An Arrest by Lisa Bednar

Grandma's Oil Paintings by Lisa Bednar

Why Is the Child Crying

why is the child crying

touch her hand

is she you

aren't all children crying

for a meal

a word

a smile

tell me

what brought you here

love

fear

uncertainty

can i help you get back home

are you my child

i see it in your eyes

i thought you'd left

can i help you get back home

but how

On Diane di Prima (Again)

for Danielle Mackey, Katie Madges,  Katie Consamus, Magan Wiles ... New Yorkers all

As some of you know, I have recently taken to the writing of Diane di Prima. You know this because I’ve called your attention to one or another of her poems that I love (Life Chant, Where Are You, Clearing the Desk, Keep the Beat) and her incendiary collection, Revolutionary Letters. This week I want to call attention to her memoir, Recollections of My Life as a Woman. Over 400 pages, it covers her early life to the later 1960s (she’s still alive, but I doubt that there’s a volume two coming). For my younger women friends who’ve grown up thinking “I can do whatever I want,” di Prima’s book will give you some historical perspective. For anyone in the various fields of art, Recollections will inspire you on your path (her sheer tenacity). For writers in their 20s or in their 70s, di Prima will remind you of what you need to hear.

Di Prima is calmly blunt, reminding me of Allen Ginsberg’s maxim, “Candor ends paranoia.” On male violence: “When I got older, what I heard from lovers, was that I was a controlling or castrating bitch. But—the assault was universal and ceaseless. You would have to be dead not to try to stop it for a minute.” Her Italian father: “If you were Italian, growing up in my house, your father handed you Machiavelli to read. To help you understand history, he told you. One of the only books he had besides Shakespeare and the encyclopedia. He read you Julius Caesar to show you how Mark Antony manipulated the crowd. What propaganda was. You never forgot.” On college: “I have no problem with leaving school. It is a hated and unfulfilling place, where I am studying nothing I care about. Where there are no powerful women teachers. No powerful teachers at all. No ideals, intensity of intellectual life. Nothing I’d hoped for. I am more than ready to leave, to get on with my life. Wherever it might take me.” What she never said to her mother: “Dear Mom … When are you going to tell me what was stolen from you? When will you name your oppressor?”

Courage: A Poem by Carolina Dominguez

Here's Carolina reading aloud her poem, Courage.

On a Sunday Afternoon  

by Chris 

In a restaurant

I hear a mother going over grades

With her daughter

A high schooler

wearing a black fedora

trimmed with a multi-colored band above the rim,

Wire rimmed glasses perched on her nose

And a stuffed animal necklace around her neck

One ear bud in her ear

Questions about points and averages

She needs to get that A

She nods and only begins to speak

But the conversation is so fast

No one is listening

It changes

She turns and gets lost in her phone

Moving away from a conversation

She was never having.

At another table

A man tells his eight year old daughter

That she has to set up at the table

He is lost in his paper and

She is laying on the bench

Did he notice her because

She has kicked him

With her foot

She gets up and walks away

Then returns to grab his phone

Trying so hard to engage

A father who is so far away from her 

But right next to her.

Not together

But at a distance

Far apart

What a wonderful day

It would be

If they could laugh together. 

On Being Broken by Carolina Dominguez

Here's Carolina reading aloud her poem, On Being Broken.