Thinking About Clumps

 

Lately, Art says,  I've Been Thinking About Clumps

and for hours we drive through clumps of mountains called ranges, clumps of cars we call traffic, clumps of homes   we call towns. We speak in clumps called subjects as we laugh in clumps called laughter tokens. And sometimes   we’re silent in a flexible clump called silence. I think of clumps of grief and clumps of joy, clumps of celebration and clumps of time   when I forgot to wonder what comes next. How many clumps does it take to screw in a lightbulb? How many clumps make a day?   Something so satisfying about the clump. Humble as dirt on the roots of a tree. Natural as tufts of wheatgrass in the field.   Creative as a clump of atoms that, when infused with heat from the sun, become a petunia. Clumps of words make a sentence. Clumps   of notes create song. Clumps of time build a friendship. And what is peace but a clump of moments when we choose   not to fight? What is age but a clump of memories? What is love but a clump of surrenders? What is now but a chance   to be alive in this wondrous clump we call our life?   —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, for Art Goodtimes

Steve Lewandowski

 

A philosopher-poet who sits on his back porch, shelling peas and asking what about the silent ones, the stones, “those who give themselves to feed us,” Stephen Lewandowski is a man of the soil, obsessed with gardens, lauding Munsell’s Book of Soil Color, sharing stories of tulip poplars, bees, racehorses, gilliflowers and purple cabbage heads. 

Stories that leave a “rich black smear on the mudroom floor.” 

Simple poems that make allusions to the Five Dynasties, to Li Po and To Fu, to farm life and family stories, to blooming pear trees and a hand touching an arm in a doorway “like a dream.” 

Lyric simples to heal the urban ills that surround us.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

For Eduardo

 

When Bruce Told Me He'd Brought You Your Hearing Aids
 

I thought, good, he can hear what the ICU nurses say.

Then I began to wish for another kind of hearing—

wished you could hear the faithful pumping

of your own loyal heart. Wished you could hear

the snow as it fell outside your window reminding you

of the silence beyond the beeps and alarms

of the hospital room. Wished you could hear

the hundreds of prayers being raised

and chanted for you. Wished you could hear my voice

as I whisper into the candle beside me

saying again and again your name, your name,

wished you could hear all the love rising for you

the way dawn rises, inevitable and beautiful,

the way sorrow gives rise to song.

Marie Luna

 

LET ME NOT INTRODUCE MY "SELF"

[In honor of teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, with gratitude]

Let me not introduce my "self"

Let me be the lichen on the rocks you sometimes notice

Before moving on to more interesting sights

Let me be the feathery plants in the water you briefly ponder

What is that? you wonder

I no longer want to be known or remembered

The burning youthful zeal to make a mark has faded

Like initials carved in the aspen as the dry bark shears off

I want to turn to powdery dust, separated from the core

Remember the elk teeth marks on the trees

A log of how high the snow was that winter

Chewing shrubbery and bark to survive

Did they make it through the lean times?

Remember bear cub claws cataloged in an aspen

Wonder about the fate of that bear

How many strawberries did she get to eat

That blissful summer with her mother?

My not self will be there, in the marks of the long gone.

-Marie Luna

Peter Waldor

 

Beginning Polyamory

Peter Waldor is a poet from New Jersey who, after many years of visiting, has made Telluride (CO) his home. We have become good friends and have spent many hours hiking or snowshoeing in the San Juan Mountain we both love (him far more than me). We have performed together and he has published many books to critical acclaim. He has a spate of new books coming out and I wanted to showcase some of the marvelous poems therein.

As I wrote to him after diving into the first of these newbies,  Beginning Polyamory.

I couldn't help dipping into Beginning Polyamory's first 50 pages

Just as some of your marvelous reviewers attest, I found the pieces

"like obsidian ... polished into jewels or napped to the keenest blade"

"concise, even abrupt" with "spare irony" both "elliptical and colloquial"

featuring a "peculiar plainspoken deliberateness" that is "trenchant" and "whimsical"

The Holiness of Lovemaking is serious and First Kiss humorous

Lifestyle is a deep truth

"I guess light or dark / can bring fruit to ripeness" -- YES!

Epistolary, Your Foot -- you capture brief snippets and make them funny, ironic

Dress and Good Luck -- expectations reversed

I especially loved Precipice with its great lines:

"and I can't think of a worse

curse than 'whatever,'

especially when said quietly,

with skill."

Backwards, Fouled It Up, Something Missing, Tee Shirts, Power-Sharing

full of quirky telling details and always fearlessly honest

Size Matters and Hardness maybe risque but so deliciously restrained at the same time

"soft as a rubber / pencil in a magic trick"

Gift of a Cigarette that adds an irrelevant last detail that completes the verisimilitude

Warden, Lovers and Friends, Fifty Years Later

Just a marvelous collection / lyric travelogue through the experience of polyamory

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Rosemerry at the Gunnison Valley Poetry Festival (2018)
[photo by Art Goodtimes]

Rosemerry is an amazing friend, poet, storyteller and wise woman. Her latest book All the Honey (Samara Press, 2023) is a classic. If you're looking for one book of poetry to buy for the holidays, let me recommend this one.

She has a poem-a-day practice that she shares with folks. I find it invaluable -- uplifting, insightful, spiritually important.

Love Lessons

 

There were thousands of wild iris

in the wide, damp meadow.

Forty years later I remember it, still,

the pale purple petals fluttering

in the morning breeze.

The spring air was cold;

my feet squished in the mud,

and I picked armfuls of iris,

each bloom the loveliest.

I picked and picked

as if dozens of iris could convey

how extravagantly I loved a boy.

Loved him beyond measure.

Loved him meadowfuls.

Whole mountainfuls.

It’s so human to long to express

the inexpressible.

Forty years later, I remember

the immensity of that love—

how it changed me, made space in me

for who I am today.

Love is, perhaps, rhizomic,

like iris, spreading where no one can see.

If you could look inside me now,

you’d find fields of iris, infinite acres.

I still long to pick dozens for my loves,

even hundreds, though now I also trust

how sometimes a single stem

says everything.

I especially love  Love Lessons because my eldest daughter's name is Iris

One Sacredness

an altar for wonder—

that small pause

before you speak

Her short poems dive deep

After a Rogue Hard Frost in Late June

The usual suspects wilt and die.

Basil, of course, and beans. Potatoes.

Zinnias. Nasturtiums. Marigolds.

I find myself staring at the beet greens,

spinach, and arugula, marveling

at how they thrive, impervious to cold.

 

I have a craving for resilience.

I pull the dark leaves to my mouth,

devour the green communion.

It tastes like survival, so bitter, so bright.

Her poems of the natural world are full of awe

Tonight I Remember

how he resisted learning

to tie his own shoes,

how I cheered

when he learned

to pinch the laces

between his fingers,

knotting and looping

and pulling them tight,

making a bow

that would stay.

How I encouraged

the very thing

that allowed him

to walk away.

Oh, sweet woman

I was then,

beginning to learn

letting go.

Now that he’s gone,

I’m a student

of being loosened,

untied, undone,

still practicing

how to let him go.

And her poems of grief are truly transformative.

To subscribe to Rosemerry's Poem a Day  emails go HERE:

https://www.wordwoman.com/

Eclipse the Musical

 

Dalton Trumbo is Grand Junction's main claim to literary fame. The left-leaning author and Oscar-winning screenwriter is best known for Johnny Get Your Gun  (National Book Award novel), a slew of memorable film screenplays (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Exodus, Spartacus, Papillion) and his imprisonment for being one of the Hollywood Ten and refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the red-baiting McCarthy Era. On the 100th anniversary of the city's Avalon Theatre, the Foundation responsible for its preservation and renovation hosted the world premiere of Eclipse the Musical. Conductor Scott Betts composed the music and wrote the lyrics adapted from Trumbo's first novel, Eclipse (1936) -- a social realist work based on his hometown.

My friend Dea Jacobson and I caught the first of two shows of this work which was a thinly-disguised fiction based on actual Mesa County characters and institutions. A fitting historical production with fine acting, great choreography, dazzling voices, live orchestra, period costumes, historic photo backdrops and a catchy finale song: "A shack, some grub and someone to be with. That's all you need. Any more is myth."

John Abbott lashes out at Violet Budd

While the story was a tribute to a capitalist hero who loses everything in the Depression, Trumbo imbued it with some interesting social critiques -- portraying the local madam as a supporter of the community-minded John Abbott who leverages his mercantile emporium and banking interests to lift up employees, boost the  town and even help his competitors. On the other hand, it's the righteous Violet Budd, crusading Women's Christian Temperance Union matron, who is the inimical thorn and foil who helps bring Abbott down. Their second act where Abbott unloads on Budd was poignant and powerful, after his assisting her projects for years -- even though he personally disliked her, having seen her as a  judgmental and self-serving virago.

Stumpy gifts Abbott when all others let him down

The singing was impressive throughout, with Joey Stafford's Budd waxing operatic, Chris McKim's Abbott was skillful and convincing, Miriam Deming's clarity was crystal and her warmth charming, Juli Jacobson's Ann Abbott solid, and Lana Leigh Rogal's Stumpy (the madam) winning in every way -- she doubled as director and choreographer making her a triple threat that served the production well.

The cast sings the finale song

The entire cast deserves praise and all the technical aspects were well done. A resounding success from all artistic angles.

Congratulations to Steve Doyle and the Avalon Theatre Foundation  as well as the Mesa County Historical Society for putting on a rousing celebration of Grand Junction's landmark theater's 100th year of existence.  It's no surprise the audience gave the premiere a standing ovation. 

The Main St. Trumbo sculpture in front of the Avalon Theatre