A Poet's Double Life

For poets working outside the literary world.

Category Archives: Lessons Learned


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June 2020: Lucille Speaks


The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010

My last post was on the day before Memorial Day–the day before the world witnessed George Floyd’s murderbefore their eyes, the day before Christian Cooper posted his video of a white women pretending to be frightened as she called the police to say that a Black man was threatening her when he simply wanted to watch birds in peace, six days after the arrest of the man who shot the video of Ahmaud Arberybeing chased and killed by white men because he was #joggingwhileblack, and 12 days after Breonna Taylor was killed while in her bed whenthe police entered without warning and fired multiple shots into her apartment.

I had been posting poems I read before lunch and before dinner on Facebook and Instagram following the Italian poet’s Franco Arminio’s first of 10 recommended domestic decalogues—ways to spend our time during lockdown. The first poem I posted (3/21), Emily Dickinson’s “My life closed twice before its close“ is part of the anthology The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing edited by Kevin Young. I bought this book on March 7th—the last time I got my nails done before the last social gathering I attended before stay-at-home became a thing. Little did I know how much I was going to need this book three weeks later.

I posted my first Lucille Clifton poem on April 21st—“blessing the boats”—a poem featured in the Academy of American Poets’ selection of “Shelter in Poems.” Their selection of Clifton’s work prompted me to pull out my copy of The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010, a 700+ page volume edited by Kevin Young and Michael S. Glaser. Her poems provided comfort during that month of isolation, and after recent events that reminded us that racism is alive and well in America, I found that her poems spoke all of the words we needed to hear and that anyone needed to say. So for the last 2+ months, I’ve let Mama Lucille speak.

BlessingtheBoats

blessing the boats by Lucille Clifton

Yesterday would have been Lucille Clifton’s 84th birthday. I had the honor of meeting her the year before she died at the Furious Flower Poetry Center. I posted the two poems she wrote about turning 70. I think it is only fitting to end this mark this mile of my stay-at-home marathon with her poem, The Last Day (p. 365):

we will find ourselves surrounded
by our kind          all of them now
wearing the eyes they had
only imagined possible
and they will reproach us
with those eyes
in a language more actual
than speech
asking why we allowed this
to happen          asking why
for the love of God
we did this to ourselves
and we will answer
in our feeble voices          because
because          because

 

~from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 (BOA Editions Ltd, 2012) edited by Kevin Young and Michael S. Glaser.

 


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October 2019 Recap


In my last post, I decided to recap each month between September 2019 and April 2020 with a separate post instead of summarizing everything in one post. October was the best month of 2019, which is why I didn’t want to distill everything down to a paragraph.

I did so much. Just look at this photo of October 21–24th on my calendar. And that’s only five days!

Calendar events Sun Oct 20 Financial District Walking Tour; Mon Oct 21 Aqua Jogging, Purple Rain Lecture & Movie; Tue Oct 22 Women Leaders Tango Class; Wed Oct 23 Eye Exam; Thu Oct 24 Women of Color in Academic Panel

Third week of October 2019

Week 1: October started off with a business trip to Lebanon to be part of an interim evaluation team for an accredited institution in Beirut. Everything about this trip was great—flying business class on Air France, the other members of my team, the hospitality of the host institution, the food, people, and history of Lebanon, and the rooftop pool at my hotel. The only downside of the trip was learning my limits with regard to dairy. Air France business class meals are curated by Michelin-starred chefs and feature yogurt-cheese-cheese-cream-butter-butter-butter-cheese-cheese + Chateauneuf de Pape. Since that trip, I’ve had to watch my dairy intake.

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Week 2: Started off with a college holiday and fall break, which gave me time to regroup from the jetlag of my Lebanon trip. Back then, I was also taking a tango class for experienced women leaders in Cambridge. I started leading in the summer with a couple that teaches at MIT. Being a leader, you have to manage multiple tasks at the same time—be aware of my axis, have an idea of what I want to do, be aware of my follower’s axis, understand the follower’s balance and skill level, communicate what I want the follower to do, lead that step, and then, react to the step the follower takes. All of this activity is happening while I am listening to and interpreting the music and navigating around other couples on the dance floor. And somewhere along the way, I want to make this a pleasurable experience for both of us. No wonder I’ve danced tango since November 2007 and I hadn’t seriously tried leading until 2019. The other highlight of the week was attending a lecture by Eve Ewing the scholar-poet-comic book writer-activist. I had bought her collection “Electric Arches” based on the cover photo, before I knew anything about her. It was great to hear about her research uncovering the effects of racism and inequality on Chicago Public Schools and get my book signed. I rounded out the week with brunch at what had become my favorite local spots and a planning meeting for the next Art Salon (more about the event when I get to January).

Slide from Eve Ewing lecture-50% schools closed by Chicago Public School; 90% of close schools were majority Black; 88% of students are African American; 1 in 4 schools with majority Black students and Black teachers were closed

Eve Ewing–Facts!

 

Week 3: I celebrated my three-year friend-iversary by going on a walking tour in the Financial District. I met my dear friend in October 2016 and were the only single people on a tour. I’ve been so grateful for her presence in my life, especially when I was working so hard preparing for accreditation. Another highlight of the week was seeing Purple Rain at Coolidge Corner Theatre. While it was great to relive Prince’s music & life, watching the movie at this age made me realize that movie is much better in nostalgia. But it was a great experience to see people of all ages, races, ethnicities, backgrounds, identities, and orientations celebrate an artist who meant so much to them. As the first photo of this post showed, I took an eye exam on October 23rd. I was fortunate to visit the optometrist who came to campus, a young woman with the loveliest Tennessee accent. I hadn’t been to the eye doctor since my Lasik surgery in 2009, and now, I’m at the age where I need to use reading glasses (+1.00 for now). In fact, I stopped writing this post to find my reading glasses because I need to wear them if I’m working in front of a screen a lot. I rounded out the week by participating in a Women of Color in Academia Panel on campus followed by drinks with a co-worker, my aqua jogging deep-water aerobics class, and tea with my accreditation work-husband at Athan’s Bakery.

75 State Street
Purple Rain Lecture & Movie

Week 4: Definitely a double-life week. Sunday was another edition of Four Chairs & a Bench, and then, I headed to Kingston to catch up with a college friend. She invited me to to talk poetry with her AP English class. The class was reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnets From the Portuguese,” which I had on my bookshelf. It was great to chat with the class about their lives, their interests, and the next step of their journeys. I took the commuter rail back to South Station, my first time riding the commuter rail in the Boston metro area. So happy that I had the app to purchase the ticket back to the city. I drove to campus in time to briefly meet with a job candidate. The week and month ended with the MLK Memorial Lecture featuring Jabari Asim the author-poet-playwright-writing professor. I couldn’t stay for the whole event, but what I managed to hear was inspiring and necessary. Some quotes:

  • Some of us didn’t have many books, but we had plenty of stories.
  • Participating in the process of literary creation is always done with our ancestors looking over our shoulders.
  • For those first Black writers, each letter they made into parchment was a nail in slavery’s coffin.
  • Sometimes we strut to reassure ourselves we belong.
Jabari Asim at a lecturn

Jabari Asim MLK Lecture


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Dear Husband: A Manuscript


Plate of french toast and fried egg in the foreground; open laptop in the background with cup of Earl Grey tea and teapot

My favorite poet’s brunch at my favorite Sunday brunch spot, Rifrullo Café

Yesterday, I attended the Colrain One-Day Informational Retreat on the poetry manuscript. The workshop leaders, Fred Marchant and Joan Houlihan, touched on all the topics they cover in their four-day retreats. Each participant brought a packet of six poems they thought represented their manuscript. Fred and Joan guided the discussion of the packet by asking us: Is the voice consistent? Do the poems feel like they represent the manuscript in style and tone? Throughout the day, we considered the emotional content holding the poems together and whether the chronology of the poems supported or detracted from the overall feeling the manuscript established for the reader. The latter third of the day, we discussed the specifics of creating a manuscript: length (15-30 pages for a chapbook; typically 60-70 pages for a full-length collection); finding publications and contests for manuscripts and individual poems; and establishing your presence in the poetry world. At the end, we did an exercise where we searched for good titles within our poems, and closed the day by reading some of our work.

The specific feedback for my poems made me feel good about the progress I’ve made since I took Kwoya Maples‘ advice to create a document and title it “manuscript.” The manuscript’s working title, “Dear Husband,” is a series of poems with the same title. I thought I needed to keep the set together, but Joan & Fred suggested that I use each “Dear Husband” poem as a structural device, and possibly as section dividers that provide the reader with emotional markers throughout the manuscript. This advice is probably going to be easier said than done. It did get me to think differently about the themes each “Dear Husband” poem addressed and the other poems that could amplify that theme. Overall, the workshop made me realize I needed to be more intentional about the order of poems, their themes, the variations on that theme, and taking opportunities to swerve and surprise the reader.

I’m about a third of the way to a full-length collection, and after this workshop, I feel more confident about where it is going. There’s a lot more writing ahead and a lot more brunches needed to support the work.


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May-pril then June


Since I’ve started working at a college, I’ve noticed that April & May become one long month. It’s the mad rush after Spring Break to get in those last one or two meetings of the academic year before students and (most) faculty leave for the summer. May-pril is the reason I could not commit to writing poems every day for National Poetry Month, but instead posted photos of 30 poems I loved. Here’s the Day 30 poem, From Space to Time by Carolyn Rodgers.

day 30 from space to time

“From Space to Time” by Carolyn Rodgers

In May-pril, the work life requires all of my time and attention. This year is a little more intense because I’m trying to leave room for writing and poetry events while keeping up with the NBA playoffs (#CUsRise ☘️). Last weekend, I went to the 10th annual MassPoetry Festival where I attended readings by Cave Canem executive director, Nicole Sealey (see her poem on Day 16) and fellows Lillian Yvonne Bertram, Curtis Crisler, Chanda Feldman, Brionne Janae, and Kamilah Aisha Moon. On Sunday, I caught the tail end of the panel about building community through the poetry cleanse and participated in a panel with fellow VCFA alums—Victorio Reyes Asili, Greg Hill,  Lauren Banks-Killelea, and KT Landon—to share our experiences at a low-residency MFA programs with people trying to figure out if such a program was right for them.

I look forward to June and the return of Summer Fridays. I plan to use that time to write (and do errands and restart my yoga routine and eat at my favorite breakfast places in walking distance). Until then, I’m going to try to enjoy the Spring weather as we countdown to commencement on the 1st.

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Year in Review 2017


2017 in review

Time for the year in review. I decided to post the review early because I’m traveling for the holidays. No new publications – I still haven’t submitted to any journals. But I continue to the poetry dates via Skype most weeks. I had to go review my calendar and emails to pull together this list. Although I didn’t blog much about my poetic endeavors, I managed to do something creative almost once a month.

January

February

April

May

  • Organized the Dudley Poetry Open Mic
  • Completed the May poetry cleanse
  • Attended the MassPoetry Festival in Salem
  • Facilitated the monthly summer workshops of the Dudley Poetry Club
  • Wrote poems for the Utopia Encuentro Milongero: Charleston Edition

June

July

August

September

October

November

December


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First Snow


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Yesterday was the first snowfall of the season. I’m sure it was the first of many days of snow this winter. I’ve lived in Massachusetts for 23 months and 9 days (but’s who’s counting). I spent a few hours of the snowy day at my neighborhood café, Athan’s Bakery. It’s not as crowded or loud as the Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, and Caffè Nero in Washington Square. There are plenty of people reading, typing, or scrolling through their phones. The Earl Grey is good and they will refill your hot water.

I spent the first hour of my two-hour time limit writing letters. I hoard cards to have them on hand for various occasions. Right now, I collect more cards than I send out. I had planned to spend more time writing Ietters this fall. Then the semester started. Until April 2019, the work life will take priority as I serve as the staff co-chair of the college’s reaccreditation process. For a while, I’ve been trying to figure out a way how not to let this process take over my life. I have finally stopped resisting. The challenge is to find the pockets where poetry can still live.

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Poetry doesn’t need that much air or space to live comfortably. I have to make and/or find that space, though. I finished the Oprah & Deepak 21-day meditation challenge – which surprised me because I don’t usually stick to those types of efforts – and found that the morning time I had set aside for meditation could be repurposed as time to write. I write for two pages in my journal every day. My poetry partner in crime, Kelly, reminded me that this daily writing habit is like the morning pages from the Artist’s Way. I make a point to write at the dining table and not in bed. I want to get my body and mind into the habit of getting up and going to the table to write. After all, that’s why I bought it.

 


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Getting Back Into the Game


Four Queens Playing Cards

I’ve always had a good mind for important dates, milestones, and anniversaries. For example, I’ve been living in Boston for one year, five months, and 17 days. In the self-review portion of my performance evaluation, I reflected back on where I was last year this time (working alone on the 4th floor of an old building that was 7-minute walk from the heart of campus) to remind myself of how much progress had been made (working on the same floor as the senior leadership with two staff reporting to me). I know a lot of people don’t record the world in this way.  To help everyone else out, Facebook shows you posts that you shared from 1-, 3-, 4-, and 7+ years ago to help jog your memory.

Recently, I shared two memories announcing my published poems, “Transit of Venus” & “Twenty Questions for Black Professionals.” I re-posted these memories primarily for the benefit of the Boston tangueros who have found out I was a poet, but had yet to read my work. It’s been over two years since my work was published and even longer since I’ve submitted my work anywhere. Of course, I’ve had a lot of big changes since then (ahem—new job & new city).

Fortunately, I’ve kept writing—meeting regularly with Kelly Lenox over Skype, attending the Dudley Poetry Club, & producing daily poems via the April PAD Challenges and the poetry cleanse. For a while, I’ve been writing with no sense of direction. I had to pull together 10 poems in order to apply to a writing residency and felt like the poems in the application had the making of a narrative arch.

I feel inspired to follow where these poems lead. To that end, I attended a weekly write-in Meetup group and have started to research publications where these poems can land. I feel ready to get back into the publication game. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.


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Making of a Poetry Reading


flyer2

What started off as simple question on Facebook—I’m toying with the idea of doing a mini-tour for Blue Hallelujahs. Are their any specific places or reading series I should hit up?—became a full-blown poetry reading happening this Sunday, November 6th from 4:30-6:30 pm at the Arts at the Armory in Somerville, MA.

Different worlds collided in order to bring this reading into being. First, you have the Cave Canem universe, the home for black poetry, which randomly assigned me to share a suite with Cynthia Manick at the 2012 Fellows retreat. Subsequent retreats in 2013 & 2014 is where I met Brionne Janae & Breauna Roach. When I moved to the Boston area, I started attending the Dudley Poetry Group, where Brionne facilitates a weekly poetry workshop on Monday nights at the library. Back in August, she invited me to a poetry reading at Arts at the Armory. This place is an old National Guard building that has been converted into a community arts center. They host several events in their café and make them available at no cost if the event is free and open to the public. I connected with Nicole Terez Dutton at that reading in August. I knew of Nicole’s debut collection If One of Us Should Fall because it won the 2011 Cave Canem Poetry prize and was pleased to finally make her acquaintance.

The rest, as they say, is history—meshing available dates for the poets with available dates from the venue, confirming the date and time, the photos and bios, the flyer, deciding the lineup, and promoting the event. Needless to say, I’m excited the event it happening this weekend. Now all I have to do is decide which poems to read.

 

 


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The Road Ahead is Filled with #BlackGirlMagic


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August 1st marked seven months of the double life in New England. I’d like to say the place is growing on me, but I’m not there yet. In fact, someone I met recently in an Afro Flow Yoga class told me she didn’t begin to like Boston until she had lived here 7 years. So I have a long way to go.

Admittedly, most of the double life has been focused on the career side. I started a job as a college administrator in January, and in March, my colleague got recruited away to another institution. So I’ve been doing the double the work since mid-April. I’ve spent the summer interviewing candidates for two positions, managing two research assistants, and packing for an office move. I attended a professional conferences in New Orleans in June, went on family vacation to St. Maarten in July, and last week, I attended a retreat in Maine for women in my field.

The retreat was a good respite from being on the work treadmill. Not only was I able to connect with other women at nearby institutions, I also met other women of color in my field. Being around other Black women made me realize how much I missed seeing other Black faces throughout my day. Although I was one of the few black professional staff at my last job, living in the South meant there was a critical mass of people of color on the bus, in the cafeteria, at CVS, etc. During the retreat, I know that my mere presence made them feel more at ease and less isolated because that is how seeing their faces made me feel. I came back from the conference very hopeful about what lies on the horizon.

This fall, I look forward to moving into a new office at work as well as my new apartment closer to the city (more on that soon). There are a few literary things I’m excited about as well:

Receiving my signed copy of Cynthia Manick’s Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). Cynthia was my roommate at my first and last Cave Canem retreats. This is her debut full-length collection and I’m psyched to read it! If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you might remember Cynthia as the person who invited me to the My Writing Process Blog Tour in 2014.

The resurgence of Black Lioness Press. The press promotes the literary & artistic work of people of color, and in particularly women, and I serve as one of the Associate Editors. The press is the brainchild of Mahtem Shiferraw, a VCFA alumna and I serve as one of the Associate Editors along with Tsitsi Jaji, whom I met right before I left NC. In September 2016, we start accepting submissions for poetry/short fiction and an anthology entitled, Anthem for the Black Body. We’re still in fundraising mode, so there’s time to get in on the ground floor to support this effort.

Participating in Women Who Submit. WWS encourages and empowers women writers to send their work to literary journals. Later this year, I hope to start a Boston area chapter of Women Who Submit. This group lists among their leadership team my fellow Cave Canem alumnae, Ashaki Jackson & Alyss Dixon, and VCFA alumna, Laura Warrell.

And I look forward to going back to Afro Flow Yoga. I attended my first class on Sunday and connected with alumnae of the college where I work. The instructor is a former Alvin Ailey dancer and her husband provides the musical accompaniment throughout the 90-minute class. There’s only more weekend of classes in the area before they go on hiatus in late August/early September. I can’t wait!


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Poet Interviews


interview

I promise a longer post on my adjustment to the Boston area. In the meantime, check me out on Andrea Blythe’s Poet Spotlight. It was an interview an introvert could love – questions posted to a Google doc that I could answer on my phone wherever I was: at the airport, sitting on the couch trying to think of a poem for the daily challenge, at the nail salon.

And in case you’ve missed it, here’s the interview conducted by Elizabeth Zertuche, a writer I met at VONA last summer.

Enjoy!