CPITS student poetry reading, Barnes & Noble

At Paul Mariah's memorial reading

At Paul Mariah's memorial reading, Jack and Adele Foley, Gene Ruggles, Mike Tuggle, Susan Kennedy, Noni Howard, Vernon Edgar, Herman Berlant, Jim Byrd, Michelle Bertrand, Earl LeClair, Leland Stoneys, Clive Matson, and Glenn Ingersoll. After the reading, we learned that Paul's archives will be sent to the University of Texas in Austin. Bob Berner's poetry workshops led to Minotaur, and ManRoot press. We head on over to Michelle's place with Mary Norbert Körte, Jim Byrd, Herman Berlandt, Vernon Edgar, and Eugene Ruggles—it's a small sendoff party. I was tired and depressed, was home by 9 PM, and asleep by 10:30 PM. I slept nearly 12 hours—like the dead, is it a residual flu, yet another confrontation with death, or the energy of too much people?

2/11 1996


Undated fragment:
Noni Howard said that I had a poem in The Parnassus of World Poets, which one? The day she told me that Paul Mariah died.

The Paper’s Summer arts issue: Attuned to the Land

The West County Muse

Attuned to the land

POETRY

BY SUSAN KENNEDY

Photo by Maureen Hurley

POETS AMUSING THEMSELVES at the 13th annual Hart Crane Birthday Party (Crane was born 101 years ago, July 21. Left to right: west County writers Ann Erickson, Betty Garrett, Gail King, Hunce Voelcker, Pat Nolan and Paul Mariah.

Forestville poet Maureen Hurley describes her writing as ‘Formed by the bending of land along the fault line where I’ve lived all my life, where, if you put your ribs to the ground in the yellow summer grass, you can almost hear the earth shifting.”

Maureen Hurley, Forestville ("I am a landscape poet; I paint images with words"):

IN MARY BIANCHI'S GARDEN

Cazadero Academy 3rd annual benefit reading, date?

 

Journal entry 11/1/1988 Stephan Torre, Susan Kennedy

I did spend some time on the phone with a Steve, Stephan Torre, that is, who I've used as a guest artist for many of my CAC residencies. He is also someone I’ve been interested in for ages. It cooled its heels since I didn’t see him very much other than at occasional readings. And life carried on.

When I got back from South America I did contact Steve. I noticed that I am way less interested now, he also informed me he’s got a girlfriend of seven years, and is living in Inverness. I was stunned. He had kept that from me. Why? This man who once kissed me. I was even more shocked when he said he was going through a rocky romance, similar to me and John. Maybe too much sharing isn't a good thing.

Last night I told him about John‘s letter. He paused his usual mile a minute yabber, and was strangely silent. Sometimes he’s a steamroller, and you can’t get a word in edgewise when he gets on a roll. I’ve long since learned to interrupt him. Otherwise we don’t have conversations. He talks and I listen and I don’t much like that. Anyway, he said he was going through stuff too, and there were many uneasy silences. Dangerous territory all around. 

Anyway, my first initial to Steve was attraction, to his brawn, to his husky maleness. Like John, like Geoff, like Lee. It’s a physical body type that I’m attracted to, macho, God help me. Steve is a couple of years older than John and that is not good. John and I really felt that 10 year age difference emotionally. 

When Steve and John and I were sitting by the hammock last March, after school, drinking wine and beer, I tried to undo my steadfast attraction for him. He’s older, his hair is thinning, he’s a little overweight, he’s a bit of a blue streak talker, somewhat opinionated. I could get into trouble, but it’s those pauses, those hesitancies, when he’s a bit awkward and gauche that I like him best. That unsocialized vulnerable side. 

I’ve only seen him with a few people and he seems to like people, but he’s very busy. I had the gut feeling he’s not right for me, like with John, but I can’t help but being attracted to. Like I said, the attraction is much less strong now but we will see on the 15th when he comes to Matanzas, and Mark West School as my guest artist, if there’s still any of that animal magnetism. 

He’s a representative of my rough pioneer side, we’ve had so many similar experiences. He’s a mountain man type, like Geoff who didn’t have his act together. Alcohol, weed and no creative outlet. But Steve, Lee, and John all strong writers with their act together. Professional, that’s what I mean. I find it attractive.

But I feel so sad. They were so many things I still wanted to do with John. And then this all happened so suddenly. One moment I think we will stick it out for a while longer, work through the shit and the next moment I’m out in the cold. No warning in the sense that we’ve always been on the edge. I figured it was another crisis that we’d weather through. But I like working on stuff, getting deeper. 

RRWG, CPITS student reading, Burbank Activity Center

Cazadero benefit poetry reading for the Cazadero Academy (art)

10/18  Cazadero benefit poetry reading for the Cazadero Academy.

Readers include myself, Mike Tuggle, Susan Kennedy, John Oliver Simon, Richard Garcia, Pam Singer, and Stephen Torre. Not everybody was on the flyer. It turned into a marathon. Bill Witherup, Michael Syles, Jim Dodge.

I very much like Stephen Torre's work. I think he would make a good guest artist for my CAC project. This poem about logging on the Navarro River is incredible. He's the lumberjack I was looking for.

87 or 88?

I AM poem, after Amergin

I am listless in the fog that turns green 

as if it were liquid dripping off from the trees. 

I am the pungent breath of hot summer.
I am whispering in the shadows, 

telling everyone’s story to the wind. 

I am bright, green and tender in spring. 

Animals come to my green fingers, 

after a long winter, soft white birds 

binds me towards their mouths.

I am a roaring inferno, an explosion under fire. 

I am the feathers of gray doves, 

drifting and settling on the earth. 

I am dark, the dark comfort of soil, 

which regenerates new growth.

I am the tears of sorrow

pressed into the deep bosom of the earth. 

I am the liquid sun, frozen sun, 

the eyes of tigers, of shadows, 

and bees hide within me.

I am amber worn around the neck of a woman.
I nestle in the darkness, thick dust settles 

until I can no longer see. 

6/85

Susan Kennedy Workshop, Mark West School

this seems like a new poem…

I am the cleaner of artist brushes, 

I am varnish, I am turpentine. 

I am amber resin. I am pine, 

I am forests kneeling before the fire.

6/85

Susan Kennedy Workshop, Mark West School

This was notes from a workshop on Amergin that Susan Kennedy taught at my school, it was either May 84 or June 85. I have a whole bunch of other poems and fragments from June 85, so I’m not sure what year this was written—but they were all written in the same purple ink. This was buried deep in my teaching notes. untranscribed, though all the other ones were in my journal. So it was a surprise to find it. (This is why I have to go through every single piece of paper in my teaching journals). I had money from my CAC grant to bring in guest artists, and both Susan and Mike Tuggle were my guest artist for the year. —MH added 2/24

Journal entry, many moons later

Journal entry, many moons later

So, I'm writing on random blank pages in this notebook. The last time I wrote in it, was in Hawaii. Other than rain damage, there was a reason for this abandonment. There's an open letter to Geoff, and to myself. And to Ed. I know, he's asleep in Hawaii at 6 PM, west coast time, and I thought of him. 

Tonight, after three days of migraines, I had a reading at Garbo's. At first, no one showed up. I took it personally. I felt especially bad for Michael Tuggle and Susan Kennedy who are two fine poets reading with me, but we also started early. The audience grew exponentially. We read sparingly and it was a lovely reading.

Also, most of the regulars were friends who didn't show up. And I thought oh I must be a bad poet, they're not here. It came down to overcommitment, but still, no one showed up. Not Lee, Sarah, Donna, Marianne, Eady & Jim Montrose. No one there. At least the Reverend showed up late.

I get that they've all heard it all before. So much for moral support. Well it could be the time of year as it is December 3 moving into Christmas. But they could've at least shown up for moral support. Lord knows, I've done it for them enough times.

But before me is a whole new audience. People who want to hear me read, a new, fresh audience. Yes. I hate what I've read, I'm going through I'm not a real poet phase. Phobias aside, V Weinberg liked my new Tocaloma poem, something I've never read in public before.

Afterwards, around drinks, we discussed the plight of Welsh coal miners in Pennsylvania. The Reverend Bob Jones is from there. We discussed East - West mysticism and narrative prose. From ego—to being fulfilled. He said I'm laying groundwork in those narrative pieces for novels or whatever. 

We both write long narrative poems, and I think too much. So much of what gets said while deep in the cups, disappears by morning. I can't record it all, but to write every morning, and to read every day, and to party every night... I'll not hold up if I party every night. The Reverend just wants to give it all up and become a writer. I know that obsession.

We talk about agents and networking and going after what we believe in. I say be careful of what you wish for, it becomes true. He said, I'm ready. We talk some more about East - West religions and the role of enlightenment. He says without darkness there wouldn't be light. And I say, in this world there is too much talk and not enough words.

Words are like vessels. The role of the poet is to give new meaning as in original meaning to words in order to shed light. Poetry is religion, I tell him. 

Bob talks about his latest manuscript and how he can't quit preaching because he has two daughters in college. I say, you don't owe them an education. It's nice, but parents don't owe their offspring this. Education's is something one has to desire and strive for. 

I say this because no one helped me, or perhaps it was because I found my own motivation. He's just pushing along, I'm pushing along. We are still writers in spite of it all. Determination factor. 

I comment on his need for closure with his congregation. What they need, he says, is a pastor who won't bore them or frustrate them by pushing them too hard. We are all lazy. Knowledge by blood. Limited by our friends. Can we help that? 

I say go for what you want again and believe in it. He agrees, says I've done it. I say, do it again. Rilke's sonnets to Orpheus, no matter who translates them  are magnificent, because what he writes about is magnificent. How can you go wrong in believing in what you believe in? Bob says, Amen to that!

December 3, 1984

RRWG reading at the Burbank Activity Center with Maureen Hurley, Mike Tuggle, Susan Kennedy

Obligatory Hug, Dec. 1984, Russian River Writers' Guild

Obligatory Hug, June, 1984, Russian River Writers' Guild, Maureen Hurley