Big Questions in Fiction – Fran Metzman’s The Hungry Heart Stories

I don’t read nearly as much as I’d like.  I’m generally too busy writing something to give more than transient attention to the books I hope to absorb.  This is a definite frustration for me – If I had 48 hours in a day I’d take some of those extra hours to sink more deeply into popular science and science journals, spiritual biographies, political nonfiction, and contemporary poetry, maybe even with time left over to escape into a few episodes of Regular Show or American Dad.  Love of toons aside, as I’ve gotten more and more interested in trying my hand at writing some fiction, I do think I ought to start reading some of it now and again.

When my friend Glenn Walker (Welcome to Hell, French Fry Diary) asked me if I’d like The Dream Between to be a stop along Fran Metzman’s virtual tour for her new collection of short stories, The Hungry Heart Stories, I thought it was a fun and innovative idea.  It was enjoyable to go into the reading experience with no preconceived notion of what to expect.  What I found was that I’d need to leave my hope of escaping into stories aside.  Witnessing the interactions of the characters in memorable situations led me to some meaningful reflection on relationships in my own life.

In My Inheritance, Metzman explores the difficult mother-daughter relationship, as she does later in Getting Closer.  Frustration, indifference, avoidance, reconciliation, and hope are on the non-exhaustive list of elements thrown into the emotional soup.  How does peace-making around the relationship between my mom and me compare?

How have I been like the woman in Christmas in August?  What makes for healthy navigation through the end of a romantic relationship?  Am I capable of distorted love and desire that could lead to the main characters’ acts in The Invisible Wife or Myra’s Garden?

Redemption prompts: How far could I or should I go to protect my loved ones and greater community?  The construction of the stories invite writers’ inquiries, easily expanded: When is metaphor truly the best way to express an essential detail or experience?  When will only plain words do?  Metzman makes us privy to what her characters do, but the archetypal questions remain.

Author Fran Metzman is a graduate of the Moore College of Art and the University of Pennsylvania.  She teaches writing at various Philadelphia area colleges and universities and co-authored her first novel, Ugly Cookies, with Joy E. Stocke.  Her blog, “The Age of Reasonable Doubt” can be found at Wild River Review and deals with mature (sometimes immature) dating and relationships, as well as aspects of society that influence all relationships.  The Hungry Heart Stories feature tales of people in crisis yearning for emotional sustenance, where food occasionally intersects the empty spaces in their hearts.

THE HUNGRY HEART STORIES
Wilderness House Press
ISBN 978 0 9827115 5 2

On Amazon

On Barnes & Noble

From Wilderness House Press

You can read more as the blog tour continues:

Wednesday, February 22nd

“Literary Debauchery” by Krista Magrowski

Thursday, February 23rd

“Welcome to Hell” by Glenn Walker

My Regularly Scheduled Life

Well, look at the time… It has been ridiculously long since I’ve written here.  I’ve written a few poems, done quite a bit of ghostwriting work, finished most of the forthcoming kirtan recording, and I still have fantasies that tease of a novel.  For a lot of the time I’ve been absent from this blog, I’ve been thoroughly sick of my own navel-gazing.  I never could quite bring myself to share it with everybody else.  The CliffsNotes will be much better, trust me.

Since I’ve written here, I’ve tried hard to think of myself as a semi-retired musician.  Many months of a seemingly lost ability to tell a story that matters, an economy that ceased to even kinda-sorta support traveling singer-songwriters (at least this one), and a couple gigs in a row too absurd to mention were all contributors to this shift.  I asked myself if I am neither making ends meet nor having fun, why am I doing this?  “Because it’s what I always do,” wasn’t a good enough answer.  So, I set upon the exciting adventure of not doing what I always do.

I’ve discovered that I can’t retire from music.  Sounds show up.  Words show up.  They will become something even when I resist.  I decided I wouldn’t spend an inordinate amount of time pursuing performance and traveling without focused assistance.  It felt good to take off the bookings hat.  I decided I would respond happily to requests while I re-imagine possibilities.  Offers do arise while I work on other things.  The forthcoming chant CD that I’ve been recording at glacial speed has come back into my heart.  I feel the spirit that sings through those mantras and songs again.  It will emerge of its own volition.

Casting off the have-to’s has led to more rediscoveries than new discoveries.  I am dancing again.  Not only at the Sex Dwarf dance party off of South Street, but as much as possible.  The beach last summer. Latin Heat class at the gym.  When I wake up and Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner” is a leftover earworm from dreamland.  I used to walk for miles everyday and it made me inherently happy.  I have been taking a lot of that back from the suburban abyss.

I used to write for the absolute love of it.  Age-old wisdom would indicate that making the thing you love your business will alter it, perhaps not for the better.  More wisdom would indicate that if you do what you love for your living, you are truly blessed.  I’d say both are correct.

There will be more music, more concerts, more creative surprises, and new approaches.  There will be art for love and art that matters, at least to me.  I have begun to write through the gunk and the fear to get to the center, the heart of things.  I am reminded of Om Mani Padme Hum – the jewel in the lotus. No matter what whirlwinds I spin around it, there is that.

11/4/11

Eyes strain open above water

Lukewarm, then too warm to escape

Forget entropy-

This is the science

of my regularly scheduled life

the art of evolving

from surface tension

to shore.

The memory of arms flailing

a lesson

to seek the winter sunlight

and keep moving.

Embraced by Loving Day

I have a very distinct memory of being next to the kitchen in my New Brunswick, NJ apartment somewhere in the 90s. I had a startling realization: I am biracial.  Suddenly, I had a new, very useful, consciousness-shifting lens through which to view and understand myself.  It is the nature of my family, and it’s very much who I am. 

I was equally startled that I hadn’t fully understood myself as having biracial identity before that moment.   I had been too busy listening to others’ ideas of me.   Those people in school who told me I was “acting white” or “not black enough” – They were just plain wrong. It was scary to say all that out loud to myself then, and it still is. Regardless, I have to continue to speak up.

This past Sunday I performed at Wilmington Delaware’s first Loving Day Celebration. Loving Day is celebrated on June 12th to commemorate the Supreme Court Case Loving v. Virginia, which in 1967 finally struck down remaining state laws against interracial marriage. Mildred and Richard Loving were married in 1958 in Washington, D.C., but when they came back to their home in Virginia, were arrested. My parents were married in 1963. Lucky for them, there were no laws against their marriage in New Jersey. Still, I have come to appreciate over the years how difficult it must have been and how much they must have loved each other to go against the grain in that era.

My good friend Jenn Phillips organized the indoor/outdoor Loving Day Celebration of music, food, information, and positive, good times. I had never seen her quite as focused and intense while creating or overseeing anything. Just how much it meant to her was apparent, and I am so pleased that her efforts turned out so wonderfully. Karen Rege and Brandi Chavis performed some well-crafted jazz and R&B standards and originals. I loved hearing Scratchy Catfish’s fun and funny blues tunes (“Rockin’, rollin’, getting’ bizarre/Doin’ the Catfish Stomp!”) I played my set and encouraged audience participation and sing-a-long wherever I could. Jenn asked me to write a song for the occasion, and I came up with a tune called “(Color My Love) Indigo.” This first performance of it went well enough. I was so emotional at the end of the event, that it was hard to leave and hard not to cry. It felt so good to have that deep a sense of acceptance and belonging.

Two or so years ago when I discovered the Mixed Chicks Chat podcast, I felt immediately at home. I got in touch with the co-hosts Fanshen Cox and Heidi Durrow and eventually was a guest on the show. I spoke about overall blended identity encompassing bisexuality, polyamory, and mixed music and spiritual practices as well as issues of race. When they asked their tongue-in-cheek yet serious question “What are you?” I told them: On my mother’s side as far as I know I am African, Haitian, Irish, and Hopi. I was adopted by my maternal grandmother and her second husband – my mom and dad. I felt so blessed to be among fellow “mixed chicks” where a description of nationalities and family circumstance is informational and conversational, never accusatory or confrontational. It truly felt like a homecoming. I am sorry that I missed their Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in Los Angeles this past weekend, but I am sure that the Wilmington celebration was exactly where I needed to be this time around.

Trying to cope with people’s expectations of me based on assumptions about race has been one of the most painful challenges of my life. I wish I could have dialed down people’s anger and misunderstanding at times, but I would never trade my biracial and multicultural family experience. Among many things, it has helped me know that I may love whomever I love. It has helped me know that yes, a dark-skinned girl can indeed sing rock songs and play a guitar. And if she wants to add Indian chants or electronica or bluegrass or funk to that somewhere down the line, more power to her. That little awakening moment in my old apartment was the beginning of my understanding the importance of being all of oneself, even in the face of culture’s most strident artificial divisions. Every new celebration like Loving Day wears down those walls.

Chocolate, Wine, & Porn… and other impulses

The wild, scary, beautiful storm kicked up by taking on 30 poems in 30 days is still very much alive in me.  Expeditions for love, for cord-cutting and letting go, and for spiritual center run through it all.  So much is going on in ideas and emotions that it can begin to bring on a kind of paralysis.  I am not allowing that to take hold for long.  There is too much to do.  All of my projects – Robin Renée singer/songwriter, Robin Renée kirtan, The Mutant Mountain Boys, and various other creative drives are all clamoring for time.  Plus, some character named Devo Dan keeps bugging me to work with him.  ;- )  The many hours’ drive to and from Ohio this weekend for Mountain Boys rehearsal and kirtan at The Yoga Place was a welcome time for contemplation and decompression.  

 Writing daily forces me to get through my own crap- the lies it is convenient to tell myself- and I eventually have to get to something real.  This is where I want to live.  It is the middle of the well from which these creative impulses seem to spring.  I can’t say that I wouldn’t welcome a stable ledge on which to rest in this period that feels like a long project in unconditional truth-seeking.  Right now I am tumbling in the midst, and I choose to be ok with tumbling for now, capturing bits of the experience along the way.

 Last week, I really wanted to share the Phoebe Snow interview, so I preempted the NaPoWriMo poems.  Here are the rest of them.  Thanks for reading, for sharing your thoughts, for tumbling through. 

April 21, 2011

The New Trees Take Their Places

Evergreens stand over the yard’s back edge
And there is happy naked dancing for all seasons.
Summer will contend for the witchiest season of them all
With festival love and people who really like drumming.

I wonder what happened to the pissed off trees
And shame-riddled women clutching towels to hide themselves,
persecuted Pagans and the winter that never goes home.
No such luck for the erstwhile King and Queen of Angst.
Some of those folks never lived here, and the rest have flown back
to their lovely realms.

There must be words spoken
like tsunami, earthquake, and revolution.
I wonder what happened to those words.
They must have moved beyond the property line,
but they are remembered daily.

Evergreens stand over the yard’s back edge
Holding gallant space for solid ground,
Keeping watch over quiet growth and loud passion,
And there is happy naked dancing for all seasons.

April 22, 2011

Face the sticker-splattered wall,
part mural part disdain.
I would have endured.
Finding empty letter,
noting missing friendship ring
would have been too hard.
You’ve done me the favor.

April 23, 2011

World Café

The camera
The bit part
One toe in the drink
The harp
The sword
A pen still mightier
The listening corner
The open ears
A reverent envy
The rivalry
The spur
In the side of
New songs
Whatever it takes
To dive in

April 24, 2011

Toes recall wild grass,
Bare skin, sun, and air make love-
Nature’s Easter prayer.

April 25, 2011

A Different Ring

Regarding the ring:
You must wear it well
as you wear shifting speech.
Once your head is turned, flowery protest? Useless.
White gold or semi-precious, I don’t know. I’ve not seen
your finger or your face
in almost long enough.
Who would I be to stand
in the laced path
of the marriage of crisis to victim?
On the New Hope bridge,
you asked for my blessing on a ceremony.
It was another love, declared before meat-eating
Straight-acting, and the face of tradition
Took you on, a code of opposites.
Teacher, point your own way home.
Or not.
Who would I be to stand
in the overgrown path
of separation, mind from knowing?
Bodies- yours and mine
are not to touch again.
I take up scissors to cut the barky vine
can’t help but drop them still
thinking “Have it your way.
See you next life, then.”

I remember, to those who leave
I wave goodbye.
Somewhere in the dredged earth
is the reason to thank you
with a smile.

April 26, 2011

Which pointed buds give way to splayed white flowers,
Which dots will soon be leaves-
On the outside, there are teachings.
Inside, the chair before the desk-
Which wall needs waterproof steel blue paint,
Which bent-page piles most urgent.
Love released, received among proud dandelions,
First order of business.

April 27, 2011

If Found, Do Not Return

Empty shell
almost repaired
left for traveler
willing to give up
dense center
for hollow-handed love
or for king’s horse
in need
of sight gag.

April 28, 2011

Chocolate, Wine, & Porn

First thing I see are bed covers unraveled, like they’ve just enjoyed the ride, then there’s you, crimped brown hair, as avant garde undressed as in leopard print and vintage clogs,
I wonder if you’d let me really see you this way were I not imagining your story and you were not hiding in the arms of academia. I may be deep in the house of mistrust still
at least I imagine you, alone with dark chocolate, red wine, grainy porn, still-no-silicone video, hairy, hot and real. My brain stops here, I want to know what you do by yourself
and what with, times I’ve known you there is love and doors that close
on making love, sudden, no warning, no formula to break barriers.
Still, I believe you, once mistress of three classic pleasures, exciting
and dulling nerve endings, in your endorphin cocktail haze, lover,
may you have remembered me.
I remember your backpack at the bus stop, what your intent eyes knew,
your sleeping beauty on post-collegiate futon, how the three of us, that one time,
barely fit in the shower.
Want to fast-forward this stuck cassette, see what is now, what unstuck passion together might come beyond memory, beyond numbing, beyond the endorphin rush of running.
Pour me a pinot, I’ll bring the raw cacao.

April 29, 2011

Radius

Chant and dance move this night
Circular motion time intended
A love not actionable
Comes back around
A slow burn
Toward flame or fizzle
At any point
There is a straight line
To center

April 30, 2011/May 1, 2011

Garden earth green and floral
or warm city rhythm
If we do not drop our armor
on the eve of Beltane,
we lie by omission.

I plan to wed the summer
hand-held or solitaire,
make love in the field
of clover and thorn

www.robinrenee.com

A Life in the Triumph Column: An Interview with Phoebe Snow

On November 10, 2005, I had the good fortune to have a phone interview with the wonderful Phoebe Snow. I spoke to her and several other artists for an article that ran as “Even Women Get the Blues” in Elmore Magazine in January 2006. On the sad news of her passing on April 26th, I remembered this transcript, and felt moved to share it. Some of this material first appeared in that original article.

Her words have so much to teach about struggle, perseverance, and diligence in bringing raw talent to fruition. At a few points she spoke about her daughter who was disabled and of caring for her, but felt those comments weren’t for publication. I will honor that. I will say, though, that I am pleased that this came together on Mother’s Day. I believe it is perfect timing.

I am so glad that I had the chance to hear her live performance at Donald Fagen’s New York Rock and Soul Revue at the Beacon Theater in 1992. What a phenomenal voice. Thank you, Phoebe, for the interview and for the inspiration. Blessings on your journey.

♪♪♪

Robin Renée: It’s wonderful to talk to you, first of all. I wanted to get into a little bit of your experience of being involved in blues singing, particularly as a woman. Are there any stories you might have to tell about how being a woman has affected your career? There are probably many.

Phoebe Snow: I don’t even know, you know, if it is connected to blues particularly. Being a woman and being in any kind of professional career is an uphill battle.

RR: Right.

PS: Being a woman and to be employed on any level <laughter> but um, I guess I think –

I did start out and my goal was to be primarily a blues artist, and I was more interested, when I started, in being a guitar player as opposed to being a singer. I didn’t think I had a very good voice, which people are always surprised to hear me say. I was incredibly shy, I was incredibly self-conscious, so I already had that going against me. It was very difficult for me to get up in front of people and sing. So I focused on the guitar a lot.

Now my earliest influences were… I’m trying to think of who it was I heard when I just knew that this was what I wanted to do. People like Bill Broomsey, Memphis Minnie, guitar-oriented blues artists, rural blues artists… Charlie Pickett.

There was a guy in Lower Manhattan around that time who was putting out reissues of old 45 blues records and his name was Nick Pearl. They were all pretty much under his umbrella. He would find these fantastic obscure old blues artists and he would reissue them and try to remaster them in whatever technology existed at that time. I think any blues artist who was around at that time, any kids coming up knew about this guy. I even went and auditioned for him: “I know I’m a contemporary artist and I was in the 70s, but hey! Check out how I can play this!” I would try to impress him with some of my guitar stylings and in return he gave me a lot of great records to listen to. That’s kind of how I started my guitar style.

Also, I was a huge fan and follower and ultimately friend of David Bromberg’s. He was kind of a clearinghouse for great blues stuff. I know that’s not exactly what you asked me, but these are my roots, these are how I made my decision to be… The other thing I was really influenced by, believe it or not, is bluegrass music. I developed a picking style, a very fast picking style. I had a teacher back then, Rick Schoenberg, and he actually made a couple of albums with a guy named Dave Laibman on Verve Records. My family knew the Schoenberg family, so he said, “All right, I’ll give you guitar lessons.” What they were doing at that time when I was trying to study guitar with him was transcribing Scott Joplin piano rag tunes into two-guitar picking style. There exists a master of this somewhere—Rick and Dave doing it, and it’s among some of the most beautiful music ever recorded.

RR: You did say that being a woman in any profession is enough. Do you have any anecdotal stuff about what it was to break through a ceiling?

PS: I think anytime, see… There’s also this typical thing about a woman playing a man’s instrument. And unless she’s dressed like a playboy bunny they have all these perceptions…. Maybe she’s this, maybe she’s that… No… maybe she’s a musician who really wants to do this. The guitar lends a lot of perceptual stuff to this I’m sure. When I heard all these people speculating, “Who is she? Where did she come from?” That was funny stuff. I would like people to think in a very linear way about what I do and just notice the music. In a perfect world, they would, but it’s not a perfect world. My biggest breakthrough would be when people just talk to me about what they’ve heard me do musically and they don’t mention anything else, like “Why are you wearing that?” You know? I actually had another woman say to me years ago, “Girl, we’ve got to do something about your drag.” I’m like, what?? Drag. My clothing. I’m like, why? Leave me alone. If you’re in this for the music, people can really get hung up on the wrong things. So, I really think the greatest triumph for me is that people say “Wow, you’re really a great musician. You’re a great singer.”

RR: So you’re doing some new stuff, I hear. I have Natural Wonder. Is that the most recent?

PS: That would be the most recent one. It was very well under the radar. That’s ok with me. The other thing is I’m really looking forward to performing again. I’d lost my passion for performing for a while, you know. I’ve had a life full of huge challenges at times. Some people know about it, some people don’t. It’s not really important what they were or why I was challenged, I kind of had my musical heart broken because I was trying to juggle so many things that I couldn’t give everything I needed to give to music. When I was vulnerable in that way and I was going through personal challenges, I have to say this, I was somebody who was very easy to manipulate. If someone would yell at me or be dictatorial, like you kind of have to do a certain kind of thing, I would go ok, let’s not get into anything, you just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll just go on autopilot and I’ll do it. I regret that, but I don’t dwell on regretting that. I’m not overwhelmed by whatever my life circumstances are anymore and I think I can really do much better work, at this stage of my life. I didn’t really know where I was gonna be. Were you at The Bitter End the other night?

RR: No, unfortunately I didn’t make it.

PS: We are planning other venues. Once they know that I’m out there and wanna work… so that’s what we’re working on right now – polishing up the live performances and I’m concentrating on a lot on original material. I’ve been validated as a songwriter— that’s another triumph! Gotta mention that in the triumph column! I never knew if my songwriting was viable or not. Now people are saying, “Yeah!  You write hooks!”

RR: Just out of pure selfishness… What do you think a songwriter trying to break out today should know?

PS: I had the benefit of advice by iconic songwriters…. Take everything with a grain of salt. Take what you need and leave the rest. Mostly follow your own muse. If something feels like it’s exciting and you want to write it, listen to your muse. That belongs to you. Don’t let people push you around. Especially songwriting, because that’s coming out of your heart.

A Tough Week for Poetry

This has been the most difficult week so far to keep writing for NaPoWriMo. I have been too busy, too tired, too restless, too something to write almost all the time. Sometimes the basic idea and the essential words come late at night when I am not present enough to write and in the morning when my brain is awake it falls together. I haven’t enjoyed putting forth some of the pieces that are more likely sketches than real poems. Still, I feel the value in taking on the challenge of showing the rough edges and the work in motion.

I have been noticing simple themes that help lead me. The spiritual power that dancing holds (Sex Dwarf New Wave Dance Party!) and the organic emotions that electronic music stirs up have come to the surface. I am anxious to start a new branch of my musical journey writing with samples and sound libraries more a part of the initial process.

It was strange to discover myself being not quite honest in poetry. Longing to connect with one particular individual, I wrote about longing for many. What I wrote was not untrue – I do want to travel to all those places and see those folks – but in the moment, there really was a certain place I wanted to be most of all. What a cop out! Maybe one day I’ll profess my silly crush.  Leave it to the making of art to point directly to these fears. 

My favorite poem of the week is First Child/Old Soul, written for the daughter of a friend of mine, who I hope will be a friend in her own right. She recently showed up in my world as a college student (!) wanting to interview me about my work for one of her classes. I’ve been enjoying her poems at Sonnetess in Progress.

April 13, 2011

New wave pied pipers
pulled me back across the bridge
DJ-healers Marilyn and Robert
pushed reset and I remembered
When I slowed down dancing
I saw geese and green return
and got over the Anywhere-But-Here

Still there is the genuine longing
for unkempt love and ballsy new creation
Kansas City, Stockholm, Delray Beach and Seoul,
Dublin, Mt. Tremper, Port Angeles,
New Brunswick, New Jersey to New Brunswick, Canada
Chuck Berry’s Promised Land for all and for now.
I will dial home, touch down in Philadelphia
and I’ll dance worldwide

April 14, 2011

Phone-shaped cages and
the minds of weird geniuses:
home to angry birds.

April 15, 2011

Tangerine juice and the light on mysteriously downstairs.
No good explanations but variety and ghosts.
I try to recall what I’ve learned today
but life and lessons aren’t handed out in gold bars.
I wonder if fun for me is possible in the future
where there are old CD cases and bodypaint, taxes, sudoku and gardens.
I hear your voice still there, and your touch,
So I’ll guess ‘Yes.’
I hope there will be tangerine.

April 16, 2011

First Child/Old Soul

She emerged whole cloth
Anime & zombie cloaked
Wise in a field of sleep,
waiting for ripe fruit.
She knows the young love poems
& the secrets to rise from the see-no-evil dead.
Listen: her new voice is a healer’s rain.

April 17, 2011

This sleepwriting
yields a dull spark
where life is measured in TV news
and sitcom currency.

April 18, 2011

The Hair is a Big Shape

That my hair is a big shape,
I learned today,
and that my ribcage casts a shadow.
“The” hair “and “the” ribcage, I should say –
With art modeling, there’s nothing personal.

Stood 6 hours
an all-day mannequin to assist
the slow birth of illustrators.
Some days the dreams come,
the novella, the poems,
so vivid I am sure
all props hold still vibrancy
and the “girls” in Gary Wilson’s closet
live large in cramped quarters.

Today,
mind zeroed out
to big nothing
not like enlightenment,
but detention.

In boredom, I exposed my imperfections
and the ones with the pencils
rendered theirs.

April 19, 2011

On Pesach

A sweet taste of memory
A walk in bitter shoes
Each inner freedom grows
To strengthen a table of friends.

April 20, 2011

A Sampled Prayer

Electric and nervous
Button-pushing snippets
Captured in bits
Used to be called cop-out
Now brilliance,
Now holy testimony.
Vision of sound waves
Across the path of downtown
Dance floor
Invisible kiss of motion
And all is forgiven.




www.robinrenee.com

Immediate as Clay

Often while working on the daily pieces for NaPoWriMo, I am reminded of my experience of writing poetry in the Stone Age before the internet explosion. I would write a piece and many times it would feel like the page would burn my hands if I didn’t do something with it. Off to Kinko’s I’d go so I could make copies for poet friends or to send it off to the most suitable Call for Submissions. I would feel a kind of relief then, as if this urgent burst of energy now had some focus or reason to be.

The immediacy of my daily posts on the Facebook Fan Page and 365/365  more than fulfills that old urge, and is fairly confronting. I am taken aback at just how truly immediately other eyes are on these words. The commitment to write daily leaves no real time for revision, rethinking, retraction. I get to see my jagged edges, neuroses, loves, and incomplete thoughts. And so does everyone else. Really quickly. The swiftness of sharing this ongoing series of poems and the comments and conversations that come up around them is as soul-shaping as the writing.

I do feel shaped by what I write, as the inner and outer experiences shape me and prompt me to write. I have felt shaped quite literally lately, posing for a clay sculpture class. It is odd to feel sometimes like there are 10 voodoo dolls of me being molded before my eyes. I sometimes imagine that I’ll leave class subtly or profoundly different from the way I came in, and wonder about this as a metaphor for every interaction.

Here are the most recent poems:

April 6, 2011

Names

I think I’ve found the perfect candidate
for The Fool
in my personal deck of Tarot.
The role of The Devil has been taken.
I wonder what The Goddess calls me
when I can’t hear Her over the music.

April 7, 2011

Where no orgasm is unmemorable
Where the walls embrace wide auras
Where books and beings point out the Heart of Hearts
Where God sings the wailing blues
Where there are clean dishes and enough blankets
Where there are spent toys of pleasure
Where I sleep late
I begin to notice things
Where the forest holds love without need.

April 8, 2011

Uninvited

He left her a message today
Said he wanted to make amends
A sound beating never forgotten
gets icy silence in any decade
I remember being made to hear
the uninvited
My face in a journal thinking
I’ll just write
No, I’ll just sleep
How do I get out Try to
sleep
Her story my story
Any woman’s story told
is a cutting of the cord
Bloodletting
Our Burning Times
to purify
if there must be fire.

April 9, 2011

On the Lindenwold Train

On the Lindenwold train to Philly
you keep approaching to interrupt
an otherwise perfect spring fever.
Warm enough tonight
to feel cute on South St.
in jeans and short black jacket,
and at ease back home
where forsythia announce
the inevitable end to cold.
On my way to meet the poly people
same place we met once
at the inevitable start.

This train best get going.
Take me to my punk rock roots
and motley crew of a mockup family
so I forget how once last fall
I would have liked to catch you sleepy,
mojito in hand,
and me with knives in mine.
Luck held out for both of us.

Trees still bare.
I long to lie naked in the neighborhood
under natural cover,
but I will not rush this season.
It pushes me slowly along from last September,
when I lay trapped in a learning curve
of drinking and dreaming
your house demolition.

Woodcrest Station.
A musty man stinking
of B.O. and basement
chatters questions.
I am annoyed by my impulse to answer,
glad to break the tumbling thoughts
of broken intentions,
secret darknesses
that I find have left
strange nutrients.
I lap up new knowledge,
drops of blood to a ravenous bat.
I turn my head to breathe.

The box is open now.
There will be more weapons
forged with sparks of light.
I rest relieved
it is someplace else
your poisonous script will run.
My feet hit 8th & Market,
smooth in the rhythm of my streets.

April 10, 2011

Spokeswoman

Whatever ruptured yesterday
heals today
I remember or decide
there is no healing
without the wound
The wig display head
At the foot of my bed
May tell the stories better than I.
I may let her.

April 11, 2011

My bath, her shower.
Dreaming a bathroom conflict,
I caved. She’s first again.

April 12, 2011

ROYGBIV

and so I looked relieved at the black and white 32 oz. shampoo bottles lined up
perfectly on the ledge by the tub facing one direction with no more price labels
bathroom is not bad today save for some sweeping that gets left for Saturdays
Order is like meditation, keep coming back to same things same places, a mantra of stuff
at least that’s what I tell myself sometimes and I mostly really mean it
Then I wonder if it is the loving order or the allowing disarray that is the real problem if there is one, but I do know
that the closet goes by item type and order of color the way nature paints rainbows and sometimes bills get so-called filed, forgotten in front of what used to be the Zen space with the new guitar strings candles and exercise bra
It is lonely when brain is frayed, never any-questions-fried but as if a little mouse were working away nest-building
from the outside in
Putting it back together I look for the real Zen space, the one that is always there in my head find it for real without pretense no pretending something about putting in order is holy aligning with the knowing of mystics flawless grace notes and good sex. I remember overhearing Rose and Lissa laugh about my alphabetical albums, I look
for something to wear and am pleased by the disproportionate sight of purple


www.robinrenee.com

Healing and the Love of Language

This month began with my taking on some overdue spiritual work. I have needed to release old energies – angers, fears, the psychic remnants of people no longer in my life for good reason. The first steps to opening wounds in order to heal them are scary ones, but I am appreciating the journey of the aftermath. Music, poems, passages from books that need be written are moving through me at a rate that allows me to tap what I can as it floats by and to hope the rest comes back around. Some good work was done this weekend on the forthcoming chant CD. Other ideas are at least making it to notes here and there, to be gathered when possible.

My work of release and healing began on April 1st, which corresponded with the beginning of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). I decided to observe the writing expedition, and the poems so far document and explore this inviting of rapid progress. For now, I am calling the collection-in-progress Cord-Cutting. I am remembering my love for language and my openness to love.

April 1, 2011

Cheese and Buttons

Phone number paper scrap 
Cheese and old buttons tooth-scraped pithless orange peel
think they have won the war by a show of sheer numbers.
I am no suburbanite in hipster camouflage,
not as lost in the details as the inanimates think I look.
The carnelian in my belly
Glows out beyond the fuzzy edges, my skin.
I remember lost chips among the ticket stubs and dishes,
regain them in bursts of confident orange.

April 2, 2011

The Other Side of Chaos

On the other side of chaos the vines grow all through winter.
Ensnared by one foot, caught before struggle,
it is easy to wonder how many years
of vines alone would erase all evidence.

There are stacks of board games
for the loneliest trek
of Monopoly or Clue in a crowd.

The everyday staircase
is worthy of a panic display
And the bathtub, of quiet avoidance.
Fear of stairs and water
cannot stop the spring.

Silence is kept at bay
With fluorescent light and Headline News.
No wonder the ones who whisper stories at night
bring Pride parade molesters
and dismal surgeons unexpected from the basement.

On the other side of chaos,
tired bones still arrive hopeful.

There is breakfast.
Cream of Wheat and honey
And time today to start again.

April 3, 2011

Cord-Cutting 1

Nervous stomach knows more
Than any other part still reasoning
Cord-cutting is a business of releasing
lead from soft muscle
What falls away might land hard
If you don’t get out of the way
Lead into gold, an old goal
And a good one
Cord-cutting, with breath and vision and incantation and
Finality
Ghost whisperer’s kinder, gentler “Get the fuck out.”
Lead falls from soft muscle
Lead into gold, coins
Tonight, to spend alone

April 4, 2011

Welcome Home, He Said

Babylon Sisters shake
Any other day, ambrosia,
Today, comfort like salt substitute
Ultra-smooth sound food,
Alone can be poems, mead, meditation, resolution
Alone can be mute, horny, & patternless
For a Brian Wilson descent
One first needs brilliance

My dull non-response to evening
Gets a break, caught
In a basket of Earth, Wind, & Fire
Seven more pages and love lost
Sorted and filed today

A meal of figs and seltzer
May be Charlie Parker chill
Or hanging on the words
Of the audiophile who will send XTC
Could be the firefly spark
Of it all reimagined
Alone can be mute, horny, & patternless
Alone
can be
a grand welcoming home

April 5, 2011

The Wedding

When I meet my lovers on the edge of the brown clay shore
I will join a circle, not a crowd
The river will carry its weight in lotus blessings
And the trodden park grass will know the sound
Of three or four or five hands clasped
In holy union
The sun will warm our skin to its most sacred state
Beneath sari or skirt or handsome butch pressed slacks
The sun will reach skin that knows
Our bare feet will thank between-toes pebbles for being
And there will be a noisy picnic in the next grove over
With a swing set I would jump on were I not taking vows
When I meet my lovers by the oaks and pines
It will be summer and the air will smell of ginger and sweet tomatoes
Charcoal and soccer and the purple petals strewn on every blanket
I will look out and believe in the power of colorful friends
I will become a partner and believe in the power of confidence
And celebration
Stillness will multiply ninefold and there will be a kiss and a kiss
and a kiss and a kiss and a kiss

Naked Truths

One of the things I have been doing over the last few years when not writing, touring someplace, or off on some other adventure is working as a figure model. When I mentioned to a friend that I was looking for an interesting sideline, she made the suggestion and I felt that it fit very well into my life. I always want to spend more time where art is created. I am also a longtime nudist, so there is nothing strange to me about posing for an art class. It seemed like a fun and fairly perfect thing to check out.

Though I am comfortable without clothes, it is more common a situation in my life that everyone is nude – on my favorite beach, camping in clothing-optional space, or at some other naturist event. Being the only one who’s nude in the room did take a little getting used to in the beginning, but is no big deal at all now. Most art class’ protocol is strange and a bit frustrating. Students are generally not to speak to the model. That feels cold to me at times, and can be the least appealing aspect of the job. I’d rather be spoken to like anyone else in the room. When there’s an opportunity, I try to ask someone a question, show some sense of humor, and just keep an easy-going energy flowing as much as possible.

I feel my Zen sensibilities more strongly while holding a pose than in most other circumstances. In sitting or standing still for long periods, I find meditation. 20 minutes of posing divided by short breaks leads me to settle into stillness, to follow the breath. Posing is a time to experience my current reality. It is a profound opportunity to release the habit of hiding. It is like saying “Here is all of me, World, with my bundle of irrational fears, body image issues, joys, aspirations, ideas, boredom, peacefulness…” Whatever is going on that day and in that moment, there I am. Exposing the body combined with time to watch the mind is a powerful exercise.

I often simply notice and release thoughts in meditation mode. Sometimes I follow the seemingly significant ones. Here are some of the random thoughts that float through my brain while modeling:

Oh! Here come some titles for the dual CDs that I am working on this season. Need to write them down on break… The hypothetical book I mentioned in The Steve Forbert Chronicles really does want to be written… and it wants to be fiction. Research road trip? … How will I manifest time to create all that the muse is pouring through me? … Grateful to have the ideas flowing… Hmm, a sexy thought – Wow, if I were a guy that thought might have just become a lot more obvious! … Will I wear the gold sparkly spaghetti strap shirt out dancing on Friday? … Sad memory of an ex – We used to meet after my Philly modeling gigs sometimes… I really want to finish painting the basement… There is only this moment, right now. Sat Nam… Why the heck did I dream about playing pool and going boating with Hall & Oates?! …

I sometimes wish I were learning to draw, too, but listening in on classes has helped me to at least see so much more. I notice the light and the shadow and the planes that make up people’s faces. I am starting to imagine drawing without outlining, but finding the shapes that make up the figure. I get how it is important to see more deeply into how the body works and the structure beneath the skin in order to render something realistic. I take so many things as metaphor anyway, and these are useful additions to ways to find life lessons.

Lately, I’ve been learning quite a bit posing in Moe Brooker’s class @ Moore College of Art and Design. I can’t say that I would enjoy being in his class as a student. He dishes out some intense critique and hardly gives students a moment’s rest. If he wants someone to add the face to the drawing or redo the knees or a make the feet bigger, he means pronto. The door generally gets shut on you if you are a minute late. He doesn’t particularly care whether or not students like him, but he cares deeply that they become better artists. I suspect that even though it’s fairly clear some students can’t stand dealing with his class, they’ll be incredible artists one day and will thank him. I have the easy job in the class; I just get to stand there and observe the varying mix of intensity and comedy.

Moe Brooker often says that there’s no point in being almost anything. If you want to be an artist, be an artist. Don’t be an almost artist. In the past, I have resolved to stop almosting. I am inspired to revisit this, find my inner hard-ass, ferret out the almosts, and achieve.

The Steve Forbert Chronicles

I went to see Highway of Sight, Steve Forbert’s cell phone photo exhibit, this past Saturday at the ART629 Gallery in Asbury Park. I had been feeling a little anti-social all day, so it really was a good thing to hear from Nancey, my good friend and concert-going buddy, who convinced me to quit cocooning and come out and play. Thanks, Nancey—I appreciate that! The two of us have such fun hanging out and being Forbert groupies together- How could I miss this one?

As I came in the door, I was surprised by Steve, who said hello, remembered my name and that he had seen me the week before at his show at The Record Collector in Bordentown. I am not sure he remembered that I interviewed him for the 2008 Songwriter’s Market. He couldn’t have known that a few years ago I was contemplating using the title of this blog entry as the title of a book. The book would be based on a slice of autobiography – soul-searching in the years around my father’s passing and other lesser life complications – with the backdrop of my strange pursuit of this quietly enduring folksinger. For a long time I have also wanted to write about the power, mostly positive, I think, that exists in music hero worship, and the bonds and creativity borne out of fandom. When I heard about the recent publication of I Think I Love You  I felt scooped, but whatever—I have different insights and stories to tell. There are quite a few books living in my head. One day, some of them will escape and find themselves written down, I promise.

The photos were simple, telling bits of Americana and curious things found along the trail of a touring musician. In this show, Forbert seemed to favor repeating items – like soda bottles or rows of eggs – that reminded me of early industrial innovation. I was checking out the images, wondering why an artist finds a particular fascination, or vice versa. The artist himself had been affable and talkative with attendees all evening. He managed to surprise me again and out of the blue walked up and asked, “So what’s the deal?” He wanted to know about the town I live in, and which photo was my favorite. My fave of the moment was “Glass Stems in Case.”

His question got me to confront something I had only idly mused over before:

Seriously, what is the deal?

Why this cyclical fixation (and the requisite goofy crush that goes with it) on the unassuming Steve Forbert and his live performances? I have the records and CDs, but it is mainly about the live show. I’ve seen him more in concert than quite a few of my other fangirl obsessions like Steely Dan, Gary Wilson (I know, he doesn’t play that much), and even Devo.

Though it is fun to revel in the mysterious nature of my adoration, I can say a little about what draws me:

Storytelling. Forbert is a solid craftsman of songs of struggle, love, work, and everyday greatness. He is afraid of neither politics (“The Baghdad Dream,” the ever-evolving “Oil Song”) nor humor (“Strange Names – New Jersey’s Got ‘Em)”. One of the surprising byproducts of the emergence of kirtan chant into my life was a lessening of the impetus to tell stories in song. When you are at OM, what more is there to say? I feel the stories reemerging now, and can look to the art of cutting to the core of basic human experience in Forbert’s best tunes for guidance.

He loves his career. I have heard him say more than once that he is grateful for the early success of “Romeo’s Tune” because it has enabled him to do what he likes for all these years. Another artist might be forever angry that meteoric success didn’t continue unabated. Steve seems to get that he has a good life and a really cool gig going on.

Perfect timing. Honestly, I believe this all started back in the day the first time I heard WMMR play “Goin’ Down to Laurel.” My heart melted and I was changed in some intangible way. Later, “Romeo’s Tune” was the summer love theme playing in my head as I would travel hours by bus and train to Connecticut to see a girl I was crazy about who I’d met at summer camp.

He is earnest. The language he uses is often matter-of-fact, sometimes cute, and may deal with pain, but is not meant to cause pain. He can write a personal or cultural critique without the cutting cynicism that I actually love from other artists. A Steve Forbert song is like an antidote to an overdose of bitterness. His body of work tells us that he really wants the best for the world and all of us in it, without even so much as a devolutionary twist.

Inspiration. Whenever I’m nervous about whatever it is my next move ought to be, I remember these immortal words:  “You Cannot Win If You Do Not Play.”