Soapbox

She is beautiful but cannot see it
in a world that values "pretty" so much more.
She is precious, but will not understand it
until one day a small piece of her heart
leaves her body and walks across the room.

She is fierce in love and loyalty,
a defender of small things,
easily angered by injustice
yet quick to forgive everyone but herself.

She lives with her heart wide open,
defenseless against the calloused and entitled,
easily scratched and dented
yet still she walks unafraid.

She is utterly her own person,
wanting to belong
but never willing to conform.
Her laughter infects the blood,
spreading happy contaigen.
In joy she is incandescent
and like a sparkler on a summer night
her heart lights up the darkness.

It is my solemn burden and highest honor
to worry about her,
to brag about her and feed her,
to entertain her when she is bored,
fuss over her when she is sick,
to cry with her,
rejoice with her and about her-

to call her my child.

    Many years ago my pastor once asked me if I would play the piano one Sunday when the regular pianist would be gone. I wanted to help out but didn't want to play- if you've ever heard me play the piano, you know why. But it was me, or no music at all, so I banged my way through the hymns and at least kept everyone on pitch. In encourageing me to accept the request, my sister said something about it that stuck with me:

   Sometimes in life it's important to cultivate a fearless willingness to be mediocre.

And so I have been doing that- well, minus the fearless part. But most of us know we'll never be great at anything, and yet we slog along, motivated by some other factors. We accept that we are mediocre, because someone has to be, right? We can't all be stars.

   A few weeks ago I was invited to attend a series of writing workshops- "Salon" they call them, which seems like a fancy name for a bunch of people meeting in the back room of the MCL Cafeteria in Reynoldsburg, but then, this is not a group of people quietly embracing the possibility of mediocrity.
     The woman who facilitates the group, who invited me to join is someone I know through my regular poetry night and consider to be quite a good poet, so I was flattered to be asked. I knew that she wasn't going to be there for the first gathering but bravely faced snowy roads on Saturday morning, completely unsure what or who to expect.

    Due to the weather there were only a few of us there, and the morning kicked off with us going around the circle explaining who we are and where we have been published, where we have submitted writing recently, our strategies we have found helpful in getting poems published, etc. I sat there listening politely, pretending to take notes in my little notebook, thinking What in the hell am I doing here?  Great. Awkward and out of place right out of the gate, and it went downhill from there. 
    We then talked about what poets we read, and which had been our most powerful influences. I was in a semi-panic as the talk went around the circle. Everyone was naming poets I have never even heard of, let alone read. I felt myself in danger of doing a Radar O'Reilly: "Ah! Bach!"   nodding my head and acting like I knew what they were talking about when clearly I did not.

    The truth is I don't really read poets. I like to listen to poetry, and when it comes along, I read it. In my entire life I suspect I have only read about 4 or 5 books of poetry cover to cover, and the only one I"ve read twice is Emily Dickinson. I am pretty sure one does not impress the self-admiring minor literati of Columbus with "I'll tell you how the sun rose- a ribbon at a time". I tried to demure from the question entirely, ended up defending Miss Emily, mentioning Leonard Cohen and threw in mention of a poet I was sure they had never heard of but whose book I actually have read cover to cover- a guy I went to high school with. (Thanks, Mr. Loomis, for giving me a little cred!)
.
    I had chosen for my workshop poem the one I wrote about my stepfather Larry's death, called "The Sisters or Mercy". I picked it because I love the poem,  but I had struggled with several parts of it and knew it could use a little work in those areas. And admittedly, I thought it good enough that this group, whomever they are, would basically like it and think I was not totally mediocre.
     My first mistake was in chosing a poem that I have a strong emotional connection to. I know that now. Some poems are like your children- some are about your children- and no one wants to hand their children over to people who do not like, or at least respect them.

   I passed out a copy to everyone as per instructions and read it aloud. When I finished there was a silence, and then a heavy sigh and the sound of a pencil being tossed down in frustration from the woman sitting next to me- who just happens to be an editor for "Pudding House", a very small local outfit that publishes chat books for local poets. In other words- she is the editor, or has been at one time- for all of the other people in the room save myself. Small pond- meet the big fish!
    I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. I stared dumbly at my paper before me and as she began to speak  the words clanged around in my brain,
      "Oh my god- she f**king hates it!!"
Oh, yes indeed she did. It is cliched, emotionally manipulative, melodramatic and the ending is a mistake that only a rank amature would make. She didn't actually say "I've read poems by 8th graders that were better" but that was the impression I was getting.

   The other people there were much more polite, and offered constructive suggestions in a respectful manner, some of which made sense: in other words, exactly what I had come there for. But the vibe from this woman was so strong that when 3 o'clock arrived (I had to leave early to get to work) I was never so happy to  leave a room.

   I've thought about the whole writing thing a lot since then. I've thought about ego (which normally isn't too much of an issue for me) and hypersensitivity (which often is) and how much of which is coming into play here.  I am thinking ahead to the Salon next month. I told myself that I am not going to be a baby, and any way, I paid for an entire year so I should hold my head up and go, and I"ll probably learn a lot, even if I do end up somewhat bloodied. No pain, no gain, right?

   Frankly, I have felt paralyzed, utterly unable to write since that day, which disturbs me more than the Pudding Pop lady's unkind manner. I pulled out the poem in question today, now that I am not so raw and I've had time to digest the experience. I tried to implement some of the suggestions from the other writers.
   It was like trying to paint with your eyes closed. When I tried to make one of the changes they all insisted it needed, it just seemed forced, no matter what I tried. The poem felt dead to me, like a wax effigy of an emotion I once tried to capture on paper. Yet at one time, that poem was window that allowed me to revisit exactly the moment it describes. That's why I liked it so much, and now I lost it.

    I guess I"m going to workshop next month. Maybe I"ll be lucky and there will be so many people (I'm told there sometimes are) that they won't get to everybody, and I can just sit and listen and maybe learn a little without having to go under the knife. Maybe the editor lady was just in a bad mood and she'll be less brusque in her critique. My current plan is to take poem that I really feel no emotional investment in, so that if it gets killed like the first one I won't really care.

   But all this leads me back to the thought of mediocrity, and of why I write. Like Mr Tanner in the song, I write- as I sing and play and paint- because it makes me happy, and it makes me whole. I have no illusions that I will ever be anything but mediocre, and really, that's ok.
    I write for me, because I have to get it out. It's nice if other people like what I write, and its great if it can be fulfilling to me  and good at the same time. But maybe it can't. Maybe my skill is so poor that, in order to rise above mediocrity, to make it marketable and accessable to readers, I have to kill it for myself. 
    That's not a sacrifice I'm going to make.  I don't write to be "good". I write to be true. And if my limited talent is such that I can't do both….  I pick true.
    After all, some of us have to be mediocre in order to let the others shine by comparison.
 

He came home to Dayton and was questioned by his friends
Then he smiled and just said nothing- and he never sang again-
excepting very late at night, when the shop was dark and closed.
He sang softly to himself as he sorted through the clothes.

"Mr Tanner" by Harry Chapin

A day or two ago, Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake. While much of the world rushes to help, a predictable group sought to take advantage of the situation.
I"m not talking about the few corrupt locals who will undoubtedly try to sell donated relief supplies to starving, desperate people: I'm talking about people who already have everything, and always need just a little bit more.

"True Story" he says from his pulpit
and shakes his head
and smiles that smile that does not ever, quite reach
his cold, reptilian eyes.
"Those people" only got what they had coming.
Their suffering, while most unfortunate,
is simply just retribution for their different values and their unholy lives.
Payback can be a bitch, huh?

In another type of pulpit another type of preacher assures us
that anyone different than him who wants to help
really just want s to put the welfare of "Those people"
above that of decent, normal, right-thinking Americans like himself.

Today, "those people" are the people of Haiti
squatting in the rubble of their ruined houses,
digging with their bare hands to try to locate their entombed loved ones,
out of the frying pan of misery into the fire of utter agony.
Before that it was the poor in New Orleans,
drowning, starving as the waters rose
and the president waved from overhead.
And before that, the people of New York City,
wailing in disbelief as the ashes of life as they had known it
floated down from overhead.
They got what they had coming to them. They should have known better.
They should have been better. More like me.

It is a true story
that when you have never been hungry or uneducated,
when you have not grown up in a world that offers few options and little hope,
it's easy to be contemptuous and smug
about people who never seem to get ahead.
It is a true story
that when you have only ever known wealth and privilege,
when you were born into a culture of unlimited possibilities…
when you have never known true adversity
it is easy to imagine that you have somehow risen above it
by dint of hard work and superior virtue
when, in fact, you were born with most of what you have now
already in your hands.
Those who congratulate themselves the loudest for climbing the mountain
are usually the ones who were born on the summit.

It is a sad, true story
that when you allow yourself to believe that you are holy and wise,
that you are granted infallibility through the infallibility of your God,
then it's easy to see anyone who doesn't make the same "wise" choices,
live the same "holy" life that you do as unholy…
…justly punished.

And when you have a microphone to speak with
and millions who blindly follow your every word
I guess its easy to blame those who  aren't like you-
the feminists, abortionists, Muslims, athiests…
It's easy to blame the welfare queens, the liberals and the homosexuals
for every hurricane and tornado
every bomb that explodes and earthquake that levels,
every flood, disease and injustice.
It's easy to label  misery and suffering a just punishment for the wicked
when you have never had to suffer yourself-
because that proves that you are virtuous, doesn't it?

It is also a true story
that the self-righteous men
who chuckle and rub their hands in ill-disguised glee at the pain of others
because they find in it a fresh opportunity to castigate and blame-
who believe it makes them look taller
when others are writhing at their feet,
these people and the smug, snake-oil of a religion they pedal,
be it spiritual or political in nature-
they are the very evil they decry in others!
They are the sin they lament in the world.

Preacher, look to thy own heart before you condemn the soul of others.
The devil wears many guises, as you are quick to remind us
and sometimes he wears thousand dollar suits
and speaks the love of God
with brimstone in his throat.

Do you remember?
Do you remember us
sitting in twos and threes and fours
cross-legged, on the floor of your bedroom,
under the tree in the neighbor's back yard,
among the shelves at the library,
in my dorm room,
talking about our plans and wishes and dreams?

Do you remember
when we really believed that we could make the world a better place
just by loving one another better than our parents had,
by seeing things with our clear, unjaded eyes
and then finding a way to tell the world what we saw?
Do you remember
when we all believed that love really could be forever,
and so we held on to each other tightly
as if the covalent bond we shared
might one day spread, reach critical mass
and spark a reaction that could change the world
if we just didn't let go?

But of course, we had to let go.

 I remember those as the most potent times of our lives,
not because we were young
but because we really believed
in ourselves, in a future with limitless possibilities
and in the power of our own dreams.

I remember- for how could I forget?-
when we sat around campfires on clear summer nights,
forever friends,
talking about love and pain, hope and fear
and how we could fix what was wrong with the world
if only the world would listen.
We wove together our words and tears,
love and laughter
with the pop and crack of the flames,
the shriek of cicadas
the pungent smoke in our faces,
the flash of firelight in our dream-filled eyes
and the passion of our convictions.

And so we combined our elements:
earth, air, fire and faith,
our impassioned gestures the sigils and signs of conjuration
as we implored the universe to listen…
and the flames, dancing upward
and the smoke, rising upward
and our dreams, flying upward
among the swirling sparks,
circling, climbing, up to the waiting stars
to join the heat of a billion other visions dispatched
from campfires and dorm rooms and back yards
of a different, better, more love-filled future.

Maybe the stars are our wishes.
What if the lights we see tonight
are the dreams we dreamed as children,
winking and sparkling above us
igniting the cold vault of heaven-
the light of all our dreams streaming across the vastness of space
at the speed of utter faith?
Perhaps it takes so long for even dreams to come back from heaven
that by the time our dreams return to us, fulfilled,
we no longer believe in dreams.
And so they remain suspended forever above us,
unable to come home.

But maybe, somehow,
all those abandoned dreams out there really have changed something
and the universe is a better place because of our love
and we just don't know it.

Do you remember
when we dreamed the stars
and they came to be:
our selves, fulfilled,
a better world,
a love made real-

just impossible, now for us to hold?