changing the changes

this post's title is after Hermine Pinson's CD title. It is also sort of acknowledging another shift, another change, and how, I suppose, the body feels these shifts when it has a time to be still and listen, like when you're up on a mountain top. like now.

Yesterday was wildly productive. Yesterday I sat with some jazz songs and meditated. I have this thing I like to do with jazz songs -- especially ones that either I don't know the words to or that just don't have words to them -- where I imagine the lyrics. So, my friend has a CD out. He has this song that might be one of my favorites...because of this solo that he has that, to me, has so much heart, so much open heart. I play the song over and over, and imagine the words, and in the context of relationships (perhaps ours) I imagine him saying "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry. I'm so sorry that I hurt you" and it fits. My lyrics, to his playing. So I wondered what a poem written with this feel, this mood would feel like. So I started freewriting. With the song on repeat I freewrote for a couple of minutes. Then I used that material to lift out phrases to build a poem with later. I did this for 6 songs. I got sing poems..each I feel captured the feel of the song.

What was on the playlist you ask? (I'm leaving said friend out of this...so only 5 songs)

Maiden Voyage/Everything in its place -- Robert Glasper
Perazuan -- Esperanza Spalding
Thinking one thing and doing another -- Miles Davis
Days of Wine and Roses --
August Blues --

I forget right now who did the last two ones. Updates later. But it's a nice exercise. If you try it, let me know how it turns out!

I have also been doing some crazy, crazy reading up here. Marilyn Nelson has a biggg library. All you can eat. Plus more. So, I go to the shelves and pick books for the day and then read them. I have this project I started (e-mail me if you want an invite) where I decided to gather some cool poet-lovers and suggested we share our favorite poems, or poems that make us say "Damn" or just poems that we think need to be out in the world. So an online poetry anthology, if you will. "Unthemed" except to say we thought we liked them enough that we wanted to share them with each other. This has brougt up some interesting conversations and interesting moments of, "oh, I've never heard of this poet" or "oh! I like this poem, too!"...surely there can be some misjudgment and people may say "this did not make me say 'damn'" and that's fine too -- this space is just a collection of poems to make us think, because I want to be well-read, but I don't always know what to dip into. I have some new names to check out, recommended by some really great poets. Come join the fun.

What else? Today I only wrote one poem. Which is like....way below record. But I did finish my play, so I'll take that. I also woke up late thanks to this wonderful rain. It happened so, that I thought it was a dream. I woke up to the sound of rain and thought, "I should pull down the window, maybe turn off the fan" and then went right back to sleep. Rain will do that. By the time I actually got up and decided to get on with my day, the sun was out, the deck was dry -- there was no evidence of this rain that kept me in the bed longer. So my schedule was off. So I just read some, and played with the play (my first ever. although i don't think anything will become of it, i can just say that i've written a play now...which i couldn't say before here)...and listened to stories. I cooked dinner for everyone. Then we sat around and had a "reading" -- Hermine and Karma and Marilyn and myself. We all read things we were working on at the moment. I read some of my animal poems, mainly animals inspired by the environment...ones I had actually seen from my room window (badger/woodchuck, small-mouthed bass, io moth, turkey vulture, spider). Then I read some of the poems from the jazz stuff, some other non-related poems (when I broke off from doin the animal poems, I decided to use Neruda's questions to mull over for a bit and maybe inspire a poem in response to the question)....then, I got to read some of my novel with them. They seemed to enjoy it. There were some questions, which is understandable; I still don't have some things planned out yet, nor have I really sat down and said, "I'm going to begin editing," but it was good to get some writerly ears listening, in conversation.

6 days left. I suppose after the week-remaining mark you start counting down? Instead of saying Day 14, I opted to say, "six days left" -- and I can't decide if it is equivalent to the "glass half-empty" or what. Just this fact: there are six days left here. Who knows what or who will come or visit in those days.