Two Thoughts Converged (No Yellow Wood Needed)

This morning I was reading on CNN's blog about slam poetry and how it seems to be darker in content but still works to empower the poet by allowing an outlet. This story followed a girl who would've been lost (most likely) to a life of crime or drugs if she hadn't been given an alternative view point.

So then I had this other thought: why do we tend to save or prevent in our society? Not that this is a bad thing! But it seems that once we see someone fall (or fail), we leave them to their own devices (either by outcasting to the fringes of society or imprisoning). I don't think there's a snowball's chance that there are any poetry programs in our prison system currently going. If you know of one, give me a shout.

I'm now kind of fascinated by the idea. I've always been interested in the prisons that use horses to rehabilitate prisoners (although I don't think rehab is the right word - it's more of a way of giving an alternate option that a person didn't know existed before and this may very well be that his or her world was isolated into one world view). There are prisons that garden. Prisons that dance.

Shouldn't there be prisons that get their poetry on?

By the way - sorry for the long absence. I've been reading like no one's business. Will update on the good books for your library soul soon! I've almost finished. I hate to finish. I'm torn between knowing and not knowing!

Sure, I'd Marry My Cat.

Some are aware of the bond between one of my cats and myself. Others discover that shortly after meeting me. In perhaps the oddest self-revelation of my time in a staff meeting (the first being when I accidentally said the word "erection" instead of "correction" when requesting that folks send me their, well, corrections) I may have mentioned that, in no uncertain terms, I would be very pleased to marry my cat if such a union were legal and not considered weird.

Her name is Dakota. She is the Best Cat Ever. That is her title. As in, if she had business cards, they would read "Dakota, Best Cat Ever." She was a rescue about ten years ago when I was working in a high kill shelter and began my passion for volunteering for homeless animals. It was truly love at first sight. She had been brought in by the Animal Control truck in a feral cat cage and was being sent straight to the gas chamber. The driver wasn't wasting any time in dispatching her. As luck would have it, she caught the eye of another employee who saw she was not at all distressed the way feral cats typically are at being trapped. She was hungry.

She made her way into a cat cage and got a meal. She immediately put her two front paws on me when I opened her cage door to pet her and purred for a belly rub. She was adopted within the week.

Now, here is where my faith in humanity breaks down a bit. The people who adopted her brought her back because the vet discovered she was pregnant. They didn't want kittens. Rather than abort the fetuses, they decided to bring her back. The kill rate of the shelter at that time was hovering around 80%. They were told this. I do not understand the concept that some people hold that abortion is wrong for a cat but leaving her to die a certain death is not a crime of some nature.

I took Dakota home and she had those kittens within a week. On my pillow. Which I may or may not still have. Only two were born alive; the other three were undeveloped. Lucy was born first, then Goose. As I write, Lucy is kneading the comforter on the bed and Goose is skulking around downstairs. I took in another kitten around the same time who was malnourished and in need of extra care. Her name is Sammie and she is probably under the bed.

I love all the cats, but none hold the place that Dakota holds. She is my soul kitty mate. I'm already preparing myself mentally for a year of mourning when she does finally die, although she's had three narrow escapes so far. (The third was immediately after she gave birth and lapsed into a coma-like state where they had to remove a good bit of her insides and she was touch and go for a week.)

I may have mentioned my quandary about what to do with Dakota's body when she does pass away at the ill-fated staff meeting. I truly have no idea whether I should simply have her cremated (as I have done with my other pets) or if I should have her preserved by a taxidermist. This idea occurred to me when I was in Italy and saw the mummified remains of Petrarch's beloved cat from the 1300's. I suppose I could leave instruction to have her body cremated with mine when that time comes. But if she were "stuffed" what position would be best? Sitting? Standing? Teeth showing? Tail to the right or tail to the left? Would she still have cat breath?

You can imagine the points I scored with my fellow co-workers.

A Library Review: Stieg Larsson

One aspect of the new blog I am excited about is something I am calling "library reviews." I just recently signed up for a card with the local library system and checked out a few books. Most reviews seem to revolve around books that are about to come out or have just been released. As a reader with a short leash on her debit card, I am just not prepared to buy books at this time. I haven't had a library card in over eight years. Mostly, this was because I had access to a university library or was purchasing books in anticipation of free summer reading time. I had forgotten how much I used to enjoy the experience of reading for free. There is some excitement in reading a book that others have handled as well. It feels as though I am engaged in a community activity.

The first book I was dying to read was Stieg Larsson's last book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I had read the other two books in the series and liked the main character, Lisbeth Salander. She is an impossible character in many ways. She makes terrible decisions that are based on the background she's endured. There are moments in all the books where the writer pushes the envelope to the very, very edge of the precipice. In one instance in the first book, the envelope actually air lifts and somehow returns in a small gust of wind. (This would be the scene where journalist and Salander-saviour Blomvkist finds himself naked and hanging from a serial killer's "kill room.") Regardless of these lapses in my suspension of disbelief, the books collectively work well to create an escape from life for a few hours. They are page turners.

One aspect of the books that I very much enjoyed was the insight into the social workings of Sweden. Larsson also manages to tie up this one fairly neatly at the end. Considering he is no longer alive to finish the series, it is miraculous that this particular book was the last one published. I have heard there is a fourth unfinished manuscript and I am at odds whether or not I would want to read it. I very deliberately have not read any of the following books that sprung from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women novel on purpose. I didn't want to know that certain characters die or that there are other challenges facing the characters I loved as a child. Although, comparatively speaking, I wouldn't mind following Larsson's books to their natural ending as I think he had an entire world to expose in the way of a corrupt Swedish government and women's roles as equals in society. A better comparison would perhaps be the Harry Potter series or even The Golden Compass books.

As a writer, one thing I am extremely envious of with all of these series is the writer's capacity to envision a world beyond one book. It is clear that J.K. Rowling knew where she was going from the first book. (I do wish the directors of the movies had the same visionary outlook.) I would have liked to see the Salander books through to their completion and have a few loose ends tied up that still seem odd to me (why did Erica Berger leave Millennium in the first place only to return; why spend all that time on her disastrous new editor job; and whatever happened to Harriet Vanger?).

Currently in the works on the nightstand: A Son of the Circus by John Irving.

Greetings, Friends.

In my inbox this morning was a poem by Bob Hicok titled Epithalamium. It is a beautiful poem and I am thrilled about the daily poems that the Academy of American Poets has been sending since April. Bob's poem reminded me of the time I sat in on a workshop he led at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga for the Meacham Writer's Conference. We were looking at a poem by a student that most of us had already seen. Collectively, the class zeroed in on the poem's punctuation first. Bob humored us for a few minutes as we quiveled over commas and line breaks. Then he read us the riot act.

Why were we so concerned with the minutia of punctuation when we should be looking at the big picture? What was the poem saying to us? Was it saying anything? Was is moving us toward a discovery of life? Why did it matter where the comma was if we couldn't even focus on the larger poetical discussion of discovery?

I admit freely that I don't remember the poem. We failed our fellow student poet in that endeavor. But I remember the vigor Bob had when he redirected our focus. What does all this mean in terms of an opening greeting to my new blog? Just this: I've been focusing on the commas, apostrophes, and semi-colons and neglecting the larger picture: namely, that I am a writer who has not been active about her writing. I've been piddling around a bit, sure. I've got a lovely family, a nice job, and I live in a fantastic city. I even have my library card in hand and a rough draft of chapter one of the novel I am working on. But I have been distracted by all the little things of life (shopping lists, catching up on my DVR shows, changing litter boxes) and missing out on the sheer joy of writing. Of being a writer. Of writing about being a writer.

I reread my earlier blog entires from poethussy.blogspot.com this morning and noticed a few trends. My writing was much more prolific when I was blogging. I also was reading more and engaging in the larger discussion of life in America and life in general.

As I continue to post here, I will be developing this blog with many focuses in mind; the most important being the writing. I've been engaged in university life as a writer for many years as both a student and a teacher and before that I wrote compulsively without thoughts of publication. I am drawn to academia and writing and the larger context where those two collide. I welcome the discussion about MFA writers versus homegrown writers; when a writer is actually a writer by profession; books that rock the canoe or cruise ship; and how life informs the writing and vice versa.

Welcome.