Dates for Letting the Poems Out

Living La Vida Local with Santa Fe’s Poet Laureate


— joanlogghe@hotmail.com
— http://thepoemdifferent.blogspot.com

February 14 – Poetry a la Heart: Drive-By Love-In at four Santa Fe Nursing Homes- bring a short poem, meeting place to be announced. Call me 505-753-3174 &  join.

March 11, - Women’s Reading and conversation at CCA- 7-9

March 17, National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, Nine by Five, reading with Nine Women poets hosted by Valerie Martinez, previous Poet Laureate, @ 6:30

April 17 - Reading at Acequia Booksellers in Albuquerque for UNM Pres Book The Singing Bowl, 4019 4th Stree, Albuquerque, 505-890-5365 time, not sure??

April 21 – Benefit reading for Santa Fe Girls’ School with student readers and Poet Laureate celebration, 6:00 @ 333 Montezuma. $10 donation

April 25- May 1- Boise Idaho, appearance on radio, Television, schools, therapists, Osher Institute, and intro of US Poet Laureate, WS Merwin

May 8, Church of Beethoven, classical music and poetry. 10:30, $15,
1715 5th Street, Albuquerque.

May 11- Collected Works, launch for The Singing Bowl, 6:00. Free

May 21 – New Mexico State Poetry Society – Albuquerque, lunch reading

May 28th – Poetry at Paul’s with Joan, Sita Jamison and Jeremy Bleich.

WRITE LOCALLY, SHOP LOCALLY, READ LOCALLY, LOVE LOCALLY, DREAM LOCALLY

Back in the Poetic Saddle

The official beginning of everything 2011 is here. Let me start with a poem from student Hallie Burton

of Julie Hasted's poetry class this fall at Santa Fe High. In this class we talked about whether poetry came from the outer world or the inner world.  Then we went on to talk about what is outer and what is inner.  Amazingly, nobody mentioned the natural world in this discussion, so Julie and I had to throw that one into the mix.  With her permission one of the many outstanding poets:

Living Who I've Been

I've lived as flowers

Roses, Daisies, Lilies

I've raised my petals to the sun

And soaked up its nutrients

But with no mouth,

I couldn't taste it.

I've been every color imaginable

From the palest white,

To the darkest black.

But with no eyes

I couldn't see them.

I've been a woman's perfume,

A man's cologne,

An herbal garden,

I made these scents

But with no nose

I couldn't smell them.

I've lived with my roots firmly in the ground

Holding me lovingly

Standing me tall

But with no will of my own

I'm no one at all.

By Hallie Burton

I think the question of will is the big one for New Years. The outer world helps me so much with will

as I am asked to do things, or I ask if I may, and then I find my will is amazing and on task. Dreams also get my attention and in winter as I hibernate, they kick in as fuel for the writing.  Left to my own devices, I am the poster child for breaking resolutions, so I tend not to resolve.  Luckily my love of poetry and of passing it along to others of all ages is beyond discipline and into delight.  The kind of will and discipline I have is the disciple variety, I'm on an irresistible path.  So, back in the saddle, ready to write.  If I still had a horse, I'd ride too.

Matachine Dance- El Rancho 1.1.11

Living deeply in one place for a long time suits me.  For us, 37 years in northern New Mexico, always rural, always wood heat, always  mailboxes with a red flag, and always poetry.  We have gone to the same Christmas Eve Party for 34 years with a few off when the hosts grew busy and weary.  New Year's Day breakfast at Sue's in Chimayo, I don't know, at least 30 years.  I like seeing people who know me, all of us growing older and sweeter.

At the New Year's day party, Elaine said there are Matachine Dances in El Rancho, starting within the half hour. I have always wanted to see the El Rancho dances, a dance that came up from Mexico, mysterious, symbolic, and with violin, and guitars.  These are the only dances done by both the Indigineous people along the Rio Grande, and the Hispanos.

I jumped in my car and pulled into El Rancho at 2:05.  There were about ten masked dancers (danzantes) in ribbon, crowns, fringes, bandana masks, the Malinche in white, and the abuelos with the mask and the whip.   In the chair for a throne sat the monarch, representing Montezuma. A week before I had been at Turtle Dances at Okay Owingeh and the whip and mask were familiar. The one abuelo was both serious and in the role of the clown, by turns describing the history of matachine's 400 years in El Rancho, and thanking the elders who revived it, Pablo Roybal for one.  Then he would say, "Remember that night in El Rancho?" wagging his tongue at a woman.  Or he would hump a woman in a chair to the hilarity of the crowd who knew them both. Or after the dance of the toritio or little bull, when the Abuelo wrestled him to the ground and symbloically castrated him,  he offered the dangling pouch (one can only imagine what it is) to the women in the crowd.

I felt as if I were there, witnessing this 400 year deep dance, for my friend Nicole.  She is an informal scholar of Matachine, also a dance historian and critic. She now lives in New Jersey.   It's odd, but unless Nicole is around  I prefer going to dances alone.  I can get close, although almost ended up dancing with the more anonymous Abuelo, his hat bristling with straw.  I got the feeling that most people knew one another from church or neghborhood.  One woman reassured me, "Don't worry, he won't hurt you" when the outrageous Abuelo came close.

All the while the young Malinche, a regal girl about age 12, danced with dignity in her white communion dress and little heels. Her classical face could have come from a photograph hung inside of the neihboring adobes.  The hour passes and maybe seven dances were performed.  The dance of the cross celebrated that everyone was Christian now,  the Abuelo explained with what I almost feel is innocence. I am not a Christian,  a radical nd risky statement in America, I figure the only one in that crowd. But nobody is asking me to convert on the spot, or die.  That we are a mile or so from San Ildefonso pueblo is ever in my mind.

The Abuelo welcomes the newcomers to the Valley.  I know I am one.  He says that newcomers are part of the story or soul of the valley, something like that.  I am so in the relaxed moment, warm sun in the 23 degree air. The dances I can sink into without criticism.  That's not true.  As the Abuelo danced around, surprising gracefully for a white haired long haired man, he kept saying, A-OO-ha, like the marine maybe he is.  The crowd responded, A-OO-ha.  I wasn't wild about this ongoing call. But maybe the clash of cultures is what this dance brings home.

I leave and go visit my grandkids, driving down to the first place we arrived in that April, 1973.
My kids and grandkids are natives of this place.  Just driving down to see them, my riches. I feel that as I age here, the snow on the moutains which I have seen come and go 37 times, is mine. And these dances are not separate from me.

Poet Laureate Cookies

 I thought maybe if I made cookies with Kaylee I would achieve the illusion that I was a Real Grandma. Like the "girls"of Victoria's Secret who got their wings for the TV runway show where they were all tarted up as angels, or the bell ringing in "It's a Wonderful World" which meant an angel got its wings,  I would be getting my Grandma creds.
    Now, I don't mean to use Kaylee as an ego trip or prop.  When I confessed that I didn't want to use her as a prop on Labor Day as Poet Laureate,  Matt said, "That's okay, mom,  when I go to a party I stay next to her.  I use her as a prop all the time."
    Well, hands scrubbed, helper stool at the ready, Kaylee in her apron and I in my Espanola Farmer's Market apron embarked on Cookie Day.  Like my dear sister-in-law Carol does with Lauren, my great niece, I would be a Real Grandma.  I had in mind gingerbread, sugar cookies, the ones with raspberry jam, and macaroons. It didn't occur to me to ask Carol for her recipes, which I'm sure are excellent.
    The rolling and cutting and decorating went well on batch #1.  Then Kayle got tired half way through the angels and teddy bears, the moons and stars and the big gingerbread boys.  She made herself a bed in the stairwell with every blanket and pillow she could find.  I moved on to a quick sugar sprinkle, a few raisins and red hot eyes, and baked the gingers.  Then I got the chilled sugar cookies and began on them.  This was cookie day, no resting for me. Kaylee rallied for more cookie pressing.  She wondered why there wasn't a Jesus cookie cutter which seemed a good question and gave me pause. Then Kaylee questioned the hand cookie cutter.  Then she said she knew why I had a hand.  Cause I was the..... what was I?  Our joke is that she says "Poet Gloriate" but with all the in excelsius deo, I didn't feel right about that.  So I said, "Laureate" and got the idea I would take these beauties to all my friends at the Santa Fe Arts Commission.  Hands indeed.
     Unfortunately I hadn't counted on anyone eating them.  Kaylee took one bite of a cunning gingerbread teddy bear, complete with chocolate chip eyes, a raisin nose, and sugary buttons and said it tasted weird. Maybe it was the molasses or the ginger or the cardboard hard tooth endangering texture.To the chickens it went.  Dreams of arriving at city offices with my rock hard cookies went up in smoke. But I had two no fail recipes left, surely I could pull it off.  Maybe with a little sugar glaze the others would pass.  Nobody wants to eat carbs anyhow.  Maybe I could say, these are just for the thought that surely must count and fashion a warning label, please don't eat.  These are cookies that will look the same in 2012, unless there is a recall.  I know for sure they did not select me for my baking prowess.  I am no Judyth Hill, my dear friend, who can bake.
      Kayle wanted to know if Jesus is still a baby.  This put the Jewish demi-grandma on the spot.  I say we celebrate the spirit of the baby Jesus, and than since he was God (I want to add, like you and I are with our divine consciousness) he is all things.  She glazes over a bit and I am rolling the thimble cookies, dolloping the raspberry jam, and baking.  They come out pretty good, more of a so-so that a complete disaster. Batch #3.
     Buoyed by this near success it is on to the macaroons. This is Laura Abrums' recipe, sure fire.  By now, Kaylee in into afternoon cartoons on PBS.  I am soldiering on towards dusk and listening for the peal of bells.  The macaroons seem decidely loose and indeed, after I bake them proceed, to fall completely apart.  It in unlike me to be so persistent.  I am a big giver-upper.  But I was so sure that batch #4 would do the trick.  My son comes and  I arrange a nice plate of these for him to take home.  Maybe no one will have the heart to tell me how they taste.  Maybe they will think, she's in her dotage, be kind.

   At about 2 AM I realize that I never put flour in batch #4.  I was so tired.  O Holy Night.

Altruistic Scrabble

My mother was competitive.  She'd come behind on the golf course and win. I know she would have been furious that her third husband, Alec dear, outlived her by eight years and was days from 101.  Monday would have been her 98th birthday. Happy Birthday Mom.

When I was a girl she despaired I would ever get ahead.  She dragged me by the arm to compete in the annual Westmoreland County Club swim races where she always said I came in 4th, thus barely missing a ribbon.  When I discovered yoga in college it was the idea of being okay where I was, and the non-competitive nature of the endeavor that amazed me.

So here I am, Sunday night, playing Scrabble at my neighbor Julie's house.  Julie and I and a houseguest from London are drinking tea or Proseco and playing. Months before I had realized that sometimes I like to open up the board as a goal for a move, or sometimes even open up the desired red Triple Word score.
I dubbed this Altruistic Scrabble.

On Sunday, by the end of the game and the bottle of Proseco,  Maggie from London but actually Irish, was leaning over, taking my letters and getting me much better scores.  She said she liked me.  I asked what she did for a living and she had been an economist with a definite Marxist leaning.  Thus Marxist Scrabble was born.

Why stop there?  When deciding between moves what if one chose the beautiful word over the mundane. Our Scrabble board boasted "ARIA" and "ZEN." Aesthetic Scrabble.  They let me get away with "YID" which was neither lovely nor legal in the game nor politically correct, but that came under the Marxist Scrabble rule.   Or like Pity sex, I was trailing and maybe the oldest in the room.  Or maybe I was playing the PL card again.  A Poet Laureate gets away with a lot.  But I have made two poetry emergency house-calls to this house, so maybe I earned it.

I'm sure Erotic Scrabble has been played. And there could be other leanings, but I want to just put this out to my strict and competitive Scrabble friends, you know who you are, I have changed the rules internally and upped the ante. Just like playing Boggle with my grandson, cooperatively since he is eight and I am old, there can be satisfaction in a variety of ways.

The weather has changed so get out your boards and lean towards beauty, truth, and rooting for the joy of others when you play. Mudhita Scrabble, pleasure and joy in the success of others, a Buddhist term.  I'm just saying.  Maybe I can apply these rules to my ticking PL life, five months in but who's counting?

Altruistic Scrabble

My mother was competitive.  She'd come behind on the golf course and win. I know she would have been furious that her third husband, Alec dear, outlived her by eight years and was days from 101.  Monday would have been her 98th birthday. Happy Birthday Mom.

When I was a girl she despaired I would ever get ahead.  She dragged me by the arm to compete in the annual Westmoreland County Club swim races where she always said I came in 4th, thus barely missing a ribbon.  When I discovered yoga in college it was the idea of being okay where I was, and the non-competitive nature of the endeavor that amazed me.

So here I am, Sunday night, playing Scrabble at my neighbor Julie's house.  Julie and I and a houseguest from London are drinking tea or Proseco and playing. Months before I had realized that sometimes I like to open up the board as a goal for a move, or sometimes even open up the desired red Triple Word score.
I dubbed this Altruistic Scrabble.

On Sunday, by the end of the game and the bottle of Proseco,  Maggie from London but actually Irish, was leaning over, taking my letters and getting me much better scores.  She said she liked me.  I asked what she did for a living and she had been an economist with a definite Marxist leaning.  Thus Marxist Scrabble was born.

Why stop there?  When deciding between moves what if one chose the beautiful word over the mundane. Our Scrabble board boasted "ARIA" and "ZEN." Aesthetic Scrabble.  They let me get away with "YID" which was neither lovely nor legal in the game nor politically correct, but that came under the Marxist Scrabble rule.   Or like Pity sex, I was trailing and maybe the oldest in the room.  Or maybe I was playing the PL card again.  A Poet Laureate gets away with a lot.  But I have made two poetry emergency house-calls to this house, so maybe I earned it.

I'm sure Erotic Scrabble has been played. And there could be other leanings, but I want to just put this out to my strict and competitive Scrabble friends, you know who you are, I have changed the rules internally and upped the ante. Just like playing Boggle with my grandson, cooperatively since he is eight and I am old, there can be satisfaction in a variety of ways.

The weather has changed so get out your boards and lean towards beauty, truth, and rooting for the joy of others when you play. Mudhita Scrabble, pleasure and joy in the success of others, a Buddhist term.  I'm just saying.  Maybe I can apply these rules to my ticking PL life, five months in but who's counting?

Milagro on Day of the Dead

Santa Fe Poet Laureate in Denver during snowstorm

I made it through Halloween to Day of the Dead.  I wore a necklace of seven teabags sewn on a blue silk thread.  They were, left to right: Lipton, Stash moroccan mint green tea, Yogi Tea ginger, Tulsi lemon ginger, Eater's Digest by Traditional Medicinal, Bigelow's Mind Medley, and lastly, Himalayan Apple Spice by Yogi Tea.  The tea's represented going as my own private tea party.  It is sort of a genteel ladies event, or gay men dressed in white would be welcome, where we are civil and speak in low tones, and chuckle a bit.  We pour for the other first. Cecile, of course would be there. And I would be especially gracious pouring tea as the Poet Laureate that I so deeply am these days.  Have I mentioned?

In full regalia of seven tea bags, I I sat for about two hours and watched the Trick or Treaters at Chase's house, my son out-law and father of Galen.  By then Galen was not wearing the jukebox his parents ingeniously created out of silver bubble insulation.  They had to redirect him from wanting to be a slot machine to juke box, and fashioned one complete with lights, speakers, and an ipod that played music when you put in coins.  At his house there was a fog machine, massive spider webs, and seven pumpkins at least.  I lit the tea lights.  Tea lights, and me dressed in tea, for tea, of the tea.

Anyhow, I am home today and recovering. It is election day and I already voted. For calming and peace I was standing outside  and watching the chickens, the one Hungarian Chukker that survived, and the four turkeys, one destined for dinner this month.  Four is too many turkeys.  Milagro waddled up to eat the scraps I had offered.  Milagro belongs to my other daughter and her fiancée.  We have told her story many times, but I have never written it down.  She is named Milago because she survived three near death experiences.

The first was when she fell into a vat of manure tea (tea again) and was drowning.  They came home and found her little beak above the water and manure mix, rescued her, her head gangling to the side and limp.  They gave her CPR turkey style, and wrapped her in a towel, and fed her water with a medicine dropper, and after an all night vigil, saved her life.

The second time her fellow turkey was killed by the dogs of La Mesilla and she was wounded.  Again they ministered unto her and she lived.  Then there was the holiday of turkey death and they had promised her they would not eat her that year.  Her brother did not fare so well and is no more.
Then there was one (of the three bought at Farmer's Market for grasshopper control). That doesn't count as a near death experience, more of a brush with basting.

Later that year, we were taking care of her as Hope and Leland were visiting his folks.
She stopped eating, couldn't move, and I thought she was dying.  She didn't move for weeks and I thought we should put her down.  It was very cold and she just sat there, her legs seemed too weak for her large body.  Turned out we were giving her mortal hen scratch and she needed game bird mix.
After all, this was Milagro we were dealing with.  We got her her food and she accepted it.  She does a little dance when you feed her properly.  So here she is two years later and feeling fine.

There is a white turkey, a wild turkey, a brown turkey, and Milagro.  Day of the Dead and she is very much alive, having survived three near death experiences, and one holiday close call.  Standing by the poultry is a perfect remedy for election day jitters.  Now I must nap in time for tea, the 4:00 sinking hour.
I have done eight of my nine events as PL this fall.  I need to inhale, relax, and do a little appreciative dance like my fine feathered miraculous friend.