His name was William

     So much excitement at my house this weekend! I had been doing final edits to a manuscript soon to be published. My first traditionally published book, a YA historical novel in verse. That is exciting, but not what I have been carrying on about. When I get like this, so excited I can barely function, the only thing I can do is write. So please let me explain...

     The book is the final culmination of what began as a NaNoWriMo project several years ago. It is the story of the first two elephants to come to America (in succession), and while I did extensive research there was remarkably little material to work with. What is known for certain is that the first elephant came here in 1796 by way of a ship called the America owned by Captain Crowninshield of Salem, Massachusetts and then the elephant went on a walking tour of the infant nation.

      There exists no real information about how that went down; and I often asked

who was the elephant's keeper?

     When a person was referenced it was always the relatively wealthy white male owner, but knowing the history of our country at that time I decided that the correct thing to do was imagine the keeper as an enslaved man. Though my story is fictional I felt that imagining an enslaved keeper was important to accuracy and authenticity. The contributions, often the existance, of black people in America at that time was largely omitted from the historical record. I had no proof, so I knew I was going out on a limb, but I was committed to it. Walking on limbs is what much of my writing requires of me.

     This weekend I discovered, just before the book is to be sent to press, that there is proof. I was right. The elephant keeper was indeed an enslaved man and his name was William. I happened upon a scholarly work called For a Short Time Only: Itinerants and the Resurgence of Popular Culture in America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2016) by Peter Benes who is affiliated with Historic Deerfield. He found mention, in one Providence paper in 1797 to "...William, the black man attending the elephant." (page 147)

     That may seem like a little thing, but to me it is elephantine. The name William means "determined protector". That could not be more perfect for my character. Today I will delete the name I made up for the elephant keeper. His name was, and always shall be, William.

What Was Supposed To Be

         This afternoon I was supposed to be in New Hartford, Connecticut being officially named the Maine Beat Poet Laureate for 2018-2020. I really wanted to be there, mostly to meet the many others traveling from all over the world for the National Beat Poetry Festival. As is so often the case for me, life just didn't cooperate with my plans.

         Had I made it to the festival I was going to read a poem I wrote just for the event. I knew it would be accepted there, that the content would not be questioned.  It won't come off well in print. It is a poem meant to be read aloud. A poem that took decades to come out. A poem that had been hidden in the dark. I'll post it below, if only so that it is finally in the light.

 

220 Myrtle Street

Manchester, New Hampshire

It appeared on my Facebook feed.

A photo and a writeup of things

I didn’t know.

It is an Italianate villa, circa 1867.

It is selling for just under one mill.

It has had only four owners.

And one of them was 

my first molester.

There was a virtual tour

of some 27 pictures

of gorgeous rooms

impeccably decorated

with expertly curated antiques.

But no photos of the attic where

the pedophile music teacher

brought me

and stood me

in a sea of empty violin cases

and lay upon me his big ugly hands

with nails grown long for plucking.

And I thought since I had not yet even

breast buds it could not be sexual

having never been taught

such monsters are among us

or that

my body is my own

or that

I could say no to an adult, a man.

So I let him play me like a violin.

And set me up for decades

of letting my defiled self

be mistreated repeatedly.

And as with that rich white man

I would protect each and every one

from the consequences they deserved.

Until at last, my last,

one was elected to defile my democracy.

And I said at last

               fuck silence

and I climbed down from the attic

screaming Me Too and Times Up

and vote like the God damned lives

of your daughters depend on it.

Because they do.

Easy Lynching ...

     A few days ago I attended a talk given by Presidential inaugural poet Richard Blanco and contemporary landscape photographer Jacob Bond Hessler discussing their collaborative exhibition, “Boundaries,” which is on view at #OMAA the Ogunquit Museum of American Art through October 31, 2018.

    We made our way to Ogunquit in such a dangerous downpour that made the normally beautiful drive downright scary. I took off my shoes to wade though the pop-up rivulets in my bare feet, and shook off inside like a wet dog.  

   wet dog. 
x

     As I tried to see and read the exhibit in the crowded gallery the skies cleared. I saw Richard Blanco step outside to have a smoke wondering if that habit contributes to his deep and resonant reading voice. He soon took his seat with his exhibition partner in front of a glass wall that overlooks the Atlantic. Throughout the talk a rainbow dazzled high over the sea, but he held my attention more than that rare sight.

     Both men explore the idea of what boundaries are and many of the results have historical significance. Of the photo / poem pairings in the exhibit / book I was most moved by Easy Lynching on Herndon Ave. Here is a photo of the photo.

              Look hard and deep and long at it....

     And here is the link to the poem and Blanco discussing it. 

    https://www.wgbh.org/news/2018/01/16/local-news/poet-richard-blanco-grapples-hidden-racism-america

      I couldn't resist buying his children's book (above) and here is a link to the art book which I had to resist buying at $350.

https://www.twopondspress.com/boundaries

July 2018

 
      I had a truly wonderful time teaching a STEAM summer camp at my elementary school. I called it Learning Like Leonardo. Here are a few pics:

Vitruvian girls!

We made paint from natural substances and learned all about the Mona Lisa.

          Created (and munched on) our own
polyhedra.

June 2018

        Here is the culmination of the poetry unit I taught to 4th graders. They presented the books as end-of-the-year gifts to their teachers.

      I combined their study of their home state with a study of poetry. We watched this video a couple of times. 

     The highlight of the experience for me wasn't the creation of these books, it was when, at the end of one long day, when a usually quiet girl came up to me and half whispered, "I found a birch tree in my yard, and I swang from it."

An honor

that I am happy to accept.

Ars Poetica

      This weekend while at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival I attended a workshop entitled Ars Poetica taught by Jennifer Jean, Jennifer Martelli, and Marjorie Tesser. 

      The Poetry Foundation says this about Ars Poetica:

Ars Poetica is

      " A poem that explains the “art of poetry,” or a meditation on poetry using the form and techniques of a poem. Horace’s Ars Poetica is an early example, and the foundation for the tradition.        While Horace writes of the importance of delighting and instructing audiences, modernist ars poetica poets argue that poems should be written for their own sake, as art for the sake of art. Archibald MacLeish’s famous “Ars Poetica” sums up the argument: “A poem should not mean / But be.” "

      Below I'm sharing a bit from Horace's manifesto written in 15 BC. I don't find anything about it poetic. Though I do like this excerpt:

"A good and sensible man will censure spiritless verses, he will condemn the rugged, on the incorrect he will draw across a black stroke with his pen; he will lop off ambitious [and redundant] ornaments; he will make him throw light on the parts that are not perspicuous; he will arraign what is expressed ambiguously; he will mark what should be altered; [in short,] he will be an Aristarchus: he will not say, “Why should I give my friend offense about mere trifles?”

      I'm also sharing the one I wrote in the workshop from a prompt the instructors gave us: "If poetry were a room, what or where would it be?" I suspect it would cause Horace to have a Aristarchustic fit. But I wonder. If only he could join me in the kitchen ...

Ars Poetica

Poetry is the kitchen.

First there is the slipper-clad facing

of the bright light of morning.

Then a harsh grinding of beans

… one takes a few slow sips

whether scalding, warm or weak.

Next comes a gathering at the table;

plates, bowls, cups filled with a ladle that

portions ever so carefully.  Seasoned lightly.

Stirred some, the creation comes to stillness.

Tasted, lovingly with the mouth, the ear, the eye.

Eventually there is satiety. Or compost.

You rise, pat your mouth with a napkin,

pause to ponder something out the window,

and scuff off to another room.

N'Port Lit Fest 2018

       This post is a quick recap of the highlights of my trip to the Newburyport Literary Festival today. I love the festival, and make the trip down every year. There is always far too much to chose from. It is an abundance of riches sprinkled throughout a town that is also.
      In the morning I attended a fun session of middle grade readers interviewing four middle grade authors. I hadn't read any of the books being featured but came away with a strong interest in reading Shadow Weaver by MarcyKate Connolly, and especially Like Vanessa by Tami Charles. It is considered historical fiction set way back in 1983!





     My next session was in the children's room at the Newburyport Public Library where I took some time to check out a few books that caught my fancy.
      I  discovered a picture book that I want to shout about: Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris. I'm going to have to confess that I've never been much of an Eggers Fan. His humor just isn't for me. Well, I have long believed that the best picture books are must reading for adults as well as children, and Her Right Foot is must reading for every American! It is simply brilliant, and the message could not be more important or timely. Please read this book. Here's the trailer:



and something from the Horn Book:

https://www.hbook.com/2018/01/blogs/calling-caldecott/her-right-foot/#_

     After a delicious lunch break eating Al fresco for the first time this year, I attended a session on flash fiction and ended my day with a great big bang of poetry when I attended a reading called The Yoking of Love and Loss given by Rachel Hadas and Mark Doty. Mark's finale reading his poem memorializing Tamir Rice will stay with me forever. Gut wrenching. Here's a link to the poem, but hearing Mark read it is to feel it tenfold.

https://aprweb.org/poems/in-two-seconds

     Thanks to all of the volunteers in Newburyport who made this day possible.

One Could Do Worse ...

     I taught a poetry unit to three fourth-grade classes this month and because they are studying New Hampshire all year I tied the lesson into their study of their home state. I introduced them to Robert Frost, and just one of his poems, Birches, because the birch is the official state tree. We listened to the whole poem several times, but also enjoyed the animated excerpt below.




     Each student generated a cloud of words and phrases in response to other things that are common or iconic in the Granite State,

and eventually they each wrote a poem of place.


     Working with young poets always brings surprising rewards. This time, I unexpectedly found myself coaching the kids to get out in nature and experience her gifts with all of their senses. I shared a poem of mine that resulted from a walk in the woods. I may have been a bit of a scolding nag when it became clear that many of them had never collected rocks, smelled lilacs, or touched a birch tree.

      My great reward came at the end of Friday afternoon when a generally quiet and subdued nine-year-old girl came up to me, and confided in her soft voice, " I found a birch tree in my yard, and I swang from it."

     Poetry to my ears.

On Becoming A Sankofa Scholar

     So many happy and sad moments this week, enough to fill a year really. I'll just touch on a couple here, perhaps the most important.
     My mentor died. That isn't as sad as it sounds. Hers was a long and well-lived life just a few days shy of 94 years, and I am sure she was ready to go. But the void she leaves behind is huge. As I've been looking back on our friendship, I realized that the last time I heard her read a poem it was one of mine. She had chosen one of the poems from my forthcoming book to share at the Portsmouth Poetry Hoot. Suddenly that seems so much more meaningful.
      She was always a champion of my work, and her encouragement helped me find my voice. For some of us that is a hard-fought task. I may not have been able to do it without her. I remember many years ago when she invited me to join the Seacoast Writer's Circle, and how privileged I felt about getting that invitation.       
      She always read my column when I wrote for the local paper having worked in newspapers for many years herself. I knew if she praised something I had written I had done well. She was not one for false praise and any word of criticism was always kind and constructive. Both gifts of great consequence and I am so grateful for all of the gifts that she gave me.
      There is still a voicemail on my phone from her. I just listened to it again. She recommends a book to me, tells me that my poems "stayed with her" and suggests that I throw a "publication party".

Pat and I are bookends in this photo (taken by Pavel Pyndrys) at a reading at Gibson's Bookstore in Concord, NH, 2014, for The Widows' Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival.



      I found the note she wrote to me a few years ago when she read an early draft of my almost-finally-finished novel. Here is one paragraph:

     "You may originally have intended to tell the story of the life of Ona Judge Staines, but the book meta-morphed into something much more significant and powerful. What you have done was take two major social issues from the late colonial period and the early years of the new nation - slavery and racism - and explore them as they impacted the lives of two very different but interconnected individuals - George Washington, the most esteemed American of his day, and Ona Judge Staines, the escaped Mount Vernon slave who lived her life in the shadows."

      I do wish I had a chance to tell her about a recent high - That I have been named a Sankofa Scholar. I bet she would agree that is the best title ever! I was asked to write and start giving The Ona Judge Staines tour for the NH Black Heritage Trail in Portsmouth (May through October). I know she would have loved that news, and she likely didn't know that she was instrumental in me getting to this place.
       I know too, she wouldn't want me to be sad at her passing. She would want me to get back to work. My very best work.
       So off I go. Less one champion.

http://blackheritagetrailnh.org/about-us/

More About Georgia

      I have spent a couple of weeks sleeping under the starry skies at Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, and toured her home in nearby Abiquiu. I rode by horseback out to some of the places where she sat and painted, and I have looked longingly at her beloved Pedernal. Here at home I have studied her art, have cooked a few of her recipes, and of course, I have read and written about her. So I thought I had a fairly good idea of who she was.

     So I was pleasantly surprised at how much more I learned about her personality at the current Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) exhibit about her. My companion thought it odd to have so many of her outfits included in the show, but they really do communicate much about her. The show really conveys how very strong, unique and defiant O'Keeffe was, and how artistry was part of every aspect of her life, not just something shown in the well known paintings she produced. Here is how the PEM describes the show followed by my pics:


Georgia O'Keeffe: Art, Image, Style is the first exhibition to explore the art, image and personal style of one of America’s most iconic artists. O’Keeffe’s understated and carefully designed garments, many never before exhibited, are presented alongside photographs and her paintings, illuminating O’Keeffe’s unified modernist aesthetic and distinctive self-styling. For more than 70 years, O’Keeffe shaped her public persona, defied labels and carved out a truly progressive, independent life in order to create her art. Her aesthetic legacy — compact masses, organic silhouettes, minimal ornamentation, and restrained color palettes — continues to capture the popular imagination and inspire leading designers and tastemakers of our day.

 Georgia's self designed and handmade wardrobe!

and here is Andy Warhol's take on G O'K.

A Black History Post

      For almost a decade now I have been working, in my writing and in my museum work, to make the story of American history more honest and accurate. Beyond making a few people uncomfortable, I haven't made much impact. Yet.
       I will persist.

       I am no longer working regularly in museums, but I still visit them frequently. Last weekend I visited the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem, Massachusetts. I am fond of this museum, and tour it at least once a year. It is a beautiful space with art from all over the world that is expertly curated and always impressive. My daughter and I had gone down specifically for the Georgia O"Keeffe exhibit (I'll post about that later), but this time I noticed there wasn't much going on at the museum in celebration of Black History Month. Nothing at all that I could see. (In fairness, the PEM does have an extensive collection of African Art but it is not currently on view.)
      And it got me to thinking, how easy it would be to remedy that, especially in the American Art wing where I found this:

     While it was noted (in the small marker pictured above) what was most noteworthy about the people featured in the large portraits, I wondered how relatively easy it would be for the museum to make other connections to black history in the American Art wing with similar markers, or maybe something more eye-catching. I am sure there are countless, fascinating connections that could and should be made to African Americans both well known and unknown as well as to events related to black history in the art pieces on exhibit in that wing, and all of them could be noted near the art as was done here with the Phillis Wheatley connection. 

      We went on a tour of three historical houses that the PEM maintains, and the tours were also completely bereft of black history. I asked the tour guide what she knew of one of the house's history of slaves and servants, and she quickly replied there was none, telling me the date that slavery was abolished in Massachusetts which was a good half century after the house was built. I'm not insisting that the house owners were slave owners but I certainly question it. Either way it is simply not possible that the three houses we toured have no black history to share. Salem played a major role in the slave trade, from shipping fish to the West Indies to feed the enslaved there, to sending and financing slave ships back and forth across the seas. 

       It is important, critically important, to tell these stories. As I have told people I've worked with at history museums in New Hampshire and Maine, if we are not telling the whole story than we are not telling the truth. Historians can't cherry-pick the history they tell. The public is entitled to the truth. The public wants the truth. The public needs the truth.

      As a teacher I think of bringing children of color into these public spaces and it makes me angry. We can do better. Much better. Not just in February, but February is certainly a time to be examining what visitors see and hear.

      And just so I'm not singling out the PEM for criticism, I am disappointed to add that we had an early dinner at a restaurant nearby called Turner's Seafood that I chose because it was housed in a  historic building. I was hoping to learn some of its history when we visited, but found none inside nor on the restaurant's website. Later research shows that it too, has a significant history to share and is listed as site #3 of African American Heritage Sites in Salem as chosen by the National Park Service who notes: 

3. Salem Lyceum 43 Church Street

    The Salem Lyceum opened in 1831, and its rows of banked seats quickly filled with residents of Salem eager to watch demonstrations, lectures, and concerts. Nationally known artists, politicians, philosophers, and scientists, including Daniel Webster, Alexander Graham Bell, and Ralph Waldo Emerson came to speak in the building. Many activists in the abolitionist movement came to the Lyceum as well, such as William Lloyd Garrison. In December 1865, Frederick Douglass lectured in the hall on the assassination of President Lincoln. 

      The Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society The hall was also used for meetings and lectures by the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society, whose members included the noted African American abolitionists Charlotte Forten and Sarah Parker Remond. Charles Lenox Remond gave the Society’s anniversary address in 1844 and was frequently asked to speak as part of the Society’s ongoing lecture series.

       How I wish I had known that while we were in the building. Apparently we missed this plaque rushing to get in out of the cold.

     It feels a tad ironic to me that the hall's original mission was to supplement those with incomplete educations and that the first lecture given there was entitled "The Advantages of Knowledge." 

       

       Last weekend I was most fortunate to attend a meeting of Maine Women Authors #MeWA which is a group that gets together on a regular basis at varying locations. This meeting was memorable because of where it took place.
     Thanks to the efforts of a member, Professor Elizabeth  De Wolfe, we met at the Maine Women's Authors Collection wing of the library at the University of New England in Portland. We were given a tour of the collection, and it is beautiful and inspiring, as a place to visit briefly and a place to work for hours.
     Now added to my ever-expanding bucket list is to someday have my work included in the collection! For now it was heart-warming to see friends like Jane Cowen-Fletcher and Betsy Sholl on the shelves.
     Here is a mini-tour for you:

 The space, inside and outside, that houses the collection is beautiful.

 All genres of writing are represented in the collection.

 This gun belonged to author Josephine Peary, wife of Admiral Peary.

This table belonged to May Sarton.

 Sarah Orne Jewett.

 Old and new works, some rare, are preserved and protected.

 Just loved everything about the collection!

A new volunteer gig ...

       I started a new volunteer job this weekend. Not that I really have any spare time, but that has never been the criteria that I use when accepting volunteer positions. Volunteer work should be a labor of love, and this one is like a perfect storm of my interests, and if I may so so, a good use of my skills.

        For a couple of hours each week, I am working as a transcriptionist of the Anti-slavery Collection of Distinction at the Boston Public Library. I am one of a large team of volunteers that reads original documents, and types in a transcription which will eventually be made public for easy reading by anyone, anywhere..

      More details can be found here:

https://www.antislaverymanuscripts.org/about

     I think I need better eyeglasses!!

WRAD