A Haiku and an I O U

Today, poets from across the state convened at the Conference Center in Montevallo for the annual Alabama State Poetry Society meeting. Actually the events began last night for those who needed to come and spend the night. For years it was the tradition of both the Writers Conclave and the Poetry Society to meet at Montevallo. Driving down this morning at 7:30, I was struck by how populated with homes and businesses Highway 119 has become in the past ten years.

The day began with two workshops by John Ottley from Alpharetta and the GA State Poetry Society, former editor of the Midwest Review in Atlanta, and Bob Collins, retired English professor from UAB and editor of the Birmingham Poetry Review.

John had participants try their hand at editing poems that had been submitted and rejected. Editing poetry, I know, is a wonderful way to improve your own writing, but who wants it? That exercise made me happy that I had only my ugly ducklings to deal with and not those of other poets as well.

Bob Collins spoke on the persona poem and the dramatic monologue and gave us examples of those forms. His reading of Browning's  "My Last Duchess" took me back to the drama department at the  University of Alabama and Dr. Allen Bales when I was a sophomore. At the time I was so "green" it would have made Dylan Thomas's greenness look pink; yet, I needed that little two-hour elective and Oral Interpretation with Dr. Bales seemed just the ticket. Ah, but I hardly even knew the term, and I certainly knew nothing of what to expect. Never mind that I had performed as Gretel in our third gray play and had pantomimed "You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover" in a junior high talent show.I'd even memorized lines for an older woman part in senior play that was so un-memorable I don't remember what it was. Still, what did I know about oral interpretation?

The small class had assembled before Dr. Bales arrived. He walked in and had a printout of his new class roll. We were in a room with a small stage and a podium. He handed us a copy of "My Last Duchess." Then he ran his finger down the list of students. "Number 15," he said. "Miss Smith. Mary K. Smith." Yes, my first name is Mary and my maiden name was Smith.

I just about fainted with fear at that point. I had no idea what he was about to ask of me. He instructed me to go up on the stage and read the poem. Well, no problem, I thought. I can read the poem if my wobbly legs will take me up there.  I had read the poem before. And that's what I did again, if a little shaky. It was a fair reading, but it was simply that, an oral reading.

When I sat down, Dr. Bales ran his finger down the roll again. This time the boy approached the podium with what seemed to be a slight swagger. He took time to look at his audience and size us up, it seemed to me.  He drew in a deep breath and stood tall. Then, as if he indeed at one time had rehearsed and memorized the poem, he began distinctly, "That's my last Duchess..." He enuciated, and gestured to where the picture might be hanging, and gave wing to each word, each line gaining momentum as he read.

My heart sank as my classmate finished the interpretation and stepped down. I knew now how awful my reading had been, relative to his. At that moment I knew I would surely get a failing grade for my performance that day, and I wasn't sure I would ever make a passing grade. But I was never one to throw in the towel. Nobody of my generation ever thought of dropping a class; you were stuck with the IBM cards you were dealt over at registration in Foster Auditorium, the same spot where George Wallace would stand the next year, 1963, in the "schoolhouse door."

 And stuck it out I did. Dr. Bales set about teaching us how to project our physical beings into our performance. He had us beat our chests with our fists as we read "Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay boom," hitting hard on the boomlay. If someone's voice were not deep enough or rich enough, he'd insist on hitting the chest again. The word golden in "golden bells" had to rise and fall as if it were as precious as the medal it named. When Bill Thompson, whose voice was very deep, and who had had no trouble with boomlay, could not go high enough to get the O in golden, Dr. Bales made him say it over and over and over until finally this O squeaked out follwed by two more squeaks that hurt the ears. Dr. Bales gave up and moved on. 

What I lacked in dramatic delivery, I seemed able to make up for with my knowledge of the literary pieces Dr. Bales chose for us to interpret. While I wasn't transformed into a total drama queen, I still have my high moments, thanks to Dr. Bales.

Today there was one of those moments. The contest prize chair, Jerri Hardesty, called out the  name of the 3rd place winner in the "Make Mine Short" contest required to be a short poem in a traditional form. "Kathleen Turner," she called, and I looked around, expecting this to be one of those out of state folks who regularly receive our prize monies by mail. Jerri was looking at me and said again, "Kathleen Turner."

She named the poem, "Haiku III." I jumped from my seat. "Kathleen Turner? That's me!" Jerri was mortified at her mistake, but I took it as the opportunity to tell a story to the group of life in small town Prattville and my first trips to the bank. On the first drivethrough, the teller welcomed me to town by name and said, "Oh, you live in the Hydrick house." In small town south you never live in your own house until you've moved away. On the next trip to the bank to pick up my new credit card, I was very surprised to see that my card read, "Kathleen Turner." "Yes," I squealed. Alas, that banker recognized the difference and didn't let me get away with that credit card.

So, it's long overdue, but thank you, thank you, Dr. Bales. I O U.

Haiku III

Sistine Pieta;

beggar outside in soiled rags.

Odd origami.

Septembers Past

From my poetry chapbook Searching for Ambergris:

Going Home Again

Two Septembers gone, yet if I walked down
across the salt marsh to the floating dock,
the cord grass would be undulating, a breeze
combing its wavy brown hair, as constant
as the changing tides, or the Waving Girl
on River Street, welcoming seaport traffic.
Johnny can not walk without her walker.

What grows in my window box
I can not discern from the street.
The new owner may not be a gardener.
She may prefer the clean, empty hole.
Millie's chest. Cancer surgery.
I wonder about the Pink Perfection
planted outside the kitchen window.
The bottle brush tree is more a tree,
less the seedling I planted; the lavender
blue cloud of plumbago, diminished.
Lettye's jasmine is still neatly clipped.
On my side tendrils fall away from the fence.
Arthur's fall. Pneumonia. Taken to bed.

The Snowy Egret stands so still at the creek
he might be a painting on the mud flat
until his quick beak slices the water.
Crabs scuttle about feeding at low tide.
The Great Blue Heron sits fishing
for shrimp wriggling back into the creek
as the water drains homeward to the sea.

Too early in the day for the river otters
to be wallowing at their sleek black play.
They wait for sunset, for the white sails
of the three tethered tall ships to turn
the color of March azaleas and hawthorns.
Gerald. Broken hip. Moved to Azalealand.
Marsh hens clack to the drone
of the fiddlers. Raucous repetition.
Emma. Lila. Joe. All dead.

And some midnights Randal sits dressed, considers
waking to yet another daylight. World Trade Towers.
Customs meeting. His weekend military defense duties
failed him. No foxhole to shield him from raining bodies.
He used to carry a laughing pose of his two lovely daughters;
now he fingers inside his coat pocket twin buildings, burning.




Pear Butter, Pear Preserves





Confederate Rose buds




Confederate Rose bush



Bleeding Hearts, Butterflies






Ginger Lilies, waning

Pears, pears, pears...

Pears, Poetry, or Prose?

September has its bittersweet choices: generally, I wake up during this month and realize that somehow I've whistled the summer away with the cricket and decide to become the ant again--writing, revising, or marketing my written stuff. Invaribly, though, I start wondering about the old pear tree in Anniston. Every year we think it will die. Every year its few remaining limbs cluster up with pears the way muscadines cluster. And then...well, some days words have to take a back seat to the fruits of the season.

When I come to this web site, I know that I truly am living on a different planet. Not a soul has responded to the Hudson Strode call and it's about time to turn that piece in to John Sledge at the Mobile Press-Register. Good thing I have my own resources. And yet that meter shows that a whole slew of people  have visited. That meter counts about the way I do.

No matter. I start off with some 2000 words in an essay which I know should only be 800 words long. Newspaper space is limited. So I trim, and whittle, and whack, and cut, and paste, and squeeze those words. I'm now down to 997, not counting the title. I've saved some of the "out takes." They're probably better just numbered on a page than the essay, cut, bleeding, and bandaided.

Numbers can take me right back to pears in an instant. Take a look at at the gold in my kitchen. After this batch Monday, on Tuesday I peeled, chopped, cooked, and canned six more pints with three half-pints of mostly syrup left over. My oldest sis who taught me this dying art, and who can not longer can anything, assured me that sometimes pears are just juicier than others. I'd already learned from her that if you make pear preserves every day until you die, you won't have one batch turn out the same. Old philosophy comes easier to her than what she did this morning.

It is a shame to know so much and not be able to say it. Honestly, isn't that why we blog? Who's going to sit and listen to our little personal daily drivel? Before last year I had at least three good friends who would. Today would be the birthday of Katonah Summertree; today is the death date of Carolyn Watson. Johnny Bowyer was a third; they all died within a three-month period in 2010. Both my parents died in separate Septembers. No wonder I feel the need to preserve precious things during this month.

Tuesday's gold.

Hudson Strode

I'm writing an article about Hudson Strode who taught at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa for years until he retired in 1963. He taught either Shakespeare or Creative Writing to  such Alabama literary notables as Harper Lee,  Helen Norris, and our current Poet Laureate, Sue Brannan Walker. If anybody reading this took classes under Hudson Strode, I'd like to hear from you.

Testing...

What happened to spring and summer? Where did the months go? On April 4 I had kneecap surgery. Zoom, there went the rest of spring. Zoom, zoom--now summer is waning.

And why don't things stay the same? Where are my Followers? Did the few I have give up because I've been so quiet? Where are their faces? I've bragged so many times about how easy it is to negotiate Blogger. Hah. who sez? Something has changed; I feel as though I'm trying to negotiate a blog at GoDaddy. That one's a killer for the non-techie wysiwyg kind of designer.

This is a test ti see this will even appear on the screen. And will the date change? Here goes...

Moon River...waiting round the bend, my Huckle-berry friend, la la la...

Ah, what does this phrase conjure up for you? Before this weekend for me it was Johnny Mercer's song, his star Emma Kelly, the poem I wrote for Emma that was published on SCAD's Pen and Ink page, the night I presented the framed poem to her (she had me read it aloud  but this audience was hardly ready or eager to hear a poem about St. Patrick's Day on River Street), and the day I was her driver in Savannah. That day John Berendt first came to town publicly for a PBS fundraiser with city-wide events.

But the story of that day is long and tedious. Today's story will be shorter. This weekend I chaperoned a group of kids in a confirmation class at my church (six 5th, 6th, and  one 8th graders) on a trip back home to Savannah. We stayed on Moon River at Wesley Gardens, a retreat property owned by my church there, Wesley Monumental. While our main purpose was to promote team-building among the students, we also wanted to give them the history of Methodism and something of what the founder John Wesley and his brother Charles did while they were in Savannah.

After sleeping on air mattresses or sofas at the youth room at Mulberry United Methodist, Macon,  the oldest Methodist church in Georgia, with Tommy and Flo Martin, we headed east on I-16. Our next stop was lunch with my good buddies, Rita and Mike, who live just outside Savannah, but who, in our last decade there, lived smack dab downtown on Charlton where they had a b & b. No  sign could be posted because that street--my, my, my--simply couldn't have any commercial signs about. But their home was on several tours and was, and still is, a joy to see. Mike has taken up painting as a hobby and was a great encourager to our students about teaching oneself to do a thing. (His self-taught work was impressive.) Rita served up lemonade and the homemade cookies she's famous for, and personalized her beautiful little book ON HIGHER GROUND for each of the students. Rita did both the photography and the copy for the book and it's a beautiful depiction of the historic churches in Savannah.

Our arrival at Wesley Gardens was, to quote the kids, awesome. The big house, the chapel, the gazebo, all overlook the spectaculor Moon River. Gorgeous camellias of all varieties pepper the grounds. I particularly liked the white ones surrounding the prayer garden commenorating friends gone on. I wish I knew more camellia names besides my fave, Pink Perfection. After a brief look-see and assignment of bedrooms--boys up, girls down, counselor Rev. Emily in counselor's room--we had to get going to Kroger's for the first part of one of our exercises. The six students were divided up to plan and prepare the evening meals on Saturday and Sunday nights. (Both I and Guy, the other chaperone, love to cook.) Each group had fifty dollars to feed the nine of us. Not a bad budget at all--no caviar or beef tenderloin--but we could make do.

Oh, I must use broader brush strokes if I plan to finish this entry this month. Both groups (Chef GaGa with Her Sous's and Five Guys) came in right at fifty bucks; For my group each of the three was to be in charge of the dish they'd suggested: Katie wanted Shrimp Alfredo; my wise 8th grader Daniel actually chose broccoli and a fruit salad, and Maggie, concocted a brownie/ice cream, Thin Mint dessert. Amazing really.

The next night the "Four Guys" (Guy plus Ben, Caroline, and Kate Pride) served up a seafood platter on a platter like nothing I'd seen before. It was a creamy white long oval design in pottery so it held the heat well. Whereas our group had served buffet style, this group gave us this huge platter family style as a centerpiece flanked by a green salad dressed with oil and vinegar. The platter held shrimp, sauted catfish (a team-member's choice), enough alligator to taste (yes, the chef had to do it), and new potatoes, parboiled, sliced, and sauteed in butter. YUMMY. Our dessert was a Thin Mint milkshake. (Yes, it's Girl Scout cookie season!)

Sunday was our formal learning day. We started off with a tour by Ralph Bailey of the Mother Church of Methodism in Savannah, Trinity United Methodist. There I rocked in a chair at the back (for babies or grannies) and we saw a beautiful, old baptismal font from Independent Presbyterian. We also saw a gavel made from the wood of the parsonage of John Wesley.

Next we worshipped at Wesley Monumental where I was thrilled to be back among good buddies: Karen, Dale, Tim, Kim, Alyse, Eddie, Judy, Ron, Susan, Dick, Tim, Anne, Ellene, Tom, Deanna, the Edwardses, Sue, Gretchen, Raymond, Charlie...and so many more. The church has flourished and will soon have a school/daycare on the first floor. I didn't get to go across the street to the Espy House which has also been renovated for office space.

Christ Church, Anglican, (Wesley never left the Anglican Church) and the statue of John Wesley were next. I'm grateful for Corley Nease for being our docent there. A huge white angel (I forgot to ask what it was made of) held the baptismal basin there; that and the raised glass and brass pulpit were eye poppers.

The students were history-saturated at that point, so we skipped the Cockspur Island statue of Wesley and drove straight to Tybee. In the 40's a train took teenagers to the beach pavillion where they danced under the stars to one of the big bands. Teenagers also dared each other to swim from the river downtown to Tybee, technically to Lazaretto Creek. (Luke Bowyer and his wife Johnny, my dear friend, gave me a lot of colorful history for my novel set in Savannah.)

Our pre-teens got their feet wet. The boys actually went in. I was so cold I actually left them with the two other adults and  went back to the van to sit while they soaked each other with splashing! Ah, youth.

All this, and yet it was sunrise on Moon River that defies description, except perhaps in Psalm 8. Take a look for yourself. Let me know if you've seen Moon River.