it, pronouncing the death sentence upon it three times before 1909. Whereupon American ladies sniffed back...and bought more shirtwaists. By 1910, New York’s production alone was valued at $60,000,000.

Perhaps this appealed to my sense of patriotism. Whatever. But, I had to have one and the one I bought fit beautifully. I wore it to an event hosted by the Historic Cemetery Association, attended by mostly Civil War re-enactors.

For those not familiar with Civil War re-enacting, these folks – because they're portraying true historical events – are persnickety about costuming. Some have teasingly call them stitch counters or costume Nazis. If you walk among them incorrect in your interpretation of Civil War era costume, you do run the risk of a raised eyebrow. I was a maverick strolling about in late Victorian style – especially as I was sans the proper corseting.

I was so very careful all morning. I knew that though my shirt waist was a pristine beauty, she was a fragile girl.

But as fate would have it, I developed a small itch at the top of my head requiring a small scratch. I should have brought my head to my hand, but, alas, I brought my hand to the top of my head. With that small, innocent movement, the entire left back of my beautiful shirt waist ripped wide open, quite audibly, from top to bottom and without a seam in sight. There I was, exposed and...sans corset. 

Fortunately a Civil War re-enactor friend, with the deepest of frowns, lent me her shawl and with as much dignity as I could muster, I beat feet to my car.

Although the humor of this did not escape me, I was devastated that I had destroyed a piece of history by my carelessness...  

So, you think I'd have learned my lesson, wouldn't you? I've my Facebook friends to thank for saving me from the same pickle jar.

Upon learning a vinyl record can be softened in the oven and then refashioned into a handbag - or a bowl, clock, earrings and...well just about anything really - I naturally felt compelled to add such a specimen to my Bagology program display.  

Without a vinyl record in sight, I threw onto Facebook a request for one and was soon blessed with an amazing specimen - a Franklin Mint collectible featuring music of the Big Band Era. And it's RED!

Having never experienced the cool factor of a red vinyl record, there was hesitation as the oven preheated. Perhaps practice on a plain old black version by an unknown artist of a non-iconic era of music should rule the day. 

And I wanted to share with my Facebook friends the image and my hesitation. 

And so began the firestorm. I was going to do WHAT!? NO, don't do it! You'll be vilified. Don't destroy a piece of 20th century musical culture. Oh no, you didn't! 

I even received two private email messages begging me to reconsider.

I was shocked yet intrigued. Would anyone offer big money to halt this latest handbag effort?

While I question the true collect-ability of anything Franklin Mint, in the end I realized I didn't have to make a vinyl record handbag at all. Putting this red record on the display table with the other handbags and sharing the story was infinitely more interesting than any handbag I could create from it.  

There was also the possibility guests at a woman's luncheon would feel even stronger on the subject than did my Facebook friends and begin hurling their desserts at me if I shared the story with the record already transformed. 

Now back to my shirt waist...the incident brings up an often controversial question in the vintage clothing world. Does a garment reach an age where it becomes irresponsible to wear it? Vintage clothing is a part of our history. My silk shirt waist was perfection and did not appear as fragile as she was. A better place for her might have been in a museum rather than upon my back. It's food for thought. 
 

What would Benny Goodman have had to say about it all?

The web abounds with the how-to for this.
Mine was to have a more vintage look.
Perhaps someday it still will.

A Writing Habit

You sometimes hear how lonely the life of a writer can be. I'm guessing it was a non-writing soul who first offered this reflection. Most writers I know are not only immeasurably comfy with their own company, their heads house such an array of ideas, characters and plots - all vying for attention - that there's little room for loneliness.

That said, writing is a solitary endeavor. This is why so many writers stay jammied a good portion of each day, scoffing at The Mary Kay Way. You wonder how many Mary Kay reps actually get up each day and dress impeccably even if they've no firm plans to open the front door.

How pointless to dress to the nines in order to pick up a pen or pound upon my keyboard! Yet, it's also slightly disconcerting to realize it's 1:30 in the afternoon and you're still jammied and perhaps in need of a hairbrush.

If you keep scribbling until 5:00 or so, it hardly matters any longer. But it's those mid afternoon hours that find some of us  writers longing for a writing habit. But what?

I've found my answer as well as wild inspiration with Magnolia Pearl. Aside being the most intriguing web site I've yet to chance across, I love the clothes. Of course, as a SW Florida girl, I'd have to Florida-ize the Dickens out of them. 

And wild inspiration? It trumps loneliness every time.

Change

Change is a funny thing, despite its dependability.  

Many fear it so they'd rather turn their collar up, put their head down and scurry across the street rather than look it in the eye. 

Others face it fearlessly or with only minimal trembling.

Still others turn to it in resignation. These folks tend to sigh alot. 

The other day I sat yet again mending my favorite vintage gown, knowing it was likely the last time my needle would fly through this shattered fabric. The effort was becoming futile. And that's when it occurred to me. While I don't fall into any of the above categories, my approach to change is often like the now continual mending of this garment.

But you can't always save something, no matter how hard you work at it. Whether it be ideas, people, places or tired garments - some things need be left behind as change pulls us forward.

I set down my needle. I gently folded the gown. I stood and walked away.

I chose not to look back. I had to. The temptation to again pick up that needle would have been too strong. And still futile.

Not the French Resistance But...

A water color on paper by
Adolf Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (1815-1905)

I'm not yet on board with reading devices. I've played with them and I appreciate the marvelous factor. Truly.

But here's the moment I keep returning to: 

It's 2005 and I'm sitting heaven side (seat #21) in the library of the St. Louis Historical Society. I've been here for hours already, am thinking the day has brought all it can and am wondering the odds of finding a second Mounds Bar in my purse.

The librarian who's been bringing my requests all afternoon steps to the table and whispers quietly, "Judging by what you've been asking for, I thought you might like to see this." 

She sets down this small and quite worn black book that's maybe 4x5 inches. Her hand rests on it a moment before she smiles and walks away.

I realize something special has been set before me but I can barely read the faded handwriting in this book. It takes another moment for me to realize I'm holding the diary of a Civil War era southern woman. She had written her thoughts as Sherman's troups camped on the grounds of her plantation. Her husband was elsewhere in the war.

It was a moment my friends. A moment where thoughts of Mounds Bars fade. A moment impossible with even the most marvelous of reading devices.

Perhaps that's the rub. As one who smells books, who caresses pages, who believes objects - especially books - possess their own energy, then maybe it's the sterility of iPads and Nooks etc. that I'm resisting.

They're the way of the world, I know. But I wonder your thoughts. Am I alone in this resistance? 

Neither here nor there, but I would have been part of the French Resistance.

One more confession...I haven't a smart phone either.

A Real Player

Facebook is a strange world where you can experience an array of emotions in only moments by simply scrolling down your computer screen. 

Is it this soup pot of emotion that leads some to believe their Facebook friends wait with bated breath for their political views? Is it why some feel they can rally us round and swing us to their side by relentlessly posting images designed to agitate and which possess not a spec of balance?

This has slowed down post election but I confess to pre-election irritation at this phenomenon. While I mostly felt compelled to encourage more critical thinking and less sheep-like behavior, I confess to writing harshly at times. I argued. I un-friended a few friends (although most I had never met). I hid others from view (as if that makes any difference).

Of course I admit to infinitely less irritation when these poster-ish images reflected my own views, but that's not my point...

Now, after talking in real time with a gentleman whom I could not call a friend as I had just met him, I see all this as daylight burned. Facebook has bamboozled us into thinking we're players. 

We're not.

If you want to be a real player, it is not your Facebook friends you write. You write your Congressman and your Senators. You write them ALL the time. It is when they recognize your name that you've become a real player.

The cynical among us will scoff at this. But, I choose to believe the wisdom of our founding fathers - men who felt so strongly about what they were creating they were prepared to die for it.

To that end I've now decided to begin continually writing my representatives. Congresswoman Kathy Castor and Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson will soon recognize my name and, hopefully, look forward to my correspondence. And then, I'll be a real player.

To find the contact info for your Congressman, click here. For your Senator, click here.

FYI, an argument featuring a lack of time holds no water if you've a Facebook page.

I might also mention this isn't exactly my first rodeo. Late on the night I turned 22 I learned President Carter was also born on October 1st. Suddenly I couldn't bear the evening to end without calling the White House to wish him happy birthday. 

I was passed through to three different people and my conversation with each went something like this: "Hi! My name is Laurie Mabury. Today is my birthday and I just learned....etc, etc."

I was finally told the President had already retired for the evening. I made this third woman promise to pass my birthday wish along - literally, I made her say "I promise". She took my address and the next week a birthday card from the White House was delivered to my door.

Ok, it's not exactly the same. And, I'm not suggesting conversations attempting to extract promises. But, it surely couldn't hurt to learn the birthdays of your representatives.

I'm just saying.... 

Wordsmiths

As I write, wordsmiths of the highest order are busy creating neologisms for our language. 

Have you launched yours yet? I've been trying hard with my ja-ba-la-ba-loo, an obvious but delightful play on Fred's Flintstone's ya-ba-da-ba-doo. It's usage doesn't yet appear wide spread.  

Clearly inspired by the unmanageable temperature changes of menopausal women, I've greater hope for my phrase, the Goldilocks's Effect. But enough about my own efforts.

While LOL, BTW and OMG have now officially been added to the Oxford Dictionary, I've trouble believing these abbreviations were created by high-order wordsmiths. It was more likely the dumb luck of tetchy people. 

Although I don't mind telling you, they leave a slight flesh wound. Ja-ba-la-ba-loo has infinitely more zing.

William Spooner (1844–1930) was a neologist and Oxford don famous for spoonerism - the linguistic phenomenon of accidentally - or intentionally - swapping letters, words, or vowels in a sentence... 

- Go and shake a tower: Go and take a shower

- Let us glaze our asses to the queer old Dean: Raise our glasses to the dear old Queen

- We’ll have the hags flung out: flags hung out

That's kinda cute...I mean, that's behind my flute.

To think all the words in all our books are created from only 26 letters...

For those new to neologisms, I'd suggest attempting the Washington Post's Neologism Contest, often featured in their Style Invitational. You're allowed to alter any word by adding, subtracting or changing one letter. You must also offer a new definition. Some of my personal favorites are...

-  SARCHASM: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it  

-  ARACHNOLEPTIC FIT: The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web  

-  CATERPALLOR: The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating 

-  INTAXICATION: the euphoria of getting a tax refund lasting only until you remember it was your money to begin with  

-  PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to make it work again  

Over time some words simply grow tired, but their meanings cannot be retired. This only fuels neologisms. But personally, I'd still rather "take my ease" than "chillax". I'd rather find myself "bejeweled" than "blinged". 

I mourn the loss of "balderdash" and "gobbledegook". 

I'll continue to make use of "extraordinary" and "astonished" even should the rest of the world let them go. Both are...wicked cool.

Damn Scribbling Women

A famous Victorian male author(perhaps Henry James?) once referred to the era's female authors as "Damn Scribbling Women." It sounds as if this gentleman was feeling the pains of competition but I like "scribbling woman".

A portion on an image you'll soon see in
Steeped: The Wanderings & Delights of a Tea Adventurer

It was these scribbling women who helped open the door to the Victoriana rage beginning in the 1970's and 80's. Scholars sought a feminist approach to literature and turned to the almost unknown women writers of the 19th century. The door was thrown wide open once writers such as Annie Besant, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Ann Bronte, Ella D'Arcy, and Harriet Martineau were rediscovered. 

Scholars now wanted to investigate the rippling effect of women's writing on women editors, women's newspapers, murder trials of women, New Woman literature and attitudes towards marriage and divorce.

Studying the social history of the 19th century in order to understand its women writers ultimately opened a room with a view not only for scholars, but also for the modern magazine industry, the interior design world, and savvy entrepreneurs. We were hooked on Victoriana.

Thank you rediscovered Scribbling Women!

What an interesting notion though...being rediscovered as a writer. I can see the haughty raising an eyebrow, drily asking, "There was a time we were not read?"

As a minor writer of my time - sitting among the millions of other bloggers and self publishers on the planet - I would long to be the unexpected delight of another generation after passing through this earthly plane. 

Although...I wouldn't know I'd been rediscovered, would I? 

Damn! 

Technically, I'm best described as a scribbling woman fond of elocution. But why mince words? Oh right, that's what writers do - mince words...as well as measure, chop, stir and scramble them.

I'm Not My Tea Table

Like most on the planet, the last few days of the year find me looking at what's to come. The last 48 hours of being mired in glitches and changes to both my web sites - glily.com and laurienienhaus.com  - greatly adds to this sense of what is possible.

Although the possibility of creating a form in Dreamweaver plans to elude me for awhile longer. 

Anyway...I've going to stop being my tea table.

I adore my tea table. When in full regalia, it's a feast for the senses - mismatched old china, miscellaneous vintage napkins, glorious teapots and flowers arranged in antique salt and pepper shakers. It's eclectic. It's works.

Eclectic works less well in life after a certain point. I certainly don't want to mimic Pippi Longstocking's tea table,  where one might find themselves actually perched upon the table while simultaneously avoiding precarious stacks of mismatched china.

Easier said than done, but I'm giving it a go this year.

Here's to possibility, my friends! I hope your New Year brims with it.

BTW, there is no possibility that I'll stop sewing vintage reproduction clothing. This is my newly finished 1920's French Tea Gown. I do have a use for it and, of course, if Pippi Longstocking ever asks me to tea......

On Being the Siren

Few have likely had occasion to consider this, but it's not easy creating a creature from scratch. One must avoid cliche or your creature appears to have come from a box.

While there was a time any old blue would do for monster skin, you're now safer with shades of aqua and their color wheel companions. Otherwise, you're an Avatar country cousin and only...almost homemade.

Despite their distinguished history and current wild popularity, anything reminiscent of a vampire is problematic as well. I predict the vampire's trajectory to mimic that of the cupcake - whose fall from grace is surely an imminent event.

Other problems emerged as well. I had repeatedly said I wanted to "creature up and be HIDEOUS!". It didn't take long to realize what I actually envisioned was a creature on her way to the prom. There would be no slime. Under NO circumstances could dental distortions be yellow, brown or ragged. And would it be possible - rather than scales - to use sequins? Perhaps they could swoop dramatically over my eyebrows and onto my cheeks?

I had to let go of most of that - although the refusal of yellow, brown or ragged teeth was a point I was simply incapable of budging on. 

But the question remained. Who is this creature? I was in uncharted territory. The budget of an indie film doesn't allow the extravagance of a prototype. In order for this creature to evolve, I would have to carry it's blurry form in my head until something brilliant materialized.

It occurred to me making it word-free might be easier. A mute creature must, however, be unusually expressive. This is why I tried a subtle, low growl in the grocery store line. It's why I practiced creepily appearing behind my husband's chair to slowly lay a hand on his shoulder.  It's why I now have some fairly good octopus moves under my belt(remember this creature lives in the sea - or, rather, the Gulf of Mexico).

But what finally helped most was realizing I was trying to create a creature completely separate from myself. Something of me had to be pulled into it. I'm not prepared to share what that something was but I can tell you this: It's an excellent mental exercise. 

That's when I began to feel my creature. 

We'll see. Of course, what is most important is that you feel my creature. Don't go far.

A Good Teacher Rocks

Imagine a shy, soft-spoken high school freshman sitting among mostly juniors and seniors in Mrs. Rethwisch's first hour speech class. See this young woman rise, clutching her notes, and walk to the podium. Terrified, she takes a breath and begins her well rehearsed and now long forgotten speech.

You can almost hear her, can't you? 

No? Apparently, few did. 

As she collects her papers, pleased beyond measure all is over and she can return to her seat, Mrs. Rethwisch asks, "Laurie, do you always speak so softly?"

The young woman's extended pause prompts a student to reply in the affirmative. 

Mrs. Rethwisch appears thoughtful. "Say good morning Mrs. Rethwisch. As loud as you can Laurie."

The young woman looks with longing at her chair before complying.

"Again please. Louder"

The young woman, now trembling slightly and sure the person advising "pretend everyone is naked" has never actually stood before an audience, again complies.

"Again please. Louder"

The young woman wonders why Mrs. Rethwisch isn't bursting into flames.

"GOOD MORNING, MRS. RETHWISCH!"

Mrs. Rethwisch smiles. "You may take your seat Laurie." 

Myself as the Siren and Lori Zinkl as the
Beautiful Woman, L1 and L2 respectively for
The Siren indie film project.

As it turns out, this was a pivotal moment. A good teacher rocks.  It's their job.