Epiphany: a collaborative poem for the sixth of January by Almut Furchert and me
Epiphany commemorates the visit of the Magi, or wise men who visited the infant child, whom the angels in Luke’s Christmas story announced as “a Savior, Christ the Lord.” They came bearing precious gifts. They were guided by a star to a divine manifestation, an awe-inspiring spiritual experience, the moment of aha—at last I see! This poem arrived today. EPIPHANY: A COLLABORATIVE POEM FOR THE SIXTH OF JANUARY Beloved one the Divine wills through you to be born here now ever anew no matter how shabby your stable. by Almut Furchert with Tracy Rittmueller 1/6/2018 The poem came at the …
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Are you a poet, too?
I feel as if I’ve hauled my sweaty-palmed, embarrassed self to my first P.A. support group, dreading the moment…ugh..now it’s my turn. Inhale. Close my eyes. Exhale. Open my eyes. Scan the room. Say it. Hi, I’m Tracy and I’m a poet. The reason this is a difficult admission for me? Often I’d prefer to be nobody, like the narrator in Emily Dickinson’s poem I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you – a Poet – Too? In the late 1980’s when I first began thinking of myself as a poet, I went public. I enjoyed reading before an audience, I published …
Trashing My Brand: in rejection of the insane trend toward the monetization of everything
I can’t remember why branding myself with a reader-friendly, easily pronounceable name seemed important. This past year, while living and learning among an intentional community of like-minded, kind-hearted people I discovered that there is one thing I must bring to the community, and thereby to the world, that fulfills my life’s (and my writing’s) purpose–Authenticity. Karner isn’t the last name on my driver’s license or medical records. I used to believe that being individually successful was an important goal in life. Now a renewed conviction–that authenticity within a stable relationship to community is essential for a meaningful life–has replaced former beliefs and fears. …
Let's Get Political; Let Me Hear Your Wisdom Talk!
Yes, this headline is a parody of the vacuous 1981 Olivia Newton John hit song, Let’s Get Physical. And yes, this might be a questionable way to headline the most serious-as-a-heart-attack post I’ve ever attempted to write. So maybe a better title to this, my gut-reaction to the recent, sickening news coming out of Charlottesville, Virginia would be: Everything is Questionable so Let’s Question Everything. Another way to say this is: People! Let’s Get our Heads out of our Ignorant, Self-Righteous, Belligerent Butts and Make it our Civic Duty to Define, Address, and Find Solutions to our Actual Problems! (Yes, I’m addressing We the …
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Susan Thurston's "Sister of Grendel": a cultural critique of the epic hero
“And I have at last accounted for this last part of my story.” Beowulf’s voice surrounds me, and his image again appears whole before me. Beowulf the warrior reaches out his hand as if to touch me. I extend mine toward him. “Which causes more pain, I wonder. The words unsaid or the words not said well enough?” Susan Thurston, Sister of Grendel A re-imagining of the Beowulf epic Early 1980’s: the Dynasty women, the Dallas woman, and Princess Diana were wearing shoulder pads and feathered hair. Our radios blared Blondie’s Call Me, or Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust. …
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On Blurring Genres and Other Divides
“Memoirs are just one form of word delivery. It’s all inquiry, expression, a search to connect. To honestly recognize our mortal selves in others.” Marc Nieson (Schoolhouse) A few weeks ago I thought Steven Petite was spot-on in explaining that the distinction between genre and literary fiction is based on the kind of experience the reader is seeking. If a novel’s purpose is for entertainment/escape — it’s genre fiction. If its purpose is, as Marc Nieson phrased it, to help us “honestly recognize our mortal selves in others”– it’s literary fiction. In the comments section of my last post, Pamela S. Wight …
Who does and does not read literary fiction?
In essence, the best Genre Fiction contains great writing, with the goal of telling a captivating story to escape from reality. Literary Fiction is comprised of the heart and soul of a writer’s being, and is experienced as an emotional journey through the symphony of words, leading to a stronger grasp of the universe and of ourselves. Steven Petite, Huff Post A survey by the National Endowment for the Arts reports less than 50% of Americans have read at least one novel, play or poem within the past 12 months. So, American readers of fiction are a minority. And according …
Tracy Seeley on choosing to love where we live
“Recovering my fluency in Kansas things, I talked recipes, quilts, and weather with some people, books and poetry with others. I met populists and democrats, poets and farmers, Lutherans and agnostics, and a lot of people who not only loved where they lived but had chosen it.” Tracy Seeley How to be at home “How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it,” G. K. Chesterton observed in his autobiography Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith, (first published in 1908) in which he addresses the problem, “How can we contrive to be at once astonished …
New Hampshire Poet Laureate Alice B. Fogel on How to Explore Poetry's Strange Terrain
“Language as a tool to manipulate both mind and heart…snapshot of the human condition; of our mortality reflected in nature; the staying of time.” Alice B. Fogel Why poetry matters “Poetry will bring you significant new interactions with the world around you, with ideas and sensations, with yourself and others,” poet Alice B. Fogel wrote in Strange Terrain:A Poetry Handbook for the Reluctant Reader (Hobblebush Books, 2009), “–not to mention that it will literally expand your mind. According to a study published in New Scientist, billions of neurons per millisecond light up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve whenever we read poetry.” Fogel …
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Marilynne Robinson on The Givenness of Things and Democracy
Did you ever try to write a poem attempting to capture a mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart encounter, sitting up half the night conversing with a brilliant person / kindred spirit, your heart bursting with a sensation of music, moonlight and the mystery of existence all mingled together? Don’t bother; it’s impossible to put into words. I’ve recently been savoring essays from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson‘s 2015 collection, The Giveness of Things. I’d like to share my feelings about this book with you. I attempted to put my sentiments into an essay, but instead of communicating the moonlit, musical, mystery of existence welling up in my heart, I came off …
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