Magpie Tales 49 - POEM: A Day Out

A Day Out

A trio of women

blades slung over shoulders,

slug their way to the pond,

their trails in the banks

of quiet white mark

their pilgrimage-

No socks to mend

no laundry, no meals

to be accounted for-

their voices clamoring

escape         they will

upon arrival  -  in

their most unlady-like fashion

cut loose on their secret mirror

under a cloudy sky;

skating, frolicking and acting

like the daughters

they would chastise

for such behavior

on any other day.

2011 © Michael A. Wells

Magpie Tales 49



Thoughts on Family History

With everyone else out of the house today, I cleaned some and then listened to a podcast of an interview with Maxine Hong Kingston as she confronts aging in her book I Love A Broad Margin To My Life. She's a remarkable person to listen to. Kingston took the title of her book from the quote by Henry David Thoreau.  Her view of being an elder and living against the backdrop of mortality is fastening.  Listening to her causes me to think about genealogy (even though I've had it on my mind) in a different sort of way. Not just from a personal interest but in the context of a responsibility to collect and pass that information to those in the family younger then yourself.  Creating a history of heritage is an elder's responsibility and it seems to me that it is more than simply collecting a genealogy history, but seeing where we've come from so often helps define who we are.

It really seems quite natural to me that poets would feel such a responsibility quite natural in the same way we do story telling. What do you think?

Poets & Feelings

One of my daughters distributed this among all our immediate family. Is she trying to tell me something?

Confession Tuesday - Rebellious Late Edition

It’s been a snow, the threat of a bigger snow, one more group of submissions, a lot of new “very rough” drafts and a week and a day since my last confession.

To the Confessional~

Dear Reader:

Yes, I must confess that last night I came home, made dinner for my sweetheart and promptly crashed. I didn’t turn on my laptop, did not read, write, and obviously did not do my Tuesday confession. And I confess that it was not a matter of forgetting, but willful neglect, maybe even rebellion as I two or three times (at least) thought of getting up to do it.

It seems there is a bit of rebelliousness that seems to be running through my veins these last few days. I have as suspicion as to the reason, but I will leave it at that for now. I choose to honestly confess on this point, not openly speculate on the causation. (I’m not my own therapist) ;)

While I’m not deep into astrology… for example I don’t read my horoscope daily – and when I do, it’s more for the entertainment value than anything else; I do take stock in the fact that the personality traits that are generally ascribed Capricorns fit me well. I’ve often felt comfort in this. It’s sort like being a part of a certain Irish clan. It’s the brotherhood of Capricorns – and all of our (better) traits that make it feel special. So along comes a thirteenth zodiac sign and butts into the calendar and moves all the days around and – WTF? Now I’m a Sagittarius? I confess I do not like this. Not one bit!

Was this brought to us by the same people who de-planetized Pluto? And thirteen? That’s not divisible by even numbers, it’s an unlucky number, it’s more than the number of months in a year, it’s…. you get the picture. It’s just not kosher.

So there you have it. My confession, a day late and a little put out.

Hope you and your week are properly aligned to an even number of stars.

Passing on a little advise....

Some great advise from Robert Peake's workshop - “Tactics for Sneaky Poets” posted on his site.

Some of my favorite advise:

• Use constraints. Use word groups, poetic forms, made-up assignments from friends. Constraints spark creative freedom.
• Write briefly and often. Robert Hass said, “You can do your life’s work in forty minutes per day.” Write often enough to stay “in the game,” usually several times per week. Set a time limit. You can go over if needed.
• Write bad. Try to write a “bad” poem. It gets you wild and free. Sometimes the harder you try to be bad, the better it gets.
• Keep a scroll. In addition to keeping going on a poem, try keeping one big document of poems and poem-snippets, so you’re never at the beginning, just in the flow. Pick up wherever you last left off, write in the date, and just go.

By the way, a collection of Robert's poems will appear in the Lost Horse Press-New Poets Short Books Series, edited by Marvin Bell.  The book is scheduled for publication in February 2011. Sign up on Robert's e-mail list to be notified when the book becomes available for pre-order.

Poetry Trailers

It's amazing the way trailers have moved into the world poetry.  Not long ago these were generally associated with the release of film, but no longer. Audio visuals are being done more routinely as trailers for poetry books.  Just today I saw on the poet Diane Lockward's blog site titled Blogalicious a video of one of here poems put to music. The poem, Eve's Confession is from her collection of poems titled Eve's Red Dress.  Go to her site here and experience it for yourself. She actually has some other trailers on this site you can check out. Look at the tab links under the header to find these.

They go out - they come back. Poems looking for homes

I've been busy reforming my ways this year submitting to four different journals so far.  Significant because I have come to dislike this part of writing over the past couple of years. 

Things are looking up! Yesterday, I received the following rejection e-mail from one of my submission groupings of poems:

Some nice lines in there, Michael, especially in Mount Rushmore. Overall, they didn't seem right for XXXXXX   Review. We have decided to pass this time.

...We appreciate you considering us submission-worthy. Please wait at least a week before submitting again.

Best,