Getting on the Greyhound bus tonight to go home, driving overnight to arrive in Topeka at 6:00.
Today I went to the United Artist movie theater in Denver which I'd always wanted to go to. Of course Regal owns it now but they still have the United Artist stuff. I wrote a poem about it.
I also went to Bubba Gump Shrimp which I've always wanted to go to. And it was delicious.
Did reflecting and writing today.
I woke up at 5:00 so I went back to sleep and woke up at 8:00. It was nice to sleep in a little but I also reflected on what it means to sleep in.
I went to flatiron coffee and got some writing done as well as typing my notes. I was surprised at how no one was really there.
I went back to get some laundry done but somebody had their clothes in the machine. So I took off and came to campus and did some writing with the trees. I went back and their laundry was in the dryer. Then no one was coming to get the dryer clothes.
So I just did my laundry and then put everything back. Did some more reflecting.
Ronaldo Wilson complimented me on my poem last night. Discussing how I use the masculine and The Feminine interweaving. And I said yeah I wrote an essay called against masculinity because even the so-called healthy masculinity is still masculinity and how do we get past that? He said he didn't know either
Very kind very kind person.
Tonight is the reading of Jeffrey, Ronaldo, Anne, and music by Ambrose.
Thursday
For the workshop, we worked on the seven layer breathing through the body. It means starting with the pores and going down to the marrow then coming back to the pores.
Then we drew our body out an actual size. We labeled different things that our body told us. Then we wrote a poem out of that.
What I love is we had to figure a way to perform it. And my group came up with doing it like a conversation where one of us would say something like a line or a metaphor and the other would say oh that reminds me of this which is and then they would read a line from their pole. This will make a really good student activity.
And gave a talk and then showed her black Lodge opera. What is interesting is the whole volume as Burroughs thing we just can't shake off. I feel sad that the people who took her libretto changed it removed things and really just made the thing their own. That it didn't really feel like a collaboration.
There was a fantastic reading, especially as the conversational part of what Tango did. Like a conversation, with little heh and going intense, then back to just a calm with heh.
Friday
Inspiration from Edwin Torres, to check out books on kundalini and somatic healing. Develop writing out of.
Another breathing exercise that we then move around the room and then go up to a wall and just put our hands on the wall. It was a really intense sense of embodiment and it made the writing on a different level.
So that the writing could say something about being in that vibration of the room.
Edwin did his discussion on how the writing is somewhere outside of what is said or experienced. That there are Pointers that lead us in the poem.
Student reading was really fantastic that students even sang a song or did some kind of performance. I managed to take four different poems some from the beginning of some of two mothers leading into the two women and then a poem to finish from this removed utopia. I love how the poem ended, that I delivered it as a conversation. That they were just some really easy metaphors and then the two women kind of a spoken word and then ending on a high language poem.
I have a really High sense and admire Ronaldo Wilson. One of the younger students here getting a ba did something in the colloquium called word search. It was really amazing putting the poem together like a word search but there were three words that stood out that were highlighted. Ronaldo bad it is back and then spent two hours talking to him, looking at his poems, giving him advice for sending work out.
Tuesday
A prolific morning in workshop, as my performative piece led me to making this (see below). I teamed with Celeste, a Clinical Kundalini Yogi, who could see what I did. My process of making bypassed my thought-brain to reveal the shapes and words of how I see myself. See the boxes? The language that is in my writing? Even when she was telling me what was right in front of me, my defenses kicked in a little. I then said, rubbish! I'm going to listen to everything she has to tell me. I'm so glad I did! The whole theme of my piece is about being BLOCKED! Even the bumper cars of thoughts that hit each other with nowhere to go! (I am sure Carrie has a lot to say, too, :) )
I performed what Celeste wrote as a type of ceremony to rid me of this, then crumbled it at the end.
So I am seeking out ways to unblock my body / creativity for the rest of the week to move into a restorative practice.
So my lesson learned is to continue listening for that unexpected teacher to come.
Of course, I will share more with all of you in person, folks and friends of Kansas, sometime this year. I am guessing July will be for family and the continued writing and typing out all of my journal notes. Thank you for reading! #SWP2023 #NaropaSWP
An amazing panel by Vincent Katz outlining the history of mimeo from the 60s and 70s, what you might otherwise call zines. Ronaldo Wilson had a biotalk, discussing the use of persona. I'm honored to be able to catch these two! #SWP2023 #NaropaSWP
I worked on seven postcards and I worked on the poem based on the ritual of the movement music.
Wednesday
Day off from naropa but just as important.
Went to my brother's bar where the Beats used to hang out and took a lot of footage there. I did some writing and reflection today. I went to Tattered Cover which is just across the street from Coors Field. I found rose quartz book a poems as I was holding my rose quartz.
I did more reflective writing and went to the Rockies game.
The day started out where I learned Kundalini Yoga from Ariana Reines. I was one of two people joining that were new, as the others were part of her workshop. It was really amazing how each part of the sequence did something, like to protect against something getting in, then getting rid of any anger, then going through to help with invasive thinking and feeling.
Then I went to Nederland to find the crystals I wanted to get to take home. I also rode on the Carousel of happiness which is an amazing Vietnam veteran project. He restored an old carousel and carved the animals himself as a way of healing.
I did reflective writing this evening and thinking of a poetry project in the future, to come up with a book called Topeka poetry reader. I've always thought of it and I just want to kind of go forward with that. But of course after these other books I want to get published.
Friday, June 23, 2023
That I'm trying to catch up on blog entries is a really good sign that I've been so busy.
I'm starting every morning with my haptic.
We had another Workshop day where we talked about intrusions, t r e, how to take the notes we've done in our field work and type as fast as possible on a computer to make more notes to make poems out of. Ca suggested making two copies one to hide for a month and the other to work with during a month. They said to do it to go back to copy number two try reading backwards after that month.
Today was extra special because I received my ritual of how to do that. It will involve reclaiming the Sun.
Margaret Randall gave a great talk about distractions.
The student reading was tonight and I read there.
Saturday, June 23, 2023
Another haptic, this one about my late mother.
I went into Denver and did some more writing about movie rituals. I did reflection on returning and I wrote some more poems.
Tonight was the last night of the week where there was a reading, then we went to my neighbor Felix which is a Mexican restaurant.
Wednesday, June 21
I went for my first Sunrise of summer solstice at 5:00 a.m. and it was wonderful. We did chance, someone played their harp, we did writing. I stayed and had good conversations like with Hannah about her monster project that I just brought up monsters Journey. I had a good conversation with Sherwin about my teaching practices and I learned a lot about where he is and his dependents on poets from other places. It made me think that I'm lucky to have Kevin and Jericho for that support.
As my panel was accepted I've spent some time working on that and found out that I could print using the Allen Ginsberg library.
I also typed up poems for my reading on friday.
Meeting Selah was the highlight of today, to finally connect with her and her wife. She gave a great talk about divinatory poetics. She even used her cards to describe what the room was, how the place of the room was.
I rested after picking up my fiji water. I know Thursday and Friday will be all-day going on.
Thursday, June 22
With my morning haptic, and I'm keeping in mind with what CA said about the third day, but the seismograph that I made is a representation of how I am, that the top surface is tense and restrictive while the bottom surface is loose and playful. So that led to my writing about how that was made from my very childhood period that I would be in trouble for being creative period
That led me to thinking about even when my mother divorced my father and mother Sandra moved in. She could bring love and healing to us through her practices and we could heal her. Even with this home of love and healing we were cut off by the neighborhood. I lost my friends. And it's something I could never talk about at school as I already had dawned depression and just kept to myself. I tried to stay clear of people let alone share that aspect of love. There's also a lot I don't remember that time which is nice to know that I helped the person in home ec with her napkin maker. So that even that idea of myself as being someone who is closed off that I was maybe helping others without remembering or knowing it.
I'm getting ready for the student panel and I'm thinking in these terms of sharing. I know that my interest in neuroscience comes from mother Sondra, that looking at how poetry heals and the psychology of it is definitely from that.
Also I know I've been thinking about reaching out to people to see if they would want to sign up for my tiny letter email which I would rarely send things but I still wanted to send hopeful matters as well as talk about local events going on. My time at naropa has just fortified this, that I want to go out and move out into the world with what I've learned and share it with others. I guess that's the heart of a teacher?
CA posted a pic of a poem from This Removed Utopia. My response: Thank you, CA, beyond what I can say as thanks. My poetic utopia is where poets are seen and loved as well as reciprocate seeing and loving all poets. You set that example. 💕💕💕
I am wondering if I really need to have that as my return to social media, with intent and purpose to share local and National poets.
Again to focus on those people who crave that, as I know that is why people are really putting things about their successes up, because they still feel insecure in that they crave to be seen and loved.
So I should be around people that I know see and love me as well as share that. Maybe that is what the boundary is?
In the middle of the ca ritual, I approached Claire to tell her about Alison Cobb's plastic book. She shared about how her family has cancer from working in the Dow Chemical plants. It was then I realized when I was saying she should write about that as a way for healing, that maybe I'm like my mother's giving their own prescriptions for healing, their own approaches as nurses. I'm both the doctor and the nurse when thinking of Western medicine, something that I have against Hospital systems as the heart and mind are divided.
When I did my writing this morning by choosing a younger tree and an older tree, the younger tree had more to say to me while the older tree had nothing. I tried two different times and I got a little frustrated, but afterwards I realized what am I doing? If the tree doesn't want to say something it doesn't have to. Again, the younger tree had more to say to me.
We had a Bernadette mayor reading for the noontime, and there's a Kansas poem even! I have to really get some Bernadette Meyer poetry soon.
The lyric consciousness talk that Dan beachy quick gave was really amazing. There's so much I want to look into more about that and I want to explore etymologies more through these dictionaries. I should look up the dictionaries that he uses.
The really good thing about this time is it feels like summer school. People are very open and inviting to be friends. There's a very cool staff involvement to where they're dropping by with students showing a movie like but I'm a cheerleader.
The thing about my panel which I didn't expect was that we were all Queer. It was really fascinating!
Now is the reading for tonight and I'm really excited for it.
