Untold, wordled in a cloud of words

15 Tuesday Jun 2010

Posted by in Poetry, Travel, Untold, word-dancing, wordle

≈ 3 Comments

I’ve discovered wordle.net! To do this, go there and paste in some text. I dropped in my promotional material and the pattern above was chosen, with the most used words appearing larger. I decided to put in selections from the chapter on ‘A’isha, with “The Battle of the Camel”  featured, and here is what appeared:

‘A'isha and The Battle of the Camel

Here is some of the text from Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad:

“Beware the barking dogs of Hawa’ab” is a phrase from the legend of ‘A’isha’s journey to Basra. In this tale, there were dogs in the town barking or howling. This caused ‘A’isha to remember Muhammad’s warning. Alarmed, she wished to turn back. But her generals, men invested in war, tricked her into going forward. Was this a story concocted by ‘Ali’s followers to discredit her? Whatever the truth, she continued, riding first to Basra, then to a place near the Tigris River where the armies faced each other and the leaders began to negotiate a resolution to the conflict. During the night fighting broke out and the truce ended ended quickly — with war. Untold, p. 44.  [This is followed by a poem]

<><> owner’s manual: the howdah

The father of this howdah is dawn with no birds. Its mother is a lost prayer. This is the story of ‘A’isha, the ride to Basra, the sidewise motion of war. It is equal parts the camel’s wobbly stride and a woman’s keen eye.

The howdah is a covered platform strapped to a camel’s back. Some facts about the howdah:

ONE.              It’s arrow proof.

TWO.             One can peer out through the slits.

THREE.         Dismounting requires that the camel kneel or fall.

‘A’isha travels inside a howdah.

When her army comes to Hawa’ab, the local dogs

set up a ceaseless howl.

Beware the barking dogs of Hawa’ab She hears him say,

“Turn back and do it now!” Were those the Prophet’s words?

‘A’isha’s generals bark and bark around her. She wishes they’d shut up. She rides on.

More things to know about the howdah:

ONE.              It’s a fairly safe observation post in a battle

TWO.            Above the battle, it’s a rallying point for the troops.

THREE.        It’s a Pandora’s Box.

A war begins and ends in hemorrhage.

Ten thousand dead and dying men surround Aisha’s tall, red camel.

What happens to a howdah during a battle:

ONE.            In a fierce battle it can become a target.

TWO.            If the camel falls, the howdah crashes from a great height.

THREE.       al Hawdaj, al Haddun! The other side claims victory.

The daughter of this story is a crushed bird. Its son is a desire for peace

folded in to that unspeakable war. This is the story of ‘A’isha

as Shahada. The story over and over, between one breath

and the next, anywhere else than this.    Any other outcome. <><>

endnotes:~ This is a phrase that may have been yelled in battle as a great animal with a howdah fell heavily al-hawdaj,– the howdah, al-Haddun! – the heavy, tumbling, fall.~ “Beware the barking dogs…” was, according to some accounts, something Muhammad had prophetically told ‘A’isha years before (hadith). ~ Shahada means witness.

pages from Untold about Zaynab b. Jahsh

One morning Zaynab opened the door to greet Muhammad and something happened between them. Some say she was wearing only a single garment, and that he closed his eyes and said, “Praised be God the Great, praised be God who turns hearts!”…. Untold, p. 49.

<>~<>~<>

The Abode, Omega, and Monkfish Books

03 Thursday Jun 2010

Posted by in Monkfish Books, Omega Institute, Poetry, Untold, Updates

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The Ram Dass Library at Omega Institute

First we sat on the runway as the storm broke around us, closing Dulles Airport for an hour. Finally, around 10:30 pm, we rose into cumulous towers, as lightning lit every window. Soon we viewed the storm along side the right wing – a lightshow inside a gargantuan cloud, it’s black edges swollen with rain. For a good ten minutes we flew next to this vision. The full moon rode the wing.        The next morning I opened an E-mail sent on our travel day:

…the evolutionary reset begins today 9:44 pm (East Coast time), illuminated and amplified by the Full Moon. Uranus, (lightning bolt of awakening), is activating a new evolutionary cycle as it completes its 84 year journey from Aries through Pisces- and begins again, at this moment. Big celestial event…. Uranus into Aries: spontaneous innovation, unprecedented originality, adventurous experimentation!

Shabda on the road up the mountain behind The Abode of the Message

Seven Pillars:  We traveled to Albany, New York on that energy, then drove to New Lebanon and arrived around 2:00 AM. We had come to participate in a Guiding Voices Conference of The Seven Pillars House of Wisdom. I kept turning over in my thoughts what wisdom might be. I felt it as rooted to the feminine and nature.

http://www.sevenpillarshouse.org  <> Seven Pillars exists to support the advancement of wisdom in the global culture.  By wisdom is meant knowledge that is rooted in the experience of the heart.  This is knowledge that recognizes the universe as the living expression of a sacred unity…

I took pages of notes on the two days of meetings, but I have misplaced them. Here are some highlights: Shabda and I hiked up the mountain behind the Abode, which is in the Berkshires near the Massachusetts border. We went to the place Pir Vilayat used for retreat when he was alive – The Pod. The woods were beautiful and full of delicious sounding streams and songbirds.

Here are some highlights from the conference: I connected with Paul Devereux’s talk on cosmology, and the notion of one’s place in the physical world. Dot and surrounding.

Conference of the Guiding Voices

I read from Untold, participated in a high energy evening of dance and Zikr, lead by Shabda; engaged in moments of personal sharing with members of the group; and finally was ceremonially handed a pomegranate by Janet Piedilato.

<>  Omega Institute. We met our old friend, Stephan and his lovely wife, Annette, had lunch and a golf cart tour of Omega Institute on Memorial Day.

The award-winningOmega Center for Sustainable Living

That evening I gave a reading from Untold at the Ram Dass Library at Omega with my Publisher, Publicist, and book designer present! I met Elizabeth Cunningham, Monkfish author of The Passion of Mary Magdalen.

Paul Cohen and Shabda at Monkfish

<> Monkfish Books! I met my publisher! We stayed next door to the Monkfish Books headquarters, on a beautiful property in Rhinebeck. A good time with excellent food and company!

Georgia's office at Monkfish Books

<> Our friend Wen drove us from the Abode to Rhinebeck then to the airport on Tuesday. We stopped at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, and delivered Untold to the Dean of the College. I had not been there since I graduated years ago.

Tamam and Sarah Lawrence in Westlands

Through the window next to this painting I could see the New Dorms where I lived freshman year, and on the other side, the dorm at the library… where I shared  a suite of rooms with Karen Magid, next door to Bessie Huang and Nancy Houseman… where Tibor used to call up to me from the road, when he arrived on his Norton motorcycle.   In the place where I am standing in the photo below, I walked in my cap and gown decades ago…

Here I received my college diploma

Fred Chappell~ Shadow Box

16 Sunday May 2010

Posted by in Poetry, Untold, word-dancing

≈ 1 Comment

I hesitate to write about this poetry book, because I am intimated by its brilliance and inventiveness. But then I want to stand on a soapbox and shout out –Shadow Box! Yes! It’s that good. It’s also rich, deep and chewy as a California coastal mountain Cabernet, so you need to sip and savor it. Admire the color and complexity.  Fred Chappell has written embedded poems – a poem within a poem – and made it seem effortless.

Fred Chappell is the author of a dozen other books of verse, including Backsass and Spring Garden; two story collections; and eight novels. A native of Canton in the mountains of western North Carolina, he taught at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro from 1964 to 2004. He is the winner of, among other awards, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, Aiken Taylor Award, T. S. Eliot Prize, and Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry eight times over.

The Foreseeing~

If he could love her less, he might succeed in seeming unaware

of those fleet changes in her she herself would never recognize,

not seeing how her shadow that had bleached until it was

a bare half-shadow, until it was the color of morning rain, seeing nowhere

signal that it will now begin to overfill (the way that sighs

overfill breathing) its edgeless contours with a serene and depthless power,

a resistless immaculate azure-like sky-shine: and though he tries,

deception fails because she is in love again, and mist-cold

fear he can no longer flee or put from him the well-intentioned lies

comes on like April’s heartless frost to wither him once more.

Now just imagine Fred reading this with his wife Susan. He reads the non-italic phrases  and she reads the inside poem. [as in this photo.]

Here is a  review from the back of the book: “In this sharply innovative collection, renowned poet Fred Chappell layers words and images to create a new and dramatic poetic form—the poem-within-a-poem. Like the shadow box in the volume’s title, each piece consists of an inner world contained, framed, supported by an outer—the two interdependent, sometimes supplementary, often contrary. For example, the grim but gorgeous “The Caretakers” is a landscape that reveals another image inside it. Chappell also introduces sonnets in which the sestet nests within the octet. Play serves as an important component, but the poems do not depend upon gamesmanship or verbal strategems. Instead, they delicately or wittily trace human feelings, respond somberly to the news of the world, and rejoice in humankind’s plentiful variety of attitudes and beliefs. Just as an x-ray can show the inner structure of a physical object, so the techniques in Shadow Box display the internal energies of the separate works.

With this new form—the “enclosed” or “embedded” or “inlaid” poem—Chappell broadens the expressive possibilities of formal poetry, intrigues the imagination in an entirely new way, and offers surprise and revelation in sudden flashes. At once revolutionary and traditional, Shadow Box contains an Aladdin’s trove of surprises.”

<>  I met Fred in 2002 at a small workshop at UMD in Duluth Minnesota. I listened carefully to what he said. I laughed. I learned important basics about writing. I discovered trusted him more than nearly anyone with whom I had studied poetry. Then he taught at the WCU Formalist Poetry Conference in 2004. I went there just to see him. I told him I had dozens of poems about Prophet Muhammad’s Wives but no one knew their stories so I couldn’t just make a book of the poems. He wisely suggested “the prosimetrum.” I’d never heard the word but for me it was magic. I set the poems in a narrative, as Boethius did in the fifth century. I devoted several years to this. This November I will visit North Carolina on my book tour and offer thanks to my friend and  “Godfather” of Untold – Fred Chappell.

More word dancing from Mirage:

1   Somewhere sidewise lies the untitled time of earth/

before the mind becomes a work of art…

————————————————–

also recommended ~

Farewell, I’m Bound to Leave You by Fred Chappell, New York, Picador Press (a novel).

Understanding Fred Chappell, by John Lang. Columbia: USC Press, 2000.

The new Untold Trailer

09 Sunday May 2010

Posted by in A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad, Poetry, Untold

≈ 2 Comments

I had this idea to create a book trailer after Diane Lockward posted one on the WOMPO poetry listserve. I couldn’t stop thinking about how it would help put a face to a book, the way movie trailers give a thumbnail of the film. I talked about it to all my close tec people and gathered pix and video clips, then finally we were ready and Shabda put the ideas together on imovie. Here it is –– 4 minutes with a soundtrack mostly by Hamza El Din and even some spoken word. I think this will be useful as the Publisher and publicist get ready to send UNTOLD out into the world of bookstores, etc….

Untold: A History of… three months later

21 Sunday Mar 2010

Posted by in Naropa, Poetry, Sufi, Untold

≈ 2 Comments

Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad will be released Fall 2010 as a Monkfish Books  in paperback, available in bookstores and on Amazon at that time. ”Untold” is a biographical narrative based on actual historical material with 70 poems embedded in the prose.      <>   <>    <>   <>

from the opening poem:  who do you think you are:

…I am a pilgrim, a pen with child’s heart,

following the foremothers through

doors shut on centuries of stolen words, across

floors now hushed in Saudi cement, down

steps to the cellar filled with the Hijaz story-jars.

Unsealed, the jars open their mouths,

speak to me. I listen…..

Note from the author: Untold has been out in Limited Edition Hardcover for almost three months. I am starting to get used to having a book in my life. There are readings, most recently in Colorado: Denver, Fort Collins, and Boulder. I presented at Patrick D’Silva’s Islamic Studies class at Naropa University in Boulder, and the “Allen Ginsberg Library” there ordered the book.  That was a great delight for me, as I feel this book belongs in libraries, where curious students can investigate the nearly 20 pages of end notes and learn about these brave women, nearly unknown except in Muslim communitites.  I read in Cambridge for 70 people last weekend, and prepare to go to Arcata, California in a couple weeks. Before that, a by-invitation reading in Petaluma. The “galleys” are here, and look like my book on a diet, slim and marked with black letters, as in the photo. I begin to contact bookstores for fall and winter readings. I am working up enthusiasm for “the business of books.” Remembering that “author” has to do with “authentic.”

These untranslated women, who stood in the first light of Islam, have buried stories. Here are several: Khadija is a wealthy businesswoman who hires young Muhammad; Hafsa is saved from divorce by Angel Gabriel, Zaynab, a married first cousin, experiences a moment of passion with Muhammad, Umm Salama saves a vital peace treaty and Aisha tells of death of the Prophet. These are stories known in the Arab-speaking world but not in the West. I am fortunate to have good resources: rudimentary Qu’ranic Arabic study; scholarly guidance, travel in the Middle East, and three decades as a seeker on the path of American Sufism.

Reading in Petluma <> hurkalaya@aol.com

Comments from Distinguished Readers:

“Your book fills a great need, and does so with beauty.” Pir Zia Inayat Khan

<>”Untold is a riveting hen-house of delight, a book based on subjects our society finds endlessly confusing — marriage, matriarchy, and Muhammad. Finally, we get to meet the first women of Islam. Tamam, thank you for doing this brave book.” ~ Coleman Barks, author, The Essential Rumi.

<>”This book is a movement to remind us that the prophetic experience and revolution are inner as well as outer, and beyond time or place. The women on these pages have as much to tell us now as they did then. Tamam has created a new genre of Islamic literature. Through her poetry she draws us to the Mothers of Islam by illustrating, exemplifying, and embodying actual human beings. Her vibrant words provide a doorway to the Wives of the Prophet.” ~ Arthur F. Buehler (A.M., Ph.D. Harvard) Senior Lecturer, Islamic Studies, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand (2004–present),

<>”Untold takes us on Taman Kahn’s moving, personal journey of discovery, to unveil the hidden history of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad. The book frees the authentic voice of these women, who came from many different backgrounds and who played an essential role in the origins of Islam.  Ms Kahn steers a middle course between Western religious prejudice and uncritical hagiography by finding the poetry hidden between the lines of reported history, itself written mostly by men. As such, this book is part of a larger movement that seeks to reclaim the voices of women prophets and saints of all traditions.” ~ Saadi, Dr Neil Douglas-Klotz, author of The Sufi Book of Life and co-author of The Tent of Abraham.

<>”Swimming amid “the names of God,” Tamam Kahn has written a brilliant and illuminating book, equally awesome in the depth of its research, the grace of its prose, and the beauty of its poetic voices.  Untold should be read with joy by any reader who hopes to transcend current stereotypes about Islam.  It is a bridge between worlds.” ~ Alicia Ostriker, poet and critic, author of The Volcano Sequence, and of Feminist Revision and the Bible, The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions and Professor Emerita of English at Rutgers University.

“In a sustained act of spirited research and imagination, Tamam Kahn brings Muhammad’s wives and daughters out of the shadows and into the light.  The women of ‘Untold’ have at last found their perfect teller, in voices so gemlike and clear that one wants to chant them aloud, dance to them, celebrate with them.” ~ Lesley Hazleton, author, After the Prophet: The epic Story of the Shia Sunni Split in Islam.

Notes from generous readers!

“When I read the book, it made me so happy, because what you did was so brave – I’m sure I could never have done it.  But seeing you read from this book gives me a dose of courage that I now have under my belt – for later  …It opened a door onto my imagination about the women around the Prophet (saws) which brought them to life in a way that no standard biographical information had.  With your poetry, I realized that I too, could simply imagine them as flesh and blood women, with feelings of jealousy and grief and courage and fierceness and impatience.  …I thank you for opening that door for me.”  Salama Wendy McLaughlin, Host, KWMR Sufi Radio

“The prose was like sipping a sweet mint tea; delicious – then a poem would drop in like an ice cube, bringing crystal clarity and emotion, changing the experience but not the taste.” ~ Dechen

“I am amazed at your scholarship and courage to put this information out to the world.  Saadi used the adjective “brave” and I agree.  The poetry is lovely and helps me see what it was like  to be the wife of a controversial figure.  Thank you for helping me SEE. ~ Fadhilla

“I received Tamam’s beautiful book, Untold, yesterday. It is a real gem! What a treasure.” ~ Arlene

“Your wonderful UNTOLD is now in the woods of Maine. I will spread your words.” ~Henry

“The personal entwined with the historical narrative to hold the poems is so wonderful.  I didn’t know how starving I was for this until you let me taste!” ~ Basira

tribute to Lucille Clifton

27 Saturday Feb 2010

Posted by in Lucille Clifton

≈ 4 Comments

Lucille reading on you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM7q_DUk5wU

And this from Bill Moyers : http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02262010/watch2.html

Won’t you come celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton

won’t you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

Lucille Clifton was a beloved and  favorite poet for many of us. Now she is gone. She died on February 13th, 2010.

I shuffled through my notes from the Dodge Poetry Fest, years 2006 and 2008. I had written many things she said, and in re-typing them here, I could just see her saying these great one-liners. “My sister used to go out with Aretha’s brother Vaughn.” WoW! That was it, then went on to say things like “Poetry wants to speak for those who have not yet found the voice to speak.” The first time I heard her read was at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. (She also taught at St. Mary’s in Maryland.) I got there early and was in the second row. After, I asked her to sign my copy of her poetry book, good woman. I told her I’d been studying poetry with Naomi Shihab Nye. She smiled and said, “I love Naomi.” At Dodge she always spoke to the high school students who filled the giant tent. Here are some excerpts from her talks:

08 talk to school kids at Dodge — I’m not qualified to do anything but tell people to be quiet. <>There are all kinds of ways of being smart. <> I want to write about what it is to be human. This culture is afraid of difference. <> Our mission as poets is to allow the poem to be what it seems, us recognizing in each other a kind of sameness. <> Whitman didn’t have an MFA. I think one has to feel in order to be a fine poet and connect feeling, spirit, and intellect. <> Cleverness is often in the way of poetry. <> If someone doesn’t teach you something, go out and learn it. The more you learn the more you are able to cope with surprises. If you leave reason out sometimes you have important things, but if you leave the heart out, it doesn’t live. <> <>  I said to Stanley Kunitz, “I wonder what I gave up for this gift of poetry!” He said, “My dear, you had no choice.”

06 talk to school kids at Dodge — My life is an open book. You can ask me anything. <> I can say anything. I even say “white” aloud in public. <> Poetry came out of my own wondering, dreams, memories. I learned not to stop it, to be my own person. That’s how I’ve managed so far.  <> In some cultures I am what’s happening! Not this one (a lead in to her poem My Hips.) I like to celebrate the wholeness of what we are famous for being. Paris Hilton… that doesn’t seem enough. <> I try not to be too disappointed in the world. <> I get up in the night and read Auden. <> I think about what’s necessary to you and what’s necessary to me and I chose. <> Regarding the on-going war on terror: I’d be more likely to join if the KKK was declared a terrorist organization. <> I’m about giving anything its true name. I enjoy learning. I’ve always been a curious person. My audience has always been diverse. I hope I’ve become more human, more possible.

Talk to poets at Dodge 06 — If I can validate my students’ culture, they’ll validate mine. <> 6 kids in 6-and-a-half years. Not Catholic, not Mormon – fertile. <> When I used to see women the age I am now I’d think, “They’re old!” They wore house-dresses and aprons. Guys put on the aprons to barbeque. <> My first book? My kids were 7, 5, 3, 2, & 1.  Now I write on a computer on the e-mail page. Don’t need capitol letters. Poems get longer. When my poems were short my kids were younger.  <> Holding poems in my head is what I do best.  I allow the poem to do what it wishes and I obey. I serve the poem.  I edit on paper. The poem has to work on the page and in the ear.  Feel what it will sound like.  <> I’m casual (apparently) about my life, but careful with my poem. Try to have power over it – you kill the poem. Leave it alone, then come back to it. <> When I edit, I balance intellect and intuition. <> You have to get over the stuff that keeps you from being authentic.  In poetry you are writing lines, not sentences. To talk straight ought not to be difficult, but this culture makes it hard. <> I look at bad TV and take my meds on time.

blessing the boats  (at St. Mary’s) by Lucille Clifton

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back    may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

This poem? I may have been thinking about and feeling the passages in life. Hope we can get through things. For me the worst has never happened yet. Cancer 3X, Lost parents, husband, 2 kids. Kidney failure. <> I trust the poem. I will serve it. <> Look for the authentic ending to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted.

By some good fortune, I have an Email from her answering the request to use her poem in my book, Untold, as an introduction to my chapter “Mariya, From Among the Christians.” Here it is (from gloria mundi):

so knowing/ what is known

that is more difficult/ than faith/ to serve only one calling/ one commitment/ one devotion/ in one life.

Naomi forwarded my request. December 1, 2009 this E-mail arrived.

Lucille wrote: “Dear Friend  (any friend of naomi is etcetc) Yes    it sounds great!   Thank you    Lucille.”

Rest in peace luminous Lucille. You are missed. <><><>

Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins, & Rock ‘n Roll!

22 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in Boulder, Naropa

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Gayan and Liz Barnez at Nissi's

Boulder is to the Rockies as San Francisco is to the Pacific Ocean. It’s a seam: two unlike things stitched together in visual poetry. Here it is rock and thin air instead of salt spray and sand. I am driving around several thousand (six?) feet above sea level, but so is everyone else. The whole thing makes me a little giddy. I’m supposed to be making book presentations, but then there is this rehearsal in a Boulder Garage on Winding Trail Drive for a spoken word piece with three fine musicians backing me up – Gayan on his trap set, Michael on guitar, and Rob on bass. I’ve got a mic and a music stand and I’m having flashbacks to rehearsing with the Fairfax Street Choir a few decades back. I belt out some lyrics: “Seems like Angel Gabriel he threw me a curve now I’m starting to swerve and I’m losing my nerve…”  Oh yes! The next evening I am on the stage at Nissi’s a few miles out of town. Happy Birthday Gayan! My second piece is a playful tribute to my most excellent drum teacher:  …Catch an African drum beat <> Teka-Dum repeat — topside <> Teka Teka hand heat — joyride <> Tone-slap’n heartbeats –riptide <> Ah-shay Zimbabwe — upside!

… a ride with the tide. But so was the reading at Janan’s Gallery at Cherry Creek, Denver on Valentine’s Day. What a beautiful art gallery she has created! Janan had not returned from India, so Donna made it beautiful and was welcoming. Love poems. Old friends and new.

Monday evening I drove to Poet Laureate Mary Crow’s house in Fort Collins. My gracious host took me to an early dinner then to Deborah’s hose where I presented on  “…the women from Jewish and Christian roots in the household of Prophet Muhammad and his positive view: embracing one family: the People of the Book.”

part of Mary Crow's poetry library...

Mostly I stayed at Janet’s cozy home in Longmont. She has been a leader in Shambhala Training and is a long-time friend. We seem to have intersecting circles of work and play. I appreciated deeply connecting with her friends and feeling the place where – like the Rockies and the plain –Sufi and the Buddhist edges meet and join, each lending new interest to the other.

The love-fest continued with a presentation of my book, “Untold,” at the Islamic Studies class at Naropa University in Boulder. This is a school I have admired for a long long time. Back when Trungpa Rinpoche founded it in the early seventies, and Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman began the poetics department in 1975, back then, I thought about attending Naropa. It seemed a long way from California and I had a young child to care for. Now, thirty some years later I sit in a Naropa classroom, reading my poems to  students…  discussing what may have happened in the 7th century. Ah! Wonderful.

teaching at Naropa University!

Colorado, I’ll be back in the fall when Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad is released in bookstores.

<>

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Untold: A History… and travel plans

08 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in Naropa

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The normal thing used to be to carry a book somewhere, in a book-bag, a satchel, a backpack, a briefcase. You get there and take it out, order an Earl Grey with steamed milk or fasten a seatbelt, and open into new worlds, riding the author’s stream of words. Things have changed for me. Now my book is carrying me places. A couple of weeks ago it took me to Hawaii, now we travel to the east side of the Rockies. Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins….

Gayan started it by mentioning his fiftieth birthday bash on February 16th. Why didn’t I come? SF to Denver tickets were on sale… After this came up a few times I called my long-time friend Janet, who lives in Boulder…  Janet wrote to a faculty member at Naropa University, who invited me to come present at his class. He said the timing was perfect! I have to say this is a dream gig for me, since I have followed the Naropa “Institute” saga for decades, and considered going there when it was founded, the year my husband Shabda and I met. It is named after a Tibetan sage, a fact which I love. What could be more unusual than blending the fragrances of Buddha Dharma with Prophet Muhammad’s ideals?  What if the great Tibetan woman master, Yeshe Tsogyal had tea with Fatima, daughter of Muhammad? Didn’t they both work toward awakening? The founder, Chogyam Trunpa would have enjoyed this….

Janan Creative Arts and Gallery

Next Janan invited me to read at her gallery JANAN, Creative Arts and Gallery at 2210 St Paul Street, Denver from 4-6 on Valentine’s Day <> SEVENTH CENTURY LOVE STORIES. But Booking was not over! Fort Collins, lets see. Colorado Poet Laureate, Mary Crow was someone I had a good time with at a writing workshop in Mexico some time ago… So I wrote to her and she invited me for a visit. Gayan phoned Grace Marie, and she offered a reading at the home of a Fort Collins  friend, saying she would invite several groups, including The Dances of Universal Peace family and an interfaith group. Thank you Grace! (for flyer info: http://www.kundagrace.com/special events/).  Book sense here suggests a focus on an interfaith theme:  “…the women from Jewish and Christian roots in the household of Prophet Muhammad and his positive view; embracing one family –– the People of the Book.”

I spoke with Reb Zalman, a legendary sage, now retired from teaching at Naropa, Visionary  of  Jewish renewal and advocate of inter-religious dialog. I knew him in the late seventies, when he would check on the California Sufis to see how we were doing. The book will bring me to his place as well.

Reb Zalman

And the book trip ends with a spoken word piece at Gayan’s music-jam birthday Tuesday night. Wednesday I fly home to meet Shabda who will be landing within hours from his Pilgrimage to Hazrat Inayt Khan’s URS in Delhi, India. Book-a-tee-doo-dah!

Stanford’s first Grand Slam Championships

31 Sunday Jan 2010

Posted by in "Jamaica Osorio", Stanford poetry slam

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with the winners going to the Nationals. I had to go. Only three dollars at the door.  After catching Youth Speaks last year, I wanted to see what this group of poets was up to.  I have been following Jamaica Osorio’s spoken word with great interest.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d54xhGzwM50).  Here was a chance to see her work it.  I invited my friend Michelle, who is great company,


Michelle

and rode from SF with me, while we listened to DJ Solomon’s music. Spoken Word. Slam poetry. There is something fresh and slightly jittery about the first time. With a slam, first is bound to be good because there’s a sparkle and none of the jive and expectation that comes with tried and true.

Rayna's poem

They gave us zammee.com to login for a broadcast… waiting for that to begin and it’s midnight. I may have to re-write this after I catch the download. Apologies if I don’t get the names right. There was no program with names printed so I’m guessing.

Mercy Bell began with a bitter-sweet piece about a girl and her father.  “James Hurell saves Mercy’s soul on Sunday…” and took us with her, as a good poet does. We believed her.

There were poets with love poems, heartbreak poems, but two of performers brought up the unspeakable tragedy of unnecessary death and suicide.

Simon's spoken word

The tall poet named Simon spoke out with precision and speed of suicide with reference to the railroad crossing in Palo Alto. “We sing this song for the 5 who have died…”

I finally met Jamaica!

Jamaica Osorio shared with us the awful pain of death by fire. These are tough subjects to speak about, even metaphorically. Jamaica brings dazzling light to dark places.  Both got high marks from the judges.

Bryan Yu slammed down a concert poem with panache and numerous four letter words. The crowd loved it and he would have had the highest score except that he ran over the time limit.

The poem that I yelled for the loudest was by Rayna, entitled “Questions for a Stranger.” She rocked it. Here are a few lines I caught as it unrolled:

…Who are you?

…How do you kiss?

…How many books by women have you read?

…Would you sleep with me just to forget other people?

…What’s under your pillow?

Bryan (Ryan?) and Rayna - going to the nationals!

If I were to describe the evening I’d say the archetypal theater masks of tragedy and comedy were balanced, the spoken word poetry community at Stanford – alive and very supportive of one another. There was a good turnout. The MC’s did a great job, but I only caught Stan’s name. I will definitely return to the Second Annual Stanford Poetry Slam. Yes, poets! Be waiting to see how you do in the Nationals.

http://www.youtube.com/user/eJAMAICAtor

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