Nov. 17

Autumn by Alexander Posey - 1873-1908

Sonnets from the Cherokee (III) by Ruth Muskrat Bronson

The Truth About Why I Love Potatoes    by Mekeel McBride   

Mrs. Midas by Carol Ann Duffy 

Soldiers Washing (1927) by Ricardo Pau-Llosa  https://www.wikiart.org/en/stanley-spencer/soldiers-washing-1927

a Fine companion to the first poem,  is "Without" by Joy Harjo 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/11/without

for reference to "fields of gold" in Mrs. Midas:             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_the_Cloth_of_Gold

Nutshell:

Autumn: The line breaks clue us into rhythms which in turn connect to the cyclical relationship of season, relationships and connections in the web of life.  Both groups pondered the last three lines -- the dropping/rise again, (and all the ways leaves can fall -- twirling, sashaying, riding on air currents like a roller-coaster)... but why useless sigh for/Rest...  Of what good to sigh-- if it's time to fall, fall one will do.  It's tempting to transpose the fate of a leaf, who will fall, but still has work ahead of decomposing and adding to the Earth, to our human fate-- we really don't rest until we die, and even then, perhaps that is not final.  David brought up Robert Frost's After Apple Picking... Jan brought up Mary Oliver, Song for Autumn; Paul was reminded of Milton's On his blindness... 

Sonnets from the Cherokee:

A Millay feel to this lovely rhymed sonnet of longing and regret. Jim gives a prize for the most depressing phrase to dreary wanton years wear through/their hopeless dragging days...

We discussed in both groups what the penultimate line, "purge my hate" could mean... perhaps anger at self, for not realizing love soon enough, or living it fully enough and missing out on what love could have been.  Oh let us learn how to love before it is too late...

The Truth.... Potatoes

Many associations with potatoes from the Peruvian history (and 5,000 varieties), the name of potato pancakes in Hannibal, MO (Jim's mother called them Wampus Kitties, not to be confused with catawampus) how Frederick the Great insisted that all Germans eat potatoes, known for aphrodisiac qualities (and indeed, the birth rate did rise); Barbara's Irish connection to her fondness for the potato...

Delightful fun -- whether reading the admirable traits a person could adopt as potato, or positive effects if poems were this underground vegetable... (in a vegetarian cookbook indeed, the unsuspected benefits of this lowly root vegetable are outlined in a chapter, "Respect the Potato!" 

Stanza 2 was the one that seemed slightly out of whack:  what is it grown-ups do that imitates globb ing mashed potato into a ball and hurling it ...  Thanksgiving dinner conversations where family members know exactly what will provoke an outburst of outrage came up...

Mrs. Midas:  one of many portraits Duffy provides in her book "The World's Wife". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Wife

Clever, witty... many possibilities to understand relationships -- is Mrs. M just a hysteric making this up? Does Mr. M want to erase her from his life?  We all have wishes, granted.  But curses often make us wish they not be granted once we have them.  Marna though of Midas Muffler--- he muffling his wife... 

The rich details make it feel like short story rather than a poem.  Paul thought she could have shown a little more gratitude for the nest egg Mr. M provided.  What a couple they once made... and how sour it becomes with the turn of events.  Here, unlike the myth, where Midas is cruelly punished by turning his

daughter into a gold statue, it is the wife missing his human touch... Certainly, it allows us to contemplate the importance of what makes us human.

Soldiers Washing - it's helpful to compare poem with the painting that inspired it:  https://www.wikiart.org/en/stanley-spencer/soldiers-washing-1927. Yes, we see Bellona, Roman goddess of war, the thought of murky water as "foretaste of baptismal death... "  Haunting lines like " hourglass of soap in its melt telling us how our fired flesh gleams to fiction renewal. Time is at war."  Haunting mirror of  suspenders rhyming the sink.  We ran out of time to discuss further. 

Follow-up on Shirley Blackwell and Goyo's (Greg Candela) (Nov. 3)

 It is interesting that you picked the two of us, probably not knowing our relationship.  I've known Greg since taking a summer poetry workshop that he and Dale Harris taught in 2006.  He persuaded me to enroll in the poetry class he was teaching that autumn at a local college.  Greg is also a musician, as is my husband, Louis.  Greg drafted Louis to come play music for a Town/Gown literary event.  Eventually, Louis and I became fast friends with Greg and his wife, Michelle. Greg invited Louis, Stewart Warren (who is honored at the front of the F&F anthology), and a wonderful songwriter named Debbi Gutierrez to form a band, which they called Dog Star. They practiced regularly at our house until the pandemic brought the world to a stop. 

Greg continued to mentor me in my poetry, and he was the one who told me it was time to publish a collection of my poetry, which I did in 2012, with Stewart (who owned Mercury Heartlink publishing) as my "publishing coach." That was one of 3 very important things Greg did for me.  The other two were comments that changed the course of my writing dramatically. The first was in 2006 in his poetry class.  I had turned in some assignments and asked what he thought of my writing.  He replied, "You are good at technique, but I'd like to see a little more heart in your poems."  That really made me think.  The second comment, after I had voiced my opinion that the reason people who write free verse do so is because they can't master rhyme, prompted him to say, "With all due respect, you really don't know much about modern poetry."  That landed as a truth bomb.  

Not long after, I signed up for an online tutorial with a very accomplished poet you may know--Marjorie Rommel--who taught at your alma mater, Pacific University.  For a grueling six months I tried to get up to speed enough so that I wouldn't embarrass myself at the upcoming Centrum writers' conference in Port Townsend, WA in 2010.  My instructor there was Erin Belieu. 

I'm going to give a sonnet on workshops at the January meeting of the Albuquerque chapter of the NM State Poetry Society.  Since you teach poetry, I'd like to share this sonnet with you, and you have my permission to use it in your classes if you wish.  I wrote it in that first class I took with Greg, and the prompt was that pivotal comment about putting "heart" into my poems. I hope you enjoy it.

Sincerely,

Shirley Blackwell (Shirley Balance Blackwell is the pen name I chose so as not to be confused with Shirley Blackwell Lawrence, a Californian who writes books on numerology.  

WRESTLING MATCH

 

 

The task was simple—just to write a sonnet

But Inspiration dodged, then ducked for cover,

I mused, then thought, “I’ll put my Muse right on it,”

And ‘phoned Erato,* “Hey, Babe, dash on over.”

 

No coy mistress, she, but bellicose,

No simile caressed her lips or glance.

Before I had the chance to wax verbose

She crouched behind the words in wrestler’s stance.

 

She sprang at me in anapestic anger,

I responded with a spondee body slam.

When her metaphor half nelson spelled out danger,

I pinned her to the mat with five iambs.

 

She spat, “You know the throws, you’ve got the holds,

But, tell me, can you pen the poet’s soul?”

 

*Erato is the Muse of lyric poetry and mimicry.  She is especially fond of erotic and love poetry.  Erato blesses the poets of love by making them attractive and desirable.

November 10

I Dream a World — Margaret Noodin (Nimbawaadaan-akiing)

Stargazer by George Bilgere

Safe Harbor in Enemy Homes by Rasha Abdulhadi 

Birth of A Clinched Fist by Enzo Surin

What the Day Gives —  by Jeanne Lohmann.

 

Will there be Peace in the Holy Land?  (See Notes on "Safe Harbor)

https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2021/summer/there-will-be-peace-holy-land-naomi-shihab-nye

Nutshell: 

I Dream a World — Margaret Noodin (Nimbawaadaan-akiing)  https://poets.org/poem/nimbawaadaan-akiing-i-dream-world?mc_cid=08bd486fc2&mc_eid=248758c95e About this poem: inspired by Martin Luther King, who was inspired by Langston Hughes:  https://allpoetry.com/I-Dream-A-World. As she says, “perhaps we should all sit down and dream harder and more often with more clarity and infinite diversity.” I was glad people connected the second stanza as response to the very difficult poem by Rasha Abdulhadi.

Stargazer: : Jim's story of the Trump supporter with a glass of Pinot Noir, reciting Fox News-- not a word that reflected who he was... just conveying Fox News, which he had become.  Sharing that with group 2, David said, that's a shame to cast a bad rap on a good wine... 

Jim showed the first group an astounding visual from APOD (Astronomy Picture of Day) with Monument Park https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html — but with a little photoshopping done to add a river of car lights!

Here’s another picture of the Milky Way with just one car…  http://fredwasmer.com/w7902-978e-ba428.htm just in case you want to contemplate inconsequentiality.   I added Dover Beach which very much influences Bilgère, although he keeps his wry Billy Collins type of wit!

 It is refreshing to read a poem that pokes fun at the difficulty of being human, navigating one's sense of self in the larger complexity of the universe!  Indeed, like "A dog barking at the cosmos"  echoes an image of those in a Barcalounger, "in which one hopes to have an immense thought of two".  David stressed that verb, "hope" -- a step away from having the thought.    Attaching the adjective "immense" to a thought which appears 2 stanzas down as one of insignificance (first looking up at the glittering god-haven [new word for Heaven]; then two more lines of what one sees  (with clear conditions, not too much light pollution, etc. not mentioned in the poem) if taking the time to look up at the night sky ) underscores a pleasant sarcasm. The juxtaposition of "bright furnaces of Orion" with a contemplation of inconsequentiality is side-splittingly funny.  

It is the next line that promoted a lot of discussion.  First of all, due to the formatting of the poems on the page,   "It is a good feeling too have for several minutes," looked to be the final line of the poem. Those who viewed this with a positive spin, felt the comfort of being reminded, briefly, hence not too painfully, that no one is alone in thinking such a thought...  Others were reminded of the problem of those who have "too much ego in your cosmos" to quote Kipling.  Bernie elaborated on the balancing act of what gets us out of our small human self, yet not feel overwhelmed by the smallness -- a sort of  "sweet expansive and shrinking". We are both soul and Earth "dust", part of infinite and yet an individual self... 

A few people saw the poem as providing a play or theatrical drama... the detail of holding the glass 

of pinot... not necessarily drinking it... perhaps looking at the color of it... smelling it... perhaps like Jim's character reciting Fox News... Jan suggested a positive possibility that the news is at least local, therefore

with a possibility of personal engagement, as opposed to the idea that one's place is as observer of a

world someone else is reporting.  How do you, to whatever degree, get your significance back?

Safe Harbor in Enemy Homes: https://dcs.megaphone.fm/POETS1181188201.mp3?key=408601dac6b5622d6183dbbac3a5a7b8

The next poem was quite a contrast! Group 2 had an excellent discussion, delving into this personal statement of agony.  Group 1 bought up the question of whether strong alliterations make up a poem.  Judith felt it lacked the "oar" of rhythm one hears

in Viking poetry.  Perhaps because of the complexity of the subject, it was easier to dismiss as yet another political polemic

as Judith called it, referring to the Muddle East.  

 Certainly, it is helpful to  know the background of the poet, who is described as "queer, Palestinian Southerner", having lived in both Damascus, Syria and near northern Georgia (US).  The problems of racism, victimhood,  similar-looking people, even cousins, brothers fighting are difficult subjects indeed.  As Jan put it, on first reading, it is a poem that is powerful, but unclear.

Marna looked up the retreat referred to in the second stanza and believes it might be Hambidge. https://www.hambidge.org/; David suggested that some KKK Clan member's portrait shaking a President's hand might be on the walls of a retreat center devoted to peaceful meditation and the arts.  This might explain the anger in the poem-- here I am in the retreat... and even here, 

"starched southerners sponsor apartheid..." what was to house travelers "merely means meetings for the organizers and fundraisers of b'mai b'rith. (Marna recommends this article: B'nai B'rith's ADL: 100 Years of Deception: Leo Frank, Abe Foxman, & Minister Farrakhan http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/article_9823.shtml

Jim, having grown up in the South, said there were very few Jews, and Atlanta, a piece of transplanted North.

This article touches on some of the problems of lumping one religion as identity:  https://www.fpri.org/article/2009/08/zionism-and-jewcentricity-in-american-history/ Were the puritans not also feeling they were "chosen people"?  And how many different aspects  come up in a discussion of  zionism vs. Judaism?  As David pointed out, faith is one thing, unshakeable, religion quite another. 

Carolyn drew attention to the opening lines-- how can something living, like a tree, be complicit in the blame?

Although this is not a poem about the web of life... but rather, the problem of humans choosing sides... who is the victim and who is the victimizer?

The poet has two books cited by the Academy: Who is Owed Springtime (Neon Hemlock, 2021) and Shell Houses (The Head & Hand Press, 2017)

Barbara brought up books for her reading group for Social Justice.  I am hopeful to receive her list.  She recommended "Biting Bitterness" which addresses the troubles in Ireland.

4. Birth of A Clinched Fist by Enzo Surin : We did not have time for this poem in group 2.  Please try this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4MKELmKw-4 (the poem starts at 1:07 ends at 2:07 but he goes on to explain)

Group 1 had a difficult time with this poem.  Good rhetorical cadence.  We had fun swapping mnemonics -- 

All Cows Eat Grass (spaces on the bass note stave); Every Good Boy Does Fine (lines on the treble stave).

HOMES to remember the Great Lakes... 

We had to look up orography, that machine for making a topographical map... what a precise word --

"what was dealt... mnemonic so strong // I kept it in my mind like one rehearsing lines in an orography for pain..."

The poet here is also dealing with a world of guns, drugs, ghettos, the horrors this country has hosted ... 

Those of us who are white and privileged have been protected from seeing everything "as enemy"-- one's face as "fair game".

5.  What the Day Gives: 

This is an uplifting  gratitude poem-- hurray for seasons... and hang on as we rollercoaster in an uneasy world plunging from hope to despair, to hope and back again.  Hurray for Ruskin who reminds us to be present to all--  to have the courage to pursue "that difficult duty of delight" .  We discussed briefly families, society pressures that condition us to take negative views,

increase stress, worry... and that the courage to break out of this, is a type of self-preservation.

As Ginny shared, "social worker Doris Day would merely call tribulations of the day, "Interesting".

Marna shared Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry be Happy" which is an immediate mood lifter.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

This inspired Bernie to share a list of good songs to move around to  to take a break in a zoom meditation/mindfulness  meeting. (see Nov. 10 post)  They come from : Playing For Change | Song Around the World

As ever, I remain grateful for the sharings of everyone's takes on these poems-- Indeed, our invitation

to have a conversation with the world.

Tunes to move about with!/ Books for Social Justice (follow-up Nov. 10)

 

SOCIAL JUSTICE BOOK CLUB LIST SO FAR/Barb Murphy and others

 

White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Hailey

Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change, John Lewis

The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson

Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi 

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Frederick Douglass

The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, Jemar Tisby

No Time for Excuses: It’s Time for Action. Report of the Commission on Racial and Structural Equality (RASE),Commission on Racial and Structural Equality, Rochester, NY

Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin

She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman, Erica Armstrong Dunbar

The Making of Asian America, Erika Lee

Deacon King Kong, James McBride

Our Time is Now, Stacey Abrams

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese

 

Tunes to move about with (to break up zoom meetings)

1. Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder) | Playing For Change | Song Around the World

           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hGSqqhhokE

2. One Love (Bob Marley) feat. Manu Chao | Playing For Change | Song Around The World

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xjPODksI08

3. Lean On Me (Bill Withers) | Playing For Change | 

                      Song Around The World

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiouJsnYytI

4. The Weight | Featuring Ringo Starr and Robbie Robertson |                      

               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph1GU1qQ1zQ

5. La Bamba | Playing For Change | Song Around The World

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5dkwQY-_tk

6. Harry Belafonte and The Muppets - Earth Song (short version)

   - a change of pace:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=tPaKWihFs_Q&feature=youtu.be

7. And of course: Don't Worry Be Happy ( the Playing for Change version - very sweet!)

             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWXUWepSak4               

POEMS FOR NOV. 3

 Optical Illusion (for America in the 2020’s) by Shirley Balance Blackwell

Words Out of the Sea: A Pantoum by Goyo

In Quarantine by Kim Stafford

Distracted from COVID-19, Attention shifts to MIA Maiden from Land O'Lakes Butter Box by Tiffany Midge

The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer by Wendell Berry

Prologue to Group 1 meeting at 11:15.

Paul kindly shared the poem below from a slim volume called Nitpicking of Cranes by Paddy Bushe.  

All of us in some ways are "wannabe poets" -- and often are tempted to be liberal in suggestions for revisions in the poems we read of others.  Some of Bushe's poems appear in Irish as well as English, begun and developed after the poet's visit to China.  They bring a rich new imagery and textuality to Irish poetry and continue to develop Paddy Bushe's fine sense of form and his awareness of humanity's desires and struggles.  

Advice for a Poet

In Yuantong Temple, the signs

In translation speak in auspicious tones.

Near a cloistered pool, smiled upon

by statues gilded with serenity,

I am urged to avoid conflagration,

and to offer incense with civility.

Above all, a sign beseeches me,

Please make no confused noise while chanting.

from Nitpicking of Cranes by Paddy Bushe

https://www.amazon.com/Nitpicking-Cranes-Paddy-Bushe/dp/1904556310

Nutshell Summary:

Optical Illusion:  I would love to find out more about Shirley Balance Blackwell, for instance, that lovely middle name... 

Her bio in the back of Fixed and Free 2021 Anthology, edited by Billy Brown, says she is a formalist at heart, has served as president (2011-13) of the NM State Poetry Society and board member (2014-20) of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.  Several references to prizes, publications.

Her poem is a beautifully arranged sonnet of 3 quatrains and a couplet which addresses the famous optical illusion of a young/old woman: 

https://images.app.goo.gl/vuLC6DiSCo5WgaiJ9 and

 https://images.app.goo.gl/afUrzpsyL39iCNmUA.  Can we see the two images at once?  

The poem addresses the mystery of human subjectivity, how each brain interprets what is seen and heard differently.  Bernie offered the aphorism:  Don't believe everything you think. 

Beyond the message of "bias, the trick that fools the eye", is the clever metaphor of cutting up the image like a jigsaw puzzle... scramble the scraps and start anew...  And what if indeed we did that?  Might our heart grow a few sizes larger?  There is kindness in addressing the readers as "Beloveds" pleading with us to look at what tears us apart... we're all broken, and indeed... it's hard to put the pieces back. Bernie was reminded of Leonard Cohen, There is a crack, a crack in everything/ That's how the light gets in.

 Jim pointed out the scientific research about "eyewitnesses" and how what a witness has seen is tempered by the template established in your brain.  There is also the mystery of what we don't see... have missed seeing, only temporarily see... 

The first session had quite a discussion about how photons travel, quantum physics... How can light be both wave and particle...  and how to understand somewhat that travels as "possibility", as "indeterminacy".

Stephen Weinberg is reputed to have said he didn't understand quantum mechanics -- and if anyone told him they did, he would say they were lying. And yet, he is the master, teaching us about it. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/06/steven-weinberg-puzzle-quantum-mechanics/

There are many who cannot deal with  "grey" areas. Ken thought the sonnet would make an ideal song.

  Rosemary brought up this reference: https://fs.blog/the-work-required-to-have-an-opinion/ it offers a very different approach.  Do not anticipate opposition, how to argue with it,  but rather  first delve as deeply as possible to study and understand the opposing point of view.

There were several examples: talking with a neighbor who is on opposite views on politics, climate change... and agreeing that remaining friends was more important than "solving differences". 

David brought up the story of Robert Frost reading Finnegan's Wake, finding it an exercise in obscurity.

He memorized it and eventually, admitted "it was starting to make sense."  There is also  the story of Picasso painting a portrait of Gertrude Stein and her comment, "But that doesn't look like me!"

Picasso's retort:  But it will.

Barb mentioned  how she and her nephew root for opposite teams... but were able to overcome that bias and enjoy watching together. 

Words Out of the Sea:  this gorgeous pantoum, filled with alliterative sounds, prepares an important message with a blending of the sea "whispering me" (the poet being shaped into the person he is), and the sea as old crone, symbolic mother,  crooning the song of the Samurai which the poet sees in the swaying kelp.  It is at this point the pantoum form falls apart... the repeat of the warrior's song "be ready, ready always to die" as code of the Samurai, "Be joyfully ready, Samurai, always ready to die".

The pantoum is beautifully bracketed by the same opening and ending line.  Hurrying not/delaying not,

neither succumbing to the past, or rushing into the future, but fully grounded in the present.

Samurai are not just warriors... but trained in poetry... and their symbol is the cherry blossom, both beautiful and transient.  

Bernie mentioned A Tale for the Time Being" (Ruth Ozeki)   Valerie, The Power of Now.  (Eckhardt Tolle).    Bernie was haunted by echoes to " America the beautiful" -- such as amber "waves of grain"...

In Quarantine: The repeated "After... builds up a now familiar view of life during the past almost two years.  Martin shared his process of looking at the descriptive details, which point us in the direction of some universal.  We concurred the message is to act with love.  Unlike the pantoum, layered and mysterious, this poem was much more straight-forward and we felt perhaps there was a leap too soon

of the "then"... Rosemary brought up the book Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett (life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers).  

We noted there was no period at the end... as if there was much more to the story... not just a feel-good happy ending.  Ken suggested a last line, "We lost the war".  There is no question of the power of music-- Emily mentioned Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul and Mary) playing for Palestinians and Israelis, and the belief of how music binds us, brings us together.  https://afcfp.org/song-peter-yarrow/

Distracted from COVID:  Tiffany Midge is a Sioux, and offers quite a critique of anglo culture exploiting minority images.  The sarcasm of the sweeping generalizations of the opening line, "Whether of not America mourns for the Indian" and closure, "the only Indian woman gone missing that anyone notices, anyone cares 

about" made me raise an eyebrow.  The title, where Mia, the Indian woman, is MIA (Missing in Action),

is loaded.  Where has our attention gone during COVID in terms of sensitivity to Indigenous people, to Slavery and mistreatment of Blacks... 

the politically correct gesture of removing her from Land 'O Lakes... but ironically, removing a carefully detailed replica of an authentic Indian woman created by an authentic Indian artist.

The patriotism of the O, our pat O Americana... O our dab O Disneyesque, O our dollop O Heritage

smacks of appropriation and denigration.  Judith felt dab is close to drab and dollop to trollope, with a hint of prostitute. 

There is some "throw the baby out with the bathwater" by the PC removal of Mia... cigar store Indians (for whom tobacco has a sacred use...) is the next removal Longfellow's Hiawatha?  https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/shores-gitche-gumee

Many in the first group mentioned associations with brands, images, blurbs of ads.  

The concern of those in power and police for Indigenous people is low, and indeed, a missing non-wasp person  will get scant notice.

Contariness: This last poem is a call on the individual against the "they" of organized culture: the experts; religions, behavior at weddings and funerals...   The repeat, "So be it" (Amen) digs in the irony.  God is dead, for the speaker of the poem, in organized religion... but alive and well and indeed, in close contact with him in a personal way.  The ending is powerful... the great answer 

of "I don't know"-- and truly embracing what supports oneself, not the establishment.  Contrariness does not mean negativity.

We discussed "mad" -- a deeper meaning that either angry or insane.  Perhaps the wise fool.  Mad, certainly as colorful

and full of personality.  

Shares of further reading from Poems for Nov. 3

 

 from Rose-Marie:

https://fs.blog/the-work-required-to-have-an-opinion/

For the first poem and optical illusion: https://images.app.goo.gl/afUrzpsyL39iCNmUA

a more graphic or stylized version you might google "optical illusion of old crone/beautiful woman"

https://www.livescience.com/63645-optical-illusion-young-old-woman.html

For Optical Illusion: 

You might have seen this article about Quantum Mechanics… The first hour people discussed the problem of a photon traveling both as possibility and indeterminacy  — all that we don’t see… https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/06/steven-weinberg-puzzle-quantum-mechanics/

Jim also recommended: Breakfast with Einstein: Physics of Everyday Objects: https://www.amazon.com/Breakfast-Einstein-Physics-Everyday-Objects/dp/1946885355

For Words out to Sea: Bernie’s mention of A Tale for the Time Being: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15811545-a-tale-for-the-time-being the story of a young Japanese girl 

Valerie’s mention of The Power of Now

 https://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808

Land ‘0 Lakes butter box trick: https://youtu.be/-hMtQu

Follow-up with Bernardo: on his poem L.O.S.S., discussed 10/27/21, published in Billy Brown's Fixed and Free Anthology 2021,

 His email of Oct. 31, 2021

Kitty first let me say thank you.  I am a little bit overwhelmed at how to respond to your email to accurately express my emotions.  There is joy, surprise, gratitude, satisfaction, and so much more.  In as much as your participants found other perspectives tapping into the poem, so I find myself sorting through the different thoughts and feelings your revelation brings.

I thank God for creating this vessel in the way that he did for the purpose that he did, so that word would flow forth in the amalgamation of thoughts and experiences he has allowed to transpire that such a creation of L.O.S.S. might have occurred.  The idea for the poem is that if we limit ourselves to see only the physical aspects of each other, (the clothing for the spirit), then we deny ourselves so much opportunity, whether that is relationships, friendship, mentoring, love, family, friends, etc.

I am now compelled to revisit the poem to read only the second lines, third lines, backwards as your participant suggested.  The poem was written in a technique called Black Jack Poetry started by Maritza Rivera...3 lines, 7 syllables.  The idea then flowed into me to lace a complete circle of ideas together to show the progression of how each leads to the other.  The repetition would show (as observed) the fatigue, and the prominence of each thought/foundation of hypothesis to see how they are connected.

As for more of my feelings...story...I have written many poems that examine certain aspects of my experience of living black, and living unconscious of my skin color over the 50 years that I have been writing.  I am working on a manuscript now called "Bridge Over Aggravated Troubles" that will feature a number of these works.  Your email in fact has caused me to think of one or two poems I had not thought to include in that work that I am considering now.  If you wish I can advise you when that manuscript is available, so that you and your participants can partake of what has been given me...as I express in "The Calling".

If there are other publications you can recommend to me, or recommend me to, perhaps that is another way I can tell more of 'my story'.  In the meantime I am grateful for being led to Billy, and to Billy for appreciating my work enough to include me in the anthology, which led to you finding the poem, to sharing it with your group.

Once again thank you, and thank you, and good wishes all around.

Peace In Poetry

Brenardo