(NaPoWriMo) No. 30 is it true that people

is it true that people

sometimes hand down the ashes
of their dead

on purpose,

or do they just happen to leave them
behind

for others’ decisions

because they could never bear
to let them go
in their own lifetime,

because they couldn’t imagine
the right time or perfect place

that could hold
such beloved ashes forever

for them?

--Zann Carter (04.30.09)

(NaPoWriMo) No. 29 in illness i am so present

in illness i am so present

i can hardly imagine

wellness.

i focus on my breathing,

not in the way focus-on-breath
becomes meditation

but in the way that one watches
for signs of deteriorating conditions:

wheezing
asthma...

in illness no plans can be made
can only be unmade,
responsibilites unraveled

until guilt festoons the room,
though everyone says they understand.

don’t ask me to decide anything.
do not seek my wisdom today.

“tapioca pudding & fresh strawberries”
will be my answer to every question.

in illness i am easily tipped over,
too close to all the grief,
crying about my mother.

yet i am absurdly happy

because i washed my hair yesterday
because it spreads out, clean and soft,

on the white pillow around me.

--Zann Carter (04.29.09)

(NaPoWriMo) No. 28 sick and waiting

sick and waiting

for sicker

i know
how these things go

how illness
breaks over me

like a wave
and gets the worst

when it rolls through
my chest.

my head’s
not quite balanced,

it’s a raggedy doll’s head,
stuffed and bobbing

on the aching piling
that is my neck.

i’m alert
for wheezes

between bowls
of soup vitamins echinacea

salt water sprays
and gargles,

catching up
with the soaps

where such mundane
illness is the least

of worries.

--Zann Carter 04.28.09

(NaPoWriMo) No. 27 when i am missing miami

(for ian)

when i am missing miami

and try to think just what
it is i am missing, i know
it’s not the place or the light
or even the sea.

i am really missing 1973 or so,

the time in my life
when i didn’t have enough
but didn’t have too much,
didn’t know too much,
hadn’t given my heart
to so much,

when days just unfolded
serendipitously

and unplanned hour after hour
stretched out languidly,

when what i loved most
could sit in a seat
on the back of my bicycle,
and laugh and laugh
with me all the way
through the park
to the sun-spangled bay.

--Zann Carter 04.27.09

(NaPoWriMo) No. 26 i have moved away

i have moved away

from her
for a moment,

wanting to see
the forest of her
being.

i see how green she is,
how much her life reaches
upward,
devouring light,

how the shadows of flying
birds, great and small,
shift across her face.

i see the birds come to rest
in her,

laying eggs,
dropping feathers,
dropping shit, singing

to the sun.

i see clearings
filled with stones, layered
with things fallen
and decayed.

i see the designs water has carved
in the earth of her

and how water carries
pieces of her
away

and i see where great storms
pounded, rearranged
topography

and i see

rainbows bending
over
her.

--Zann Carter (04.26.09)

(NaPoWriMo) No. 25 log: earth day 2009

log: earth day 2009

soon we will leave
for the Indian restaurant
where we are meeting friends.

early this morning,
i dreamed something complicated
about a garbage can problem
in an unfamiliar kitchen.

the solution was utterly simple

and involved a bold decision
to change everything
about the garbage can
radically.

today is brilliantly spring.

it feels like a great gift
with no irony or strings
attached.

i am wearing sandals.

tiny green leaf buds sing
silly little notes

that rise like bubbles

into the enormous sky.

i can see them.

today i’ve thought about:
the death of a dear elder friend last night
ashes gratitude
forgiveness & how to hug
someone you don’t want to hug you back.

today i’ve read
some Wallace Stevens

Borges & misc.

poetry.

this afternoon
Steph’s tiny puppy curled
into my neck and slept
on me.

before that
a hawk sailed over my head
robins greeted me

my dog said I love you
a thousand ways

and now my husband’s
filling the house
with music

before we go.

--Zann Carter 04.25.09

(NaPoWriMo) No. 24 this dark moon night

this dark moon night

reminds me i haven’t returned
a particular call.

that goddess
at the crossroads has been patient

for years

with a kindness thick
as honey,

piled on top of the fierce,

waiting for my answer.

she knows i’m afraid
of all she knows,

says she has all the time
in the worlds

for a child like me.

--Zann Carter 04.24.09

No. 20 a poem for 2 voices

Last Thursday night, my granddaughter Raven participated in our monthly open poetry reading at Coffee Grounds. She read two original poems and then she read two poems with me from the wonderful book, Joyful Noise/Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman. Two-voice poems are buckets of fun to do with kids and we had a great time. Raven pointed out that we should really try to do the unison parts with the exact same inflections so we worked hard on that. I believe that we got the effect we wanted as someone came up afterwards and said we sounded like aliens. I am going to believe that was a good thing.

The other day I remembered a couple back in Miami who regularly read at Books & Books readings. They often wrote and performed poems spoken together and, though I don't remember particular poems they did, I remember always enjoying them a great deal. So I started thinking that I might like to work on some poems for two voices, and I started with one written for me and Raven to do.

Unfortunately, I haven't a clue as to how to post it here and retain the formatting (which is crucial so you can see the two separate columns of parts and see which lines are meant to be spoken by one person and which lines are meant for two voices.) I spent more time trying to figure out how to post it than I did writing the poem!

Finally, what I was able to do was save it from Appleworks as a page of html (after learning that tabs and regular spaces won't save right, that you have to use option-space for multiple spaces) and upload the page to my web space.

So now, you'll have to click on yet another link to see today's poem. You'll also have to use your imagination and hear two voices reading some of the lines, and it should be fairly clear just which lines those are.

A poem for two voices: Zannma & Raven

Namaste,
Zann

No. 19 this is the urge today

this is the urge today

to pare much away,

to own only
3 black t-shirts
and 2
pairs of jeans

a blue bowl
and 1 spoon

to take the knife
even to my thoughts
so they are:
pure
spare

and ring
like crystalline bells
in my head--

so much clarity
i become

transparent

unstuck
released

& finally breathe
easy

in a
stripped-down

picked-clean
bone
life.

--Zann Carter 04.19.09

No. 18 today at the bookstore

today at the bookstore

my husband plays saxophone
on the sidewalk,

while inside the sun
bounces from cars passing by.

reflections slide continuously
across one wall,
where brilliant patches of light flare
intermittently

and my husband’s shadow appears
and disappears
over and over again.

i buy a worn bar chair
from the nightclub next door.
i sell a Dorothy Parker
short story collection,
1939, hardback in dj,

breaking even for the day.

i watch my husband’s shadow,
adoring the cool silhouette--his hat,
the sinuous grace of the horn--

feeling anxious
each time he vanishes,
relieved at each return

as his music shimmies through the air
glides right through to me,
through the space & the glass
between us.

i think about how i will sit
in my tall new chair
and spin wool,

how shifting strands
will glide through my fingers,
twist and join,

become a fine line
connecting me

to the spiraling
spindle
dropping
so quickly
to the
floor.

--Zann Carter 04.18.09

No. 17 in the flood of '93

in the flood of ‘93

we fled our home
waded into the night
into a black sea
that glittered and moved
in moonlight
where the parking lot
should be.

with one tote bag
hastily packed,
dolls and towels
and string game books
and crosswords
and knitting,

we would be amused
in disaster.

Patrick was still
with us then,
just a small boy.
Molly screamed,
Shaun thought his art
would be safe on the bed.

Later, we’d go back
to salvage.

There’s a picture of Patrick,

in the hotel elevator
clutching an armful of cereal box
robots, creations
that survive
now only
in memory & pictures

as Patrick himself
now only
survives.

--Zann Carter 04.17.09

No. 16 the other night the rain on the roof

the other night the rain on the roof

didn't make me anxious
as it has since the flood
a decade ago

and for a long time
i lay awake

and the rain on the roof
was as it was
most of my life, my life before.

the other night there was
the dear dog curled by my knees
and the dear child curled at my side

and there was their breathing
and their hearts
beating

and the dear child and the dear dog
and the rain on the roof
and all our breathing
and all our hearts simply

beating

worked a spell
with this dreamy, drowsy chant:

it gets
no better
no better
no better

than this.

--Zann Carter 04.16.09

No. 13 a little bit of synesthia makes

a little bit of synesthia makes

life interesting

and hard
to explain,

but i like
knowing the colors of letters
and days of the week

(E is yellow, Monday is red)

and seeing
the shape of dogs’ barks

(brown, amorphous and shifting)

most of them float
as though filled
with helium -
a colorless, odorless, tasteless
gas which, by the way,

is silver
and smells smooth
and tastes

like ice.

--Zann Carter 04.13.09

No. 12 Large hole suddenly

Large hole suddenly

appears on Ohio Street,
traps man’s car

and i wonder who
forgot to maintain

the illusion
of the street.

i know
the effort it takes
to hold

the idea
of pavement

the idea
of solid ground
beneath one’s wheels.

i know
the effort it takes
not to fall

into holes

to drive
right over them

and go on.

--Zann Carter 04.12.09
----------------------
Notes: For a long time, I've had a clipping in my notebook, with the headline, "Large Hole Suddenly Appears on Ohio Street, Traps Man's Car." I actually happened on the scene when it occurred, though I was just diverted to another street and didn't have any idea what had happened. The story, and the thought of just driving along and having the street open up and grab one's car, horrified me. I knew I wanted/needed to make a poem with that headline. Nothing I did before ever seemed right, but I pulled it out to try once again for NaPoWriMo, and I'm fairly pleased with this.

As for NaPoWriMo, I'm also pleased with what the experience is teaching me. Having to come up with a completed poem every day that I am willing to post has made me more conscious of just what I do in my process that works for me. I am a little more ruthless. Often I had to let poems sit awhile before I was willing to part with bits that just didn't work but I loved too much to let go. The time constraints don't allow me that steeping period.

When I started this challenge, I wondered how much poetry I'd write that I would include in readings, be proud of. So far, out of the twelve poems I've written, I just love two (the Tai chi poem and this one) and there are two others I like very much (No. 2 and No. 8.) And I'm not ashamed of any.

No. 11 my life in terms of fat

my life in terms of fat

goes like this:
once i was
skinny skinny
skinny

and anxious
just a slim raw
nerve
of a girlwoman

smoking & writing

not an ounce of fat
full of wasps
and angst

and then i met
a good eccentric man
who could
love eccentric me
and
had two more
babies

stopped smoking
& writing

and was plump
and round
and happy

full of gnomes
and fairy
workers

but full, too,
of longing
for something
ididnotknowwhat

and now
i’m fat
and sad

full of angels
and grief

and know my old longing
was for creating
things

and i do
oh i do.

but now,
fat and sad

i’m full of a longing
for something else
that can
neverever be--

a little
bit of the sad
is because
i’m fat.
a little
bit of the fat
is because
i’m sad.

--Zann Carter 04.11.09

No. 9 and there you are: just waiting

and there you are: just waiting

for things to happen.

you created a blind,

where you crouch down
waiting for your life
to wander by

but when it does,
you cannot show yourself
you do not leap out
and claim it

(tame it, ride it, argue with it, stroke it, listen to its humming)

you sit there watching it pass by
your mouth open in awe and envy

and fear.

it moves gracefully,
powerful & radiant,
more beautiful than you had ever imagined
your life could be.
it pauses, drinks from the nearby stream
(giving you such opportunity!)

and moves on.
(carrying radiance with it, leaving you

in your familiar dark.)

--Zann Carter 04.09.09

No.8 tandy taught me: something important

t

a

n

d

y



tandy taught me: something important


how good it is to say “I love you”
whenever you feel
like it.

I remember
when we were sixteen
meeting for sunrises
over the bay

and cheap breakfasts

before the drag
of the high school
day

and i remember her
leaving
the Tom Thumb diner
one morning

and turning at the door,
how she called out “I love you”--

three
Red Balloons

that floated from her mouth,
over the crowd
and the conversation,
the bacon sizzle,

that floated right to me,
hovered above my head


long white strings
tickling my cheeks

and making me smile.

I remember I didn’t feel
embarrassed
or worry
everyone would think
we were lesbians

I remember I just felt
really

loved.

--Zann Carter 04.08.09

No. 6 sometimes i feel like i'm just

sometimes i feel like i’m just

a container
for an infinite river
of tears

but each morning
i awake and try
to be more

love
miss
remember
cherish

you.

--Zann Carter 04.06.09

Note: Picture is a piece by Kathe Kollwitz, 1938, Lamentation

No. 5 when i do tai chi sometimes

when i do tai chi sometimes

there is a falling-in-place
and suddenly my skin
fits me
perfectly

and the present
fits me
like a second skin

and inside i am a poem
i am inside a poem

inside my skin
i am inside a poem

i am inside my skin
inside a poem
about water
earth
fire
metal
wood

and my hands move
around another poem
hands in clouds
pushing a mountain

tying my coat
on the left side
right side
thrust & parry

when i do tai chi sometimes
i am in
my skin
in the poem
of the moment

loving all the stars
just as they are.

--Zann Carter 04.05.09

No. 4 island flirtatious

Notes
I want to tell the story of this poem.
Last night, at BookNation, the bookstore I'm now working with (yup, finally getting to sell books in an actual store again), we stayed open later for the monthly First Friday downtown. We decided to hold PoetryNation - an event to kick off the observance of National Poetry Month.

Sarah Long and I planned a reading, and some wordplay activities.
While I was setting up, my husband Paul was playing saxophone outside, something he has been doing on Friday afternoons when I'm working at the store.
It was very chilly - he's the hooded figure seen through the window in the picture below:
I was setting up, and decided to do one of the activities myself, to have some examples to show when we presented it to others. This poem was written as a Word-Ticket Post-It Note poem, a poem-generator activity I created based on the wonderful idea of Word Tickets, described in the book Poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge:

Here's some Word Tickets. I have a huge bag of them, created years ago when I was going writing workshops with our homeschooling group. I've now had the delight of getting them out again to use in my workshops with Maple Center and at ArtReach.
I think that's a poem, certainly a very evocative pairing of words, right there...two random tickets I pulled out to make the picture.
Resist
shoes.

To do Word Ticket Post It Note poems, I use my bag of Word Tickets, a bag of starter lines, Post-It Notes and a timer. You draw two words, a starter and have 5 minutes to write a poem on the Post-It. The results I've had every time I've used it with groups have been very gratifying.

When I wrote the poem above, here's what happened:

I drew the words "island" and "flirtatious" and the starter "I turned to my..."
Paul was playing on the sidewalk in front of the store, his back to me. I was writing in the window. I wrote:

I turned to my husband
feeling a bit silly,
a bit flirtatious,
and said, Come away with me,
sweetest pea,
to an island with mountains
white sand and bluest
sea...you can bring
your saxophone.

It made me smile. Then I looked up out the window to see Paul was turned to me, playing 'Til There Was You' and our eyes met and there was this....Moment. Connection. Me with a silly smile about the poem, about him, his wonderful music, our eyes meeting.
Sweet indeed.

More pictures from the set-up for the event:

This is this year's National Poetry Month poster from the Academy of American Poets, along with a basket of dozens of quotations about poetry. We invited people to take three: one for themselves, another for a friend and one for a stranger.



Our sign-up table, with hand-outs and materials for our adaptation of the poetry game, Exquisite Corpse. Our version involved Post-It Notes of course (I love me the Post-Its) - we invited people to write their nouns, verbs, adjectives on them and put them in the appropriate container. Later we pulled them at random and created our surreal group poems on a display board. The Word Ticket Post-It Poem-Making Center.

Unfortunately, our event wasn't very well attended - the art galleries downtown had some major goings-on last night as well. However, we had fun and it was good experience in my fledging efforts to learn to facilitate writing workshops, etc.
If you'd like a copy of the handout I created which we will have available in the shop all month, here it is in pdf form:
PoetryNation Handout

I based it on material found at the Academy of American Poets website, 30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month. That is such a great site, do go there often - you will be rewarded with poetic riches!

Namaste,
'Zann