TUESDAY POEM | Albatross by Penelope Todd

                                 LEARNING FROM THE BIRDS

                          Albatross

                                This parent does not fuss:

                                six days at sea;

                                six minutes now suffice

                                to deliver her burden

                                to the child that waddles over,

                                claps and daddles beak at beak —
                                   

                                up comes the mess of squid

                                scooped from the black

                                a thousand miles off.

                                New-fledged, the young must jettison

                                the undigested stuff of infancy:

                                bones and fins, the beaks of octopi.

                                How wings grow slick

                                and open for that years-long

                                maiden flight no parent can impart

                                nor how to wrest eight writhing limbs

                                from the open sea at night.

                          Penelope Todd 

                                    

I was happy to be in the audience a couple of Wednesdays ago when Penelope read her poem Albatross. Vegan cafe Circadian Rhythm hosts a monthly poetry gathering here in Dunedin and we were there to listen and read. I barely gave Penelope time to sit down after her turn at the mic before asking if I could please post her poem here - and soon? Thank you, Pen. 

* Wee 'Albatross Aside'. . . 

In Dunedin, when the first adult Royal Albatross returns to land after spending many months at sea - and, too, when the first albatross chick hatches - the city's cathedrals bells ring out in celebration.    

*

This week's editor on the Tuesday Poem hub is Helen McKinlay

with Lines for a New Year 

by iconic NZ poet Sam Hunt.

Sam generously offered up a second - unpublished - poem for readers, titled Tell Me What 

                                  "Tell me what I don't know -

                                   not what I know now

                                   or what I'll know tomorrow. . . "

The end of the year is fast approaching. . . There will be one more Tuesday Poem posted on the hub next week, after which we will all take a break, re-congregating towards the end of January 2013. (2013! Pinch me?) xo

From Albatross to AMIGAS - A new ebook by Penelope Todd & Elena Bossi

Penelope Todd will be well-known to many of you. She's a witty and generous blogger and, too, the brains, muscles and heart behind Australasia's first e-publishing company, Rosa Mira Books.  In a nutshell, she's a pioneer - and a visionary. She is also an award-winning author of a substantial library of books - Island (a novel), Digging for Spain: a writer's Journey (memoir), The Watermark Trilogy - Watermark, Dark and Zillah - Three's A Crowd, Peri, Boy Next Door and Box (Young Adult Fiction), all of which you can check out (and order) here. 

Penelope's most recent work is a unique and ambitious collaborative novel titled Amigas, co-written in English and Spanish with Argentinian author and friend Elena Bossi. On her website, Penelope introduces Amigas as follows - 

"When Elena Bossi and I met in Iowa 2007, our common languages were mime and laughter. My Spanish was paltry; Elena’s English was picturesque. Nevertheless, on parting, to sustain our friendship, we agreed to write a novel together in alternate chapters (and letters), each in our own country and language. In 2009, we met in Argentina to polish the translations of our story.

  

Amigas 'presents both English and Spanish versions in one digital edition. 

2009: in Argentina, a woman prepares to travel to Italy for a funeral. In New Zealand, two friends discuss art, loss, and how to accept life as it plays out.
1969: a girl from New Zealand and another from Argentina are stranded in the airport in Rome. A friendship is forged and they exchange letters for a decade, until events take a sinister turn during Argentina’s ‘dirty war’.
2009: again in the airport in Rome, cancelled flights throw together two women whose lives have intersected in unexpected ways.
The hidden threads of these friendships are drawn deftly together.

Amigas is a story of female friendships, how they are forged, how they endure across time and geography, how they stimulate and sustain."

I've wanted to recommend Amigas to you since it was launched online a couple of months ago. The cover (striking, yes?) carries an albatross* created by Elena's son, Pablo.

Praise for Amigas -

"The prose is cogent, clear and often shot through with silken lyricism. There is resonant, evocative work here that leaves a long emotional contrail in the reader." Emma Neale

". . . Just to congratulate you and Elena on this delightful story. I loved the characters, strong, very different voices, the joys and hiccups of their developing relationship. I loved the contrasts between the increasingly harsh realities of Claudia's world, and the almost cottonwool comfort of Jude's, and yet the ordinariness of both, family, the growing of girls to womanhood. I cared about these two. And for that reason I appreciated the integrity of the ending. I wanted a happy ending. I wanted Claudia to be well and happy. Then I just wanted information about her … in its fictional way it honoured the truth of what the people of Argentina endured  during those years …  Humanity shines through this story. The structure, the skipping from country to country, culture to culture, language to language, brought home in the most powerful and subtle way, that a basic humanity is what we all share, linked by that and by shared pain and love." Carolyn McCurdie (poet, novelist and short story writer)

"Finished Amigas - loved it. Authentic evocation of the late sixties and pleasing tension to keep me scrolling.  Expertly written, believable characters I really cared about. A smooth collaboration and a compelling story-line." Kay Cooke

Meet Ratty (RMB Promotions Officer), Lily the Pink, Isgar and Dasychord.

Penelope blogs here (The Intertidal Zone) and here (Rosa Mira Books). You will definitely want to meet RMB's PR 'person'. Ratty announced himself (and his role) to Penelope one afternoon as she was sitting with her sketchbook open. She says he arrived pretty much 'fully formed'. Lily the Pink turned up next. She's the love of his life, a fairy pink armadillo from Argentina. Their union resulted in the arrival of twin ratadillos, Isgar and Dasychord (so named by RMB readers).  

Do yourselves - and your loved ones - a favor and visit the RMB website before Christmas? Support its dedicated crew by buying an ebook or two. You will not be disappointed. Reviews for Rosa Mira Book's first four publications have been stellar - from readers and critics alike. I take my hat off to Penelope. It takes faith and tenacity to turn a vision into reality, especially given the precariousness and unpredictability of today's world, economic and otherwise. She's an astute editor with an ear for much more than grammatical pedantry and surface story. 

                   Click on the icon to visit the RMB website

Exceptional they are. Exceptional she is.

*

TUESDAY POEM | Not Yet A Man

                           NOT YET A MAN


                           There are notes of melancholy in the air.

                           A boy folded his wings and fell through

                           a seam in the clouds - broken comet blazing

                           through blue, he dragged the ceiling of heaven

                           down. His cry cracked the sullen sea.

               
                                       Did you hear his splash?

                     
                         The dusk barely shook itself -

                         there was no moment's silence.


                         The smallest of waves rose to soak

                         the local shore, tickling the laughing feet

                         of children too busy with sand

                         and ice creams to notice. I counted

                         nine pink tongues licking.


                         He raked the sky clean.

                       
                         Someone's son

                         and

                         a
 
                         split

                         second

                         plummeting.



                         CB 

                       

FLOAT - CB - Acrylic on Paper 1995

This week's editor on the Tuesday Poem hub is Kathleen Jones. 

Kathleen has chosen a remarkable poem by Canadian eco-poet Catherine Owen -

"Our minds can turn anything romantic.

Is the problem.

The sewagy mud of the Fraser a quaint muslin & the spumes    

        pulsing out of chimneys at the Lafarge cement plant look,   

        at night, like two of Isadora Duncan’s scarves, pale, insouciant veils,   

        harmless. The trees are all gone but then aren’t our hearts

more similar to wastelands. . ." 

Yes!

For more Tuesday Poems, please click on the quill.

                         

                         

The Tenderness of Trees

I'm off to hug my old lancewood. . .

Strains of Music

GRATITUDE & Reminders to Self This Thanksgiving Time

What we appreciate appreciates.

Brother David Steindl-Rast

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. 

"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought for a moment then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" 

"The one we feed", the old Cherokee replied.

                   ADVICE TO MYSELF 

                       Leave the dishes. Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
                       and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
                       Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
                       Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
                       Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
                       Don’t even sew on a button.
                       Let the wind have its way, then the earth
                       that invades as dust and then the dead
                       foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
                       Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
                       Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
                       or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
                       who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
                       matches, at all.
                       Except one word to another. Or a thought.
                       Pursue the authentic—decide first
                       what is authentic,
                       then go after it with all your heart.
                       Your heart, that place
                       you don’t even think of cleaning out.
                       That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
                       Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
                       or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
                       again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
                       or weep over anything at all that breaks.
                       Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
                       in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
                       and talk to the dead
                       who drift in through the screened windows, who collect
                       patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
                       Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
                       except what destroys
                       the insulation between yourself and your experience
                       or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
                       this ruse you call necessity.

                       Louise Erdrich 
                              (with thanks to Louisey at Letting Go)

*

I appreciate you, friends.

Joy to you & Happy Thanksgiving

XO

OUR COLLECTIVE DREAM | Lynne Twist & George Bernard Shaw

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations."
~ George Bernard Shaw

TUESDAY POEM | Home Theatre

                           
           HOME THEATRE

              Alone in the room she holds the key, winds herself in velvet drapes to face
              Pandora's box. Outside, ball-chasers charge, warriors fence to keep the falling night
              at bay. They juggle their play, bounce their voices high to push the neighbourhood dark
           
              away. Inside, she turns the key in the lock on the box, at once is knee-deep
              in phosphorescence. Behind the cobwebs, beyond the window, the players watch
              as colours pop and sizzle across her face. All noble combat is abandoned then

              prospects of victory over dark no longer tempting in the rounding dusk. Paper cut-outs
              in the guise of children blow now into the room. They sink flat and folded, buckle up
              to make the trip comfortable in the sofa's cushioned lap.

              Ah me, blank box, the old oak table on which you stand once was the wooden floor
              for grandmother's dolls-house dramas. You give us grounds for discontent and yet
              we lift your lid in any case set your contents loose upon us.
           
              All plump and animated chatter shrinks to settle in the wings amongst our game and books
              and other well-worn things. You take the stage and strut, displaying the stuff of which
              you are made. You suppose we cannot see you taunt and flirt and purse your painted lips?

              But no. We are wiser than you might think.

             CB
                           

This week we have a guest editor on the Tuesday Poem hub -  Madeleine Slavick, a US writer who lives in the Wairarapa. Madeleine has chosen SO THERE by Robert Creeley.

Please click on the quill.

PEONIE

TUESDAY POEM - The Silence of The Stars by David Wagoner

I posted this poem earlier this year but because it's a favourite and because night skies with random constellations of stars seem to be at the tip of my paint brush these days, I'm posting it again. . .  

Night Watch (details from work in progress - Oil on Paper)

     

                 THE SILENCE OF THE STARS

                     When Laurens van der Post one night

                     In the Kalahari Desert told the Bushmen

                     He couldn't hear the stars

                     Singing, they didn't believe him. They looked at him,

                     half-smiling. They examined his face

                     To see whether he was joking

                     Or deceiving them. Then two of those small men

                     Who plant nothing, who have almost

                     Nothing to hunt, who live

                     On almost nothing, and with no one

                     But themselves, led him away

                     From the crackling thorn-scrub fire

                     And stood with him under the night sky

                     And listened. One of them whispered,

                     Do you not hear them now?

                     And van der Post listened, not wanting

                     To disbelieve, but had to answer,

                     No. They walked him slowly

                     Like a sick man to the small dim

                     Circle of firelight and told him

                     They were terribly sorry,

                     And he felt even sorrier

                     For himself and blamed his ancestors

                     For their strange loss of hearing,

                     Which was his loss now. On some clear night

                     When nearby houses have turned off their visions,

                     When the traffic dwindles, when through streets

                     Are between sirens and the jets overhead

                     Are between crossings, when the wind

                     Is hanging fire in the fir trees,

                     And the long-eared owl in the neighboring grove

                     Between calls is regarding his own darkness,

                     I look at the stars again as I first did

                     To school myself in the names of constellations

                     And remember my first sense of their terrible distance,

                     I can still hear what I thought

                     At the edge of silence where the inside jokes

                     Of my heartbeat, my arterial traffic,

                     The C above high C of my inner ear, myself

                     Tunelessly humming, but now I know what they are:

                     My fair share of the music of the spheres

                     And clusters of ripening stars,

                     Of the songs from the throats of the old gods

                     Still tending ever tone-deaf creatures

                     Through their exiles in the desert.

                     David Wagoner

This week's Tuesday Poem editor is Renee Liang 
with Transport
by Riemke Ensing

Please click on the quill. 

YES!

_/\_

TUESDAY POEM - Disturbed Earth by Margaret Atwood

Detail from a work in progress - Oil on Paper - 2012

                           DISTURBED EARTH

                           Disturbed earth: some plants sprout quickly in it.
                           Sow thistles come to mind.
                           After you've wrenched them out
                           they'll snake back underground
                           and thrust their fleshy prickled snouts in
                           where you'd intended hostas.

                           Hawkweed will do that. Purslane. Purple vetch.
                           Marginals, hugging ditches,
                           flagrant with seed,
                           strewing their paupers' bouquets.

                           Why is it you reject them,
                           them and their tangled harmonies
                           and raffish madrigals?
                           Because they thwart your will.

                           I feel the same about them:
                           I hack and dig,
                           I stomp their pods and stems,
                           I slash and crush them. Still,

                           suppose I make a comeback -
                           a transmutation, say -
                           once I've been spaded under?
                           Some quirky growth or ambush?

                           Don't search the perennial border:
                           look for me in disturbed earth.

                           Margaret Atwood
                           from The Door

This week's editor on the Tuesday Poem hub is Seattle-based poet Therese Clear 

with March 6, 1890: Eugene Schieffelin Releases 80 Starlings in Central Park 

by Holly J. Hughes

Please click on the quill. 

'It's hard not to attribute Divinity to this' | Alexander Tsiaras