Poetica Magazine

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.*

..     .

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 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

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.

                                                                                     .

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.”

                                                                                                    .

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.

                                                                                           .

“We had a good life in Warsaw.

My father owned a business;

we kept two servants;

my sister and I went to private schools.

                                                                                                .

“After one week the city was bombarded

from morning to night.

Warsaw was beautiful,

and it was completely destroyed.

                                                                                                             .

“No one knew at first

of Hitler and Stalin’s secret pact.

Soon the city was reorganized

and the ghetto set up.

                                                                                               .

“Young Jews were going to Russia.

Before the ghetto was closed,

my fiancé and I escaped

across the green border to the East.

                                                                                                        .

“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.

                                                                                        .

“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.’

                                                                                                      .

“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.

                                                                                                              .

“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.

                                                                                                  .

“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.

                                                                                                        .

“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?”

                                                                                                                         .

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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Here is the poem:

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BLESSINGS AND CURSES

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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When Moses died, he left us

with God’s blessings and curses

falling on us equally.

This is the life we are given.

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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 

Selecting an appropriate topic is the first step in conducting a poetry workshop for youngsters. This was discussed in Part I. Of equal importance is the warm-up. To stand in front of a class and say, “Write about the color red,” won’t do the trick. Better to begin with a round of favorite colors from as many students as you can, talk about why a certain color appeals, how it makes you feel and what a color might say if it could speak. Generally this introduction serves as a warm-up and enough guidance to get the children going without inhibition.

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Another way to trigger the muse with young poets is reading the poems of others. A model poem on the theme of the day by one of the great poets of our time can set the bar. It’s not necessary to use poems for children. Some of the poems of Emily Dickenson, William Carlos Williams and Robert Frost and others are easily understood particularly when we discuss and explain the hard parts. For example, Margaret Atwood’ in her poem, “Dreams of Animals,” writes that animals dream “each according to its kind.” Pause a minute and talk about our kind, a pig’s kind, a dog’s kind and soon Atwood’s meaning comes through.

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But the model poem is not enough. Supplementing it with a few peer poems on the day’s theme gives the students a standard they know they can attain. Here is a typical poem on dreams of animals, written in terms of “wishes.” This fourth grader combined his general knowledge with his imagination to create a knock-out poem.

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A WHALE’S WISH

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I wish I was skinny and I lost weight

I wish there were no pirates

because I am an endangered species.

I wish that Moby Dick never existed

because they killed my aunt and sisters

I wish that one day my wish will be granted

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Although it is painful for some at first, every student should read his or her poem out loud. Sound is such a critical part of absorbing poetry that all of us who write poems need to hear what we have written. The youngest of the young poets, first through third grade, love to read their poems out loud. They beg to be the first to read and beam with pride afterward.

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Poetry lessons can be adapted to the needs of the teacher or the student. For example, classes can focus on themes that reinforce the information learned in other classes. One fifth grade was studying colonial life in early America. We adapted the “I Remember” theme to reflect what a child in colonial time might remember. Memories for this exercise included building a log cabin, stitching a sampler and shooting a bear with an arrow. Again, if teachers want the class to learn specific poetic forms it is easily done by simply attaching the term, simile, alliteration or onomatopoeia whenever such terms apply.

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Poetry classes can be effective with all levels of ability, from gifted to learning disabled students. Each child responds from his/her own level of experience and knowledge. Learning disabled children have written beautiful poems. Sometimes a teacher has to do the physical handwriting and even recite the poem but the young poet can still stand in front of the class with pride and pleasure. My observation is that this is the child who will get the loudest applause from the class.

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One class at Maryland Hall collaborated to express the importance of poetry from their collective point of view:

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ODE TO A POEM

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Oh poem, Oh poem

You have rhythm, rhythm, rhythm, rhyme

Happy, sad, jealous, mad

Pretty poem by proud poets

This is the essence of life.

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Thank you for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Natalie Lobe, Guest Blogger

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Natalie Lobe’s poetry collection, Connected Voices, was published in 2006; Island Time in 2008. Her most recent publications are in Blue Unicorn, Iconoclast and Comstock Review. Ms. Lobe is a Poet in the Schools for Maryland and Anne Arundel County and teaches at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis, Maryland. She is also a reviewer for the on-line Montserrat Review. Ms. Lobe lives in Annapolis with her husband, Bernard.

Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

A few years ago Zachary's Mom hailed me outside the center where I teach a class for young poets. She said her son’s third grade teacher remarked on Zach’s new self confidence and wondered what had happened. The mom said, “I told her he had taken a Young Poets Workshop.

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Granted, a short series of workshops for young poets does not always have such dramatic results, but it may present a rare opportunity for a child to develop self esteem by expressing, in a poem, his or her unique thoughts and feelings. The medium itself permits a great deal of freedom. Two major ground rules -- don’t worry about telling the exact truth or spelling all the words right—allows children to express themselves without inhibition.

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The late Kenneth Koch, founder of the nationwide Poets in the Schools Program, wrote, "Children have a natural talent for writing poetry and anyone who teaches them should know that. Teaching is really not the right word for what takes place. It is more like permitting the children to discover something they already have."

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He goes on to say that removing the obstacles that intimidate children, like rhyming and special forms, allows them to tune in to their own feelings and let inhibition give way to “carefree inventiveness."(1) The so called crazy ideas that come from children are welcomed in this environment as they are the fuel for invention, enjoyment and self-confidence. Here are two examples:

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I used to be a cloud floating in the sky

But now I’m a pencil. Work, work, work!

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Frustration tastes like Domino’s pizza burned black.

Frustration smells like Brussels sprouts for dessert.

Frustration feels like a $100 bill lost down the sewer

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As will be discussed later, classes or workshops that work on these principles are important and available in most areas of the country. This is also an opportunity for poets who wish to teach.

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One key to success in teaching young poets is to offer a variety of themes over a series of workshops and to make sure the each of the subjects grabs them. Whereas most of the topics in poetry workshops for young people work well for all age groups, very young children may prefer to write about a favorite food or amazing things they have never seen. They enjoy comparing themselves to an animal, weather or musical instrument. The comparison poem introduces the concept of “simile,” as well. Here is an example from a third grader:

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ME

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I am like a fast fox in the woods

I am as loud as a drum or as quiet as a harp

I am as strong as a tornado or as weak as the rain

I am like a squirrel climbing a tree.

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Older children like to write about sports, the environment, feelings and social interactions. One approach that appeals to pre-teens and teens is writing a letter that cannot be answered: to the sun, to peace, to Thomas Jefferson. An eighth grader wrote the following poem, which stands out for its rhythm and simple but powerful expression of feeling.

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DEAR KATRINA

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You came, we ran, some stayed and fought,

You made havoc in four of our states.

You hit us hard,

You killed our people,

You tore us apart,

Trashed our homes, flooded our streets

Treated us like little ants.

You killed our young, you killed our old,

You took our friends and families.

You left nothing but painful memories,

Now we have to clean the mess

While you go into hiding.

Katrina, you made us turn on each other.

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Part 2 of this article will cover other techniques that trigger the young poet’s muse: the warm-up, reading the poems of others as well as student poems and adapting the classes to the needs both of the children and teachers.

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  (1) Koch, Kenneth, Wishes, Lies, and Dreams, p.25

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Thank you for reading JWorld Café, The Poetica Magazine Blog

Natalie Lobe, Guest Blogger

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Natalie Lobe’s poetry collection, Connected Voices, was published in 2006; Island Time in 2008. Her most recent publications are in Blue Unicorn, Iconoclast and Comstock Review. Ms. Lobe is a Poet in the Schools for Maryland and Anne Arundel County and teaches at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis, Maryland. She is also a reviewer for the on-line Montserrat Review. Ms. Lobe lives in Annapolis with her husband, Bernard.

Why I write.

When I do, there are two conflicting outcomes: a feeling of achievement, and ‘what’s the point?’. Anyone can understand the satisfaction of channeling words to paper. The point is that I wonder who will bother to read what I’ve written, and just how important, how earth-shattering, is my particular brand of blather?

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This question has shut me down entirely for months at a time. If I can’t write like King David and King Solomon, then I won’t write at all – so there.

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I whine alone to myself for a long while until someone with a more realistic take on life says, “hey, you write very well – get on with it” (or some similar words).

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No one is King David. No one is me.

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I Scrub My Words

By Mindy Aber Barad

               I

I scrub my words

My knuckles bloodied

From re-writes

My knees scabbed

With synonyms

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Punctuation pours

down my forehead

as I perspire over

every paragraph

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dried skin

of extra syllables

ex-foliates

delete

erase

correct

               II

I polish words

The corners of consonance

Deep in the grooves of grammar

Each letter breaks off

Reflects light

As a prism

Complete phrases smile upon me

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Dark and gritty

Faded in the siege

Of months and dust

Words challenge me

To coax out

Their luster

               III

I pour thick words

Into my pressure cooker

The European way…

For an international flavor

I stir fry commas

Ceremonial nouns

Occasional verbs

Festive modifiers melt,

Simmer and steam

.

Vivid virgules

Etched inside

Parentheses

An asterisk appears

As each delicious sentence

Floats to the surface.

.

.

My husband’s famous line is: “You write great poetry, but I can’t eat it for dinner.”

.

I hover along the border of modesty and pride, mostly off balance. I find that the ‘me’ of my work is really far less important than the impact. And, yes, there is an impact. Closet poets come to me and show me their work. Some accept my encouragement and the challenge to write, others seem satisfied with the compliment, and that they have participated in the bare endeavor of writing.

.

In addition, I have a theory of an audience of one. This can be taken theologically, as my work can be construed as psalms, lamentations, prayers. This can also be construed commercially: at least the editor to whom I submit my work will have read it.

. 

Thank you for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Mindy Aber Barad, Guest Blogger

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Mindy Aber Barad co-edits The Deronda Review. Her work has appeared in the Jewish Press and in Poetica, in which her award-winning poem, “The Land That Fills my Dreams” appeared in the July, 2007 edition. She has completed two poetry manuscripts and one and a half full-length novels, and has contributed to a wide variety of poetry publications. Her work can be seen at http://www.pointandcircumference.com/

On the meeting of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai and Woody Guthrie

Almost Over.

You know its almost over

"Hell no! You never know!"

.

“That's it, It's done"

We're gone?

He and them

.

Even you and, excuse me,

The dog.

They're still here!

.

They're still around!

Still breathing!

Not

.

Breathing

Still.

Yelping

.

Is of no avail.

Time is finally up.

GAME OVER

.

with all the alarm

Involved with that final change.

As Harold Bloom has said

.

Awaits us all.

.

.

.

P.S

.

On language, the imagination and music that bewitches

.

I had to choose between

Alarm and alacrity

As a word you thought existed was denied

Its

life

By melingo and Webster too

.

Are we just like

That unborn word?

That knows no terror?

Real or imagined.

Near the lake

Or on the street

.

In a morning

Or at night

At any time

Terror strikes.

A child on the way to the store

For an ice-cream cone

.

But like alarm

And alacrity

Neighbors in the dictionary

Yet strange and different from

Each other

Passing by on the street

.

Totally unaware &

Tone deaf to the other

They did eventually bump

In to each other

And sat outside the mall

Sipping coffee and watching

.

The people go by

.

.

In search of the Beloved, Mir has lost himself,

Will someone look at his plight ?

...

Gaze at the Beloved from head to feet,

You'll see God and God alone.

...

Where has my forgetfulness taken me?

I've been long waiting for myself.

...

What did the moth whisper into the lamp ?

the latter was left bewildered.... till dawn !

...

The heart says

it has been destroyed by the eyes

the eyes say

they have been abandoned by the heart

who is telling truth ?

who can surmise ?

Mir says he has been ruined

by both -

the heart and the eyes !

.... ..... .....