Memoirous

Tanka: Poetic Form. The Japanese tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as "short song," and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form. Tanka: Poetic Form | Academy of American Poets - Poets.org How to write a Tanka poem The Tanka poem is very similar to haiku but Tanka poems have more syllables and it uses simile, metaphor and personification. There are five lines in a Tanka poem. Line one - 5 syllables  Beautiful mountains Line two - 7 syllables  Rivers with cold, cold water. Line three - 5 syllable  White cold snow on rocks Line four - 7 syllables Trees over the place with frost Line five - 7 syllables  White sparkly snow everywhere. Tanks poems are written about nature, seasons, love, sadness and other strong emotions. This form of poetry dates back almost 1200 years ago. Similarly, t...

“Haibun for July 30” . . . . after days of blood, candles in the window again birds shake off the rain A couple of things: 1)Many of her poems are reactions to research on the 1919 Chicago Race Riot—specifically to The Negro in Chicago: A Study on Race Relations and a Race Riot , a 1922 report, an old book sitting on library shelves that broke Eve Ewing open when she read it. “ . . . It was so direct and made such a bold claim on totality.” Here is the excerpt she is reacting to from that study: Rain on Wednesday and Thursday drove idle people of both races into their homes. The temperature fell, and with it the white heat of the riot. (7) Eve Ewing did not approach this collection with a set methodology. She searched for the most (to her) authentic response/form. She chose to write a haibun. From an interview I found online: “There’s a haibun in the book (“Haibun for July 30”). People are more familiar with haiku, but what the haibun does is allow you...

Not getting published Getting published Wait! Why is that a bad thing? Well, what bothers me is that, yes, I want to be published—so I submit my work to agents, editors, journals, contests, etc. Mostly to non-paying outlets. The times I’ve been reimbursed for my words I can count on one hand. This is a whole other blog. So last fall I submitted a piece to Friday Flash Fiction, as well as other venues. I got a few declines, a few non-responses. Once a piece is accepted, I inform others and withdraw the piece. I keep a submission grid, so can pretty well tell you where I am with a certain piece. What bothers me is when a piece is taken and I am not informed. I know this might be taking things too far, but it feels like stealing. Yes, I’ve given it to an editor for review or for consideration. If they are professional then they should get back to me in a timely manner and give me a response: thumbs up or thumbs down. But to simply take it and quietly publish it without...

Like misogyny. This weekend I was out on my bike. Yes, it was hotter than Hades. But I’m about to go on another cycle trip and wanted to make some upgrades to the bike. I was ¾ of the way home and entering the Lakefront Trail on Ardmore. A group of men veered from the sidewalk to walk in front of me. I was going super slow as I had just crossed the intersection. I was right behind them as they walked in front of me so not too far. I said, “There’s a walking path right of the cycleway.” You would have thought I told them to go to hell or go ---- themselves. It was World War 3. As I passed, giving them plenty of space, not yelling ON YOUR LEFT or ringing my bell, but just simply existing next to them, they erupted in Holy Hell. They did not stop calling after me in abusive language; I could hear them even after I turned onto the path and rounded a corner. I took a deep breath. It was weird how immediate and fraught it felt. Then a minute later on the path I was about ...

I love word play. Often when I write I’m not only physically typing in the words, but also hearing them. It’s probably why there’s so much internal rhyme and alliteration in my sentences. I was reminded recently of when I was going through the galleys of Beyond Paradise . I was going over a scene with me editor (at this point we thought we were done) and I might have casually mentioned that I relied heavily on my primary source, a diary or article written by a former internee of the camp I was writing about. My editor asked how heavily. It was decided I might need to change up some wording and add some further elements. One of the suggestions was to have the camp civilian orchestra (based on real events) play a specific suite in rehearsal. I know nothing about music let alone classical violin pieces so I called up a friend who plays. He is originally from Switzerland and grew up in Austria. For the life of me I couldn’t understand what he was saying because he was pronouncing B...

In 1995 a heat wave hit Chicago. Almost 800 people died. Their bodies, too many for the morgue, were kept in refrigerated trucks in the coroner’s parking lot. From July 12 to July 16 daytime highs were above 100 degrees while at night it didn’t cool off. Back then AC was not the norm. You opened the window and turned on the fan. In my building the fuse box overheated and fuses blew out until we were down to the last one. We were asked to turn off refrigerators, TVs, stereos, whatever was drawing power. I remember it was the very week I started recording Marie James, a bag lady, to get her story. We sat in a room with a window open to the alley and the fetid dumpster. She rolled in with her cart full of old milk jugs and wiping her neck with a dirty rag. But somehow I was able to overcome the sensory distractions and turn on my recorder. Her story transported me. A year later Orphan Girl was published. I have just now gotten around to reading 1919 by Eve Ewing. Dr. Eve E...

How old do you have to be to be nostalgic? I recently realized—I know, pathetic—that time is flying. My own millennial is turning 30 this year. I bet she never thought she’d be this old. I, on the other hand, am old. I deserve to look backward and wax nostalgic. Past summers, riding my bike down hot sticky asphalt roads, milkweed swaying in the breeze, wishing . . . someday. Someday is here. I like to listen to All Songs considered—a national treasure from our government. National Public Radio works very hard at archiving the music of America as well as discovering new voices. So with All Songs Considered and the Bob Brolin Playlist (updated every Tuesday via Spotify) I am introduced to music I might not find all on my own. Thus, Dolly Valentine: "Michigan, 1997 :" Never thought I would be the one To think that I would be the one To blink and life would be this far along Never thought I would be the one To think that I would be the one To blink an...

Afternoon of a Faun, book review By James Lasdun W.W. Norton & Company, 2019 The copyright says it all. It’s complicated. These times. Making it even more difficult to unpack a complicated story. More like meta fiction, which ends with the assumed election of Hillary Clinton over her Republican opponent Donald Trump. The last scene in the novel is a living room gathering of friends watching the last debate together with cheers: “He’s going down!” Who is HE, who are WE? The universe keeps expanding in a wave of self-incrimination. What part do we play, have played in the sequence of events leading up to now? I’m of course thinking of . . . children in cages, anti-Semitic attacks, the depths of despair raging over society, people thinking it’s okay to vandalize the Maggie Daley Cancer Survivor Wall, violence against women. Social media hate. The toxic mix making up the news of just this morning . All of us contribute. You can read the culpability in Afternoon of...

It's their first issue so let's give them some hits: https://www.hunnybeelit.com/revenge.html Revenge is a small (100-words) piece inspired by a dinner time conversation. I didn't exactly steal verbatim from the guest at the table, but this is the gist. Dietland was me.

Last week I got caught in the rain 4 times on my bike. Not normally a big deal, but Chicago has already had so much rain that I try to get out between showers. Sometimes it looks perfect and I think to myself, Stop being a slug. Get up and go downtown!, and literally ten minutes later it’s pouring. When people see me come in dripping wet they act like I’m so hardcore to ride in the rain. I want to tell them, No, I just need to get home and that’s how—on my bike. So then there was this past weekend. I wanted to take advantage of a weekend without rain in the forecast. OK, there was a 20% chance, but that’s 80% chance of NO rain. And it’s finally warmed up. The average June temp in Chicago this year was like the low 60s. So meteorologically it looked like the stars were aligning for a two-day ride and camp out. I met a woman at the Bikes of Wrath movie (see link for review). It was a movie about bike touring and afterwards I came out to the parking lot to see someone look...