thinking about my dad

This month has been a hard one for my Dad.  The brother immediately above him in age died about a week and a half ago from liver cancer.  He had been sick for years, but he declined very quickly at the end and even though Dad went out to AZ to be with him at the end, Brian was not coherent when he arrived and shortly thereafter slipped into a coma, dying a couple of days later.

I can't imagine what it would be like to lose one of my sisters, and my father has had to mourn the deaths of 3 of his brothers in the last 20 years, two of them in the last 10.

So, in honor of my wonderful Dad who I love up to the moon, here is a reprise of a poem I wrote about him a few years ago.  This was prompted by a memory from when I was around 5 or 6.

Her first Father-Daughter dance

He lounges in the brown tweed Lay-Z-Boy,
the sound of raucous, cheering fans,
competing with the crunch of Fritos.

She is six and doesn’t understand
football belongs to men.
No Girls Allowed.

A creak, the chair leans back, arm raised
for the pass, next moment he is on his feet
shouting at the officials: Fourth down!

Sometimes she crawls onto his lap,
he buttons her into his big brown sweater.
In whispers her education begins.

His beard scratches her ear as he unfolds
Walter Payton’s record; the importance
of a good wide receiver

Soon she joins the groan at the fumble,
the botched two-point conversion or
the missed hold call.

17 to 20! two-minute warning!
The Bears run out—a punt return.
It will take a miracle!

She grips her Dr. Pepper.  
It doesn’t matter that she is too warm under the sweater.
It doesn’t matter she is not a son.

Time for a new tagline

For years my tagline has been "The wonderings and wanderings of a living oxymoron."  This was very meaningful to me because I really wrestled with how to bring into cohesive wholeness this seeming dichotomy between my love of all things domestic--including cooking, organizing a household, and making things grow--with my passionate pursuit of intellectual understanding.  It wasn't a combination that I saw modeled in my circle of acquaintance and it was questioned by many well-meaning people who continually tried to pigeon-hole me in an attempt to know and understand me.  There were always folks who accepted this strange commingling in me, some who even celebrated it, declaring my Renaissance Woman status.  But in the midst of that I felt the need to defend and explain, even in my blog header.

Recently (in the last few months) I realized that my tagline didn't resonate any more.  I knew of, if not personally, multiple other women who loved the quotidian practice of homemaking while also pursuing a life of the mind.  Whole communities of women existed online who were engineers who love canning, or artists who shared their cooking or cleaning practices, etc. and my own life was now peopled with men and women who celebrated and engaged with internal dichotomies of all sorts.

As I considered what to change the tagline to, I realized that I needed something that expressed my love for both the substantial material world and the world of ideas AND that embraced my conviction that my spiritual life and intimacy with Christ is what framed it all and made sense of these varied and sometimes divergent loves.  The newest iteration is this "Living in the midst of the material and ethereal and bringing it all into subjection to Christ."  That expresses my situation a bit more clearly and succinctly, but I am not certain yet if it is the most accurate version.  If you have any suggestions or feedback on this, I welcome it!

Pantoum of a Single Woman

I've been writing poetry as my weekly class assignments for my Forms of Poetry class this semester but much of it is not really worth sharing.  However, this past weekend I wrote a pantoum that I and my professor (and my classmates, I think) really enjoyed.  Hope you enjoy it too.

Btw, a pantoum is a form written in 4 line stanzas where the 2nd and 4th lines are repeated in the following stanza as lines 1 and 3.  It creates a rhythmic repetition that works for a variety of topics and styles, but seems to work particularly well with this one.

Pantoum of a Single Woman

I borrow babies, boys and girls,

their parents think I’m generous.

I’m only thinking of myself--

how can I sate this empty womb?

They think I’m generous and kind;

I give them several hours away.

To sate my empty womb takes time,

“Just dinner and a movie?” “Great.”

Those extra hours away, sweet bliss,

a tired couple’s desperate dream.

No chicken strips or dumb cartoons,

real conversation, what a treat.

Every tired couple’s dream

an evening free of dirty diapers;

uninterrupted conversation

like stolen sweet, forbidden fruit.

“Have an evening free of diapers.”

I am just thinking of myself,

holding them--forbidden fruit--

“I’ll borrow your babies any time.”

Poem #6--praise poem

Today's prompt is a bit easier for me:-) There have been some difficult circumstances swirling around me, but my desire to praise God has been growing exponentially as well. Following the theme of grace, and writing a short(ish) poem to get this up before I depart on my way to FL and a wonderful birthday weekend with TulipGirl and family, here it is:

Praise Him from whom all blessings flow
He who did not staunch wound in side and head
Whose hands and feet poured unmeasured grace
So full and free that wretches can drink their fill

Praise Him all creatures here below
Below but not put down, by Him declared
Only a little lower than angels
And created in His likeness--the image of God

Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts
With wings covering your eyes because His
Beauty is more dazzling than a Caribbean sunrise
Bowed, tossing at His feet songs and hymns

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Unimaginable Trinity, perfect community
Love overflowing and so super abundant
That it had to be shared

Poem #5-- setting a scene

Really, these prompts are stretching me totally... Maybe it is my fuzzy brain, or maybe it is just that I am out of practice, I am not sure. For today's poem, the prompt is to write a poem that sets a scene important to the theme of the chapbook. Problem is, I can't visualize any scene that doesn't sound cheesy or totally disconnected with my theme, which seems to be heading toward grace. We'll have to see how this one turns out. I will come back and post something later tonight... I need to let it stew for a little bit.

One of the difficulties for me in using these prompts is that Robert Lee Brewer's own poems seem so far disconnected from my theme that I don't know how to translate his inspiration. HELP!

Poem #4--soapbox poem

My family will inform you that I am rapid and agile in my climbs onto the soapbox. But for some reason these poems just are not coming very rapidly or agilely to my mind... So, poem #4's prompt, to write a soap box poem, is causing me a little consternation. Here is my attempt:

Imperfections are beautiful
try to look past the lack of supermodel
proportions or MENSA-like
intellectual prowess
self-discipline of the ascetic
or even the NFL athlete

Throw out caution with the next
bag of kitchen trash
embrace the hedonism of unlimited
X-Box gaming and Wii tossing and
turning
there are no more new leaves to
finger or resolutions to make

Embrace a self-love that asks
not what you can do for anyone or
anything else, but only what you can
do for the perpetually straining ego
that gets bogged down in flaw-hunting
or ever growing self-improvement
strategies

But remember,
THAT
is not grace.

Poem #3-- Foreshadowing poem

I am feeling like I really should have thought more about this before I started to write:-) I have an idea for my chapbook, but using the prompts effectively seems to be beyond my reach. Maybe I just have a cottony head today... either way, the prompt for poem 3 is to write a fragment-like poem that foreshadows the poem on the 20th. Not exactly sure where this fragment will lead, but here it is:

the heavy oak slab
of a door blocked out
the sun and rain but let in
so many wisps of apprehension
lay unguarded to fragments
of decayed hope

Poem #2-- Declaration poem

I am totally NOT feeling this prompt for a declaration poem:-( I have been given leeway to do something else, but I am not sure what that would be. I may come back to this if inspiration strikes.

Poem-A-Day for November

Some of you may be aware that November is National Write a Novel in a Month month. I am not a novelist, at least not at present, so I appreciated it when Poetic Asides again issued a Poem-A-Day challenge. Some of you may remember my attempts to do 30 poems in April for national poetry month. I am again going to make my foray into poetry. I need the practice, and the goal of this challenge is a chapbook around a certain theme. I have been tossing around a few themes and some combination of these may finally come to fruition. Topics of choice: Just Life, Grace, Having Fun and Words. We'll see what comes of this:-)

Fun

While wandering around Facebook catching up with some friends I saw this and had to try it. Why don't you find out what reading level your blog requires:-)

TV Reviews

Accidental Poem

This one came up in an IM today at work. This is what happens when you IM with your coworker while he is sitting next to you in class.

sorry... can't help it
at least I don't screech
my sleep deprived brain can't handle Indigo being smart
its just too much
It is like Jonatan being a good ole boy
overloads the synapses

A little background: Indigo regularly laughs and talks so loudly in class that she disrupts everything. The other instructor reprimands her regularly. So I laughed at a face another instructor made and Indigo informed me, very properly, that I was being too loud. It was too much, coming from her, so I just busted out again. Then my acerbic co-worker IM'd that my laugh was as bad as Indigo's singing, etc. Then the above poem happened. Oh, and Jonatan is one of my very sly 9th graders that will look me in the eye and insist that he is working hard when I just saw him playing cards with another student.... Then today he shakes my hand as if there was never a conflict betwixt us regarding his work or any other possible issues. Just too much!

Poem #30

Today is the last day of National Poetry Month. The final prompt for this month is to write about an ending. That is something I should know quite a bit about.... there are a lot of things ending or closing in my life right now. My job ends May 30th, my lease is up May 31st, Sara and I stopped being roommates a few weeks ago, other relationships are ebbing and flowing... But I still find this poem hard to write. Even going back to earlier closures don't seem to help. I would skip it except it is the last prompt and I haven't been too faithful as it is. So here is my attempt:

The end

Turning the last page
Emptiness knocks me down
Like that huge wave in the
Bahamas--turned topsy-turvy
My sunglasses and contacts
ripped from my face
left me blind and vulnerable
on a foreign beach. The epilogue
completed--not a single word left
leaves me hollow and floundering
reaching for a life preserver in
the waves of loss and confusion.
She sucked me in--tossed me
into an articulate oblivion of
personality, philosophy and beauty
to no end.
My gluttonous reading has left me
gorged and unsatisfied
The End cut off all hope of escape.

Poem #22

This prompt was for Earth Day and as with other Tuesdays there was the choice between two prompts: write an industrial poem or write a nature poem. One day a few weeks back I decided to take pictures all the way back from the school where I tutor to my apartment. That takes me through some rather sketchy industrial areas, Chinatown and the fringes of South Loop gentrification. I was going to include a couple of the pics in this post to more artistically illustrate it, but I can't find the cord to my digital camera, so this will be up to your imagination.

Gentrified

Crumbled factories, Ayn Rand
Facades in empty lots: 45,000
Square feet for rent lie only blocks
From the newest highrise on south
Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
Rusted ironworks bridging the brown
Sluggish river no longer dyed green
Testament to languishing industrial
Glories now lead to former tenements
Cum studios for the poor intelligentsia
Paving paths for the bourgeoisie
To invade the ethnic enclaves
Urban is chic and concrete pours
For Eco-Friendly Resort-Style Living
Where formally public housing stood
The sprawl has turned upon itself
Rushing home from the suburbs
To refurbished brownstones and the hope
That their righteous urbanity will restore
Life to the fretful deities of mangled nature

Poem #23

You know, this non-linear numbering is growing on me. When I finally meet up where I left off and have to go back to normal chronology it will be a bit sad.

That said, the prompt for the 23rd was to write about age... how wonderful your age is now, the age when you thought you were in your prime, etc. I think about age a lot. When I was about 11 I told my grandmother that I wanted to be 80, that I was pretty sure that was the best age of all. She was appalled, and probably rightly so. I just thought being a grandma would be the best thing. I had no desire to be a teenager, or middle aged. I didn't want children, just grandchildren. But I digress.

Now I am facing turning 30 in just about 6 months. Several of my friends recently beat me to it, and several more will hit the mark before I get there (the joy of having a November birthday LOL). The reality is, I can say unequivocally that this is definitely the stage in life when I most shine. Maybe it is the urban living. Maybe it is the great new haircut. Maybe it is just being so in love with life and the God who has given it to me. Maybe it is having a boyfriend for the first time ever;-) Whatever it is, I am grateful. So I think this could be the best topic for my poem.

Thirty and flirty?

Sex in the City says now is the time
To grab what you can get with all
The gusto you can muster.

But like a dark storm brewing on the horizon
My friends cower in cubicles and at desks
Waiting with foreboding for their 3rd decade.

I, on the other hand, have come into my
own at last. No more hiding behind
shapeless "artistic" clothing

No more wishing that my intellect would
Dull to the common mental brilliance
No more squinting at the fine print

I dance in red fishnets and black high heels
Whirling to the rhythm of salsa and swing
Laughing at partners in wingtips and fedoras

I stand tall in black wool sweaters and
striped trousers before students who
shout "Hey Ms. WB!" down crowded halls.

Greeting newcomers by name in the atrium
Of a music school cum sanctuary, welcoming
Diversity into an urban, ancient worship.

Like the wise woman of Proverbs this age
Does not scare me and 30 means I am just
Beginning... I can laugh at the days to come.

Welcome home! My soul has found its rest
In a size 14/16, with Ashley's best bob swinging,
Eyes flashing, wit sparkling, and poetry falling from
My fingertips.

Poem #24

This prompt was to write a poem based on a photograph. I decided it had to be a digital image so I could include it in this post. Let me know what you think.
Who would have guessed
as we slept on that couch that
the seeds of a new family
were being sown.

Who would have guessed
as we dreamed or slept
dreamlessly that two who
are so different would joyfully
become one

Who would have guessed
that me, smack in the middle,
would not be the arrangement
for life.

Who would have guessed
that a snooze in January
2006 would become
Mr and Mrs Gambill
April 2008?

Poem #25

Going back, step by step. This prompt was to write an occupational poem. Now, I have been writing about my students quite a bit lately, so I am thinking about writing about another occupational stint. Here it is:

At the Department of Vital Records

"Matthew Simon Nolan Tupac
Roddie Lorenzo Butch Darnell
Stu Emmit William Solomon
Aaron Donald Mickey Antoine
Smith"
"Are you sure that is it?"

"Ma'am if you do not have it
in the correct order or have all
the names spelled correctly
we will be unable to release
the birth certificate."

Wouldn't a DNA test be a simpler
way to find out your baby's daddy?
Naming him after every possible
father means subjecting him to
YEARS of paperwork hassles
and you know everyone will
call him "Sonny" or "Big Daddy"
anyways.
But I am just microfilming and this
has nothing to do with me.

Poem #26

No, you are not missing anything. I just got so far behind that I decided to jump to today's prompt and write backwards. That's what you get when you don't actually set aside a time each day to write your poem-of-the-day;-) But those who know me and love me realize that being random is just part of who I am. So, today's poem is supposed to be titled "I am so over _________". Here is my version.

I am so over teenagers

You look at me with jaded eyes
"Do we have to read more poetry?"
The whine is killing me.

YES!

Poetry today, and poetry tomorrow.
We will read it, write it, comment on it.
Alliteration animates all the asinine
verbiage the rappers throw at you.
Why can't you just try to enjoy a little
Dickinson or William Carlos Williams?

Your hormonally fired synapses
produce the most flagrant abuses
of language. But I accept the
beating if only you will listen
to the Beats or at least The Beatles.

But alas, you are in that most
narcissistic of ages and places.
Perhaps I am asking too much and
should just accept the occasional
gift: "That was hyperbole!"

Poem #19

This prompt was to write about a memory of yourself that you do not remember. Without being able to go back to my family, I chose one of the family stand-bys.

A New Sister

When the small bundle
arrived in my mother's
arms I was not concerned.
When she cried and wailed
and my mother gave her breast
there was nothing to fear.
When she was laid in the
bassinet to sleep
I watched in fascination.
But
When they told me she was
staying, I said,
NO
She can go home now....
Take her back to the hospital.

Poem #18

This prompt required you to include the line "There is no connection." Being at school means that students fall prey to the muse once again.

Teaching Poetry

Adolescents in heat stare at me
glassy-eyed, slack-jawed.

There is no connection.

"What does this haf to do wit us?
Sandberg's confusin'"

There is no connection.

"How can I Listen Actively
if I am reading a book?"

There is no connection.

Impassivity like a dial-tone
droning in my ear.

There is no connection.

Poem #17

This prompt was to write a poem entirely in 3rd person... to take yourself out of it. This one came from my writing today with my students.

They sit in a semi-circle
scribbling away on faded brown
clipboards, the wind playfully
grabbing stray hairs, loose papers,
and untucked shirt tails.

Rounded cheeks, unspotted skin
flaky, chapped lips betray their
concentration while flat chests,
thin limbs proclaim their youth

They write poetry with an intensisty
that comes from a simple place--
"When I am annoyed I am like a
sleeping volcano being interrupted."
"I am IceBerg that dances on water
when the wind puches me."
"Busy as a bee/ who am I supposed to
be, myself or somebody else."