Letter to Jim Dodge

Jim,

Without any further ado about late American model cars (you can look under my hood any time), I came away last night feeling like I’d played jimdodgeball with a pitbull bearing carnations and a crowbar—I was both laughing and growling. 

My friend Sharon Doubiago once asked mountain men Gary Snyder & Wendell Berry “Where’re the women on the bearshit trail?”. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. Especially the sidetracks. Dinner, trucktalk. They’re always more interesting anyway.

Don’t forget to send me the bio, etc, and other clippings? I get antsy. Blame it on being a Sagge/Scorpio. Gotta jump on it now while I’m arguing with you in my head—it’ll be too diluted a month from now. I could go with what I’ve got, but I feel like I haven’t got the whole picture, just tidbits. So now to construct an article but I’ve got all these unanswered questions.

As a writer, I guess what I’m most interested in is how the sense of place affects one’s art. The writer’s process. The idiosyncrasies & anomalies. Training grounds. (How to avoid burn-out?). 

Tom Roth wants me to focus on West County influences; the before and after shot. Too bad I don’t have a copy of Stone Junction in front of me. . .maybe I should include a sidebar review. 

Where can I get a review copy? You, your agent, Copperfield’s or Atlantic Monthly? Shelling out $20—I’ll earn about as much—seems a little extravagant with April 15 stomping over the horizon. And if I wait for the paperback ed., inflation will eat up my paycheck!

Dammit, I think I will claim my bed as a business expense. Oof, that sounds bad, I meant dough for the IRS. 

John Oliver Simon was always saying what a great bread baker he was. 

I think moving the “r” one word over is a more apt spoonerism. Well, I didn’t go into details about John. Just felt a little shy about it. Suffice to say, he experienced male menopause with a blonde not unlike the ones you were admiring at the walk-up teller last night. You know, firm bodies (his daughter’s age), etc. 

Thanks for the pep talk. Or whatever it was. Yeah, it is all inseparable. Writing, love, hell, intestinal flora & fauna. 

You ask me why women quit eating? Because we turn it all inward. Starve the self. Deny nuturing. Yes, I too am guilty.

Anyway, I uncracked your earlier books looking for clues and found a yellowed postcard you'd sent to me dated 1984 saying you were about to leave for Mexico. Shit, how time flies. I guess the grey hairs (mine too) aren’t an illusion. 

That’s what’s different. Less hair. Found a photo of you from way back. Wooly beard, etc. No, I ain’t gonna write about your bald spot. Liked “Palms to the Moon” in Poet News. Send me some poems. Not much useable info about you in it though.

Last known address for you is a PO box in Cazadero. (Don’t know how you managed to live in a PO box all those years). I think I have your Arcata address buried somewhere in the depths of a journal...but you know how it is with old journals, who wants to disturb dust? Can’t send this to the house next door to the Oddfellows Hall now can I? Would you care to update the address/phone file?

I’ve been threatening to visit an old boyfriend Geoff Davis in Alderpoint for a couple of years now, and do a CPITS workshop/reading with Dan Brewer in Redway beginning of June. Maybe I’ll see you then. 

Or if you’re down this way, Elizabeth Herron and I are doing a reading the first Monday in April at the Russian River Writers’ Guild in Sebastopol with Lynn Watson—yet another Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate. The PeeDee did an article on Eliz and me--thought you’d like to see it.

Guess what I’m having for lunch? Spring egg rolls & manchurian beef. Forgot to say thanks for dinner. Or should I thank Atlantic Monthly? Gracias por todo. Spaciba. Etcetera.

Dosveydanya

Maureen

1/11/1992—the date is relative as that's the file date. 

See my article on Jim Dodge 

Celebrate Sonoma Festival

Copperfields Banned Book Week reading

RRWG anthology, A Stone’s Throw reading

RRWG reading, Burbank Activity Center

RRWG reading at the Burbank Activity Center, Elizabeth Herron, Lynn Watson, Maureen Hurley

Press Democrat, Poets with the Write Stuff, David Bromidge, Elizabeth Herron, Maureen Hurley,

Dream workshop, with Elizabeth Herron 11/7

I am visiting my grandmother’s neighbor Erica Smollow. In the dream she is also Nurse Ray Perrencini whom I met in Cuzco. She’s not living in her big house, a place I housecleaned as a teenager, but in the small cabin with three beds and three children about a year old. One is hers and the others are accidents of fate. A friend’s, or daughters? The dream does not elucidate. 

The place is messy. Erica is in bed, she is exhausted. She is a woman alone. Her husband left her. The beds are covered with gold bedspreads. The clutter in her room is like my aunt Jane’s bedroom clutter when she lived in SF, clippings, stockings, piles of mail. 

Erica‘s bed faces the west window. Her head is at the other end by the front door. The twin bed is parallel, against the wall. The passageway between the beds leads to the back door. Against the opposite wall is the third twin bed, oxymoronic, I know. There was grit on the floor, so with a piece of material I began to sweep up. 

An old man was supposed to do this, he was paid to help her, but he stood smoking in the back doorway while I worked. Blankets were scattered on the floor. It took forever to pick up before I could even sweep. The babies were about a year old. What was Erica doing with all these young children? One was a dark-haired boy. 

At one point  I patted Erica‘s dark hair, and said I never knew you were a mommy three times over. How worn and pale she looked as if she were dying of something. (what I did not know is that she had MS, it would take 30 years to discover this). I sweep the wooden floor as best I can. Nothing can alleviate the desolateness of this one-room house, how has she come to this, this brilliant journalist of international repute?

Reverse the image: I am lying in bed exhausted from raising three small children alone. One as my own, the others were gifts. I couldn’t let them go, let them be a abandoned. A woman I think I know comes to visit. I see her silhouetted by the front door that barely clears the beds. I sleep with my head nearest to the front door because I like to look into the filminess of the desert, it’s like looking through milk glass. The windows at the foot of my bed offers the same featureless view but I like to look out onto the real thing not hindered by by the constraints of glass. Everything is so far removed as it is. I don’t need to get farther away. Besides, I can see the mountains from the front door. They face southwest. 

And I can see my visitor is taken aback by the condition by which we live. I can’t help that. Raising three kids on next to nothing wasn’t easy. My husband gone, dead, for all I care. Pablo helps when he can, he’s close to 100 and he can’t do much—in exchange for food and a place to sleep. That’s all that this place offers, a place to sleep. Everything else is on the floor. The spreads, the blankets. 

She comes in dressed in jeans looking of the world, a busier place than this. I can see the horror in her eyes but I am long past explaining, long past making excuses. Sometimes, all I can do is to crawl back into bed after work, still dressed in my slip and fall into a dreamless sleep. At least dreams are a refuge. 

Pablo really shouldn’t smoke so much. Ashes all over the place. The woman makes herself useful and begins to sweep the other present grit with a towel. There is a broom somewhere, Pablo had it last. He spends more time standing in the back doorway gazing off into the northwest. One day he’ll shuffle off in that direction. Sometimes I wish he would just go and get out of here. Then where would I be? A pretty kettle of fish. 

In late afternoon I love to watch the mottled blue shadows fall from the cottonwoods and jingle and dance on the wall. Especially in early spring and late summer when the sun begins to drop low in the sky again. Of course, if we lived in the southern hemisphere, seasons and directional information would be reversed. I am using my northern latitude sensibilities, from the northeast, that is New Jersey. 

This could very well be in Peru. The great desert. And no se. It would explain the presence of Pablo or is he Pepe? Living like this in one room and being better off than most. 

Dream Workshop with Elizabeth Herron 11/6 Luis

Sunday, November 6

Lying down on a thin matt at school watching in event. There is a choice between a blue shawl and a Guatemalan hanging to keep warm. She chooses the shawl, more practical, but she would prefer the Guatemalan one. Black cotton with red embroidery. Her friend, an old ex lover, Luis, comes by and sits with her. They are in shadow. It’s chilly, a winter afternoon, they snuggle close or warm and watch the show. I don’t know what they are watching. She turns to say something and almost without realizing it, she gives him a quick peck on the lips, making a kissing sound. She’s surprised that she did such a thing. He is married. She did it without thinking, kissing him like that. He kept on talking as if it didn’t happen, but pulled her in closer. There was much comfort in his arms.

Reversed position from the man’s point of view:

I joined her on the match. It was cold and she had many wraps. We snuggled for warmth. she sat on the mat, there was not enough room for two unless we sat side-by-side. She looks so fragile and alone. I sat on the pavement behind her on newspapers and cloth. Too bad the afternoon sun had disappeared. It was getting to be that winter bone chilling cold. We were watching some musician friends of mine playing Andean music. She turned to me to say some thing, our heads were very close. I was surprised by her quick kiss, more affection than anything else. After all, I am now married and years have passed since we were once lovers.. Remembering that and how much pain she was in, I pulled her in closer, offered what comfort care there was.

Elements: a man and a woman watching something on a matt in shadows. It’s late afternoon, perhaps windchill. It was hot earlier and there are different types of blankets. They huddle for warmth, they could be lovers. He is Chinese. She is white yet there is something very brother sisterly about them. They are very similar. Both interested in Latin America. He’s married, in a good relationship. She is not. The kiss is not really one of sexual interest, so there is a small comfort. She is afraid he will take that away and it will be steamy and short-lived with disastrous results all around. He kisses her desire for a relationship, the one she has lost. He is a placeholder. If it had been her boyfriend, the kids would’ve been innocent, affectionate for checking in like saying, hello mate.

Dream Workshop with Elizabeth Herron, journal, 11/5 Fire in FK

Saturday, November 5
Dream journal:

Dream fragment: The canyon above my grandmothers house, is filled with smoke, a wall of flames advancing toward me. I run into the house, dial operator for the fire department, screaming there’s a huge fire. I am informed that the fire department doesn’t begin working until April. I am in an utter rage. Luckily, the ground is damp, the fire burns itself out. But I am going to do something about this atrocity. When help is needed, it should not be denied. The fire department was intact, but not taking calls until April? What was the point?

*    *    *

A woman alone
in her grandmothers house,
afraid, powerless to stop the fire,
calls for help. None is available, bureaucracy.
The fire goes out of its own accord.
She is determined to rectify the situation
now that the danger is passed

*    *    *

Dream fragment: A ranger and I are in the house, we are lovers, we’re getting ready to leave in the jeep. Two girls, almost teenagers, are with us. We’re giving them a ride. The ranger and I are hugging and kissing, he slips into the car and doesn’t hug me again. He drives off. I was expecting more.

*    *    *          

Taking the elements of the dream fragment, my grandmother’s house, childhood connections, safety. You can never go back. Another time and place. We’re doing something inside, I can’t remember who or what. It is afternoon, hazy. It could be autumn. I’m not sure which sets off the spark, that sets the fire. I get the image of sunlight, glass, angle of light. The canyon is different with steep cliffs made mostly of rock that’s why the fire stops. If the flames had leapt any higher they were at least 100 hundred feet tall or more, the trees at the top of the hill would’ve caught fire too and that would’ve been pure chaos. It was a contained fire moving towards us. Luckily the ground was damp from rain. It must’ve been in autumn and the fire played itself out. Since the fire department was on vacation, it was just as well. 

*    *    *

Symbols of telephone and fire department. One looks up on the telephone as a tool to reach out, to call for help, communication. 200 years ago no one would run into a house to phone for help. This is a new symbol, one that I’ve grown up with. I remember when we got our first phone. It was autumn, or maybe winter. Stephanie and I dialed my number and talk to my grandmother who wasn’t terribly amused by it all. However we were thrilled, at least I was. 

The operator didn’t try to help, it wasn’t the old black phone with the rotary dial. I remember screaming into the phone so loud that my voice hurt. I remember throwing the receiver on the couch and grabbing a hose and squirting the ground. It was successful. Somehow I could squirt the hose quite far. We were able to help ourselves after all. 

Empowerment. I never had a chance to give anyone our address. I figured if they could trace the call… It was off the hook. Someone was still on the line when I came back in, explaining why they could not help us. I said never mind, we don’t need you anymore. And I said they would be hearing from me. I was that mad, mad enough to create a disturbance over what I thought was an extremely bad policy. Since I am a part-time paparazzi, I have the means to make publish my gripes. 

*    *    *

Dream Workshop with Elizabeth Herron, journal, 11/4 Adair Lara

Adair.

I ran into Adair, said I picked up her book. Asked her, Heig? I remember she was in my class with Jim Heig at College of Marin, but he was such a hardnose. She explains, yeah, her husband. I’m flabbergasted. She said the rest of the Daleys reacted that way too. She never said she was still with him. I didn’t ask. 

In the dream, we were in a room of dark recessed shadows. There were bars, the kind the kids played on nearby like a jungle gym. She gave me advice on how to go about putting a book together which I’ve long since forgotten. I wanted to ask her if she used a computer or if she wrote it out on the typewriter, and did she get help. 

The conversation was a little mismatched. She was telling me what she thought I wanted to hear which was how to, and I wanted to tell her about my project but I didn’t have a copy of my book. She wanted to know if I found her workbook helpful and I saiid that I did but I had only just read part of it and so I said yes.

*.         *.         *

Dream Workshops with Elizabeth Herron 11/3 to 11/7 City of clocks

Elizabeth Herron tells us to take the time to live with an image before recording it. Slow down the process (versus my mad attempt at trying to get everything down as quickly as possible and try to make sense of it). She said you need to let the unconscious mind respond. Treat your dreams as non-analytical, spontaneous creations, as autonomous works of art. Don’t analyze it. There is no wrong way. Let the images work for themselves.

The rules:

1. take the most powerful part of the dream, don’t look at it sequentially or time-oriented, avoid ego-contamination. Look at it circular, let go of those urges for the narrative sense.

2. don’t try to make sense of it.
3. if we can distance ourselves from it, we can see alternative perspectives.
4. look for concrete detail.
5. work with overlapping images, superimposed images.
6. always looking at what isn’t there, what is missing in the image.
7. what is the opposite, turning the image upside down.

Take on the dreams paying attention to the ordinary. Forget about storyline. Look at the image in a less sensible way. Pay attention to the sensory detail. We don’t want to use the dreams and we want to learn from them. It’s not reductive. Removed from the ego. Dream ego stance. How we feel to it, shape, alter it. What you bring to it, your experience. How much tension can we contain?

I write:

Sugar ants moving eggs into the house, 

small white packages on the ledge above my bed. 

A reaction to spraying Black flag. 

Again, the threat of rain is driving them in. 

Taking the dream on as if it were my own. 

Take the ants’ point of you. Danger in the nest.

Elizabeth asks, How much do we literally live in a dream? Force a storyline? Or do we look at the dream metaphorically, or as an analogy? How much can we live with ambiguity? Taking an image from the artist viewpoint, not the analytical viewpoint.

Poets, musicans lend voices for ‘Nica Noel’

Poets, musicans lend voices for ‘Nica Noel’

A score of Sonoma County poets and musicians will lend their voices to help send local people to work in the Nicaraguan harvest. The event will begin at 7 p.m. tonight (Friday) at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, 550 Mendocino Ave., across from the Unemployment Office in downtown Santa Rosa. A $5 contribution includes, refreshments and one free glass of wine or apple juice. Music will be provided by the Sonoma County Peace Chorus, Michael Gillotti and Steve "Piano Doctor" Pryputniewicz. Poets include Lisa Christensen, Elizabeth Herron, Maureen Hurley, Robert Jones, Johnathan London, Suzanne Maxson, John Oliver Simon and Eve Simpson. Also featured will be a display of Central American posters. Co-sponsored by People for Peace in Central America and the Russian River Writers' Guild, the evening will benefit the Nicaraguan Harvest Brigades Scholarship Fund which enables local citizens to participate in three-week work tours to pick coffee in Nicaragua. Over 1,000 U.S. citizens and thousands from other nations have joined the volunteer program over the last two years. About a dozen Sonoma Countly residents have been a part of this program. This is the first year that a scholarship fund for needy volunteers has been established. People who wish to contribute to the fund can receive a tax deduction for a contribution of $5O or more, made out to 1.F.C.0. and sent to Brigades, 540 Pacific Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95404. For more information on the 'Nica Noel' poetry reading, the brigades program or the scholarship fund, call Eric at 823-8154 or 526-7220

Benefit reading Nicaraguan Harvest Brigade, Santa Rosa, Mo Hurley reading/photo

Art, Poets, Technology panel, SSU

 

SRJC Artrium reading

Petaluma Argus Courier Sonoma Arts Council, Word Art

Fiction class with Elizabeth Herron Fall 1980

Since I can't date most of my fiction and memoir, and it looks like I revisited some old pieces for this class, which, sadly, turned me off to fiction, I'll file them here, at the end of the year. I pretty much abandoned the prose process after taking this class and it wasn't until I established this blog that I was willing to revisit prose. 

I still have an aversion to fiction. I'm much more comfortable with memoir. I do like Elizabeth (as a poet), but I sure didn't like her class. I came away feeling like a complete failure in both poetry and prose. I'll own it, not blame others, it was all on me. My doors of perception, self-doubt, and vulnerability conspired against me. I wasn't very good at pleasing others with my work, which required a wrestling match before I got it down on paper (who knew I had dyslexia?). I guess I learned something from the class. But there's still a bitter taste in the back of the throat some 36 years later. 

The one good thing about the class was that I became fast friends with Ockly scientist/engineer Michael Fulton, who was working on a sci-fi novel. We saw each other for a few years, and kept in touch through the 1990s. Worth the price of admission. I've added most of this prose on 10/2016. It's hard not to resist fixing them.   Onward, as they say.

16 voices poetry reading at Artrium, SRJC