Passed Over

National Poetry Month, Day 17

Passed Over


Overlooked

as a gold coin

buried in the dirt,

as the primary leaf of

a crabgrass plant

in the garden.

 

I feel sad and angry,

questioning my worth,

knowing I shouldn’t care

if I don’t get chosen

for that residency,

or that other residency,

or the last eight residencies

I’ve applied for.

I ask myself: what is it about my work

that makes it get passed over?

is it mediocre , slipshod, shallow?

Or is it me, the old lady,

Who lacks a promising career?

   

Several weeks back I received  an email from the man at the Glen East administration.  I didn’t get a scholarship.  That means I cannot go.   Later I received notice that the whole Glen East Workshop was scrapped this year because of low enrollment.  Glen West is still on,  but I am not even trying for that one.

As old as I am, I am still so vulnerable to the acceptance/rejection of the poetry community.

I have now been rejected for scholarships to at least ten summer residencies:

1.       Yaddo 2013

2.       Dejarassi  1999?

 

 

 

3.       The MacDowell Colony 2011

4.       The Millay Colony 2005?

 

 

5.       The Vermont Studio of the Arts 2011

 

 

 

6.       The NEA  ( twice:  2006 and 2014)

 

 

 

7.       The Sewanee Writers’ Conference (twice: 2012, 2013)

 

 

8.       Hedgebrook 2013

9.       Glen East 2015

 

 

 

10.   Collegeville Institute 2015

 

I think I am giving up trying for residencies.  I think my age militates against me, and my poetry is not of a fashionable style, either. And in some cases, as in the Glen, I think the director just plain doesn’t like me.   Is that paranoid? 

Anyway, this evening I received an invitation from a couple who are old friends, and who have a house in Sea Isle City. We have been trying to get together for several years, and this year it looks like we have a weekend that will work, in mid-May.  So I will look forward to that.

In my superstitious Irish soul, I also think that God doesn’t want me to be winning awards or fellowships or grants because publicity would not be good for me.

 

I need to write a poem about the

Salon des Refuses,

 which was:

Salon des Refusés,  (French: Salon of the Refused), art exhibition held in 1863 in Paris by command of Napoleon III for those artists whose works had been refused by the jury of the official Salon. Among the exhibitors were Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Armand Guillaumin, Johan Jongkind, Henri Fantin-Latour, James Whistler, and Édouard Manet, who exhibited his famous painting “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe,” officially regarded as a scandalous affront to taste.

 

Inquiring Eye

National Poetry Month, Day 16


My eyes have changed over the years, especially since 2003.

In 2003, when I went to the eye doctor for a regular checkup, the doctor discovered I had a "Macular Hole" in my left eye.  This is not the same as Macular Degeneration; it's an injury to the macula of the retina that causes a pucker in the macula, which then pulls a hole in the macula.  If I'd gone for a checkup more regularly, instead of waiting five years to go, this might have been repaired.  But by the time I went, it was really too late.  The retinologist did several surgeries to try and repair it, but they didn't work.  In the process, I developed a detached retina in that eye, which he was able to repair. 

As a result, I have lost the central vision in that eye; still have lots of peripheral vision, though. And since the right eye still works, it compensates, and I can still read and drive and see birds, etc.
But I am very protective of that right eye!

In the last year, in photographs, I have noticed that my impaired left eye now wanders off to the side, so I always look a little cockeyed.  This was an unexpected development!  The photos show the changes:

1970

 

 

                                                                     1979

1995

 

 

2007

 

 

2014

 

 

Interesting: another result of aging:  my eyebrows have gone grey and faded so much that it looks like I have no eyebrows.  

 

 

So.... anyway, this poem came today:

 

 

 

 

Inquiring Eye

 

 

Gluey with pollen’s morning,

cataracts growing like fine mildew,

how long will you see?

how long will you be my seer?

 

Blue of my father’s eye,

will you see with his ninety three years?

will you see people but not know them?

Already your partner is partially blind.

Will you stay true to the end?

 

Still you show me the

eye line of the warbler,

 eye ring of the kinglet.

Still you give me the link to

the brain’s recognition.

 

Shakespeare’s Cornwall cried

Out, vile jelly!

but you are my fragile jelly,

my treasured pearl.

 

 

 

 the eye line of the Cerulean Warbler

 

eye ring of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet

 

 

 

Collect the Day: April Morning

National Poetry Month, Day 15

Halfway through!

( painting:    Daybreak   by J.S. Bird, Eugene OR)

Collect the Day: April Morning

 

 

Distant

plangent thrumming,

thrilling, sonorous,

it starts before dawn, before sunrise,

the languid echoing calls of a thousand robins

into the green grove.

As light arrives,

 maple tree outside my window shows

neon green embryos of leaves.

 

I want to stand

Silent as the Hosta

growing in my garden

imperceptibly,

but larger

every day.

 

 

 ( painting:  Hosta and Grass by Nancy Mueller)

 

 

The Birder's Thanksgiving

 

 

 

National Poetry Month, Day 14

 

 

 

 

I wrote this one in response to the prompt "You are deeply loved by God", for a contest on Allpoetry.com. 

The Birder’s Thanksgiving

 

 

Chipping, White Throat, Fox and Vesper

Welcome Spring with sparrows’ nod.

Daffodils and Tulips whisper

You are deeply loved by God

 

When my loneliness reminds me

Of the wrong paths I have trod

He sends hummingbirds to find me:

I am deeply loved by God.

 

When my heart is sad and tired,

Robins call me from the sod

Morning birdsong frees the mired:

I am deeply loved by God.

                                                        Chipping Sparrow

White Throated Sparrow

 

Fox Sparrow

 

 

 

Vesper Sparrow

 

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

 

 

 

 

Kyrielle on Fabric

 

National Poetry Month, Day 13

 

 

As I struggled to write a poem for today, what came to my mind was fabric.

I was also trying to write in a new form, the kyrielle.  Here is the result:


Kyrielle on Fabric

Fabric fascinates; the feel of

 corduroy can set me glancing

at the nubby textured wool, while

in my satin dress I’m dancing.

 

The feel of tulle can make me smile,

ballerina light advancing.

Soft and smooth attract my touch, but

in my satin dress I’m dancing.

 

Taffeta’s too stiff for much but

 party skirts  and dresses  prancing.

grosgrain ribbons bind me in, though

in my satin dress I’m dancing

 

Polyester scratches me, so

Slippery nylon blouse I’m chancing.

Bright shines its artificial glow:

in my satin dress I’m dancing.

 

                                                                 grosgrain ribbon...

 

taffeta

 

 

 

tulle

 

 

 

shiny nylon

 

 

 

the satin dress!

 

 

 

National Poetry Month, Day 12

 

 

Singing in Parts

I loved belonging to the Glee Club in grade school, high school, and college. We sang in three or four part harmony; I was either an alto or a second soprano.  I found I had an ear for music, and could take a middle part and hold onto it without being lured into the part the singer next to me might be singing.  In high school I also sang in "The Crescendos"  , a mixed group, with SATB parts.

This poem comes from a prompt in the NaPoWriMo site on Allpoetry.com:

Singing in Parts 

Come alone, Baritone.
I will introduce you to Contralto.
She reaches low and high,
rich and throaty,
breathy and languid.
Such music you two will make!
Better than the usual
Serious, Angry, Tedious, Brusque,
you two make music Breathtaking, Chaotic,
music which flows unstoppable
as a mud slide
down the scale of surprise.

The Communion of Saints

 

 

National Poetry Month, Day 11

 

 

The Communion of Saints

 

 

Every Sunday I declare that I believe in it.

Those women torn apart in the Coliseum,

Brigid, whose father was a Druid,

Lioba, almost buried in the same tomb as her cousin Boniface

Therese, the youngest, with her shower of roses.

But also Margaret Slavin Higgins, hugging me in the kitchen,

Fannie Denlinger Kauffman, who died when my mother, her daughter, was seven.

Holy cards don’t do them justice.

On Sundays, I feel their cloudy presence

Which surrounds me like the scent of Spring hyacinths

In the air of the garden,

Thicker, sweeter than incense.