Memoirous

I’ve written quite a bit here at Memoirous about being a content hack. Not really—though that’s how it feels, sometimes. My last post and this one are about process. An attempt at clarifying or explaining to myself what it is I do. I am honored to once again receive a grant from the Illinois Arts council, but along with awards comes a tandem inferiority complex. Do I actually deserve this? Is it a fluk—an accident—and will be withdrawn once “they” discover I am a charlatan? These emotions (or is it faulty reasoning? Either way I am convinced), by the way, are NOT helpful to the process. I’ve been writing since age 7. Even before I acquired reading, I wrote in a code—hoping later to remember what those little symbols stood for. I desperately wanted to write a story. I believe my first poem was about a tree. It was wonderful! I was at the same time delighted to discover that many words rhyme with tree. The symbol for tree was very literal—it was more difficult finding the ap...

The inner city mission where I live and work is situated not too far from Wrigley Field, where the Cubs play. Maybe it was a friend of a friend or through the city or food depository, but our organization is one of a few invited to come about thirty minutes after the game to pick up unsold stadium hotdogs. So after every home game Chris and Stewart go in an old van to drive the one and half miles to Wrigley to load in a box (or two depending on the weather) of assorted grill items ie either a hot dog, hamburger, brat, or Italian sausage. The whole neighborhood gets a piece of this action. It’s a neighborhood comprised of homeless shelters, half-way houses, people pushing grocery carts down the alleys, and old Hungarian-looking women feeding pigeons next to signs saying Don’t Feed the Pigeons! Trash and bread and bagel debris swirl at corner curbs and once in a while a drunk sleeps one off on a bus bench. But about forty-five minutes even before a game is over, people start streaming...

Today I'd like to do a couple of quick reviews of three memoirs. I'm not a REAL critic, but am always on the look-out for memoir material I can share with the classes and workshops I lead. The first book I have already used at the homeless shelter where I facilitate a creative writing program. The book is I REMEMBER by Joe Brainard . The concept is so simple, you're surprised more people haven't done it. The book first came out in 1970, fell out of print and is now back. It is 170 pages comprised of remembrances that begin I remember. For example I remember Payday candy bars and eating the nuts off first. I remember drawing pictures in church on pledge envelopes and programs . I remember rainy days through picture windows. I remember Peter Pan collars. I remember autumn. Many of the remembrances are banal, quotidian, of no significance--except that they are his. We often think, What do I have in common with others? Also many of us as artists also grew up feeling lik...

File this under the corruption of memory. Memoir. The whole time I was at AROHO I was trying to remember when I had visited my sister who worked at Ghost Ranch on college staff sometime in the early 1980s. I narrowed my memory down to Christmas. I know that much because we snowshoed back into Box Canyon and on Christmas Eve I hopped into the back of a pickup truck for a ride to Christ in the Desert ( http://www.christdesert.org/ ). I seem to remember the chapel being lit only by candles. After the service there was a reception where we ate homemade bread made by the brothers—and rang in Christmas Day as it was well after midnight when we left the monastery. I had those memories, but had lost track of others. I also held onto a singular memory of being introduced to a nice young man newly married and his wife. My sister said he was going to be a turkey farmer. Later after returning home she wrote me to say that the young man had been killed, from a fall, during a hike on a mesa at G...

The women I was with at AROHO were a group of sighers. At the nightly readings at the end of a poem or prose piece there would be an audible exhale, an um hum—as if in agreement with the author. A Room of Her Own Retreat was basically about synchroneity, similar to the other S word AROHO is famous for, serendipity. But upon reflection, I’ve come to think of this external noise as an acknowledgment of beauty, a way of saying you touched me, for one small moment we connected—before the little bell rang to alert the reader that they’d gone overtime. Time for the next woman, sigh, to stand up, and evoke an “oh.” Please consider applying to AROHO for their 2013 conference or atleast following AROHO online. They have several contests including the Orlando Prize as well as the Gift of Freedom Award http://www.aroomofherownfoundation.org/giftfreedom.php

"Every mesa was duplicated by a cloud mesa, like a reflection, which lay motionless above it or moved slowly up from behind it. Those cloud formations seemed to be always there, however hot and blue the sky. sometimes they were flat terraces, ledges of vapour. . . .The great tables of granite set down in an empty plain were inconceivable without attendant clouds, which were part of them, as the smoke is part of the censer, or the foam of the wave. --Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop The above is a quote from one of my favorite books--ever. I probably reread it every year and for someone as busy reading new books such as myself, you have a sense of how important this book is to me. It is considered a novel, but is based on a real person, Father Jean Lamy who, after New Mexico was annexed to the United States, became the first archbishop of the territory. I'm sure he had his faults, history never serves its heroes very well. Fiction on the otherhand truly elevates ...

My goal before leaving for AROHO was to make connections, forge relationships. AROHO is big on Serendipity, which I interpreted as I am going to make such good friends. So of course the first three days of the conference I was disappointed. I wasn’t meeting anybody. I kept seeing women sitting around lunch tables laughing and having such animated talks. At dinner more of the same, though they lingered longer. I imagined they were working out the mysteries of life—or if not that then unraveling the secrets of the universe. I’ve always had the misfortune of entering dining halls and becoming paralyzed. I never know where to set my tray—thus I find either an empty table or the seat furthest away, perhaps sending the signal that I want to be left alone—or, hell, I’m not sure people even think about signals. More likely they just want to eat. So with this dining hall affliction, the problem of over-thinking where to sit mixed with fears of rejection and knowing I am utterly ruining the A...

At AROHO I met so so many cool women who were at all different points in their careers. One of the participating writers was Sandra Jean Ceas ( http://www.sandrajeanceas.com/ ). The whole point of her art work is not to make any money; she builds her installations only to dismantle them. Her intention is not to create archival work, but to create community. Her goal is to involve others, bring them together. That’s her art. One day as I was walking to the dining hall at Ghost Ranch http://www.ghostranch.org/ where the AROHO retreat was held, walking past the prayer labyrinth and a barbed-wire enclosure warning Burros Bite!, I paused for a second to dwell on Sandra Jean. For many of my readers you’ve noticed that at times I grumble about being poor, about free content, about publishing being a bit of a joke. No one is making money. Okay, maybe the celebrity authors. The world of publishing is becoming anachronistic. Someday a child will ask, Mommy what’s a book? Just like kids these ...

Picked up my grant package today at the Cultural Center, in the Grand Army of the Republic meeting room. Love it! I am so so so happy Illinois hasn't defunded the arts, and thankful that our new mayor Rahm Emmanuel is a huge proponent for the arts--check out his wiki (he used to be a ballet dancer, little known fact of the former chief of staff, Mr. Sharp Elbows). On NPR this morning there was more chatter about Kansas and the d-- a-- move to banish the state's arts council. The new plan is corporate sponsorship of the arts. Oh EM Gee. Okay, it might work for Mobil/Exxon and Masterpiece Theater, but really, how many corporations are going to care about the last native grass basket weaver on the prairie?? And I don't blame them, I'd gladly sponsor something where I knew I was going to get bang for my buck. Hence, the Cadillac Theater, Verizon Stadium, Target Amphitheater, the Shell Oil Company presents the Chicago Orchestra. Smaller dance companies, a photographer tha...