Two Prose Poems About Common Objects
A wooden box without a bottom, solid on top except for an oval hole in the middle. It probably has a name, but I know it as a cover to hold down the kleenex box while I pluck tissues from its stomach.
_____
Standing in your base, a sentinel of sanitation, light blinking under soft button while charging, steady when charged. You serve your purpose when I pick you up, anoint you with the sacred cream, and stick you in my mouth.
_______
Two more poems on the topic of lost and found:
A flake
of something white and papery
fell from the heavens
into my lap
as I sat at the front of the church,
casting about
for a way
to stanch the bleeding
of a scab I'd just picked.
______
When I finally got around to watching the movie Rent,
it included a wedding scene
in a sanctuary I used to know
like the back of my hand.
It had been decades
since I'd helped lead services there,
or sung in the choir.
Seeing that old familiar place
was like a cool breeze
from a younger sky.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
How I Got to Read My Writing on Public Radio
I write twice a month with a group of people led by a published non-fiction writer and editor. After we had been together for a month or two, the leader, Kathy, suggested that I try to get one of my pieces on the radio, the Perspectives spot on KQED FM. I'd heard one or two Perspectives - I'm seldom listening to the radio at the times they are aired - and had thought to myself: I could do that.
Whether I could write something radio-worthy was my main concern; I'd done enough public speaking and acting that I enjoy interpreting my pieces aloud. I looked up the submission guidelines for a Perspective, and let the thought fade away.
About two weeks ago, though, all the pieces came together. I had chosen to participate in a vigil, march, and demonstration concerning a questionable police killing. The pastor who had conducted the funeral and I both belonged to an interfaith community organizing group. When he told me about the event, I volunteered to either supply a rabbi to participate in the prayers or to come and do so myself, to show Jewish support. Although I'm not formally trained as a rabbi or cantor, I've led dozens of services at my synagogue. Since the event was on a Friday evening, I couldn't find a rabbi, so I donned my yarmulke and prayer shawl and came myself.
That was April 24. On the 27th, I was in a different writing class and wrote three paragraphs about the event and how I felt about the spate of police killings that's dominated the news lately. Kind of a vignette about the march and a little rant against senseless killings.
On the 28th, I read the stuff to my writing group at Kathy's. She told me that someone who had come to our public reading on the 13th had told her that she loved my works and how I read them, and that I belong on NPR. This time, I absorbed the compliment and assessment of my writing, and another member of the group looked up the submission guidelines and gave me the name and email I needed to submit the piece.
I went home and, the next day, emailed an edited version to KQED, and left a message on the editor's phone mail so he could hear my voice.
Two days later, on Friday May 1, he sent me an email accepting the piece and asking me to make it longer. I did so. I read it aloud to him over the phone, and now it was too long. He edited it a bit, and decided to air it the following Tuesday. He instructed me to contact the station and make an appointment to record it at the studio on Monday. I did so, excited out of my mind.
And immediately my body hit the panic button with a sore throat that turned into a head cold over the weekend. Monday I called the editor to be sure they would let me do the recording. My voice was cloudy and lower-pitched, but still serviceable. He said to go ahead.
I didn't want to spread the news of my success until after I'd made the recording, at which point I could be fairly confident that the universe wouldn't snatch the victory out of my hands.
So, after I finished recording an acceptable take of the piece, I got on Facebook and spread the word. Congratulations poured in from friends from all sectors of my life: synagogue, DIFO, SFOP/PIA, fellow writers, a former co-worker, and other contacts going back to my college and junior high years. I was so jazzed by the taping that my hands were shaking for hours afterwards, and I could hardly sleep that night.
Not only did I get to read my piece on the radio, but the tape and transcript of the piece, and a picture of me, are archived on KQED.org. Here's the link to Perspectives; my piece is dated May 5, 2015. www.kqed.org/radio/programs/perspectives/
My internal committee is flabbergasted. One voice, the one that had said "I can do that," is now saying, "I told you so. Why did it take you so long to do it?"
Another voice marvels that I was able to sell a piece of my creative writing to KQED on my first try. Most writers have to shop their stuff around enough to collect a pile of rejection slips.
A third voice says that I do well with short writings. I'd already published several prayers in my synagogue's prayerbook. I might take forever to write a novel and another eternity to sell it, but I can turn out several of my little creative non-fictions in an hour or so. So their number alone increases the odds that I'll kick out something interesting to someone.
And another voice suggests that spending over a decade writing little pieces for my blog (and another decade before that writing pieces for Mothertongue Feminist Readers' Theater), not to mention a 31-year career in technical writing and editing, may also have contributed to the quality of my work.
So now it's the day after my piece aired. I listened to one airing live, and recorded the last airing on my DVR for future reference. It's so cool hearing real radio announcers say my name, correctly.
I went to a brunch, a rehearsal, and a meeting of that writing group yesterday, where I shared with them the events of the past week. It was a full and draining day. Now my cold is worse, with a cough and my voice is really bad. Sure glad it waited until today to fall apart. I hear a nap calling my name.
Whether I could write something radio-worthy was my main concern; I'd done enough public speaking and acting that I enjoy interpreting my pieces aloud. I looked up the submission guidelines for a Perspective, and let the thought fade away.
About two weeks ago, though, all the pieces came together. I had chosen to participate in a vigil, march, and demonstration concerning a questionable police killing. The pastor who had conducted the funeral and I both belonged to an interfaith community organizing group. When he told me about the event, I volunteered to either supply a rabbi to participate in the prayers or to come and do so myself, to show Jewish support. Although I'm not formally trained as a rabbi or cantor, I've led dozens of services at my synagogue. Since the event was on a Friday evening, I couldn't find a rabbi, so I donned my yarmulke and prayer shawl and came myself.
That was April 24. On the 27th, I was in a different writing class and wrote three paragraphs about the event and how I felt about the spate of police killings that's dominated the news lately. Kind of a vignette about the march and a little rant against senseless killings.
On the 28th, I read the stuff to my writing group at Kathy's. She told me that someone who had come to our public reading on the 13th had told her that she loved my works and how I read them, and that I belong on NPR. This time, I absorbed the compliment and assessment of my writing, and another member of the group looked up the submission guidelines and gave me the name and email I needed to submit the piece.
I went home and, the next day, emailed an edited version to KQED, and left a message on the editor's phone mail so he could hear my voice.
Two days later, on Friday May 1, he sent me an email accepting the piece and asking me to make it longer. I did so. I read it aloud to him over the phone, and now it was too long. He edited it a bit, and decided to air it the following Tuesday. He instructed me to contact the station and make an appointment to record it at the studio on Monday. I did so, excited out of my mind.
And immediately my body hit the panic button with a sore throat that turned into a head cold over the weekend. Monday I called the editor to be sure they would let me do the recording. My voice was cloudy and lower-pitched, but still serviceable. He said to go ahead.
I didn't want to spread the news of my success until after I'd made the recording, at which point I could be fairly confident that the universe wouldn't snatch the victory out of my hands.
So, after I finished recording an acceptable take of the piece, I got on Facebook and spread the word. Congratulations poured in from friends from all sectors of my life: synagogue, DIFO, SFOP/PIA, fellow writers, a former co-worker, and other contacts going back to my college and junior high years. I was so jazzed by the taping that my hands were shaking for hours afterwards, and I could hardly sleep that night.
Not only did I get to read my piece on the radio, but the tape and transcript of the piece, and a picture of me, are archived on KQED.org. Here's the link to Perspectives; my piece is dated May 5, 2015. www.kqed.org/radio/programs/perspectives/
My internal committee is flabbergasted. One voice, the one that had said "I can do that," is now saying, "I told you so. Why did it take you so long to do it?"
Another voice marvels that I was able to sell a piece of my creative writing to KQED on my first try. Most writers have to shop their stuff around enough to collect a pile of rejection slips.
A third voice says that I do well with short writings. I'd already published several prayers in my synagogue's prayerbook. I might take forever to write a novel and another eternity to sell it, but I can turn out several of my little creative non-fictions in an hour or so. So their number alone increases the odds that I'll kick out something interesting to someone.
And another voice suggests that spending over a decade writing little pieces for my blog (and another decade before that writing pieces for Mothertongue Feminist Readers' Theater), not to mention a 31-year career in technical writing and editing, may also have contributed to the quality of my work.
So now it's the day after my piece aired. I listened to one airing live, and recorded the last airing on my DVR for future reference. It's so cool hearing real radio announcers say my name, correctly.
I went to a brunch, a rehearsal, and a meeting of that writing group yesterday, where I shared with them the events of the past week. It was a full and draining day. Now my cold is worse, with a cough and my voice is really bad. Sure glad it waited until today to fall apart. I hear a nap calling my name.
Saturday, May 2, 2015
A Morning Ritual
When I leave the house, I usually pray a Thank You song to God, for the morning and each new day, for friends and family, for my occupations, for every small pleasure, for music, light, and gladness. I pray thanks for folks who aggravate or intimidate me, and pray that I not be the one doing the aggravating or intimidating, and that I continue to grow into my role in the human family. I've always felt different and other, having social anxiety and abandonment issues.
I pray this prayer (sing it sometimes, when I'm alone in the car) to prepare myself for the day: to set my mind to notice good things, to set my heart open to other people, to counter my natural pessimism with a hint of hope, to at least acknowledge a possibility that the universe can be a friendly place and that I can both enjoy and contribute to it.
I pray this prayer (sing it sometimes, when I'm alone in the car) to prepare myself for the day: to set my mind to notice good things, to set my heart open to other people, to counter my natural pessimism with a hint of hope, to at least acknowledge a possibility that the universe can be a friendly place and that I can both enjoy and contribute to it.
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