Hello again, Dear Friends, met & unmet.
It’s the first Wednesday of November, All Souls Day in some traditions, and we all know what that means … to borrow a line from my poem “Five Haikus”, it is the beginning of the season of cold & long. This November begins with the Big Vote event next Tuesday the 8th and then invites us to engage with the Transgender Day of Remembrance (20th) America’s traditional Thanksgiving Day (24th) and Native American Heritage Day (25th). A busy month for sure.
Right here on zoom there will be two Sunday events I hope you’ll consider participating in. November 13th at 4pm (PST) our “Second Sundays: Speaking of Poetry And … “ will be built around the topics addressed in a just-released-today special issue of Persimmon Tree, the online magazine for creative women over 60. This special issue offers a wealth of articles on the challenges women face today and it includes the powerful words of “fourteen poets”. Check it out here and join the conversation if you can.
On Sunday, November 20th at 4pm (PST) it will be my joy and privilege to convene our second “Conversation With Friends“ and to welcome the noted Portland poet and dramatist, Cindy Williams Gutierrez.
Cindy’s latest work, In The Name of Forgotten Women, based on her poetry collection, Inlay With Nacre, was performed at Portland’s CoHo Theater earlier this year, after Covid put it on hold in 2020. Conversation With Friends provides an opportunity to question and chat with Cindy about her experience of bringing this dynamic choreopoem to life. If you didn’t see last week’s link to the Willamette Week story about it, here it is again. And just for good measure, here’s the link for Sunday.
And just for Xtra Good Measure, here is the opening poem of Inlay With Nacre by Cindy Williams Gutierrez.
For Remembering
Begin with a box made of cypress and cedar:
A golden elephant finial (Bodes good luck in the next life.)
Letters, postcards, and ransom notes. To personages real and imagined.
One coutil wedding corset and a collage of newspaper articles (News flees while editorials leave a lasting impression. So does a corset.)
Untolled bells, uncast ballots and spells.
Raven quills, blackbird feathers. Tarot cards of rearing bears.
Dance cards and dream diaries. (Forget daily journals since heavenly Morpheus and the hearth-bound Pentates refuse to cohabitate.)
Crushed crayon books, charred poems, and words ripped from dictionaries.
Warranties (preferably lifetime).
Sepia photographs of the disappeared, and disappearing.
Prisms. And pressed white irises. (Though indigo will summon the Goddess and guide your dead.)
Hair (not locks: braids, tresses, manes of hair).
Close box. Inlay with nacre the names of forgotten women. Inhale the fragrance.
May we All take care, Stay Strong & Well, and Be Kind.
Sulima
Lovely issue. I’d forgotten about Persimmon Tree, and this issue resonated, hard. Your energy level is amazing.