January 19: Meeting a god, Gwendolyn Brooks, "The Crazy Woman"

I once sat in a classroom with Gwendolyn Brooks.  She was in her eighties at the time, but still tall and beautiful.  From the beginning, she had us eating out of her hand.  For me, it was like being in the presence of a god.  I kept thinking to myself, "I am in the same space as Gwendolyn freakin' Brooks."  It was an amazing afternoon.

So, on the eve of a presidential inauguration at which no poet will read, Saint Marty gives you Gwendolyn Brooks--African American, poet, crazy woman, voice for the voiceless.

The Crazy Woman

by:  Gwendolyn Brooks

I shall not sing a May song.
A May song should be gay.
I'll wait until November
And sing a song of gray.

I'll wait until November
That is the time for me.
I'll go out in the frosty dark
And sing most terribly.

And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
"That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May."

March 29: Peace, Adrienne

I checked Google news this morning, as I do every morning.  I was greeted with the news that the poet Adrienne Rich had died.  For decades, Rich has been the cutting edge, the voice of the voiceless, the champion of reason and humanity.  Her death has silenced one of the great figures of American letters and thought.

Therefore, I step away from my normal, self-centered blog post to honor the memory of Adrienne Rich with her own words.

Peace, Adrienne.  Peace.

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

by:  Adrienne Rich

My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.

They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.
I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control

A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths.

A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.

To do something very common, in my own way.



One of the greats