Poetry Laurels

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

The Visionary Matilda Gage and the Quest for Liberty

If you are in Syracuse, NY, do not forget to stop by the home of Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898) an American pioneer of women rights ("suffragist" - is there an uglier word?), a Native American rights activist, an abolitionist involved in the Underground Railroad, a freethinker, and a prolific author. She was also mother-in-law of the author of the Wizard of Oz books, Frank Baum, who spent time in her house and garden.

Matilda Gage became active in the women's movement in 1852 when she gave a speech at the National Women's Rights Convention in Syracuse, New York. She served as president of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1875 to 1876, and was in the organization's leadership for the next twenty years.

Portrait of Matilda Gage by Martin Willitts Jr.

Her parents were involved in the abolitionist movement, considering slavery a horrific aberration that should actively be opposed, not silently tolerated. Her home was a prominent stop on the Underground Railroad leading slaves to freedom in Canada - with extensive support of the citizens of Syracuse, known at one time to have stormed the jail to free a black man and prevent his return to slavery in the South.

The museum in her home in Syracuse includes some images associated with abolitionist movement and shackles used on the legs of slaves that were caught and transported back to their "owners."

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD ROOM: TWO KINDS OF FREEDOM

A runaway slave came to my door

seeking shelter,

miles from the cotton fields and whips.

there is not need for a trapdoor,

or hidden room,

or soft knowcking to be hidden

for he will be gone

before the frost hits the ground

both feet running.

A woman is seeking shelter

mistreated by a brute

pretending to be a loving husband

her words are blown out into the wind

her eyes are sunken

burn out coals

she will leave as soon as she can

I will make chamomile tea

to soothe and strengthen her legs

but she is already running

standing there

in the cold and frightening rains

Ms. Gage wrote many feminist, anti-slavery, and other essays and manifestos. She served as the editor of the National Citizen and Ballot Box (1878-1881) advocating for women's rights to vote and a slew of civil liberties. She wrote on a old-fashioned and highly decorative typewriter. The keyboard below, however, belongs to a cash register, not a typewriter (I thank Martin Willitts, Jr. for correcting my error).

Despite the gap of over 150 years that separates us from her peak writing years, we may find her views on Native-American and African-American rights to citizenship and liberty to be surprisingly modern. She was a true libertarian and valued liberty above all...

SHE WHO HOLDS THE SKY

"I received the name of Ka-ton-ien-ha-wi, or 'Sky Carrier,' or as Mrs. Converse said the Senecans would express it, 'She who holds the sky.'" - Matilda Joslyn Gage describing her adoption into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation in 1893.

It is my gift

to hold the sky,

to lift up

the heavens

so the stars do not fall

upon our heads.

I am wolf guarding her cubs

with eyes of clouds.

I was arrested for voting

like a moon keening.

We are all sisters of the spirit.

It is our gift.

It is a deep planting.

The sky is held in my hands

so you may walk without fear.

you are safe in my keeping.

We now have the name for them: "The First Nations." But do we really treat the earliest inhabitants of this continent, and their cultural and spiritual heritage with the respect they deserve? When dealing with Native-Americans our government lied and broke its own promises, repeatedly breaking its own word, given in the name of all citizens. The First Nations were attacked, and systematically destroyed - by killing all the bison, by spreading smallpox via infected blankets, by forcing them onto reservations and taking the children away to be "civilized" in "Christian" schools. It is sometimes said that about 30 million Native Americans lost their lives in the process of the Conquest of the West... Nothing to be proud of and Ms. Gage was keenly aware of that, while the treaties were still being signed and their promises were still being broken...

LAMENT FOR RITA JOE

Where is your music, o mother of Micmac nation?

You have been humble, yes, perhaps too kind.

Foursquare rhythms and banal tunes of church hymns

Entered your bloodstream and poisoned your song.

Years of learning:

polluted minds,

distorted memory,

children without a past.

Nothing remains,

but an awkward copy

of a copy of a copy

of a copy of a song

by the Great Master--

Papa Haydn.

The settlers stole your soul

leaving you with traders' beads

(under the pretence of humility and trust).

Who knows what was there before? What riches?

Five hundred years cannot be recovered.

Five hundred Micmac years could begin today.

Oh, Rita Joe, be bold and teach your children!

Listen to ancient motherlode of song.

Create anew, refresh your memory with brightness--

voices of living water, echoes, distant hills.

I'm guilty too: I came to breathe your air,

walk on your land, shudder from your winds.

A gentle stranger took me from my garden

into the vastness of indifference and cold.

Their streets--too wide

Their trucks--too big

Their grass--too short

Their eyes--too empty

of kindness.

Rage: boys and men rest while the unborn

kicks in the ribs, the mother fainting

get up--you there--with the headphones!!!

(embarassed, caught--perhaps he'll learn?)

Rage: hypocritical lies, double-faced

how-are-you's without caring how

or even waiting for an answer.

Rage: what ugly mask they made for you

when they came to tame and steal!

What would my music be

if epochs earlier Slavic barbarians

had fought for their faith?

Converted: a foreign princess came

with her kind God. Books of her gentle chants

replaced pagan cults of fierce and fearful deities.

What was? What could have been

if the gentle had not been the iron?

Armed with twin swords of arrogance and contempt

forever fixing the course of Polish fate:

to look up to the West, to the real Europe

for art, truth, hope, for a place on Earth

(and always be rejected as second-hand impostors).

Create afresh, o proud Micmac nation!

Can you forget their art? Discover yours?

What Matilda Gage did not value was the Christian Church that she considered oppressive to women, and, especially, the Temperance Movement that, though well-intentioned, resulted in the disaster of Prohibition, and the growth of organized crime. She was witty and articulate, and her words speak for her vision of a free and just society, based on compassion, respect, and mutual care.

She wrote in "All the Rights I Want" - "It is sometimes better to be a dead man than a live woman."

With statements like that, she would have been camping out with the Occupy Movement on the lawns of New York, Los Angeles... She would have been arrested in our times as well. After leaving the women's organizations that turned too "Christian" and too "Temperance-oriented" for her temper, Gage established the Woman's National Liberal Union (WNLU) in 1890. She was its president until her death in 1898. The WNLU was radical and liberal ideas, expressed in the official journal that Gage edited, The Liberal Thinker.

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESS CHILD

"While so much is said of the inferior intellect of woman, it is by a strange absurdity conceded that very many eminent men owe their station in life to their mothers."

I imagine it is like the chicken before the egg.

A man suddenly appeared out of clay.

No one entertains the strangeness of that notion.

A man just suddenly came out of nowhere.

I know many people believe it happened this way.

But it just seems contrary to reality.

I tend to believe that you need a woman to give birth.

Foolish me. To think that with my inferior intellect

a woman would have anything to do with birth.

I guess babies just come out of thin air.

I guess a man just have given birth to me.

Or maybe I just appeared one day.
Who knows? I am a motherless child.

Luckily for us women, we have smart men

to tell us these things. Why if it wasn't for them

Who know s what strange things we might think.

Perhaps the chicken does not need the egg.

After Matilda Gage's death, her favorite saying was carved onto her tombstone. Her home is used for lectures, workshops, seminars, and guided tours, where you can see that quintessential "women's art" - a quilted image of the home.

Trying to find common threads between my writings and hers, I looked for political or socially engaged poems of mine and found very few. I did have a poem published in OccuPoetry last year, "The Mirage" - about the futility of elections for the truly poor. But to find something relevant, I had to go back to my beginnings as a poet and the year 1995. Above is a reflection on Native Americans in Canada (there was a lot of conflict on reservations at that time), and on being Canadian.

Photo by Martin Willitts, Jr.

CANADIAN AFTERWARDS

A bizarre thing happened today:

balmy air opened up to a vision

of a lost nation (traded for a baseball card).

The world in miniature, a sign of heaven.

Or so said the taxi-driver carrying his Bible

around Calgary to prove that Jesus loves you,

yes, but, what's more: Canada is like paradise.

Heaven is full of people we do not know:

Indians, Africans, Inuit, Arabs,

all the good people who followed the road

without the road-signs. So is this country:

on the ruins of an ancient way of life respecting life,

bustling with memories from over the ocean,

still eaten after the language is all but gone

(rye bread and pasta, won ton, souvlaki, tea and salade).

Hamburgers are here too, with apple pies and Coke

under the star-spangled banner. Are Canadians

disqualified by their loyalty to the Queen

(shadowed by scandals and the Fleur du Lys)?

Outnumbered losers, faithful to their young flag,

still carried with pride, though others use it

as a disguise. What will become of them

after the borders fall? Canadians: do they exist?

Squished between the snow

and the hungry deluge from the South

poised to devour the Universe.

When will their dream be over?

Their paradise lost?

What would Matilda Joslyn Gage write about today? What would she see as the most pressing issues? The abuse of Native Americans has faded from public spotlight, and with the rise of casinos, some "wealth transfer" started occurring. We can only applaud the choices made by thousands of gamblers to pay back Native Americans and help them rebuild their destroyed culture, family, way of life... As for the Abolitionism, Slavery has not been abolished, but expanded to all Americans in 1865:

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

This amendment makes legal "slavery and involuntary servitude" as "punishment for a crime" - so label someone a criminal, through "war on drugs" for instance, and voila! you have yourself a slave... or an indentured servant for as long as the sentence last. The amendment does not put limits to the terms of sentence, so, theoretically it could be for a lifetime...

Enough of these sad matters. Let's look at the sky... but what do we see there? Planes? Planes and more planes? Why do they fly around in these criss-crossing patterns? Covering parts of the sky with white haze?

OF DAYS AND SKY

I look at the cloud heart dissipating above the rooftops

Someone’s Valentine or a marriage proposal.

Cute - I sigh. I do not have a heart, a ring, not yet,

not ever. Day one. Graffiti in the sky.

I read a book, lying on a blanket in my backyard.

I look up at the strange, striped cloud patterns

And wonder – there is no wind, it is sunny,

How did these long, even strips with serrated edges

Get there? Day two. Graffiti in the sky.

Dirty, milky white fog above the horizon.

Crisscrossing patterns spoil the view

of the mountains. Where are the bluish

edges receding in the distance? Ridges don’t turn

From green, to blue, to deep indigo. Not today.

My photos are ruined. Day three. Graffiti in the sky.

I read strange stories on the web of lies,

Sick imagination, horror, secrets. Antenna arrays.

Bursts of energy. Fake drought in California.

Fake snow in New York. Tornadoes, blizzards.

Floods. Over 160 weather modification patents.

Weather warfare? Day four. Graffiti in the sky.

Powdered aluminum, strontium, barium

Compounds fall from the sky, enter my lungs

Clog the veins in the tree leaves, settle in roots,

my cells, soil, water, air – the whole world

is poisoned. Day five. Graffiti in the sky.

They say only corporations’-owned

GMO plants will survive in the new world

Made by the spawn of hell. We will all be slaves.

Who pays the pilots of the small red planes?

Who makes the poison to destroy the earth?

War on Nature. Day six. Graffiti in the sky.

Clouds gather for yet another winter day

Of El Nino without rain. The farmers

Will go bankrupt, the rich become much richer.

Do these billionaires live in underground caves,

With artificial air, soil, plants and sunshine?

God rested on the seventh day. They do not

rest. Day seven. Graffiti in the sky.

This photo is remarkable as it shows how the edge of a chemtrail cloud-cover looks like, with criss-cross pattern still visible and the edges of lines sticking out like a torn rug... That's what we live under, on a bad day, folks! To see more photos of chemtrails, visit my Graffiti in the Sky album.

There was a petition against chemtrails on the White House website, but not enough people signed it.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-stop-aerosol-spraying-our-nations-skies

It said:

Immediately stop the aerosol spraying of our nation’s skies.

The spraying of nanoparticulate matter in the upper atmosphere is not a solution to any problem, it is the deliberate polluting of our atmosphere and is therefore a crime against humanity and all living life on this planet. The use of terms like geoengineering, persistent contrails, solar radiation management, etc. is insulting to the intelligence of the American people. It is what it is, pollution.

We the people are sick and tired of not having a voice in our own destiny and hereby give notice that our Government’s way of dealing with problems of any nature are blatantly recognized as self serving, selfish and destructive to the world we live in.

Oh, yes, sometimes they make them look like clouds... or at least try to...

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Daffodils and Rose Gardens with Martin and Linda from the Society of Friends

I met a poet in Syracuse, NY. No, I did not meet him. I already knew. Martin Willitts, Jr. has contributed fascinating poems to my anthologies, Chopin with Cherries and Meditations on Dicine Names. When he found out I'll be in Syracuse, he, and his wife Linda Griggs invited me to stay at their home and shared even more poetry with me, including the profound Daffodils, the poem that won the First international Dylan Thomas Poetry Prize in Wales, in 2014. The story of the poem is fascinating, too, as only after writing it (inspired by the appearance of daffodils in the spring garden, his vast knowledge as a retired librarian, and his own Quaker faith), did Martin find out that Daffodil is the National Flower and Emblem of Wales...

I've seen the golden charms of daffodils scattered on the verdant green of spring grass - everywhere, not just in cottage gardens and window boxes, also in meadows, forests, parks, cemeteries - everywhere. After visiting Wales in early 1990s, I wrote a cycle of four poems for the four season, "Daffodils, Again." Here's the last one, for winter.

SLEEP

Under thick blanket of the snow

forgetting past misdeeds

we will rest and refurbish what must be again

a truth beyond embarrassment and hatred.

Wait for the transparent, icy comfort

of newness, hidden from the view

of the quick and the dead

that we must pray for.

Silence spreads out from within

like frozen crystals on the surface

of ancient waters,

like liquid notes of birdsong

easing me into that day, that morning

when smooth scent of the daffodils

brightened the air.

It will soothe, charm and alter

the painful wounds, gaping horrors,

severed limbs, mirth distorted into sneers,

and the daily supply of cruelty

wrought from the four corners of this world

crowding the memory.

Sleep, sleep, eternal sleep

Wait, wait, you will awaken

Sun, sun, will shine on you

Daffodils, again.

I did not read this poem for the Palace Poetry Group in DeWitt Community Library on June 9, 2015. I actually forgot that I wrote it. Instead I had a number of bilingual poems, including those from the "Meditations" and "Chopin" anthologies. I started from a short poem inspired by an artists' project to help victims of the Station Fire in 2009; artists made beautiful pieces from things found in the ashes of homes destroyed by the flames ("Healing from the Ashes"). All the proceeds were donated to the victims that had no insurance. The artwork that inspired the poem consisted of a burnt face of a clock, with equally burnt metal dragonfly wings marking every hour. Since I cannot find it now, here's my artwork withe dragonfly, and a clock face without hands, where time stops....

Time Stops on Dragonfly Wings.

ENDLESS

The sundial glows
in a sunset of memory.

Time stops.

Dragonfly wings
freeze in a nanosecond

of fiery beauty
before evaporating.

Time stops.

We measure loss

in dragonfly wings,

in crystal shadows,

scattered wine-glasses

filled to the brim

with flames

before breaking,

before our time stops,

it too stops.

Artwork by Ruth Dutoit

I read another poem written in the spring 2010, after that fateful September:

FROM THE MOUNTAINS

In flames,

smothered with charcoal

the mountains sing,

greening –

grass is their song

and sage and lily

resounding calm

arising

from the slopes

shapes the air

into inverted bells

they call to me

waiting

for my small voice

to dissolve

in their harmonies

and ring

like a blade of grass

stirred by the breeze

on the high meadow –

passing into silence

In Syracuse, Ana Cecilia, one of the talented poets gathered at my reading, wanted a copy of the "Mountains" poem, but I had a hand-written translation into Polish in the margin, so I'm posting it here instead. I was very impressed with the poets' depth of reflection and verbal fireworks that carried the ideas on their incandescent flames. That's the beauty of giving poetry readings: you get to meet poets and hear voices that you never knew existed.

Poets at the Palace Poetry Group Reading - Linda Griggs, MT, Martin Willitts, Jr. in the front.

My altogether delightful visit to Syracuse began with a walk through the rose garden with my hosts. Knowing my fondness for roses, you will not be surprised that it was among the highlights of my travel...

Another delight was to converse with my very generous, kind, and hospitable friends who invited me to their home, showed me their Syracuse, their organic garden, and their worlds. Linda is a therapist and a writer, Martin - an accomplished poet, artist, and musician...Together they do, what we all should do - make this world a better place...

Why? They are inspired by their Quaker ways, more properly called The Religious Society of Friends. These are simple tenets of peace, love, generosity, and closeness with the Divine that lives in us all, I repeat, all - without exceptions, regardless of creed. If peace, therefore no violence of any kind. No weapons. No armies. No wars. If love, therefore acceptance of the beauty of every creature, large and small, everyone - smart and not so much, but with the heart. Seeing the world through the pink glasses of love is the best we can do, so let us follow the example of Quakers and be the way we are meant to be: lights in the world.

To find out more, visit the Southern California Meeting website: http://scqm.org/og.html.

ROSE: A NO-NAME-YES

I plucked a rose in Regent's Park tonight.

Her name was "Iceberg."

Her petals? Dressed in whiteness--

But not that stiff kind,

More like old curtains--

Like lace... You remember, don't you?

I picked another flower by the gate.

"Miss Anna Ford" - She introduced herself

While her three siblings hid their faces

Beneath the tiny creases of her dress.

They are together now--

An unlikely couple

sharing the plate of water:

Soon they will fade and die.

A rose's death

is none of our business:

Picked, flourished, withered.

That's all. But...

What splendor!

And... her beauty is all mine.

(Today I saw thick dark-red flames

Changing into the bluest blue of the gold.

I was transformed, bewildered and forgotten

In weightless joy, in secret warmth,

Lost to the stream of life, suspended

Under the vibrant hemisphere, alone at night).

There's no tomorrow.

"Never say die"--Marie Curie reminds us

From a huge poster of her Institute outside.

So pure and simple-- Just say--"Love."

Death’s cunning force

will take what's yours away,

Will strip you naked,

Will reveal what should be left undone.

I'll go there backwards

I'll face Her bravely

When my time--too--comes...

OF BLISS

I'm burning but I'm not burnt

In agony, but not yet dying

Light streams out of my heart

Filled into overflowing

Sounds of an ancient tongue

Trigger a glimpse of a time

When the rose and the flame were one

Wreath of fire which engulfed me

Dissolves into stillness

A white wave reaches its destiny

Of nothingness

The valley brightens

Under a shaft of sunlight

The air is sweetened with flutes

And harps (how obvious!)

A breath and a tinkle

Spill into silence

Love is no father, no mother

But this: perfection

Of all things in all

Feelings collapsed into one

Not a longing, really,

And not satisfaction

Perfect fulfillment: all dreams.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Still more readings from "Slicing the Bread" - in North Hollywood and Syracuse, NY

"The Voices of Survivors"

Maja Trochimczyk & Ed Rosenthal

at No-Ho Unbuckled Poetry Readings

Saturday June 6, 2015 at 3:45 p.m.

The Unbuckled Poetry readings hosted by Radomir Luza are held at T/U Studios, at 3:45 p.m. on the First Saturday of each month.

The T/U. Studios are located at 10943 Camarillo Street (Behind Odyssey Video) (Off Vineland) at the intersection of Vineland, Camarillo and Lankershim. I will co-feature with Ed Rosenthal, author of "The Desert Hat" published by Moonrise Press in 2014 will co-feature at Unbuckled Poetry on June 6, 2015 starting at 3:45 p.m.

Radomir Vojtech Luza wrote the following description of the event:
"At this time of despair and disjunction, disrepair and malfunction, it is artists that keep the globe spinning and the universe purring. Without these hardy souls, escape and hibernation would be nothing less than impossible and all but implausible. The day to day concerns and worries stripped bare by craftsmen and experts who entertain, educate, illuminate and inspire. It is artists who maintain the balance in a reality gone haywire and a turquoise orb given to tragedy, turmoil and chaos. Whether writers, actors, musicians, comedians, directors, poets, composers, editors or dancers, the fraternity has no end or beginning, merely a middle. And, as such, life changers and existence alterers each one."

"Therefore, if you wish to encounter and embrace a crew or den of such magnificent muse manipulators, look no further than the monthly UNBUCKLED: NoHo POETRY reading taking place tomorrow, 6/6/15, at T.U. Studios in North Hollywood with Featured Poets Maja Trochimczyk and Ed Rosenthal.
At four and a half years, UNBUCKLED is the longest running literary series in North Hollywood. It offers life, love, literature and a family atmosphere that changes the world once every 30 or 31 days."

MAJA TROCHIMCZYK

"If there is a more meticulous, dedicated and passionate poet than Trochimczyk on the Los Angeles poetry scene, this poet has not met him or her. The Polish butterfly publishes, writes, hosts and features in a dizzying schedule that makes her one of the busiest and most sought after poets in the city.

She will be reading from "Slicing the Bread," a chapbook about her parents and their experiences in WWII. If the book is anything like her past work, we have a painstakingly beautiful piece of art to look for ward to. And, really, who would expect anything less from Trochimczyk. This is Maja's first Feature at UNBUCKLED and Mary and I could not be happier to have her."

ED ROSENTHAL

The collection of poetry is THE DESERT HAT by Ed Rosenthal, and Elena Karina Byrne describes it this way: "Ed Rosenthal's THE DESERT HAT not only recounts an incredibly vivid story of survival, but maps out the dangerous journeys of the heart and the imagination in that hallucinatory place between mind and body, between nature and man, between the past and the future. Like poet James Wright, Rosenthal 'goes/Back to the broken ground' of the self and finds a stranger there trapped in the cosmology of an endless, unpitying desert. As the stark 'sun burns holes/in to the sky' the psyche's true-north compass finds salvation's shade. Rosenthal climbed out of 'the busted monster's mouth' with a beautiful,moving book."
Rosenthal, who survived alone in the Mojave Desert for six and a half days, is a gifted poet who has never read at UNBUCKLED before, but is thrilled and overjoyed to be making his debut tomorrow.
Ed is also courageous and resourceful. The poet-broker overcame tremendous odds that may have humbled others in escaping the desert.

OPEN MIKE-Open to all poets, writers, actors, musicians and comedians.
Read your own work or that of someone else. It is alright just to watch as well.

The Palace Poetry Group Presents

Slicing the Bread / Krojenie Chleba

A Bilingual Poetry Reading

by Dr. Maja Trochimczyk

TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 2015, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm.

DeWitt Community Library, DeWitt near Syracuse, NY

3649 Erie Blvd. East, DeWitt, NY 13214
Tel.: (315) 446-3578 www.dewlib.org

Dr. Maja Trochimczyk at Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural, Sylmar, February 2015.

Photo by Jessica Wilson

Slicing the Bread. A Children’s Survival Manual in 25 Poems

Paperback. Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line Press, 2014, $14 + $2.99 S & H

https://finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?products_id=2149

Slicing the Bread is a unique poetry collection revisits the dark days of World War II and the post-war occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union that “liberated” the country from one foreign oppression to replace it with another. The point of view is that of children, raised by survivors, scarred by war, wary of politics. The poems, each inspired by a single object giving rise to memories like Proust’s madeleine (a spoon, a coat, the smell of incense), are divided into three sections, starting with snapshots of World War II in the Polish Borderlands (Kresy) and in central Poland.

Reflections on the Germans’ brutal killings of Jews and Poles are followed by insights into the way the long shadow of THE war darkened a childhood spent behind the Iron Curtain. For poet Georgia Jones Davis, this book, “brings the experience of war into shocking, immediate focus” through Trochimczyk’s use of “her weapon: Language at its most precise and lyrical, understated and piercingly visual.” According to Pulitzer-Prize nominated poet John Guzlowski, Maja’s “poems about what the Poles suffered both during World War II and The Cold War afterwards are written with the clarity of truth and the fullness of poetry… Here are the stories of how the people she loved experienced hunger and suffering and terror so strong that it defined them and taught her, and teach us, the meaning of family.

Los Angeles Poet Laureate - Luis J. Rodriguez

Luis J. Rodriguez gave a reading at the Tujunga Branch of Los Angeles Public Library and the Village Poets welcomed him on May 23, 2015: Dorothy Skiles, Marlene Hitt, Joe DeCenzo, and Maja Trochimczyk. Elsa Frausto who organized the reading could not attend but was present through her poems.