Poetica Magazine

In the first decade of the twentieth century, two sisters, Victoria and Vanessa Stephen, broke free of the Victorian/Edwardian stiffness and stuffiness of their upbringing in Kensington after the death of their famous father, literary critic Leslie Stephen. In their flat in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of Central London, they opened a salon. Writers, artists, economists, dancers and various others all congregated at 46 Gordon Square to exchange ideas and art and laughter and work.

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Eighty or so years later, I lived in London for a semester abroad, studying the Bloomsbury Group at the University of London and following their tracks all over the city and to their country home in Sussex. During the Blitz, the original flat in Bloomsbury was destroyed, but their country home in Lewes, which they called Charleston, remains. The Bloomsbury writers and artists made art in their home, and made art of their home.

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Rugs, walls, dishes, furniture – all made canvases for Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and others who became part of the Omega Workshop. They believed art need not be confined to museums or canvasses, nor to hidebound ideas of beauty.

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Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry, Clive Bell, T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forster, Vita Sackville-West, Dora Carrington, Katherine Mansfield, Lydia Lopokova -- among others -- were all involved in some way with the Bloomsbury Group.

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In 2006, I bought a small cottage in the mountain town of Silver Cliff, Colorado, which I have turned into BloomsburyWest, a writer and artist retreat. The one-bedroom clapboard house, painted yellow and blue in tribute to Frieda Kahlo’s Blue House (another inspiration), was once home to miners back in the day when the town boasted opera and an enormous population dedicated to gouging silver out of the cliffs, which they did with great success. Around the time the future Virginia Woolf was creating new language for prose, an anonymous writer built the tiny cabin, which, eventually enlarged, would become BloomsburyWest.

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Now, its yellow and blue walls house writers, artists, musicians, readers and anyone needing to spend time in a quiet place of beauty. As a retreat, the cabin offers high-altitude sunlight and wooden floors but no TV and no Internet. A restored turn-of-the-century Baldwin graces the living room. Bookshelves contain the varied works of Bloomsbury artists in addition to critical and historical work about the Bloomsbury Group. A vintage manual typewriter collection also pleases the early-twentieth-centruy aficionado.

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Unlike Gordon Square or Charleston, my Bloomsbury is not a place for the creative ferment of many artists and writers at once, but rather the blossoming of one artist/writer at a time. In its three years of operation, BloomsburyWest has already helped shelter writers who have gone on to publish poetry volumes, essay collections, and songs/CDs.

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When not writing or creating at home, visitors have hiked the Sangre de Cristos, whose jagged peaks you can see from the living room windows. There’s rafting on the nearby Arkansas River, horseback riding at various ranches, and all sorts of seasonal delights available in the summer months.

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It's connected to the original Bloomsbury in the most essential way: it provides a safe haven for artists to pursue their art with low expenditure or even with a fellowship for artists-in-need. Because, to quote Woolf, everyone needs a room  of one's own.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Annie Dawid, Guest Blogger

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Annie Dawid is an English professor and director of creative writing for 15 years at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She is also a photographer and the founder of BloomsburyWest, a retreat for writers and artists. She is the author of three books: York Ferry, Lily in the Desert, and, her most recent, And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories of a Family, which won the 2007 Litchfield Award for Short Fiction. Her photographs have appeared in various literary magazines as well as in shows in Oregon and Colorado. She can be reached at www.anniedawid.com - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor 

As writers seeking fame or fortune, most of us picture ourselves taking a solo journey to our book signings and book tours. We imagine doing these things alone, reaping the awards alone. We don’t imagine working with partners or collaborators. That’s why it was such a surprise to me when a year ago, I began working with my writing partner/collaborator, Nancy Naigle. I knew from the moment I met Nancy Naigle that she was going to be a great friend. Optimistic and encouraging, she is a great support and a good motivator, something that comes into play in her job as a senior VP for the Bank of America.

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Over time, I got to know her better and we’ve been roommates on several occasions for a conference and a writing retreat. We became co-writers when she decided that a novel I’d written was too good to be shelved while I pursued other writing projects. Pushing me to work on Inkblot further, she put her strengths into our co-writing after suggesting that we try a joint venture.

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While my experience and abilities as a photojournalist deal with grammar and writing tightly, Nancy is strong on dialogue and discipline. She’s great at sending out manuscripts to contests where our work has been reviewed and given scores by agents and editors. Comments from judges have helped us fine-tune the novel to send out again. The name of the game in writing is to never give up. When you write with someone else, they can help you pick yourself up and dust yourself off when you get discouraged. There is a lot of contact between us in anything writing craft related. When I see interesting websites for writers or come across great networking twitter members, I pass them on to Nancy and she does the same. She is big on goal setting and having written for the newspaper for years, I am used to deadlines. We meet to plot and plan and Nancy makes timeline charts and moves sticky notes around to help us decide the order of action. Dividing up chapters to write initially, we lay down the bare bones for each section. Over time, we add to these chapters and fine tune them. There is always room for improvement in this process.

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If one writer has too much work to do in other areas, a partner can jump in and offer to work on the manuscript an extra amount of time. We have shared the writing of this novel, each of us bringing different abilities to the table. I think it’s a great blend of skills and a union that I feel was destined to happen. I am grateful for having met Nancy and feel fortunate to work with her.

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The last contest our co-written YA suspense novel, Inkblot, was entered in, our book came in 5th in competition against 26 novels. Four novels ranked as finalists and ours fell right beneath it in the number five slot. Taking the comments that judges made, we are tweaking it to submit again.

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It’s a win/win situation working with a writer whose dedication and drive matches your own. There’s a certain magic in it. In a way we feel like parents, sending our “baby” out into the world when queries or contest entries go out. I can’t wait to get started on book two in our Headline Hunters series - and neither can she.

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Thank you for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Phyllis Johnson, Guest Blogger

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Phyllis Johnson writes a weekly column for The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. Her work has also appeared in Tidewater Teacher magazine, The Sun, Woman's World, and Contempo magazine. She is the author of three books: Hot and Bothered by It, a book of midlife humor, Being Frank with Anne, a poetic interpretation of the Diary of Anne Frank, and Twelve is for More Than Doughnuts, a spiritual book of poems and essays. She is currently marketing Inkblot, a YA suspense novel co-written with Nancy Naigle. The mother of two daughters, she lives in Virginia with her husband and black lab, Maggie. Please visit her website: www.phyllisjohnson.net  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

In the decades since the Holocaust, a “children of survivors” literature has grown up. The phenomenon is worldwide. From my days as a book reviewer, the following titles come immediately to mind: See Under: Love by David Grossman (Israel), Maus I and Maus II by Art Spiegelman (United States), What God Wants by Lily Brett (Australia), and Nightfather by Carl Friedman (Holland). Different as these books all are from one another—and each is wonderful in its own way—what they have in common is the child’s struggle to come to grips with the parent’s unspeakable legacy.

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Inevitably, the iniquities visited upon the parents return to haunt the children. The ways in which this happens are as varied as the individuals themselves. Even when the children know very little of their parents’ ordeals, they cannot but be affected.

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My poem Curse VII (“Now in her eighties...”) is about one such mother-daughter dynamic. In this case the mother’s life was saved by her inclusion in the Kindertransport. The poem was inspired by a Yom Ha-Shoah program at my synagogue. Erika, the survivor, told her story to a group of assembled Hebrew school parents and children that included her own grandchildren as well as her daughter. Erika’s personal journey to share her story took nearly 70 years—a Biblical lifetime. Until she began to speak out publicly, her own daughter was ignorant of much of her mother’s history.

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For me, the cement that holds the poem together is the tension between what parents know and what they choose to tell their children—in this case, what Erika’s parents knew or suspected and did not tell her, and what Erika knew and did not tell her own children.

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When someone like Erika, who has suffered so greatly, chooses to break her silence, it is important to pay attention. I tried to pay attention, and the poem seemed to write itself. I sent the poem to Erika. “I’m glad to know that at least one person was listening to me,” she said.

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Curse VII

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Now in her eighties,

Erika sits in a chair in a circle of chairs

to tell us her story for Yom HaShoah.

“During the Second World War,

the British took in ten thousand children

from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.

I was one of them, sixteen years old in 1938.

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“I was scared, lonely, unhappy.

When the blitzkrieg started,

the bombs fell indiscriminately all over London.

Then I felt better;

I had wanted to be like everyone else,

and now I was.

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“I never dreamed my parents were murdered.

I didn’t learn until after the war.

I was completely unprepared.

The way I felt – it’s more than anger,

it’s the deepest despair.

I lost my faith in God.

I’d made a bargain—

I’ll get through all this,

and You’ll reunite my family.

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“The bargain was one-sided.

When I found out,

it was Yom Kippur, 1945.

I went to a non-kosher restaurant.

The meal I ate stuck in my throat,

but I wanted to make my point.

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“After Chamberlain and Munich,

I remember my father saying,

‘It’s a good thing there’s no war.

If there’s a war, they’ll kill the Jews.’

My parents might have known

they were saying goodbye for good

at the dock in Hamburg in 1938.

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“I was the youngest

and they considered me useless.

All my efforts were for them.

I wanted to show them what I’d accomplished.

In some ways I’ve never gotten over it.

I think of what they did for me.”

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Erika’s daughter Kim says,

“My mother was P.T.A. President

and led the Girl Scout troop.

She never talked about herself,

but I knew she was different.

When a friend said,

‘Your mom has an accent,’

I replied, ‘She does?’

my voice rising in a question,

knowing and not knowing.”

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Anne Whitehouse, Guest Blogger

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Anne Whitehouse’s books include the poetry collections, BLESSINGS AND

CURSES and THE SURVEYOR’S HAND. Her chapbook BEAR IN MIND is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2010. She is the author of the novel FALL LOVE, now available as a free e-book from Amazon Kindle as well as Feedbooks and Smashwords. Please visit her website at http://annewhitehouse.com  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

When we left America for Israel 38 years ago, my three sons were far from thrilled with the move, to put it mildly.

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Try to look at it as an adventure," was my standard reply during that first year when the complaints were constant, "and besides, think of what an interesting autobiography you can write some day," I'd add dismissively.

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Almost four decades later, my kids have yet to write, while I, on the other hand, find that the displacement from a familiar culture and the adjustment to a strange new one propel much of my writing. I see America through the eyes of an Israeli, and Israel through the eyes of an American. On a good day, I call it perspective. On a bad day, alienation. No matter how I look at it, I will always be between two worlds.

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In my latest poetry collection, Laissez-Passer, there is a section entitled, "Back to the USA". The opening poem reflects my ambivalence:

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Oh America I loved you,

Love you still but I can't stay.

Gone too long and seen too much

To fit into the USA.

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Other poems in the section echo the commercial chatter that assaults my (foreign) ears: Small medium or large morning? Extra milk or sugar morning? (from Morning USA) or Toys 'R Us ,'Tis of Thee Just Do It! Land of Liberty (from America the Beautiful).

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Would I have been as sensitive to this commercial bombardment had I remained in America? I doubt it. Do I think Israel rises above this banal banter? Of course not. But from my perspective, with a foot in both worlds, I am intensely aware of the creeping Americanization of Israel and of what we in Israel are losing in the bargain.

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As an occasional visitor to the USA it's not only the commercialization of the language that catches my attention. It's the language itself. Are Americans jolted by the pervasiveness of 'awesome' or the disappearance of ' whom', I wonder? In the English I spoke when I left America in 1972, for example, we didn't 'grow' companies, we developed them. When I read TIME magazine or other foreign papers, I regularly find words or expression that I don't understand. What does that mean for my writing? Will I lose touch with my American audience?

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But absence and distance also benefit my writing. As I 'zoom out' from the American comfort zone and look at US society from my Israeli vantage point, I see clearly the optimism and the naïveté of Americans; the "yes we can" which is a new phrase for the prevailing American attitude that the world can be changed for the better, that problems always have solutions. (Although, admittedly this bright optimism has been tarnished of late) .

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I am no longer convinced. After four decades of living in a war zone, fed on promises of peace and swallowing endless disappointments, I have become a skeptic; sometimes determined, sometimes in despair, always in turmoil, and my writing shows it.

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Walls

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‘We’ll build a wall’

they say.

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‘They’ being those who know.

The generals

who first declared

we’d have to live together

side by side,

and trust the others

to behave like us.

Or like we’d like to be, that is.

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And now ‘They’ say

it’s better to build walls

that separate

and keep us out of range

of rage unbridled

and the lust for blood

set free.

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But no one listens now

because we’ve learned

that walls cannot contain

the fury

any more than words can

realize

the dream.*

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Had I stayed in America, would I have written these lines? No way.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Ricky Rapoport Friesem, Guest Blogger

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Ricky Rapoport Friesem is a poet and documentary filmmaker. She has  written two cook books: Fruits of the Earth (Adama Books, 1985) and Joy of Israel (Steimatzky, 1976). In 2007, her first poetry collection, Parentheses, was awarded First Prize in Writer's Digest 2007 International Self-Published Book Awards . Her 2nd collection, Laissez-Passer was published in October, 2009. Visit her website. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

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     * First published in Moment, April 2003, subsequently included in Parentheses,

       Kipod Press 2006

I spent several days worrying about this piece, unsure of what to write. I must admit to being a chronic procrastinator-and occasional ostrich. That is, if I can ignore a problem, it does not exist. This is probably why ostriches are not known for their productivity.

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So there I was, flagrantly avoiding my responsibilities, absently watching movies; choosing a book, reading a couple of pages then exchanging it for another, and surfing the web simply to bide time, bored yet unfocused.

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Then it occurred to me that this is what I should be writing about. After all, what writer hasn’t had writer’s block? Who, writer or otherwise, hasn’t procrastinated about something?

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So what is procrastination, really?

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My edition of Webster’s defines it as a verb meaning, “To delay, defer, prolong or postpone an action”. But dig deeper. Is it possible that procrastination is really the result of fear?

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As creative people, we possess groundbreaking thoughts, plans, ideas. And there is a great historical precedent of non-creative people scoffing at the things they can’t see the potential in. So when we procrastinate, when we do just about anything but what we’re supposed to even though we know if we don’t do it now we will miss the opportunity; is it because we are afraid of that precedent?

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After all, what if people carelessly berate this thing you’ve worked so hard on, that you’re so proud of, which you had such high hopes for? What if they tell you that you have no talent, it was silly to think you could do this, you aren’t creative or even interesting?

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Yes, it stings. Yes, you hate the person who called you that. Yes, you want to run out of the room to someplace safe and you can’t figure out any way to avoid embarrassment…

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The fear of rejection, of the letter listing the names of the contest winners you eagerly scan for your name even when you know that if you had won, they would have emailed you or sent a letter with only your name on it.

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Of the endless issues of literary magazines in the mail which didn’t accept your work but want you to subscribe to them anyway; which you read to see what sort of work they did print so maybe you can write something more like it for them to publish next time; all the while resenting the hell out of the chosen writers for their success.

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But we don’t stop, because we can’t. We have ink, not blood, in our veins. “I almost can’t help myself”, says Elizabeth Wurtzel in More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction. “It is always such a struggle to sit down and focus…I will mop the floors with a sponge, on my hands and knees, if it means I can avoid writing. But I would surely have ended up writing about it…That’s the nightmare of my life: I hate writing, but I can’t help myself. It’s just what I do; it is what I love to do.”

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Sound familiar?

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I don’t possess a handy-dandy list of ways to stop you (or me) from procrastinating. Every artist has his own routine, his own schedule, his own insecurities to deal with, and no single system will work for everybody.

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But I do recommend the author SARK’s method of micromovements: Decide what the very first, smallest step is in completing your goal. In this case, it would be 1. Boot up computer. Good. Done. Keep going: 2.Open Word document.

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It may seem silly to think of “Take pen out of pencil cup” as a task, but crossing off even the littlest things on a list makes a person feel accomplished.

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Procrastinating at the eleventh hour is not a great idea. But procrastination doesn’t have to be The Enemy. It may just be a different state of mind, a hibernation, and just as necessary to the creative process.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Jessica Goody, Guest Blogger

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Jessica Goody’s work has appeared in New York newspapers, anthologies such as Timepieces, Moonlight Café’s Poetry By Moonlight, and The Sun Magazine. She was a Featured Poetess of SpiralMuse.com. Her work ranges from poetry and song lyrics to short stories and children’s books. A dedicated environmentalist, she is interested in publishing a volume of poetry and a mystery novella. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

I think receiving a toy typewriter as a child and reading Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl may have had a lot to do with my becoming a writer. Like millions of others, Anne’s diary left a real mark on my life. For Anne, writing was a way to reach beyond the secret walls that enclosed her. Wise beyond her years, she left behind a legacy of hope and encouragement in the face of danger.

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Upon reading her book, I tried to emulate her positive attitude and have only come to realize in recent days that she may have had more of an impact on me that I had acknowledged. As a young girl, what had me enthused was the fact that my middle name was Ann and I attended Holland Elementary school. Here was an Anne in another Holland. Visions of windmills, wooden shoes and tulips came to mind. Then, the visions of the atrocities and injustice rang loud. It haunted me and made me realize that I wanted her determination, compassion and courage.

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Like Anne, I had the same love of words and rhythm, something that developed when my dad read to me and my siblings every night, often from a poetry book. I still have the Child Craft book he read from.

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Anne loved celebrities, cutting and gluing their pictures to a wall. I came to appreciate acting and became an actress for the Discovery Channel, getting parts in FBI Files, New Detectives, Diagnosis Unknown and Psychic Investigator. It was another way I found myself in kinship with Anne’s mindset.

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When various forms of injustice bother me, I often think about Anne and her desire for world peace and equality. During the year of my book’s release, I contacted the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. I wanted my book to be posted at the Anne Frank Center in New York. I came in contact with Buddy Elias, Anne’s first cousin, who told me to send it to the Anne Frank Fonds in Switzerland. (Of which he is a CEO). After having it approved at both locations, I sent it to the center in New York where it is posted at the website bookstore. It is also archived at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. When I was in contact with Buddy, I had no idea he was Anne’s first cousin. He told me that Anne would have loved the book.

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Six months ago, I emailed Miep Gies and to my surprise, she emailed back. She requested copies of the book and CD, Being Frank with Anne. I excitedly sent them and heard from her. She expressed her gratitude for my having written the book. I was humbled beyond words. Now, at her recent passing, I am in awe of the fact that I had contact with a woman who risked her life to try and preserve the lives of others. That was truly admirable. God works in mysterious ways, somehow connecting me to Anne Frank, and allowing me to help continue her legacy.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog.

Phyllis Johnson, Guest Blogger

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Phyllis Johnson writes a weekly column for The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. Her work has also appeared in Tidewater Teacher magazine, The Sun, Woman's World, and Contempo magazine. She is the author of three books: Hot and Bothered by It, a book of midlife humor, Being Frank with Anne, a poetic interpretation of the Diary of Anne Frank, and Twelve is for More Than Doughnuts, a spiritual book of poems and essays. She is currently marketing Inkblot, a YA suspense novel co-written with Nancy Naigle. The mother of two daughters, she lives in Virginia with her husband and black lab, Maggie. Please visit her website: www.phyllisjohnson.net. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

When I was six years old and confined to bed with the flu, I decided to write a novel. After writing a few pages and realizing I had to define the characters and construct a story line, I became totally exhausted. That was the end of my life as a fiction writer.

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I didn’t think of writing professionally until I attended the University of Pennsylvania where we had to write loads of term papers. While other students were taking no-doze drugs the night before their papers were due, I slept peacefully because my research papers were happily completed before the deadline. Turns out I loved to do the research and writing. Now I write reference and instructional books, most notably my book, Weddings, Dating, and Love Customs of Cultures Worldwide, Including Royalty a book that has itself been used as a reference for countless student papers and is located in libraries in many countries.

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Most people think writers who work at home alone have plenty of time, that writers are always secretly watching television and "eating bonbons." I always do my writing at home because to avoid distractions. However, as soon at sit down to write, I get calls from friends, from companies that should be on my no-call list, and from doctors office assistants wanting me to confirm my appointments. I spend too much time looking for things.

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It shouldn’t be hard to find things; my writer’s study is essentially white - white walls with white furniture. Color therapists say white carries a full color light spectrum that resonates, energizes, and strengthens all organs of the body. I feel a sense of inspiration there that encourages me to write as the sun’s rays shine brightly through the long windows on both sides of my desk. On the walls are huge decorative acrylic paintings that display visible colors of the rainbow that always inspire hope to succeed in future writing endeavors.

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I research a lot because of the type of writing I do, but then I pile one research paper on top of another, ultimately unable to find the needed paper that's underneath. While working on the computer, I suddenly need technical computer support. Because it often comes from another country, the tech support person and I may have difficulty communicating with each other and that becomes another problem to be solved; another problem that keeps me from my writing.

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There are days when the mess is more compelling than the work, when I have to bless my mess in order to give myself permission to write. Conclusion: I don't have time to write. Yet I do.

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And when I’m done at the end of the day, I walk away from that white room, now dark, leaving my lonely Mac Pro, visions of its glowingly lit keyboard inspiring me to write.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog.

Carolyn Mordecai, Guest Blogger

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Carolyn Mordecai is the author of the books Weddings, Dating, and Love Customs of Cultures Worldwide, Including Royalty (winner of the Glyph Best Multicultural Award), Gourd Craft: Growing, Designing, and Decorating Ornamental and Hardshelled Gourds (Crown Publishers) and others. Her work has appeared in national women’s magazines, including Cosmopolitan. She has taught freelance writing courses at Allegheny Community College and at Pennsylvania State University. Visit her Amazon page. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

As I wrote in my guest blog last week, some of the individual poems in Blessings and Curses are about me, and some are about other people whose stories impressed themselves on me. In the case of Curse XXII (“On September 1, 1939...”;), the poem came as a pure gift from a Holocaust survivor who told me her story. Ms. E (the initial is invented) was in her nineties when I was asked to interview her through my job for a not-for-profit agency that serves the elderly. I arranged to visit her apartment one evening in early summer after work. Like most of the other ladies I interviewed, she was a widow living on her own in a neat one-bedroom apartment. First we sat down at a card table where she plied me with cookies and fruit, and then I pulled out my Palm with the folding keyboard and took notes as she spoke.

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Taller than average, slender, with thick white hair cut in a bang across her forehead and lively dark eyes, she expressed herself fluently in accented English. She had been widowed twice: her first husband was murdered in the Holocaust; the second was a survivor like herself. With her second husband, she had one son, who was her mainstay, and two grandchildren on whom she doted, both in college.

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She proudly showed me the framed photographs of her family, starting with the grandchildren and moving backwards in time. The last photograph she showed me became part of the poem.

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“No matter how many books or movies about the Holocaust one has read or seen, it is impossible to understand what it was like to survive it,” she claimed. She was born and raised in Poland, and for the duration of the war, she lived in hiding under an assumed name. “I was taught to tell the truth always,” she declared, “and it does something to your psyche to live a lie. You have to be careful to remember what you say. It’s harder than you think. Sometimes, when I think of what I survived, I can’t believe I did it.”

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Her story affected me strongly. Instead of going home when I left her apartment, I went to nearby Riverside Park. It was a beautiful summer evening. I sat down on a park bench. The peaceful green park enveloped me, and the poem poured out of me—her words in my voice. When the poem was accepted by the literary journal, Earth’s Daughter’s, I asked her permission to publish it and received her blessing.

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“On September 1, 1939,

when war broke out,

I locked myself in the bathroom

and wouldn’t come out.

I was crying; I knew

my world was ending.

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“We had a good life in Warsaw.

My father owned a business;

we kept two servants;

my sister and I went to private schools.

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“After one week the city was bombarded

from morning to night.

Warsaw was beautiful,

and it was completely destroyed.

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“No one knew at first

of Hitler and Stalin’s secret pact.

Soon the city was reorganized

and the ghetto set up.

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“Young Jews were going to Russia.

Before the ghetto was closed,

my fiancé and I escaped

across the green border to the East.

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“It wasn’t so easy.

He was very smart at arranging things

and on the black market bought me

an original birth certificate

of a person my age

who’d been taken to Siberia.

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“I spoke excellent Polish

because we’d spoken Polish at home.

He and I lived in the suburbs of a city

that was Judenrein.

I looked Jewish but he didn’t.

He had blond hair and blue eyes.

“One day he left in the morning

and didn’t come back.

I still don’t know what happened to him.

The Germans picked him up.

They killed people for nothing.

With men, it was simple,

‘Pull down your pants.’

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“My parents perished

in the Warsaw Ghetto.

My sister died with her daughter

in a terrible concentration camp.

She couldn’t think like a person

after her husband died

in the Army in the short war.

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“He was wounded at the front

and brought to a hospital in Warsaw.

The Germans used poisoned bullets.

His wounds weren’t mortal,

but infections developed.

                                                                                                      .

“My second husband

saw his wife and daughter

killed before his eyes.

There are things you don’t talk about

or understand.

Until the end of his life

he screamed in his sleep

and I would hold him.

He was a good husband,

a good father, a good man.

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“For a year and a half,

until the end of the war,

I survived on my own without means,

with no family or home.

I had a twenty dollar bill

to buy my life if I were arrested.

No one knew I existed.

I believe I was fated to live;

I don’t know why.

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“Truman is my favorite president

because he let us in the U.S. after the war.

In New York I found my cousin.

She took me into her bedroom

and showed me her photo albums.

‘Take what you want,’ she said.

Can you imagine what it meant to me

to have a picture of my parents?”

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Thank you for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Anne Whitehouse, Guest Blogger

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Anne Whitehouse’s books include the poetry collections, BLESSINGS AND

CURSES and THE SURVEYOR’S HAND. Her chapbook BEAR IN MIND is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2010. She is the author of the novel FALL LOVE, now available as a free e-book from Amazon Kindle as well as Feedbooks and Smashwords. Please visit her website at http://annewhitehouse.com.  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

My poetry collection Blessings and Curses was born out of a wish to make

poetry out of everyday life - mine and other people’s. I no longer remember

whether the first poem I wrote in the series was a Blessing or a Curse.

The subsequent Blessings and Curses are numbered in consecutive order of

their composition. At the outset I didn’t intend to make a series, but

suddenly there it was. With each poem, I asked myself, Is this a Blessing

or a Curse?

>

As long as I could answer, I could keep the series going. It may sound

strange, but there were times when I wasn’t quite sure if the poem in

question was a Blessing or a Curse, even though I knew it was one thing or

the other. In other words, some of the Blessings are decidedly mixed, and

some of the Curses have silver linings.

.

I had been writing the series for about a year when I wrote what became

the title poem. I grew up in Reform Judaism, where the parasha Nitzavim

(Deuteronomy 29:9-30:19) is substituted for the traditional parasha at

the Yom Kippur service, and I am in agreement with the rabbis and

teachers who see Nitzavim as a key Jewish text. It also happened that

Nitzavim was to be my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah parasha, traditionally read

the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah. In the months of preparation before the

Bat Mitzvah, we all had the opportunity to reflect on this parasha’s

meanings, and out of these reflections, the poem was born.

.

To me it seems significant that God asked Moses to make His teachings into

a song. In other words, God’s words were translated into human art - to

make them more memorable perhaps? More meaningful? More acceptable?

The Torah tells us that this song came to Moses instantly. What artist

doesn’t wish for perfect ease of creation? I haven’t experienced it often,

but when I have, it is a compensation for when creation is laborious and

difficult.

.

The title poem expresses the religious ideals I grew up with and the

traditional belief that art is divinely inspired. God’s message is the

power of human beings to choose good over evil and stresses the

importance of intentions, good behavior and proper speech over worship

that is symbolic display. This emphasis has always been and continues to

be one of my favorite qualities of Judaism.

.

Here is the poem:

.

BLESSINGS AND CURSES

.

At the end of the Torah,

God appears to Moses

and tells him his life is over.

He will see the Promised Land

but not set foot in it.

Like his brother Aaron before him,

he will ascend the mountain and die,

but first he must address his people one last time.

.

Moses says to his people,

It is up to you to obey God’s commandments.

This is more important to God

than ritual acts of sacrifice.

You must look into your hearts

and choose the words from your mouths.

.

Through Moses, God speaks directly,

“I call heaven and earth

to witness against you this day

that I have set before you life and death,

the blessing and the curse;

therefore choose life, that you may live,

you and your seed.”

.

Afterwards, God returns

when Moses is alone.

He predicts, after Moses is dead,

His people will betray Him.

They will turn to false gods,

and He will punish them.

God asks Moses to compose a song

to remind the people of their obligations,

which Moses does instantly

and sings it to them,

enumerating God’s blessings and curses.

.

Moses is as mysterious

in death as in life.

He died on Mount Nebo,

at the summit of Pisgah,

and was buried below

on the steppes of Moab,

but no one knows his grave.

The Torah tells us, absolutely,

Moses is the greatest leader

the Jewish people ever had.

Not since Moses has God

appeared face-to-face to any human being.

.

When Moses died, he left us

with God’s blessings and curses

falling on us equally.

This is the life we are given.

.

Thank you for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Anne Whitehouse, Guest Blogger

.

Anne Whitehouse’s books include the poetry collections, BLESSINGS AND

CURSES and THE SURVEYOR’S HAND. Her chapbook BEAR IN MIND is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2010. She is the author of the novel FALL LOVE, now available as a free e-book from Amazon Kindle as well as Feedbooks and Smashwords. Please visit her website at http://annewhitehouse.com. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor 

When I teach creative writing, I stress the significance of writing by hand. I make a little speech about how the smoothness of a pen between one's fingers, the scent of crisp, white paper, is a sensory pleasure that is lost with technology. Then, I explain how the writing hand is connected to the creative part of the brain and touches the unconscious in a way the click clack of computer keys cannot possibly.

All true (I think), and in fact, writing by hand has in the past given me some of my most surprising work. I mentionl this because I was asked the other day about my "writing habits." And I then realized, it had been too long since I had written by hand, since I'd returned to what Natalie Goldberg terms "Beginner's Mind," a kind of writing that asks for nothing other than for words (or a mish-mosh of letters) to be released on paper.

One of the reasons I've bypassed this early (and often glorious) step is that I've become glued to what I want to write. I sit down with an agenda and an insistence that I stick to it. I tap tap tap away (90 wpm), revising this, rewording that, reworking the same old essays, no surprises. A large part of what drives this, is my desire to publish stuff, so close to being ready, but not quite.  Publishing stuff is great, but at the same time, I'm losing the sheer delight of surprise by what landed on the page, sans agenda.

The other night I was an hour early for my yoga class. So, I sat in this most peaceful place and asked the yogi at the front desk if I could borrow a pen and a scrap of paper.  I lighted up inside, felt new to writing, to this gift so readily available, and I scribbled like crazy. By the time class started I had two pages, and I wasn't done. And, the thing is, I doubt if typing would have helped me discover these characters who seemed to reside in my spleen, my belly, so deep, I felt an ache in releasing them. A good ache.

There's little I need to do today; days like this sometimes scare me. Too many hours to call up negativity, guilt, feelings that need little coaxing. And so, I'll go to yoga. I'll get there early.  Maybe I'll get a little more familiar with these characters in me, or I might let my words wander. Today, I'll put pen to paper, begin, and try to not care where it ends up. Today I'll be my own student.          

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Thanks for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Sandra Hurtes, Guest Blogger

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Sandra Hurtes is the author of the essay collection, On My Way To Someplace Else (Poetica Publishing 2009). She's written essays and articles for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Poets & Writers and many other publications. Visit her website: http://www.sandrahurtes.com/.

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Linda Pressman, Blog Editor