*New RANDOM WRITING Workshop Series*

Just a reminder: On Jan. 13, I'm beginning a new RANDOM WRITING poetry workshop series. It will be held on the 2nd and 4th Weds. of each month, at the A.I.R. Studio Gallery in Kingston. The workshops are scheduled to run from 6-8 p.m.

For the first half, I'd like to hear what you're working on, and be open to feedback from others there. In the second half, I'll offer a writing prompt, or you can go with an idea inspired by the writing of others, or your own mind breaths.

$10 per night, 6 workshops for $50. Call to confirm or with questions: 845-339-8686, or e-mail me at dorothyy62@hotmail.com.

*Poem: "Ice Fishing"*

Ice Fishing

You and your father and Karen Carpenter

drive slowly out onto the lake

as far as it's safe, then farther,

windows rolled down, doors unlocked;

or, leashed to a rope for safety,

you or your father slinks across the surface,

cigarettes sending up signals

to the other fishermen:

it's safe, it's safe, it's safe,

then farther still.

You haven't told me yet about the

hairline cracks in your solid Minnesota,

midwest fields, woven plaids of green and grey and brown,

or how to cut a hole in a foot of ice

to get through to the real water,

where fish don't know it's Christmas again,

just when they thought it was safe.


CAR 11/30/09

*Poem: "Fish House- Lake Mille Lacs"*

Fish House- Lake Mille Lacs

Purple rising into pink, into blue,

slateful of snow, one narrow path

plowed up to the fish house,

a fancy one you say, not the

plywood shanties you remember.

I know that blue from Catskill winters, twilight,

punctuated with acorns, twigs,

irreverent leaves freckling the surface.

That clean, blue sheet across the frozen water

must be crisp and neat the whole season

but for a hole, a few footprints,

a few lost souls whose fins freeze

quickly in the Minnesota air.

Many Lakes, you say it's called--Mille Lacs,

Ojibwa by way of French traders,

heat-seeking Canadians just steps

from the border, and with this solitute,

lines we draw between countries,

between each other, declarations

blow apart into so many blue stars,

nestled together in the sky above this shack.

The windows glow yellow, bright,

a bit of warmth in all this consistency,

hope for the fish that remain

that somewhere in this frozen landscape

fire survives.


CAR 12/1/09