Something Old, Something New: Artists’ Open House!

In real life, I am frugal beyond belief. I wash out plastic baggies, count the sheets when I unroll TP for use, and save the rubber bands from broccoli in a kitchen drawer for heaven knows what. So, when I saw an offer to rent studio space during an Artists’ Open House here in Kingston, NY for only $50 for the weekend, I knew immediately that I could figure out something to do with it. And there I was, peddling my own wares and pushing the boundaries of the poetic life once again.

As it turned out, I had an enormous space all to myself. My velvet-draped card table appeared to be adrift in a sea of rough factory flooring and whitewashed ductwork. An office desk nearby was co-opted for an activity center. I offered pads and pens, as well as a small basket of writing prompts glued on the back of paper “buttons,” since we were, after all , in the old Shirt Factory. I had planned to hang my Vistaprint banner on the wall from a clothesline I purchased from the Dollar Store, but weight and logistics forced me to clip it to the front of my velvet table covering. I laid out my stock of chapbooks for sale, booklets promoting my RANDOM WRITING workshops, and opened the door.

I was at the end of a quiet corridor on the main floor, so I played nondescript jazz on my cell phone to attract some attention. Despite being the only kid on the block, a few brave souls did poke their heads in. I calmed their fears, considering I was probably the only poet in captivity they’d encountered. Some took a booklet or a business card. One cartoonist left a writing sample, inspired by a prompt. One little girl took a few buttons. I also made a few new friends who were actually in the Word Game, too.

At last I had a chance to chat with Bruce McPherson of the fine local publishing endeavor McPherson & Company. I know he was one of the many I tossed a resume’ at years ago, unclear about what I could offer but hoping my degree, my writing experience would secure a place for me in his employ. He had thankfully forgotten the incident, and I was happy to make his acquaintance this weekend, on more solid ground.

I also learned about an April celebration of women artists at the Lace Mill, another repurposed factory building in Kingston. Coincidentally, my new friend said they were looking for more performers and writers. Although I long ago gave up any ambitions towards becoming a so-called “performance poet,” I still try to give listeners their money’s worth when they come to a reading. I will look into this opportunity shortly.

I also had many artist and poet friends stop by. At one point, the vast space was full, perhaps not of bodies, but spirit, support, and a mutual affection for this wonderful thing we shared, the Artist’s Life. That Life doesn’t always (or even frequently) include monetary security, or paparazzi stalking one from Starbucks to Starbucks, but it does mean a family of sorts. We share the same insatiable craving to be heard, even if only by each other. I hear, and I share. It is good.

For the eight hours I was there, I sold enough books to cover my fee, and had a chance to present myself as a serious artist in an environment of peers. Granted, being alone, I did not have a chance to venture to the fourth floor to see what the visual artists were into, but a few of them did come down. It gave me a chance to organize myself and my work in such a way that I might have a better sense of where I might want to go from here. And, for just a few hours, I could pretend that poetry was, in fact, my main occupation, both in and outside of my head. No small feat.

**RANDOM WRITING Rides Again!**

The next RANDOM WRITING poetry workshop series will be at:

The ARTBAR, 674 Broadway, Kingston, NY

4 Sessions: 

Sept. 14, Oct. 12, Nov. 9, Dec. 14; $75

RANDOM WRITING Poetry Workshops combine Inspiration, Word Play, Text Maneuvers & Peer Feedback to make poems sharper, brighter and BETTER!

-INSPIRATION: provocative prompts, 'hot-button' topics drawn from personal experience & unexpected sources-- right under our noses! 

-WORD PLAY: dictionary games, classical & modern forms, aural/oral gymnastics! 

-TEXT MANEUVERS: altering the physical material a poem is written on, & being open to what future work might be suggested by resulting accidents!

-PEER FEEDBACK: refines work in a sensitive, honest group, gives poets perspective on work impossible to obtain working alone. 


Other RANDOM WRITING topics include:

-Marketing!
-Self-Publishing
-Open Mics & Other Literary Events!

To Register: Call (845) 339-8686, or Email dorothyy62@yahoo.com

Submit! Submit! OK!

              In the last few months, I have been filled with a new sense of urgency. It’s a double-edged energy, however. The more I see the futility in activities like cleaning and decorating, the more I am inclined to involve myself in these temporary details. They are so important that they don’t matter at all, which makes them joyfully important. It’s a sort of weird circle that doesn’t do much for my organizational skills, but frees me to follow the flow of my mood.

            

          I am sifting through the material possessions I’ve accumulated, and discarding what no longer works for me. The Al-Anon literature goes. The pointy red shoes. The poetry books I have yet to crack. The jewelry that I got as gifts, and have never worn, but am afraid to get rid of in case the giver one day asks me about it. My eventual goal is to only have on hand items that will serve my life and my writing in the future. I’ve cleared out old files, gotten rid of tax returns older than seven years (mine went back twenty, as if anyone would care). And, I am putting together chapbook manuscripts consisting of the thirty-plus years of poetry languishing in my careful files, organized by year, first draft (be it on a napkin or a coaster), and “final,” typed copy. 

            In this new push, no version of a poem is final. I am grabbing poems by theme and style, although the ones written even five years ago are very different from the way I’m writing now. I am revising quickly, trying to bring the group into some harmony. I don’t yet know how successful I’ve been. I’ve submitted one chapbook manuscript to two potential publishers, and am working on a second with a deadline of the end of July. A small collection of horse poems will be combined at some point with childhood poems for a more rounded perspective, but according to my records, they are still floating around at some publisher or another in a previous configuration. 

            New work is still being written, but it’s nice to take time to revisit the old, with the fresh eye of time elapsed to give you the objectivity required to tighten and slash what I’ve already produced. New projects, incidentally, include a new poem every month beginning with the weather, and concluding with the current events of that month. These I am typing and tucking away, and will deal with early next year. I am hoping by the very fact of their similar origins that there will be a natural cohesiveness, another chapbook. 

            I have been inconsistent about submitting work over the years. With the Internet Times upon us, I no longer have an excuse. First drafts are always in longhand, preferably on yellow legal pads, but now second drafts are in the computer, stored on a flashdrive, and printed for the old paper files. I have mastered Submittables, and I understand how useful it must be for the little mags. I no longer discount online zines as not rrreeeaaallly being “published.” 

            I continue to research the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919, and am aiming for something to be completed by its one-hundredth anniversary. I’m not certain of the voice yet there. I hope to pull together a presentation of Kingston, NY poets to help fill the new performance space at the Art Society of Kingston. And then there’s that darned memoir…. 

**Every Seventeen Years...*

    I was kindly invited to participate in a Cicada Celebration here in Kingston, NY by the venerable Mikhail Horowitz, comic poet extraordinaire. This was my contribution to the evening's festivities:

Dirt Nap

Red-eyed, you pass the woods near the bridge,

head home to the man you'll probably spend

the rest of your life with.

It took years to come around to this,

years for you to see his voice,

to be silent, let your future's next sound

reach your translucent ears.

Boomerang lovers, cicadas return

from their long dirt nap,

bleary buzz alerting the media

to their impending orgy,

crackling hum like your Long Island

high tension lines, green summer evenings

cruising the Parkways, stalking the

wild wine and cheese.

At seventeen, weekends an eternity,

there was that one you looked for

fifth period A-days, the blonde

with the John Denver glasses

or the red-headed bass player,

sometimes the chorus teacher himself.

You never had a chance. Electric

lattice framed the stars that

rivetted the night in place, and past that--

Cicadas, bumper to bumper on the branches,

don't waste a moment of their brief romantic lives.

They know who knows what seventeen summers

more might bring, what one small slap on

the snooze button could cost, how summer's

lease expires without mercy.

CAR 6/9/13