Writing Poetry As Memoir

August 27, 2013 By
Dziadzio My father's father

Dziadzio
My father’s father

I’m in the process of recovering poems that I  have written over the years. I thought that I had lost them when I transferred all of my data from my old computer to the most recent one.  But with the help of the folks at our new Peach Mac Store, I was able to find them again and now am saving them as word documents.

Some of the poems fit into the genre of memoir.  The one I’m sharing with you in this post, is what Sundays were like when I was ten or eleven years old, when we would go to my grandparents home for Sunday dinner. Sometimes we arrived early enough to help with all of the preparations. My grandparents were from Poland and they did things the way they would have done in the old country.

The word Babcia is Polish for grandmother and Dziadzio is Polish for grandfather.

Babchia My father's mother

Babchia
My father’s mother

 

Pozywic

(pozhí-veech), is the Polish verb to nourish, feed, refresh

Babcia rises early   kneads loaves
foaming with yeast set with amber jewels
scrubs spent trousers  socks and sheets
feeds them between clenched wringer jaws

She holds a squawking hen
against the block   the body flies
searching for its own lost head and then
hanging upside down from the apple tree
paints the grass below  I pull fists full of feathers
watch with sickened awe her hand disappearing
pulling ribbons of yellowblue guts  unsown seed

My brothers and I gather baskets of beans  lettuce
she collects dried shirts  socks
punches dough  pressing pockets
for mashed potatoes  farmer’s cheese
sauerkraut with caraway  stuffs sliver
of garlic beneath fat blanketing the roast

The chicken swims with carrots
onions  parsley  filling the kitchen
wisth Sunday smells  I stand
on the table under the arbor
picking grapes  then in the garden
where rhubarb hides me
fill on gooseberries and currants

This feast takes all day  we gallop
in and out playing Lone Ranger and Tonto
waiting for Dziadzio to carve the roast
share crackled fat  crusty rye dipped in pan juices

Joan Z. Rough

Filed Under: Childhood, family, Memoir, Poetry, The Garden, Time

Beautifully Blue

July 23, 2013 By
Beautifully Blue © Joan Z. Rough, 2002

Beautifully Blue © Joan Z. Rough, 2002

“This is the way I feel inside. Turmoil in twisted knots. Beautifully blue. And Black. And Purple. A bruise. But one that will heal to be more like the smaller, green outer pages,  Still somewhat chaotic but fresh and very much alive. Still breathing. “

I made this collage in my journal and wrote those words on July 18, 2002.  I was a year into taking care of my mother as her health declined. I invited her to come to live in my house. I thought I could help her through her final years. Bill thought it was a good idea, too.

On a day when Bill was leaving for a week in New York, Mom fell and broke her wrist. I was left alone with her to deal with her pain, her depression, and her growing neediness. It was not a life threatening situation. But it was an inconvenience. I felt overwhelmed and abandoned. I wasn’t ready to be a caretaker. I had no idea what I was doing. I had panic attacks, slept only a few hours each night, worrying about my mother.  I was angry about the disturbance in my life, about Bill being gone. I wanted Mom to go away. I didn’t think about what she was feeling.

It was the beginning of a steep learning curve that brought me to my knees on many occasions. I was constantly confused and wanted out. But at the same time I wanted to take care of her. There were moments when I knew I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. And times when taking care of her meant the world to me.

In the car one day as I was driving Mom to see her doctor, she sighed and said, “If those old trees could talk it would be interesting.”  I was deeply moved by what she said. She never talked about her emotional state during her last few years. I wasn’t ever sure that she was processing what was happening to her. But when she spoke those words, I knew that she was thinking about life and death and the passage of time. Later that evening I took her words and wrote the following poem.

 She Said

“If those old trees could talk it would be interesting.”
And so we sat and listened.
She began to tell her own story
And when she was finished
The trees bowed to her in the wind.
The river never slowed its pace.

Looking back and rereading what I’ve written in my journals, I often feel guilt and heartbreak. But also very grateful. There is beauty in pain as well as healing.

Filed Under: Compassion, Healing, Journaling, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, Poetry, The Journey, Time, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Painting Spring

April 13, 2013 By

spring-color

Water soaked grey sky
pure tones of birch
magnolia, forsythia
spring green leaves
redbud

spriing-colors-in-trees

Raindrop music
fills the air
my paint brush
drips with color

JZR

I made these photographs and wrote this poem back in April of 2008, posting it on the blog I was then tending.  I’m going back through all of the posts now and considering putting together a small e-book to repurpose some of the writing and photography I was doing at the time.

Spring, being the season of rebirth finds me also at work on a new Website and hope to have it up and running before too long.  I’ll let you know more as it progresses.  In the meantime next week will be all about getting my studio cleaned up and getting back to work on my memoir.  There are many new ideas filling my thoughts.

Filed Under: Being Creative, Books, Memoir, photography, Poetry, The Garden, The Seasons Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Books And Words As Containers

March 20, 2013 By

DSCF0414“If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it’s useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or a net woven of your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then the next day you probably do much the same again—if to do that is human, if that’s what it takes, then I am a human being after all. Fully, freely, gladly, for the first time….

“[T]he proper fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

Today not only marks the first day of spring, but also the opening of the 19th annual Virginia Festival Of The Book, where writers, books and words of all genres are shared and honored as containers of life.

Filed Under: Books, Memoir, Poetry, Quotes, stories, Wise Words, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Clock

May 20, 2012 By

Big Ben

The Timex on my wrist, the old Seth Thomas clock on the wall that rings the hours, and the small, black electronic cube that sits on my nightstand beeping at six AM have been with me always.   They not only denote the hour and the passage of time, they have been the enemy. I have fought with them constantly.

Stop the clock. I’ve run out of time. It’s time to eat, time to sleep, time to feed the dog, pick up the kids. Time is short, too long and are we there yet?  Forever in a hurry, I was constantly running.  But somehow I was always on time or even early getting to the places I was supposed to be.  Why didn’t I have ulcers?

One afternoon while reading a good book and needing to be at an appointment in fifteen minutes, I caved in. Tired of rushing and feeling rebellious I kept on reading even as the clock ticked away.  I finished the chapter, got in the car, and drove to my appointment.  I was only five minutes late but I had been overwhelmed by anxiety on the way, thinking I’d be terribly late.  I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone, my stomach churned filled with a load of worry stones, and I didn’t know what I’d been thinking.

Like a drunk who finally hits bottom and knows that the sauce will kill him soon, I knew that if I kept running the way I did,  it would be the end of me.  I’d crash the car, fall off a cliff and/or my heart would simply quit because it couldn’t keep up. My life was a train wreckwaiting to happen.

Changing my pace has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  But somehow I’ve managed to slow the train, though it can still be easy to fall back into old habits if I’m not careful.  I do still have occasional overly busy days, but if I’m feeling overbooked I reschedule an appointment or two for another day when things aren’t so hectic. I’ve learned to say no to the one more thing that will tip the scale sending me into overwhelm and yes to breathing deeply and taking whole days when I don’t have to go anywhere but stay here and tend to whatever I want and need to do. I love those days the best and manage to get to my writing with time to spare for a nap, to garden, or read.  I still worry about being late once in a while, but I’m also beginning to trust that the clock does sometimes run slow and I’ll arrive in plenty of time without being frazzled.

I wrote this poem back in 1993 in the heat of my war with time.  I’m so grateful that battle is over.

The Clock

A tranquil pool reflects
As only water can
The confection of moon
Star lanterns
Show the way down
To the mouth of a cave

A tattered moth
Hands me her flame
Tells me to wait
Just inside at the edge
For a ferry to deliver me
To the middle of night

Aboard the vessel
The oarsman leers
With eyes that glow
In burning sockets
His mouth overflowing
Knots of squirming eels
I hold the flame closer
Easing my fear
A solitary owl hoots
At the sight of land

I am lifted to shore
By rigid talons
Left on the sand
Where a porcelain clock
Elephant high
Stands guard
Naming the hours
As they race around
An eroding track

The clock strikes twelve
Spilling sleeping cuckoos
Severed hands
Frantic numerals gather momentum
Left without time
Lifting the flame to possibility
I ignite the ticking sky

jzr, 1993

Filed Under: Dreams, Fear, Gratefulness, Life, Poetry, War Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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