Stasis to Radiance: April Celebrations at Feral Mom

Tania Pryputniewicz
Photo Patrick Lizza

Occidental Center for the Arts November Butterfly Poetry/Movie/Art Launch Success

What a busy month—crowned by a beautiful weekend in Sonoma County at Occidental Center for the Arts. I’ll be posting video footage from the event later when we edit it (thanks to Peter Pryputniewicz and Patrick Lizza on camera), but for now, I wanted to share this photo taken by the banks of Austin Creek in the green heart of Russian River land. Patrick and my poetry movie collaborator Robyn Beattie helped me overcome some stage fright. Though the takes of the title poem, November Butterfly, were trumped by nature’s rushing water, reciting the poem so many times for the camera made for a no-nerves live performance in front of my home crowd (with my father on piano). I feel the photo captures my love for words and the river.

Photo Robyn Beattie
Cover Design Don Mitchell

Tweetspeak Poetry Reviews November Butterfly

I came home to San Diego to a new review of November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014) by Glynn Young (thank you Tweetspeak!). Young chose to focus on the poem, Mordred’s Dream, a Refusal from the Camelot section of the book:

In the poem, Mordred is refusing his mother’s demand that he betray Arthur. But the fact that the title indicates this is a dream, and the subtitle “A Refusal” doesn’t preclude a later acceptance, moves the figure of Mordred into a different place. He knows what she is asking is a terrible wrong, even if it is “only” a dream. –Glynn Young, Poets and Poems: Tania Pryputniewicz and November Butterfly, Tweetspeak Poetry

You can read rest of review here: Poetry From Poets and Poems: Tania Pryputniewicz and November Butterfly. Tweetspeak offers a rich newsletter, ongoing poetry prompts, and a diverse and lively comment community should you be looking for conversation and inspiration. Tweetspeak is looking for poems about blue jeans...read about it here, post your poem in their comments: Show Us Your (Poetry) Jeans.

Tarot Writing Class Forming: Wheel of Archetypal Selves: Hanged One to Star

We just finished a rich and fertile trek through Wheel of Archetypal Selves: Lovers to Strength, focusing on Arcanum VI to Arcanum XI. Join me May 18 for the next Wheel of Archetypal Selves Tarot Writing course, Stasis to Radiance: Hanged One to Star (Arcanum XII to Arcanum XVII). We spend one week on each Major, writing to our associations and considering the interpretations of a variety of Tarot scholars. We journal our way closer to a lived understanding of the cards, sometimes writing essays, poetry, or reveries of unnamed form. Our new class is taking shape as we speak; join us online. To sign up, visit Story Circle Network: Wheel of Archetypal Selves: Hanged One to Star.

Liz Brennan and Tania Pryputniewicz

Call for Atlas of Goodbyes at Perhaps, Maybe

Liz Brennan is looking for prose poem submissions for her Atlas of Goodbye Series. Here’s a link to the first one she wrote, Atlas of Goodbye #1, which begins:

"Perhaps I feel your absence today in a loosening lull in the rain after a clap of thunder shakes the upper windows..."

And a link to the one I wrote, starring, at his request, my husband: Atlas of Goodbye #2, which begins:

"Perhaps I feel your absence more keenly beside you four months before we marry in February chill of river house..."

And a link to one by Tess P., Atlas of Goodbyes #3:

"Perhaps it is a small gesture that we practice saying goodbye to you in this way--you are everywhere: postcards, baseball hats, sweatshirts, tote bags, water bottles, coffee cups, Christmas cards and so on..."

Please do write and send one in to Liz!

Sculpture Sandy Frank
Poem by Tania Pryputniewicz

Poetry Sculpture: Sandy Frank’s work at the Annual California Clay Competition, Davis

Sculpture by Sandy Frank will be featured in a show at Davis, California this coming weekend, May 1-3,  for the 26 Annual California Clay Competition Exhibit. Reception: Friday, May 1st, 7-9 p.m. Visit The Artery’s website for more details.

Sculpture by Frank includes this one featuring the poem Someone,  published in November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014).

If in Davis, stop in and support her work. Here’s a link to my web page where you’ll find notes about our process of sculpture/poetry collaboration and a few more photos of Sandy's poetry sculptures, including one using the words from Selke and Seer sections of the poem A Maritime Trilogy, also published in November Butterfly: Collaborations for Bread. 

Extract(s) selects three Poems from November Butterfly:

Veil, Veil II and Transport will appear at Extract(s) later in May; I will post a link as soon as it goes live. May 11 update: Poems live: Guinevere reflects on her abduction, Guinevere to Lancelot, and Lancelot Grieves in Veil, Veil II and Transport.

Edith O'Nuallain

Mother Writer Mentor

New post is up by Edith O’ Nuallain, across the sea from her home in Ireland; her post is all about Mining the Unbliss of Motherhood and the realities of forging a writer’s identity while raising children. 

Edith writes: "I used to imagine that all my favourite female saints and mystics, those dead fore-sisters from the paeans of my Catholic childhood were rushing past me, brushing my lips, my cheeks, my hair with the vestiges of their silent presence. Then I felt as if I was flying, soaring through the skies of my imagined paradise..." 

Read rest of her post here: Mining the Unbliss of Motherhood and do stop and leave her a comment, or write us your own guest post and let us know how you stay sane, thrive, love your children, and love your way to your own writing.

Big Honor For Russian River Girl: Mordred’s Dream Live at Poetry Flash

Growing up on the Russian River meant…

 …hide and seek in the redwood trees, crouching in the dank amber of crushed rotting bark inside of a stump…

..the sound of canoe paddles in the hands of clumsy tourists all summer long, crescendo of misguided directions issued by paddlers facing one another, canoe spiraling, shrieks of laughter and blame prefacing the inevitable capsizing…handcuffed sixpacks of beer, bikini tops, and sunscreen swirling past…

 …mentors like Scott Kersnar (of Hot Curtain Revue) giving you a column in the Russian River News to co-write with your best friend and keeping after you both to write it…

 …teachers (thriving despite our tiny row of portables that made up Monte Rio School back then) like Marcia Napier, Jill of all trades, counseling and feeding the minds and souls of her wayward tribe of river kids…

Former Monte Rio School Mural

 …winning the Nelson 5000, slogging along Moscow Road with a string of hot, hungry kids and being handed a trophy for winning the girls’ division by a man who would become your grandfather-in-law 20 years later…

 

 …and last but not least, the gift and grace of a musician/wordsmith father, keeper of the dream of the All Night Polish Bakery, piano tuner by day, who gave me my first subscription, when I was a teen, to Poetry Flash.

 It means so much to me today to have Mordred’s Dream featured on Poetry Flash’s website. The poem is forthcoming in November Butterfly (November 2014, Saddle Road Press).

The image featured here is from the poetry micro-movie Robyn Beattie and I made of Mordred’s Dream with gratitude for Michael Greenberg (recording studio), Lori O’Hara on flute (that’s Telemann’s Sonata in F Major she’s playing for us) and the voice of Ben Greenberg.

 

Photo by Robyn Beattie

I was recovering from a cold the day we went to record; though I managed barely to get through Guinevere’s Corridor, when Michael’s son Ben Greenberg happened to pass through the house that day, we grabbed him and asked him if he’d just give a read through. I’m indebted—he did a beautiful job as Mordred.

Additional notes:

Poetry Flash rescheduled our cancelled June 2014 reading (power outage on the block) for November 11, 2014 at Moe's Bookstore at 7:30 p.m. I will announce it again closer to then, and also see my Events page for updates...sure to be an exciting time, as the book comes out November 1, and once again I will be honored to be reading alongside Ruth Thompson and Michelle Wing.

Photo by Lisa Rizzo

Other heartening news: Thumbelina, which recently appeared on the Lithomobilus platform used by Zoetic Press, has been nominated by NonBinary Review for the Sundance Press Publications Best of the Net anthology. Here is a link to the open letter from the editors, in which they give excerpts from nominees from the Fairytale Issue and discuss why they chose the work: NonBinary Review. And here is a link to the poetry micro-movie we made for Thumbelina and a link to the free app at Zoetic Press where  you can get NonBinary Review's Fairytale issue (iOS 7, compatible with ipad).

With love and gratitude for all the river kids I grew up with, and all the teachers and parents keeping an eye out on us all the best they could (even as we did our best to dodge them most of the time). What do you remember about growing up on the river?

My Bicycle, My Chariot and The Angel Tree: Writing Despite Chaos

Amos Robinson, My Bike, Tidelands Collection
www.portofsandiego.org

Oh my bicycle—

Forgotten Chariot, spin

Me across Earth’s loom…

I got back on my bicycle this month thanks to the misadventures of April. Though I’m blessed to only be bound by one appointment a week (teaching a night blogging class), I’ve been at the mercy of new variations on the chaos the kids typically reserve for outwitting homework and undermining chore schedules. And it has me second guessing pursuing my writing life outside the house.

When the kids were little I could pretty much perfect a day’s trajectory and control outcomes. Strollers give you walking restraining systems. Cars, car-seats. You see, hear, and smell your little people twenty-four-seven, for better or for worse. You just don’t go anywhere without a sticky chubby hand or three holding yours.



Silver Strand Nature Discovery Trail, words by Edith Purer

But now I have a very new teen, a tween, and the youngest long since out of diapers. My teen was set to fly alone on a teaching day when the spiral started with a last minute flight delay, husband working a night shift. I had just enough time to walk my kiddo to the gate and trust her to board within the hour. I popped in to a coffee-shop, scanning the kid-list in my mind for reassurance: one son at soccer practice with instructions to bike to the neighbor after, the other with a friend, and the teen happily Instagramming Selfies and eating Starburst at the airport gate.

As I stirred brown sugar into my coffee, I relaxed into the music coming out over the speakers: gentle guitar, a woman’s voice I couldn’t place, and the refrain, “Don’t pick a fight with a poet”(a song by Madeleine Peyroux I'm in love with now...link takes you to a montage on Youtube).

 

I’m feeling smug, that’s right, don’t get between a poet and her words. It takes the length of the song for me to fully relax into adult land. Two hours later, on an inspiration high from brainstorming with my bloggers, I glance down at my phone to see I’ve missed five calls. My girl mixed up her destination cities, missed her boarding call, could I come pick her up. Followed by one last “Never mind” message--she was boarding a back-up flight.

My mom friends came to my emotional rescue (swiftly as Jagger’s fine Arab chargers) attempting to staunch the hemorrhage of mother guilt. Don’t take it so hard to heart, they said, this experience will give your daughter the opportunity to troubleshoot without you. They’re right--later my girl gleefully recounts the short journey from Lost to VIP. She asked for help, got an escorted tour of secret passageways between gates, and made it to her final destination in one piece.

Every time I think some kind of artificial boundary exists between my family life and my writing life (as if!), I learn again that they are inextricably braided. Earlier that afternoon, rushing to get my son across the school parking lot, so anxious to get on the road to the airport, I’d stopped in my tracks in front of a tree covered in pale grey curled layers of bark furling back on themselves. A writer’s dream of a tree offering its harvest of scrolls to the human eye. Some furls were soft, outer texture that of moth wings or wasp nests. Other furls were hard. That’s my son’s hand in the photo…we both lingered.

I took one more parting photo on the fly, and love how the tree seems to be dancing.

When I showed the photos to my friend Barbara Rockman (author of the poetry collection Sting and Nest), she tells me a childhood story about climbing her first tree. Which prompts me to ask...What is your tree story? Your tree poem? Which tree do you call home?

When my next teaching day rolls around, I’m thinking no problem—I can do this. No one has a flight to catch, I just need to teach a two hour class. But unfortunately, we find ourselves down a car—the van remains on the aerial jack at the shop awaiting new brakes and my husband has the night shift again. I’m set to hop on my bicycle to ride the five miles to town when my son comes to me clutching his throat. Something about a splinter in his throat…which turns out to be a sunflower seed wedged behind his tonsils.

Nothing my husband can’t eventually handle with a wooden spoon and salad tongs, though I’m not there to witness this practical tweaking of a favorite motto my husband has taught our family (improvise, adapt, overcome).  Next time we’ll just hit Intermediate Care (where we’d taken the youngest several weeks prior after he took an exuberant leap onto, and through, a hard plastic car travelling case. Withdrawing his leg left him with an eye-shaped tear below the knee which the doctor stapled shut for us, no problem).

Silver Strand Nature Discovery Trail, words by Edith Purer

Right or wrong, I rush once again out of the house, this time to the din of a gagging child. My savvy traveler, the teen back from her trip, sees me and says, “You’re teaching in that? You can’t wear that…” as if our roles were reversed, as if I were wearing a bikini to the library instead of modest blue striped sweats. No choice but to roll a dress around a pair of sandals, all the while muttering something about what else could possibly go wrong. In the garage, I discover my bicycle has a flat, so it’s off to ride on my son’s bike, knees skimming what’s left of my chest after breastfeeding those three kids when they were babies.

Then I’m free, loosed out into the elements on my chariot with a burning set of thighs, a fierce headwind, and the open miles of path along the Strand’s Discovery Nature Trail, the promise of bright minds in town on the other end.

I cycle to teach

Dusk and a dress on my back,

Spare shoes. Lessons too.

Related links:

I wrote the two haiku in this post in the Haiku Room, (a Facebook group of poets creating content while they play). Here are a few blogposts  in alphabetical order written by participating poets about various kinds of haiku joy:

Pam Helberg: X is for April Haiku Review
Lisa Rizzo, includes 17 haiku: Can you Haiku?
Ruth Thompson: The Haiku Room
Ellen Tumivacus: Thinking in Haiku

At Transformative Blogging: a guest post by Erica Goss: Fairytales, Facebook and Poetry Prompts about the way her book of poetry Prompts, Vibrant Words, grew out of her regular postings of prompts on Facebook. Also includes a beautiful poem of hers and a way for you to think about fairytales to inspire your writing.

June poetry reading:

I'm heading back to my home roots in Sonoma County this summer, and will be reading with Michelle Wing and Ruth Thompson at Moe's in Berkeley at the invitation of Poetry Flash. Would so love to see you there.

June 19, 2014
7:30 -9:30 p.m.

Link to event information and a map up at Poets and Writers.

In the works:

Ceramic handprint by Orion James, photo Robyn Beattie

Photo poem montage to accompany the poem Mordred’s Dream. The text of the poem is forthcoming online at Poetry Flash in May (and will also appear in my first poetry book, November Butterfly, due out in November 2014 from Saddle Road Press). Robyn and I are busy putting images to the soundtrack we recorded several  years ago (syncing beautiful flute by Lori O’Hara to sound recording of her stepson Ben Greenberg reading the poem for us).

Half-way through the micro-movie draft, our Siberian husky escaped from her bath. Somehow in her mad dash through the house, shaking and flinging water droplets everywhere, she hooked a pair of my daughter’s jeans across her back. When she swirled past me, the jeans snagged the power plug to my laptop and crashed the project.

T with Sisu, crasher of the poetry movie

But we now have a restored full working draft...I’m including one of the opening images here. I adore making these movies and feel so blessed to have Robyn’s eyes…she continues to expand my world by taking photos as she goes about her rich art-walk, camera ever in tow. She gives me the opportunity to congregate visually with artists I've yet to meet. I'll be sure to give you the link to our complete movie. To see the five other micro movies we made for Nefertiti, Lady Diana, Amelia, and Guinevere, visit my Youtube channel. To see more of Robyn's amazing photos: www.robynbeattie.com.

And here's the latest Perhaps, Maybe, written in collaboration with the lovely Liz Brennan:
Attempting the Impossible.