Poet's Workshop

photo by Gerry Williams

Poet's Workshop Presents: Poems of Place by Terrie Leigh Relf ©2003 All rights reserved

Poetry Submissions Update: Please submit your poems! The first available slots begin with our March 2004 issue. Submit! Submit! I command you!
terrie@WritersMonthly.com

"No matter where you go, there you are."
––Buckaroo Bonzai from The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai

In June, 2002, I went to Washington, DC, with my daughter, Willow, to visit her goddess mother, Great Auntie Karol (emphasis on the "Great"!). I wrote every day. Bits and pieces, mostly. I started a few poems about places we visited like The Smithsonian, Madelain's restaurant, the Vietnam War Memorial, etc., then realized that I was working on a new collection. The working title for this collection is Sitting on Einstein's Lap and other poems of place.

If you know me, then you know that I haven't traveled very much–except in my mind–so this collection probably won't be released until I have a few more trips under my belt. I have a few poems–in–process from the Idyllwild Poetry conference this past summer as well as a trip to La Bufadora during the fall of 2002. Who knows where I'll go next!

Hawaii would be nice as it reminds me of my home planet…

Visiting new places gives rise to poetry just as the familiar does. I've heard so many people talk about traveling and how it opens up new vistas. For me, it opens up–or perhaps releases–new poems.

I thought this month I'd give you a sneak peak at some of my "poems of place". Next month, I'll wax more philosophical on the power of place. For now, the portion of my brain NOT stolen by the MIBs has been shredded by grading a few hundred student papers...

The first poem, "Metro Madness", is the title poem of my collection Metro Madness and other poems which is an ebook available through Lucy Westenra Ebooks. When I was in DC, I rode the Metro for the first time. While I love the idea of it, the reality of descending–or ascending–several floors on an escalator was terrifying. I have this thing about heights…

                    Metro Madness

She hated escalators
yet once upon a time
she visited a city where they hovered
at the universe's edge

She clung to their slick, slippery rails
descended down
down
down into the dim
artificial light of vast honeycombed caverns

"Green Tara–oh please protect me", she prayed
"from the insect–like hoards of hustling humans
from the poisonous shriek of metro wheels
from the creatures that surely hide within these domes
rubbing their hind legs in glee
ready to feed"

Right outside the Science Museum is a park when there's a "larger–than–life" bronze of Einstein. And yes, I have photos of me–and Willow–sitting on his lap.

                    Waiting to Sit on Einstein's Lap

somewhat centered in the Milky Way
his bronze eyes kind to children and pigeons
stars, some charted, others unknown, clustered all around
perhaps some are pigeon poop
he holds a book open to e=mc² and my brilliant fathers come to mind
as a swarm of students circle and descend, clamber up his baggy–trousered legs for a photograph
like so many aphids on a tulip

Willow definitely demonstrated that she is my daughter with this one, a "found poem" of sorts based on an overheard conversation.

                    The Stein Brothers

                    (to Willow)

Einstein sits in the center of the Milky Way in a garden outside the Science Institute. My daughter asks, "is he related to Frankenstein?" and her auntie

laughs, says something about the wisdom of children. Together, they talk about the Stein Brothers, Franken and Ein, and how each discovered something

important, something of value: one, that society has a problem with people outside the norm, the other, that what we can't see still exists, and I think about

the human heart, how it is all too often cocooned beneath a layer of leaves. Then I wonder how anyone can feel alone with so many stars.

Far be it for me to attempt to explain my poems, but this one, I think, is self-explanatory. I have one of their T-shirts that reads: "Subpoened for Bookselling".

                    Kramer Books and the Afterwords Café

Monica bought Bill a book here. Star wanted to subpoena their records.
What about the First Amendment? Guess it doesn't apply in DC either…

I can't help wondering about what she read and why she wanted him to read it, or if he said he wanted to read it and so she bought it for him. Perhaps it was an impulse buy, or some clerk handed it to her, said, "he'd like this–why don't you get it for him?"

Did she wrap it? Hand it to him in a Kramer bag? Place it on his desk, or slip it to him at a meeting of the minds at some café or trendy bar?

I wonder if she wrote about that book in her book or if they sell her book there.
A book I haven't read, by the way.

I really can't imagine her saying anything of interest, but at times I'm curious what she said, then think, did she even write it? I imagine some laptop toting publisher's editor following Monica back and forth between interviews and hearings, jotting down an occasional passage when the batteries went dead.

Did Monica send Hillary an autographed copy, write, "I'm sorry", beneath her name? Did Hillary even read the book, or did she have one of her staff assistants read it instead, with instructions to take notes, fold down or otherwise mark a page here and there?

Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter, as these are not issues of particular interest, just minor curiousities, something to talk about over an overpriced cup of coffee with a shot of espresso at the Afterwords café

This was a nice little cafeteria–style restaurant where the "locals" eat. I heard approximately six different languages spoken during the course of our meal…The day before, we went to the archaeology section of the Smithsonian at "The Mall" (Note: DC's mall, if you don't know, is filled with museums, which is a welcome rhetorical change and exchange!)

                    La Madelain's

At a restaurant in Georgetown with "let them eat cake" on the moniker outside, we have French onion soup, quiche, pasta salad, spinach en croute and lots of bread and butter. I cannot help but think of Marie Antoinette, and wonder if she were still alive, would she eat with the local Washington pedants and peasants.

My daughter eats a lemon tart. First the crust, circling like the local round–a–bouts to the custard, excavating below the whipped cream with such precision that I'm sure she's going to be an archaeologist when she grows up. She examines then shovels an incredible heap into her mouth with a shiny metal tool.

Her mouth is a cavern bursting with soft cream, teaming with the wondrous mysteries of childhood. The corners of her rich berry lips spread out in a smile. "Yes! Yes!" she exclaims between mouthfuls, not caring if anyone hears.

Here's another one of my "alien" poems. No matter where you go, there they are…

                    An Alien at the Smithsonian

In case you're wondering, I didn't tell them

after all, we're too close to the pentagon, and
less scientific minds would place me in a petri dish
dissect me after endless hours of interrogation
only to observe me reconstruct myself again

I can pass as human, even act the part, so I
swerve away from the space stuff,
fight the impulse to enter the Science Museums,
find my way to the Smithsonian gift shop instead

where I buy a NASA pen so I don't look too suspicious
other tourists do that sort of thing
you can write upside down or underwater with them
a handy gadget for where I come from

I buy a few other pens
they have tiny replicas of earth on top
click–in–and–out but do not spin
how quaint this technology of yours
there's even a description of the earth and
how far away it is from the sun

as if you earthlings don't know where you are

I think it's a message to us:
"This is where you are. Readjust your coordinates."
just in case the transport dizzy flu comes on

I think of buying a case but resist the impulse
buy two
ostensibly for gifts

these pens are definitely a sign
there's intelligent life on earth

Did you ever sleep on a top bunk? Believe it or not, I didn't until recently, when I bought bunk beds for my daughter. Needless to say (you know, my height thing…), I slept all scrunched up in the corner for months before I realized I wouldn't fall off. Perhaps you geomancers out there can fill me in on the placement of this particular bunk bed and the fact that it opened a portal in the room…

An intriguing segue on portals, though, is that you don't need to book in advance or pay ridiculous sums of money to get there. You are the ticket as well as the means of travel…

                    of pillows and portals

i return to him
over and over again
first the eyes
the hands
then the fear that
my top bunk is a portal to
more than disembodied poets

it's been a while since I've conjured up the dead
been a bridge between this world
and that
perhaps it's because both worlds exist simultaneously
and my pillow stubbornly refuses to face east

I haven't seen or felt him lately
But I'm sure he'll stop by one of these nights
Meanwhile
I sit on the front porch
Light candles
Smoke cloves
Ponder the need for flesh

This one was inspired by sitting in "Auntie Yin's" patio in Hillcrest.

                    Shooting Stars

Tiggie hides from my daughter, who squats down to peer
Inside each freshly hewn pot awaiting new soil, behind

Each potted plant whose name she does not know. The whisk
of a tail sends her squealing for a bit of string to

Lure her auntie's cat from its hiding place. The tail is drawn
Under the boat to re-emerge, poorly camouflaged by the dark hanging

Blossoms of a bougainvillea branch, their tiny white flowers open to the
Withering dusk. As moon ascends further in the sky, my daughter sighs,

"I've never seen a shooting star but I have a wish for it," and I
Who have seen so many stars seer the sky, reach up

for the cat who meows, then crouches down before leaping
onto the patio table, forming a crescent arc with her tail.

(Note: This won 1st place in Sol-Magazine's "Garden Cat" competition as well as "best poem" for August 2002.)

Q&A:

At long last! Someone responded to my begging and pleading for questions and/or comments. Ironically, she also mentioned an issue that coincided with my "Mistress of Rhetoric" column for The Espresso on the rhetoric of naming neighborhoods.

Q: I'd hate for you to have to go another month without a question to
answer! How can someone learn the skills to perform their poetry? When I go to
poetry readings everyone is so skilled at delivering their poems. I want
to step up to the mike, but I'm afraid I won't be able to do as well. Thanks for the terrific column! I really enjoy it. [I had to leave that in…I cherish positive feedback, wouldn't you?]

A: Thank you so much! I think I'll devote an entire column to this sometime soon. It's an excellent topic, and one which I often ponder. For years, I didn't read in public much. I told people that I was "intended for the page". There was a City Works reading here and there, but that was about it. I did go to poetry readings, though–lots of them. I thought, wow, I wish I could take center stage like that…

Then, my friend and mentor, Rayn Roberts, "drug me kicking and screaming back to poetry" [a line from one of my poems, and something I often remind him of…]. My poetry took a major shift when I decided to read in public more. Rayn gave me a feature at The Book Garden several years back; then, I read on a weekly basis at the Lestat's reading that he hosted. After that, it's been a bit of a blur. I wish I'd kept track of how many times I've read. It does become more familiar, and yes, easier.

Now that I emcee the Santos Open Mic, I encourage others to read in public! My "mission", if you will, is to co–create a space (With much gratitude to Robbin and Mark Donahue) where new and experienced poets can read. I want it to be comfortable and supportive. Since I began this reading last winter, many poets have read their work for the first time. The people who attend the readings are supportive, encouraging, and all those other great adjectives–including inspiring. It's a great environment.

More specifically, though, here are a few tips that I've collected over the years (in non–hierarchical order):

1. Attend readings and pay attention to how other poets read;
2. Practice reading your poems–and record yourself;
3. Experiment with different types of reading styles;
4. Take speech and/or acting classes;
5. Read your favorite poets aloud;
6. Label negative thoughts "thinking"–you CAN do it!;
7. Video tape yourself reading from the comfort of your home;
8. Visualize yourself up there reading…hear the applause!;
9. Start off by reading to friends who support you, then move up to reading in front of an open mic audience; and
10. Remind yourself of how much you love to write poetry, and that sharing your work with others is a great gift!

I hope this was helpful. To address your other concerns, South Park, the area in which Santos is located, is not considered to be a dangerous neighborhood––at night or any other time. There is also a bus stop a few doors up the street and another one across the street, depending upon which way you're going. As I said before, the people at the reading are great folks…I'm sure someone would be happy to walk with you to the bus stop and wait, if need be.

Hey people–do you hear me? Volunteers?

Send your comments and questions-and your poetry-to Terrie Leigh Relf at terrie@WritersMonthly.com

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