Remembering Diane diPrima

College classmates Jack Crimmins and Gregg Lowe were reminiscing around the death of Beat poet, Diane diPrima, who once read with Elizabeth Herron in Cotati when Loba was first published. At Sonoma State College, 1979-80, we resurrected a defunct reading series, called the Public Poetry Center, where we hosted community readings with local poets paired with luminaries including Michael McClure, whom Jack introduced, Lewis MacAdams, Joanne Kyger and Bobbie Louise Hawkins at the Cotati Cabaret and the Inn of the Beginning.

As Jack and Gregg reminisced, I realized I was quickly being written out of the collective post-narrative, and it was my project. So I did a diPrima, I chimed in, and reclaimed the past, and then I realized I’ve never properly documented the project, as I was living in the moment producing events.

I told Jack, Yep, The Public Poetry Center, the idea, or concept was to bridge the gap between the writer community and the isolated university. I wasn’t entirely happy with the name, I think it was something my professor, poet David Bromige had coined, but it stuck, and served its purpose. Before that, there wasn’t much going on at Sonoma State. Jack said he came up with the title.

Our job was to resurrect SSU’s defunct Public Poetry Center and to create a liaison between the university and the community We hosted campus literary and art events for the English Dept., The College of the Humanities and the ASUC InterCultural Center. We also had to negotiate around David Bromige who wanted to present a very different poetry scene.

I began booking readings as an undergraduate art student, after attending The Child in Changing Times Conference in either June of 1978 (I don’t have a notebook for 1978, and so, can’t look it up) and/or another conference in 1979, The Arts in Everyday Living (they could be one and the same conference), that changed my life’s direction. It was hosted by the SSU Dept. of Psychology, coordinated by Terry Doyle, psychologist, and poets Michael Dow and Lee Perron who both taught for an organization that would literally change my life, California Poets in the Schools (CPITS). 

The organizers were setting up kiosks with photos of children, and their poetry. I had my calligraphy kit on me and offered to make signs. I was the signmaker for the Sonoma Student Union. Once they saw that I could make huge banners, they roped me in, made me part of the conference. 

• Summer Workshop: A conference on developing more effective, loving relationships with children, Growing Up Sane: The Child in Changing Times, will be offered at Sonoma State College from June 22 to 25, 1978. The conference will provide new insights, practical skills and usable methods in raising and educating children. For information call Neil Schifiman, 565-9280. 

That conference is also how I got roped into both the Russian River Writers’ Guild, and CPITS at the same time, via poet Lee Perron. Anyway, by circumstance, or by accident, I became the default student liaison between the university and the Russian River Writers’ Guild. The Cotati Cabaret was off campus, and it drew much large crowds. (Besides, there was booze). The other tenant was that we always paid the poets, no matter no small the stipend was....

The Arts in Everyday Living: The Real Basis of Education Conference, 28 June - 1 July, sponsored by Sonoma State University, Office of Extended Education. The workshops and an ongoing art project are geared toward teachers, parents, administrators, artists, counselors and community members. Kenneth Rexroth, poet and critic, and Jose Arguellos, educator, artist and writer will be the featured main speakers. Also included are an Arts Festival and Resource Center. For further information, contact the Office of Extended Education at SSU, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park, CA 94928 or call (707)664-2394. 

Ultimately that Arts in Everyday Living conference was where I was first exposed to accessible personal narrative poetry that even kids could write. Hooked, I took to the streets running: I undertook the equivalent of a second BA in Expressive Arts, a cluster school offshoot of the psychology department, along with my BA in Art Studio (my connection with the English Dept. was a bit of a fluke), and I trained to become a poet-teacher for California Poets in the Schools. 

CPITS Area Coordinator for SoNapa counties, (we called it SOCPITS) Michael Dow’s writing workshops were vitally alive and I wanted more, but I was also simultaneously taking poetry workshops with David Bromige, so to ameliorate the schism, I created a bridge of sorts between the three groups to make sense of it all. It was an octopuses eight-handed nightmare, as I didn’t quite fit in anywhere. Besides, I was an art student.

Without poetry I never would’ve gone back to school as I had dropped out of SFSU, and was floundering around at Sonoma State trying to finish my BA degree in Art Studio at a school where few art classes were being offered. Luckily, both David Bromige and Psychology chair, jazz musician, “Red” Thomas became my SSU liaisons. But the English/poetry department and the Expressive Arts department, even though it was a cluster school, were not connected at the hip, or anywhere at all. So that was yet another matchstick bridge to build. When I landed in Expressive Arts, I felt I had finally come home.

“Red” Thomas, more than anyone, gave me belief in myself and lent credence to what I was doing, even if I hadn’t a clue as to what it was. He gave me blanket permission to “follow my passion.” What stayed with me were those weekly seminars, group meetings when we had to report back to our peers our successes and failures.  I was always so terrified but poetry was this large brontosaurus rucking round the room, I was merely holding on for dear life. Even tho I wasn’t officially in the program, I joined in. It was like a 12-step program for enabling artists and poets in their communities. “Red” Thomas and Mac McCreary were at the epicenter of change.

And because we didn’t know any better, we all dreamed big, and that’s how Diane Di Prima came to SSU to give a workshop and a reading—either in the fall of 1979, or the spring of 1980. Her exploration, and navigation of the feminine archetype as a she-wolf, a hunter of lost things, became my mantra. Her epistolary manifestos in Revolutionary Letters gave us permission to address the universe not just as participants, but as activist poets on the cusp of change.

Some say that she wrote Loba as a counterpoint to Ginsberg’s Howl. None of that matters. She was a woman before her time, and she ran with the wolves long before it was a concept. I took workshops with her in June, 1979, at the SF Zen Center, a converted Victorian flat. Her open narrative process allowed us to generate our own major arcana of mythos and symbolism unimpeded by the tight corners of male-dominated academia.

Another college classmate, Rebecca Clintron reminisced, Diane was palpable, she was elegant Wildness itself bringing 'Loba' workshop to us almost immediately upon publication, fresh and clear w a subdued gravitas. what i recall most poignantly was her speaking of the 'vulnerability of youth' (our ignorance and openness) was nothing compared to the vulnerability of an aging woman in our culture, approaching cronehood. i recognize now that she was barely into middle age!”

Jack answered, “ Rebecca, very cool, your recollections of Diane...thank you..."Wildness"...! Diane's book "Loba" such an important cross-cultural, mythopoetic long poem, written over years, added to as she went, and as Diane said, as she heard the poem voices emerging, a poem that powerfully explores feminine consciousness and beyond...so cool Diane was out teaching early and throughout her life.”

There is a woman whose poems are bread & meat 
hyacinth nightmare crepe paper 
I close a window, she is not reflected in it 
but I see her silhouette against the glass 
she is crisp as ice, is soft 
as russian vowels”

—Diane diPrima, Loba

From Altar, Diane diPrima's workshop, SF Zen Center, June 1979.

From the Naropa broadsides 1974

MAUREEN HURLEY INTERVIEW (with Terri Glass)

Finally the edited interview appeared in the CPITS newsletter, but no one sent me a link. Go figure. Here's the vertical response link:  


And you can also access it via the November Newsletter on the CPITS site:

CPITS Poet teacher, Maureen Hurley reading student poems at Watershed Festival, Oct 2011

MAUREEN HURLEY INTERVIEW (with Terri Glass) In November issue of CPITS enewsletter. (Unedited).

1) You became a CPITS poet teacher many years ago. Who were your mentors and what was the organization like at the time?

In 1978, I volunteered for an arts education conference at Sonoma State, The Child in Changing TImes. Sonoma County CPITS Area Coordinator, Michael Dow led a workshop circle on the main lawn and it was there I wrote my first poems. It was a matter of being at the right place at the right time. I did not actively seek out CPITS. Michael Dow tapped me for CPITS and in 1979, I began training with another Sonoma County poet, Lee Perron—who was my mentor for 20 years. 

In those days, Sonoma County CPITS—we called it SOCPITS—had only a few poets on board and it was a very small rural program. Poets collectively earned about $4000 a year, total. Can I even remember their names? Rocco Tripodi, Pam Raphael (Singer), Zara Altair, Andrea Granahan....

Carol Lee Sanchez was living in Petaluma. Will Staple moved away to Grass Valley. Gail King dropped out. Mike Tuggle and Susan Kennedy were still in West Marin, but they soon moved north. Duane BigEagle and Kathryn Harer came to Sonoma County later, under Zara' Altair's AC tenure. Only Pam Singer and myself are part of that original SOCPITS team. We both trained under Lee Perron. Pam dropped out of CPITS for a while, but bounced back. I don't think Susan Kennedy is still teaching CPITS. So, Pam, Duane, Will and I are still carrying the SOCPITS legacy forth.

I don't think Michael Dow was ever interested in expanding the SOCPITS program into what it is today—so Lee Perron sort of took over Michael's AC duties. Under Lee's tenure, SOCPITS annual revenue quadrupled in size—primarily through arts education funding—multi-artist grants from the National Endowment from the Arts (NEA) and the California Arts Council (CAC). Our "Art is the 4th R" program at Healdsburg School District was a pilot project of the NEA and helped to shape arts and education guidelines. I, and other CAC artists—including Louis Valdez and Juan Felipe Hererra—were selected by the NEA to develop the national evaluation process. So we were the guinea pigs for the arts.

My first real CPITS residency at Healdsburg, I taught calligraphy and poetry to RSP/ESL students—so I've always mixed my art forms. (I was the resident calligrapher at Sonoma State—I did all the signage for events). At our CAC grant in Windsor, I taught art classes, but I did lead some crossover poetry and art classes. 

What I learned from Lee was to dream big. In the 1980s, I was awarded six CAC individual Artist in Residency grants at Mark West School District—and I also was awarded a pilot CAC Artist in Libraries grant at Napa State Hospital. 

Napa was one strange experience. I wanted the ground to open up and just swallow me whole so I wouldn't have to teach—like during the first days of teaching CPITS. I was terrified. I trained longer than most poets (20 sessions) because I was very shy (don't laugh!) as I had no self-confidence. Art turned me ever inward: reflective, introspective. Poetry gave me a voice, a persona, a hat—my life's work—it gave my life meaning in the broader sense. It made me a citizen of the world.

The statewide CPITS program was still tied to San Francisco State. When I came aboard, Carol Lee Sanchez was Statewide Coordinator. We had a meeting at Gail Newman's house—she may have been the SF AC. Carol Lee taught us to draw upon our communities (think local, act global). As ACs, we are mutually independent and as an organization, we are inter-dependent upon each other—this is why the yearly symposiums are so important to this unique poetry tribe called CPITS.

I also worked with John Oliver Simon documenting his Poetry Across Frontiers project. Being in Mexico, seeing the CPITS lens from the other side, and working with the Mexican poets, was riveting. It launched my own poetic Sputnik into the USSR after John & I split. Which led to my training Soviet poets, and also training Dutch poets at Poetry International in Holland. 

I've taught PITS residencies to students in the Ukraine, to psychiatric workers in the Netherlands, and in Montana schools with Susie Terence and Daryl Chinn. So I've seen PITS in action from the ground up, as a field poet, as a master CPITS poet teacher, as an Area Coordinator, as a board member, and as an out of state—perhaps, out of mind—poet ambassador. 

Suffice to day, Carol Lee's dream model still holds. Sure, we've had challenges keeping the nation's oldest poetry in the schools program afloat, but we're approaching our big 5-0. What other independent arts organization can boast that? 

I know from the inside out that poetry really matters. It changes lives. So, it's ironic in that I hated poetry as a kid. But then, my grannie was always reciting poetry to me along with all the Irish ballads sprinkled with healthy doses of W.B. Yeats. How many kids had The Lake Isle of Inisfree or the Rime of the Ancient Mariner recited to them?. So, poetry was always in my bones. It just took a while to shine through.

2) You have been an Area Coordinator in Sonoma and now in Alameda. How long did you AC in Sonoma and what were your highlights of that experience? What is like to oversee Alameda?

Mark West USD was among the first Santa Rosa school districts to embrace CPITS. Significant in that Santa Rosa was a tough nut to crack. Without CPITS residencies in Sonoma County's largest city, SOCPITS was destined to stay rural—only in the outskirts.  

My decade-long CAC residency (and other funding) began as a tiny CPITS pilot residency. I got a call from Principal Ida Victorson—when I heard that Virginian accent, I realized my hippie clothes just wouldn't do. So I raided Goodwill, found an old silk dress, lopped it off into a blouse, got a pleated skirt and some faux-pearls on credit. I got the job. I had to push-start my VW Bug wearing heels and nylons, but I landed the contract. Talk about dress for success! 

The Mark West residency ran much longer than the CPITS contracts and the CAC residencies—we hosted a poetry and art exchange with the Soviet Union that eventually included many Sonoma County artists and poets—and it was funded right up to the Soviet Putscht in 1991.

I also became an AC circa the early 1980s. Zara sort of eased the AC mantle off onto my shoulders before I knew what was happening. I was able to use my success at Mark West to expand the program. We went from a tiny county program in the low $teens to $53k in 1988, and became one of the strongest and largest CPITS programs in the state. The expanded program suffered a setback during the recession in 1990, but it recovered with a little boost from the Sonoma County Community Foundation grants.

As Sonoma County AC, I invited many new poets into the program: Luis Kong (he resisted for years—and eventually became Statewide Coordinator), Arthur Dawson, Jonathan London (the children's author), Lynn Watson, Terry Ehret, Mimi Alpert, Jim Byrd—Jabez "Bill" Churchill (he resisted the longest but as we all know, resistance is futile); Lynn Marie deVincent, and Scott Reid finished training with Arthur Dawson. We had 20 working CPITS poets when I stepped down as AC after my car accident in 1997 and Arthur Dawson took the helm. 

By comparison, AC-ing Alameda County is like wrestling with a huge tentacled squid—much harder to pin to the ground. It's so large, and amorphous—and mostly urban. I'm afraid Gertrude Stein was right: There is no there there. It's so much harder to sell the program in an urban environment because there are no discrete communities to tap into. No real sense of tight-knit community—like in rural areas. I've still got my training wheels on. 

I've worked in Alameda off and on since the Poetry Across Frontier days—I wrote an Oakland Cultural Arts Council (OCAC) grant with Tobey Kaplan in 2004 that augmented CPITS matching money. I also received a OCAC artist in schools grant to teach art at Cleveland Elementary School in 2008-09 after two years of SPARK Arts funding from KQED dried up. Without outside grants, arts funding would be virtually non-existant in California. But even those resources are drying up. The Walter and Elise Haas Fund certainly revitalized Alameda, but now schools are far too broke to even attempt at matching the grant.

I think also, the protracted downward spiral of the economy has eroded all arts programming in a way that the Jarvis-Gann initiative (Prop 13) never envisioned. California is dead bottomth in the nation for per capita public arts spending for art and education. A sad accolade.

3) You have been active in Poetry Out Loud for the past few years.  Wasn't one of your students a runner up in the state competition for 2011?

I've had two POL state runners-up from Contra Costa County: Cheryl Evans from Deer Valley High School in Antioch (third place) in 2010, and Mark Reifenheiser from Diablo Valley High School in Concord (second place) in 2011. I took over from Tobey Kaplan for Cheryl's coaching. Neil O'Neill and Alison Luterman also contributed to Mark's successful POL experience. 

I also coordinated Alameda County POL as well. I was a latecomer to POL. I never expected to like POL—but it does dovetail into our CPITS work. I often tell my shy CPITS student poets how my POL students very nearly won the state finals—how performance is also an important part of poetry, and they tend to jump right up and give fantastic readings themselves. Cheryl is now taking Speech and Debate as well as Elocution in college. POL judge Brandon Cesmat featured Cheryl's own work on our CPITS blog. She made Al Young sit up and listen—I think we're going to hear more from Cheryl in the future. 

4) You are a visual artist and photographer. How does these other mediums feed your poetry and vice versa. Do you combine these art forms in your teaching?

I'm a visual learner and I tend to see metaphor as a visual experience. I'm a cross-over artist, my undergraduate degrees are in painting and drawing—with a minor in clay. I'm also dyslexic. So art allowed me to access language.The words come later. But not always. Sometimes metaphors just pop into my head. Now it's a synthesis. One art form informs the other—they're a continuum of personal metaphor from the visual to the aural realm.

People were always trying to peg me as either a poet or an artist—not both. Even with my CAC grants, I was asked to choose between mediums—or forfeit my grant—there were no multi arts discipline grants. Finally Philip Horn from the CAC came down to observe me at Mark West School. He said, "I get it now, you really do blend both art forms. But you need to make that clearer in your grants." I knew what I wanted to do, I just couldn't think of a way to write about it. After a bad car accident in 1980, I found out I was dyslexic—which answered a lot of questions. It's amazing I got those grants as I could barely write—other than poetry. I literally cut and pasted fragments together to string together sentences. I was mighty glad when Apple came along. With my Apple IIc, I could cut & paste on the screen. A revolution of thought.

While finishing my BA in Art at Sonoma State, I took an integrated Expressive Arts course—and earned the equivalent of a 2nd BA, but the program was disbanded. That experience of working with my peers, and having to go out into the community launched my poetry career—as a CPITS poet, as a poetry festival organizer and as a cultural worker. I studied with SSU's incomparable Red Thomas, Mac McCreary, and Elizabeth Herron in the School of Expressive Arts—a radical interdisciplinary experiment that was associated with the psychology department. Faculty functioned as artists in residence as did the students—we designed our own course of study; and I also studied poetry with David Bromige in the English Department—to keep things balanced. Or so I thought. LOL. But then David checked himself into the looney bin and there we were, a graduate class teaching ourselves and each other. I taught a seminar on Yeats. Pern in a gyre. We were spiraling out into the community.

Those experiences launched me into a photography job at an alternative West County newspaper, The Sonoma County Stump. Again, it was a question of right (or wrong) place at the right time. Soon I was writing stories—snipping and gluing fragments to make coherent sentences (pre word-processing days), but then, the paper folded. So Simone Wilson and I frogmarched each other down to the only other alternative paper called The Paper, and coerced them to take us in. 

I worked for The West Sonoma County Paper until 1996—before its last name change to The Bohemian. That's where I learned to write—on the job. One of my former Mark West students, whom I worked with from Kindergarten to 5th grade, Gabe Meline, is now the editor of The Bohemian.

I also co-chaired two poetry series: Public Poetry Center at Sonoma State, and The Russian River Writers' Guild—for 20 years. I documented hundreds of poets on film—including for the Napa Valley Poetry Conference (NVPC), and Poetry International. Perhaps the most outrageous event was when we decided to hold a NVPC in The Bahamas—with Nate Mackey, Bob Haas, and others. I taught the CPITS model to Bahamian poets.

It's a challenge to try and teach both art forms in one residency as there's so little time—poetry and art each demand their own. Often at the end of a residency, I'll schedule an extra session and teach kids contour line drawing to create illustrations for their poetry books. I also use a lot of visual metaphor props for writing prompts—writing from paintings, photographs—ekphrastic poetry.

Pocahontas—from Pocahontas, by Annie Leibovitz

5) Do you have a favorite anecdote about teaching poetry to young people?

You never know when something will resonate, or when you'll get closure. Teaching poetry is an alchemical process. You just hold your breath and wait. As W.B. Yeats scribed: Poetry is the music of what happens.

One time I got a call from Scott Meiser, a student I had in 5th grade at Mark West School. He wasn't into poetry—he was on the MBA track at college, and out of the blue, one night he sat down and inexplicably wrote a poem. He tracked me down and read the poem to me over the phone (he was in love for the first time), and then he said: "I finally got it, what you were trying to do.And I just wanted to thank you." Closure. He was 22.

Another time I was teaching a poetry unit to K-3rd grade students at The Higham Family School (Waldorf) in Santa Rosa. We met once a week in the fall, and we sat in a circle in a windowed garden room filled with sunlight and plants.

We were studying whales and the environment and we often let science inform our writing. I had one rather rascally 2nd grader named Trevor, who hated to write. He was a real rugrat—always squirming off in opposite directions. Trevor hadn’t written anything particularly spectacular during the 8-session residency; and it was our final day. Countdown.

I begin each class with typed student poems that we workshop the previous week's poems so that editing is an integral and ongoing process. Then we "freewrite" for five minutes, read a few freewrite poems—that generally reflect back on the previous week's lesson, and then move onto the day's poetry lesson.  

For some reason, during freewrite, something finally clicked—maybe it was the whales. Or the prism casting rainbows.Or time itself. I remember Trevor asking if he could continue his freewrite even though our five minutes were up. I said “Of course!” and continued on with my lesson, never dreaming he was hatching such a marvel. When Trevor was done writing, he wanted to share his poem. You could see he was about to explode with anticipation. 

THIS BODY IS TO ASK:

This body is to ask

this question of the mind: 

Is the sun to shine on the day of my death?

Is the hole in the universe to stay as big? 

Tell me, tell me, where is the answer? 

Where is the answer to lie in today’s hands? 

This is the breath, to breathe this air.

—Trevor Yeats, 2nd Grade, Higham Family School, Santa Rosa

From THIS BODY IS TO ASK: Sonoma County Students and Artists in Residence Marsha Connell and Maureen Hurley (©1993)

And when Trevor read his poem, it transported us out of this world—we were all stunned into silence, it was that kind of good. When he read his poem, we completely forgot what we were doing, and it generated a lively discussion of the earth and the depletion of the ozone layer. 

What's amazing is that the poem didn’t come out of a specific lesson plan; it was an offshoot of several topics we’d been discussing. Students imagined themselves as animals, the earth, the moon, space—asking the Who Am I question—delving deeper into metaphor. The week before, we’d written poems in response to Chief Seattle’s letter to the earth and Thomas McGrath’s Letter to an Imaginary Friend. 

At the end of his poem, I told Trevor that there was a famous Irish poet, William Butler Yeats—who was his namesake. And that Trevor's poem reminded me of Yeats' poems. That's when Trevor told me that he was the great-grand-nephew of W.B. Yeats! I was flabbergasted. For a moment the ancestors breathed through Trevor and I was lucky enough to catch it combusting on paper. 

As Beat poet David Meltzer said: Poetry is a two-way mirror. The inside looking out. The outside looking in. You have to be ready to reassemble the pieces. This is what we do. That's why it's such important work.

Maureen Hurley

I think the poem was also featured in the 1992 CPITS statewide anthology. The title was the name of my Sonoma County student poetry and art book for the Soviet Union. You can still find copies of it on Amazon, Google, and online booksellers. What amazes me is how far and wide the poem (and book) has traveled. 

Stitching Together Memory

My old Singer sewing machine pulley belt is in tatters and shreds and no longer adequately drives the wheel. The canvas belt is separating from the rubber and has shredded so as to interfere with the wheel pulley. I trimmed the belt with a nail scissors and got a little more life out of it but now the old belt's literally hanging by a thread.

I haven't been able to properly use my Singer for years. Last time I used it was five years ago to mend Neil's 1920s military kilt. It's literally falling apart again and the polyester thread I used to hand-stitch its myriad pleats back into place, doesn't hold up to the considerable weight of the fabric. The kilt must weigh 7-10 pounds so that's a lot of strain on the thread and the buckle fastenings.

Hard to find the old Coates and Clarke thread these days. "The best thread in the world," my grandmother always said. "Good sturdy stuff," she'd say, pulling on the thread, making it taut until it twanged and sang like a harp string. "Made in Scotland too." Little did I know that my domestic destiny would be caught up in that bobbin of thread manufactured in the cotton factories along the Clydebank.

I haven't been able to use my old Singer for years. The little motor spins and moans when the belt slips and I have to coax it along by hand.  At this point, I'd be better off with a treadle sewing machine. I really need a replacement belt. But when I look for belts, I can't seem to find one for that model.

Sure, I could get a new sewing machine. Lord knows they're cheap enough new. I could even get one for nothing on Freecycle. But I have a fierce loyalty to my old outdated Singer sewing machine. Sure it'd be lovely to be able to zig-zag or embroider or make button holes, or even have a reverse option.

My grandmother had a similar model Singer bought used from a peddler during the Depression in San Francisco. She gave him five bucks a week until it was paid off. She sewed all the clothes for 8 of her own children (4 boys and 4 girls), and also for my brother and me (she raised us) on that old Singer.

She also sewed generations of curtains and bedsheets on that Singer. When the sheets got worn out down the middle, she ripped them apart and sewed the relatively unworn outside ends together. I even had a set of summer sheets pieced together from old flour sacks. I loved their fresh laundered line dried stiff scratchy feel. It heralded summer.

My brother and I, we both learned how to sew on that old Singer. He became an auto upholsterer. During the hippie era, I even sewed leather skirts, vests and purses on it—not to mention rather, er, inventive dressed and tops! My mom once sewed up a multicolored red and blue canvas panel tepee on that Singer.

My brother and I, we both accidentally sewed up the tips of our fingers on that Singer. We sang and howled with pain but it made us much more careful sewers.

Apparently it was a family right of passage. My mom also sewed up the tip of her finger several times over on that old Singer. She later did a lot of theatre and costume designing on it. One costuming stint at the Cal Neva casino for Sinatra's fan dancing show girls—not a whole lot of material involved on that job—mostly feathers and beads.

I remember another sewing stint of hers with the famous Hollywood designer Ruben Panis (she married him so he could get his Green Card; he was later brutally murdered by a jealous lover) making Miss World costumes—I did the seed pearl beading on Miss Korea's pageant gown. The point is, that old Singer was running 12-16 hours a day under deadline and it never once faltered.

My cousin Kate has my grandmother's Singer now and it's still working fine (it's on its 2nd or 3rd motor), but she needs a belt as well. (BTW, she too has sewed up the tip of her finger. A good thing we have fingernails. It usually stops the needle from traveling up to the tip of the metatarsal finger bone.)

When I moved away from home, I bought my Singer in 1972 for a whopping $40 on 2nd Street between C and D Streets in San Rafael, CA. A neighbor had given me a gorgeous similar vintage White model but it didn't work as well as the Singer. After about 6 months using it, I was ready for a better sewing machine. So one morning when I was driving down 2nd street saw this old black and gold Singer exactly like my grannie's in the window, I slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car and ran into the used appliance store.

The owner tried to dissuade me from buying that old Singer, saying, "what-aya want that old thing for? I got some real nice Kenmores here. How 'bout a White? They're better than that old Singer. More features. It's old. Won't last long. Won't be able to find parts for it. You'll want the newer features" He really wanted to sell me a more modern 1960s sewing machine. But I had my heart set on that Singer.

Besides, the old White, though it was truly magnificent to behold, with its plethora of dizzying gold foil and colored enamel scroll work to admire, it was a real Jezebel. Despite its fancy inlaid walnut cabinet and painted beauty, it was really a lousy machine. The spindle bobbin was always jamming and balling up into a tight knot of thread (I. M. Singer improved the old bobbin and tension assembly) and I never got used to using the pressure foot pedal. There were gas and brake pedals more accurate than that pedal. I missed the much more accurate and precise knee pressure pedal on my grannie's Singer.

I wanted that old Singer. I wanted the best. You might say I was destined to own that old Singer. I emptied my wallet on the counter, but I was about a dollar short of $20 so I ran out to my car and scrounged for lost coins in the ash tray but I was still a few cents short, so I looked under the car seat: a nickel, a penny a dime. I had the down payment! I had an old hand-me-down '58 Volvo panel van from my uncle John—are you ready for this?—originally imported as a Singer delivery van, and thanks to its coin swallowing crevices managed to scrape up the $20 down on it.

Unbeknownst to me, I had entered into the original innovative Singer Hire-Purchase process—put a little money down, pay in installments—precursor to the credit card. It took me a few months to earn the rest of the money for the Singer. When I finally came to claim it, the shopkeeper, shaking his head doubtfully at my folly, he thought the Singer was a more modern 1939 model than my Grannie's.

So did I—until today when I stumbled upon the Singer website. Looking up specs on another machine being offered for free on Freecycle, I was shocked to discover that AC515997 was a 1929 model. I don't know how many motors it had from 1929 to 1972, but I've only had the one motor for nearly 35 years. I have used it for 30 years... until the belt shredded about 5 years ago.....

Well, suffice to say, nearly 35 years later, I still don't need any parts for my Singer but I do need a new pulley belt. My machine was never quite  as robust as my grandmother's Singer, it can't sew through thick material like a tepee with French seams, or leather without a lot of coaxing, but it usually did the job. I miss it. I really don't want a new machine.

ADDENDUM 9/6/08: After hauling my Singer into several sewing stores in Oakland and after calling almost every quilting store in Alameda County during the 3-digit heat heat wave in June, I resorted to trial and error, trying every sewing machine and vacuum cleaner belt I could find that was around 13 inches long. Nothing worked. Most belts are far too short.

Women stopped to admire my black and gold Singer strapped to the wheelie luggage rack like a lovely child in a pram, they, with their modern sewing machines, couldn't believe their eyes. A mirage. I felt like I'd stepped out of a living history museum time warp. We swapped stories on the longivity and sheer sewing power of the old Singers that could sew through most anything.

One rather toney sewing store owner on Piedmont Avenue (my last hope), haughtily rendered a suburban sniff at my machine as if it was something dragged in from the gutter, wanted to know when's the last time I got it serviced. I said never, I did it myself. She looked at me as if I was deranged. "But you can't do that," she said. Of course I can. I replied. Dead simple to lube and tune it. Like a Volkswagon Bug. An idiot could do it. I resorted to special ordering a motor pulley belt that never arrived.

After three months of waiting for the Singer pulley belt, when Costco had a special sale on Singers, I broke down and bought a newfangled machine for $150 that makes buttonholes, embroiders & zizzags too. But though it has 51 stitches, and it even self threads, it's more cumbersome and bothersome to use than my old Singer. it's claketty as a train, sounds like it needs a valve job and a lube. Too many levers in the way. Little plastic knobs come off at the slightest touch.

I can't see what I'm doing without hunching down for fear of sewing up my nose. I hate the micro LED light. No pulley belt in sight. Everything's locked away behind a bulky white plastic case. Even the thread guys. The thread spool now lays sideways, you need a toy wheel to keep it on. A piece guaranteed to get lost sooner rather than later around kids. How hard would it have been to put a hinge on the spool holder rod and let gravity keep it in place? Like the old days? No room for oversized industrial spools here. Just the weenie expensive spools of thread with exotic names. No Coates and Clarks. Alas, I've entered into the realm where one gets one's machine annually "serviced" for the price I originally paid for it.

I miss the knee pedal. I wound up dragging the foot pedal onto the bed and sitting cross-legged, I could lean on it and approximate the knee pedal action by using the foot pedal as a knee pedal. One woman said it's easy to use the foot pedal, like driving a car. I'm from the four-on-the-floor, pedal-to-the-metal driving school. Not easy to switch when you've learned to sew with your knee for 45 years! Programming's utterly different. Like comparing dressage to drag racing. The slow stitch finger button makes up for it. Maybe I'll adjust to it in time. Meanwhile, an mountain of sewing repairs, in some cases, dating back five years, awaits.

This summer, I did stand at the falls on the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland, and took photos of the old Coates & Clarkes building, now renovated into fancy loft offices. All the cotton mills and thread factories are being torn down for condos in Johnstone, Elderslie, and the other industrial towns that sprung into being during the 1800s. I couldn't even find a sewing machine belt there either, for love or money.

-----------------

I loved the story of how the modern sewing machine was invented and perfected via a dream. Whether or not it's true, it was a flash of inspiration. I can't find the reference, but I.M. Singer couldn't resolve the thread breaking, he dreamed of two swordsmen fighting with needles with eyes on the tips...and that's how the solution to create a needle tension mechanism came to him.

I was also once tight friends with Sonoma County poet Pam Singer Raphael, distantly related to Isaac Merritt Singer. God only knows what branch she descends from, there are many. I never asked. She was a real New Jersey girl, talked kinda funny, with a heart of gold and in those halcyon daze we had a strong taste for Humboldt Heaven, Acapulco Gold and Maui Wowie.

Pam was a real waterdog, she was once a champion water skater back in Jersey. We spent many a summer day swimming hidden pools along the Russian River and the Gualala River. Back in 1979, we apprenticed together under Lee Perron and trained to become poet-teachers for California Poets in the Schools, teaching poetry (and art ) to kids—a job which became my lifelong calling. I never thought to ask if Pam was also related to Isaac Bashievs Singer, I think she was... I'd met his literary agent Sylvia Tota on a Hungarian train one summer. (See blog: Budapest Nights).

Pam's father was a chemist who invented Sensodyne and Qwell! After the Summer of Love, Pam said a lot of her hippie friends used to profusely thank her father for inventing Quell when they met him. her boyfriend Michael Yesbik said he shook Pam's father's hand for inventing Quell.

Having read a bit of Pam's paternal ancestor's somewhat philanderous ways (I. M. Singer had several simultaneous wives and more than a Baker's dozen of children), it's an aptly fitting invention! Singer, escaping a matrimonial scandal in New York, fled to Glasgow with his new bride, set up a Singer factory and built a residence on Clydebank.

One time she told her father how much I liked Sensodyne but it was so hard to find in Sonoma County. He sent me a care package, a whole box full of Sensodyne toothpaste. I didn't dare mention to her that I was i also intimate with Qwell as I picked up lice that summer while trying on clothes in Waikiki stores. I was completely hysterical when I found out, but that's another story...

--------------------

My partner Neil's hard working chain smoking aunties and mum were all employed by Clydebank Singer (Coates and Clarke) factories. The old brick and glass walled factories still stand along the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland. Their myriad window panes glint in the sunlight. In the afternoon, the sun shines right through the building so the vast banks of windows light up like vast cathedrals of prisms. Now the buildings have been converted into modern malls.

My grandmother would tell me that the thread was made in Scotland. I still have some old Scottish Coates & Clarke wooden thread spools, once a prime toy find. It rolled, it made a fine a building block and it even made for a crude yo-yo or necklace of sorts. I even made a flute out of several thread spools. It didn't work. I didn't know about reeds.

Little did I know I would actually wind up with a man whose family worked in those same factories. Now his auntie Cathie, the woman who delivered him, is dead. The funeral was held day before yesterday. She was a grand old lady nicknamed Lazarus because she had been at death's door so many times and defied his debt. She gave up her ciggies (coffin fags) at 70. Her grave site overlooks the old mill factories on the River Cart. Come midsummer, we'll be visiting her grave. I have a half a mind to bring along a necklace made of those old Coates and Clarke thread spools and lay them at her grave. Fitting afterlife booty for the barrow.

Watching the Eclipse with a Black Sparrow, 9/26/1996 (journal entry)

John Martin & Najet at a reading I produced for Black Sparrow, Borders Books, Santa Rosa

I went to see my old friend, Lee Perron at Litton Station Road in Healdsburg to watch the lunar eclipse. Black Sparrow publisher John Martin and his new wife from Morocco came late, halfway through the eclipse. Najet looked as if she had stepped out of the painting, The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau. Only this time, the lion slept at her feet. Najet’s English had improved dramatical ly since the last time I saw her, and we can converse, as I speak no French or Arabic.

As we sat watching the earth's shadow slide across the moon's surface, I told my friends about my experiences at Poetry International, and I asked Najet if she knew Egyptian activist poet, Zein El’Abidin Fouad on a fluke, and she exclaimed, yes! I told her about a poem he had read in Arabic that gave me goosebumps, and the one word I recognized over and over again, that sounded something like sh-hilim. Dream.

I was stunned when she began to recite his poem from memory, apparently in the Arabic world, it’s a very famous poem. I could pick out the Arabic word for dream again and again. Her voice, as she incanted the poem, raised the hairs on my arms, and we were transfixed under the moonlight, mesmerized by the Arabic cadences.

She said the word was chulm, it was also a word for woman, and that women very much like this poet—for it was a poem for women. Not men. She said Zein was famously known as a woman’s poet, and champion for human rights. Especially for the disenfranchised who had no voice. Zein, whose epithet was “the singing bomb,” created a street play of poems with the untouchable women who gleaned Cairo’s garbage. For that, he had to flee for his life. In Egypt he has a price on his head. Yasir Arafat saved his life.

She talked about how in Morocco during the full moonlit nights, or during eclipses, how everyone gathered outside to have dinner and watch the celestial show. Like tonight. I was in the presence of an ancient, ageless memory, a time capsule of culture. Najet was John’s sleek black sparrow dreaming in the moonlight, dreaming of Morocco.

I was transported to North Africa, seeing the moonlight on the dunes, and I could almost smell the strange smoky odor of burning cattle dung, crushed mint, and the cry of the villagers, the drone of village dogs, a distant memory in the kingdom of imagination. That curious sensation of recognition and déjà vu.

And earlier, as John and I leaned on his car to steady the binoculars, I recalled that I had a dream fragment, staring at an orange moon like this, and there were others gathered in the moonlight, they were speaking in language, I did not understand. I couldn't see them very well. In that moment, I realized it was John and his lovely new wife in the dream.

Perhaps it was John and Lee in the dream as well. We seem to have a strange and wonderful connection. Call it kismet. I don't even know how long ago the dream was, or where it was set, or even who was in it. Did I write it down? I usually wrote down my dreams. What I do remember was the moonlight glowing orange, and our game of moon tag. And the stories.

Then I begin to wonder if the reason why I was so profoundly affected by Zein’s poem was because I'd already met them in the secret story in a dream, such as this night. And then, when the poem unfolded for the third time, I was merely returning to the mortal plane of reality, for I had already experienced it within the dreamscape.

When Zein had read that poem, I was riveted to my seat, listening with every pore of my body to the Arabic. I was transfixed. Time, telescoping, backwards and forwards at a furious rate, leaving me breathless. 

I would never have told Najet about the story or the dream, but out of the blue, she had asked if I'd heard him read the poem in Arabic. So she's part of the dream landscape, too. I watched her transformed under the moonlight as she recited the poem. I was bearing witness to something both holy and profound.

Perhaps John was also seeing a new side of her too, it was like a surprise gift. He’d begun to think he knew her and then she surprised him with this poem beneath the full eclipse moon. In that male-dominated world of putting people in their place, the bonds between women are forged in something ancient and tribal, we had an intimacy and rapport that men seek, but can never find. For a moment they were jealous.

Was it because she and I had sat huddled together in lawn chairs beneath my down sleeping bag? I felt it again when she hugged me goodbye, the aha factor, the deep connection of the woman’s world of the harem, perhaps. Not sexual, but deeply connected. Of course, I am curious about her. It's not often one gets to meet a Moroccan woman on such familial, or intimate circumstances. 

But that night, under the blood-red moon, we were sisters. She didn’t know that Lee and I were once a couple, but Lee and John are best friends, and I am included in this extended family by proximity. I wonder if John knows about our past. Men do talk. I am sure he does.

John’s smoker’s cough is much worse now, I am worried about him, his heart is not good, and his voice, his lovely voice, is hoarse. He says his eyesight is also bad, but  he tells me, that for $60 you can go to UC Med Center and be tested for 50 different ailments. 

He and I joke about the moment when we knew our eyes were failing us. Unable to read a map at night, unable to help ourselves if we were lost in the streets of Amsterdam. We giggle. Lee is somewhere else in his own world. And we laugh some more, saying we couldn't even read our own star maps in order to to help ourselves.

Maybe the landscape of the dream unravels, unavailable to us during our conscious moments, and we let go of the other feeling of defeat and helplessness. Rights of passage. I gaze upon a middle-age man at 43 going on 44, a man who once meant the world to me, and now I am too clearly moving towards middle-age, and my eyes are lazy dogs.

John told us us the moon looks like a side profile of a sheik. I shrieked, look there's John Martin in the moon! and we all laughed. He told us a convoluted story about being stuck in Rotterdam between trips when he was working on freighter ships, I assumed this was during his vagabond days, staying in some funky hotel or fleabag flat that hadn't yet been bombed in World War II. 

He said there was an alley that had a library of sorts. John said that he found a copy of the Mein Kampf with a Berkeley public library card stuck inside, dated 1932, that was 25 years overdue he brought it back to the Bay Area, and returned it to the Berkeley Public Library with a note. Wow.

Rotterdam was, of course, destroyed by the Nazis, and very little old architecture still exists. The fact that the book survived so long is amazing. Even more amazing, the book was from Berkeley, there's a communist republic of memory simultaneously developing the bomb and giving birth to red diaper babies.

What American communist sympathizer was visiting Rotterdam in 1932? Most likely a man. And why, for Rotterdam was merely a huge industrial port, with no artistic aspirations, not like Amsterdam. No Chet Baker falling over and over again from that second store window in the Hotel Prins Hendrix in the Red Light District.

After Hearing Gary Snyder Read on the Autumn Equinox, photos

September 20: After teaching Sonoma County History at Elderhostel at Silverpenny Farms, I went into Copperfield's Books to get more material on California Indians—Miwok, and Pomo. There were posters of Gary Snyder all over the store, people purchasing tickets for tonight's benefit event sponsored by the Sonoma County Land Trust.

I look over at a bookshelf, Gary Snyder's in the house. What's funny, is that everybody's importantly confiding to their neighbors—You know I heard Snyder read at... blah blah blah. And no one even knows it's him—practically standing right in front of them. It's as if he were a ghost. I can see him just fine. But apparently no one else can. They carry on. We smirk.

Gary's aged quite a bit since I last saw him. He's more washed out. I went up introduced myself again, hating to have to use those tags. I said by way of introduction, "I was the one who took the photo of you and Will Staple at the Maui Zendo....

Gary, says Oh yes! And reminisces about Aitken Roshi, trying to pinpoint this date. I say, It was the Deep Ecology Conference. He says, you look about the same. How are you? (A non-sequitor.) It's been ten years or more since Maui.

I asked Gary about the event last Saturday evening at San Geronimo Valley Art Center. When I drove by, there were hundreds of cars parked along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It was a zoo. I asked, So, was it a benefit? He said, No it was an event in honor of Kenneth Rexroth. We hiked up to his cabin where he used to write at, and me dictate.…

I interrupted Gary because he'd already slipped into his teacher mode. I said, I grew up there. But Gary's on a roll, he's teaching me about the park, etc. I blurt, My grandfather knew Kenneth Rexroth, but Snyder drones on… And Samuel P. Taylor Park, he says, There's a place called Devil's Gulch… I say, Yes, I know it well, my grandfather used to hike over Mt. Barnabe to visit him…

By the third interruption, I'm frustrated, and Gary finally begins to listen, realizing that I already knew all that information. A regular case of coals to Newcastle. I don't tell him the reason why I became a writer was because when he had read a poem about my ridges, from Manzanita, at Olney Hall, College of Marin, and got the directions all wrong, that was when I began to write. I said, I can do that. And so I did.

I wanted the new stuff— like the how and the why…what it was like to be back in Devil's Gulch after so many years. The cabin is long gone. I wanted a real conversation, not tapes on autopilot.

Perhaps I'm a bit put off by Gary because he continually is cold to those he doesn't know well, especially the women. I remember being hurt by his curtness a few years back, and I told Will Staple about it, who immediately turned around and reacquainted me with Snyder. Snyder suddenly was all very warm and receptive—especially since Philip Whalen, whom I'd known for years, was there, warmly greeting me with enthusiasm.

I guess it all boils down to the company you keep. I hate the fact that I even have to attach myself to men poets in order to get remembered. Where are the women on the Bearshit Trail, indeed? Snyder is a cold fish but we manage a few more civilities. He said he was just browsing around, checking out this book, and turns back to the bookstacks. I step out into sunlight, crispness in the air. First day of Fall.

After the poetry reading, Gary was available for book signing. I'd already bought Axe Handles to be signed, but I couldn't find my other books, some were first editions. We chitchatted a bit, and that was that. Awkward. I'm tired of trying to connect with Gary Snyder.

21st of September: Last night, some 300 to 400 people must've turned up to hear Gary Snyder read at Analy High School. I got there at 6:30 and already it was filling fast. They delayed the reading to get everyone seated, even in the balcony. I forgot my journal and resorted to writing on scraps, notes to the unconscious.

Gary read from No Nature: New and Selected Poems. It incorporates almost all his early work. Awesome collection. He opened with a poem I'd never heard before, Song of the Taste. Very erotic. I like to the anecdotal stories prefacing each of the poems, I like the context. Hay for the Horses, an old favorite, Manzanita, and Riprap. He reads from Cold Mountain. Li Po is invoked. Axe Handles—Fenceposts. Word Basket Woman, a poem I use in the classroom when I teach poetry to kids.

A clear, attentive mind
has no meaning but that
which sees is truly seen.
—from Piute Creek

He said the impetus of For/From Lou came from a dream. The circumstances of Lew's death are as follows: Lou Welch disappeared back in 1973 in the Sierra Nevadas. He was he was camping on my land. He didn't come to dinner that night. We went searching for him and found the suicide note in his van. We searched but found nothing, never a word, never a bone. He had told us that he was going to do it.

Now, 12-year-old boys are still searching for Lew's a skull. He's become the friendly ghost poet. For Lew Welch in a Snowfall, also came from a dream, said Snyder.

He talked about writing prose, how it's hard work. With prose, you have to flagellate yourself. He says, It's a call to arms. He says, Don't let right-wingers steal the word, or ethics from us.

He tells us creation stories about Turtle Island, the enduring name, not USA, not America, he talks about the longview. He told a wonderful story about friends of the LA River. A bunch of poets and musicians thought that the river was lonely, all culverted up, so one night they all went down to the river to read it some poems, They played it music to cheer it up.

Word got out, folks began joining them for the readings, and they found themselves organizing into action committee. When the Sacramento folks heard about it, they came calling too. Now local neighborhoods are turning their houses around, and turning everything around to face the river. 

(See my four pages of notes)

After the reading Gary was available for book signing. I brought Axe Handles again but I couldn't find my other books, they were first editions too. Snyder was very warm to me on the second meeting. he drew me a picture of a man on the title page, and on No Nature, he wrote: To Maureen – fellow poet… closure.

Lee, who's a rare book dealer, says that signature is worth something because it's to me, and it refers to me as a poet. I also had Gary sign Atomic Ghost, he had two poems. 

I told him I put on a reading for the anthology and that I was in it too. I gave Gary copies of Mother Earth Journal, as he has a poem in it called Word Basket Woman, and I suspect that he sent it to us before it was published. I also gave him the complete Mother Earth collection. He bowed and thanked me.

I asked if he still wanted a collection of my kid poetry books too and he said: I do, I do. He has several of my anthologies already. He says when he gets a big stack of children's poetry, he wants to do an essay on it. I tell him it's sorely needed. 

Earlier, Lee Perron told me how he had given Snyder a book of his, only to find it in a used bookstore with his inscription on it, weeks later. We discussed how Snyder can be so cold just like that! Turns out his mother lived in Petaluma he used to come visit her on his motorcycle. It sounds like she might've been a bit crazy. Anyway, the relationship wasn't good.

I asked Gary if he'd like me to sign my books too, he says, Please do. I write: To Gary, may the poems of the children continue to teach us. Should I put his last name? Oh well. Lee has some books too. I introduce them, saying Lee started California Poets in the Schools in Sonoma County and that he was my mentor teacher. Their conversation opens up as they talk about CPITS. Good

However the autograph line is long, all the way down the hall—and I had taken cuts with Lee who was near the front. Upon leaving I ask, Gary: Are you still at Kitkitdizze? Gary replies, Yes. I say, If there are any worthwhile photos I'll send you some. We make our goodbyes, the people in line are angry with us, but Gary kept us talking.

It was a complete turnaround from the coldness of this afternoon, I remarked to Lee. He says: I believe Gary was genuinely quite touched by tonight's reception, and the fact that you had his poems marked in Atomic Ghost, end that you had read them at the book party… Somehow I had touched the man behind behind the coldness. 

We agreed that the public setting probably had something to do with it, and he was also on his best behavior. I said, I hated having to continually reintroduce myself as the photographer… That I wasn't into hero worship, I wanted to meet him on equal footing. Keeping in mind how many thousands of people he meets in a year—and I only see him once every 3 to 5 years. 

When talking with Lee, Gary began dropping my name as if he knew me, I was no longer the stranger. Earlier, I pointed out my name on the book, This Body is to Ask, for spelling purposes only. He said: That's the only way I know how to spell it. There are few Maureens that come through the autograph lines, I daresay.

9/20-21/1995
transcribed & edited 11/6/2015

Montana Journal, returning home

Last night I said to Lee Perron: When I was in Montana, I was looking for change, because I deserved better than what I was getting. He asked if I went to John Oliver Simon's going away party, and I said no I didn't want to go because he wanted me to, so he could be forgiven. I'm tired of it.

Our last meeting and phone conversation was fine and I was satisfied to let it go at that. I'd already said goodbye to John. Then I tell Lee: if something happens to John on this trip, a worst-case possible scenario for nine months in South America, then I would have to be satisfied with our last conversation.

John's party wasn't necessarily going to make any difference in my life, or of my memories of him. It would be awkward for me to be there.

Lee asks: Is it dangerous where John's going? I tell him South America is always dangerous, there's always an element of risk. We've gotten into a couple potential life-threatening situations in our own travels together. 

Lee is tired and doesn't respond when I say I sound pretty heartless. He says the signs are all there. Time for me to fast again. I guess I should've been a monk, but I'm an atheist.

Lee wanted to know about my friend Lee Evans, and Patrick? who studied with Richard Hugo and James Wright. He wants to know if Patrick had any memorabilia of theirs. Lee's a rare bookseller so he's always hunting for poetic ephemera.

When I first met Patrick, I didn't like his demeanor, or his words. Oil and water. But when he got on stage and told his life story, I was moved to tears. Whether by accident or design, I was transported into his world. 

He was also also noticeably changed toward us afterwards, and was more accessible and approachable. He wants a copy of my poem, Lighting the Electric Fire, that I had read to the group. He says it's unusual to find such sustained maturity that stays with you all through the poem, and continues to resonate long after the poem is over. 

I also give him a copy of my children's poetry collection, This Body is to Ask. (Garbled text.....) I can't breathe. I do all these crazy things and see very little return. I personally get exhausted and have trouble nourishing myself. 

September 12, 1995

Need to find original and decode garbled text.. who is Patrick? I must've been referring to a Montana poet.

• Montana Journal, returning home
• Montana Journal: Helena
• Montana Journal: flying over Mount Diablo enroute ...