**sigh**

It has occurred to me that I have a growing number of early drafts in journal and saved in various places that I need to get organized better so that I can actually go to them to work on them.

For a while I was really good about organizing these but it's gotten out of hand.

Anne Sexton from Beyond - Part Two in my Dead Poet Mentor Series

This week I've continued to be in communication with my dead poet mentor. Our communication has taken on several forms. The most common has been to speak to me through her poems. Let me explain what this has looked like. As I've read through various of Sexton's works this week some have been worthwhile reads but have not  elicited any remarkable internal reactions. On other occasions however, I've been prompted to consider fresh ideas on which to draw from in writing. I'm not talking about writing on the same subject as the poem in question, but rather drawing upon an image I'm finding within her words or seeing something that has taken me back to some experience of my own from the past that I'm seeing - unfold in some freshly developing language that I believe will carry over at some point into my writing.

Another way that Anne has been communicating with me is through her letters. Anne Sexton, like many poets of this same period was a prolific letter writer.  It's pretty easy to get inside Anne's head in these writings. I say this because these letters leave her quite vulnerable to anyone who would read them.  I've spent a good deal of time and energy studying Sylvia Plath and there is a stark difference between Sexton's letters and those in Plath's published, "Letters Home."

If one compares Sylvia's "Letters Home" and her Journals side-by-side, it becomes clear that what Sylvia was saying to her mother and what she was journaling  were often quite different. If one did not know any better you might even conclude these were not written by the same person.  Plath were out of her way to paint a picture for her mother's benefit that was about controlling the message. Her journals seem on the contrary to be a much more honest assessment of the authentic Plath.  This too is how Anne appears in her letters, authentic to a fault.  I'll have more to say about Anne's letters at a later time, but the point I am making now is they are quite revealing.

The last aspect of Anne's communication is through biographical material.  While Biographers may sometimes extrapolate on certain facts to reach differing conclusions, we can come to learns some things about a person that seem to be indisputable. When we learn some important truths about a person's life - it can help us to understand how these thing come to inform that person's writing.

So you have a bit of the "how" part of of my mentoring under a dead poet. Later in this series I'll talk more in depth about what Anne has actually been conveying to me.

 Part One - My Selection

Many Making Their Own Reality - Donald Trump Only Encourages This

If I may deviate from poetry for a moment... my apology to readers but it seems we in this country have deviated from very pressing matters to engage in at a minimum silliness and arguably a very blatant hate bating. 

Birtrhers have for half of a presidency continued to question the legitimacy of Obama's Presidency on the basis of his nationality. They have done so in spite of the existence of birth records. This craziness has continued and many prominent Republicans have encouraged it with half backed responses when questioned. "Well, I take him at his word," is only an encouragement for others to continue to question

Enter Donald Trump... his nearly daily questioning and insistence on the president producing a long form certificate brought this story into the mainstream media. His circus atmosphere came with sweeping accusations that he has had people on the ground to flush out the truth, that truth he insinuates is that the president is a fake, a fraud!

Of course Trump - who threatens that he (Trump) is the last person Obama wants to run against, has provided no evidence contrary. He has not produced these people "on the ground." Words, all words. And words don not truth make. 

Now that Obama has released the long form certificate, Trump says he is glad he got the president to do something no one else could. And he adds he hopes it is authentic, but says it's too early to say. Meanwhile Trump has started another question to Obama's integrity. He now says that he has talked to many people who have informed him that Obama was not a very good student. And Trump has many friends who should have been able to get into Harvard but didn't... so, how is it that Obama got in? This is where Trump plays the race card. After all, how could Obama possibly have been qualified for Harvard Law School? 

Lies! Trump is a blatant liar! He throws out this stuff as if fact, knowing full well that an unbelievable large segment of the population is gullible enough to believe it without any foundation of truth offered simply because they want to believe it.

Will Trump really run for president? Maybe... but I'm not counting on it. I think he has two objectives in mind. First, to boost his ego and ratings on his TV series and second, to play the bad guy... to be the hammer that pounds away at Obama to try and bring his numbers down in the poll. He never has to run, in fact will be accountable for much less if he never actually enters the race. 

He's the tough talking guy that fires people on a TV reality show. Reality show? Trumps view of reality is whatever he wants it to be. Much the same as every other birther.

Confession Tuesday

It's Tuesday again and I find myself at the virtual confessional.

Dear Reader-

It's been one mowed lawn and lots of rain since my last confession. I confess I'm fearful how high it will be by the time it is dry enough to mow.

This week I am dog sitting so it is later then normal by the time I settle in for the night.  Looking after these two dogs, it is still much quieter then at home.  I had expectations of getting a lot of writing done in the evenings this week but so far I've brought office work home with me every night. I confess that I'm conflicted by this. On one hand I want to walk way from the office clean and not have to think about it till the next day.  At the same time, getting a bit of work done in the evening makes the next day not quite so overwhelming.

While driving an listening to  NPR this week I heard a story about the two remaining (long running) soap operas coming to an end soon.  I confess I felt a bit sad and I'm not a consumer of their programing.  The thing is that recalling the women in my life, most if  not all at one time or another were dedicated watchers.  I realize this is the end of an era. Grandmothers to daughters to granddaughters passed down this practice and in many cases obsession.  In a way, soap operas were sort of the social media of yester-year. You couldn't text but many people probably spent more time then they should have watching them and then everywhere women gathered they talked about the characters like real people in their lives.

I confess that I've been living on the edge these past couple of days.  Sunday we had a flat and I put the donut (spare) on and have been driving with it since.  That of course means I'm now driving with no spare. And another confession...the other three tires are at the end of  their life as well. I've replaced all four this afternoon and I confess I will feel better driving tonight.

Lately I have been more focused while working on a manuscript.  I'm starting to see threads that pull a number of poems together and this is both scary and exciting at the same time.  I just hope this is not a case of the Monkey House as Kelli puts it.

I give you the images I know...

“I cannot promise very much.

I give you the images I know.

Lie still with me and watch.

We laugh and we touch.

I promise you love. Time will not take that away.”

 

~Anne Sexton

 

The images I know tonight...

 

• A sofa of zig-zagged pillows.
• An asphalt road that curves right - forever. 
• A bird nest driven into a tree by tornadic winds.
• The river running rampant outside its banks.
• A starless sky adrift upon ceiling.
• Tired brown eyes - like no other,

Magpie Tales - 62 - Poem: Gemini Sunrise

A Gemini sunrise
medium, split open—
the morning
bread was broken
the day began

 
 

2011 © Michael A. Wells

 
Magpie Tales 62

Cats & Writers

A catless writer is almost inconceivable. It's a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys. ~Barbara Holland


Photo: Evie -  whiteboard