Poetry Plus
Due to my rigorous life being a mother, wife, student and student-teacher, my blogs have been sorely neglected, as has my writing. However, I do have something exciting to post.
This fall, I began to compile a collection on 9-11 poetry. As many people in the nation, I felt greatly affected by the events of 9-11. 2011 was the 10 year anniversary of those horrible events and I was more bothered by it than I thought. I bawled through every t.v. tribute they showed. I remember I was awake, holding Matt (just shy of turning one year old) when my brother-in-law, Jason, called and told me what was happening. I cried with Matt on my lap and wondered what the world would be like for him.
Even though I was certainly affected by these events, I didn't personally lose anyone and I haven't personally suffered many of the after-effects that happened in our post 9-11 world. Most of my poetry is autobiographical but I decided to write this collection outside myself, creating personas and trying to imagine what I would feel if I were someone else. It was my way to pay tribute to the people directly effected by these events and to work out my own emotions over these events. I titled the collection, "Sano", which is Latin for the phrase: "to heal".
I was accepted into two conferences to present these poems, but due to the cost and my student-teaching obligations, I was unable to attend. However, I did submit IV: Dia de Los Murteos to Dixie College's own Southern Quill Literary Journal. I didn't expect to get in since the journal is hard to get into. I was delighted to find that not only did that poem get accepted but I won the poetry contest sponsored by the family of Annie Tanner Atkin. Dr. Atkin set up a foundation in 1972 for his wife, who was a poet. Each year, the family choose 3 out of ten poems to award scholarship money too. I am humbled and very grateful to have been selected as the first prize winner. This recognition really means a lot to me.
Check out the Quill at http://www.thesouthernquill.com or http://www.facebook.com/thesouthernquill.
As if just being published wasn't cool enough, I was also asked to read the poem at my Convocation Ceremony on May 4th! The English Department is recognizing the 30 year partnership with the Atkin family and because my poem was awarded first place, I have been asked to read it. I can't tell you how touched I am by this gesture and for the opportunity to showcase my work and really thank the English Department Faculty who helped me find my voice.
This fall, I began to compile a collection on 9-11 poetry. As many people in the nation, I felt greatly affected by the events of 9-11. 2011 was the 10 year anniversary of those horrible events and I was more bothered by it than I thought. I bawled through every t.v. tribute they showed. I remember I was awake, holding Matt (just shy of turning one year old) when my brother-in-law, Jason, called and told me what was happening. I cried with Matt on my lap and wondered what the world would be like for him.
Even though I was certainly affected by these events, I didn't personally lose anyone and I haven't personally suffered many of the after-effects that happened in our post 9-11 world. Most of my poetry is autobiographical but I decided to write this collection outside myself, creating personas and trying to imagine what I would feel if I were someone else. It was my way to pay tribute to the people directly effected by these events and to work out my own emotions over these events. I titled the collection, "Sano", which is Latin for the phrase: "to heal".
I was accepted into two conferences to present these poems, but due to the cost and my student-teaching obligations, I was unable to attend. However, I did submit IV: Dia de Los Murteos to Dixie College's own Southern Quill Literary Journal. I didn't expect to get in since the journal is hard to get into. I was delighted to find that not only did that poem get accepted but I won the poetry contest sponsored by the family of Annie Tanner Atkin. Dr. Atkin set up a foundation in 1972 for his wife, who was a poet. Each year, the family choose 3 out of ten poems to award scholarship money too. I am humbled and very grateful to have been selected as the first prize winner. This recognition really means a lot to me.
Check out the Quill at http://www.thesouthernquill.com or http://www.facebook.com/thesouthernquill.
Sano: To Heal
I.
The sun shone
brightly the day hate
sliced down towers, creating
a wound bleeding
falling men,
toppling concrete, twisting
steel. Splitting
hearts open,
stealing beats, snatching breath.
Screaming women silenced by wailing
sirens, smoke-filled terror
sending waves of shock across
a stunned nation. Deaths of countrymen
shown to the masses. Silent
witnesses gaping in horror as a
skyline disappearing,
pain blooming like a rose.
This particular poem really mirrors what I witnessed when the events were broadcasted live. It was a devastating event. I also wanted to create a dichotomy with the image of the nation's pain blossoming like a rose.
II.
He was as real to her as Santa or God,
this man she called father
but only knew from pictures,
memories of her mother, home
movies made before
she existed.
He helped create her but
his arms never cradled her. She swam in the salty sea
under her mother’s life-sustaining heart
when men, fathers
of other girls, killed her own.
Holding a worn picture, she
gazes into his chocolate eyes,
mirrored reflections of her own,
swallowing her ache, struggling to
feel his love, wishing the photograph
could expand to fill the
hole deep inside.
One of the most tender yearly tributes we have to the fallen heroes of 9-11 is a special ABC does on children who were born after their fathers were killed that day. There is a sizable group of children who only know their fathers from pictures.
III.
Laying
his hands on top of the coffee-stained dresser, he shakes his
head, peering at the image he sees.
His weary eyes quickly dart away. He expected the stares but not the
hate. Facing east, his knees creak
before he meets the mud-colored carpet.
Subhana Kal-lah hum-ma wabi hamdika
wata-bara kasmuka wata'ala jad-duka
wala ilaha ghyruka.
Glory be to you, O Allah, and all
praises are due unto you, and blessed is your name and high is your majesty and
none is worthy of worship but you.
Born
and raised in Brooklyn, he wept when the world collapsed, pleaded with Allah
for healing. The blonde nurse tersely
shook her head when he offered to donate blood, “Not worth making people
uncomfortable,” she muttered under bright florescent lights.
But they were his people too.
A'uzu bil-lahi minash Shayta-nir-rajeem
I seek Allah's protection from Satan who
is accursed.
The
worst was the little girl with red ribbons in her silky pigtails; he smiled
at her in the post office. Her mouth opened as wide as the polka-dots on
her red dress as her scream spilled across the space between them, her mother
glaring at him,
pulling
her daughter out of the door.
Bismillah hir-Rahma nir-Raheem
In the name of Allah, the most Kind and
the most Merciful.
His
eyes close in supplication to the God of his Fathers as he petitions for the
ancient balm of Gilead to spread forth on this land, healing hearts, allowing
men to see each other
as
they truly are, knowing the deepest wounds are unseen.
*Looks like my line breaks are off--but all the words are here.
One of the saddest effects of post 9-11 was an increase in distrust, even hatred, of anyone who looked like that might be from the Middle East. Frankly, I thought that was unbelievably sad as many people of the Muslim faith and/or Arabic descent are good people, no different than the rest of us. I tried to imagine what it may feel like to experience that kind of prejudice and hatred firsthand.
IV.
Finely
ground marigolds
pouring
from her hand to the earth like
falling
rays of sunshine. She gazes at her
orange-stained
fingers hoping the fire-colored flakes
will
shine to underground caves, like torches,
lighting
his way back to her.
Sickly
sweet decay of the flowers seeping
into
her skin, causing her bones to ache.
She
walks softly as orange-yellow flecks
crackle
beneath her
feet
on the path leading home.
The
warm September sun beats upon her back,
on
her Dia de Las Muertos.
It
felt different now than the chill of traditional
November. No shawl necessary as she kneels upon the
mound
encasing her love.
Remembering
the tales from her childhood,
Abuela’s
words whispering like ghosts in her ears.
If you invite the
spirits of the dead, if you cook
their foods they will
walk the
path of the marigolds, returning
to you…
if you listen, you will
hear them.
La
Pan de Muertos she made this morning had grown
cold
next to white sugar skulls as void
of
color as her life now. Growing marigolds
all
summer
long, planning for this day,
her
house becoming a splash of blinding color,
a
mask covering her pain,
silencing
questioning glances.
Today
was a year since the tumbling
bricks
of the towers crushed the life out of her heart,
driving
a lifetime of dreams deeper underground
than
the buried steel of ground zero.
Finding
the time till November stretching out
like
the lengthening of her arms,
grasping
for what no longer was there,
waiting
for him in the stillness,
marigolds
piling at her feet, knowing
if
he cannot follow the path to her, she will
walk
the path alone,
joining
him in the darkness of tomorrow.
This poem is one of my favorite of all I have written. I thought about what it would be like if my Justin, my husband, died in the 9-11 event. It would be devastating. This idea has been rolling around in my head when I went to observe a Spanish class at Snow Canyon Middle School. The students were presenting projects on the Mexican tradition, Dia de Los Muertos. It is a holiday celebrated on November 1st. Traditionally, marigolds are sprinkled on the ground as an invitation for the dead to return on that day to visit the living. Although some add a sinister element too it, it is a tender, meaningful tradition that many families celebrate. I have a love of Mexican culture and language so using this as the basis of a poem about a woman's loss really clicked in my head.
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